Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2)

by Christian Kallias

  Argos and Sarah jumped back in shock. But Chase wasn’t nearly finished. He landed just a few feet from Argos, who was still holding Daniel, his eyes glowing purple with rage.

  “This is between you and me. Put him down, gently,” he ordered.

  Argos laughed cruelly but looked genuinely surprised. “You’ve made some impressive progress, brother. Did you just fly over here?”

  “Put... him... down,” Chase repeated.

  “What if I don—”

  But before Argos could finish his sentence, Chase flew over and snatched Daniel’s body away. He lowered it gently to the floor a few yards away, checked for a pulse, and then got up to face his brother.

  “I told you… this is between us.”

  “Impressive speed. But you can’t hope to defeat me.”

  Chase ignored him and looked at Sarah. She seemed unnervingly calm and silent under the circumstances. A faint unease tugged at his stomach, but he nodded in her direction.

  “You good, love?”

  She nodded yes and Chase stared back at Argos with confident eyes.

  Argos threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Love,” he repeated, “would you be so kind and take this.” He threw the crystal disk and she caught it robotically. “Take it away from here. I suggest you avoid the ships outside by using your StarFury’s cloaking ability.”

  Chase turned to her in slow motion and her eyes flashed red.

  It hit him like a battering ram to the heart. A million little questions were finally answered. A million little pieces suddenly clicked into place.

  The sleepwalking, confusion, dizziness, eerie calm. She’d been under his influence all along. She was the spy. Unwillingly, of course. But the spy nonetheless.

  Before he could stop her, she turned her back to both of them and started running down the corridor without even a look behind.

  Chase was shaken, anchored to the spot. He felt a strange tearing in his chest, like she was taking his heart with her, but his feet were unable to move. As the sound of her footsteps faded away, he turned slowly back to Argos. A fury building inside his blood like no other.

  “Come on now, Laiyos,” Argos taunted, “show me these new moves of yours. And this time, give me all you’ve got!”

  Chase gritted his teeth. “Who’s Laiyos?”

  “You are. That’s your birth name, by the way, ’cause I am sick and tired of calling you Chase!”

  In his current frame of mind Chase couldn’t care less what his birth name was. All he cared about was killing Argos, right here, right now. And as much as he’d like to savor the moment, he had to do that fast to make sure they didn’t lose Sarah and the precious disk. Not a single soul in the Alliance could risk that information falling into the wrong hands.

  He instinctively sent a telepathic message to Yanis, hoping he would get it.

  “Yanis, please tell me you can find any StarFury even if it’s cloaked! You need to make sure you track the one that will exit the station in a few moments.”

  There was a brief silence before the words “On it!” echoed back in his mind.

  Argos was impatient. “Well, since you’re not gonna make the first move—”

  He lifted his hand, but Chase answered with two ice-blue fireballs that he sent sailing his brother’s way. Argos raised his palms to deflect them just in time. They crashed into the walls instead, sending sparks and broken equipment scattering across the floor.

  His eyes lit up and he smiled at Chase. “My turn!”

  A red fireball shot through the air towards Chase, who managed to catch it before it ripped a hole in his stomach. The force of it sent him skidding back several feet across the floor, but with a good deal of strength, he was able to slowly dissipate it with his hands. Little red lightning bolts shot up and down his body as he raised his head, his eyes glowing purple.

  “Impressive. You learn fast.”

  Then Argos threw himself at Chase with lightning speed, launching a circular kick towards Chase’s head. Chase parried with his elbow and sent Argos flying back where he came from by kicking him straight in the thorax with incredible force. But while that may have been enough to kill a normal person, Argos was back on his feet in an instant. He leapt upon Chase again with a left blow that ended up being a feint for a right uppercut and caught him by surprise, sending him hurtling up towards the ceiling with tremendous force.

  He dented the metal upon impact with an excruciating thud, and on the way back down, he was greeted with a fireball in front of his face. He rotated in midair and grabbed Argos’ arm just in time to affect the attack’s trajectory, as the fireball flew towards a wall nearby, grazing Chase’s cheek and making a small incision on his skin in the process. The fireball exploded on the wall, damaging equipment and creating a flurry of sparks and electrical short circuits around impact. Using his current momentum, Chase then spun around and slammed Argos against the floor, which promptly cracked under the shock. Chase then kicked his brother in the face with so much force he sent him flying and promptly crashing against the nearest window. The glass slightly cracked under the impact, and Argos spat blood from his mouth.

  Argos barely managed to keep his balance, almost stumbling down, but he somehow managed to stay up. When he rose all the way back up he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Well, now I’m pissed,” he hissed between bloody teeth.

  He blinked out of existence and re-appeared behind Chase, hitting him full force with an elbow below Chase’s shoulder blade. Chase felt two of his ribs crack and the sharp pain that followed made him miss the upcoming kick to his face. He flew, spinning in the air, as Argos leapt in pursuit—both hands joined over his head as he smashed Chase into the ground in a fluid and incredibly powerful motion.

  Chase gasped with pain as he hit the cold floor. Another rib snapped upon impact, but before he could recover his senses, Argos grabbed him by the hair and hit him so hard in the face, for a moment he lost consciousness. Argos threw Chase away against the nearest wall.

