Dialogue- "Example"
Thoughts- "Example"
Sounds- Example
***
Bang! Ping! I released the now empty magazine from my new handgun and sat it on the table in front of me before removing the ear muffs placed on my head.
"Impressive shooting Ike. Fourteen shots, all from about forty meters out and you managed to land perfect shots center mass and to the head with relatively tight grouping." Nuke who was watching from a distance approached me before laying a large hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, you don't have to kiss ass. I don't swing that way." I provided a sly response as his face soured at my remark. This however was quickly replaced by a face of surprise, "Now that I actually look at you, you've gotten tall Ike. You used to be so much shorter, how tall are you now? Six feet?"
"Yeah that'd be about accurate. Why act so surprised? You're like six-eight." I carelessly pointed out how tall the man was before he shrugged his shoulders and spoke again, "So, how was it? You enjoy the pistol? It was modeled after the classic Colt 1911, custom-made for you of course. It's been upgraded quite a bit to fit our time though. One of the most innovative handguns out there."
"It's a beautiful weapon, you even had it custom-made for me. Where'd you get it?" I pack up the handgun in it's case whilst putting the magazines I brought with me in my jacket pocket. Nuke stops, thinking to himself briefly before speaking again, "I have a supplier, would you like to meet her? It may be beneficial to you in the future to establish dealings with this woman."
I silently nod my head while grabbing my things before I began walking toward the exit of the firing range. Nuke calmly follows behind with his phone in hand, dialing a number.
Trips outside of a faction base were normally not authorized, however, there were some exceptions: When you are traveling to the cafeteria, when you're participating in faction wars or other competitions between factions, having student council meetups, or when a faction leader authorizes it.
This case was the latter. Here I sat in the back of a heavily armored SUV. Nuke sat next to me, carelessly swiping through his phone while giggling to himself.
"Boss, we're arriving at the location now." The bald man who was driving us spoke professionally, informing us of our arrival. Nuke quickly took on a serious expression before straightening his tie and stepping out of the vehicle. I opened the door before stepping out myself into the gloomy weather.I fixed the sleeves of my black suit jacket casually before following Nuke toward the large skyscraper that had at least fifty floors. At the front door stood two large men, armed with handguns. Standard G19s holstered on their hips.
They opened the door for Nuke allowing him through, right as I was about to enter they closed the door. Nuke looked at me and smirked before gesturing at me to follow him through. I zipped forward, grabbing the face of the one to the right before slamming his head into the brick wall. Right as the other was panicking to unholster his weapon, I shot into a flying knee. A loud crunch emanated from his nose breaking before he collapsed unconscious.
I grabbed the hand of one of them before scanning it and walking through the double doors. As I walked through I was surrounded by men with assault rifles as Nuke entered the elevator. "Don't kill anyone, Ike. You're only allowed to subdue them."
'Well, that makes things harder.' I looked around the room, looking for an opening, before noticing one of the men approaching me. "Hands in the air!" I lifted my hands up before he began cuffing me. The men kicked me down to my knees and began dragging me by the cuffs. Along the way I sneakily grabbed a marker, making sure to hide it well.
I carelessly waited in the elevator with the men before I saw them input a code into the elevator's keypad and press the button for the basement floor. 'Eleven, zero, seven.' I made a mental note of the code before putting my head down and returning to my careless state.
I was brought into a large empty room before being tied to a chair and left alone. I was there for what felt like five minutes before a man clothed in an outfit different from the others entered. From what I could tell, he was their lead interrogator. He pulled up a chair before sitting in front of me, silently observing for a second. He looked as though he was thinking to himself before speaking in a stern and gruff voice, "Who are you and what relation do you have to the miss?"
Rather than speak, I simply brought my hands apart, freeing myself from the cuffs before throwing a heavy right hand straight into his jaw while he was still surprised, knocking him out. I picked him up and walked toward the door. I kicked it cleanly off of its hinges and began walking through the basement, sneaking carefully around any guards I encountered. I entered the elevator and typed in the code before pressing the button labeled '50.'
