“I told you, Ceylica, a movie could be smart and have people beating each other!”
“Yer right…” Mumbles Ceylica, acquiescing with a mixture of awe and sadness in her eyes. “I hope they make a sequel soon…”
Ceylica, I, and Ode’go are already making our way out, heading into the entrance lobby as a select few students follow. Motioning to rest and discuss, we quickly settle into a small blob, joined on the corner where a sofa awaits.
"That... Was cinema."
Ten metres away from the sofa, I catch a figure. One of the few students that came to watch, and much less currently stays. A boy with medium-length blonde hair. He’s dressed in a black cloth robe, long to his knees, inlined with two dashes of silver where the collar should be. Upon his shoulders rest a silver epaulette with an upturned collar reaching just half his neck—menacing and in traditional Aoelian fashion—possibly suggesting underpinning respect for tradition that might put him as a mage?
Under the dim glow of fluorescent blue, I continue to study him. He doesn’t appear to have seen us yet. And facing a nearby wall, he seems fully immersed in thought, staring with no shortage of solemnity.
…..
To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of him.
His right hand is pinned against the surface, and his left is gripping his face, fingernails digging to the point of making an indent. On a surface-level remark, I’d say he looks stressed.
But, if I have to put it in a cruder way, that gets the point across…
Well, I’d say he appears constipated, with shaky movements and a few tears in his eyes as if on the brink of release.
Like, just barely.
"Pure cinema…” He mumbles, “Peak fiction, even."
Ceylica struts forward, her face changing to sudden, slight shock.
"Tommy, what are ye doing here?!"
"HMMM?!"
The boy known as Tommy jolts forward, slamming his forehead into the wall in the process. Twisted in surprise, he quickly turns to face us, his body language defensive and his medium-length dirty blonde hair twirling.
"I was merely reminiscing about my tragic backstory; as a matter of fact, what are you doing here?"
"Well, we just finished 'Cradled Soul."
"It was good, wasn't it?"
"Ye, peak fiction, as you'd say."
Tommy nods, seemingly oblivious to Ceylica's verbal jab. "Well, cinema aside.” He continues, brushing back his bangs and lowering his voice an octave. “Aren't you supposed to be a little preoccupied, woman?"
"With what?"
"Merely our constantly depleting resources and your failure to catch whoever's responsible."
"Oh, that". She laughs. "I'll take care of it tomorrow."
"Do you have any idea how little confidence that inspires?"
Tommy walks forward, hand brushing his right shoulder. "How many tomorrows will it take? How many days until you finally decide to take things seriously and get it done?"
"I said I'll get it done tomorrow. So just one more tomorrow, really."
"Amusing. The demon chooses to participate in wordplay." Tommy says, brushing back his dirty blonde bangs… again, "Well, I'm afraid that we can't afford 'one more tomorrow'. So hurry it along, knave, or I'll replace you with someone who can."
"And who that'd be, eh, Tommy boy? If ye think yer so tough, then try fighting me yerself."
"Mongrel. As if I'd stoop to such excessive brutality for the likes of you. Just a word, and your career as a low-tier gang leader comes to an end."
His words seem to prompt decisive action. With one swift instep, Ceylica grabs Tommy by the collar, lifting him a head off the ground.
"All flash and no substance. Pity. If you'd shown half as much impulse to clean up your mess as you do to assaulting randoms, this ordeal would've been finished already."
Ceylica singlehandedly cracks her free left knuckle, expelling it of excess gas in a sharp, resounding noise. "Think ye'd still be saying that after I hit ye?"
"Think ye'd still be able to hit me if I fight back?"
"And how do ye plan on doing that?"
Tommy tosses a casual upward glance. Following his example, we soon see why.
"W-waah."
How long has it been there?!
Slithering atop the ceiling is a ten-metre-long purple centipede with a body about as thick as mine and a porcelain mask, flapping with each move of its thousand feet on its head in rhythmic, clack clack clack.
"You'd do well to give up," Tommy says, smiling as a bead of sweat trickles down his left eyelid.
"Or what?"
All at once, the double door to the cinema is kicked in. A dramatic entry, if nothing else.
"Or I might just have to step in."
The voice that interrupts is new. No. More than that, the voice is familiar… Distinctively so. With an accent, tone and pitch that all point to but one person…
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Lucius?!”
A second later, his blonde-haired companion follows up. “And Harux!”
In the dim overcast light, the two figures cast a long looming shadow. Stretching from the entrance to us, elongated in a metaphorical road that finally connects the two conflicting parties at long last.
“Become an asset, won’t you?” Tommy manages to let out. “Do your job, and take care o—tch!”
Flung away, Tommy’s body soars through the air, subject to a scene straight out of a cartoon. But he quickly aims to break his impact—rolling and dispersing the force of his fall with a hand’s smack.
In the meantime, a sort of showdown transpires between Ceylica and Lucius, the two like indomitable forces of nature—each unwilling to give way.
“So, Ceylica is i—”
She doesn’t let him finish. Of course, having found the opportunity, she instead takes to walking across before promptly holding Lucius in the air—only this time, by the throat. Idly standing by, Harux reacts with both hands on the back of his head, watching with glee.
“Ye got a lot of nerve showin’ yerself here.”
“Call it a businessman’s predisposition…”
Lucius is smiling, even as the tightness in his voice grows with each waning second.
