Line them up to keep them from encircling you.

Quickly take one of them out.

Use a weapon.

Don't fight multiple opponents.

― How to fight multiple opponents.

***

When I was around nine, the Purists didn't have the traction they have now, so being of mixed heritage wasn't as bad, and we didn't hide it. 

My classmates had decided that because Gran and Mum were Japanese, I, like all descendants from Asians, would be a prodigy in any martial art I tried. 

I bought into it wholesale. 

Kids are racist little shits when you think about it. It usually gets better when they grow up; for most, there are still racist little shit adults. 

If I'm honest with myself, I remember my thinking falling into similar traps while growing up a few times. And a few times since then. Stupid preconceptions were stupid, but most, if not all, people had them.

In any case, I was disabused of my illusions of being a world-class martial artist when I didn't magically know every kata when I first stepped into the karate dojo my eldest brother trained in. 

To my nine-year-old mind, that was a devastating blow, and I was cheated because I should have been an instant expert and been able to beat my brother handily. 

So, of course, I blamed the sensei and karate itself. 

It just wasn't the right sport for me. I thought that'd be obvious to anybody. I wanted to quit after six minutes, but Mum forced me to stay and attend every lesson for six months. 

During those months, I did some research. 

This essentially meant I talked to my classmates, looked at a few action movies, and decided that my oldest brother was full of shit; karate was crap, but Jiu-jitsu was definitely the martial art for me. 

So after Mum allowed me to quit karate, I joined a Jiu-jitsu dojo, with predictable results. Mum told me I had to stay for twelve months after I told her I wanted to quit. 

This was another devastating blow to my then-ten-year-old mind, mostly because I had decided that I wanted to learn to ride horses. Or do ballet. 

It has to be evident that I wasn't very disciplined back then. 

After ten months of forced attendance, Mum finally allowed me to quit when I was knocked out during one of the weekly sparring sessions. I stepped right into a kick from a bigger girl instead of doing what we had been trained to do. 

Stupid and my own mistake, but like a brat, I blamed everybody else, cried, screamed and threw a fit. Mum relented, and I was allowed to join a gymnastics team, which I actually kept at until college. 

Still, the spar seventeen years ago and my complete failure there were now at the forefront of my mind, reminding me that I was thoroughly useless fighting anybody.

 

Especially the four Bugs that were charging at me. 

I had a moment to contemplate that if I'd kept at it back then, would I have a chance here?

SURVIVE

I staggered back at the force of the Command crashing into the forefront of my mind like a tidal wave, sweeping me along with it. 

After a few seconds of confusion, I recognised it for what it was: a Directive. And it was gigantic. Larger and more complex than anything I'd put together or even considered possible with my ability. 

Instantly, I knew where it had come from; the man in white armour had implanted it in me during his speech about getting to Alkmaar before I was tossed into the ruins. 

It was almost like he'd signed his work and wanted everybody to know what he'd done to us. 

My body was already stumbling backwards in reaction to the Directive, while my mind was still struggling with realising this thing had been inside me since the beginning, forcing me to follow the imperative to survive.

That partially explains them throwing us out into the ruins without support; we had it inside of us. 

Now that I'd identified its presence, I could feel its tendrils worming throughout who I was. I also immediately pinpointed two other huge directives loosely connected to the survive one in a trifecta that influenced my every thought: hunt and grow.  

I recognised them, of course; I'd written those words down on page five of my notebook.

The bastards that took me not only physically mutilated me but fucked with who I was. I felt violated in a way that... words just couldn't express. 

My first thought was to shove my psychic appendage into my brain and rip the Directive apart with brute force. Consequences be damned. 

But however much I wanted to, I didn't do it. 

I'm still unsure if my mind actually made a conscious decision in those fractions of a second or if the Directive to survive forced me to leave it alone, and I later filled in the blanks with something palatable. 

But the long and the short of it was that as it stood at that moment, I was dead anyway. 

The Directive to survive was mindbogglingly complex, and it might have the tools to help me to do just that. 

And if I let it guide me, I might have a chance. 

Things couldn't get any worse, so I stopped my semi-unconscious efforts to fight the Directives and got out of my own way. 

The effect was instantaneous. 

The survive Directive tugged at the hunt Directive, and all my anxiety disappeared.

