The Mantis Synchronicity - Book Five - 31. Chapter 31 - Gawa

The city armory was a building that sat at the nasty waterfront. It had been built in that location when the river was still usable, but even as the waters soured, the building remained the weapons storage facility for the city of Duguza.

Gawa was with a small group of Shifts sneaking up one of the dark streets toward the stink of the river, and their destination. Gawa’s entire unique body, with marble-like patterns swirling across her skin, was hidden from view. She was wearing boots, trousers, a heavy shirt, gloves, a trench coat, a hat, a scarf across her face, and even though it was night she wore shaded glasses. She was not used to wearing clothes, and she was not very comfortable, but it was only temporary.

Along with Gawa were four local Shift women. There was a married couple in their thirties, Kalor and Vorint, a younger woman named Scilla, and a scrappy teenage girl called Aerta. The group was almost to their target.

Gawa nodded at Kalor and Vorint, who turned down a narrow side street to approach the armory from another angle, and the other two young women followed Gawa. Every streetlight was already dead, but somehow, the armory still had power. Gawa brought her hand to a lamp pole and unleashed her purple lightning into the neighborhood’s shoddy electrical system. The lights at the armory went out, and the trio of Shifts raced toward it through the darkness.

The main doors opened, and a pair of irritated guards exited with clubs in their hands. They were scowling at the darkened front of their building.

Gawa, Scilla, and Aerta paused in the shadows.

“I want them,” Scilla growled at a whisper. Officers of the city watch had killed her mother and father less than six weeks earlier, and Scilla desired revenge.

“They’ll be onto us as soon as you do,” Gawa replied under her breath. She focused on Aerta, who may have been young, but she did not look afraid at all. “You ready?”

Aerta nodded.

Gawa turned back to Scilla and whispered, “Do it.”

Scilla reached into her powers, which allowed her to create chords of gravitational energy that acted like physical ropes, and the two guardsmen suddenly found themselves tangled in energy bindings, and Scilla’s forces began to crush them. They both screamed in pain and terror, with the popping of their joints dislocating and the snapping of their breaking bones punctuating the men’s cries. Their flesh ruptured as the shards of fragmented bones poked through, and still Scilla squeezed them. Blood began spurting in different directions from the dying men’s twisted bodies, as if they were a pair of hideous fountains.

The guards’ screams had drawn others of their fellow city watch, and a large group of men exited as Scilla released her power, and the contorted corpses fell to the pavement.

Then the far corner at the back of the building exploded.

“Now,” Gawa hissed to Scilla and Aerta.

The trio rushed out of the shadows and attacked. Scilla reached out with her powers again, grabbed two more watchmen, and she began to crush them. Aerta was a Shift with the ability of sleep. She was only sixteen and had not been able to practice much with her powers, but she focused on a single one of the guards, and he dropped unconscious to the street. One of his fellow soldiers tripped over him, angrily kicking the sleeping man, but he remained asleep.

Gawa ripped off the layers of clothing, and she ran at the soldiers, who were very startled by her appearance. She pounced on the guards nearest to her, grabbing one man by his arm and another by his face, and her purple lightning raged into them. Their bodies turned to blackened cinders that fell away from her, just as a man in a different uniform from the other guards exited from the building behind the group that was under attack.

The man reached for Gawa, but Scilla’s ropes of energy grabbed him before he could touch the very unique Biological Shift, and they yanked him back toward the front of the armory, but Scilla let out a cry, as the man flexed his body and broke free of her power.

Gawa turned to him in shock. “You’re a Messiah?! Scilla, do it harder!” The term Gawa called him confused the man, and he suddenly found himself bound with many more chords of much stronger energy. “Break him!” Gawa shouted. She was trying to get through the other guards to take on the Messiah herself, but there were now quite a few armed men between her and where the Messiah had been dragged by Scilla’s powers.

Another explosion from the back of the building momentarily distracted everyone from the violence, and Gawa used the opportunity to push forward. Her palm came to one man’s back, and she thrust her shoulder into another, and each of them were scorched by her powers. Gawa struck out with both her fists, punching into and electrocuting another two men.

The Messiah was trying to resist Scilla’s crushing powers, but she screamed and dug into the depths of her energies, and the forces that keep planets revolving around their star poured into the Messiah. His entire body was instantaneously compressed down to a tiny sphere of compacted flesh and pulverized bone.

A third explosion rang out from the back of the building, and Gawa yelled out to Scilla and Aerta, “Now!” and they rushed off toward the explosions. Four men were asleep on the pavement at Gawa’s feet. Nice work, kid, she thought to herself.

There were only two guardsmen left in front of the armory, and they looked terrified. Both of them threw down their weapons. “Please don’t kill us!” one of them begged.

“My kind has been slaughtered for generations in this city!” Gawa raged at them.

“W-w-what do you mean, your kind?” the other man asked. “I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

“Anything?” Gawa growled as she approached.

The first man then spoke words that gave Gawa pause.

“I’m one of the others.” His hands were up in surrender, and to Gawa’s surprise, his eyes began to smoke.

Both Gawa and the second soldier exclaimed in surprise, “You’re one too?!”

Gawa barked at him, “What in the name of everything are you doing with the enemy?! You know your people are struggling to survive, right?” She suddenly had a thought, and her confusion became wrath as she asked in a voice of forced calm, “Have you killed Shifts?”

He knew what she was asking and replied at barely a breath, “What?”

“Have you killed our kind?” Gawa roared.