“Ye got ten seconds to explain before I strangle ye to the land of dreams.”
“W-w-w-wait!”
He turns suddenly on his old demeanour, becoming at once a frightful version of his two seconds ago self.
“Ten. Nine. Eight…”
“In about a second, the phone in your right breast pocket is going to ring.”
“♫ Dooowaaaa, dowa dooo ♫”
The same second Lucius predicts, an old-school Crilandese song comes from Ceylica’s phone.
“You might want to pick that up.”
“Heh, alright then.”
Her composure still-intact, Ceylica retrieves her phone and presses it to her ear, putting it into speaker mode as she does so.
“BOSS, JUST LISTEN TO THE GUY, ALRIGHT? HE’S A DAMN PSYCHO!”
“Huh?”
“H-HE’S GOT BOMBS IN ALL OUR STORES, T-THERE’S NO ONE IN THEM, BUT THEY’RE SET TO BLOW!”
“He’s bluffing.”
Silent until now, Ode’go interrupts, an uncanny grin on his face.
“Probably paid off one of our guys. Asked him to do a little performance, the usual.” The catboy paces about, humming as he unwraps a dried fish snack to chew on. “What do you think, Morgana?”
“No, that’s not right.”
Not right at all.
I know Lucius. And I know that if it were a bluff, that he wouldn’t be nearly as composed as he is now. No. Nearly as confident. Because even now, even as his face strains from lack of air, the grin he has is stronger than ever.
“Convenience Store One: two four, six ten, nine seven, three six, two one. Convenience Store Two: six seven, nine two, three two, ten five. Convenience Store Three: seven, seven, three, six, nine.” Lucius enunciates, stressing each number with pin-perfect accuracy. “Those are the passwords to three of your safes, stored with actual money you’ve been exchanging for the school goods.”
“The hell?”
Then he keeps going.
“You might be wondering how I did it. The answer?” He chuckles, “I’ve got even more than you. Being a billionaire does have its perks, after all…”
“And yer bombs?”
“Courtesy of Mortius Industries. Comes with the benefits of being a CEO of a defence contracting company.”
Man, this is highly unnecessary…
If Lucius wanted to goad her into a fight, coming here would be more then enough.
But to go to this length?
There must be only one reason to go that far…
“So, how about it, Ceylica? Why don’t you tighten the grip and let us talk this out like civilised people?”
“Alright, name yer demands, boy.” she finally relents.
“A duel.”
“Yer kiddin’.”
“Hardly. I’m dead serious right now. So how about it? The terms and conditions are as follows: we have a no holds barred one-versus-one between us, so no other students included, but all tools allowed; if I win, you relinquish all control of your gang’s activities to me.”
“And if I win?”
“You get to lead my product’s supply chain and have me withdraw my ownership and bombs. How about it?”
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“We fight, right ere’ right now.”
“That’d be inconvenient.”
Lucius Mortius, you utter liar.
“By the time ye blow up my stores, I’d have broken yer face and all the bones in yer body twice fold. And, I hate to presume things about ye, but I’d assume our pretty little billionaire wouldn’t be too fond of that, mhm?”
“You’d be right on that. Facial reconstruction can be pretty darn expensive, so, urgh, as much as it pains me, let’s do it now.”
What a load of turd.
Lucius camouflaged it well, but I can still make it out.
His facade definitely slightly broke on the ‘urgh’, being just a pitch higher than how it would be…
So, as it is, he’s actively goading Ceylica into a duel if anything else!
“Now, hold on just one more second, eh. There’s no guarantee that Lucius here will hold onto his word…”
“Oh, but there is, our lovable resident catboy!”
Abrupt to the point of fright, a baritone voice suddenly sweeps over us.
“A-Azama?!”
There, appearing like an elderly man is Azama. My homeroom teacher. Standing just short of the door to the next hallway, his face wrinkled and weary, his body hunch-backed, and a pair of sunglasses sitting atop his nose. Alongside him too are the medical staff, waiting, backs against the walls.
“Jeez,” I mumble.
Did Lucius plan this all along?
Otherwise, what are the chances that Azama is conveniently here?!
“And you don’t need to worry about any naughty foul play either. Given that I’m the homeroom teacher of Ceylica’s class, I can promise that any predisposition I might have can only go in one direction!”
“So how about it, Ceylica?” Lucius asks, “This fair enough for you?”
“Ye.”
She puts her captive down.
“Ten seconds. In ten seconds, we fight. No holds barred, as you said.”
“Fine by me.”
“Then let Ol’ Azama count down for you!”
The two combatants stand five metres apart. On the sidelines, Azama, the mediator between the fighters, begins to count, yelling with the ferocity of a sports announcer, doing the chance backflip and vertical pushup with one hand on every second number.
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
Lucius sprints out the double door. Without wait, Ceylica follows, trailing after him in a blaze of unprecedented violence.
“Zero!”
Time for the next match.
Even with Ceylica and Lucius gone, two bright flames still burn.
Two kindles of fire so bright and lively, burning away within the two young men that still stand. Leftovers of each respective party, Ode’go and his opponent, the blonde elf boy, meet each other's eyes, negotiating terms of their own impending fight, spearing each other with their respective glances.
“Now then, Harux.” Says Ode’go with a grin. “Why don’t you say we continue where we left off?”
Harux grins, drawing his scimitar. “Yeah, let’s!”