Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 73

Restart

(Misha Tulley)

The moment of contemplative silence was not meant to last apparently, for almost immediately Misha felt the tingling sensation of electronics and minor thrum of mechanical engineering coming towards her.

At first, Misha was confused by the seemingly new source of electronics, and machinery heading her way. Though the more she focused, the more she thought she found a slight mechanical memory to the components.

Then by the time the vehicle came to the long gravel driveway, Misha could see and feel the full intensity of the vehicle. From there she could make out the telltale patterns that made this vehicle distinct from all others. This vehicle was a large muscle car that never got pushed to its full limits, as a mechanic this made her job somewhat easier, as it meant the machine never had to be worked to be brought back to its peak condition. Though as a master mechanic for the fleet, this seemed like a waste, almost like the driver was purposefully keeping both the vehicle and themselves from reaching their true potential together.

Just the idea of not pushing a vehicle to its limit of capabilities seemed odd.

Misha knew that there were laws against such acts, that such actions would invariably lead to arrests in this world. But out in space, not pushing your machines to their limits of capabilities was seen differently. Out there, overheating was solved as easily as venting certain components to space in quick successive bursts to help prevent hull deterioration and fracturing.

That said, on planets, the laws and regulations were always odd. For it was often encouraged to not go your fastest, to not push your equipment to its maximum capacity.

Now being on a planet for so long, Misha slowly began to understand why this was the case. First the obvious overheating, but then there was also the way that most people were not able to push their equipment to its maximum potential and still be in control.

People on planets also seemed to be spooked out by the oddest of actions. For if they saw someone go up and manually turn on an invention to operate, they would not think twice when the machine ran. But if you remotely set off that same invention to perform the same actions, many would often get frightened by the sudden activity.

The whole thing was odd, but ultimately something Misha couldn’t help but have to deal with, planet dwellers were strange, but in a good way. That was her ultimate analysis on the situation.

“Looks like we have company,” Phil said, finally hearing the car that caused Misha to mentally start to reach out with her mind and senses. Senses that first found the vehicle and identified no less than a dozen ways to disable the vehicle from reaching their house. Of those dozen, only three would be violent, causing damage to the driver and passenger.

Hearing the words Misha could only nod in agreement.

“Well, who do you suppose it is?” Phil asked, placing his book down on the coffee table and standing up while stretching out his back.

“It’s mother and her male companion,” Misha replied, as her mind couldn’t help but pick up the blaring sensation of openly transmitted electromagnetic waves in the air.

Just feeling those waves for the first time all day felt like her mind was suddenly coated in spider webs, that stuck, adhered, and then somehow melted into her mind.

Tingle.

At the sudden appearance of random signals, after just a few hours of being able to detoxify from them caused Misha to involuntarily shiver. By now Misha was well aware that she would not be able to escape the feeling of inventions or electronic devices on this planet, but that didn’t mean that her being exposed to such situations would in any way get easier.

Sigh.

Hearing the words from Misha, Phil just exhaled in annoyance, before asking.

“What do you think they are here to talk about?” Phil asked, his eyes peering to Misha.

With that, Misha knew that this was supposed to be a guess, but in her case, she knew.

“They are here to talk about why I was out of school, and why you didn’t call me out,” Misha answered, having instantly seen, felt, and analyzed the open messages on her mother’s phone.

“Gah! I knew I forgot something, oh well,” Phil replied, his words filled with the expectation of knowing he could do better. Then after pausing for a moment, he turned to Misha and asked, “is that all they are here for?”

Misha paused, and then taking a moment to scan both their phones deeper, she exhaled and shook her head.

“No, there is something else that they are here for as well,” Misha added.

SLAM!

Before Phil could ask what this something else was, the door flew open, banging against the wall, before an overly excited Andrea charged in and demanded, “well where is she?”

Then before they knew it, all preparation went out the window, as the two were already thrust into the middle of whatever this sudden confrontation was really about.

***

(Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)

Training.

Regardless of however much training you get, you will never be fully prepared for the first day you rage out and let your centuries of combat training merge with your recently enhanced body, allowing you to become a super killer.

This was what happened to Ms. Clayton, AKA Ursala, who first felt like the wolves attacking her were mocking her.

The reason for this mocking was in the slow and almost methodical and wide-open ways the wolves threw themselves at her.

Rocking back on the recently bent metal chair, Ursala the slayer had enough time to prepare for impact with the charging male.

By impact, she of course meant the impact of trying to direct one of the steel chair legs into the rapidly charging werewolves that could normally only be anticipated and never as effective as wanted.

The reason why there was a difference between anticipation and effectiveness was simple, it came down to the ability of the mind to comprehend all the stimuli being fed to it, and then being able to react to that stimuli in a timely manner. For regardless of how powerful or focused your brain was, there was always a split second lost in the time it took for the mind to process images and thoughts, and the corresponding time it took for an effective response impulse to be sent down the torso and legs and react.

This was why, the chair stabbing attack was so tough to pull off, the idea was to stand bracing your weight on the back of the chair just long enough, to subtly shift the body of the chair into the charging wolf.

