Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

tired of looking like one of those douchebags who went shirtless everywhere.

Everything was fine until we bought our tickets and headed for the platform. I froze halfway across the station’s tile floor, staring at the huge windows that looked out onto the platform.

A pair of hooligans I recognized from the saloon were standing out there, watching the station doors. A lady in a hijab walked out. One of the hooligans grabbed an arm and ripped back the hood. When he saw she was just some random lady, he shoved her off and told her to get lost.

“Well, we’re proper bled,” Warcry muttered.

I looked at the twins. “You guys need to get out of here.”

“Don’t panic yet,” Kest said, getting the hairpins out of the storage ring. “There’s a bathroom back by the ticket counter. You guys hide in there until the train comes, then slip through in the crowd. I’ll go invisible and watch them. If the gangsters decide to take a bathroom break, I’ll come get you.”

I didn’t like it, but it was better than my idea about everybody scattering and hoping for the best.

So Rali, Warcry, and I spent the next hour hiding out in a smelly, hot, windowless cubicle the size of a closet, telling people who knocked that the bathroom was occupied. We were probably lucky that none of them went and got the station manager to bust down the door. Warcry slept, and Rali meditated. I messed around on my HUD, trying to read up on kishotenketsu, but mostly just straining my ears listening for Kest to get caught somehow.

She didn’t, but by the time I heard a train whistle, I’d run through a million scenarios in my head of how to run out there and save her if she did.

“Hey.” I got up. “It’s here.”

Warcry cracked his eyes and glared like he wanted to punch me for disturbing his nap.

“That was fast,” Rali said, stretching.

Someone knocked on the door.

“It’s shut for a reason, ya dunce!” Warcry yelled.

“Guys, it’s me,” Kest said. “The train’s coming, but those OSS guys are still covering both doors to the platform. I don’t think you’re going to sneak through in the crowd. It’s not thick enough.”

“Still just two of them?” I wracked my brain for some way around them.

“Yeah.”

Warcry stood up. “We’ve got a plan.”

“What plan?” I asked him.

Instead of answering, he pushed past me and opened the bathroom door. Kest was still invisible, but I heard her grunt when Warcry bumped into her.

“Oi!” He threw his arms out wide and waltzed toward the hooligan covering the closest door. “Looking for me, yeah? Come on, then, come and get me.”

They both rushed him at once.

But that left the far door wide open.

Red flames flared, and some of the crowd pulled back from Warcry. The closest hooligan got to him first and swung a massive haymaker. Warcry ducked under it and chopped a kick at the dude’s shin like I usually did.

Crap, we were standing there letting his distraction go to waste.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Kest frowned. “What about that idiot?”

“Or genius,” Rali said.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Just make sure you guys are on the train waiting for us.”

We sprinted for the far door, staying wide of the fight and squeezing through the passengers pushing their way onto the platform. I heard Warcry’s prosthetic’s baseball-bat-like ping. It sounded like he was holding his own, but there was no telling how long that would keep up. Neither one of us had worked with Ripper and the other two hooligans during training to learn how to fight more than one person at a time.

Once the twins and I were out on the platform, I pointed them toward the train and doubled back to the other door.

Through the window, I could see one hooligan on the floor, unconscious in a pool of his own blood and teeth. The other had Warcry in an ugly arm and throat lock. Grappling wasn’t one of Warcry’s strengths. He was thrashing and fighting, but the hooligan just kept choking him.

Taking the chance that the guy wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, I ducked inside and pumped Miasma into a Death Metal shield. Then I poured on the strength and speed and ran straight at the hooligan with the hold on Warcry. I meant to stagger him so he’d lose his grip, but I hit him so hard that he and Warcry both slammed into the tile.

He did lose his lock on Warcry, though.

I grabbed the burning redhead and dragged him toward the door, but Warcry shook me off. Red fire blurred as his prosthetic shot out, slamming into the guy’s temple, an instant K.O.

Outside, the train let out a long shriek.

“Come on!” I shoved him toward the platform. “It’s going to leave without us.”

“Yeah, all right.”

We bolted out onto the platform and jumped on the train just as the doors started to close.

Jade City

IF DUST BOWL HAD BEEN stuck on the edge of the industrial revolution, then Jade City was what happened when the fancy futuristic technology got old and grungy and everybody thought it was overplayed junk. As soon as the bullet train pulled into the outskirts, our HUDs began reeling off an automated message with text scrolling along the screen.

“Welcome to fair Jade City, honored guest.” The voices from all the HUDs in the car synced up to give it a sort of eerie I am Legion vibe. “Please note that in the week leading up to and following the Big Five Wilderness Territorial Tournament, all rival gang activity is prohibited. Intergang violence during this time will be met with summary execution. This is your only warning. Shogun Connor Ylena.”

“Sounds like Ylef trash,” Warcry muttered.

Kest flipped her wrist over so that her HUD wasn’t facing us, then pushed mine and Warcry’s down.

“This is a Technol-controlled city,” she whispered. “They probably have relay devices on the trains to sort through responses from incoming passengers and send the flagged ones straight to their headquarters