Chapter 144: Last Man Standing
Ignoring Alex’s surprised reaction, Quinn turns away from Alex to strike Armaros with a disc clutched in his other hand. Catching back up with the speed of play, Armaros whips around and raises his blade to block Quinn’s attack.
The dagger and disc make contact, causing silver and green sparks to fly as Armaros uses the force to push himself away. Throwing his arm out to the side and activating rift flow, Armaros teleports outside of the ring of fire and catches his breath while waiting to see what happens next.
Inside the blazing ring, a conflicted Alex takes a step toward Quinn. Quinn quickly turns to face Alex, making Alex stop where he’s standing. Creating three small disks, Quinn slides one between each of his fingers, threateningly presenting them to Alex.
“He’s mine,” utters Quinn, creating some distance between himself and Alex as his eyes brag a dark green glimmer.
Alex’s mouth falls to a frown as his gaze narrows. With his tattoos still glowing through his dirtied white shirt, Alex readies himself for combat again, “Then you’ll have to get through me first.”
Snapping his fingers, the ring of fire warps itself into a dome. Snapping his fingers again, the space within the dome begins to lessen as the flames start to close inward. With both men being forced toward one another, Alex charges at Quinn.
Smirking, Quinn cockily asks, “Hasn’t Zeris taught you yet?”
Briefly wondering what Quinn could’ve meant, Alex ignores Quinn’s taunt and continues charging forward without slowing down. Keeping his shield active, Quinn zips the three discs from his other hand directly toward Alex, one by one. Dodging each disc, Alex makes quick work of Quinn’s attack and wonders if Quinn’s taunt was just a bluff.
Having enough time to produce three more discs, Quinn holds them between his fingers again. Shuffling the disc in between his index and middle finger down to his thumb and index finger for more control, Quinn projects it slightly to the right of him before halting its movement. He then shuffles the second disc and throws it marginally higher in the air than the first one. Repeating the same process, he knuckle rolls the third disc down before lofting it even more elevated and farther than the other two.
They were stepping stones, and Quinn had set them up in an instant. Now only a few feet away, Alex tried to snap his fingers and shoot a wave of flames at the discs, but it was too late to retreat.
“Your flames are weak against my discs,” notes Quinn as he leaps off the third disc and flies over the top of Alex.
Disregarding another potential taunt from Quinn, Alex tests such a theory. Snapping his fingers again, Alex casts a fireball directly at Quinn, but Quinn blocks Alex’s fireball with his disc shield. With Quinn on the follow-through of his jump, Alex turns around to keep his eyes trained on Quinn as Quinn secretly creates another disc close to his chest. This disc was much larger than the previous few that Quinn held between his fingers, as this disc could neatly fit in his hand.
Twisting his body, Quinn instantly chucks the disk downward at Alex at a frightening speed. Raising his bladed arm to block the attack, the attack accelerates past Alex’s attempted lethargic defense. As the disk catches the back of Alex’s shirt, Alex loses his footing as the speed of the disc pulls his shirt back before staking it into the ground. Sticking the landing of his jump, Quinn turned around and shot two more discs of similar size at Alex, staking Alex’s shirt directly to the ground.
Forced onto the ground and lying on his side, Alex tried to squirm and set himself free, but he couldn’t reach where the discs had planted themselves. Yelling out of frustration, Alex looked over his shoulder to locate the spots where the three discs held him down, but he couldn’t spot any of them.
“It’s nothing personal,” says Quinn, approaching Alex but keeping his distance. “I have no reason to kill you… or even harm you. But I just have to do this. I know you don’t understand, but it’ll all make sense later. I’ll be sure to explain everything.”
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Recognizing that the enflamed dome is still closing and is only a few feet to the left of him, Quinn kneels and uses his disc as a shield to block the flames from touching his body as they pass over him. Waiting until the flames have safely passed, Quinn stands back up without a scratch on him.
Clicking his tongue out of frustration, Alex deactivates the dome so he doesn’t lose sight of Quinn. With no cover and understanding that they share the same target, both men veer their focus away from one another and direct them toward the assassin.
