Chapter Three

Occulte yawned as the Fulfiller continued his tirade.

“You not only killed two Possibles and grievously injured two others, but you contacted the police! What in the name of Prophecy were you two thinking?” The old man looked like he wanted two more Possibles to die as he stared at them.

“What I was thinking,” Occulte said in a low, cool voice, “was that you should not be yelling at the two best and most powerful Possibles here less than a month from the completion of the Prophecy. After all… whoever is Chosen will be a god among men. Who the hell in their right mind wants a god as their enemy?”

The Fulfiller looked as if he had been slapped. “Yes… right… go back to your rooms. Stay out of trouble.” He was speaking in a confused whisper, his mind obviously working at a far greater speed than it had ever been intended to.

Both of the boys slipped out of the office without a sound, not wanting to bring the old man back to his senses.

Jeremy laughed as they closed the door behind them. “Damn man, laid it on a little thick, didn’t you?”

Occulte smirked. “Just a little.”

Jeremy checked his watch. “I’m off to combat training. See you at dinner.”

He hurried off down a nearby corridor, Occulte heading down the one opposite of it. He didn’t have anything nearly as interesting as combat training during this hour; it was time for his mathematics class. He had always hated math, even though he understood it without a problem. It just didn’t interest him; if he wanted math done, he would use a computer program to do it much more effectively than he could.

He yawned as he took his seat in the classroom. He figured he would be asleep within five minutes as normal. The instructor used to send him to Intensive Survival for an hour whenever he did this, but that had stopped a long time ago. They had figured out that Occulte did not mind spending a period fighting the best instructors without any rest- because unlike other Possibles, he took the hour as a challenge, beating every instructor that they pitted him against. It used to be great fun, but now his instructor just let him sleep… pity.

At the end of the hour, he immediately noticed the change of normal procedures. Most of the time, he was the last one out of the class, as he was never in a rush to get anywhere. Now, as he left the room, he noticed one of his four classmates, Todd, hanging back behind him. Considering that this particular Possible had always been a friend of Richard’s (one of the boys Occulte and Jeremy had killed), he felt there was a good chance he was about to be jumped.

He was right. Before he had even strolled a few meters down the hall, he could hear Todd suddenly start to run at him. He turned around just in time to catch the arm that wielded a dagger, preventing it from implanting itself in Occulte. Moving quickly, he pinned him against the wall, holding his arm behind his back in a dangerous, painful position.

“We don’t need to do this.” Occulte said simply. “You don’t have to wind up like your friend.”

Todd obviously disagreed, as he launched himself off the wall with a powerful kick from his legs, attempting to flip backwards over Occulte. It was the wrong move; Occulte relinquished his grip, but the moment Todd touched the ground, he found a leg flying into his gut. Todd flew backwards, impacting the corridor wall painfully, blood running down from the back of his head.

Occulte walked away, not bothering to report the offense; you were expected to handle yourself without interference from adults in the Imperial Hierarchy complex. So, Occulte just went to his politics class as he normally would, the rest of the day passing uneventfully.

***********

A hand came from nowhere, gripping onto Occulte’s shoulder. Not one to react well to surprises, Occulte gripped the arm attached to that hand, performing a basic Ushiro Tekubitori Kokyunage Aikido throw. Diamond looked none too pleased with this action as she smacked ass-first with the gravel in front of the main gate. Occulte grimaced.

“Sorry!” He said quickly, “I’ve been a little jumpy lately…”

She brushed herself off and laughed. “I don’t think ‘jumpy’ describes it… paranoid maybe? Come on, let’s head into town, before you decide to actually break everyone else’s ass.”

Occulte nodded and pushed the electric car next to him towards the gate. The guards stopped him, leveling two shock sticks at his chest.

“Occulte Ferratus, Possible #27?” the guard asked shortly.

He nodded while rolling his eyes; everyone knew everyone by sight around here. “What’s wrong?”

“You have been grounded to the complex,” the guard responded, “due to several injuries and deaths you have caused recently. I am afraid you are going to have to return to your room for the free day.”

He smirked towards the guard. “What do you think your odds are of stopping me?”

The guard, predictably, came in at Occulte’s chest with the shock stick. He found his wrist bent at a horrible angle, his head impacted by an open palm, and suddenly he was on the ground faster than he could have blinked. The other guard rushed in, attempting to hit Occulte over the head with his shock stick. He was flipped over his opponent’s head, however, as Occulte grabbed the middle of the stick and flung the man to the ground.

