Several large bouncers were stationed outside of the building and they were checking proofs of identification for all the event’s attendees. Argi had anticipated this and came prepared with his own forged identification that matched the illusion he was posing as. He showed his identification to the bouncers and was allowed entry to the building. He continued to follow the rest of the crowd and ended up in an open hall that big enough to host a couple of basketball games all at the same time.
Soon after, the demonstration started with a few performances from Larsa’s current students going over their forms in their flawless and pristine training uniforms. This went on for some time, with each performance by a group of students ranking higher in belts than the previous group. Eventually the star of the event was next to take the stage, and Larsa Weber glided gracefully to the centre of the hall. Larsa went on to perform some elaborate sets of forms, which brought about a wave of applause from the audience after each set, before he finally proceeded to display his renowned Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds.
He called out to the audience for volunteers, where there enough people eager to get onto the stage and experience Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds in person. Larsa picked several people of all colour, shapes and sizes, before addressing the audience as a whole.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Today, you are very lucky to be here and I am very pleased that you have all come…”, Larsa spoke out passionately to the people in a similar manner to that of a television presenter.
Just fucking get on with it, Argi irritatingly thought.
Once he had finished his introduction speech, Larsa instructed the volunteers to rush towards him one by one. The first volunteer was hesitant at first, but with reassurance from Larsa, they started to run at the Grandmaster. The volunteer had closed half the distance between them before they stopped dead in their tracks, in a frozen posture of a runner in mid-run. Larsa had his hands up and stretched out to the volunteer, and with a short sequence of movements, he made the volunteer lower themselves to the ground without touching them. The next volunteer ran towards Larsa and they were also subdued by Larsa’s Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds before they could reach him, and they were on the floor next to the previous volunteer. Larsa went through one volunteer at a time without making any physical contact with them, with the last one barely having started to move when they were overpowered by the Grandmaster.
The next demonstrated involved using the Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds to defend against weapons, such as knives, broken bottles and a metal pole. These were proven to be real implements before the audience and Larsa quickly went to display disarming techniques using his Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds. After that, the Grandmaster went on to defend himself against multiple opponents and at one point, he had halted a group of volunteers surrounding him but there was no physical contact between himself and anyone around him. With a wide gesture, he sent them all flying back onto their backsides, which caused a thundering rumble of applauses and cheers from the audience. Larsa bowed elaborately to the audience, and then invited his students to bow to them as well, before the floor was open for people to mingle and chat with him and any of his students.
Argi descended to the open floor where Larsa would be, since the Grandmaster was main reason for Argi’s attendance. He had been unimpressed by the extravagant performance, especially since Argi highly suspected that this “Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds” may simply be a power that he didn’t quite understand. But he did know that it was being misused to scam hundreds and thousands of people. Argi mused on how long some people lasted before they realised the con that their “Grandmaster” playing on them, if they ever came to that conclusion at all.
However, Argi was not there to expose his fraud, but rather, it was likely that Larsa would draw the attention of the Secret Operations. Once upon a time, Larsa would have been a case that Argi and his friends would have been sent by the government to investigate and take down. The tables had ironically been turned around, as Argi was now planning to tailgate the Secret Operations agents through Larsa, whom they were inevitably coming for, in hopes that it would lead him closer to finding Francesca. Argi had planned to use this tailgating tactic before, but the Secret Operations had always managed to stay one step ahead of him, a step that didn’t allow Argi to pursue them.
There were other ways of infiltrating the Secret Operations Department, but since becoming a fugitive, the base of Secret Operations had been reallocated without any traces for Argi to follow up on. He could simply give himself up, but Argi was well aware that the Secret Operations had various ways of dealing with and detaining people with powers that left them little liberties to act. It would be impossible for Argi to sneak around the Secret Operations Department and search for Francesca from a bed, drugged up on sedatives and kept under close surveillance.
“Or from a coffin…if I’m lucky enough to get that…”, Argi muttered under his breath. He had weaved himself through the crowds on the open floor and he could see a large group of people around Larsa. He joined the back of this group, and was only barely able to see the “Grandmaster” through them, but at least he could keep an eye out when disaster struck.
