“Welcome, Jared Ugo,” Cennet stretched both arms out in a grand gesture, “to the end!” He smiled brightly. It sickened me. He stood up, “Now, allow me to explain why none of your law friends can touch me. This beautiful lady,” he held the minister of education’s head up a bit with his foot, “has a bomb strapped onto her. If they try anything, the bomb will be triggered from a remote location. But there is a way to defuse it,” another devilish grin formed. “The remote to defuse it is currently in my stomach. So, if she’s to live, you’re going to have to cut me open. If you fail to do that in fifteen minutes, she’ll die. But before I start the timer,” he picked up a folding chair laid on the ground and threw it at me, “let’s have a man-to-man.”

I unfolded the chair, a mere metre in front of him, and had a seat. It burned that I couldn’t shoot him on sight. He sat as well, leaned onto his legs and clutched his hands together with a gentle smile on his face. “I’ll be candid with you here, Jared.” He lit a cigarette and crossed his legs, throwing an arm over the back of the chair, “Today is the day I die.” A gentle exhale pushed the smoke out as he looked at the moving clouds above. “You know,” he rolled his sleeves up, “I’ve had, a few shrinks.” His eyes met mine, wanting to see my reaction. “Well,” he chuckled, “a lot of them. And uh, I guess they helped, you know. I could talk out my issues with them. It felt good, but no matter how much I tried to move on, my own weakness wouldn’t let me.” He gestured with his hand, as if making a ball, “These, these nightmares, kept recurring. Maybe once or twice a week. As the months passed by it increased to four or five times. And,” he exhaled – not smoke, but simply releasing some air – “man, were they scary. Sometimes, I just couldn’t sleep. It was like,” he switched positions so that his right side faced me, “like he never wanted me to forget about him. And, how could I? Jonathan was a lovely boy, and it was only when I lost him was when I realised how much he craved my attention. Now that he’s gone, I just…” he pulled on the cigarette again, losing his train of thought. “What about you, Jared? How are things with Diana?”

“Why do you ask?” I immediately became suspicious.

“Just making conversation. Relax, I’d never kill her. She was a good boss.” A moment of silence interrupted, allowing him to take a few puffs. He eventually flicked it away and released the last breath of smoke, “Hey, I meant it when I said today was my last. I know there are things you want to ask me. When we start, you won’t have a chance a say a word, so you’d better ask whatever you want while we’re still keeping things diplomatic.”

“Okay,” I tried my best to stop my fuse from blowing. “I killed Jonathan. You called Theresa and Anna. And, for a while, I thought my parents were dead too. We both want to kill each other, so my question, is why,” I clenched my hands together, “why did you kill those special to me. Why didn’t you just kill me?”

He nodded his head for a while, giving it honest thought, or perhaps searching for the right words. “Well, you see, there are two reasons I’m doing the crazy things I’m doing, and one of them is most definitely revenge. I really,” he clenched his fists and looked down, perhaps showing his first true emotions, “really fucking hate you. I went through the motions dealing with Jonathan’s death. When I found out who was responsible for his death, my hatred towards you kept growing and I was fully aware of it. I asked myself, what kind of stupid adult am I to hate you over something that wasn’t your fault. I tried, I really tried, but no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many years passed, my hatred never dwindled.” He blocked his eyes, almost as if trying to mask his true feelings about the matter despite speaking them openly. “When I investigated you, it became clear you were suffering from depression because of what you did. So I thought to myself, ‘what right does he have?’ Everything you did only deepened my hatred, until, I reached to a point where I convinced myself that it was justified to kill you. That was the car accident.” He laughed, “I was surprised you survived that, but relieved at the same time. Even though I made my mind up, part of me was still glad I didn’t take the plunge. Even now, Jared, despite my hate for you being at its peak, I’m still afraid of killing you. Anyway, when the car crash failed, it opened my eyes to something even better than your death. Something that would fulfil my purpose in a way your corpse never could.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

