Kidnapped

When I woke up, alarms were blaring. Karin had spotted about twelve men in black, invading my parents’ property.

“Karin, property defence mode!”

I watched zombot group A teleport onto our driveway, ready to intercept the men, but they all powered down. Luckily, Karin kept group B in their storage. Now that the device that had shut down group A was down, because from my information, those types of devices are one-time uses only, group B would intercept the newcomers. I decided that this would be a good time to test-drive my automated armor and weapon system, so I made sure that the zombots were on only defend setting, then I had Karin put on my lightweight automated armor/weapons , and took the elevator upstairs.

When I reached the driveway, group B was powered down as well. I stayed out of sight. I turned on my five-minute invisibility and turned the corner onto the driveway. Twelve guns pointed at me. I was invisible, how could they see me?

“Turn off your invisibility. Now,” one demanded. Who knew if they'd shoot. I didn’t even know if my armor could withstand more than fifteen shots. I did as he said, lowering the invisibility on my suit.

“Put your hands where I can see them and slowly get on the ground. Slowly,” he said. I followed his orders, going into a crouch, then laying down flat on the ground. “Handcuff her,” he ordered to another of his men.

Hey obeyed, putting cuffs around my wrists. I wasn’t going to go quietly.

“Karin, eject” the pieces of armor flew away from my body as I turned into my leopard form. I ran at the men, with a fierce roar I lunged at the man who seemed to be in charge, ready to tear some flesh with my sharp teeth. I heard a hiss, then three darts stuck themselves into my neck. I tried to finish my approach, but my world blurred and I fell to the ground.

When I woke up, I was in a cement room with bars. I was also still on leopard form. I stood up and looked around, there was a bucket in the corner, and a chain connecting my left hind foot to the wall. There was a man staring at me on the other side of the bars. I stared back at him, ears pinned against my head. While doing so, I went as close as the chain would let me to the iron bars, then, while still staring him in the eye, I snapped the chain, simply by pulling my leg out of it’s reach, narrowing my eyes as I did so.

“Impressive. She can snap the chain pretty easily,” he appraised.

“I’m not some test subject,” I replied to his statement, venom in my voice.

“Fiesty one here,” he said, smiling.

He stood up and walked away, breaking the stare, I went to the edge of the cell, putting my head through the bars. The man was conversing with a few other people. Two men and one woman. I took on a curious expression, putting my ears forward and opening my eyes to a normal size.

They were talking about me. No, not as in “The Pink Leopard,” they were talking about Alise. These people knew who I was. That wasn’t good. That was bad. The woman saw me peeking out of my cell and walked over to where the man was previously sitting and sat down. I narrowed my eyes and pinned my ears again, giving a deep growl.

“From what I hear, you’re quite the subject Alise,” she said.

“Sure, so I hear, I’ll get out eventually. I’m not some subject,” I retorted.

“Well, obviously you want to get down to business. We want you to help the military. There is a threat that only you, in collaboration with a couple others like you can protect us from,” she paused, “unfortunately, the future of humanity has to be handed over to three stupid teenagers.”

“Well, number one, I’m not stupid, and number two, give me one reason why I should care,” I lied down.

“You don't care about this world and everything in it perishes? Including you?” She asked, “I’ll leave you to your decision. Oh, and, by the way, nobody understands your robots. We can’t fix them. You are stupid because you couldn’t make them understandable.”

“It’s just beyond everyone’s understanding. If I looked at their guts, I could figure it all out within seconds. Each one is unique, that way, you can hack any two the same way,” I informed her.

“Whatever,” she said, “we want to protect. Even if you don’t, we’ll fight to the end.”

She and the men left, leaving me alone. I wasn’t selfish. However, who trusts the people that just kidnapped them? Not me. Obviously. I slept, hoping that I was safe. Hoping that Karin was too. I slept and hoped that somehow, everything would work out.

“What is your choice,” asked the woman from before. I had been lying awake for what I believed to be at least an hour.

“I’ll help you if you promise that I’d be able to quit anytime,” I paused, “I don’t know whether to trust you or not.”

“Fine,” he turned to a police officer that had all the keys to the prison cells and nodded. Only after the door to my cell was opened, did I decide to stand up, I turned to face the front of the cell and followed the woman.

“First of all, you, being underage need a weapons permit… and some clothes,” she looked down at me, “that’s why you’re still a leopard, right?” When I transformed into a leopard, my clothes came off, so now I was *****.

“Yep,” I replied.

She let out a hearty laugh, “Yeah, the other shapeshifters have the same problem. It’s the biggest downside to being able to change form.”

“I haven’t used this power much yet,” I informed her.

“Yeah, you just got it, we don’t expect you to be an expert within only a few days,” she assured me.

