Memoirs of a RAFian

[guitarhero01234]

Damn, this book is awesome so far. Sorry I haven't been replying, but I really don't have much to say.

[Cloak]

It's okay.

I Don know if it's clear but all this stuff with Yarin takes place at the same time as the stuff with me, Saffa, Gh, Dpsb, and Leatherhead.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A New Wrinkle

Sally didn't fare any better than her charges. While Cordy managed to keep her alive far longer than the other three (pretty much affirming Cordy's assertion of female superiority, in her mind). And Cordy was learning hiw to preserve that pulsing sensation, her host's lifeforce. But she wasn't perfect. Eventually Sally's body failed under the strain of the Furon's occupation.

Cordy, in usual Furon fashion, felt no guilt in Sally's passing, but frustration that she happened to die at a rather inopportune timeframe. Though she collected Sally's brainstem just the same. Cordy was out in the open, and prone to blowing her cover. She couldn't afford to be picky about her host, she would have to deign to take a male if such an opportunity presented itself.

And it did, but she wasn't particularly happy about it. But he was alone, and unaware and unwary. There were no situation more opportune than this. She could not pass it up.

Once safely ensconced inside his noggin, she learned that his name was Chico Preston, basically a laid-backed saxophonist who had fallen on hard, difficult times. He was essentially a drifter now, never staying in one city too long, refusing to panhandle for money, though he would be lying if there wasn't any temptation.

Though he survived longer than expected, he wasn't going to be a long-term host. He was useless as a means to mine pertinent information, and his body itself was aftually in poor health. He actually was secretly hoping for the sweet release of death, which Cordy unintentionally and indifferently provided. She was cast out, and seen.

While she quickly, quietly, and calmly collected Chico's brainstem, her observer had procured something from a hiding place. Whatever it was she didn't concern herself with. She really hadn't any means of really attacking anymore. She hadn't any real weaponry that was up-to-date, only ridiculous outdated models who efficacious she found querent with, but there was little she could do. The Emperor was an idiot for not entrusting her with this mission alone.

BAM!

The bullet grazed her arm, but it still hurt like hell. It wasn't going to be fatal, but the graze was good enough to cause some significant blood loss. Now she had another reason to snatch another dirty ape. Maybe while lodged comfortably inside their minds and bodies, her true self, her own lifeforce could heal.

"G-Get away!" came a trembling voice holding a revolver. It was a teenager, a particularly nerdy one who clearly never had fired a weapon in his life. If he had, Cordy would have been dead where she stood. "D-Don't come any cl-closer!!"

Cordy held her shoulder with one hand, as she psychically induced his brain to release the endorphins.

"Get b-back, I s-say! I will shoo . . ." It was then that the endorphins made their way through his body, leaving him complacent and unresisting. Cordy easily snatched him, Miles Harris. "This can't go on. I'm just barely keeping my cover. There has to be an easier way that I'm overlooking. At least my blasted should no longer hurts. I just have to keep this scrawny weakling alive whilst I heal."

He -- she -- stood up examining the handgun, rather uncharacteristicall y for Miles (who hated guns for the most part), and examined it with the practiced ease of an old military hand, which honestly looked rather odd for someone of Miles' true deposition. Then she pocketed it, realizing she was paying attention to the pulsating in Miles' belly, and discovered that it was weakening with alarming rapidity.

"What?!" she demanded aloud. "Is this human really that we--"

It was like a burp. It was like a burp when she popped out of his dying body. She discovered that her shoulder had healed up quite a deal, but not completely. It still twinged quite noticeably and distractingly, but the healing had been enhanced. It was obvious. She had unconsciously stolen Miles' lifeforce energy and utilized it to heal herself. She understood it immediately.

But she was at the same problem as before -- until she snatched the body of an obnoxious boy named Louie Flores, Jr. who witnessed Miles' death and the Furon popping out of his body. She decided to be as careful as she could. But she knew he wouldn't last long, as she was still wounded.

[redtailedsaffa]

A death that he wouldn't ever remember . . . because, well, he was dead.

[guitarhero01234]

Honestly, that sounds like a line that I'd write.

[Cloak]

It was gniwodahserof.



New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Trails

Cordy was right in her assumption, in that the boy only managed to serviced her for about two Terran hours before his lifeforce was extinguished. She coldheartedly collected Louis's brainstem, and was relieved to discover that this was unseen.