***
"So, that's your student?" I asked Nuke while staring intensely at the security cameras. He was a tall and muscular young man with dreads that reached his shoulder. He was currently holding my personal guard while taking the elevator to this floor. He looked up at the camera before grabbing the guards gun and taking it out.
"Absolutely, impressive isn't he? He never fails to exceed my expectations." Nuke excitedly praised his disciple before going back to looking at whatever he looked at on that phone of his. I cleared my throat, readying myself for when those elevator doors open before responding, "He's something, definitely more talented than the last one."
Nuke's face soured at that, but he didn't have time to get irritated as the noise of the elevator beeping drew our attention. I waited expectantly for the doors to open, didn't take long before the large metal doors began to separate. Upon fully opening, I realized there was no one in the elevator, that was until the unconscious body of my guard dropped from the hatch, startling me. I looked closer before realizing there was a sign on his chest that read, 'Behind you.'
I turned around just in time to witness a person crash feet first through my window, landing on top of my office desk was Ike with a pistol in hand, pointed directly at my head.
Pap, pap, pap. The room was deathly silent before I heard the noise of clapping, "Very good job Ike, I never would have expected such a flashy entrance. You were so cool. Now please remove the gun from our business partner's head."
***
I slowly lowered the handgun before dropping it silently off of the desk next to the woman. The woman was clad in formal wear with an eye patch, she had pale skin and long silver hair which reached her waist. I offered my hand to her, gently pulling her to her feet before offering her a smile and speaking, "Nice to meet you. My name's Ikechukwu Collins, but you can call me Ike."
The stunned woman stood still for a while longer before finally shaking her head and responding, "The names Erika, but most know me as The Merchant. Ikechukwu, huh? Let me guess, you're Nigerian?"
"Yes, my mother is from Nigeria, she's the one that named me," I responded coolly while returning to Nukes side. "Tell your mother I said she has an amazing naming sense." At that, I laughed hard before replying carelessly, "I would if I knew her."
At that Erika flinched slightly, "My apologies. Anyway, let us get to business. But fix my guard first."
Not long after we were all situated I watched as the guard vehemently apologized for allowing me to get to her. She let him off easy and after that was all situated we began what we came here for, "Okay, so what have you two gentlemen come visit me for?" She adjusted her formal jacket professionally while speaking.
"My disciple is impressed with the handgun you designed and wishes to know more about the business you run." Nuke seriously navigated the topic of conversation while stating our reason for being there.
She thought for a second before speaking, "How about you have a look at what we have in stock Ike? As a gift for your impressive showing of skill, I'll allow you to have a single item or set for free."
After saying that she led us into the elevator and into a sublevel that held a heap of high-quality weaponry and other kinds of equipment. The place was lined with tens of thousands of different kinds of equipment, from assault rifles to high-tech body armor.I looked around in awe at the amount of gear in the place, absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of items. I quickly took off like a kid in a candy shop, searching endlessly for something I could call mine. I was stopped midway through searching when I came across a karambit blade hanging on a shelf behind a glass display.
I was approached from behind by Erika before she stood next to me, "You find something you like?" I touched the glass where the knife was, almost as if it was calling to me before responding, "Yeah, this knife. I want it."She smiled lightly before opening the display case and pulling out the knife, "This here is something we'd worked on for quite a while, taking inspiration from an old video game. It's a karambit knife with a blade vibrating at high frequencies allowing it to cut through most things with ease." Unsheathing the blade she reveals a silver blade that was vibrating at near-impossible speeds.
Sheathing the knife she hands it to me handle first, "I do hope the knife treats you well, my team and I spent a lot of time designing it." I grab the blade, awed at it's beautiful design before placing it safely in my jacket pocket, "Thank you very much. You create beautiful weaponry."
"No need to thank me. Allow this to be the start of a beautiful business relationship between the two of us." She stuck her hand out for a handshake which I promptly accepted before we all returned to the elevator and began our ascent to the ground floor.
