“I’ve never been challenged in anything I do. Never has anyone come close to my level; not in academics, games, sports or fighting. All I ever do is search. Search for my equal. Truth be told, it’s the only thing I’ve failed at. You see, where some fail, others succeed. Where those few succeed, I triumph, standing high above even the greatest. In doing so, I’ve only managed to hang myself more comfortably.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t ever great tyrant have to monologue.”

Alex stood with his back to the bruised and battered teen, his long hair surfing through the breeze. He started to pace back and forth impatiently. Lifting his hand, he effortlessly crushed the phone in his hand. “If your crew isn’t here soon, I’ll turn you into coins and use them to kill off my boredom at the arcade.”

Alex was the leader of The Greats, the first gang that managed to take control of a part of the city. The Westside belong to them and with only two members, they are managing to make their presence known over North. Alex was calling out gang leaders with death threats towards their underlings. Killing was taboo, even among the barbaric teens who would beat you bloody and leave you for dead. This warranted a hefty response from the leaders, prompting them to get all hands on deck for the confrontation. This time was no different. Over 20 people sprinted onto the roof, forming a circle around Alex. They were mostly armed with junk that could pass as a usable weapon; trash lids, busted pipes, broken bottles, and a chair. They quickly picked up their fallen friend and he vanished into the gang’s rank. A suited teen entered the circle and looked around.

“You’re all alone. Not a good move on your part.”

“They call me Alexander The Great for a reason.”

“They call me Giovanni for the same reason.” He steps closer to Alex, hands still in his pockets.

“Giovanni huh? Like from Team Rocket.”

“Yup, they hear that name and instantly think of power. This here is my gang, Team Stop It; In this situation, it’ll be referring to your heart.”

“You know it’s not a good name if you have to explain it.” Giovanni turns his back to Alex and starts to walk away.

“I guess that’s enough explaining. Just know, we have to prove we don’t take kindly to threats.” The circle of teens began to collapse on Alex as Giovanni left the roof.

The fight ends just as fast as it started. Surprisingly Giovanni’s gang didn’t run in one at a time, but work as a team, attacking in quick succession after one another. Alex only used this to his advantage, letting the gangs blows fly pass him into other members. It was amidst the chaos that Alex threw his punches. With each punch he took out multiple people, sending them flying into each other. As their numbers dropped, the remaining members started to use their power-ups. Flames and hot tar flew pass Alex as he was superman punching the giant teen. Landing a blow to his foes ankle, he was able to knock the giant down, sending him crashing into the remaining teens. Alex looked around for more prey but found none. He grabs the chair from the hands of an unconscious member, unfolded it, and sat… waiting.

With the newfound silence, Giovanni opened the door. Reality conflicted with his expectations; instead of Alex being defeated, he was the only one still standing.

“Now that the warm-up is over, let us get down to business,” Alex said before standing up.

“So what… what did you come here for? What’s with the needless fighting? Aren’t you a small gang? Wouldn’t controlling the North and the West run you thin?”

“Uh-uh. Talking was what I wanted to do before. I’m warmed up, ain’t no talking out of this.

“Sure… Prepare for trouble then, and make it double.”

Giovanni shadow raised from the ground into an exact copy of himself.

“It’s a reference to pokemon wh-”

“I get the reference.”

“Actually, why stop there?” Now both their shadow grew into another copy. This continued until Alex was once again surrounded.

Unlike the fight before, where the attacks were coordinated yet chaotic, all Giovanni’s attack flowed together perfectly. While two copies rushed Alex from the front, another went for his legs from behind. Alex would have been in loss situation if not for his incredible speed and his mastery of it. With this, he followed the motion of the sweep kick with a spin, reaching a point where the clones kick couldn’t hit. “Low blow,” Alex took a shot at the disrespectful copy, but to no avail. The clone managed to turn into a shadow before he could land a punch. This scene repeated over and over as Alex went on the offense, he was always a bit too late to get a hit off. The ring of Giovannis’ didn’t grow any less either. When one faded away to dodge a punch, another would pop out of the shadows. While Alex may have been getting nowhere, he still hasn’t broken a sweat either.

“Play hide and seek all you want, it shows you’re nothing but a coward.”

[Maybe if I get him to talk, I can find the real one.] Alex plan fell through the gutter when all of the Giovannis’ responded at once.

“I’ve been testing you that’s all.”

“And I passed with flying colors.”

“Yea, your decision making is extremely scary. I noticed you didn’t jump you dodge the sweep,”

“Because in the air you can’t move. I would have been trapped there.”

