Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

 Notes: SO! Please be aware this is a chapter with lots of violence and lots of pain. I'm mean to Kieron in this chapter, but you know me! Trust that I'll make it better in the end :)

Title: Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

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Interlude 6: Kieron

 

By the time the first person dropped down out of the ventilation in the bedroom, Kieron was more than ready for them. He was done with waiting, done with this sick, stupid game, done with everything except keeping himself—and, reluctantly, Restaria—alive long enough for Elanus to get to them.

No communication? No problem.

Assassins closing in? Survivable.

Having to face disappointing his family with his death? Kieron would do absolutely anything to prevent that, up to and including pushing Restaria in front of a bullet. Xe hadn’t done anything to lay a claim on Kieron’s faithfulness other than ensure he had the means of protecting them. Luckily for xir, xe also knew to stay out of the fucking way.

A quick baton strike to the legs as the assassin fell out of the vent broke the one on the right and ruined their landing, at which point Kieron followed up with the knife up and under the skinsuit of armor they were wearing and into their throat. He stirred the blade, the bet he could do when he couldn’t cut laterally to finish the kill, then left the bastard on the ground to choke to death on their own blood. One trembling hand reached for a blinking device on their belt—ha, not today, motherfucker. Kieron brought the knife down in a hard chopping motion and was pleased to find out that the armor around the wrists wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff protecting the throat.

He took off the other hand too, just in case. It killed off the fucker faster, but Kieron needed to move on by that point anyhow. He’d left Restaria with the darts, and from the sound of things in the living room they’d been useful already.

Kieron slid along the wet, freezing floor to where he’d left the politician behind a couch, crouching down to minimize the chances that he’d fall. This was one of those times when being shorter than a Ganian came in handy—two of them were on the floor, flailing as they tried to get up. A third was still, one of the darts sticking out of their eye socket.

Nice targeting. That ought to numb up their brains nicely. As for the others…

Kieron skidded forward, smashing one hard in the helmet with the baton. It had a tip that could penetrate the best armor if it hit it in just the right way, and Kieron was damn good at angles. He broke the faceplate right off, and the assassin turned over and stared up at him with big, fearful eyes.

“Wait!” she cried out—a woman, huh. “Please, just let me—” He hit her between those big, gleaming eyes and sent bone shards up and into her brain.

Nope. No listening. No explanations. No chances to make things right. One assassin might be someone you could negotiate with, but a whole pack of them working in concert? That was a problem that could only be extinguished with extreme prejudice.

The person beside her pulled a gun and, after a little fumbling, got it aimed at Kieron, who had just enough time to hoist the body of the person he’d just killed up between them so her armor could absorb the shots instead. They hit again and again, until the armor was perforated and chunks of body were coming out the hole, and yet the guy didn’t stop.

So Kieron stopped him by throwing the body on top of him. The assassin tried to push her aside, but Kieron followed up by breaking every bone in his left foot with the baton. He screamed, high-pitched and tinny through the helmet, then shrieked when Kieron used the baton to make strategic holes in the thigh and abdomen of his suit. One, two, three…stab stab stab. In and stir, always stir. Stabs inconvenience, slices stop. It didn’t feel good to murder the man, but in all honesty there was something satisfying about it. It had been a very, very long time since Kieron had had to deal with someone in such a hands-on way, and he couldn’t say he minded it under the circumstances.

“Four more coming in fast,” Restaria called out from behind the couch. Xir implant was cut off from scanning the overall building, but xe had built extra failsafes into ensuring xe could use it in xir own quarters. “One of them is moving in a manner that makes me think they’re carrying something large.”

Large…what could it be? Maybe a gas bottle of some kind, something to poison them or put them to sleep. Then again, circumstances had already shown that they were willing to do serious structural damage, if the blinking device on the first killer’s belt really was the microgrenade it looked like.

Shit. Kieron hoped Elanus got here soon. If these people were willing to blow up this part of the Cabinet, then there wasn’t going to be a good way to stop them. He and Restaria were confined—they wouldn’t get far trying to go out the way the bathroom person had come in.

Actually…Kieron darted back to the bathroom to grab a few things off the body, then came to hunker down next to Restaria.

Xe made a face when xe saw what he was carrying with him. “Whatever do you plan on doing with that?”

“It depends on what they’re attacking with,” Kieron said. “If they’re trying to gas us out, then it’s a projectile meant for them. If they’re trying to blow us up, then it’s a counter-strike.” He glanced out the window behind them—nothing yet. Come soon, come soon… “Close up your EV suit just in case.”