“Days? I’ve had this power for years!!” I was now kinda worried. Why would they think otherwise? Oh, right, the other shapeshifters, but then why had I gotten my power before anyone else? Probably just a fluke, I was kinda paranoid all the time. This was probably one of those moments.

“Wow. None of the others got it this early. Only you. It seems that all the shapeshifters got their abilities when they needed them. Why would you have needed it before anyone else?” She inquired.

I didn’t answer. I may have needed it early, but I didn’t use it much.

For a while, there was silence, but after a while, she started to speak

“We work with the government, so we’re headed to the police office upstairs. There, you will receive a permit to bring a weapon of choice anywhere. You need to practice with a weapon, whether that means a gun, or a sword, or something else. You always need to be armed. There are monsters that will come after you and the people you care about. You need to be able to protect them,” she stated in a grim tone, “we’re here.”

She opened a door. Inside, there were a few men in black.

“We’re from the federal government in DC. We’re here to grant you unlimited use of weapons while in certain places, and other areas with special permission,” one of them said.

I was nervous, I never really speak to anyone with authority beyond my teachers. Principal? Nope. Vice-principal? Nope. A probably high-ranking official from DC? Definitely not. I stayed quiet. I wasn’t a pushover that always followed the rules, but that didn’t stop me from getting nervous. Around people who were at the top of the food chain.

I tried to calm my nerves. After all, this guy came all the way from DC to just speak to me, so I must be important enough too, right? Now, what should I say?

“What would be your weapon of choice, Alise? You need a short range and long range weapon,” the man who had spoken before said.

“A pair of swords. Swords can be of use against ranged weapons, and in close combat,” I replied without a moment's thought. I was fairly good with swords, though I had only ever used wooden and heavy duty wooden swords.

“How do you use swords against ranged weapons? It’s not possible,” He asked

“I’ve used them against bullets before. Granted, they were heavy duty wooden swords against my AI, Karin’s homemade guns and bullets, but still. I have plenty of good experience with swords,” I replied.

“Well, that’s something, mind showing us?” He seemed intrigued now.

“Well first, I need opposable thumbs,” I replied, raising what in normal circumstances would be my eyebrows.

“Ah, yes, I almost forgot,” he gestured to one of the men, who walked over to me with a harness “this harness is very hard to break, but will switch into clothing when you transform into human state. It will also turn back to a harness with you too,” he paused, “it’s already test driven.”

“Fine, but still, I need opposable thumbs to put it on,” I stared.

“Agent F, put it on her,” said the man.

“Thank you,” I replied. Once the harness was on, I transformed back into a human form. Luckily, the device did transform into clothes, “unfortunately, I don’t know how to use a metal sword, but if you have a wooden one I can use for the demonstration-”I was cut off.

“Yes, we have a pair you can use, and Agent F will fire one bullet. He won’t tell you where he’s aiming, but you should deflect it if your sword skills are as good as you claim,” he said, gesturing to two wooden swords in sheaths.

“Okay, that’s... fine,” I said, picking them up. I slung them on my back making an “X,” and faced the one I presumed to be Agent F. “I’m ready, fire anytime.”

In one swift motion, Agent F aimed his gun and fired. There was no way to tell where he was aiming before the shot, but the manner in which he raised his gun showed me where he was aiming. As he raised the gun, just as all people do, he went quick, then, near his ideal aim, he slowed down, almost bearly not enough to notice. He was aiming at my left thigh. I grabbed the right sword, and put the blade facing towards Agent F as he shot the round. Even though this wooden sword was fairly dull, I used the angle in which I had placed it to slice the bullet in two. One of the reasons that I was better at swordsmanship than anything else, is because a sword is like an extension if the body, you constantly are able to control it in every aspect. I have fast reaction time, which was the only way I would have ever been able to slice that bullet, but, for me, bullets aren’t fast enough, for me, an arrow shot from a bow isn’t fast enough. Handheld Items like scythes, swords, and others are my strongpoint.

Everyone gasped as they saw my swift block. How I perfectly executed my maneuver to use even a dull wooden sword to slice a metal object going at least 25 miles per hour at close range. The man who had done most of the speaking recovered first.

“Well, that was indeed… interesting,” he commented, “however, we don;t want you to be stuck on the defensive. We’ll give you a smaller gun, if you’d prefer, but, you will have a gun.”

“I don’t know how to use one,” I stated simply.

“Then how did you train your ‘Karin’ to use them?” He asked.

“I didn’t. She was bored, so I had her go web-surfing. She figured out how to manufacture and use all sorts of guns,” I replied.

“Only people can search on search engines. Computers aren’t capable of learning things that aren’t programmed in their own systems,” he challenged.

“Yeah. Some people tell me I’m weird. Karin used to be the simplest of robots. However, I made her like a human. She can learn.”

“Fine then.”

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