The Warriors: The Wayward One by The Warriors (short books to read .txt) 📖

it or not! So shut it!”
“Not if I leave.” said Verity, the room turning cold all of a sudden.
“W-what?” stammered Georgia, surprised.
“If I leave I won’t have to put up with you freaks, I won’t have to sit around, waiting for my next chance at The Beatle. I could be out there, tracking her down. I could be following her, instead of her following me and ruining my life!”
“Fine then, go!” snapped Nicki. “We don’t want you to get freaked out by us FREAKS any longer!”
“Fine.” And with that, Verity snatched up her bow and her arrows and stormed from the house.
The lounge remained quiet. Nicki lit a spliff.
“I shouldn’t have come.” murmured Fury, sadly.
“Nonsense! Your one of us. Verity just needs to find her place.” responded Georgia. “Trust me, I’m a psychiatrist.”
“If I hadn’t have come, she wouldn’t have left!”
Georgia paused looking at Fury. “Something’s happened. What’s happened, Fury?”
Fury paused. “I resigned. I got terminated from the Red Goddess case. No one was following it up. Paracorp isn’t doing it’s job anymore. It’s like it forgot all about the impending threat on mankind.” Fury signed and sank into a chair.
“What? You mean, they’re just ignoring the Red Goddess? I thought you said Paracorp were trying to keep our kind a secret?” Georgia raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“I did, that was when a whole team was dedicated to finding the Red Goddess and The Beatle and I was assigned to following The Beatle and finding any information I could.”
“Something’s not right there.” Nicki frowned.
“Do you think we should find Verity?” asked Daniel, worriedly.
“No, she needs space and she needs time to realize she needs us. Remember she spent most of her time in a Chinese monastery plotting revenge on The Beatle for killing her parents and she’s come this far to find she has to wait even longer.” explained Georgia.
Fury raised her eyebrows. So that is the story of Quivachi! Her file at Paracorp hadn’t said much.
“Well, while we wait for her to come back, any one fancy a bacon sandwich?” asked Nicki.
Before anyone could answer, the loud, reverberating sound of an explosion came from outside, orange flames sending sparks of light through the window!
“Argh!” yelled Holly.
Nicki was at the door in minutes, Fury right on her tail, Daniel, Holly and Georgia following.
To the left of the drive, orange flames danced within thick, black smoke, shards of glass soaring in all directions.
Daniel fell to his knees speechless.
Nicki edged closer to the heat. From the smoke came a huge figure.
Fury gasped.
Before them stood Fury’s boss, her huge belly trying desperately to escape her bright, pink shirt.
“Fuwy, you steal, you thief, thieves are bad!” Fury’s boss slurred.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Nicki, recoiling from the ugly sight of her. “What is that smell?”
“They call me, Wancid!”
Nicki paused. “Rancid?”
“That’sh what I said, Wancid! Behowd!” Rancid suddenly convulsed, her milky green skin rippling. Her flesh burst from her clothes and continued to grow, until what stood before the Warriors was a giant ball of green flash with no bodily features, apart from two tiny eyes, a blob that could be mistaken for a nose and a yellow mouth.
“Thieves need to be dewt with! Thieves need to die!”
“What? Can’t you just arrest me or something?” asked Fury, confused.
“What did you steal?” asked Nicki.
“May have made off with a gun, a motorcycle and files on the Red Goddess.”
“Ah, well, it seems we’re going to have to teach this big, bumbling mass of vomit a lesson.” Nicki winked.
“Now, you and all your fwiends will die!” shouted Rancid.
“Why, surely thievery doesn’t call for death? The death sentence hasn’t been around for years? What’s going on?” Fury shouted back.
“Somefing bigger than your band of Wawwiors!”
Nicki and Fury exchanged a glance of realization and then looked back at Rancid, who was sliding towards them, leaving a trail of green slime behind her.
Fury whipped a gun from her leather coat and Nicki leapt to the side, watching as the bullets shot straight through Rancid and out the other side.
“Shit!” mumbled Fury.
“Guys, move!” yelled Holly form behind them, who raised her hand.
The sky immediately darkened and lightening shot down from the sky, electrocuting the green blob, sending globules of slime in every direction!
Nicki and Fury both dodged slime, while Daniel raised his arms over his head and the earth immediately reshaped into a shield, slime pelting it instead of him, Georgia and Holly.
Rancid still stood, however, bits of slime regenerating, causing her to grow even bigger.
Fury paused for a moment, one thought resonating in her mind. Fire.
“Nicki! Fire!” she yelled. Nicki nodded and leapt into the air, the dragon within her bursting forth. She circled Rancid for a moment, before letting out a cloud of flames, totally engulfing the green blob.
“AAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!”
Fury watched as it’s flesh burned and blistered. Getting her gun, she aimed for the head of Rancid. Missing, Nicki landed on the floor in front of Rancid and Fury took her chance, leaping up onto Nicki’s tail and up her back, the world went into slow motion. Fury, travelling faster than sound, leapt up onto Nicki’s head and just as the flames momentarily subsides, Fury leapt into the air and shot downwards, plunging a bullet into Rancid’s brain. Fury landed the other side to see Nicki gazing at her, her dragon form slowly shrinking back to human form.
Rancid sank to the ground, her slimy flesh bubbling over the gravel. The earth shield Daniel had made shrank back to the ground and the 5 of the starred at the green dead thing on the ground.
“The fucker destroyed my Cube. Again! I don’t know why I bother.” mumbled Daniel.