Armaros, who had remained in the same place since using rift flow, seemed to have gotten his wind back, but he wasn’t planning to make any aggressive movements yet. Armaros understands that even the slightest error could mean death if Quinn has other surprise abilities.
“F*ck off, Code,” then murmurs Alex, snapping his fingers.
Lighting his own shirt on fire, the discs holding Alex down are destroyed, and Alex regains his ability to move.
Rising to his feet, Alex says, “That bastard killed my mother and sister.”
Hearing that as he reabsorbs some of the iris from his broken discs, guilt wavers within Quinn as he side-eyes Alex, but then he looks back at Armaros, and his gaze hardens again. Keeping Alex in his peripheral vision, Quinn processes what he has just heard and remains quiet.
“I don’t know what business you have with Scar, but I’ll kill both of you if I have to. I know it’s f*cked up, but if it means ending Scar’s life… I can at least do that much for them. So, I’ll give you one final warning, Code. Withdraw from this fight, and I won’t have to kill you too. If you refuse, I promise you that I alone will be the last man standing in this arena,” says Alex.
Considering his offer, Quinn was internally surprised that he didn’t fear Alex’s words. In terms of engaging in another fight, Quinn was confident that he could best the inexperienced Alex, especially considering Alex was already growing fatigued.
However, on the off chance that things wouldn’t go his way, Quinn was astounded by the fact that for the first since he met Zeris… he didn’t fear death.
“Forgive me, Ace… but no–” starts Quinn.
“I expected as much,” interrupts Alex.
Snapping his fingers, Alex places a curving firewall to block Quinn’s view of Armaros. With a slight time advantage, Alex turns his attention to Armaros and snaps his fingers twice. A giant fireball and a thin, concentrated stream of flames burst out of Alex’s hand toward Armaros, the fireball acting as a "smoke screen" for the directed surge of fire following it up.
Slightly recovered and planning not to use iris to dodge Alex’s attack, Armaros readies himself as the first fireball approaches. Bursting through Alex’s firewall with his disc shield, Quinn detects Alex’s plan of attack and moves in to clean up the scraps if Armaros manages to avoid it.
Snapping his fingers, Alex fans the first fireball out into eight tiny fireballs, each encompassing the stream of flames now front and center. With Alex controlling each fireball to orbit around the channeled surge of flames, Armaros has no choice but to use his iris to evade the attack.
Channeling iris into his lower body, Armaros’s muscles ache as he jumps out of the incoming flame surge. The surge slams into the wall behind Armaros while Alex commands each of the eight orbiting fireballs to drill down toward Armaros like they are meteoroids.
Weaving between each one, Armaros spots Quinn approaching out of the corner of his eyes, and so does Alex. Snapping his fingers, two fireballs redirect to Quinn, and Quinn raises his disc shield above his head to block one of the fireballs as he outruns the other, not slowing down on his assault.
Gritting his teeth and producing three more discs in his right hand, Quinn quickly knuckle-rolls them between his fingers and closes his hand into a fist. Looking to take on Armaros with his armed fist and shield, Quinn throws his fist forward, and Armaros blocks his strike with his dagger. Still with plenty of iris left, the riveting Quinn channels more iris into his fist, the added strength causing Armaros’s feet to drag back through the dirt for a few inches as Quinn starts to overpower the assassin.
Replanting his feet, Armaros deflects Quinn’s fist to the side. In reaction, Quinn flips one of his three hand disks in the air, catching it with his thumb and index finger before casting it across his body at Armaros. The disc projectile rushes past Quinn’s chest and is directly on course to strike Armaros in the neck. Realizing this, Armaros’s eyes widened, and he quickly raised his arm to block Quinn’s attack with his dagger, but the disc buried itself into his forearm instead.
As Armaros grunts and endures the pain, Quinn flips up and grasps the next disc, but Armaros slashes him across the shoulder with his dagger before Quinn can throw it. Now pouncing toward the two of them, Alex snaps his fingers and shoots a fireball at Quinn, forcing Quinn to roll away as he clutches his injured shoulder. Snapping his fingers again, Alex ignites a new layer of flames up his arms and harrows down on top of Armaros, wanting to deliver the finishing blow.