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Korvis seized her wrists again and pulled
them so hard that she cried out loudly this time. He took the remaining
manacle and slapped it across her wrist, then pressed the button
that activated the explosive device inside of them. They weren't
designed to kill, just blow your hands off. If you did manage to
get out of them, you wouldn't be hard to track down. Having now
fully secured his quarry, Korvis grabbed Emerald by the neck of
the long, black, leather jacket and stood her up.
“It's over, Emerald. You lose.
I get paid big and you stand trial on Mecada Three for theft of
the Regent's scepter,” Korvis informed.
Emerald spat out particles of sand
that had collected on her mouth when she had fallen to the ground
face first. “You only think so, Korvis.”
“Keep telling yourself, that,
female,” he said, sarcastically. “You might just believe
it eventually.”
“No, Korvis, I'm telling you.
There's a lot more here than meets the eye.”
He scoffed at her words. “Emerald,
I think you'd tell me that you were madly in love with me at this
point in order to get me to release you.”
“You wish.”
“Don't flatter yourself, my dear,”
Korvis huffed.
“I could never be attracted to
a pig like you. You're an animal.”
“Oh… I suppose I'm supposed to
feel hurt by that?”
“Knowing you? No. But it's the
truth,” she said. “The truth always hurts, Korvis. Scumbag.”
Korvis responded by giving her a good
shove and knocking her flat on her back. Her shoulder hit first
with a resounding thud. He stood over her and pointed down at her.
“I think that'll be just about enough of that. If I want any
smart mouth out of you, I'll ask for it. I strongly advise you to
watch very carefully what you say next, Emerald. I'd much rather
not be placed in a position where I'm forced to use a vocal inhibitor
on you. It's a rather nasty little device. I'm sure you know what
it does?”
“Severs the vocal cords… replaces
the person's voice with a mechanical one. Activated by a remote
switch. Allows the user to control the wearer's responses,”
she said.
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“Couldn't have said it better
myself,” he confessed, a grin forming over his face. “I
won't do it as a matter of general principal, but if you push me
hard enough… I will.”
“If you're trying to scare me,
Korvis, it's not working,” she growled defiantly.
“Oh I don't think you scare easy
at all, Emerald. I'm just telling you exactly what I'm prepared
to do.”
“But are you ready for this?”
Emerald shifted her weight to her back and raised her feet in the
direction of the bounty hunter's chest. She clicked the heels of
her boots together once and from each heel came a metal-pointed
dart. The darts flew from the heels of each boot about half a second
later. Korvis had almost no time to react. As he made an effort
to dodge the darts, Emerald cartwheeled herself into a near standing
position, bringing her arms from under her and around her feet.
Now her arms were no longer behind her back, but the strain they
had been under still gave Emerald quite a bit of pain.
As Korvis had leapt to one side, one
of the darts sped through his cloak and lodged itself there. The
other one found purchase in his left side. Upon impact, three metal
claws opened up and sharp points impaled themselves in Korvis' ribs,
to lock the dart in place. A sharp twisting pain ensued. Korvis
screamed and grabbed at the dart.
Emerald now stood over Korvis, a grin
forming over her dirt-smudged visage. “I told you, Korvis,
there's a lot more here than meets the eye. Should have listened
to me.” His body was stiffening up. “Oh that sensation
you're starting to feel is a little paralyzing narcotic taking effect.
It's some really powerful stuff. Should keep a normal man down for
about… ten hours. But then you're not a normal man, are you, Korvis?
No, I think you've already established that. All I need is an hour
to get away from you. Happy trails, soldier.” She kicked dirt
into Korvis' face. “Payback's a bitch, honey… and so am I.”
Emerald ran off into the night and
disappeared into the fog.
(To be Continued...)
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