Toka-Ace #1: The Re-Emergence
Chapter 8

Katherine turned and grabbed two more syringes off of her table.

I could do nothing as she jammed the syringe into my neck. I jerked involuntarily as she emptied the plunger into my neck. “What are you doing?” I cried.

“That was the formula to unseal your powers,” Katherine explained. “Now,” she held up another syringe. “I’ll follow that up with a shot of adrenaline.” Another syringe’s worth of liquid was emptied into my veins. My heart pounded furiously, and my mind raced. Andrew looked helplessly at me.

I began to feel very warm internally. A spike of sharp pain shot up my spine. I began to cough a hacking dry cough, until my throat was dry and raspy. I coughed until my lungs and my sides ached. I was sweating profusely and I thought that I was going to vomit. My muscles stung and I was vaguely aware of Katherine’s voice.

“You shall serve as the proof,” Katherine said. “It will be an unpleasant process to say the least, but your powers are now being unsealed.”

My body began to spasm violently and beyond my control. I fell off the table. The pain of hitting the ground was nothing compared to the awful, paralyzing pain that shot throughout my being now. “Don’t try to fight it,” Katherine urged. “Soon you’ll see. You’re about to become more powerful than you can imagine.”

I didn’t feel powerful. I felt the opposite. I felt like I was dying. I was in immense pain and my vision began to grow hazy. I seemed to drift away and I could see white swirling around me. It was cloudy at first and then thicker and thicker until it crowded out everything in a veil of pure white light.

My pain receded.

No pain and the pure white light. Was I dead?

“Troy….Troy…”

I could see someone in the distance. It was a woman.

“Troy…” The call came again.

“Mom?” I wondered.

I blinked. The whiteness was fading away. As it did, the feeling returned to my body. I no longer felt any pain. In fact, I felt good. I realized that I was on the ground and I got to my feet.

I wondered if Katherine had given me another injection just in time to pull me from the brink of death.

Looking over I realized that Andrew was sitting up. His face was awash with amazement. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaped. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.” he said slowly.

Katherine stood beside him. She was staring too. She nodded slightly. “Now Troy, see what I was talking about,” Katherine said. She gestured towards a mirror, inviting me to take a look. “This is what they did to you.”

I walked over to where Katherine gestured and looked into an oval mirror that was hanging on the wall. The face that stared at me was no longer my own.

My skin was jet black. My face was featureless, save for my eyes which were white and glowing. My had hair turned long and silky. It was white and silver and reached the middle of my back. I stepped back and looked down at my clothes.

My clothes had changed as well. My top was a white keikogi that had a grey flame pattern around the torso and around the forearms. A black band ran through the flame patterns on the forearms. My pants were a grey hakama with a black stripe that went up the middle of the legs. The bottoms of my hakama up to the shins had a white flame pattern. There was a black sash around my waist.

I stepped back shocked beyond words. It was surreal. How was this possible? Fear welled up within me.

“Troy, we don’t have much time, you need to know everything.” Katherine stepped forward.

I don’t know what happened. I just lost my mind. I knocked Katherine back into the wall. I grabbed Andrew and bolted from the basement, up a flight of stairs, and dragged him out the door.

“Troy!” I heard someone call after me. I didn’t care; I gave in to the rising panic. I just ran and ran dragging Andrew along half running/half stumbling after me. I wanted to get away from my mother’s death, being attacked and abducted, and now this. Maybe it was all a nightmare. Reality could not be this twisted.

“Troy! Troy! Stop!” I heard the words several seconds before I realized Andrew was shouting at me.

When I came to a stop, I was in a construction site for a housing project. There were rows of half-finished houses all around me. The siding had not been added yet and the windows had not been installed. The sidewalks had been paved but none of the landscaping had been put in yet. Rocks and dirt were piled on either side of the walk way. I stopped in the center of the development.

I wasn’t physically tired. Mentally, I was overwhelmed. But here, in the dead of night and in this empty place, I could weigh the vexing problem that is my life.

I started to calm down. “I’m good, I just need a moment to think.”

“So what do we do now?” Andrew asked.

I thought. We could just go back to the Herron’s. Then what? I had seen that I was a target. Plus I didn’t look like myself, the Herrons wouldn’t know me. The only thing that made sense to do was go back to Katherine. She would have answers.

That’s it; I needed to cope and to stay in control. I would get answers and deal with everything as it came.

I began to head back out from the rows of unfinished houses. As I walked I noticed lights on the ground, and heard the slow crunching of tires going over gravel. I turned and the headlights washed over me. Instinctively, I raised my hand to shield my eyes, but my eyes had already adjusted to the sudden change.

I was a few feet away from a van that had pulled up into the housing development. From behind me I could hear the gravel being crunched underneath the wheels of a car. There was another set of headlights. I was between two cars. There were two sets of headlights on me and Andrew, as if we were on stage.

I felt a chill go down my spine as I recognized one of the cars. It was the Nissan. The two men stepped out the old man with the sunken eyes and the ragged, and the younger burnout with the unkempt hair that accompanied him. Both of whom were deceptively strong. They kept an unwavering gaze on me as they began to close in. I tried to force myself not to be tense.

Behind me was a van, three more men were behind me. They were no doubt working with the men in the Nissan.

I felt an awful dread in the pit of my stomach. My anxiety was going haywire, throwing distracting thoughts and feelings at me. I was stupid for running, stupid and cowardly. I always did the wrong thing. Now that bit of panic was coming back to bite me. I’d put Andrew and myself in danger.

I couldn’t hope to outfight them all. Not when the old man and the burnout could take me by themselves. I should have stayed in the house. I never should have taken that walk with Andrew. What were these guys going to do with me? What was it that Katherine was going to tell me? Oh God, I was going to be killed by my mistakes. The feeling made me sick.

As the old man and the burnout advanced on me, I took a step back. I looked behind me and saw the three new guys advancing on me too. I’ve heard stories of how people who had near death experiences, tried to make peace with themselves. As I saw no way out from this, I tried to do the same.