by Brian Cody
“And Sterling Blue?” Erik called as he glared at that suit, “you said you’ve been wearing that thing for months. Did that give you enough time to prepare so you could kill him or help kill him?”
“Oh, no”, Arthur chuckled, “his murderer, as David was prepared to tell me, was, indeed, a machine—a super weapon with capabilities great enough to match and surpass the mightiest that your kind can offer. I know my limits, Erik, and, for that moment, I had surmised that Sterling Blue was beyond what I could have accomplished. I, in turn, left him to more able and supplied powers.”
“Okay, fine”, Erik growled, “we’ll come back to that one. I have to know: what about those hundreds on the bridge? The other hundreds of ‘normal’ humans who died as a result of that battle!? How do you cope with their deaths? How do you rectify the murder of one man compared to the slaughter of countless others, who, otherwise, should be faultless by your standards!?”
“Necessary casualties”, Arthur replied as he crossed his arms. “All of them marks against your kind’s existence.”
“I don’t want to fight you!” Erik bellowed. “I’m not going to provide you with whatever high you’re looking to get or whatever proof you’re trying to gather!”
“Then, Erik, fall back to your knees and remain still.” Arthur jerked his right arm. With a chime, a two-foot double-edged blade was ejected from the cloth covering his forearm. While keeping his right pointed downward, Arthur reached back with his left, clasped a bundle of grey material from the top of his back, and pulled it over his head, his face, and then his neck. His face vanished under the opaque cloth, while, within, an azure glow surrounded Arthur’s gaze for a second before a three-hundred and sixty degree, digitized view of the outside world eclipsed his head as if he were mask-less.
Erik closed his eyes but then opened them. What choice do I have? He lifted his hands to his stomach and fisted them. The muscles in his arms were tight, and his body reeled with the taser’s effects. I’m still recovering from Friday. That shouldn’t make too much of a dent…but…those syringes. Was I…? Erik grabbed his right forearm, inhaled, and tightened. He focused on his fist, watching as an ethereal glow appeared around his fingers and increased in radiance and then heat. With a pop, a ball of orange flames took shape, glowing and hissing as it lashed and boiled away the surrounding rain and any water on Erik’s right side. Normal output for how exhausted I am. Erik extinguished the flames, clasped his scabbard with his right, and then grabbed his hilt with his left. He unsheathed, outstretched, and clasped the hilt with both hands while spreading his feet to shoulder-width.
“Good”, Arthur replied as he cracked his neck to the left, “well done”, he replied as he cracked his neck to the right, “you’ve picked the right_”—he darted across that fifty-foot gap, moving with such speed that an onlooking Turrisi could only perceive a ghostly silhouette and then a horizontal gape in the downpour.
Double the speed of the first guy! blared in Erik’s mind as he found Arthur having pulled back his blade from a yard away. No playing around; no restraint! Arthur swung for Erik’s head, but Erik, in an uneven turn, parried; Arthur swiped, and Erik defended, replying to those bladed motions with the whole of his alacritous ability, and moving just swiftly enough to guarantee his safety, but, as he remained untouched, he lost ground, blocking with each rearward pace. He glanced back to the ledge ten feet away. He spun back as Arthur speared. Erik jerked into a ducking motion as the blade passed overhead, and he spun past Arthur’s left side, but Arthur lifted his left and squeezed his fist, with his beam-weapon taking shape atop his wrist and then growling.
With a discordant bellow, a scarlet beam shot from the barrel and into the night sky, but Erik lunged backwards via a flaming sidestep, then released his grip over his sword with his right, and jabbed a trio of fireballs at Arthur. Arthur drilled his fist through the first, his form unmoved as that fireball erupted around his arm. He knelt and flipped over the second, letting it explode behind him, and he spun leftward and lasered the third, erupting that sphere in a stronger flash. He deactivated his laser, but, as he stepped, Erik lunged through the smoke, his left wound back with his blade, and his right fisted. Erik swung, but Arthur parried. Jolted backwards, Erik used the motion to launch a right roundhouse kick, but Arthur blocked with his left arm. Erik landed, pounced, and fired a right uppercut, but Arthur evaded in a rearing motion, lifted his blade, and swung down.
