Chapter 13

I quickly grab the man's wrist and push it upwards, my other hand thrusting a palm at his nose, which makes a crunching noise as his head recoils backwards. "ARGH!" his nose drips blood and I tighten my grip on his arm, locking the tendons that allow his fingers to move. His grip loosens and I flick his arm to the side, tossing his gun away out of his hand. It fires once as the trigger is nicked by his trigger finger as it departs his hand. After which I turn and fully extend his arm over a shoulder and lift up, the crunch of his bone and a shrill scream follows. Meaning I hyperextended his elbow, probably stretched out a few ligaments and tore some muscle.

He punches me in my kidney as hard as he can and I yelp, hunching forward as he kicks me away into the wall. I impact with a crunch of bone onto the hard stone wall, bounce and fall to the stone tile floor. As he approaches, I notice a sharp pain in my lower ribs.

But upon seeing his foot near my face, I grab it, and with a sweeping gesture, I bring him to the floor and straddle his chest, punching him in the face repeatedly.he puts a hand to my own face to block my vision, and I press my thumbs into his eyeballs, shrieks of pain follow and I grab his foot after standing, dragging him across the tile and after a twist of his foot, I throw him across the room and through the wall into the men's restroom next door, climbing through the hole.

He stands and picks up a shard of glass in his hand like a knife. His calloused hands preventing the sharp and jagged piece from cutitng into his hands. The man is stronger than I anticipated, likely a Chimera as well. "You know you could have just left it be, right?" I ask him.

His reply is to charge me with the shard of glass in hand, ready to run me through with it. I side-step him and with a foot in front of his stride, curling my toes in that foot. I hear a sharp metallic sound as a sharp blade protrudes from the soul of my heeled boot. It cuts his ankle, forcing him to think about something else as I grab his throat, and take him off of his feet.

Pile-driving him by his back into the floor amongst the sharp shards of glass. I use the reprieve of him recovering and standing to examining the blade protruding out front of my toes from my boot sole. It is sharp, likely self-sharpening with every retraction. Iridians are very fond of turning every day clothing items into weapons. As demonstrated here and with the hairpieces Farsa gave me. It is them I remember I had chosen to wear two of them, and I retrieve one from my hair, which had been keeping it in a pony tail behind my back. I take the hairpiece and press the sapphire stone in the flower portion, and the piece reveals its true colors. A very sinister concealed blade. In plain sight.

I turn just as my assailant attempts to rush me and pin me to the wall, and I run the blade into his stomach, while the glass shard in his hand sinks into my right shoulder.. Missing a vital artery by a mere 2 centimeters. I grunt in pain and twist the blade in his gut, pulling it out, his grip on the shard of glass loosens.

I reverse the blade in my hand, rolling it over my fingers and I grab his left arm. Pioretting around his body while at the same time twisting his wrist to hyper extend his arm. I sink the blade in my hand into his left arm pit, twist it forward to force him to bend over with the pain. Then after pulling it out, I stab him in the back of his neck. Running through his neck and severing the brain stem from his spine.

His body goes limp, and I pull the blade out, wiping it on his clothing until there is no blood on it, then after I press the blue crystal again, the blade edges cover with the false slats. I slide the weaponized hairpiece back into my pony tail and clean myself up a bit, then exit the washrooms.

I hear applause as I exit the washrooms, and it is Farsa, she had been here the whole time?! "Well done, Kara. you just defeated one of your enemies without my assistance or that of others. You also picked up on his intentions, and acted accordingly. Very good. That is all I have to teach you. You may even surpass me at this rate" she chuckles at this thought, with a proud smile she continues "feel free to stay with me, my home is just as much yours as it is mine. My mother's old room is yours now. This concludes your training." I quirk an eyebrow "so you fed me one of my enemies from one year ago for my training?"

Farsa smiles at me self-deprecatingly. 'She intended for this to happen, did she?' I sigh "You could have made that less dangerous." Farsa giggled "where is the fun in that? You won, I never doubted your abilities in combat. But your training from the past few months had made you more aware of who your enemies and who your foes are."

I opened my mouth wordlessly than shut it, she was right. No use saying more. Farsa sighs "that said, I meant it. This is as much your house as it is mine. Feel free to come and go as you please."

******

After a few days, I have more or less wrapped up some loose ends, and it is during a tea party that I decide to do some scouting of Iridian nobility. A lot of women, a few men from other species, even a Gravdian. He had been eyeing me the entire time. I was wearing a formal-casual outfit with a skirt and my boots. Plus a button shirt and a zip-up blazer on top of that with a high collar. My legs bare. I found leggings in the climate of Eridan IV to be rather uncomfortable.

Regardless, the Gravidan male was eyeing me up and down like an object. I resisted the shudder I had coming on at his gaze as I sipped a cup of tea, sitting with a few iridian nobles. Among them was a princess of house Vanrea. Her name is Galinae. She was cheerful, if but clumsy. Clearly insulated from the vicious world of Iridian politics. A few tables away, sitting with Farsa, was the matron of house Vanrea.

Vlondril, or Matron Vanrea, was a poised and attractive woman. With shoulder-length teal hair common of those born of Iridian nobility, with an hourglass figure and wide hips. She was shorter than I, at about 150 centimeters or so with cream-color skin. Her outfit showed a lot of cleavage and covered her modestly sized chest down to her midriff, right after her last rib down her body. She wore a miniskirt and leggings with high heels, and had a set of earrings in her left ear. Glossy lips and minimal makeup rounded out her attire and looks. She was conversing with Farsa at their table as the others at my table mingled. I stayed silent and listened to their conversation.

"Gali, have you heard?" one of the conversationalists at the table was conversing with Galinae about the recent announcement from the high matron. "I have! There is a meeting of key houses from the military castes, they would not say why that is, only that it had to do with 'recent developing circumstances'." I quirked an eyebrow at this rumor.

My mind started connecting the dots and I glanced over to the Gravidian. We locked eyes for a brief moment and I resisted the urge to let my Telehaptic tendrils reach out. The purple-colored male with emerald eyes and a well-built physique was clearly a military veteran with a scar down the left side of his face. The mark passes over his eye and an eyepatch resides over his left eye, but he carried himself as if he had been amongst iridian society for quite a long time. I offer a disarming smile and went back to the conversation, sipping my tea slowly to allow me to regain my previous composure.

Galinae looked to me "I believe miss Kara has eyes for B'Nan." she giggles at me and I inhale some of my tea, choking as I cough it back up out of my trachea.