Chapter 54: The Two Remaining Champions, Part 1

Heather came for him with a black crystal sword in one hand. She was a creature of habit, just like him, but today she had made a change. In the other hand, she also carried a sword. Sylvester wasn't sure if using two swords was really more effective than using one, but oh well. It's not like it was a fight to the death. Just training, so it didn't really matter one way or another. He prepared to face her attack. He only wielded his usual katana. He already had enough disadvantages as it is, and if he fought in a way that wasn't familiar to him, he would be lost before it even began.

The training area was as large as a soccer stadium, a vast rectangle illuminated by green LED lights and nothing else. That was the only source of light in the room, but it was more than enough. It was a large room free of obstacles, so they could fly through it carelessly. That's what Heather was doing. That's what she used to do, he knew after living a daily life with her by his side. Although it was an unnecessary waste of energy, she preferred flying anywhere rather than walking. He had seen her on a treadmill once and she had looked at him as if wondering who on earth would do that voluntarily.

Oops, he was getting too distracted. She was already on top of him. Sylvester dodged the initial attack by deflecting her sword with his katana. Heather's second sword flew towards his stomach, spinning like a drill. He raised an eyebrow. She had been saving that trick, huh? Through the hundreds of fights they had had in the past few weeks, she had been waiting for the most opportune moment to surprise him. Didn't know you were so patient, he thought.

It was a decisive strike, with the intention to kill. Normal people wouldn't call something so brutal training. For the few spectators, it probably looked like a fight to the death. He was aware that he was closer to being like Heather than being human. With each fight, he drifted further away, but he had no other choice. He had to get stronger. He had to win. He would worry about what would happen after the end when the time came. Assuming he survived the final battle, whatever it was. Assuming he made it that far. He could fall at any moment, and there would be two more people, two Champions, to take his place. Heather... and Cynthia. To replace him. He was no longer unique, special. He could be replaced. In fact, he was fighting against a better version of himself right now.

Trapped in the swamp of his own thoughts, Sylvester couldn't react in time. Consequently, the drill pierced his stomach. Blood sprayed like confetti. He didn't lower his gaze to check it with his own eyes, but he was sure that his entrails became visible in a matter of seconds. Instead of easing up because this was just training, Heather pushed the drill even further.

"Well, I didn't expect any less," he grumbled through gritted teeth. Something like this was a superficial wound. Why would he expect her to stop?

They had been fighting for quite a while. He had lost count, couldn't say how much time had passed, but quite a while. Still, this had only just begun. He wouldn't tell her to stop as if asking for mercy so soon.

Heather had caught him in the stomach.

Sylvester went straight for her neck. He cut from side to side, drawing a skewed smile. It would be painted in blood if it bled. Which was a bit inconvenient for this kind of training; it was harder to know his limits without a visual indication. He had to trust that Heather knew them.

And she did, but well, doubting was human.

Heather returned the blow, hitting him with her elbow. Sylvester staggered backward; she did the same, but more confidently, moving out of the reach of his katana with a push from her wings. He was also using the [Infernal Wings] ability, of course, but not as liberally as she was. They looked similar, but they were two different people.

They looked similar, but she was better.

Faster.

The three swords clashed at once, sparking many sparks. Heather was laughing even with her throat slashed. Not mocking him, excited. No matter how many times they trained this way, they never got tired. She loved the fights, lived for this in a way he could never imitate. It wasn't something that could be imitated. You were born like that or not.

Faster.

She unleashed a flurry of attacks, each faster than the previous one, so Sylvester ran out of space to attack. He had to invest all his power in evasion. Twisting like a snake, crouching, jumping, at one point even putting his boots on the katana and using it as a trampoline to escape the reach of that beast. Briefly, as she followed him without losing a second on black wings like a starless night, of course.

Better.

She was simply better than him.

In every possible way.

Sylvester was getting stronger with each fight, but so was she. He would never catch up. That wasn't the point. The important thing was to save the world; who did it was secondary, but...

It has been my life for so long, he thought.

Sylvester raised the katana above his head in time to stop a double blow that contained the force of a hurricane. His knees bent, but he didn't fall. However, the ground under his feet cracked like a spider's web.

No, this is my life, my purpose, and my relationship with the world. I am the one...

Sylvester shouted, wild and hoarse.