He smirked, “Experience. Experience, experience, experience. I want to know first-hand, what it feels like to lose the people close to you. I want to break your mind into pieces, Jared.” We glared at each other. “I want you to reel and detest me, detest life and detest yourself!” His words grew louder. “I want to see you suffer! I want you to know that you don’t deserve anything good in your life! I want you,” he pointed, the vein in his forehead almost popping, “to feel what I felt!” His finger hit his own chest a few times in a contained fit of rage. “And it worked, didn’t it? All this elaborate scheming: shooting up schools, bombings, hostages.” His rage turned into a strange maniacal laughter that made me wonder about his mental stability. “Because you killed my boy, you feel obligated to stop me! And that’s hard, isn’t it?!” He yelled out, “Isn’t it?!” A sudden tranquillity exuded from him again. “You and me, Jared, we’re the same, though you may not realise it now. We can’t let go. Here you are, Jared – even after your parents are alive and healthy – in the middle of town with the most dangerous man in the country.” His eyes watered and he somewhat chortled, a laughter directed at himself more than anything. “We can’t let go. And the more we hang on, the more we lose sense of the morals and ideals that once ruled our lives.” He stood up suddenly, “Tell me, Jared, how many lives did you take today? Did you ever think, even for one moment when you were an insomniac of a boy drowning in medication, that you would kill again?”

I was taken aback. His character was abhorrent, but the man was right. I held my head, realising that just a few minutes ago, I murdered a friend.

“I’m glad, though. It means one of my goals will be realised. There’s only one more step to complete now. The last little push off the cliff, and my revenge will be complete. Just one more life, and you will be complete,” he flung his glasses away and walked behind his chair, picking up a couple crowbars. By no means was he planning to win this fight. “Lose a shield and the gun, will you? Those boots and the jetpack should go too. Let’s at least try to make this fun, eh?”

It didn’t take long for me to realise that this last step he spoke of, was me taking his life. Won’t I be just like him? I asked myself, a repugnant thought. “I won’t…”

“Hmm?” He leaned in trying to hear me better.

“I won’t kill you!” I exclaimed. If I just knock him out, cut open his stomach and get the device to defuse the bomb, it should be fine. He’ll heal back from Vasc anyway. “I won’t sink to your level.”

“Hmm,” he walked forward, the crowbar dragging on the ground, “hurry up and take that gear off, else this bomb will go off earlier than you suspect.”

I’d no choice. I removed my gear, leaving myself just one shielder and Z-21.

“Good,” he held the crowbars tighter and we circled each other.

This, this was it.

After a brief moment of glaring at each other, he swung downward right at my head. I activated my shielder and deflected his blow, then swung Z-21 at him. He ducked and turned underneath my trajectory, pulling my wrist with the crowbar’s hook and kicking my elbow to ensure it was broken. I yelped in pain whilst he easily disarmed me. The Z-21 was carefully thrown to the wayside. I see. I realised that, despite his intention to die, he was not about to go easy on me, and it would be foolish for me to underestimate him.

“By now you’ve realised I’m serious.” He pulled a device out his pocket and pressed a button. Charlene Jefferson’s vest began beeping. “You’ve got ten minutes.” He threw a crowbar over to me and waited a few seconds for my elbow to repair itself.

I took a couple deep breaths. Theresa and Anna flashed in my mind. I ran toward him, putting every ounce of White into my movements and tackled him into a nearby pole, pending and eventually falling it. He drove his elbow into my back, damaging a shoulder blade, then rose his knee up to my chin. I bit my tongue but bit down on the pain. I put a foot forth to gain more balance and set an uppercut headed for his chin. He leaned his head away and I changed that uppercut to an elbow, sinking it into the side of his head. He placed his crowbar’s hook at my neck and pulled me away from him, releasing it to grab at my legs. I was swung and slammed onto a metal bin, but the shielder protected me; I rolled a few metres away despite.