But she needed to thoroughly ensconce inside the mind and body of a human, or risk blowing her cover. She managed to insofar keep her presence, her very existence, a closely-held secret. Anyone who knew about her presence was either dead or inhabit by her to use as her meat puppet. Other then the Nyac, of course.

But she inhabited no one at the moment. She was naked, in a sense. Then she came across a baker who liked making square pies. She had her back to Cordy, but Cordy was still able to snatch her, with the psionic beam connect with the base of the skull of the woman, of Michelle King.

It was with Michelle that Cordy discovered how to keep the lifeforce relatively strong. She just had to scan the minds of other humans ever so often. If she was diligent about this, she could stay inside Michelle indefinitely.

But then, she felt something that filled her. Though she would vehemently deny it, it was fear. Fear of the Nyac. She wasn't sure how well this disguise would work against a Nyac. Even if they had this technology back during their invasion of Nya, they probably wouldn't have used it anyway. Their telepathy would have not only made it difficult, maybe even impossible to snatch in the first place, not to mention unmasking them.

Cordy released Melissa, actually leaving her alive accidentally, and fleeing the scene. She eventually snatches a cheerleader named Taylor Montana. Cordy, hiwever finds herself disgruntled when she discovers just how much of a goody-twoshoes Taylor was. But it was a good, and necessary disguise, she thought. And she pretended to be Taylor, but hated every moment of it. The pretentious and supercilious atmosphere of her and her friends was grating on Cordy, and it was telling.

When Cordy had enough, she deftly popped out of Taylor. She would have killed her and collected her brainstem, but that would leave a clear trail, Cordy thought, and she didn't want to give the Nyac and more clues than was necessary. Though she never considered that Nyac telepathic prowess could penetrate a mind deeper than she could, which was a folly.

So she decided to snatch a precocious prankster named Breanna Hathaway. She, despite herself, found herself really liking this human's mind. While not as malicious as Cordy would have liked, there was a certain apathy and selfishness present within the child that Cordy found . . . comfortably pleasant. Breanna was almost like a juvenile human version of herself. Cordy would most definitely strive to keep this human alive, as well as wear her as much as she could.

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Tracking and Tailing

During this, however, Yarin was no slouch.

Yarin had followed Cordy's route with surprising, and alarming, accuracy. Yarin never had utilized psychometry, placing about as much stock in that as Cloak did with prophecies and wish-granting. He dismissed as that which only gullible people of the mold of Sybill Trelawney would aspire to, and it wasn't without good reason.

Yarin was not usually one for outrageous flights of emotion, though he could easily be offended when people refferred to his Food Yield Increaser was dismissively referred to as nothing more than an ordinary microwave. They clearly had not realized just how much good such a device could present to this world, where some populations were so skeletally thin and hungry . . . he could take a small bit of food and make it large enough for an entire village to feed on. It was the answer to world hunger, but clearly no one but him saw it as such. Only he had the vision for such revolutionary things.

But, back to the matter at hand, he found the trail disturbingly easy to follow. The Furon did not even bother to cover up the psionic residue she left behind. Yes, it was faint at places, but that did not mean it was unnoticeable. But still . . . It was strange. Almost as if she were holding a bucket full of psionic energy, and, as she walked, some spilled out from the slight jostling one has when one walks.

This confused the Nyac for a moment or two. When he had reached the city, he felt his heart drop again. It was almost as if it was plunging into a deeper and deeper abyss. The city! The city was full of possible and potential victims of the Furon. Besides which, she could use thwt "Holobob" -- a stupid name for such a technology, he felt -- device to disguise herself as human. He wouldn't be able to distinguish her from another human.

But she couldn't shield her mind. No Furon could, not really. It was how the Nyacs were always prepared for their next attack, though they couldn't pinpoint everything in Furon minds, for minds -- even one as simplistic at a Furon's -- were like buzzing beehives and thoughts were not etched upon the interiors of skulls. There was more refinement to telepathy than that, and it was kind of offensive for anyone to oversimplify it as such.

Yarin discovered Chico Preston's motionless body. She was here, Yarin knew, as Chico's lifeless body was soaked in her psionic residue. Even then, it wasn't something most telepaths would be able to pick up on, only those trained in the ability. But Yarin was confused . . . no Furon weapon or psychic ineptitudes could lead to this much residue. It didn't make sense. . . .