Yes. This had never been just training for him. From the very beginning, from the moment he had decided... It was as if he were betting his entire existence in each fight.

No matter how many attempts it took, he couldn't lose to her. The final result was what mattered. Everything else wasn't defeats but mere setbacks he could overcome.

He had never allowed himself to lose, and he wouldn't start now.

Heather was strong, but what did she know about the weight, the pressure? For an entire decade, he was prepared to fight for another decade.

The three swords clashed, interweaving and separating again and again. Apparently, there was some advantage to using two swords. He wasn't used to that style, but nevertheless...

He took advantage of a moment of vulnerability to headbutt her. Whether it was due to strength or surprise, Heather loosened her grip so that he had time to steal one of her swords. Of course, she replaced it quickly, simply plunging her now-free hand back into her body and extracting a weapon as always. Without being affected, without even leaving, so to speak, an exit wound.

Now they both had two swords. They turned without taking their eyes off the enemy, sizing each other up. One would say that at this point, there was nothing they didn't know about each other, but he had surprised her with a new trick less than a minute ago.

Sylvester was the first to break the deadlock, taking a step forward. The best defense was a good offense. It had been like that the first time they fought when Kaleidoscope was still a human city, and nothing had changed.

Against an opponent of his level, evading and defending wouldn't buy him time; it would only decrease his chances of victory. Normal humans had to defend themselves because a single attack in the right place could end them in seconds, but he didn't have that weakness.

For him, every moment he defended meant he was just enduring his opponent's attacks without doing anything to win the fight. Without gaining anything in return.

Sylvester finally realized.

It was time to stop fooling around and fight for what he was.

A monster.

At some point in the exchange of blows, his right arm went flying, meaning he was left with a single sword again. And he continued as if nothing had happened.

"I'll manage with my left hand. Something is something," he said.

Heather made a disgusted face for a moment.

Oh, so he didn't have, you know, the necessary parts, but he knew what he was talking about. Well, why not? She didn't know why it had surprised her.

Even that moment of surprise could turn into an advantage. Sylvester attacked with his katana and even used the stump of his right arm to block an attack, since it couldn't get much worse. Giving it his all, like a monster that didn't have to worry about the state of its body, he managed to return the favor.

One arm, one sword. It turned out it wasn't very sound logic. Definitely not practical, but Heather pulled out another sword of black crystal, holding the hilt between her teeth. In response, Sylvester's smile widened considerably.

"You don't know when to give up, huh?"

The green LED lights were now tinged with the red of his blood. It reminded him of the stomach of that tentacled beast, a red, moist, undulating cave of flesh. That's what it had been until it went completely dark, of course. Then it had been the nighttime world any child sees before overcoming the fear of darkness. Just that, the absolute darkness.

They raised their swords at the same time, in the same way, as synchronized as if they had practiced it hundreds of times.

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"What a show," Ryan muttered, barely audible, but Sylvester heard him perfectly even as he exchanged blows with Heather and the song of steel filled the blood-drenched air.

He had been present, observing many of their training fights. One would think that by now he would have gotten used to it.

But maybe it wasn't possible.

Sylvester kept attacking, and Heather kept giving ground, which might create the illusion that he had the advantage. If he opened the door, she would tear him apart.

Both were superhuman, but there were obvious differences in the quality of the base material (as he had expressed so perfectly on the day they met) that forced him to remember every time they fought.

Fights were not just about who was more powerful, even under the strange system the Champions had to operate. The second most important thing was how to use that power. And the first, perhaps, luck. Plain and simple.

Heather made a mistake, a small, tiny mistake. Something that might have been overlooked on another day. Something that might have been overlooked thousands of times. But today it didn't, and he knew how to take advantage of it.

What was it?

A bad shift in weight, an opening in her stance. That was all.

But it was enough to decide the victory. She ended up on the ground, with Sylvester's katana buried in her chest, and both silently decided that it was enough for today.

He had won, barely.

That was what mattered. What mattered?

"Well done," Heather said, still on the ground, breathing unevenly. She didn't seem upset at all or even competitive. What did she think she had done?

"You too," he replied, his irrational insecurities surfacing.

This was a victory, not the victory. Similarly, he had suffered countless defeats in these weeks. It didn't mean anything, really.

Nothing had changed yet. He hadn't beaten her yet.