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He picked his crowbar up, used the bin to vault off and was about to crush my head with the piece of metal. I rolled away and got up, only to find his foot swinging towards my face. I leaned back, then jump, putting my all into a dropkick. He flew a couple lanes over. Not affording him the chance make sense of his rotating point of view, I ran toward where his body was going and activated my shield. He hit the wall of a building then immediately felt the brunt of my cyan shield energy pushing him through those brick walls. My crowbar came down on him, but he blocked with one of his forearms, sacrificing it in order to kick me off. With both his leg’s power, my entire body smashed into the ceiling, clearing the concrete and stopping at the metal beams. I tried to wrangle my way out, but not before he leapt up and sank his crowbar into my collar bone. I was certain a few ribs were broken and fractured. I began falling with my shield activated, not wanting to sustain another injury. He gave me a taste of my own medicine and dropkicked me straight out the store’s glass panes and into the masses of soldiers, TEOs and cops who were all armed to the teeth but couldn’t raise an arm.

He ambled out slowly, giving his forearm some time to heal. With his injury healing faster than mine, he wasted no time to engage me again. I sidestepped his devastating blow and kept or blocking until my ribs and collar bone came back into commission. Eventually, we were both back to square one. He charged in with a punch, which I dodged once again, but turned it into a roundhouse kick, sending me airborne and flipping with no control over my body. Despite having the shield, my bodyweight still had me susceptible to losing my balance or literally being swept off my feet with a strong enough attack. A stop sign stopped me, and his crowbar stopped my shielder. He aimed for it specifically, destroying it and my wrist in one blow.

He grinned and gripped his crowbar with both hands, knowing he had the advantage. All I could defend with now was my crowbar powered with just one arm. A flurry of strikes bombarded me, and instead trying to block, I simply parried the attacks. Some of them still hit my face, but there wasn’t strength in them enough to be a stopping force after I parried them. I kicked his shin and made him fall atop me, then clipped his body with both my legs so he wouldn’t have enough room to generate any powerful blows. That was a mistake. He abandoned the crowbar and sent a volley of punches at me, and despite blocking, they still inflicted a huge amount of damage. I had to roughly move my legs to throw his punches off. He grew tired and stood up, lifting me up and slamming me back to the ground several times. This fight was being reduced to a battle of instincts, and time was of the essence. He picked me up once more, and that time I pulled myself up to him then immediately leaned my weight to his side with all my might. It didn’t throw him off balance much, but it did a little, so I continued, until gave up on trying to do it and released me to grab his crowbar back.

I rolled backward, finding a crowbar flying to my face, but I simply caught it. He threw his own and picked mine up. He raged toward me, and I gripped the dented bar. I’d no idea how long we were playing footsies for, but I was getting desperate, and he seemed to want to see me hurt as much as he possibly could. The minute we came within range of each other, we both swung at each other’s left sides, connecting with all our might at the exact same time. We raised each other off the ground just a bit, but the real damage were our broken ribs. I held my ground, and so did Cennet. We swung again and this time, both weapons clunked, sending a strong and ungodly vibration through us. My next swing was aimed at his shoulder, and his at my knee. We connected. I got swept off the ground with a shot knee, and he was slammed to the ground was a crushed shoulder.

I rolled over to him and turned the crowbar around, aiming right for his stomach. He tried to dodge, but the sharp edge managed to cut through the side of him. I crashed my forehead into his nose, invoking a cry of agony out of him. He raised his knee, setting my crown jewels on fire. We rolled away from each other, frolicking in pain.

I trembled to my good leg and hopped over to him, mimicking a move right out of a wrestling match and dropped my entire body’s weight onto my elbow. He blocked his face with his hand but his half-healed nose was crushed again. He screamed and gripped my throat, his nose like a blood-faucet. Despite he being bloodier and writhing in pain, I was in more danger in that position. We rolled again and he ended up mounted atop me. Not good! My leg was still healing back, so kicking him off with one leg would prove troublesome.

