Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire

(Nathan POV)

What differentiates the dark from the light and the light from the gray? Is it perspective? Is it desperation or desire? My answer to that is circumstance and personal desire, as a man can more easily be swayed by the promise of power and control to fulfill their deepest desires.

Wealth, lust, and knowledge are all possible wants, but what did I want? Was it enough power to improve my own circumstances? Was it to fulfill the desires of the flesh, or was it something else?

Before I could think further on this, I found myself stopped by a group of other initiates. Before I could say a word, one asked, " So what makes you so special that the demon's head has its eye on you to such a degree?" Seeing the hostile look in his eyes while the other two brimmed with jealousy, I simply tried to walk away from them.

Since we were in the training area, there was ample room to go around him, but soon enough, more of them started to crowd around me as those three grabbed me from behind as another yelled, "Answer the question, initiate, or are you afraid?!"

Taking a breath and trying not to zap him into oblivion, I simply answered, " I am simply superior to the others that they found it may just be passing interest and nothing more." I heard the others silently chuckle at my answer.

"So you believe yourself better than us? Prove it then." Dumbass 1 said as the two others got into a fighting stance while the surrounding initiates made a pseudo-arena ring around us. While the other two stood in a basic kung fu stance, the third and most experienced went into a judo stance with his right hand forward and the other hand behind the first, both at a horizontal angle.

I entered my kenpo stance, and as the first jumped in, I caught his attempt at a palm strike and struck the bones on his arm and wrist, causing a cracking sound to make itself known when the guy yelled in pain as his left wrist had been dislocated. The speed at which he fought was almost as slow as a snail to me, with my senses enhanced by the force and blacklight.

The second and third tried to grab me. I then ducked under their grabs and evaded another kick to my legs while also grabbing one and using a punch to the shin as it is that place that is nerves primarily and not more than a tiny bit of skin and muscle to protect it. After I hit the guy's shin, I grabbed the final one and threw him over my shoulder using his own attempt at a grab against him.

After his back hit the ground, I slammed my fist into his face, which I lessened the force to not create a small hole in the ground and simply break his nose. So in a matter of a minute, I broke one guy's shin, the other's wrist, and the last guy's nose.

But speaking of the guy with the broken wrist, he was not giving up as he attempted to chop his good hand towards my neck as to hitman adam's apple, but I grabbed his arm and looked at him using my power over the force to create a physical embodiment of my emotions. I don't know what he saw, but he started to sweat before his eyes rolled back in his head, and I grabbed his face and slammed him into the ground.

All three men were unable to fight and were taken out, yet as more got ready to fight me, I simply outstretched my hands and made a "come at me" gesture. But before any of them could move, I heard a voice speak out.

"Enough! What is going on here?" I heard Talia ask as she then saw me with those three men on the ground, groaning in pain or unconscious as she just sighed in response.

"I was minding my own business, Lady Al Ghul, and these men sought to challenge me, so I took them up on their offer." Talia simply gave me a look that said, "Bullshit," but she said nothing and ordered some men to take the three to the infirmary. I went to return to my training as I tried to focus on combining the force while in combat.

In terms of Emiya's skills, I could almost feel an innate sight that I could not understand. While it felt similar to hyper intuition, it was more rigid in a way, like a dangerous sense, but more restrictive. 

I notice it is almost scratching at the back of my mind whenever I look at someone who is more dangerous than I am, and while hyper intuition is geared more towards general decision-making and combat, this mind's eye skill that I believe is taking root is meant for pure combat.

I want to try to combine it with senju muso as a way to gauge an accurate image of an opponent as another means of image training. However, due to my low assimilation, Archer's skills have been hamstrung until I reach a higher percentage. But I would say that after two days, I am somewhat disappointed in the progress.

[Sheev Palpatine (Star Wars Legends): 4%]

[Alex Mercer (Prototype 1&2) 30%]

[Emiya (Archer) (Fate): 7%]

Palpatine's makes sense, as while he is definitely a planner and a powerful Dark Side user, what I have been refusing to do is allow my emotions to guide my actions. Well, The man is definitely controlled. 

There are moments when he is allowed to let loose. Take, for example, his fight with Darth Maul and his brother Savage. You could see the pure amount of emotion riding through the fight, as if Palpatine was simply enjoying the pure sensation of fighting.

 Palpatine's laughter definitely shows his enjoyment of embracing his darker sides, his sadistic nature, his desire to control all possibilities, and his desire never to suffer rivals. 

Archer is more practical as he grows with accepting the cruel reality and practicing projection magecraft. Mercer seems to grow at only a percent a day now. 

Still, with every percent, I feel the virus becoming more prominent as it tries to understand what my midichlorians actually are down to an atomic level. It may present an opportunity to increase my overall count, but even if I'm unable to do that, I can simply grow the quality of my midichlorians through training.