  “You’re going to want to wake up, brother…”

  The words echoed in Chase’s head and made him come to, a second before he would have crashed into the incoming wall. Instead, he was able to flip around and push off with his feet, flying back at Argos with unthinkable speed and clocking him with a powerful blow to the face, followed by a left hook. Using his momentum while Argos lost balance from the successive blows, he threw Argos flying upward with a flying uppercut. The sheer velocity and power of the attack sent Chase on the same path as his prey.

  Being in position to strike again, Chase grabbed Argos’ head with both hands in mid-air, and landed four successive knee kicks to his face, one more powerful than the other, spilling his brother’s blood all over the place.

  Chase then promptly grabbed his brother by the throat and he stood there, levitating while Argos limbs dangled and blood dripped downwards to the floor of Damocles-3 command center.

  He tightened his embrace and little by little crushed Argos’ windpipes as he prepared to throw a power punch, but not before making sure an ice-blue fireball engulfed his entire fist. He punched him again and again on the face, each hit bruising Argos’ face more and more, facial bones cracking under the power of each new blow. Chase then releases his grasp on Argos and let the artificial gravity get a hold back on his brother once more. Argos crashed to the ground with a satisfying thud.

  Not willing to let go of his current advantage, Chase, who still hadn’t moved, levitating high in the air, unleashed a flurry of powerful fireballs towards Argos at an incredible rate. The successive impacts and resulting explosions propelled Argos in the air once more and his body crashed, face first, against the floor a few yards away. Smoke rose from his motionless body.

  Chase never knew he could unleash so much violence. Never knew he could hit someone so many times and still pull back for more. In the end, Argos’ face was unrecognizable. Almost every bone was dented in and every square
inch of skin had been savaged and torn.

  Chase lowered to the ground and took a step back, panting. His power levels were down by more than half, but he used a little more still, putting his hand on his side to heal his broken ribs.

  Argos was slowly regaining consciousness, pulling himself weakly across the floor, but despite the fact that one more fireball could probably finish him off, Chase paused.

  Could he really take the life of his own brother? Argos was evil, mad and needed to be stopped—no question. But in Chase’s moments of unbridled rage, were they really so different, he wondered.

  Argos finally pulled himself up to his feet and straightened up to face his brother. Little torrents of blood rained down from almost every inch of him, but despite all that, the corners of his lips pulled up and he started laughing.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny.” Chase shook his head. “Look at you; I’ve beaten you.”

  But Argos suddenly didn’t look like a defeated man. In fact, the way he was staring back at Chase now made a shiver run up and down his brother’s spine. His face glowed manically for a moment, before he parted his bloody lips.

  “Watch and learn… brother.”

  He closed his eyes as a red light appeared on the ground beneath him, quickly engulfing him completely in its crimson glow. When it vanished a moment later, Argos looked exactly the same except for one, major difference.

  He was completely healed.

  Chase’s eyes grew wide and he took a step back.

  “See, I told you your overconfidence would be your downfall. You think you won the fight, but in fact you’ve just lost it. I observed your technique and attacked you just enough to make sure you gave it all you had. And while you’re managing your inner energy quite well now, I bet you’ve spent more than half your reserve.”

  Chase swore in his head. Son of a…

  “I’ve barely tapped into ten percent of mine. Now I can crush you with ease.”

  “I have more than enough energy left,” Chase said defiantly.

  Argos grinned. “You should know by now that my telepathic and empathic abilities allow me to know when you’re lying.”

  Chase remembered Ares’ warning about how formidable an enemy his brother was, and that he wasn’t ready yet to win in a direct confrontation. He also remembered the warning about being careful to use his pool of energy wisely. Chase thought he did all that and in the rush of fighting, felt like it gave him wings for a while. But seeing his brother reset to max power with such ease brought doubt and fear, deep within Chase’s psyche, as to the outcome of this fight.

  Still, Argos had tortured Sarah, and now that he knew he had manipulated her all this time, he was going to make sure Argos could no longer hurt her. Not ever. Rage engulfed Chase’s very soul, sending him to the threshold of losing control, and the station started trembling heavily. Blue lightning bolts crackled all around him, casting ethereal lights on the station’s floor. His eyes glowed brightly, purple light radiating all over Chase’s face. Logic went out the window as Chase launched himself towards Argos, fully determined to rip his brother from the galaxy…

  C H A P T E R

  XXX

  Chase launched himself towards Argos with all his might, thinking not about revenge, but about pure destruction, plain and simple. He was now at the very edge of sanity, still under control, but only just.

  Chase threw three successive blows at Argos’ face, but the brother who met him was a different man than the one before. He dodged Chase’s attacks with disconcerting ease, repelling Chase back with a single, fierce blow to the sternum, delivered with the edge of his right hand.