Erik sidestepped to the right, and Arthur spun clockwise and slammed the ball of his right foot onto Erik’s chest, with the blow sending Erik onto the ground. Arthur then leapt while pulling back his left fist, and swung down while firing his laser. Erik rolled away and then pushed off as the beam slammed into the cement with increasing pressure until Arthur’s knuckles contacted with the ground. A radiant geyser of energy and molten cement shot into the air as a yard of the roof was pulverized, but Arthur continued as the debris descended, darting for Erik in a superfast rush.
Erik pitched another fireball with his right, but Arthur bounded five feet over the projectile, lifted his blade, and swung. Erik retorted in a rising thrust, parrying the swing, but Arthur swung his left in an outward curve at the same moment, slamming the back of his fist into the side of Erik’s face and knocking him away. Arthur continued, but, as he drew near, Erik stabilized his backwards jounces in a steady slide, with a line of flames bleeding from his feet and dancing in front of him. Erik then stepped with his left, pulled back his right, and straight-kicked through the fiery wall, with the flames concentrating at the toe of his foot and erupting as a foot-wide churning sphere. The fireball hammered into Arthur’s gut and launched him into the air before bursting. Erik then pitched another fireball as Arthur neared his flinging zenith, but Arthur fired his laser before it could strike, detonating the projectile and launching himself onto the entryway holding the radio antenna.
Arthur wrapped his hands along the antenna’s base. Then, with a sideward heave, Arthur shook the antenna and cracked the underlying cement. He reared back, inhaled, and, with another jerking pull, severed the antenna. He swung it back, with the antenna groaning as it undulated in the wind and dissevering near its center so that the top half spun past the roof and plunged. With thirty feet of intertwining bars still in hand, Arthur swung counterclockwise.
“Turrisi, duck!” Erik exclaimed to Turrisi in front of and across from him. Erik darted for the giant club and lobbed his katana to his right. He wound back as the center of the antenna came within ten feet, and he swung his katana in a blinding, diagonal rise moments before the antenna could strike. In the first instant, the top fourth was severed and launched along the roof in a jouncing rush, hopping a foot over a diving Turrisi. In the next instant, as that remaining fourth continued in Arthur’s follow-through, and as it was parallel with Erik, Erik pushed off in a rocketing leap, spiraling through the antenna’s interior with his blade carving a sundering path along its perimeter. Arthur lunged back as Erik exploded through the antenna’s base with a two-foot bar in his left hand.
Erik thrust the bar, but Arthur sliced the bar down to inches above Erik’s hand. Erik jabbed the remaining piece at Arthur’s gut, but failed to pierce his suit. Finding Arthur unscathed, Erik sidestepped and swung his katana, but Arthur swung his own blade in a rightward backhand, jerking Erik’s katana from his grasp and flinging it past his side. Bladeless, Erik stepped back, pulled in both hands, and tightened his fists until they were aflame. Then, he shot six blazing jabs into Arthur’s gut, sending him backwards and from the platform. Erik leapt after him, landed, and bounded with tails of flames bleeding from his fists. Arthur turned and tensed his right hand twice, retracting his blade, clapped his hands, stepped, and swung.
Erik blocked a left cross, evaded a right uppercut, and deflected a left side-kick before firing two gut-punches that shoved Arthur back. Arthur lifted his hands, slammed them together, and, as Erik charged, hammered Erik’s back to send him to the ground in a cratering smack. Erik pushed off an
d jumped back as Arthur punched down for him, and he fired a left roundhouse kick as Arthur pounced for him, but Arthur ducked under the blow, spiraled, jumped, and pounded a right hook-kick against Erik’s ribcage that launched him through both walls of the stairwell and towards the center of the roof. Arthur lunged as Erik landed, and he darted for Erik, while Erik returned to his feet. Arthur threw a right hook, but Erik swatted it with his left; Arthur flung his left elbow, but Erik ducked past, reared up, and fired a right-left duet along the sides of Arthur’s face. Arthur shot a left jump kick, but Erik spiraled around it, leapt, and fired a butterfly kick, the back of his left drilling into the side of Arthur’s neck and sending him cartwheeling to the ground.
