25 Chapter 25 - Dance with Death

Taking in the sights of the beautiful Californian night was a tad bit problematic, when you had a psycho looking down at you from the top of a building. From what I could see, with her standing in front of probably the strongest light source of a dead city's night, she had a real twisted look on her face. I'd assume it's thanks to me killing one of her friends, and then topping it off by murdering her actual father. I hear that's a real bummer for regular people, with 'normal' [Powers].

"Didn't expect to see you sooooo soon, Charm-boy. You here to kill me too?" she screamed at a real broken voice. I mean she was just jumping between moods like half sentence there.

"Would you mind if I was?" I asked back mockingly.

She jumped straight down at me. Her acid-reinforced arms clashed with my [Greed Binder], somehow making a real clanking noise - did she reinforce her clothes as well? From this close though, I could really make out her facial expression. It was even more distorted crazy than I thought. Like her eyes just emmitted hate, and lust for a fight at the same time - and not the good kind. This wasn't a fight between distinguished legends, no, this was a fight of retribution.

And that meant playing dirty was alright. All I wanted to do, was to behead this bitch, and leave her head on a spike, so that bastard Justin could see it. That was my motivation, and I think she wanted to do something quite similar as well. Right after our clash, I jumped back, and she followed suit.

Is this one of those moments? The time where the villain goes into a monologue about how great they are, and how they're going to beat the hero, and then ultimately fail? With that in mind, I decided to shut up, and not say a word - the red flag was way too real.

"Isn't this just perfect?" she started her evil monologue, "I can finally end you, and I can bring you to Justin half dead, so we can really rip off your balls! That's what Kevin would want as well!" she started maniacally laughing. There it is, the flag, "And then, then! Then we can live in happiness with my beloved! Not like now-" she stopped halfway. No matter, I already learned quite the useful information there.

"What, Justin left you?" I laughed, "That's precious. Was it because you went batshit crazy?"

"Shut yer mouth, or I'll shut it!" she screamed.

"Amazing. You really have fallen from grace, Claire," I looked at her, with the most condescending look I could muster.

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT!" she shrieked.

----

As far as they could recall, this was the weirdest experience they had ever been in. Francis and Meda were standing in the middle of something, that looked just like a floating bit of concrete in the middle of absolute blackness - as it literaly was just that. Without actually comprehending the situation, they had been teleported by a member of a secret cult.

"Welcome, my darlings, to my little pocket of nothingness," a weird man wearing a suit and a fedora greeted them.

As they were both in a bit of a shock, they couldn't react right away, but as soon as they gathered themselves, Francis took the wheel.

"Nice to meet you, sir. Would you mind returning us?" he took it rather calmly.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," the man in the suit replied, "Let me introduce myself, rather. My name is Howard Cowell, Deacon of the Holy Order of the Coin."

"As expected," Meda cut in, "Are you in leagues with that weird masked frenchman?"

"Ah, him? Yes," he answered, "He's my superior - for now."

"Would you mind if I quickly made a call?" Meda asked the man.

"Why would I?" he answered shrugging his shoulders.

Meda quickly tapped her ear, where head communication headset was planted, and tried contacting Dan. As she managed to do that so easily, the man called Howard Cowell looked a little bit aghast - maybe is the word to use.

"I am very surprised that you could do that. Not just any device would work in this pocket dimension, you see," he stated rather calmly.

"We have top notch equipment, from your enemies, I guess," Francis replied to Howard's compliment.

"Yes, sadly you do work for them," Howard replied, shaking his head.

"With them," Francis corrected him.

"My apologies," Howard Cowell responded, "Shall we get down to business then?"

----

The dodging game that we played went on for quite some time. Claire would unleash any amounts of poisonous acid from her headdress, and I would just get out of the way. Thankfully, contrary to her father, this wasn't a gas-based poison, and dodging a liquid spray is much easier than not inhaling barely visible gas.

I was constantly looking out for openings, but it was pretty hard to do. I wasn't really the best trained when it came to actual combat. I had my training done, in the past few weeks, and I did go through some minor combat training, but that was more of a ranged thing. I was never planning to be on the front.

At one point, as she unleashed a squirt of gas in my direction, I jumped back, kneeled down to one leg, and put my hands on the ground, just beside me. In that same moment, with the advantage of surprise on my side, my [Greed Binder] rocketed up from the ground, tying her arms together, just above her head. I had a moment of freedom.

As I got ready to release another two of them to promptly cover her head-pipes, she had already spewed some in my direction, thus made me back off. That was such a good chance though. Nevermind that, she was already on the offensive again. Was this already time, that I had to use the ace up my sleeve? Was this time, that I unleashed that ability on her?

She really made me just dodge non-stop. I mean, would anyone want to get blasted by a huge amount of acid? Like, can you blame me? My only chance here was to either kill her in one blow, which I didn't want to do, use my influence on her which probably was an even worse option (even though it would win me the fight), or just to restrain her, to the extent where she wouldn't be able to attack me anymore.

As I was really trying to go for the last option, it really limited me, in what I could do. On many occasions, I would try to pierce her body non-lethally, but she'd dodge all of them, without any relative problem. I even tried to restrain her many times, but I felt that something was generally off about this fight. Something, that I couldn't place my finger on...

"Hey bitch, don't you wanna just drop dead already?" I asked politely.

"Fuck you," I'd get the nice answer anytime I tried talking to her. She really was into this, eh?

"Y'know what? If you stop, and prostrate yourself right now, I won't kill you. How's that?" I tried bargaining with her, but you guessed it:

"Fuck you!" What a clever, and carefully selected response!

I began to doubt she was even conscious during this fight. All her reactions seemed automatic, which even included her responses, as well as that undying speed and stamina. She just felt like a robot, trying to carry out it's final mission. I mean I couldn't really blame her, I essentially screwed up her entire life. Like even f you're a heartless beast, you can't blame the girl.

I guess I did though, she fucked up my life, right back. Actually, now that I think about it, she was the one to start this entire thing, unassuming of what might happen in the future. See, that's the main problem with bullies. For some reason, they don't realize, that they'll eventually fall at some point. What a stupid mindset.

I was again going for the offensive for a second. I stepped back, and I was going to release another one of my Binders, but I felt something hard press against my back. Well, more like I was pressing against something hard. Without even realizing it, I somehow got cornered, and now I was standing in front of the very building she jumped at me from.

Was this it for me?

She jumped straight at me, pinning me to the ground. I guess yeah, this was it. Just a little bit of that acid could melt away my entire face. I really am going to die.

Looking at her from this close, I understood now. She was just a fraction of what she once was. A beauty, wronged by life. Wronged by me, I guess. Her distorted face screamed in pain, yet I somehow didn't feel remorse. I was delighted, rather, to see her in this state.

Was it true delight, or was it disconnectedness? Was I so disconnected from my own, and others' feelings, that I just couldn't percieve this as true reality?

Or, was all of this just a dying man rambling on about some rather sentimental tangent?