The Apostate Trials

Chapter 10

Noah's mind went blank, his body not hesitating.

A subtle surge of strength raged within. He swung his fist forward into the face one of the boys that had stationed themselves on the porch as he stripped him of his weapon. All three fell backward, a wooziness consuming them, their bodies recuperating quickly.

Noah watched as Miles slammed two approaching boys into the wall; North was beating another, her movements swift and precise, a delicate fluidity to each jab and kick, surprising Noah by how graceful yet deadly her technique was. But further ahead─a smaller cluster of three older boys and a girl─weren't in the midst of chaos and were slowly raising their rifles.

Noah rushed them, shot one in the leg and another in the head, the other two bringing their weapons around full circle before he could take another step, smashing the full force of them into his body. He felt the pain explode from each of his cells, wrench his gut, strip the air from his lungs. He lost his balance, nearly fell to his knees, increasing the grip he had over his rifle; he tossed the weapon, slung it forward like a frisbee, reached for his knives as he ignored the pain eating away at his joints. At his insides.

The two weren't quick enough, had been caught off-guard by the gun toss. Noah's eyes narrowed as he drove the blade of one knife deep into the gut of the boy, twisted it as he brought it in as far as it would go.

He spun the boy around, used him as a shield when the girl began unloading her clip in panic, her screams of frustration profound. She slowly decreased the distance between them with a jog, and Noah slung the body forward once she was close enough. In that short instance, the second she spent carelessly dodging the body, almost tripping herself─Noah drove one of his knives into her gut as well, watched bitterly as she stared at him with wide eyes.

"Please," She brought her lips close to his ear, muttered just barely enough for him to hear. "Don't─" He felt the other blade slash flesh, literally cutting the girl off. She stumbled backwards while she gagged, doing her best to stop the blood gruesomely oozing from her neck to no avail, her eyes never leaving Noah. Not even for a second.

Noah could see the others finishing up as well, the sounds of scuffling quickly dissipating. Miles stood firm over five bodies, he a clear one-man-army to himself; North was far more surprising, with a body count of nine, one of which she held hostage. He was much older than anyone in Noah's class had been, probably around twenty-four or five, his face cleanly shaved and his hair freshly combed. Wherever he formally resided, it was clear that he'd been living in luxury.

"This shouldn't have happened!" He roared, viens popping and split flying. "You're F-Class...and we outnumbered you! Shouldn't matter if we were the ones caught off-guard, this is impossible!"

North struck the back of his head with the butt of her rifle. He collapsed. She put a bullet in him. The others were surprised by how effortlessly she did it.

"These guys weren't B-Class at all. Check your map again." She ordered Noah; he quickly complied. Something about their encounter didn't feel right. It felt all too easy, went by all too swiftly.

And surely enough, North was right. A quick scan of the map revealed that the nearest B-Class was halfway across Manhattan─the two classes battling it out before were ranked C and D, a fact that quite didn't add up, especially since it appeared that D had won the slaughter fest. Noah knew he couldn't have been hallucinating. Everyone saw the B-Ranks on the map. But how? Were the output scans unreliable after all? Or was NEST...

"It's an app," North answered as if reading his mind. "For a limited amount of time, a class can hide their true rank by changing it to whatever they want in order to fool enemies or avoid them altogether. Someone in B-Class used it when I fell into their trap."