Diamond looked at him questioningly. “Was that a Shaolin counter technique you used on the first guard?”

He nodded in the affirmative.

“I didn’t think that they taught that to the Possibles. I thought most of your martial arts lessons centered on weapons use?”

He smirked. “Yeah, the martial arts classes in the complex are pretty limited- but the ones in the town are not. I’ve been practicing every Sunday, six hours, for about the last four years.”

Occulte flipped the first guard’s captured shock stick into the air and caught it with one hand, while getting in the small electric car. Diamond quickly scooted into the passenger seat. Occulte floored it, getting them to the town in a little more than four minutes.

Diamond looked around as they slowed.

“So, where do you want to head to?” he asked.

She frowned. “I’d like to go to a Metallica concert over in St. Louis that I heard about, but with all those sensors around the town to prevent us from leaving…”

Occulte raised an eyebrow. “You have a microchip in you too?”

Diamond nodded. “Yeah, you didn’t think my grandfather would let me go where I wanted to, did you?”

He grinned. “Well, I can get past those chip detectors. I’ve done it before. You see, they require a five-second burst of RF contact at the right frequency to determine if it really is a Possible attempting to leave, or just someone carrying a radio. Those little sensors only have an effective range of two hundred meters each, but they’re deployed in a tight net. Now, if we are in a pretty fast vehicle, we can cross those two hundred meters in less than five seconds. That requires us to go a little over one hundred forty-four kilometers per hour to cross the boundary without being detected.”

Occulte stepped out of the electric car, walking towards the Storm Drain. He hoped that the bartender, who he only knew as Mike, was out of the hospital. As he opened the door, he saw that Mike evidently had been given a clean bill of health, as he was pointing a shotgun at Occulte.

Mike breathed a sight of relief when he saw who it was. He immediately put the shotgun back underneath the bar.

“Sorry man,” he said, “but after that little attack, I’ve become slightly paranoid. Thanks, by the way. I hear it was you that saved my sorry ass.”

Occulte smirked at the unlikely bartender. “No problem, Mike.”

Mike was not the type that you would think of as a bartender. He was barely over five and a half feet tall, and he maybe weighed a hundred and forty pounds at best. He also wore thin-framed glasses and dressed like you might expect a librarian to. Definitely not bartender material.

“Could you open it up?” Occulte asked him, while setting down his appropriated shock stick on the bar.

Mike suddenly looked very nervous as he glanced towards Diamond.

“What about her?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, she’s a friend.”

Mike nodded, and pushed a few buttons on the underside of the bar. A part of the bar swung aside, as well as a door behind it that had previously been a part of the wall. Occulte quickly made his way down the stairs concealed behind the door, Diamond following. The door shut behind them, sealing them in the pitch black stairwell.

“Illumination to fifty percent.” Occulte commanded to thin air.

Lights immediately snapped on in the stairwell, revealing a thick steel door that barred their exit. After he tapped in a code into the panel beside the door, it opened slowly with the sound of heavily straining hydraulics.

“Welcome to my laboratory.” Occulte whispered sinisterly.

They both stepped inside of the facility, which was a single room with a massive, thick garage door at the end. There were various devices on the walls, things ranging from Frankenstein-look-alike computers to specialized electric tools. In the middle of the large room was something the size and shape of a motorcycle, with a white cloth draped over it.

“What is this place?” Diamond asked.

Occulte leaned against one of the benches on the wall. “It has been my real home for quite a while now. This is the place where I have snuck off to when life in the I.H. complex was just getting a little too stuffy for me. I never believed all this prophecy nonsense; I have always assumed that your grandfather is somewhat crazy, or is just planning on using us as an army to accomplish his own ends. So, I’ve long prepared for a rapid escape from this place, if ever necessary. That is what I modified this baby for. I only picked her up a month or two ago, so I haven’t had time to do all that much with her.”

As he finished speaking, he yanked the covering off the motorcycle. It was a beautiful, all-black 2005 VRSCB V-Rod.

“Damn. Nice Harley.” Diamond commented. “But where in the hell did you get the cash for something like that?”

“To tell you would be to make you a co-conspirator in several federal offenses.”