Arthur flipped to his feet as Erik stomped in front of him, and Arthur thrust his left to deflect Erik’s right jab. As Erik’s hand was flung away, Arthur shot his right in a body-twisting haymaker, his fist plowing into the left side of Erik’s face. Erik tightened his cheeks in those milliseconds of contact, fighting to keep his jaw from snapping; however, as those instants passed, a ringing slide sounded in front of him, and, as Erik looked at Arthur’s connecting fist, he caught the glimmer of Arthur’s blade, then extracting in a whistling thrust—a foot, half of a foot, then inches from spearing through flesh and bone. With a muscle-straining, rearward yank, Erik ducked back and aside, with the tip of that blade sliding below his eye. As Erik fell, he balanced on his right, and, as Arthur’s fist followed through, Erik shot his left foot in a rising curve, with the bottom of his sole pounding into Arthur’s jaw; then, before Arthur could be launched back, a brightening aura surrounded Erik’s foot, and, before Arthur could do anything more than tense, a deflagrating surge blasted his mask, pushed Erik away and threw Arthur into a rearward spin, the top of his suit blackened around his neck and head.
Erik slammed, back-first, across the roof, and rolled to his knees before dragging himself to his feet, his body slouched and a stream of blood leaking below his left eye. He started to rear himself as he caught his breath; yet, he tensed midway and his knees started to unbuckle before he kept from collapsing. I was already exhausted…a few more minutes…that’s all I have… He reared up and angled his weary gaze to Arthur, who rested on his knees while squeezing his fists. Despite his suit having been subjected to scorching temperatures, Arthur appeared unscathed, or, at least, less scathed than Erik. Not only is his suit better, he’s likely practiced with it…But…even still…I think I can…
“Sounds good”, Erik murmured. He closed his eyes, exhaled, opened his eyes, and stepped into a jog, then a sprint, and then a superhuman dash.
Arthur shook at Erik’s charge. “Should’ve done it in the first place!” Placing weight on his right, Arthur balanced on his side, folded his left arm, pointed his elbow at Erik, and tensed. With a sharp hiss, a circular gape formed behind the outside of Arthur’s elbow, and, with a blasting pop, a projectile shot through the rainfall and across that closing distance between foes—Arthur who knelt and Erik who charged. Ten feet, five, and then one foot, a lime-filled syringe sped towards Erik’s chest, but then, in a flash, was caught in Erik’s right hand. Arthur lunged to his feet as Erik pressed his finger against the needle’s side and severed it, and Arthur stepped back as Erik fisted the syringe, pulled back, and enflamed it.
He pitched. Arthur blinked as the syringe cleared two-thirds of the distance, and, as he opened his eyes, he found that fiery brand a yard from his face. The vial struck the center of his mask, popped, and then erupted in a shawl of multicolored flames. Within the first moment, he felt the drawing heat, the tightening of the material around his head, and then, seeing the tremors of his digital view, concluded that those chemical flames were gnawing through his suit. Arthur wailed while stumbling back.
Erik doubled his speed, but, at the same moment, the flames over Arthur’s head vanished, and, as Arthur collapsed to his knees, with his still-gaping eyes locked onto Erik, he lifted his left and squeezed. Erik grunted as he sighted the beam-weapon’s glow; he was too close—two yards—and moving too fast. With his hardest squeeze and his fastest pull-back, Erik held his clenched fists by his sides, ignited them, and thrust. A combined blaze exploded from his hands as the beam shot from Arthur’s device. The two surges met halfway, with the beam being disrupted by those pounding flames, and the edges of those flames widening into a partition as the beam dissevered them.
With the cement around them beginning to melt, Arthur and Erik stood firm, while spare beams of scattered energy shot past Erik, and lashing tongues jabbed at Arthur’s outstretched arm, but, as the moments passed, the beam, first by millimeters and then inches, pierced into those flames in a gradual, but steady, advance. Erik watched that beam increase in radiance through his blaze, and he concentrated to strengthen his defense, but his fiery output was unchanged—exhaustion had taken hold.
With a guttural humph, Turrisi flung himself upright, placed weight on his left, and then his right. He froze as he touched down, with the uneven placement of his right ankle’s joints sending a tingle up his back, but, as he watched that persisting struggle, he gritted his teeth, held his breath, lifted his right foot, and stomped. In a resonating knock, those two joints were forced together, the connection bringing a growing burn and the initiation of an increasing numbness.