[INTO THE BOLT] 

The Energy rushing from my spine was shaped into a Command and flung at the far-right Bug. The psychic order slammed into the Anathema a fraction of a second after Clara had screamed at me to run. 

I only held the Command for the second needed to force the Bug to jump straight in front of Clara's bolt of compressed air, taking it squarely in the chest. 

The Bug was blasted backwards with the whooshing sounds of a storm unleashing, and it crashed into the ruin it had excited from. 

[TRIP] 

The second of the righthand Bugs coming for me slammed face-first into the ground when its legs tangled during its headlong rush. Again, I held the Command just long enough to get the effect needed, then released it, trying to minimise the burn caused by the massive amounts of Energy I channelled to overwhelm their defences quickly. 

My Strain level had already been high from my day of experimenting, so I needed to be as efficient as possible. Quick Commands were the method I came up with. Or I should say, the method we came up with. 

Because as soon as I'd stopped fighting them, survive and hunt joined me in finding a way for me to win, regardless of the cost. 

[Into the eyes]

With the Conduits open to my birds, it was like using them as remote-controlled model planes. I sent a Command, and the first of my crows slammed into the right eye of the left Bug, sending it staggering to the side. It hadn't expected an attack from that quarter, but it still recovered quickly. 

The survive part of our alliance split off a drip of the Energy my Implant was supplying and formed a fuzzy distortion just outside my self. The distortion cushioned the blowback of the shattered Conduit, turning it from a bat to the head into a solid kick to the head. 

During her kamikaze run, my second crow was deflected by one of its upper claws, killing the bird instantly. My last sparrow coming in from the other side met the same fate. 

Then, the third crow and last pigeon I had hit simultaneously, using the opening created by the other birds' deaths as a distraction, throwing the Bug onto its back.

The four dead birds' shattered Conduits were buffered with the same fuzzy distortion, but taking what amounted to five kicks to my brain in quick succession had me hurting badly. 

My vision was turning red again, and I felt the blood vessels in my nose join those in my eyes as they burst from the pressure. Still, the Directives steadied me; I would not die here.

[FIRE THE BOLT AT ThE RiGhT OnE] 

Energy burned, and the Command blasted off. I felt it slam into Clara's craggy defences far behind me without looking at her. She fired her second bolt a moment later. The woman had already started to run away, judging from how far away she felt. 

I guess it was the old 'you don't have to outrun the wolves, just your fellow hunters' thing. I was on my own. 

Fine by me. 

I would survive, no matter the cost. 

[HEaDbutT ThE BOlT] 

The Bug tried to put up a fight, and my Commands were getting less focussed, the torrents of Energy burning through my head taking a toll, but it wasn't enough to stop the Bug from being forced to its left and getting a face full of compressed air bullet. 

Its head vanished in a spray of chitin, gore, and blood, and the body collapsed before flailing its claws around violently. 

The Bug that had tripped scrambled to its claws and knees and launched itself forward on all fours, all six? 

With a [RiGHt] Command thrown at the Bug, I sprung to my own right, trusting the Command to send the creature the other way. 

I tried to turn the headlong dive into a roll, but I was at least moderately fit the last time I'd done something like this. This time, I unceremoniously crashed into the rubble like a flopping fish. 

At least I was able to use my unbruised side to cushion my fall. It didn't help very much because it still hurt something awful, but the Bug shot past me without its outstretched claw being able to reach me. Somehow, I also didn't drop Clara's sword.

I gritted my teeth and scrambled to my feet as it twisted back around. I wiped away the forming tears, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the Bug my birds had killed themselves on pull itself to its feet. It had gore leaking from its face. 

Hopefully, it had been blinded. 

My hand repeatedly opened and closed around the sword's hilt, trying to get a comfortable grip while I kept facing the Bug in front of me. 

I think it moved more cautiously, even if it didn't slow down by much. 

Apparently, I was worth respect now. 

Maybe. 

I tried to keep my breathing shallow, biting through my bruised ribs' vociferous protests. My lungs screamed that they needed more air, so I tried a deeper breath and almost doubled over with the pain. 

My graceless fall hadn't done me any favours. 

The Bug launched himself towards me, with both of its upper claws extending to stab me; the lower pair held wide to stop me from escaping by jumping right or left. 

