Act VI
Chapter 15: The shields
I woke up two days later in a hospital bed; my wounds were treated with medicine and bandaged up. I looked around the room, everything was white, and clean to the point where some of the stuff was almost shiny. I had never been in the room like this before except for with my father, but he had said places like this no longer existed. Then again, I should not have been surprised, seeing that many of the things in the city were not supposed to exist according to my father. I was assuming it was not because he thought it no longer existed, but because it wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. It was at that point that I realized that the city was a leftover remnant of times past. That must be why they are able to build such advanced technology so easily, and so quickly.
I sat up in the bed and began to think, everything around me reminded me so much of my father’s laboratories. So much so that I couldn’t help but wonder if he had come here at some point in time. Maybe he even had something to do with the design of the city, which would be quite interesting if he did have something to do with this city. Knock knock came from the door as Adam pushed it to the side then he walked in. “Hey Daniel how you doing today, I hope you’re doing pretty good. It seems as though you’re doing better seeing that you’re awake now.” He said with a smile pulling up a chair and sitting down. “I’m feeling a lot better. Just sitting here admiring the design of the city, it’s quite interesting.” I replied to him while looking through the window.
“Oh, I see, well it is a pretty nice view if I do say so myself.” Said Adam to me as he looked out of the window with me. “You wouldn’t happen to know who the designer of this city was now would you? It’s just that something about it seems so familiar that I was wondering who the designer of the city was.” I asked him, thinking about my father and if he had anything to do with this place too, or if I was finally out of his seemingly endless shadow. I hoped that I was going to get the answer that I wanted to get from him.
“I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m pretty sure the person that designed this city was an old guy his name was Carl I think, I’m not really all that sure what his name was but I know it started with a C. He helped us build the city and get it off the ground almost 100 generation’s ago.” He replied to me, giving me the exact answer I did not want to hear. I knew my father had something to do with this city too, I wondered why he never told me anything about this place too, but right now, I didn’t care. This journey was about me not him and I was going to enjoy myself, even if it seemed like I was just following in his footsteps again.
“So I’m starting to think that my speed isn’t always going to be enough for me to protect these packages, or for me to protect myself for that matter. So I want to know what we can do to change that.” I said to Adam as I turned from the window, he looked at me with an odd look as if he had been waiting for me to ask that for the longest time. “It’s about time you asked about that. I thought it was strange that you went on any deliveries without asking for a shield, or weapon of some kind before you left.” He replied to me almost about to laugh. “I thought it was kind of funny that you didn’t, but I figured you already had something that you would use to defend yourself, but after you came back the other day I realized that you didn’t. I thought you had a death wish for a while when they brought you into the hospital, but no matter how bad you got you just wouldn’t die. You must have God on your side because I have never seen someone lose as much blood as you did, and still live.” He continued with a slight laugh in his voice.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, but I wouldn’t say God is on my side more like the opposite of that for my family. But that’s a long story I don’t want to get into right now. Anyway, I want to know what I could use to protect myself from people like those guys.” I said to him then I stood up and stretched my legs out. “Well, I will tell you one thing, you did come to the perfect place to get just what you need. How about this, I will arrange a tour of the factories where we make weapons and shields, you can see what we have and pick fromthose. We will have whatever you pick resized to fit you perfectly. How does that sound?” He said.
That was just what I needed to hear to get my mind off things. “Sounds great, I’ll get myself together to go home, and get cleaned up and ready to pick what I want, thanks a lot.” I left the hospital and headed home to get cleaned up a short time after Adam left. I was very excited about going to go pick out something to use to fight with, but I had no clue what I would be able to use, maybe I could use that shield thing from before that would be good to use. On the other hand, maybe I could use a sword that would be pretty fun. “I wonder what it would be like to swing a sword when using the phantom style, I don’t think anyone would be able to block that or stop it at that speed for that matter.” I said to myself walking out of my house and heading off to meet up with Adam.