Exhaling and then wheezing, Turrisi leapt into an uneven jog, that pain being multiplied with each rightward pace and his posture on a consistent lean as he rushed across the roof, knelt, and clasped Erik’s katana. He returned to a jog, his fingers squeezing over the katana’s hilt as he discerned its weight. He then looked to his firearm ten feet in front of him, slowed, lifted Erik’s katana, and pitched it. Then, with a hurried slide, Turrisi collapsed to his knees, scooped up his pistol, lifted it to eye-level with both hands, and, while squinting, concentrated beyond the surges of flames and the bolts of loosed energy and locked onto the laser’s red-hot source.
Turrisi inhaled as he ended that slide, tightened his arms, widened his gaze, and squeezed. The bullet erupted from his Glock and drilled through the downpour, clearing the rooftop in the blink of an eye, speeding past the bounding lengths of fire, darting alongside beams of redirected energy, and goring into the side of the laser’s barrel. The surface cracked upon impact and then burst as the bullet ricocheted away; and, as that alacritous moment ended, a torrent of light energy exploded from the barrel’s side, unsettling the concentrated power of Arthur’s weapon, and forging more cracks along its surface. From another crack, a wayward beam sliced across Arthur’s chest. Arthur jumped and then flung his arm, firing his uneven blast skyward and then jerking as a second beam nailed into the top of his left leg.
As Arthur cried out, Erik extinguished his flames and then turned at the sound of his katana cutting through the air. He snatched his blade and wrapped both hands around the hilt. Then, as Arthur held his arm over the roof’s ledge, Erik, his teeth slammed shut and his eyes widened, conjured a spiraling blaze around his katana. He stepped, inhaled, and roared as he swung, a trail of flames marking the path of his blade’s sonic plunge as it cleaved through the material covering Arthur’s left shoulder and quartered that limb at its highest joint.
Arthur’s cries were joined by the dissonant streaks of golden energy that rushed from the edges of the material around his parted shoulder. As he wailed and screeched, his severed arm plunged with the laser still firing. Pulses of the xanthous energy enveloped that dissevered limb as it bounced along the building; and, one story below, it flashed. In a blaze of light, the unstable material obliterated that limb and loosed a wave of energy up the roof’s side that devoured Erik’s and Arthur’s position in a geyser of light and debris. Fifty feet off, Turrisi registered the explosion at the same moment that the shockwave rushed across the roof, and threw him for ten feet.
A swat to the center of the gut drove Erik to open his eyes. As his vision inched towards a steadier gaze, he found himself being dragged along scorched and soot-covered ground, and, as he regained
his bearings, he found the ground upon which he slid to be a ramp. He flung his arms and slammed them onto the top of the ramp. Then, he glanced over his shoulder, jolting as he found his legs dangling over the roof’s misshapen edge and pointing to the ground and the mass of rubble below. He spun to the rooftop and to his clasping fingers and tensed to hoist himself, but as he sought motion, it came in gradual tugs and shaking extensions. After several seconds, he had only moved a foot vertically, not enough to raise his legs to a foothold. Erik looked up and onto the battered roof, and, as he breathed, felt the pain which had been numbed during his semiconsciousness then strengthen with his movements.
“Turrisi!” he gasped, trying to project his tone over the rainfall and the thundering peals. “Turrisi!” he called before bowing and coughing. Two stomps sounded before him and directed him to look up. Arthur looked back, his suit charred black and layered with rubble, and his blade extended and hanging as he kept his right arm still. He took an ambling step, his motions swaying and uneven, but his posture still upright despite his missing arm, the shoulder of which had been cauterized.
“I’m sure it’s no secret to you”, Arthur began, his tone level as he stopped at the beginning of that ramp. “The pain I’m in right now”, he continued as he clasped the center of his mask and ripped the cloth from his head, his face then layered in splotches of second- and third-degree burns. “I’d like to say I’m going to…return it to you, but you and I both know that there is very little I could do that would cause you to experience the level of pain I’m in without you dying.” Erik swallowed and tightened his arms, while Arthur knelt and aimed his blade at Erik’s head. “If it’s any consolation for you, Erik”, he continued, “you succeeded; I’m in no shape to kill your friends. They’ll probably stop me. But know, Erik, that with such futility in my mind, I no longer have anything that I need to worry about.