He would follow the trail. That was the only way. That's where the answers would be . . . where they had to be. But he had to do it without drawing attention to himself. Humans were still not as hospitable as one may think to alien species, as the Knight prove rather regularly. He put on an ID mask, whic projected a different human form than Cloak's usual disguise. Yarin's projected image was that of a tall, nondescript human in unremarkable clothing.

Yarin didn't really like wearing this thing. It wasn't as comfortable as one may think. Btu that was a minor complaint in comparison to Yarin's mission now.

He soon found Miles' body . . . but he couldn't inspect the body as the police was there. Granted, he could flash his Mark and they might allow him. But he scanned these particular police officers and found that they probably wouldn't taken him too seriously, as they harbored clear xenophobic tendencies. And this wasn't buried deep within their minds, but lurking just below the surface of their mindscapes.

But Yarin could tell, even from this distance, that this boy, this Miles, was reeking with as much psionic residue as Chico was. Yarin was still perplexed by this. How was this possible? Furons do not such capabilities. Could they have actually made advancements since their failed invasion of Nya? Despite himself, Yarin was resistant to the idea.

This was but a stop in the trail, Yarin quickly realized. He had to continue following it.

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Closing In . . .

Yarin quickly found Louie's inert form, discovering the very same residue, which cannot be seen with eyes, but with telepathy. But, unlike Miles, the police had apparently decided that Louie wasn't important as Miles, as they apparently seemed to ignore him, leaving him lying in a dirty, dingy alleyway. Yarin was disturbed by this selective servicing, but he, unfortunately, hadn't any time to do anything about it.

He had to find the Furon. And find it fast, before more innocent beings -- even children -- are sacrificed to feed this Furon misconception. A misconception that the Nyacs, that his kind, had fostered, unaware of the ramifications, the true consequences, of that decision. And he stood by and said nothing, did nothing, about it. But what could do? He was a young adult, he wasn't in a position of power. He couldn't have said anything or done anything about it. But . . . still . . . he could have thought about more than he had before coming to this mudball, and becoming a RAFian. He had never gave it a second thought. Before now.

He came to a spot, and there appeared to be no one here, and the trail became rather disjointed. Why? Why did . . . Questions for later. It seemed to lead to a woman . . . named Michelle . . . Michelle King. She had a span of her memory blacked out, Yarin saw telepathically as he probed her mind in a passive, unintrusive manner. He didn't know how that could possibly . . .

Then an idea occurred to him. But, no . . . that cannot be. It simply cannot be. It . . . it still remained to be seen. He mustn't rely on conjecture and speculation. He needed facts. Hard, undeniable facts. He couldn't believe anything not backed up by facts . . . or maybe he was just in denial.

In any case, he had to move forward. The information surely lay ahead, perhaps even the Furon itself.

He followed the trail to a school, which he did not go in as the trail lead to the sunken stadium of the school. It was currently empty, perhaps because of the time of day or the particular day it was, Yarin did not know. But he knew that the trail, while it lingered here (and the name Taylor Montana floated towards him for some reason) it eventually branched out elsewhere.

Naturally, the Nyac was going to follow that. This Furon was rather unfortunate that it never learned to shield its mind. But its misfortunate was Yarin's good luck.

***

Cordy had lost sight of her mission.

What did she care about brainstems? Was it really necessary to collect them? Or was it some lame wild goose chase the Furon Emperor decided to send them out on? It was pointless and futile anyway.

Besides, she was really enjoying being Breanna. She never expected it to be so enjoyable. She never had expected it to be so much fun. As she looked back, life as a Furon warrior was woefully dull compared to this. Conquering was a thrill for the first couple of times, but then it lost all its novelty, all its nuance.

She was very diligent in maintaining the girl's lifeforce, knowing that she couldn't stay snatched in a dead body. Otherwise she probably wouldn't have been so bothered by it. She still held no compunction of killing . . . although . . .

No. No, it wasn't anything to kill a lower -- er, a lesser species. Er . . . no. No, humans were a lesser species. Why was she suddenly doubting that? No. No, it couldn't be that. She had only spent seven hours in this girl. This body. This . . . This, uh, costume. That's right. It was, uh, nothing more than a disguise! Yes, that's right. A . . . a disguise.

She was nothing to Breanna. No, her name was Cordyceps. Cordyceps. Not Breanna. Cordyceps.

Cordyceps . . .

[guitarhero01234]

This is starting to give me Taylor flashbacks.

[redtailedsaffa]

Good lord, yes.

I'm really eager to know what will happen to Cordy now.

