The sight outside the hotel was vastly different from what it had looked like when we first arrived in the morning. Walking out made me feel like a royal, stepping out onto the high balcony of my palace to greet a sprawling crowd of fans and peasants. Only in this case, the fans wanted to beat the living daylights out of me.
The road had been completely blocked off by the semicircle-shaped crowd of mages, who were studying us with battle-ready gazes. They were dressed in a wide variety of clothing, ranging from semi formal dress shirts and pants all the way to casual streetwear and even workout clothing. Most gripped in their hands some kind of household weapon.
Owen walked to the other side of the road, right to the center of the gathered crowd, and clambered up onto the roof of a parked car. “Do you see, now?” he proclaimed loudly as he turned to face us. “This is the power I wield, the resources at my fingertips. And you thought you could challenge this with-”
With a whizz, a small piece of wood, about the size of a stake, flew from Ren’s hand, faster even than Owen’s throw. It was aimed perfectly at Owen’s head, and the unexpected nature of the attack gave him less than a second to dodge.
Owen tilted his head as fast as his Flux-enhanced reflexes would allow, but he was still a beat too slow. The flying stake split skin along the side of Owen’s head, leaving a thin line of glimmering red in its wake.
“No one has time for your speech, old man. We’re here to fight, not listen to your senile rambling,” Ren said, his voice loud enough to be carried throughout the street, ensuring the entire gathered crowd heard.
I burst out in laughter at Owen’s face, the pure anger and hatred on it comical. If looks could kill, Ren would’ve died a million times already.
“Honestly Owen, I have to agree. I don’t know who you’re trying to impress with all this posturing, but it just makes you look like you’re trying too hard. All this boasting in front of two kids? Really? And you’re what, like fifty years old?” I continued where Ren left off, rubbing more salt into the cut. If I was gonna have to get repeatedly beat up soon, the least I could do was make Owen suffer some before, maybe shake the respect and fear he commanded a little.
“CAPTURE THEM!!” Owen suddenly yelled, screaming at the top of his lungs. A manic light entered his eyes, absolute rage boiling on his face. “MAKE THEM REGRET CHALLENGING US!”
With a resounding roar of agreement, the men and women rushed at us, bats and clubs and knives raised. Even for the third strongest gang in the city, their choice of weapons was not much better than street thugs.
This was arguably the only benefit brought on by the IG, the only rule that they had imposed. Weapons of all kinds, from swords to guns, had been confiscated and banned everywhere. When Flux had first become a thing, the first twenty or so years had been a bloodbath, a garden of absolute carnage. Blood flooded the streets and colored the skies. Human life drastically fell in value. And even when the dust finally settled, with almost all governments falling and powerful gangs forming to take their place, murder was still commonplace. Only when the IG finally consolidated their power, around twenty-five years after Flux was first introduced, and acted to take away overly lethal weapons did the killing finally stop. Of course, death was still no stranger to the streets of every city. With no real policing force, the only protection for your life would come from whatever gang you had allied with.
“Ren, car!” I yelled over my shoulder as the mages ran up to us. Immediately understanding, he dashed over to where I had run, up onto another car. This one was a van, tall and long. Like Owen, we stood up on the roof, our backs turned to each other as we faced the bloodthirsty crowd together. Although it didn’t help much, forcing the mages to climb up the car to face us did lessen the overwhelming numerical advantage that they had.
The mages quickly swarmed the car, with five men climbing up first. They were unarmed, but still proficient mages judging by the quality of Flux that was dissipating from their bodies.
Ren’s stick swung out right away, knocking one on the side of his head. I kicked out my foot at one of them, but he managed to cross his hands in front of him before I could reach his face. Still, the force threw the man off the car, dropping him onto a few of his comrades.
Two down, I thought with a smile, a wave of nostalgia hitting me as I remembered that night in the parking lot. Very quickly, however, the memory turned sour as I remembered that most of those people had betrayed me - and still lived and trained with me. Knowing that they had sold me out, they still celebrated, planned, ate and drank at my side. It sickened me.
My drifting mind was quickly brought back to the present when a mage swung out his fist at me. It was a quick punch, fast enough to give this morning’s Ruby some trouble, but after fighting with Owen for so long, it felt quite slow. I easily ducked under and gave him a vicious strike to his ribs. He’s not coming back for a while, I thought to myself in satisfaction as he fell.
Stolen novel; please report.
Behind me, Ren had already dealt with the three who had climbed up on his side, which meant that the first batch had officially been dealt with.
Ren’s walking stick was a blur, flashing in and out of the crowd. Each swing wrenched out a cry of pain and a crash as someone fell. His nimble form swayed like a loose string in the wind, any and all attacks coming at him dodged by mere centimeters. I attempted to emulate his smooth movements, but I simply couldn’t grasp the elegance that he displayed. Even with all my experience, my agility seemed far too lacking compared to him. For the umpteenth time, I wondered just how he had trained for him to have reached such heights in such little time.