He straddled the bike, strapping on his helmet. He pointed to the wall where another helmet was hanging, and signaled for Diamond to get on the bike. She quickly slid on behind him, her helmet in place. With a quick input of a security code into the small console built into the area under the speedometer, and a kick start, they were gone, speeding out of the door that had opened when the bike’s engine had started.

The door closed behind them, the town becoming nothing but a blur as Occulte accelerated the modified Harley up past a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. A trail of dirt was kicked up behind them, the road being one of those country ones that somehow never managed to get paved. Within a minute, they had flown past the sensor network, no alarms sounding and no helicopters being deployed.

Occulte groaned as flashing red and blue lights danced across his vision. Less than ten minutes into their journey, and they already had a police motorcycle on their tail. He pressed a button on the side of his helmet, a microphone dropping to the level of his mouth.

“Hold on,” he said to Diamond through the short range transmitter, “we’re going to loose this guy.”

He applied the throttle a little more firmly, the bike zipping forward at more than two hundred kilometers per hour. Normally, this would be pushing the operating tolerances of the 115 HP engine. However, as Occulte had replaced the engine with a 140 HP model of his own design, it was handling the additional demand for speed quite easily.

The police officer was barely managing to keep up with them, when Occulte decided to reveal the ace he had hidden up his sleeve. With the press of a button, a compartment full of nails opened on the back of the bike, spilling its dangerous contents onto the road. The second the officer drove over them, his tires blew, causing him to slow down and loose sight of the speeding duo.

“What possessed you to make that modification to the bike?” Diamond asked.

He grinned. “Too many hours watching cartoons in my little secret base.”

Diamond frowned as she looked around. “Where are we heading?”

“I thought you said you wanted to go to the Metallica concert in St. Louis?”

Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “But that’s a four hour ride from here, at least! I didn’t think you took me seriously...”

He brought the bike down to acceptable speed limits, to prevent the attraction of any further law enforcement notice. Having one cop chase him today was plenty.

“You don’t want to turn back now, do you?” he asked.

“Hell no!” she responded.

Four Hours Later

Occulte slowed as they neared the Edward Jones dome, where the concert was located. He actually pulled the bike up into the area near the entrance, parking it by the crowd that was gathering there. As he and Diamond stepped off the bike, he input a security code into its console, locking it down. He warned Diamond not to attempt to touch the bike, lest she liked her hair standing on end.

Unfortunately, a security guard working for the dome did not overhear Occulte’s warning about not touching the Harley. He strode over to it, grabbing it to move it from its illegally parked position. He was thrown back several feet when several thousand volts of electricity lanced into his body.

The two of them talked for about two hours before the gates were finally opened at a little past seven o’clock. The crowd rushed into the dome, slowed by the security personnel forcing everyone to walk through metal detectors. It seemed weird that they kept checking under people’s hats until Occulte saw them remove a small digital video camera from beneath the cap of a large man.

As Occulte walked through one of the metal detectors, it buzzed loudly, a security woman walking over to him.

“Sir, would you please remove any metallic devices or items from your body and walk through again?”

He handed her a wad of hundred dollar bills secured with a small metal money clip.

“I believe that was the metal you detected, if you catch my drift.” Occulte smirked at the woman as her eyes flashed in surprise.

“Of course sir. Please continue on to the ticket checker. Thank you. Have a nice day.” If she looked happy, no one could blame her; he had just handed her more money than she made in a month.

Diamond walked through after him, no alarms going off. They both walked up to the man nearest them that was checking tickets. Occulte handed the man two tickets and walked through the gate into the outer concourses of the dome.

“How did you already have tickets?” Diamond asked in a confused voice.

“I planned on asking you if you wanted to go, whether or not you had suggested it.”

He bought both of them a tour T-shirt at the nearest vendor, slipping his on over his black shirt, and then replacing his trenchcoat.

“The tickets were for the ground floor,” he commented to Diamond, “but if you prefer seats, I’m sure we could sneak up without much of a problem.”

“No,” she answered, “ground floor is just fine. Where would the fun be if we didn’t get to knock around a few people?”