[Cloak]

Well, then, here's a bit more of that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Proximity Madness

Her name was Breanna -- no! Cordyceps! Her name was Cordyceps. Cordyceps!

She quickly realized what was happening. Her thoughts were staring to intermingle with this girl. Cordyceps started to get mad at Breanna, even though the girl was not at fault, and she was just covering up her fear. She was losing herself to this girl, and it scared her. And she didn't like being scared.

She stopped maintaining this girl's lifeforce as a consequence, even going so far as to try to expedite the girl's demise. And for what? All because the Furon was scared. Scared of losing, of forgetting her identity.

Of course, she didn't realize just how close Yarin was getting to her. She never learned how to shield her thoughts. Just another reason to fuel the Nyac preconception of Furons as telepathic amateurs.

Eventually, Breanna died swiftly and Cordy popped out, satisfied at punishing the girl for daring to make her almost forget herself, to make her almost lose her identity, ignoring the fact that Breanna actually had no conscious choice in the matter. Breanna did not will it to happen, she was in a suspended animation-like state while Cordy was inhabiting her, and Cordy knew this, but refused to accept it.

However, she did this right in front of Yarin, who was shielding his thoughts, and she was not aware of his presence. So much so that she even tried to snatch his body -- which Yarin managed to perceive correctly. And this offended him greatly.

"You dare, Furon?!" Yarin roared.

Cordy looked a bit confused. How'd this human know about Furons? No matter he would have to be killed . . . but she didn't have any means to do with her right now. She would have to hide until an opportunity presented itself. Cordy left the site, apparently forgetting to collect Breanna's brainstem. Apparently. Its deliberacy was questionable, actually.

She made liberal use of her jetpack to put distance between her and Yarin. Quickly, she projected her swapping beam to a brown-eyed, brown-haired boy of ten years. He wore a long-sleeved purple flannel shirt, dark blue jeans with a black belt with a brass buckle, and hi-tops. He had a rather square head and a flat face. His shoulders rolled forward and his chin touched his chest. She quickly snatched him, and hiding from that strange human.

This time, while she maintained his lifeforce, she allowed a measured bit to evaporate at a consistent rate. In this way, she wouldn't risk losing herself to the boy's mind. That combined with her general misandry should keep her identity, her sense of self, safe from mixing with, from interlacing with, the boy's psyche.

But that strange human . . .

He followed her. Somehow, someway, he followed her. But, Cordy reasoned, he was looking for a Furon, not a human boy. He did not witness her take this body. She was safe in this disguise. She could walk right pass him without him even noticing. She could blend in, keep up the facade until she found a way to deal with him.

She walked up and was about to pass him, when she felt pressure on the boy's shoulder. She hadn't expected this, so she jumped. Or rather, the boy jumped. And what he said next had chilled her blood, or rather the boy's blood.

"Leave the boy, Furon," Yarin said. "Leave him of your own volition, or I shall have to make you."

[Cloak]

Yep. Gonna be more than twenty chapters.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Confrontation

"What?" she said, though to the Nyac's ears, she sounded like the boy, Nicholas Thomas. But Yarin was also a RAFian and not so easily bamboozled. "What are you talking about?"

"Leave the Thomas boy," Yarin said, able to have plucked the name from Cordycep's mind as she had plucked it from Nicholas's own mind. "Leave now, and leave Nicholas out of this."

"I am Nicholas," she insisted, attempting to maintain the masquerade. But Yarin was many things, but easily swayed was not one of them.

"Do not attempt to play me for a fool, Furon!" Yarin scolded, removing his ID mask angrily, causing his human projection to fade away at once. He knew the Furon's name, but refused to use it, to humanize it. "You do not decieve me! Your thoughts are not even shielded from other telepaths! You just prove again and again how insufferably naive and arrogant all Furons are!! You think nothing of those that you kill. Not even children are special enough to warrant your slightest concern!! You are all a species without compassion, whose only concerns are with your selfish pursuits."

Cordy was speechless. But it wasn't the words that had reached her, as she wore a shocked look upon Nicholas's face.

"And even now, you have nothing to say for yourself. Nothing to excuse or explain your utter hypocrisy!" Yarin said, continuing to harangue her. "No one to blame, accuse or accost! You just endeavor to do something that, in the long run, will do nothing to help you!! You are collecting the neural tissue for nothing! It won't fix the genetic instability. It won't."