Yet still, I am beginning to stagnate as the dummies and even Shiva have become somewhat predictable, but I do not want to risk showing my hand too early as every time I see Ra's now, his looks at me are more suspicious and almost calculated. As I show my powers that cannot be explained by science, his fear will grow, and he will slip up.

I could feel the virus begging me to devour him or make him part of the hive mind, but I had no opportunities alone with the man for a solid means of infiltration to his systems, and my assimilations had not grown enough to make an airborne virus just yet. 

So, for now, I wait and try to practice my skills, but I have a new idea: once the virus has now entwined itself with me on a deeper level, I could attempt a new experiment.

So, as I returned to my room for the day, I pulled up the gacha and did my free rolls for the day:

1. AC Black Flag Soundtrack Files And Discs (When The Seas Call To You)

2. Blowpipe (AC Black Flag) (These Darts Be Hitting Different)

3. Unbreakable Martial Arts Dummy (You Cannot Scan Nor Devour The Material)

4. Blow Up Mattress (When You Don't Want To Sleep On Rocks)

5. Star Lord's Walkman And Tapes (MCU) (If You Like Listening To Good Tunes INNNNN SPAAACE)

6. Duel Disk (Yugioh: Battle City Arc) (It's Time To DU DU DU DU Duel!)

7. Loaf Of Lembas Bread (LOTR) (Oh Lovely Lembas Bread)

8. Cliche Chinese Fortune Paper (Everyday You Get A New Fortune)

9. Advice From A Dark Souls Veteran (Git Gud Scrub) (No Actual Item)

10. Jack Sparrow's Tricorn Hat (POTC) (Smells Like Insanity And Adventure)

I took out the fortune to see what was on it, and it said, "See things as they are, not as what they appear to be."

Well, that is something, although just being told to git gud is rather annoying and true at the same time, but with that out of the way, it was time to do something either stupid or a possible boon. 

So, reaching into my gacha inventory, I took the bag of NZT pills out of view of the cameras and, looking at the small clear pill, I placed the bag back into the inventory and swallowed the pill.

The effect was immediate as I could feel my mind expanding as every memory I struggled to remember came back into place in full clarity as I could recall the first words I said and the first time I played COD and was called the N-Word by a kid no older than I was at the time. But as I tried to recall the info from the Source, I felt an intense pain in my mind as I felt a chunk of memory just missing.

That lack of info almost made me angry, but for now, I need to focus as while this drug makes it so my memory recall is perfect, it may have side effects. 

So I focused on my body and felt the blacklight virus attempting to adapt to any possible negative symptoms of the drug, and the feeling of my intellect growing was amazing as I could now look at a sword and tell its make and when it was made by the way the sword appeared.

A small smile made its way to my face as I felt an intense desire to fill my mind with new information. I then took out the book from Ogata and began to study the martial arts within it. 

My mind, in tandem with Senju Muso, analyzed every movement and every single differentiation in the techniques. This man's martial arts were the epitome of deadly precision as they combined the use of ki from that world to destroy an opponent on both the inside and outside.

Using Dou ki to destroy an enemy's insides precisely will lead to intense outer pain, leaving a man defenseless. According to the book, The amount of time a normal person would survive after being hit by some of these techniques is barely a couple of seconds, and the book had some rather graphic images of men whose entire bodies exploded due to an overload of dou ki.

Luckily, the book had a section on unlocking ki, but as I went to look over that section, I felt a presence through the force approaching me. 

I placed the book away and replaced it with The Art of War, and as I heard a knock at the door, I opened it and saw Talia standing there. As she saw what book I was reading, she actually chuckled.

"May I ask what is so humorous?" I asked as she took the book and looked it over.

"My father owns the original version of this book after buying it during his time in China, but that matters little now as the demon's head calls for you as your first mission has been decided." 

My eyes slightly widen, but my face remains stoic as I follow Talia to the inner sanctum of the base. As I walk in, I see Ra's meditating, but after entering the room, he gets up, and I kneel before him.

"You do well to know your superiors initiate, but for now, I have your first assignment to test your loyalty. The Light has received word that a cult of demon worshippers seeking to worship some type of Demon Lord has taken up residence in an old base of ours in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. You will go there and evict them from the base. Leave none alive. Details shall be given in this folder." He then handed me a file, and I saw the targets wearing bone-like demon masks.

 I nodded to him after taking the file but asked, " Head Of The Ghul, may I be so bold as to ask the reason why I received this assignment?"

"Your efforts in training and your sparring with Sensei's student Shiva have shown great results, so we wish to test you further. If you prove yourself on this mission, there shall be other missions that you may partake in. Now head to the hangar as your partner is waiting for you." He then left, and I wondered who my partner was.