  It took the wind out of Chase for a moment. Argos smiled as he launched a series of straight kicks followed by arching ones. Chase parried and dodged them all until Argos’ knee, coming out of nowhere, hit Chase squarely in the jaw, sending him flying through the air at tremendous speed. As he collided with the ceiling, the paneling bent under the impact and sparks flew. Chase was falling down towards the ground when he felt incoming attacks from behind. He spun in the air and saw flashing red fireballs. Five of them. He managed to deflect the first three but the last two changed trajectory at the last moment and impacted with his body both front and behind at the same time, sending an intense wave of pain radiating throughout his body. Things only got worse when he finally hit the ground, face first.

  Chase’s previous sense of dread grew stronger. Had he bitten off more than he could chew? He now felt ridiculous thinking he had won that fight moments ago. With his head still ringing and pain throbbing throughout every one of his muscles, he struggled to get back up on his feet.

  He collapsed against the ground, panting and coughing up blood. What had he been thinking? He couldn’t defeat Argos by will power alone, could he?

  A strange vibration hummed through the air and Chase looked up to see Argos making his biggest fireball yet. It wasn’t even a fireball so much as a huge, impenetrable sphere of energy—as big as Chase himself.

  Without hesitation Argos launched his attack. The fireball extended into a powerful stream of red energy coming towards Chase at tremendous speed. Chase reacted instinctively. He drew a circle in the air with both his hands in front of him, creating a translucent blue shield before the whole thing came crashing down on him.

  His arms quavered as he slid back against the floor, buckling under the strain. Red lightning started to crackle around the shield as Argos intensified the beam with a smile.

  Chase didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up—it would either crush or drain him—but he had a sickening feeling that Argos knew exactly how long. That he was just biding his time.

  That’s precisely the moment that everything took a turn for the worse.

  Behind Argos’ back, Daniel began regaining consciousness. He opened his eyes slowly and they focused in terror on his friend. With Chase’s demise clearly imminent, Daniel knew what he had to do. He silently picked up a shard of glass and limped towards Argos—too focused on Chase to notice anything else. Then, with a farewell smile, he thrust it into the Fury’s back, impaling him from behind.

  Argos released a shriek of pain that made the entire station tremble. He turned around and launched a similar, thinner stream of energy towards Daniel. It hit him right in the chest and tore through like he was made of paper. Blood and bone flew backwards into the air, as Chase’s best friend in the world dropped, lifeless, to the floor.

  It was like something in Chase’s head just snapped. The rage he had kept at bay the entire fight overtook him.

  His eyes flashed blinding amethyst as images of Daniel filled his mind. Flying together, drinking and laughing together, their first day together at the academy.

  His hair was thrown up in the air, hovering and waving madly above his head. He clenched his teeth as a thousand tears shot towards the heavens. Chase let out a haunting growl, coming from the deepest and darkest corners of hell.

  “NOOOOOOOO!”

  The shout blew out every light source around them; sparks flew madly and consoles in Chase’s vicinity bent and collapsed on themselves.

  Without stopping to think, he closed his eyes and released the shield, grabbing the stream of energy from Argos’ attack with his bare hands. He plunged his hands deep into the center, letting its destructive power flow through him, replenishing his energy as well as his rage. A powerful, flaming aura enveloped him as flashes of orange lightning danced through the air.

  When Chase opened his eyes, they were the same flaming color, as a powerful shockwave almost knocked Argos off balance.

  With flames of sun-fire power dancing behind him and revenge now his sole reason to be, he launched towards Argos so fast he might as well be teleporting. He unleashed a series of attacks while flying all around Argos in a random, star-like pattern, leaving a bright orange trail behind him as he moved near the speed of light. With each and every pass, he unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks of impossible power and speed, s
ending Argos’ body all over the place. But his brother was moving so fast that with each pass, Argos always ended thrown back where he stood, never able to fully lose his balance, or fall, no matter how much he felt like it. Argos felt trapped within an invisible force field, relentless punches and kicks seemingly coming from all around him at once. Blood and teeth flew, bones cracked and shattered and there was absolutely nothing Argos could do to dodge or parry any of the blows. With each successive hit, Chase saw terror and helplessness grow in the eyes of his brother, as the glowing red in them faded a little more with each new blow. When it finally stopped, Argos fell to his knees and collapsed motionless to the ground.

  Chase knelt down near Argos. When he grabbed him by the blood-soaked and torn clothes, his head tilted backwards on its own. He was still unconscious. Chase raised his other hand, palm open, and filled it with sun-orange energy, readying himself to deliver the final blow, about to decapitate his brother, when he heard something.

  “Chase…”

  He dropped Argos to the floor at once and whirled around in shock. He couldn’t believe his eyes…

  Daniel blinked back at him, struggling to speak but fading fast.

  In a flash, Chase was at his side, enveloping him in the same sort of healing cloud that Argos had used a moment before. But instead of dark red fire, he used flaming orange.

  He saw Daniel smiling back at him, looking as though nothing had ever touched him.

  “That... never gets old.”

  Chase let out a bark of laughter. “I—I thought—”

  “Behind you,” Daniel warned.

  Chase glanced back and saw Argos trying to crawl away. With a look of total hate, he got up and dragged his brother by the hair to the window, giving him a perfect view of the battle raging on below. The Earth Alliance was clearly winning. What Zarlack ships were still operational were already falling into retreat.