***
A few days later, I stood in front of the door that leads to the student councils designated room. This building was located directly in the middle of all the factions and also held all of the club rooms for each club. I had very obviously shown up late to the student council meetup and as a consequence was punched right out of my sleep.
I rubbed my head in an attempt to soothe the pain before walking carelessly into the student council office. Everyone's heads snapped in my direction before a boy with blond hair sitting at the head of the table seemed to remember something and began to address me, "Oh! Are you a new member? I heard the old champion of the Viper faction was beaten, are you the new champion?"
"Yeah, that's me. Names Ike." He approached me with a bright smile on his face, blooming blue eyes ever present before putting out his hand, "Nice to meet you! My name is Adrian. I'm the champion of the Barracuda faction. Don't you feel a bit underdressed though?" I shook his hand before replying confusedly to his question, "Nah, I think I look good."
I was currently in basic casual wear with clean white sneakers, black sweatpants, and a white tee shirt. I looked clean, so I had no idea what the problem was. I simply shrugged my shoulders before walking past Adrian and taking the only open chair between a gloomy-looking guy and a bright-eyed blonde chick.
Adrian awkwardly went back to his seat before I was called out by some Japanese guy with black hair who sat directly across from me, "Who's this guy think he is? He shows up late and acts rude to the president as if he's some big shot." Without reply I simply flipped him off, this seemingly irritated him as he jumped at me only to be held back by two other members who said something that made him reluctantly sit down, from what I caught, his name was Akira.
"Anyways, back to the main topic of the meeting..." From there I kind of tuned out Adrian who was updating everyone on changes during the week and what plans we'd have going forward. Instead I directed my focus to Ava who was sat at the other end of the table and waved at her. I received a wave back before noticing a man who was clothed in a large lab coat, goggles, and a gas mask staring at me.
I directed a confused look at him before continuing to mind my business. That is until I noticed Akira becoming increasingly frustrated with me. I, in turn, proceeded to make silly faces at him. This caused his rage to boil over, resulting in a beautiful explosion of rage, "You know what? I challenge you to a one on one, you arrogant prick!!"
"Sure." With my simple one-worded response, I stood from my seat and swiftly exited the room. He followed behind angrily whilst grumbling under his breath about how he'd prove that the rumors were false and take me down a few pegs. This led to everyone following us hoping to watch and get a glimpse of my abilities and skills. That is except for Adrian, who was busy trying to convince everyone to relax.
Upon hearing this I stopped and turned around, placing a hand out to stop everyone in their tracks, "Wait, what rumors?" The major reaction I got was everyone being generally confused, but eventually the cheery blonde chick from before stepped to the front of the group and began to explain, "Lately there have been rumors that you managed to takedown every predator and apex predator of the Viper Faction. This is especially unbelievable because members of the Vipers are usually best of the best."
"Oh, makes sense. I did that." Confirming the rumors, I began moving forward again confusing the student council members before they just continued to follow me.
Before we get into the one-on-one, allow me to explain how they work. Basically each faction is ranked based on the amount of merits they have. You can gain merits through actions such as one-on-ones, team battles, faction storming, and my favorite, faction wars.
That leads us to here, where I stood stretching on the designated fighting grounds located inside the club buildings basement. Directly across from me was Akira, holding dual short swords in his hands. He was quietly observing me, trying to get a read on me.
Above us in observation booths were the members of the student council, all bearing witness to the one on one. Eventually in the middle of my stretching Adrian appeared over the intercom system, "Are you sure you wanna fight barehanded Ike, and with no armor at that?"
Without answering, I signaled to start the match. Without further hesitation, they rang the bell and Akira immediately began rushing towards me. At first, I prepared myself for an instant knockout, that was until he jumped and began walking on air.
'So that's his ability huh?' I noted his ability before simply rushing him before he was too far off the ground and kicking him right in the teeth, knocking him out cold immediately and gaining multiple gasps from the many spectators.
"So, you guys still think I'm incapable?"
***