But he would lie if he said he didn't feel as satisfied as if he had. Maybe something had changed, his way of thinking, approaching battles.

And maybe that would prove to be enough in the future.

But not today.

"You fight like wild animals," Cynthia said as she approached, blunt as usual.

"That's what we are," Heather replied, sounding proud.

Sylvester was watching them from the corner of his eye. Most of his attention was focused on his status screen. There was no doubt that the repeated fights with Heather had helped him grow. In fact, it had been at an astronomical speed.

He had evenly distributed the points, and now almost all his stats were at level fifty, no more, no less.

Except, of course, the overall level.

It had risen to level fifty-six. There was one more exception, the health stat. He had improved it a few more levels instead of saving all the remaining points as a reserve to regenerate in an emergency, but he could see that the level was capped at twenty-five.

Heather's stats were lower, but as her base material was better, she was still stronger than him.

As her base material was better, she couldn't grow at the same speed as him. Yes. That growth, instead of being something to be happy about, a triumph, was a reminder that he was inferior to her. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy.

He took a deep breath.

Nonsense. Childish nonsense. But had he ever had time to mature, thrown into a fight for the fate of the world as soon as his powers awakened, with no turning back, no remedy?

Maybe not. Maybe that had to start now.

Maybe? Haha.

"What's wrong?" Ryan asked. That guy was sensitive and attentive to everything around him, so it wasn't surprising that he had noticed something, even if he couldn't express it in words.

But precisely because of that, he couldn't tell him the truth.

How brazen it would be to talk about his inferiority complex when that man, although not exactly normal, was surrounded by three superhuman beings to whom he could never compare, no matter how hard he tried for the rest of his life.

"I feel like hitting someone other than Heather," he finally said. "A real enemy. The damn robot is dead, although it took a good part of San Francisco with it and made it inevitable for who knows how long. But the others must still be out there. And I can't stand thinking about that. I'm climbing the damn walls."

Sylvester went to get a glass of water and only remembered that his right arm was a stump when he tried to reach for the faucet with his right hand. Ryan silently helped him and thanked him the same way, nodding, and that was it.

He drank the water in one go. It didn't seem enough.

"They're out there, somewhere," he repeated.

If Sylvester had known he was being watched, he would have started climbing the walls literally. But since he didn't know, he just sighed and sat down to wait for his arm to grow back.

***

Kurt reached out before the camera flew back to him. They had already seen and heard everything they needed; they didn't have to review it now, just to leave no evidence. They hadn't discovered the camera through the long and macabre training session, but sooner or later, they would. It wasn't worth the risk.

That's what both of them believed.

"What do you think?"

"The same as you," Roger said, echoing what had just been said, proving it. "We lost the robot, we lost Román, and now he's stronger than ever. The time we spent looking for him may have cost us everything."

"It's true that we don't have any chance in a direct fight. But that was never the plan. Not after losing the robot."

"The problem is, I don't think we have many more chances being stealthy."

"No. That's true, but we have to try anyway. Everyone is counting on us. Or have you forgotten, Roger?"

His companion made a face.

"How could I forget? It's just that... Never mind. You're right; I shouldn't talk as if I've already given up." He took a deep breath, straightening up. "Do you want to act before the cavalry arrives? Just to be clear."

"No matter how many soldiers come, they won't be able to stop him. Especially seeing how strong he has become. But since the high command doesn't listen to me, yes, of course. I want to act now to avoid a lot of unnecessary deaths. It's just that... I still don't know how we should proceed."

Roger fell silent for a while. Then he put a hand on Kurt's shoulder, squeezing.

"One way or another, I'll be with you to the end, brother."

Yes. That was what he feared.

To the end.

The end of everything they had known and loved might be very close. That's precisely why Kurt couldn't help but look back, to his struggle for survival on his home planet. To the day all this had started.

***

The snow was a deadly layer that reached up to his ankles; he had to wade through it as if trapped and lost in an endless swamp. Well, the snow on the ground reached his ankles; in reality, there was snow everywhere. His hair was so covered that it looked white.

Kurt wore three layers of clothing, and yet it didn't seem enough. He hugged himself, trembling, and continued more because he had no other choice than for any other reason. He had no strength left, but if he stopped here, he could consider himself dead.

He would be buried under the snow, and only months or years later would his corpse be discovered.

