Chapter 48: Two for the price of One
In a thousandth of a second I had dashed in between Jem and Aqua. Their faces filled with terror as they tried to react but they weren’t fast enough. I stuck out my arms and two metal spikes came jutting out of my hands, piercing both of them though the solar plexus. Liquid nitrogen shot out from the ground and their skin started to turn black and purple as they fell to their knees. I pulled out the spikes and I kicked Aqua’s face into the ground as I held out my hand and two massive, spiked mats of marble shot out of the ground and fell onto Aqua–spearing his body. I turned my attention to Jem. I kicked him in the ribs, grabbed him by his hair, and I slammed his face into my knee and impaled him on a spike of marble that I summoned out of the stadium floor. Two marble fists shot up out of the ground and smashed his head from both sides. Blood poured out of his nose, ears, and mouth as his eyes went white. I commanded the marble spike that was impaling him to go back into the ground. Jem’s body slid onto the floor as I knelt over him. I lifted my fist in the air and looked into his eyes. “I told you I’ll kill you. And I’m a man of my word.” I slammed my fist into his face. I lifted it up and punched him again, and again, and again. My fist slammed into his skull repeatedly as more and more blood flowed from his face. I lifted my fist up high and gave one more big shot to his chin, and finally, his liquor screen broke. I got off of him and saw Aqua’s injured body crawling out from under his death trap. His entire body was bloodied and he weakly grasped his trident. I walked over to him and knelt down in front of him with cold, heartless eyes. “Did you think you were me? You’re not me, you’ll never be me, you will never beat me. I will always be better than you.” Aqua gripped his trident in anger.
“Can’t you see what’s coming.” He started to smile. My eyes flashed with anger as I punched him again–splattering pools of blood onto the marble battlefield. I spoke quietly into his ear,
“You’re not in a position to gloat.” He smiled even more.
“The waters of Mevilime will wash you away.” I felt the ground beneath me shake, and I could sense it…Under my feet I could feel a surge of something, something powerful, large, and deadly. My eyes went wide and my heart dropped as I felt millions of gallons of water–rushing to wash the stadium away.
Aurora Maple: “Lila! What is that idiot doing?” I screamed towards the smoky abbys as Geon practically murdered Evay.
“I don’t know! He’s trying to kill him!” Lila frantically leapt out of the way as a huge firework exploded in a burst of bright red. I turned my attention towards Oden and took a deep breath. A giant blast cleared a pile of rubble before me and Oden walked calmly out of the newly created clearing. His sleek uniform, perfectly styled hair, cold eyes, and serious attitude all seemed to pierce into my soul. Despite being the same age as me, he could have passed for a military general. I readied myself and concentrated. Electricity coursed through my body as my hair dawned a bright electric blue color and my familiar purple markings manifested on my arms. I felt electricity dance along my fingers as I waited for Oden to make a move.
He finally spoke. “Aurora…my knowledge of your language is not extremely extensive, but you are named after the northern lights, correct?” I stared intensely at him without any reply. No stance, no initial hostility, no signs of preparation for attack…
I took a breath and spoke. “Yes….that is correct”.
He nodded. “I see you’re quite distressed about your teammate’s actions. Don’t fear, Jem can cast illusions. Your friend Geon has most likely been caught in one.” My eyes went wide.
“So how do I know you’re real?” He replied in a calm voice.
“He can only use it on one person at a time. You are safe for now.” I scoffed.
“Well I’m not sure if you're the best person to believe right now”. He nodded.
“I suppose you’re right but if I need to lie to win,” he held his hand up towards me, “I am not a true winner.” Now.
I let out a yell, “SAVIAN!” My body filled up with electricity as I sprinted towards Oden. Savian dashed up a ramp and took flight in the air. He hurled a crimson red lighting bolt towards Oden and I laced my right arm with electricity. I pulled my arm back and threw a javelin of electric energy into the air. The red and blue bolts of electricity collided and the sky flashed purple.