“Makes you wonder, why your life choices have less thought behind them. Why the sudden change of heart? Why would a nerd like you become a gang leader?”

Silence washed over Alex.

“You were famous, everyone knew you for your gaming skills. You were the talk of the arcades and the meets. No matter where you were from; North, South, East, West, you were on the lookout for the prodigy, Alex. Now you’re in a gang trying to take over the whole city with just Four members.” Giovanni said in disgust.

“Five.”

“Get real nerd. Five isn’t even enough for the Westside alone. Go back to games before you end up in an early grave.”

The conversation was ended early due to the intruder to the circle. Their aura could be felt before they even arrived. Now facing Giovanni was the thief who stole the spotlight, none other than, an alley cat. It brushed it’s black fur up against his legs as he bent down to pet it, Alex watching patiently.

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“Hey there Buddy? How was your day? I’m in a fight right now Buddy so run along,” But the cat didn’t. Instead, it hid behind him, scared to death of the soon to arrive second intruder. This intruder came down heavy and breached from the back of the circle. It was Tessa. She now stood side to side with Alex, giving a death stare to the cat. Alex looked back and forth between her and Giovanni.

“Hey, there’s two cosplayers now.” Alex wasted no time pointing out.

“I had sensed more evil among the crowd but did not expect this. That fiend, always with the ambushes.”

Giovanni stood up, not fully understand the situation. “Are you calling Buddy here a fiend? He’s just another alleycat who has taken a liking to me. I’m Giovanni, I’m the fiend. You might not understand, but he completes the get-up. Get it? It’s a refer-”

Alex spoke for them both “We get the reference, but it’s not a white cat.”

“Yea, I wish it was.”

“I am surrounded by evil, I will let you live because of my partner wishes. Surrender now or prepare to fight.”

“That’s my line.”

“What line?”

“Are you like Link cos-player are something?” Giovanni asked, still not grasping the situation

“I am Tessa. I have come from another realm to face an evil even greater than that devil you protect.”

“So you want to get in on this loss?”

“If I understood that correctly, yes.”

“You did not,” Alex replies.

Alex and Tessa make eye contact and at that moment an unspoken prophecy began. Each party could see something in the other. Alex could see her resolve. The courage of this woman outweighed her brain by a lot, but he knew that makes an individual that much more dangerous. Simply by the way she carried herself, he could tell she knew the dance of battle. While in her eyes, she saw his aura. The aura of a man who fought to hurt. To an untrained eye it’d come off as malice, but she knew the aura of malice too well. This was different. [He lives to fight and fights just to fight. To live is to have reason, so a reason he must have.] And he did, which Tessa came to realize. He fought to find an equal, someone who would rise after being hurt to hurt him back or someone that strong to begin with. Tessa wondered if he knew that he just found that, and he did. By the look in his eyes, she saw he knew the dance of battle. So.... they danced.

Alex and Tessa nod at each other before stacking back to back. The fights quickly started up again. The clones rushed them, fading in and out of existence to keep from getting hit by Tessa wide covering sword beams. Even with Tessa’s speed, her sword took time to swing so soon the clones had made it too close to get a full one off. Alex and Tessa begun to dance around the fight, with Giovanni’s focus on two targets, his movements became chaotic, sometimes even out of sync. Alex didn’t throw any punches, he wanted to watch this mysterious girl who had needlessly come to his aid. Still pressured by the short distance between her and her foe, Tessa starts going for jabs with her sword, allowing her to attack back now. But this had gone to her head as a valid method of attacking and Giovanni could see through it. Too focused on jabbing, she was not able to ward off the swarm of clones that had jumped at her from the front. Giovanni ended her streak of dodging with a powerful backhand. Tessa flew to the ground but didn’t stay long, using the momentum to flip over.

[Nice try, but now you have no idea what’s going on in your blindspot till you look and Giovanni isn’t dumb enough to miss that opportunity.] Alex was right. Tessa had barely regained her balance before two clones rushed her from the front. It was the same setup they tried on Alex. Tessa ran into the clones, taking one punch but managing to dodge the second one. [Smart move taking the punches to give you more time to dodge the sweep. Wonder how you saw the sweep coming...] Tessa looked behind her, finally seeing her blind spot, just to be greeted with the incoming sweep. She jumps to the side in the last few seconds. [She didn’t know about the sweep?! Why’d she run into the punches for? She doesn’t know what she’s doing. And now she’s trapped now. How disappointing.]