A few minutes later, both Diamond and Occulte were in the middle of a sprawling crowd of a few tens of thousands of people. Godsmack was opening, and ended up playing for nearly a good two hours. Occulte rapidly figured out that the security guards had been none too thorough; the smell of various drugs in the air was pretty hard not to notice. He ended up getting him and Diamond to the front of the crowd by acting like Diamond was about to faint in the middle of “Awake.” The crowd parted (somewhat) to let them through to get to the medical crews that were pulling people over the security fence at the front of the mob of unruly fans. When they got there, he stopped carrying her and told her to act normal. One massive guy grabbed Occulte and told him to move back, mentioning something about asinine tricks. No one else tried to stop him as the guy’s hand was broken within three seconds of it touching Occulte’s shoulder.

The lights were dark and the stage quiet for nearly a full twenty minutes between the two performances. When Metallica finally appeared on stage, a massive cheer erupted from the hundred thousand fans. They started off with a hyper-fast version of “Blackened” without a word from Hetfield. It didn’t take long for Diamond and Occulte to be swept away in the adrenaline rush of the concert, joining in the headbanging and general feel of chaos. Neither of them had realized exactly how thrilling a metal concert was; there is a major difference between listening to music on a radio, and feeling the music being etched into your heart by massively amplified drum beats.

Hetfield stepped closer to the microphone at the end of the song, looking energized.

“Give me an M!” He shouted.

The crowd rapidly obliged, and then again when he asked for an E and a T.

“Give me… fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire!” He shouted to the now screaming crowd.

A bank of flamethrowers spread across the stage all ignited at once, accompanying the rapid pace of the song. The crowd exploded at the commencement of the song, shoving in closer to the security fencing. Occulte could feel the wave of heat from the flamethrowers washing over him, and he welcomed it. He had finally found something that could make him more excited than combat.

Metallica went through eighteen more songs, some divided by the three encores near the end of the performance, in a little over two and a half hours. The show never dropped its fast pace once, every now and then adding in a little antic by one of the band members, such as Lars playing Hammet’s guitar with a drumstick, or Hammet getting back at him by playing a quick drum solo. There was also a huge display of explosives and various fireworks before the song “One,” which was quite spectacular. Occulte was in awe of the ability of Metallica to draw in a crowd, and keep them on the edge of their seats. He was also quite angry with himself for never finding time to go to a rock concert before.

By the time the night was over, enough pyrotechnics had been set off to make the stage seem like it was in the middle of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and Occulte wasn’t sure if his heart would ever return to a healthy pace. Both he and Diamond were hot and sweaty, and were both smiling and laughing the entire fifteen minute shove-fest back to his bike. It took him twenty minutes to safely find a hotel with vacancies in the area. Neither he nor Diamond was in any condition for a four hour ride back to the base.

With a few bribes to the right hotel managed, he wound up with a suite at the Omni Majestic Hotel. As they walked in the room, both he and Diamond had to restrain themselves from gasping. It was absolutely beautiful, ornate with all the trappings. There was only one problem: it only had a single, king-sized bed.

“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Occulte said quickly.

“Nonsense,” Diamond scoffed, “why pay two hundred bucks a night for a room if you’re going to sleep on the floor? Is there some reason why we can’t both sleep on the bed?”

“Well, no…” Occulte admitted, “but I didn’t know if you’d like the idea…”

Diamond threw off her two T-shirts and her pants quickly, sliding underneath the covers of the bed with nothing but a black bra and black lace panties on. This caught Occulte slightly by surprise, but he quickly recovered, removing everything except his own boxers and crawling in beside her.

He was nearly half-asleep when she drew in closer to him, pressing her moist lips against his. Her tongue forced its way inside of his mouth as she performed a half-roll to place herself on top of him. He was so surprised that he nearly drew back for a second, but quickly re-decided and returned the passionate kiss. She pulled back just a little, ceasing her oral assault and placing a trail of hot kisses from his neck down to his chest, and down to his abs. When she finally reached his boxers, she slowly pulled them down, marveling at the size of his partially erect member. He was almost going to protest that they were moving a little fast for his taste until she wrapped her lips around his manhood. She drew it deep into her throat while her tongue played across its head, sending him into a world of pleasure that he had never even dreamt of before.