I meet up with Adam, he was all smiles ready to take me out on a tour of the whole city. “Hey Daniel, you’re finally here, its about time too. I’ve been waiting for you to get here for a while now. Thought you would be a little faster than that man come on your supposed to be super-fast, I think you slowing down from all that sleep you’re getting.” He said with a smirk pushing at my shoulder. “Oh, sorry to keep you waiting I didn’t realize you would be here already.” I replied to him. “Oh no man I was just kidding around, lighten up I just got here like a minute before you did. Now then, our first stop will be to go check out where our best shields are made, you might want to get one of those. After all, I don’t think the armor that we wear can handle moving at the speeds you do.” He said to me as he walked towards one of the taller buildings of the city.
“Welcome to the shields building.” Came the voice of a woman when I walked into the building. “Hello, how are you.” I replied to her to be nice. She smiled and walked in front of us, we stopped, and she turned to us. “My name is Ariana and I am the one in charge of this building, I will be showing you around and if you see something you like I will be the one that gets it built for you. Please follow me and I will show you around now.” She said, then pushed something on the wall in front of her, which cause the walls to open in front of us.
She led us into the room, and as I walked through the doorway my jaw almost dropped to the floor. It was just amazing, all around us they were people working on all kinds of shields, and amour. “Do you have any idea of what kind of shield or armor you would like to try and use, or do you want to see everything we have, I must warn you though it is quite a large amount if you want to see them all.” Ariana said to me as we walked through the hall surrounded by huge pillars of fire and falling sparks. “Actually, I do, on my last delivery I was taking a shield that was very light weight and small that I could extend the size of with a latch on the back.” I answered her as I looked all around me completely fascinated by what I saw.
“I know just what you’re talking about, we call that one the tricksters shield.” She said as she led us into a large empty room. “This is the testing room, here we test how well our shields hold up to other things. I’ll have one of the tricksters brought to you and you can see how you like using it, if you like it and want one then we can have one built to fit you.” She said then walked out of the room.
“Is that how you were able to fight off the guys that tried to kill you?” Adam asked. I smiled at him and answered. “Let’s just say you guys should really use tougher cases.” He just laughed as Ariana walked back into the room holding a box with the shield inside of it. “Here try using this and see how it goes.” She said, handing me the box, then heading to the side of the room and sitting down. I looked at Adam as I held the handle of the shield. “You can fight right Adam, I know I never asked you before, but being one of the city guards I always assumed that you could fight with no problem.” I said to Adam as I moved around swing the shield from side to side extending and retracting it as I did getting a feel for it as it moved. He looked at me with a smile. “You know you could just ask me to fight with you to test out the shield you know.” He answered me as he pulled his sword from his side.
“Move, I dare you.” I said to him, and with a smile he swung at me full force, I quickly ducked, then pulled the shield in place to block his second swing. Swing after swing I blocked, until it was my turn, I retracted the shield and moved. Right behind him, then brought it straight to him, extending it just before it reached him. However, he blocked quickly, I wasn’t giving it my all, but I didn’t expect him to block it. This time I would get him for sure though, I pulled back vanished and came in full force right at him and as the shield extended he block it again.
“Wow, you’re a lot better than I expected you to be.” I said, surprised by what was happening. “Well, I’m not really all that great you’re just slow. I mean up until you’re about to attack I can’t even see you, but once you start your attack you move in much slower so I can block you with ease.” He replied to me making me realized what was really happening. It wasn’t that I was slowing down my attacks, but it was the shield opening that took all the speed out of the attack. Which, as far as I was concerned was too big of a down side to risk. After all, if I couldn’t fight with my full speed, then I was at a disadvantage no matter what kind of shield I had to protect me.
I walked over to Ariana and handed her the shield. “This just isn’t going to work for me sorry, but it is an amazing shield, thanks for letting me see if I could use it.” I said to her as I handed her back the shield. She looked at me with a smile. “You know I don’t think you are the kind of person that should be using a shield to begin with. From that little show you just put on for me, it looks as though all a shield would do is slow you down and put you in danger instead of protecting you. Maybe you should try and get something more offensive instead of defensive.” She said to me as she walked me and Adam out.
Continues in Chapter 16 or go to previous Chapter 14
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