I grabbed his throat too and brought him even closer to me, then rammed my finger in his eyes. Once I did that, I stood up again, my knee almost fully healed. Gasping for air, I didn’t let him. He quickly stood up, breathing heavily himself and tried his very best to open his bloodshot eyes, squinting here and there. Without fail, I tackled him, smashing through yet another glass door. We landed in a store selling household goods. I grabbed a wooden chair and began beating the living daylights out of him, but he curled up and took it all until the chair was destroyed. His eyes finally opened before I could get another chair. He kicked me, fracturing a few ribs, then hurled a clay vase at me. It broke, the incoming dirt from the plant pot causing me to flinch.

The minute I opened my eyes, a shard of clay was but a second away from my face. I turned and deflected his strike, but he still managed to sink the broken piece of clay into my cheek and cut it in two. “Motherfu–”

Before I could let that cuss out, I had to dodge yet another vase, causing me to fall prey to his tackle. We rolled out the other window and back into the streets, throwing punches, headbutts, elbows and everything in between. Teeth and blood were lost, as well as time. We separated again, with exasperated breaths and deathly glares.

Finally, a familiar sound brought some hope to this situation. TK hovered above us, “Drop it,” I yelled out, having to rely on voice commands. My previous headgear was long since destroyed, and in order to use Z-21 again, I needed a replacement, which I ordered my TK to bring to me before Cennet and I began fighting.

The piece of circuitry was dropping, and Cennet knew exactly what it meant. He charged in, his kick acting as a vault to grab the headgear, but I grabbed his feet and he was just shy of touching the device. I pulled him back and flung him. But, in my desperation, I flung him toward Z-21 without realising. Finally, I claimed the headgear and quickly put it on. When I looked back at Cennet, he donned Z-21 with a grin on his face and charged at me. I heard a soft click. He’d hit the switch for the Z-21 to turn on, but all he managed to do was fail at stabbing me with a dull and deactivated Z-21. I removed manual functions on most of my fear, Z-21 included. I grabbed the harmless blade but he had more grip on it. He kicked me away and flung the blade in the opposite direction, toward the minister.

I grabbed a bit of dirt from the destroyed pavement when I was down and took the headgear off my head. I ran towards him at a controlled pace, shot the dirt right at his face to blind him, then threw my headgear over to where the sword was, not wanting to risk him snatching and destroying it. I jumped from afar, making sure gravity took a hold of me early, so I’d catch him with a low dropkick to the knee. He grabbed onto my leg despite his disjointed knee. I tried my best to kick him off but he just wouldn’t let go. We fought viciously again, injuring each other to no end. But I’d make sure to get closer and closer to the Z-21 was I possibly could. Once I was close enough, I really turned on the pressure and connected my knee with his crown jewels. He let go immediately. In that window, I leapt from my position and grabbed the Z-21, then fumbled with the headgear. But finally, it was on. “How much time?”

“One–”

Vasc numbed his pain quickly, and he airborne again, lunging at me. I turned around, swinging Z-21 and slicing an arm off as clean as butter.

“–minute…”

Cennet yelled out but bit down on his pain. However, in his position, there was little he could do to avoid Z-21. I swung down, taking one and a half legs off and making an incision in the road. One of his leg still hung on by some flesh and muscle. Already, I could see the blood clotting and reforming tissue. I ran my feet down onto his throat and stepped on his other arm to keep it down. He tried to fight me off, but all he had was his head now and a trapped arm. Finally, I began cutting through his abdomen and eventually found his stomach. The minister began puking. I made an incision on his stomach’s wall and saw the little silver device covered in clear plastic.

The bomb was defused with fourteen seconds remaining. The terrified woman breathed a huge sigh of relief.

A thousand and one footsteps began bombarding my ears. The authorities began closing in the minute they realised the bomb was defused.

“Finish it.” Cennet said softly. “Finish it!” He then yelled at the top of his lungs.

“No,” I looked him in the eye, “I’ll never be like you.”

I stepped off him to allow the police to apprehend him. But the man was a fighter to his last breath. He grabbed a knife from the leg of a TEO and swung it towards me in the blink of an eye. And, in reflex, my Z-21 swung back with equal force to stop the course of his blade. However, Z-21 was capable of cutting anything. The sapphire energy blade severed the knife and went on to open his skull; his brain was halved. He fell back, lifelessly.