The other man began to stutter and stumble over his words. “W-w-we killed that f-filthy teenager with the-the-the hypnotic thing. She was c-c-controlling people, or something. We killed her o-only l-l-last week. Th-that disgusting girl tried to…”

Gawa lashed out at him, grabbing the guard and pouring her brutal powers into his body. He was turned into a burned and charred corpse. She rounded on her fellow Shift and reached for him with purple electricity arcing between her fingers. Her thoughts were conflicted, and she clenched her hands into fists.

“You made the wrong choice, joining the Shift-killers. That’s what you are; you’re a Shift,” she replied to his look of confusion. “And you’re a Shift-killer,” Gawa added, looking down at the man she just destroyed. She then focused on the guard and asked, “You helped him kill some poor girl who had no control over the way she was born? Have you killed others?”

The man whispered, “No,” but Gawa could tell he was not answering her question; he was begging her not to kill him too.

“You have, haven’t you?” No other explosions had gone off behind the armory, and Gawa was confident the other four Shift women were already inside. She needed to get to them. “Are you with us, or are you against us?”

“I don’t know what you’re…”

Gawa stuck out her hand in his direction. Lavender bolts of electricity crawled across the swirling marble-like patterns on her skin. “Are you with your fellow Shifts?” She paused. “Or are you against us?”

“I’m… with… you?” he replied.

She nodded for him to take her hand,

He was afraid, but he extended his arm, and he took Gawa’s hand without dying. No electricity burned through him. She had spared him.

“I’m Gawa. Are you ready to help us?”

He nodded.

“Let’s go.”

They rushed off around the building. It was on fire, and a massive hole had been blown through the back. The others were already inside. Gawa and the guard entered. They did not hear a bell that started ringing in the distance.

“Why are you doing this?” the man whispered.

Gawa glared at him with her blank white eyes. “Our kind have been butchered in this city forever, your people. We are killing the killers and taking the power away from the powerful.”

The pair entered the main storeroom and found the other four women packing bags full of weapons.

“He’s one of us,” Gawa said quickly as the others saw the guardsman with her. “He’s a Shift.”

“The bags are packed,” Scilla stated.

“Good, destroy the rest.”

The guard protested. “You can’t. All these weapons…”

“Have been used to kill people like us,” Gawa interrupted. “Destroy it all.” The five women each slung a bag onto their backs, and Gawa added, “Since we don’t have a sack for you, feel free to load up your arms, but let’s get out of here.”

The five women headed out, and to the guard’s alarm, a light began to glow behind him. It increased in its intensity, and the look of it filled him with dread. He rushed out behind the women, grabbing a few miscellaneous knives, two swords, and three clubs.

“Now,” Gawa said as soon as the man was outside. She nodded at one of the wives, and the light in the storeroom detonated. The explosion rocked through the ground beneath their feet, and the building began to collapse as they rushed away from the devastation.

The guard looked around. “Where are the other city watchmen?”

Gawa smirked at him. “They’re busy.”

After cutting through a marshy area that had once been a city park, the group arrived at the old warehouse where Tisa and Gawa had been meeting with the local Shifts.

“We’ve got weapons,” Gawa stated to the pair of men who were protecting the entryway. “And he’s with us,” she added, nodding to the city watchman with his arms full.

The group was granted access, and they headed into an open room with a massive wooden table.

“Lay everything out,” Gawa said, setting the bag from her back onto the tabletop. The group began going through everything they had acquired, and other Shifts who were not part of Gawa or Tisa’s raiding parties came in to see the weapons.

“How impressive!” an older gentleman with a silver beard proclaimed. “What an incredible haul!”

“Yeah,” Gawa agreed, “this’ll help a lot.”

“Were you able to get rid of the rest so the watch is less armed?”

One of the wives snickered. “I blew them up, and the building fell.”

“Wonderful!” the man replied. “And who’s this new fellow?”

Gawa turned to the guard. “We didn’t have time for a proper introduction ourselves. I’m Gawa,” she repeated to him, “and this is Elder Inthal,” she added, indicating the bearded fellow. “He leads this ragamuffin group of rebels.”

Realization set in for the city watchman, and he shouted, “You’re the one who’s been poisoning food!” and to the dismay of all those present, two beams of energy blasted from his eyes and scorched holes through the elder Shift’s torso, and he died.

Gawa kicked the guardsman in the back of his knee, and he collapsed. He crashed down, but he had been trained for battle and knew how to fight. He tried to round on Gawa, but she launched herself against his back and forced his face against the stone floor, pinning both his arms beneath her knees. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“That man is responsible for the food in an entire storehouse within the Heights being destroyed,” the watchman accused. “He and his followers poisoned it! He poisoned food that was meant for the citizens of Duguza, and three people died! That man was a villain, and I am a hero, and you’re all criminals!”

“But you’re one of us!” Gawa shouted, pushing his face hard against the stone.

“I’m nothing like you!” he retorted. “I…”

“You’re a Shift!” Gawa insisted.

The man managed to turn his head, and he fired another blast from his eyes that screeched across the floor but did not hit anyone. With his hair tangled around her fingers, Gawa clenched her hands into fists, slammed his head against the floor, and knocked him out. He fell still, and she climbed off him.

Conflicting thoughts were plaguing Gawa’s mind. He was a city watchman, but he was one of her kind. The man was a Shift, but she said aloud through her teeth, “He’s a Shift-killer, and he just killed Elder Inthal.” She reached down with lavender lightning crackling over her hands, but she was interrupted.

“He’s helpless,” one of the other Shifts stated. “You can’t just kill him while he’s unconscious.”

Gawa stared with her blank eyes and replied flatly. “I killed a lot of Messiahs while they slept, which was more than they deserved, and he’s not one of us.” She leaned down and poured her electricity into the man, and he died. Gawa stood and looked down at the corpse of Elder Inthal. “This is all my fault.”★