Now in the air, unable to dodge, the clones barraged towards her preparing to pounce. Tessa wasn’t out of it yet, from her pocket she pulled out the clawshot and shot it towards a very specific

Giovanni; the real one. Panicked, he creates several clones in front of him to block the shot. Hooking onto the first one sent Tessa flying towards their direction. With a spin and a yell, Tessa rode the wave of Giovannis’, slicing through each of them in a heavenly blade dance, ending with a kick to the chest on the real one. They flew back into a wall where the impact shook the building. The clones begin to vanish from around Alex.

Tessa steps out from the settling dust; Giovanni laid up against the wall, barely conscious. Alex stood relieved that his unspoken rival wasn’t a lost cause.

“Did you finished with a kick for style?”

“No, to keep a promise.”

“Not to kill,” Tessa answered, reading his mind.

“Well, that’ll be your downfall.”

Alex rushed her, but she was ready. They both ran towards each other but Alex speed was unmatched. Alex twirled around her before she could swing and with one punch he finished the job. Giovanni, who was inches away from Tessa with his pocket knife, had been stopped for good. He coughed up some blood before he burst into a pile of coins. The threat of the rival gang disappeared with their leading now dead and the members knocked out. Still, neither Alex nor Tessa could relax.

“Listen, since you did most of the work, why don’t you take him. Buy yourself something nice.”

“I will accept that offer,” she said, but they both didn’t move. It was a poly. A test from Alex to see if she’d let her guard down and she didn’t plan on failing.

“Are you going to pick it up or what?”

“Yes, I will do that… Now…”

Tessa began to circle around the pile of coins, all the while Alex mimicked her movements.

“Don’t be too scared, I don’t bite.”

“All animals act out from time to time,” by the time she finished, they had switched places entirely. The door behind Tessa was flung open but she didn’t even glance that direction. It was Gibby, out of breath and out of place. Not too sure about the situation at first, Gibby slowly understood what was going on.

“You killed one of The Greats, Tessa?”

“If I understand the question correctly, yes.”

“You didn’t understand it at all,” Alex interrupted.

“Alex just let it be, Tessa doesn-”

“Don’t speak for her Gibby. Your words have done enough damage. ‘Did you kill a Great’, of course not. Not with your philosophy plaguing her mind. This isn’t some game world where you can playthrough some pacifist run. This is reality, where sparing a life can mean ending your own,” Alex removed his MMA gloves and stuffed them inside his jacket pocket. Finally catching up, Noa makes her way pass Gibby and walks up to Alex. Tessa and Gibby watched in silence as they approached each other and give each other two consecutive fist bumps.

“You’re the other member?!” Emotions flowed through Gibby that he didn’t understand. Noa hadn’t done anything wrong, but he still felt betrayed.

“Yea…” Noa seemed embarrassed that Gibby had learned this way.

“I don’t understand. How did this happen. Noa, please. Alex is not a good person.”

Noa turned away

Alex stepped in, “So that’s how it is huh? Since you have no power-up and no sense of commitment to bettering your fighting, you use your words you hurt people. Not only their feelings but their mindsets as well. THE WORLD ISN’T PERFECT GIBBY!” Alex screamed. “The world is in a constant state of decaying negatively. If we can’t be perfect as a collective, how can you expect us to be perfect alone.” “That’s not what I meant.” Alex turned and walked to Noa who was now looking over the edge of the building. “Look at it Noa. This land now belong to you. You’re part of The Greats now and your responsibility is to control the North. You can’t show weakness. Once you’re part of the team, nothing else matters. It’s us versus the world.”

“That’s just escapism. You’re helping feed into the world you hate.”

“Well what can I say Gibby. Don’t hate the player, hate the game”

Alex made his way to the pile of coins and picked them up. Tessa was still tense. Alex handed the coins to Tessa who complied. “Link has a shield you know,” Alex proclaimed before walking off. Tessa was still confused about Alex and Gibby argument, but she understood one thing.

“I don’t spare lives… I just keep my promises.” Alex didn’t turn around. He exited the rooftop leaving the trio to themselves. Alex had gotten down a flight of stairs before walking pass the cat that made his day.

“You’re the cat that lead that girl to me. I had to kill your owner, he was trying to play dirty.”

“No man owns me,” said the cat in a deep voice that you’d imagine would come from a towering beast.

“Interesting.” Alex didn’t even turn to look at the cat.

“You don’t look too surprised.”

“I’ve seen crazier.”

“You haven’t even seen me.”

Alex stopped and looked at the cat. Even without Tessa’s power to sense aura, he could feel the malice oozing from its very cute being.