The stakeout was tedious and uneventful, as Argi was finding out by following Larsa around the open floor and watching him discuss and demonstrate more of his power. But his intuitions were bothering him as his critical voice started to question the lack of activity by the Secret Operations. Argi’s wandering mind made him lose track of Larsa, and he panicked that the Secret Operations had already been and gone right from under his nose.
Where did he go? Argi started to look around for his missing mark, but without any luck.
“Why hello there, miss!”, a voice suddenly bellowed joyfully from behind him. Argi turned and found the voice belonged to Larsa, who was apparently eyeing up his illusionary disguise. His illusionary disguise of a young woman, who looked like she could be a university student, almost faltered as he was taken by surprise the sudden appearance of Larsa. Argi had wanted to lay low and avoid unwanted attention until the Secret Operations arrived, but it seemed his illusionary disguise was too good for Larsa to resist.
“I see you have an interested in my Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds”, Larsa enthusiastically beamed at Argi. “Perhaps my schools can help yo-”
“No”, Argi said firmly, which stopped Larsa mid-sentence. “I’m not interested”
“Wh-what?” Larsa was genuinely shocked and surprised at Argi’s response, which Argi deducted that it might have been a while since someone had rejected his “Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds”. “H-how can you not be interested? Did you see my demonstrations? What I did to those volunteers?”
“It seemed like they were acting to me”, Argi replied bluntly and without much interest in the conversation.
“But what if you were attacked on the streets? How would you defend yourself?”
“By not making an asshole of myself”, Argi rebuked.
“Asshole?! The Har-”
“I bet you can’t even fight your way out of a plastic bag”
“Do you even know who I am? I’m Larsa Weber! The First Grandmaster of the Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds!”, Larsa started lecture in defence of his wounded pride. “I have bested some of the greatest martial arts and famous UFC fighters! I have opened schools in America, Canada, Britain, Europe, Africa, China, Japan and Australia! I have over a million students from all around the world! Who are you to look down upon me?!”
“I don’t have time for this…”, Argi mumbled and wiping the spittle from his face after Larsa had finished spraying his lecture at him. As well as his impatience for the Secret Operations to arrive, he was also growing tiresome of having Larsa’s egotistical efforts to sell his fake martial arts to him. As he dropped his illusionary disguise and revealed his true appearance, Argi grabbed the “Grandmaster” by the collar of his martial arts uniform and brought Larsa closer to him. “Your harmonic bullshit is a massive scam, anyway”
“W-who are y-you?! Where d-did you come f-from?” By now a small crowd had already formed around Larsa and the supposed young woman. But the aggressive display by a tall man, in place of where the young woman had stood only moments before, was drawing the attention of many more people nearby. Larsa’s closest students had also noticed this and they were trying to use their “Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds” to save their “Grandmaster”, though to no avail.
“Someone who can take care of himself”, Argi whispered and threw Larsa down to the floor. The students had stopped using their “Harmonic Fists of the Empty Winds” to subdue Argi and resorted to physically barring him in an attempt leaving the small group of people around them.
“Stop! You have disrespected the Grandmaster! We have already called the Police.”
“The Police, huh? What about your bouncers?”, Argi looked down and asked Larsa with a mocking smirk.
Larsa looked confused for a moment before he hesitantly replied with a question of his own. “What bouncers…?”
Argi’s stomach dropped when the realisation hit him at the same time the alleged bouncers burst through all the doors of the hall and headed towards them. With his cover exposed, Argi was readying another illusion within his mind so that he could disappear into the crowd and hopefully resume his original plan of tailgating the Secret Operations agents. He was about to cast the illusion, when something powerful clamped onto one of his hands, which Argi found to be Larsa. Panic started to surge through Argi as his replication ability was beginning to activate due his physical contact with Larsa. As new memories flooded Argi's mind, he saw the look of worry and desperation on Larsa's face and the words that came with it.
"Don't let them take me...please"