[juMp] 

My Command forced the Bug to go high while I went low. I fell more heels over head than actually rolling beneath the Bug, but it got me to the other side without being eviscerated. So even with my ribs still complaining, head pounding, and eyes burning, I grinned when the Bug passed overhead.

Was I enjoying this?

I twisted on the ground to keep my opponent in sight. It kept moving, then bent its trajectory around to come back towards me. I swear there was hate burning in his too-human eyes. 

There goes the idea that they weren't actually intelligent.

Whatever the Anathema was, it had feelings, at least. 

I pushed myself to my feet again; the urge to suck in oxygen was almost overwhelming. 

Shallow breaths. Fudge. 

I wouldn't be able to keep this up. Heck, it was a wonder that I was still relatively unharmed. 

"Come on," I croaked, my hands wrapped around the blade's hilt, which I held straight in front of me. 

I had nothing but this weapon I'd never learned how to use, and neither Directive seemed to impart anything but the most basic of maneuvres. 

Still, I needed to take care of this Bug before I could take care of the blind Bug.

Wait. Bugs didn't really need their eyes, did they? 

I bolted to my right as soon as that realisation hit me, and the Bug in front of me adjusted his trajectory to keep me in place. 

[StOP] 

The first Command I had ever consciously used burst out of me and slammed into the Bugs closing in on me. 

Both of them. 

The Energy flow from my Implant split into three distinct streams, each burning its way through my head and compounding the damage I was doing to myself. 

One stream flowed into Clara's sword. Without the Energy making it sharper, there was no way I'd be able to harm the Bugs, and it was the only weapon I had to kill the aliens. 

The other two streams were aimed at the two Bugs, keeping them locked down to give me time to kill them before they killed me. They fought with every iota of their strength to get free.

I had seconds before I'd have to drop the energy streams; the pounding in my skull reached a crescendo, and my vision was already dark red.  

I stepped towards the Bug in front of me only a second or two after I'd stopped him. I raised the sword, ready to hack at it, when its head exploded, splattering me with gore, chitin, and lashing winds. 

I whipped my head around and saw that the blind Bug had closed until it was less than three meters from me and had been angling to rip me to pieces before I stopped it. 

Clara's second air bolt ended the threat before I was forced to release the Command that was turning the rest of my brain to ash.

I stood stunned for a moment before another twinge of pain reminded me to shut off the energy flow to my sword. 

She'd not left me to die. I was going to live.

Clara stood about forty meters away, doubled over and wheezing. It looked like she'd given everything she had. 

I limped towards her; we both had to get out of there as soon as possible. With this much blood and the racket we made, even if the Bugs kept completely silent, it'd have alerted everything in the neighbourhood.  

"I thought I was dead there, Clara. Thank yo.." I started to say when I reached her, but my head was suddenly wrenched to the side, and my legs gave out beneath me. 

I crashed to the ground, my ribs protesting loudly and my head ringing. 

Clara's blast didn't kill the first Bug.

I'd fucked up, and it had gotten me killed. 

I tasted fresh blood, and everything around me was wobbly and tinged in the red from the blood in my eyes. 

I think I scrambled away, gasping, coughing, blinking wildly, and trying to see where the Alien was, hoping it hadn't done too much damage to me and the ringing in my head wasn't me dying.

"I fucking…. warned.. you.." 

Clara spoke between forced gasps and sliced through my confusion like a knife, 

"I… would… fucking.... end… you."

I locked tear-filled eyes on the woman. 

She was stalking towards me, bloody murder twisting her face into something ugly. I realised I'd Commanded her to shoot her second bolt in my frantic fight. 

She'd warned me what she'd do to me.

"I couldn't... help... it!" 

I cried between coughs at the murderous woman stepping toward me. Reflexively, I backed away from her, trying to get some distance from the insane woman looking to kill me.

My head was already a pounding inferno, and my eyes were on the verge of popping from the pressure after fighting off the four Bugs. There was no way I could break through Clara's defences without killing myself. 

"Don't… fucking... matter… I warn… ed… you…" she gasped, forming a new air bolt in her hand. 

"Please, Clara…" I begged. 

I had already exacerbated my injuries during the fight, and her punching me in the face had my wound and something in the back of my throat throbbing something fierce. 