But none of these words got through Cordy, who still remwined inside Nicholas, controlling every movement and every thought. Cordy, having neglected Yarin's words, dropped all pretense of being Nicholas, as she contorted his face into a look of unfathomable rage.

"Nyac! You foul, loathsome, evil, little insect!!" she declared. Yarin noted how odd this must have looked to an bystander -- if there were any here, that is -- for him to be berated by a human child. Not to mention how contradictory it was for a Furon to call a Nyac "little", when Nyacs were more or less double Furon size. "You are not fit to lick my boots! You are a cowardly race of deceitful jackanapes --"

"Need I remind you, Furon," Yarin said, coldly, "that you are the one cowering inside the body of a human child. That you, a Furon, tried to pass yourself off as said child to elude me."

"Bah! I thought you were a nosy human!"

"Then why bother running? If all non-Furon species are expendable as the Furon creed demands?" Yarin said.

"How do you know that?" she said quickly, as a hiss from a snake.

"How many times do I have to mention that you Furons don't shield your minds as you ought before it sinks into your heads?" the Nyac replied easily. "Furons! An empire of ignorance. A bastion of stagnation. A garden of xenophobic propaganda."

"You know nothing!" she spat.

"I know a great deal," Yarin said, calmly, but with intense eyes. "Leave the boy. Now. He has no part in this."

"Make m-- ugggghhh . . ."

The boy's face, once contorted with rage, suddenly went slack and his eyes glossed over. Then he felt at a diagonal as Cordy popped out. It wasn't intentional on her part, she hadn't even realized how careless she had gotten with the boy's lifeforce. Nicholas Thomas was dead, and he never knew how his last moments, the last moments he was bodily alive, were about berating an alien being he had never really seen.

"As cold and heartless as ever," Yarin said, with caustic venom. "Such a typical Furon!"

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
A Battle of Ideals

"Those are admirable qualities, Nyac!" Cordy countered, matching Yarin's anger. "Bleeding hearts like yourself are a weakness!! A weakness to be culled away from the species to make it stronger, purer!"

"You are deluded." Nyac said, still with the caustic venom. "And all Furons are as well, if their view is as narrow as that which you have just expounded. You clearly know nothing about weaknesses and strengths. Devaluing, disregarding and dismissing lives does not make one strong, just like valuing life does not make one weak."

"You're deluded!" Cordy snarled back.

"Oh, I see." Yarin said, with an indifferent monotone sort of voice. "It is no wonder that you draw comfort from inhabiting children. You are a child yourself. You chose to see the world as black-and-white, seeing Furons as the good guys by definition, seeing that your kind can do no wrong. Those are the ideals of a child!"

"No, you're the child, Nyac!" Cordy countered. "The fact of life is that it's kill or BE killed."

"That's a gross oversimplification of everything there is to have about living," Yarin said. He shook his head, as if his anger had transmuted and transformed into great pity. "Furons have no subtlety, do they? You bash through everything with hyper-aggression and careless recklessness. It surprises me little that you had little success pretending to be human. The Hathaways were clearly aware something was . . . off with Breanna."

"Shut up about that," Cordy warned.

"Oh? Still touting the 'kill or be killed' motto, and, yet, when I bring up Breanna . . ." Yarin said.

"Silence, you insignificant ignoramus!" she roared as she attacked Yarin, who dodged each blow easily, able to  quite literally read the intended strike's position.

"Ah," Yarin said, once Cordy stopped. "When you can't refute an argument, you resort to violence. How childish. Did you get a politician to teach you that stratagem?"

At this, Cordy, filled anew with anger, furiously attacked Yarin again, who again did not strike her, but just easily dodged her attacks.

"Stop that!!" she cried out in frustration.

"Stop what?" Yarin said, with feigned ignorance.

"Stop evading me and let me kill you!!"

"Well, when you put it like that," Yarin said, "no."

She let out a scream of frustration.

"Did I touch a nerve?" Yarin asked, benignly coy.

"If you not going to let me kill you," Cordy said, angrily, "then stop with the foreplay. Kill me and be done with it already!!"

Yarin's answer was firm. "No."

"WHY NOT?!" she demanded.

"Because it would not satisfy me, I'm afraid." Yarin said. "I do confess that when I first shot down your saucer, nothing would please me more than to end your existence right then and there. For what your kind tried to to my homeworld, Nya."

Yarin allowed a pregnant pause, before continuing.

"But what I did was no better," he continued, quietly. "It was I who made you unable to reproduce naturally. It was my fault that you now have to clone yourselves to perpetuate your species. It was not my intent, not really, to do it. But it happened, and it was at my hands."