Restaria gave him a glare. “You think there’s the slightest hope I’d live long enough to see another day if I survived space and you didn’t? Elanus would have my head.” Xe became apologetic quickly enough, though. “I’m…sorry I didn’t think to secure a suit for you. That was short-sighted on my part.”

“It was,” Kieron agreed. “I could have gotten us out of this fucking mess a lot sooner if both of us could spacewalk.”

“They’d just come after us out there.”

He sighed. “You know who else can come after us out there? Elanus. You know who’s not going to risk firing on the Stellar Cabinet when he might his us instead of an enemy? Also Elanus.” An EV suit would have been great, but…to be fair, Kieron hadn’t thought to bring one along either. Not that he was as much to blame as the piece of work sitting next to him, but—

“All you have to do is give us the vice president!” a voice called out from the corridor ahead of them. The doors had been opened by the first two, and these ones were being cautious in turn. “We’ve got no interest in anyone else here.”

“Would have been nice if you’d led with that instead of leading with a weapon,” Kieron called back. “Bombs don’t discriminate when it comes to going off.”

“Our apologies.” The man didn’t sound particularly apologetic, to Kieron’s mind. “We promise, we’re not going to do you any damage unless you force the issue. Just step away from the vice-president and let us finish our contract.”

“Or what, you’ll gas me unconscious?” There was a moment of silence. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Mkay. The answer is no, but—”

“You fucker! You killed Emily!” One of the four broke away through the door, a long, curving blade visible in their hand. “Come out and fight me!” he screamed, ripping his helmet off and throwing it aside. “Fight me like a fucking man!”

“Get back out here!” the original speaker snapped, but this guy was too far gone.

“Darts,” Kieron whispered to Restaria, but xe shook xir head. Out…damn it. And if they used the explosive device now, they’d open themselves up to a greater attack via the gas later. “Fuck. Fine.” He pointed at the stuff he’d brought from the bathroom. “Throw that when I say so, you got it?”

“I—yes, fine, but—”

Kieron leapt over the edge of the couch before xe could finish, baton whirling into full extension. It wasn’t a sword, but he didn’t need it to be. He just needed to get the right hit on this guy.

Easier said than done. The man was a shitty assassin but a damn good swordsman, and the baton was made of a malleable metal except at the very tip. It wasn’t going to last long against direct blows.

Kieron managed to punch a few holes in the guy’s armor with the baton, but he took several cuts from the sword, one bad enough to let him know he wasn’t going to be able to use his left arm for much. Blood poured from the wound, and the man stared at him with a fierce, crazed look on his face. “I’ll take you apart piece by piece,” he snarled.

“Get him over by the door, Fell!”

“Fuck off! I’m going to—”

Kieron dropped the baton, pulled his knife, and threw it all in one smooth motion. The blade turned end-over-end and managed to hit the guy right in the mouth. Unfortunately, it hit with the hilt of the blade, rather than the point, but it was enough to make the fucker choke. He darted forward, jerked it out—pulling several broken teeth along with it, and then reversed the blade and drove it straight up through the man’s soft palate and into his brain.

Stir. Stir. Stir.

“Gas now, gas now!” the original speaker shouted. Kieron could run at them, but he didn’t know how the others were armed, and he was losing a lot of blood quickly. He needed to end this before they were too late. He glanced back at the window with a sense of resignation, and saw…

A speck of light heading toward them. Just a speck now, but he would know that light anywhere.

Lizzie!

He grabbed the baton again, then skidded back around the edge of the couch. “Throw it,” he croaked, and Restaria did so. Xe connected the severed hand to the detonator on the grenade at the last second, and as it flew the beeping sound increased, then—

BAM! Lightsoundheatpain as the couch disintegrated, as the two of them were thrown against the glass, as the fire from the grenade boiled out into the hallway and made the three surviving assassins scream. That heat hit him hard, sucking the air from his lungs and searing the tender skin of his face. Kieron closed his eyelids, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see but he knew Lizzie was coming, and Elanus was coming, and they had to go to them if they were going to survive.

Using all the strength he had left, Kieron slammed the baton back into the glass. He hit again, and again, and the glass cracked and cracked and then it shattered, it shattered and they were sucked out into space where it was cold, no hot, no—

And then space caught him tumbling, and warm arms brought him home.