She scoffed, or breathed oddly, it could have been either, but she was still forcing air into the palm of her hand. The realisation that she would use that on me was like ice water dripping down my back.  

"Clara! The bastards put a psychic command in us to make us do anything to survive. It took over. I COULDN'T STOP IT!" Adrenalin-fueled panic allowed me to force that all out without coughing, my voice rising into a shriek towards the end. 

SURVIVE

"Can't.. trust y… ou, fucking... unclean... traitor." She snarled, and the last bit of hope I had that this was some kind of sick joke was banished from my mind. 

I had only known her for a few days, and she'd been verbally abusive that entire time. I had been wary, quietly preparing to defend myself against her, but I hadn't actually, truly expected anything like this. 

And now I was looking at how deranged she actually was. 

She wasn't going to stop. 

Nobody was going to save me this time. 

I needed to do something. 

I needed to fight. 

I settled into what I imagined was a neutral swordfighter stance, allowing me to jump left or right as best I could, the sword held tightly in my right hand. The death grip turned my knuckles white, but the blade still felt slippery in my sweaty palms. 

Not wanting to risk a cough, I held my breath, my body instantly demanding oxygen. 

The pain in the roof of my mouth increased, but I ignored it, even when blood started pooling in my mouth. 

I couldn't take my eyes off Clara, or she'd pounce. 

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise; she hadn't expected me to stand up for myself.

Fucking bitch. As if I'd just lay down and die. 

Clara's vastly superior experience with fighting was evident when she stepped forward half a step and brought her hand with the bolt of air forward in what turned out to be a feint. 

Of course, I reacted by half jumping to my left side, completely unbalancing myself when I tried to stop myself from my 'dodge' when I saw she was not firing the air bullet at me. 

I saw her reverse her hand's movement to follow my trajectory and a pleased snarl with too many teeth showing plastered across her face. 

I knew I was dead then and there. 

Even the survive and hunt Directives went quiet. 

As if they had given up. 

Time didn't slow down. 

My life didn't flash before me. 

My impending death was simply a fact that filled my thoughts. 

I had just faced four alien killer beasts and was now going to get killed by who should have been my ally. 

I'm sorry, Jo. I should have told you I...

An orange blur slammed into Clara's face, and she screamed. Either in surprise or pain. Or both. Her air bullet shot past my head, and my left ear popped from the pressure. 

Hope blossomed in me, and I somehow turned my stumble into a twist and a lunge, changing the direction I was falling in to close the meter or two with Clara. 

With both hands, Clara ripped Tom from her face, the Cat's claws ripping deep furrows as he was violently removed, just in time for me to fall into her. 

Large as she was, she only moved back a single step before she stopped my fall cold. 

For a moment. 

Then, the strength seemed to leave her, and she fell onto her back. I hadn't regained anything resembling balance, so I fell with her. 

Lying across Clara, I looked up from her chest level and saw she was looking down at me, eyes wide in surprise. 

The Cat had done a real number on her face, but that wasn't why she was surprised; she was struggling to breathe.  

But that couldn't happen. 

I had stabbed her as I fell into her. 

The angle at which the borrowed sword jutted from her chest looked like it had probably sliced through one lung and into the other. 

Blood flooded from both of our mouths in a strange mirror of each other. The cause of hers was apparent. Some part of me noted that the sword might have hit an artery with how much blood flowed out. She was choking on it. 

The cause of my flood of blood was only now battering its way to the forefront of my attention. 

Something was forcing itself from my palate in the back of my mouth. 

I hacked a glob of blood onto Clara's chest and was surprised to see that there wasn't just blood, but also reddish-white bits of something else. Bone. 

I was shying away from looking at what I had done to Clara, but spitting out bits of bone wasn't any easier to focus on. 

Clara's fingers painfully scratched at the bandage over my face before moving down to the sword sticking from her chest. The sharp blade cut the digits to the bone, but she kept trying to get it out. 

Her eyes were wide with panic. 

My thoughts started bouncing between what was happening in my mouth and the woman dying beneath me. 

I had killed her. 

She wasn't dead yet, but I'd killed her. 

Nobody could survive a half a meter of some kind of steel through both lungs, even if they had been in a fully staffed hospital emergency room the moment it happened. 

Those thoughts churned through my mind, chasing each other around and around. 