Still, just because I lacked in comparison to him doesn’t mean that I got hit. The overall quality of the mages was just a bit better than my own men. Although the quality of their Flux was better, these were men of a first-rate gang after all. I doubted that they had much fighting experience. With my odd state of heightened body ability, coupled with the five Revives I had just gone through, not to mention the wealth of experience that I already had, the men were not hard to fight.
Of course, they were far stronger than the average person, and fighting them while warding off countless other attacks stretched my mind and body to their absolute limit. By the time I had fought ten opponents, I was out of breath and sweating hard. Yet still, my mind performed at its peak. I felt like I was seeing the world wide-eyed for the first time, a strange hunger-like feeling burning in my stomach.
I needed this, I thought to myself as I ducked under a kick that came at me from the side, completely out of my field of vision. It was an instinctual response, like something had whispered it into my ear. Without even looking at the man, my foot shot out, heel crashing into the shin of the only leg holding him up. I was already back up by the time he crashed, face first, onto the roof of the car.
Turning my attention to the three other mages who stood on the roof with me, I gave them a fierce grin, a glimpse of the glee I felt inside, before launching a flurry of fists at the closest one. This particular batch was exceptionally amateurish, likely some kind of office workers judging by their clothing. They let me attack them one on one, seemingly scared of attacking me from the sides while I fought the other. Within a minute they had been dispatched, quickly replaced with another five.
On my twenty-sixth opponent (my hyperactive mind had kept track), I took my first hit. A blow to the back of my head from a bat or pipe - some sort of cylindrical object, I couldn't tell exactly. Regardless of what it was, the one thing I knew was that it was incredibly hard. The fact that I could even consider what the object was as my brain very literally rattled within my skull was a wonder in itself.
I fell forward slowly – or at least it felt that way – and before the pain could even register properly, a fist crashed into the bridge of my nose. With the collision came a sudden, ringing burst of pain as both strikes suddenly registered.
Even dazed, however, that distinct whispering that I had noticed didn’t fade, and it warned me of five more blows coming. With my eyes practically closed, I twisted my body as my instinct dictated, at the whim of whatever strange force seemed to be helping me. I would’ve liked to credit my combat experience, but I knew that what was happening far surpassed the limits of what experience could offer. This was something more, something above normal human capabilities.
As time trudged along in its odd, slowed state, I managed to dodge and weave through three of the incoming blows, but the last two caught me. Even with the extra help, I was simply not fast enough. Another blow to the back of my head pushed me into a forward fall, and the kick to my shin was the last nail in the coffin.
I dropped face-first onto the metal roof of the van, my nose flattening as tears sprung into my eyes. Immediately, a hand clasped onto my wrist, tugging at me. To fall off the van was certain defeat, I knew that even in my numbed state.
Gritting my teeth, I resisted both the forces that wanted to drag me down into an abyss: the man pulling my physical body, and the pain tugging my consciousness into darkness. Giving in to either was unacceptable, and the only way out was to Revive. Still, knowing that did not make it any easier.
By now, three more mages had scrambled up to the roof and, assuming that I was out of the fight, moved towards Ren, whose unguarded back would be an easy target for these mages. That was all the motivation I needed. With a low shout, I greedily sucked in the surrounding Flux and let the burning agony consume me. Like magma, searing in both intensity and temperature, it rolled through my body as if it had been poured into me. Down my arms and through my body, it burned and boiled me from inside.
Within seconds, however, it was gone again, the familiar coolness settling over me. But I had no time to savor the feeling, with the mages now seconds away from Ren. I shot up and swung at the closest mage, a woman dressed in casual clothing.
She dropped like a rock, not even aware of who had hit her before losing consciousness. The other two heard, however, and looked back. They were greeted first by a wild grin, and second a flying fist. My target was fast enough to block, but he was clumsy, completely blocking his view with his arms. My foot easily swept across his torso, sending him tumbling off the car. The last man took initiative, rushing up to me with his steel pipe raised. Still, a crouch and a kick was all it took to send him crashing down.
Letting out a breath of relief that Ren hadn’t been hurt because of my slip-up, I turned back to my side of the car. My breath of relief morphed into a tired sigh as I saw five more mages clambering up, the excitement on their faces clear. Obviously, they had been anticipating their turn to come up and display their skill in front of the crowd and Owen. They probably think that they’ll be the ones to win the fight, I thought with contempt. As if every other mage that came up here was completely different.
Still, the strenuous fighting was certainly good training for me. My mind and body were being tested to its limit, and the longer I managed to keep this up, the stronger I would be at the end of it. Well, assuming I make it to the end of this alive.
With a small chuckle at my own joke, I rushed towards the novice mages in front of me, ready to crush their dreams.