There was a split second’s time to react, and mostly Ursala had to do this by reaction.

That is until this time, when the speed that the wolves charging at her seemed to be done at a mockingly slow pace. As her mind was suddenly able to not only keep up with the charging teenagers that were barely starting to transform from sweaty teens to that of full-blown werewolf killers.

The transition might explain part of the slow movement, as the transition was never as seamless as one would expect. But that wasn’t the only course, as the wolves seemed to be charging full steam ahead, almost missing the idea of the chair legs being a weapon at all.

This was fine, and something that a lot of the older monsters had in their favor, as older monsters generally had hides that could withstand even the sharpest of blades.

However, these wolves were not such seasoned veterans.

They were slow, almost mockingly slow, until Ursala realized that these wolves were not slow, not really, but rather her perception of the world around her had sped up. Not just her perception of the world, but also her ability to react to the world as well.

Suddenly as if finally realizing the position she was in, her mind began to adjust and move slowly.

Like a land shark, she found her left foot slowly turning and guiding the chair she was standing on, directing the two right most legs to face center mass of the charging male wolf’s right thigh.

The wolf was so focused on the still standing and mostly unchanged Ursala, that he failed to notice how slowly and smoothly the chair was moving. Despite the back of the chair being bent downward, the sudden weight of Ursala bracing the chair with most of her weight, the chair leg sat at a downward angle that was gradually rising upward due to the metal that was bending back into its original shape.

Then a thought hit Ursala as she infused centuries of Psycher combat training into a quick and decisive blow. Stomping down with her left foot, she bent the chair’s back until it was almost back in its natural starting position, this caused the chair to both lay flat on the ground, while tilting the top right chair leg to now rise upward at an angle.

An angle that was quickly directed into the meaty leg muscle of the charging wolf.

SHRREEEEEEKKK!!

Almost instantly, Ursala felt the impact of the charging wolf, but rather than being thrown away, as she had expected, as countless battles had prepared her for, she stayed.

Well mostly, as the charging wolf did force the chair to spark and grind its way over the chains that also lined the floor, while Ursala felt herself getting pushed back.

Spurt.

There was a sickening suction sound as a squishy quad of muscle ran into and was pierced by a long metal chair leg. The wolf so focused on their charge and changing forms, failed to realize what was happening until it was too late.

One step.

Two grinding steps.

The wolf charged forward as if on autopilot for a moment, until pain and realization of the moment filtered through the beast’s mind and caused the wolf to stop.

“AHHH!” The male wolf finally cried out, as it reached down and grabbed at the chair leg that had pierced its thigh clear up to the seat.

While the initial attack had been successful, Ursala knew she still had more to do, as she could see the female wolf still charging at her from her peripheral vision. This was when she decided to try to disable the larger and more aggressive male, before fully focusing on the female.

That was why all it took was a quick repositioning of her feet on the ground just off of the chair, then a quick shifting of her weight back on her right leg, before she then struck forward with that same right leg. Planting her right heel as hard as she could into the flat seated surface of the metal chair.

GROOANNN!

With that strike both the metal chair leg and the wolf groaned out almost equally. The chair due to its metal being bent and twisted within the muscular thigh that somehow held on despite being mostly ripped out. In fact, it was only due to grinding against the bone that the chair was forced to bend. That grinding against the bone and tearing away of muscles was also why the wolf began dropping in pain.

Of course, this only helped Ursala who used the now mostly flat chair legs to reach out and clip the charging form of the female werewolf who had already fully transformed into her combat form. Causing the wolf to trip and stumble almost instantly.

Seeing the slow moving body of the now falling female werewolf, Ursala reached out, grabbing the wolf with her own sharp and growing claws between the neck and collarbone.

Slam.

Then with a deft movement, Ursala violently guided the falling form into the ground, where it slammed into and amongst the clattering chains.

Seeing the chains, Ursala quickly grabbed a handful and wrapped it around the neck of the wolf, then making sure to wrap the still looping other end around the chair. Then with practiced ease, she moved around the injured male wolf and proceeded to pull the coiled chains until there wasn’t any more slack to be had.

“AHH!” The male wolf cried out, as the female first resisted, before choosing to charge forward to the right side of her mate, the opposite side from which Ursala had begun wrapping.

Seeing the move, it was just as Ursala had planned, as the charging wolf caused the chain wrapped around the chair to pull tightly, again causing the male even more pain that would not be instantly healed from, at least not until the metal spoke was removed from his leg. Given his low level, it meant that the rod would have to be manually removed first, before true healing could occur.

This meant that effectively, Ursala only had to deal with the one female, a female that had to fight over and around her increasingly disabled partner.

What happened next was a master class in what happens when two neophyte wolves went up against a trained psycher. Namely a long slow bloody battle, made increasingly more lopsided by the fact that this time Ursala herself was also a wolf, and therefore even more deadly.

Realizing how easy this would be, Ursala found herself smiling rows of long sharp canines at her former captors, all while fighting and mostly managing to keep her inner wolf at bay while ripping away the two assailants.

What happened next could best be summarized as a massacre.