If his soldier hadn’t been at attention before, it certainly snapped to a fall salute just then. All worlds failed him, and his mind erased his ideas of protest. This was a time for instinct to take over; thought and reason had no place in his mind now. He only reveled in his newfound pleasure as she slowly moved up and down, leaving a trail of moisture on his skin. She pulled herself from the rod as if it was like being separated from her new best friend. She lightly blew across its tip, sending waves of bliss through Occulte’s body as the air moved across the liquid she had left behind. She smiled at the look of incredible contentment written onto his face.

He wasn’t about to continue letting her pleasure him without her just repayment, however. He rolled her onto her back, gently scooting her up to his face level. Placing himself lightly on top of her, and distributing his weight carefully, he drew her into a ferocious kiss that lasted only a few seconds. His hunger had gone beyond anything that a mere kiss could satisfy. He lightly bit her neck, playfully, teasing her. His hands ever so gently removed her bra while he nipping at her neck, so gently that she did not even notice. She nearly laughed at the tickling sensation it produced until he bent down and drew one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking at it while pinching and rolling the other one in-between his thumb and forefinger. This changed her laughter into a gasp of pleasure. He slowly released the nipple, a thin rope of spittle connecting it still to his mouth. His hands still played with her breasts as his mouth ever so slowly moved downwards from her sternum to her beautiful, flat stomach. He only let his lips lightly brush her soft skin, just a small tease to her senses. He removed his hands from her supple mounds to the sides of her abdomen, sliding them along her sensuously, until he reached her spread legs.

He smirked at her as he leaned forward, drawing some of the lace from her black panties into his mouth. With one violent motion, and a wink from his mischievous eye, the panties were torn from her body, revealing her beautiful, hairless pussy. Just to tease her a little more, he kissed the insides of her thighs, only a few inches from her mound. He drew closer to it only in mere centimeters, drawing out the time of her torture to never ending minutes. Her breath was already coming short as she begged him to stop teasing her. Not one to disappoint, he abruptly halted- by drawing her small clit into his mouth, and letting his tongue play with it as he gently inserted his middle finger into her.

This elicited a soft scream from her as she had a small orgasm, her face contorting with the countenances of extreme bliss. She gripped his short black hair, pulling his face harshly against her flesh.

He was nearly overwhelmed by the incredibly musky smell of her juices as he began attacking her with a vengeance, his tongue swirling around her clit, the rough surface exciting its every nerve. He inserted a second finger into her, his hand now moving rapidly as his other hand moved beneath her, slowly inserting his index finger into her anus. She was surprised by the unexpected intruder into her body, and writhed with another climax. Evidently, she was highly multi-orgasmic.

Occulte removed himself from her addictive womanhood, and moved back up her body to draw her tongue into his mouth yet again. She seemed to be turned on even further by tasting her own juices inside of his mouth, and gave the invitation to Occulte through her eyes. He nodded, and smiled a warm, loving smile.

His long cock slowly entered her incredibly tight hole, both of them moaning loudly in pleasure. He stopped abruptly as he came up against her hymen.

“Please, fuck me,” she whispered in a weak and needing voice. “Don’t stop, please.”

He pressed through the barrier as strongly as he could, halting with his member fully embedded inside of her.

“Are you okay?” He whispered into her ear.

“Yes,” She said in a breathy voice, “just please go slow…”

He slowly withdrew from her, only to push himself back against her cervix. He began at a slow pace, as it would have hurt him as well to try and go any faster with her opening this tight. He could feel her rippling inside, small muscles pushing against his stone hard dick. At her insistence, he picked up the pace, moving back and forth, into and out of her. Soon, their hips were smacking together, and a layer of sweat covered both of them as they moved faster and faster, her cries growing so loud as to hurt his ears.

“Oh yes!” she screamed, “Fuck me hard! Faster! OH GOD, fuck me!”

They drowned out each other’s cries by jamming their mouths together, their tongues engaging in a fierce duel. Still Occulte slammed into her, ever harder and faster, until they could both feel their orgasm’s approaching. She wrapped her legs around his waist, slowly them slightly, but letting him penetrate her deeper and harder.

She was grunting with every thrust now. “Yes… oh, YES… harder!”

With one final powerful thrust that pressed the head of his cock against her cervix, he spilled his seed inside of her, just as he could feel her clamp down so tight on him that he thought she would never let go. She screamed in the throes of her own climax, and they both stopped to catch their now ragged breath. Occulte rolled to press himself against her on the bed, neither of them moving apart from the other as they fell asleep with his manhood deep inside of her.