[Writing] NaNoWriMo Entry: G-SIDE Stories

[GrooveMan.exe]

This chapter is as far as I got, so it's unfinished. For what it's worth, he becomes a trenchcoat-wearing detective, and in this instance, has a run in with the mafia, and a case of stolen body parts. Martial arts and immolation follows.

Chapter 8: The Mysterious Case of the Lost Sense

It was a dark and stormy night; for the neighbour’s Weather Generator had gone completely haywire, and had plunged the street into what now honestly seems like a permanent state of grim, overcast clouds and pouring rain. Training outside would be impossible, and the nearest associate with outdoor training space was an expensive and lengthy commute.

Training indoors was a risky proposition – a little obvious if you think about it – but I had tried my best to be well prepared. The insulation and emergency foam sprinklers had been an expensive investment, but if for the foreseeable future all my time at home would be confined to my quarters – lengths must be taken. If I was a weaker man, I would just refuse to train until the rain had staved off, but I’ve seen too many ‘Mancers in the job become weak and sloppy with a lack of honing to their skills; and in this line of work, that’s what gets you burned.

Literally.

Put simply, I’m a Pyromancer. If that still means nothing to you, then picture me as a kind of magician, but one that’s really good at burning things. I – along with a bunch of other people with exclusive natural abilities that you don’t have – are weird variations of the average human, but with a sort of... empathy for natural forces and energy. If you’ve ever heard of Feng Shui, they sort of get the idea correct, but honestly the majority of that as a ‘science’ is bull. My so-called special powers have never brought me, or anyone else, ‘fortune’.

That said, someone who can heat or ignite almost anything at will is useful to most people. As such, nine times out of ten, any ‘Mancer you come across will be employed by or affiliated with G-SIDE. It makes it a little hard to do freelance work on the side, and for a Governmental agency of elite individuals, they sure are awkward (and just a little bit stingy) with how they pay you; but they do look out for their guys – we’re treated pretty well all things considered.

However, I still prefer to train at home. It’s my sanctuary, you know? A custom-built haven designed for me and only me; and thanks to the wild streak of sheer creativity San Sarai seems to have, ‘Bespoke’ is the number one adjective on everybody’s list. Long story short, I like it here.

Where I lived before? Well, it was overseas. The Far East, tall mountain plateaus, air so pure you felt guilty for breathing it. Boring as all hell. Being stuck up a mountain for 20 years can do wonders for a boy’s social skills; and I didn’t exactly get the luxury of going shopping, or watching Saturday morning cartoons. There was heavy teenage drinking, but that was considered more of a meditation thing up there. When getting wasted is a serious, solemn practice, you know something’s gone horribly wrong. Even your average Buddhist monk would probably raise an eyebrow.

So I spent most of my time training in martial arts; it was a strain on body and mind, but it meant that for the rest of the day I would be too tired to care about how bored I was; so it worked out just fine. My teacher was something of a heavy ‘meditator’, so the combat style he taught me probably wasn’t very ordinary, and probably rather underhanded. I’m not sure how many venerable fighting styles involve the throwing of dirt into the foe’s eyes.

In the middle of my training, and quite out of the blue, I discovered my talent in pyromancy when it accidentally kicked in while doing a particularly awkward routine. It’s hard to describe, but it involved a lot of contortion and to be able to do handstands for inhuman lengths of time. Being told to practice by my teacher atop a tall and uncomfortable wooden column, it wasn’t long before I found myself losing my balance while hand-standing at least ten feet off the ground. It took the strength of all of my muscles and my full awareness of my surroundings and balance to stay in position; and I succeeded – although I was also inexplicably on fire. That was by far enough to force me off the column, to be berated by my teacher soon afterwards, who told me to “not be put off by a bit of spontaneous immolation”.

From there on, it was something of an uphill struggle to get my newfound abilities under control. Sneezing in the vicinity of anything flammable was a definite no, and any attempts to meditate were foiled by me accidentally setting the spirits alight every time. Although I’ve found out recently that some bars out there (a lot of them in San Sarai’s Pleasure Quarter) set the drinks they serve on fire intentionally. That’s just plain odd.

It took the best part of a year to get my power over flame entirely under control; and in a mixture of this skill changing my outlook on life, and the other villagers willing to see the accidental arsonist gone from their flammable abodes; I had decided to leave my small and dull mountain village, and see the wider world, possibly putting my skills to some honest use.

For the largest period of time, my work wasn’t especially honest. It was all hitman and mercenary tasks, catering to cowardly or just plain lazy big wigs who liked the idea of an antagonising force be charred to the point where no human or machine would recognise it. To tell the truth, that kind of raw firepower (pun not intended, I assure you) was rather beyond me at the time, and more often than not I ended up helping the targets successfully vanish from their aggressors, in exchange for knowledge of the wider world; a tour around whatever city I had ended up in; or just a good meal and a drink I couldn’t burn. I made a lot of good friends (some of them very good indeed...), although not all of them were permanent. I drifted all over Asia for about 3 years - doing what I could to keep myself going, and assist others who I felt deserved and needed a hitchhiker with a proficiency in martial arts and burning things.

I must have gained a bit of notoriety along the way; because soon enough, I had been head hunted by G-SIDE. At the time, I hadn’t heard of them – to me, they sounded like just another business who needed me to make some thorn in their side disappear; and so I did my very best to elude their investigations and inquiries. For what it’s worth, I did a good job; powers like mine are rather hard to conceal - and if I happened to get too emotional in a public place, it would be easy to spot the man with the smouldering clothing and furious expression amongst the faceless masses.

Indeed, the day they did manage to pin me down was the day they managed to send another energy-manipulating individual after me.

[Vipershark]

This is probably your best character yet. Keep going.