And I watched her slowly choke on her blood. 

Tears were running down her face, and she mouthed something. 

Fucking.. something. 

Probably something more creative and degrading than bitch. 

She probably wasn't wrong. 

It hadn't been a fair fight. Clara would have won a fair one against me easily. Instead, Tom had distracted her, and I saw a chance to live and took it. 

She was going to kill me, and I did what I had to so I could survive. I wasn't going to lie down and die. I'm not sure that it was even conscious on my part or if the Directives had made the decision.

Those logical thoughts were there, but the rest of me ignored them.

'I killed her' just kept running through my head.

I clasped her hand and watched her squirm until she stopped. I don't think she wanted me to hold it, but somebody shouldn't die alone, should they? Even someone that had tried to kill me. 

Was that hypocritical? 

In any case, she was too weak to pull her hand away, so I held it.

I didn't know what else to do. 

Her eyes widened and then went blank. My pounding headache exploded at that exact moment, and I could literally feel how much Clara hated me. 

I coughed and hacked up more blood, gore, and bits of bone. They splattered across Clara's chest, messing her up even worse. 

Not that she would mind now. 

She wasn't there anymore. 

She'd just stopped altogether. 

I felt like throwing up. 

I dry-heaved a few times before something cut into my tongue. 

There was something sharp in my mouth, so I opened my mouth. 

GROW 

I crawled off Clara's body and awkwardly pulled her arm to flip her over on her stomach. I ignored the sword cutting into her flesh as she moved. 

I pulled her collar down to show the top of her Implant. 

I was moving without conscious thought. Well, there was thought, but my body was moving without my direction. Like I was looking at a full-sense movie. 

Too much was happening at once. 

I felt like crawling away from everything and crying for a month. Instead, I watched in horrid fascination as my teeth clamped around the top of Clara's Implant, and whatever was in my mouth moved. 

The screeching of metal on metal came from whatever was happening. It reminded me of a drill. 

The smell of scorched metal mixed with the taste of burnt blood assaulted my nose and covered my tongue. 

WHAT THE FUCK!?! 

A crunch. 

Metal snapping? 

"Noooooooo," I moaned and clawed to take back control of my body. 

The three Directives fought me, but disgust at what it was making me do gave me the strength to take control. 

I'd already won the fights. Nothing was threatening my survival anymore. There were no more enemies to hunt. So only the third and smallest of the Directives, grow, was pressuring me. 

Groaning with the mental effort, I pushed myself away from Clara's body, hacking, coughing, and trying to spit out whatever was in my mouth. I fell back onto my ass and just sat there for a few minutes. 

Tom crawled up onto my leg and headbutted my chin. He was favouring his front left paw a bit. 

The fucking shitstain had hurt him. 

Without thinking about it, I stroked my mangy saviour. I had no illusions that I could have survived without him distracting Clara in the most effective way he could. 

We simply sat there for a while. 

I was slowly trying to compartmentalise everything so I could deal with it later. The Cat was just enjoying being stroked. 

There was one worry that needed to be dealt with now, though. 

Hesitantly, I pushed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and felt… nothing out of the ordinary. I looked at the spit and blood covering Clara's Implant to see if there was anything metal. With a single glance, I could see that there wasn't. 

My tongue went back to exploring, but there was nothing strange in my mouth. No drill. Nothing sharp. Nothing metal... no, wait. I stuck my filthy finger in my mouth and felt a small circle of slick metal at the back of my throat. 

Something had come out and drilled a hole into Clara's Implant, and had now pulled back to keep my mouth clear. 

I spewed everything that had been in my stomach across the corpse and the cracked tarmac I was sitting on. I kept heaving until there was nothing left inside of me. 

What the hell was happening?! 

WHAT THE FUCK HAD I DONE?!? 

I didn't know if I meant killing Clara or whatever the grow Directive had tried to make me do to her.

That thought forced my eyes to snap to Clara's neck. 

There was a hole in the Implant's metal; perfectly round and about three centimetres across. 

The light was weak with the overcast and it being early evening, but I could still see inside the Implant. 

There was no machinery that gave us our abilities and supplied us with Energy inside the hollow metal spine. 

I saw what looked like veiny white brain matter slowly pulsing through the hole before it stopped a few minutes later.

 

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