"What?! You?!" Cordyceps demanded.

"But you consider yourself lucky," Yarin said. "Had you invaded Anur Phaetos, Anodyne, or any place similar . . . and they'd have conquered you instead."

"Whereas you have condemned us to a slow death." Cordy sneered. "Unless we collect more brainstems. These humans will just have to get over it. They have something we need."

"Haven't I already told you?" Yarin said. "That is a lie. The brainstems contain nothing that you can use to stabilize your genome. At most, all you can do is make a hybrid, and, even then, it would be of questionable viability."

[redtailedsaffa]

I'm actually not sure which side to take here.

Or I'd just get them both off if I could. Like we say in my city, translated - "don't fight in front of my house, fight in front of the neighbour's house"

[Cloak]

I'm actually not sure which side to take here.

Which is what I wanted.

I read some of Yarin's old posts thst basically all Nyacs are scientists. And I was attempting to use them to demonstrate the dangers of blind ambition and curiosity in science without the benefit of any perspective to limit and caution the unfettered advancements of such without any consideration for possible consequences or ramifications.

I hope that came across in the story.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Defeat

"Why should I trust you?" Cordy demanded.

"I can ask you the same question, Furon," Yarin said, with an abrupt change to his former imperious attitude.

"You Nyacs." Cordy spat. "So pernicious. Holier-than-thou. Bleeding hearts. You're as savage as us, but you're 'savages with a heart'. Kill people than cry over them."

"You don't anything about Nyacs." Yarin said, with a cold monotone. "And you Furons are culpable of more crimes than any Nyac! Unlawful invasion. Unlawful infiltration of an innocent planet. Unlawful --"

"We are not bound to your laws!" Cordy said. "You have no right to enforce them upon me!"

"You are the invader here, Furon," Yarin countered.

"And just where is YOUR visa, then, Nyac?" Cordy replied with a snarl.

"I am not the aggressor here, Furon. You are."

"Oh, so just because I'm a Furon and, just because we don't mesh with your ideology and philosophy bullet point by bullet point, we're the bad guys by definition?" Cordy roared. "You Nyacs are no angels!"

"You were the ones who invaded my homeland, not the other way around!"

"We do the galaxy a favor! We rid it of the weaker species so the galaxy! We are the pruners! We cut away the blighted portions --"

"And what give you the right to make such judgements?!" Yarin said, losing his cool. "What gives you the right to be the divine arbiter of such things?!"

"We are the first species!"

"You are not." Yarin said, seeing where this was going. "Not even Nyacs were the first species. I have met a member of the first species, and his niece."

"Than you have been misled, idiot. Everyone knows that Furons came first. That Furons are the rightful --"

BAM!

"What?" Cordy said. She had been shot in the crest of her head. It was just a grazing though. Both she and Yarin had been so absorbed in their argument, they had ignored their environment. It was a very easy thing to do when you get into a very heated argument, and no species known has ever really been immune to this, unless they were really apathetic.

BAM! BAM!

Cordy was shot her shoulder and the base of her spine.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Now cordy was shot in her thigh, stomach, chest, and throat.

BAM!

One final shot right between her large reflective eyes. Cordy was dead, and she couldn't be returned in a new clone body, so she was fundamentally dead. Permanently. And it wasn't Yarin's doing at all, as her killer stepped from the shadows, but Yarin had sensed his mind immediately after Cordy's death.

"One piece of alien filth down," said the shooter, a big, hairy, beefy man with long, tanged brown hair and a beard to match. He wore what was colloquially known as a "wife-beater", a white one, some rather tattered-looking blue jeans with a hole at the left knee, no shoes, and a trucker hat. Like Cordy, he had no mental defenses, but Yarin could see that it was pointless to read his mind, as the guy spoke whatever was on his mind, and the guy most certainly wasn't a nuclear physicist. His name was Johnny. Johnny Boyd.

"You're next, you nudist prick," he said, addressing Yarin.

Yarin was about to have that. He telepathically triggered sleep in Johnny's brain, and he fell over, not discharging his weapon, fortunately enough. Yarin saw from his mind that, while he wasn't an official member of thr Knights, he harbored Knight sympathies. It was a bit disheartening, that even the Knights had sympathisers.

[guitarhero01234]

Damn. I was a little surprised by how sudden that was, but I can't say it was a bad choice.