“Hey Oden!” He looked at me and Savian with a calm expression. I smiled, “Me and Savian have been working on this one. When his electrical bolt produced from his immense speed collides with my naturally occurring electricity it produces a bolt which vaporizes anything it touches.” Savian slid to a stop next to me. “I call it, Lunar Lightning,” the purple bolt landed on target and lit up the arena with a violent, glowing violet light. The ensuing explosion ripped the stadium apart and debris pieces were tuned into fine powder. Smoke from the explosion clouded my view but I could still make out where Savain was. I signaled him to go right and he nodded. We both sprinted towards where Oden was standing and prepared to pounce. Savian jumped up and prepared to slam his fist into the ground, but suddenly, he stopped. I slid to a sudden halt as Savian landed back on the ground. I looked at him and his eyes were filled with disbelief. Standing there like nothing happened was Oden, hands in his pocket, hair and coat perfectly untouched. Lunar lightning carved a hole into a mountain… I snapped out of my shock and dashed straight at Oden. I jumped up and threw an electrically charged punch at Oden. He stuck out his hand and suddenly leaned left to dodge my punch. It’s fine, he’s way to slow—
My punch completely missed him and he countered with a hook to the body. I blocked it and blasted a lighting net at his chest at point blank range. That’s a sure hit. He seemingly flashed out of existence as he reappeared behind me. My lighting net missed and I threw a spinning hook kick to counter but he stuck out his hand. He finally spoke again. “Good bye,” an extremely loud bang sounded through the arena as I felt an immense pressure force me backwards. I was repelled into a pile of rubble at impossibly high speeds as I crashed with a loud bang. Savian dashed forward at blinding speeds as a red comet streaked across the arena. He threw a running punch at impossibly high speeds towards the middle of Oden’s chest. But in that moment, Oden sidestepped Savian and threw a counter punch of his own. Savian recovered and slipped the counter. He stood up and threw a barrage of crimson red punches, which were so fast that I couldn’t even tell if he was actually punching. Whenever Oden slipped, ducked, or moved out of the way of a punch it was weird. It was as if we were in a snow globe and someone had tilted the entire world ever so slightly so that Oden was always out of our range…. It made no sense–Savian was way faster than Oden and yet, he couldn’t hit him. Oden kept weaving and dodging all of Savian’s strikes. He leaned back, slipped to the right, ducked down, pulled back, and finally leaned into Savain. Savian quickly ran behind Oden in a flash and threw a high kick laced with high-speed lighting. An explosion sounded as the kick seemingly connected. Marble turned to dust as Savian’s attacks incinerated the stadium floor. Savain ran back towards me and knelt down. He gave me a hand. “You good?” I nodded and he helped me up.
My chest throbbed with pain but I managed to speak. “How could he dodge your attacks? Your speed isn’t something he has right?” He looked towards the smoke cloud with a cautious expression.
“It’s weird. He’s not as fast as me…No he’s—“His words were cut off as his eyes went wide with shock. Standing completely unharmed was Oden with his hands by his sides and his hair still perfectly untouched.
“You…you couldn’t have possibly tanked that.” Savian spoke with both disbelief and anger as he clenched his fist. Red lightning enveloped his body as he ran towards Oden. In a flash he was in his face. Savian threw a full speed punch at Oden’s jaw as a sonic boom sounded around the arena. Oden seemingly disappeared and reappeared behind Savian. He stretched out his hand and placed it on Savian’s back.
“I hope you don’t have back problems,” he smiled and I heard a massive explosion go off as Savain was propelled into the ground. The entire arena shook and marble rubble flew everywhere. I quickly commanded electricity to flow back through my body. I ran to the outskirts of the arena. Marble rubble rained from the sky as I slid under a falling piece of jagged stone, jumped over a wall of rubble, and somersaulted behind a safe wall of fallen marble. The loud crashes of the falling debris were deafening as they pounded the stadium floor like giant pieces of hail. The ensuing smoke and rubble littered the stadium with clutter as I climbed on top of a large piece of marble debris and scouted my surroundings. Standing in the midst of all the chaos was Oden and Savain, facing off in the center of the arena. Savain looked badly hurt, his back was bloody and bright red, he had blood running down his forehead, and his right arm seemed mangled. I clenched my fist to deal with the pain and I ran towards Savian. I quickly slid to a stop as I stood by his side–facing the perfectly unharmed Oden. He brushed off his uniform and spoke. “You’re as fast as they said you would be. I’ve never seen anyone as fast as you, Savain Yelenta.” Savian’s eyes narrowed in anger as he spoke.
“Yeah, you're not that fast. So how are you dodging me.” He spoke in a confident and calm tone.
“I am not as fast as you. However, I control the space between us.” He held out his hand. “You and I are about 5 meters apart. You can cover this distance in less than a hundred thousandths of a second. Me being this close isn’t good, so with my liquor abilities I can either decrease or increase this space between me and you.” He stepped closer to us and continued to speak. “However, I don’t actually get farther away. Or you don’t see me get farther away. The increase or decrease in space is me simply putting different rules on how you move around in our three dimensional world. If I increase the space between us you need to take more time to get to me, and less time if I decrease the space between us.” He held up his hand. “In other words, when I increase the space between us, reality doesn’t like that me and you are so close. The time it takes to reach me should be longer but you’re right here. Reality hates that and forces things to correct itself, and so it pushes you away. Much like this.” His eyes widened with killing intent as we braced ourselves for impact. I crossed my arms and closed my eyes. I looked up to check Oden’s position and saw three golden prongs sticking out of his chest. His eyes went wide with shock as he looked down. Evay smiled and pulled the trident out of Oden’s chest. He ax-kicked Oden in the head and kicked him across the arena into a pile of rubble. He looked weak and beaten but he was alive and still in the match. He smiled and spoke.
“That’s what it feels like to be hit by your teammate's attack, Oden. Just in case you didn’t know.”