Verity strode through the streets, her bow over her shoulder and two quivers of arrows on her back. The light form the street lamps cast orange shadows onto the pavement and the night air was nippy against her exposed skin. Every so often she would glance behind her, for fear that The Beatle was nearby. This was ridiculous! Half of her wanted so desperately to return to the Warriors, but the other half was angry and wanted the Beatle to find her, so that she could end this, once and for all!
“Verity?”
Verity turned to see a familiar face and relief spread through her. Clint was stood in front of her, surprise on his face. Verity didn’t know why she was relieved; perhaps because the very sight of Clint sped up her heart rate and made her face hot.
“Clint!!”
“What are you doing out here alone?”
“Err, I had a bit of an argument with a friend. I needed space.”
“A friend, eh?” he frowned.
“Yes, she is just someone who was holding me back and now I’ve come away from all that/”
“Oh!” it was Clint’s turn to look relieved. “I just finished a gig, fancy a meal?”
“I have no money.”
“Hey, I asked you on a date, I’m paying!”
Verity smiled and took his warm hand.


“I still don’t get it.” murmured Fury, sat next to Nicki in the lounge. Everyone had wanted to just collapse after the ordeal with Rancid, which had almost scarred them for life. The smell still lingered in the room and no amount of Febreeze air freshener sprayed by Daniel could have gotten rid of it.
“Why would she want to kill me? I’ve worked there for years, it was only a motorbike, a gun and some files! I’d have given them back if I’d have known she’d followed me!”
“Did you always know that she was a...a...blob?” asked Nicki.
“No, no one really knew what her power really was. We’d always assumed it was the ability of having a really bad lisp.” replied Fury. “At least I got the files on the Red Goddess. Wait...files...”
Fury paused for a moment and put her head in her hands.
“What is it?” asked Georgia from her arm chair.
“I stole the files on Lorna. What if....no!”
“You think that Lorna has taken over Paracorp and sent Rancid to come and kill us?” explained Georgia.
“Er, yeah. Stop reading my thoughts!” Fury looked up, annoyed. “But it makes sense, especially as....oh God.”
“What?” snapped Nicki, waiting for a reply.
“Er, what if I said that Paracorp has files on all of us and that if she’s taken over the company, she’ll have direct access to those files?” mumbled Fury.
“I’d say we have another mission!” chirped Daniel, sipping tea form his mug.

Part 3: The battle of the Paracorp Lobby!

Verity sat next to Clint in the booth they’d been given by the waiter, her bow and arrows on the seat opposite.
“I’m not interrupting plans for tonight, am I?” asked Verity.
“Only my plan to sit in front of the TV all night.” He winked and touched her arm. “You look dazzling tonight, by the way.”
Verity blushed. “Thank you.”
“So, tell me, what does a woman like you indulge herself in?”
Verity went along with his social questions and spoke about herself, her archery, her past life, yet missing out her alter-ego, Quivachi, and her ongoing battle with the Beatle and the Red Goddess. She accepted when Clint offered to buy her another martini and laughed at his jokes and his stories. She began to think about how fun this so-called ‘socialising’ actually was! It turned out Clint was a very cultured guy, having toured the world in his first indie rock band, and how he played guitar in almost every state in America. She told Clint about her mahogany bow and how her father had made it and used it to kill people threatening his family in China, and how it had the perfect weight, not too light and not too heavy, how the bow was suited to her father and only her father, but when she was born, he altered it for her use. She slurred about how she’d trained with it since she was young enough to hold a bow, how she’d locked it away for 5 years when she vowed her revenge for her parents death, and how she’d escape from China and come to England with nothing but her bow, her arrows and a small bag full of necessities. Clint laughed at her story, not quite believing her.
After a lot of booze and drunken laughter, Clint asked, “Wanna come back to my place? I got beer!”
“Sure!” Verity agreed and, snatching up her bow and arrows, took his hand and followed him from the pub.
Out in the street, the two staggered towards Clint’s flat, laughing about how Verity could hit almost anything with her bow, any target in any wind, anytime, anyplace.
“Prove it then!” laughed Clint.
Verity glanced around the deserted street. “Fine, I will then!” she took her bow from over her shoulder, and loaded it with an arrow. “What shall I hit?”
Clint looked around. “The taxi cab sign on top of that cab!” he pointed at a taxi coming up the road. Verity aimed at the moving target and, when she was satisfied, took the shot. The arrow lodged itself in the taxi cab sign as it passed the pair and disappeared down the street.
Clint laughed and took verity by the waist, pulling her into him. “Come!” he led her away to his flat.
Clint’s flat was small, but clean and tidy and full of character. He had an orange leather sofa and a huge, widescreen TV. Verity put her arrows and her bow down and sat on the sofa. Clint sat next to her and leaned in.