Perhaps when only bones remained under the snow, worn and anonymous. "What did you stumble upon? Oh, just the bones of some animal." He could imagine that scene more clearly than the snowy world he was traversing right now.

Which was a bad sign, he knew, but there was little he could do to avoid it. He just had to find shelter, a safe place.

If he could sleep, even just for four hours, then...

He would be much more present. It would be more real.

But, of course, it couldn't be.

Something came out from under the snow. Something wet, cold, and dark that grabbed his ankle. Kurt shuddered from head to toe. Its touch was cold, yes, like death, a cold sensation so sharp it burned, that could and had left its mark.

More hands joined, pulling him, dragging him down. Into the depths of hell.

The snow was already making it a constant struggle to move. Many would give up, accepting their fate. Many had already done so. But Kurt refused to. Because then all he had suffered until now would have been for nothing. If he wanted to give meaning to his suffering, he had to survive at all costs.

He resisted them, struggling with all his might. Corruption advanced behind him, staining the snow a dense black like tar, and claws grew on the hands because suddenly he felt them scratching through the skin and reaching the flesh.

I can't die here.

I can't.

Lost in his struggle, Kurt didn't look where he was going and fell off a cliff. But all he felt was relief, as the hands let go, and the corruption stayed far away, at least for now. He had earned one more day of life.

Assuming he survived the fall, but it was definitely more likely than surviving that thing.

He hit the ground, and everything went dark.

***

"Kurt?"

Kurt shook his head.

The past was past. It made no sense to get lost in things he had left behind a long time ago. The only thing that hadn't changed was his will to survive.

If anything, it had only become stronger.

He had given everything without having anything to live for. Now that the world was fine again, now that he was a hero, now that he could be happy...

Nothing and no one would stop him.

***

Kurt woke up abruptly, panting, and despite the fact that just waking up was a good sign, his heart immediately shrank with fear of being close to death for whatever reason. Another survivor in this frozen wasteland, the black corruption, wild animals. Everything was a danger.

But he was alone.

On the edge of a worse fall, he had been lucky, stopping on this ledge instead of continuing to fall. Also, of course, lucky that he hadn't moved too much while unconscious.

Because he wouldn't have survived that fall.

Kurt raised his head.

He thought it was an hallucination, how could it not be? There was a screen floating in front of him, and it had nothing to do with the technology that helped him survive.

KURT CORNWELL LEVEL 1 Below that:

SURVIVOR Exactly, damn, he thought, although shortly after he rolled his eyes and fainted again. If he had known the change it would mean for his life and for the world, both literally and metaphorically on the brink of the abyss, he would have fainted long enough for the snow to suffocate him into the afterlife.

Fortunately, among his many talents, foreseeing the future was not one, so shortly after he woke up again, and this time he stayed conscious, telling himself that it had been an illusion since there was no trace of that screen left.

And he set off.

***

"You're like a damn lizard," said Cynthia, shaking her head and coming over to sit beside him. She said that because his right arm had already fully regenerated.

"Lizards are like me."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know. By the way, you must be one at this point. Or you will be soon."

"I still haven't gotten used to it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it made me very happy. It's easy to feel insecure working with you."

"But a few weeks aren't enough to get used to something like that. I understand perfectly."

"When did you do it?"

"Well..." He opened his mouth, closed it, pressing his lips into a thin line. "The truth is, it was so long ago that it seems like another life. I don't even remember."

"Don't worry. I figured it was just out of curiosity."

Sylvester lowered his head, looking at his hands clasped together awkwardly. His knuckles were white from tension. He didn't usually pay attention to these details, but his veins were too noticeable.

"There's something I can tell you, though. I was happy too." Although he hadn't had anyone to compare himself to or feel inferior, he had made a decision that most people couldn't. Certainly, he wouldn't be fighting without this.

Cynthia fell silent.

"I guess that helped me get used to it. Not only did I wish for it with all my soul, but it was the support of my developing self-image. Without that, I would have collapsed. I never would have imagined that people would see me as a monster, not a hero, but I can't imagine my life without this. Maybe you'll never get used to it."

"Why do you say that?"

"You were already a hero before getting this power. Although you were as fragile as any human being, you made a decision that most people can't. I definitely wouldn't be fighting without this."

Cynthia looked deeply uncomfortable. She wanted to say something, wanted to encourage him, but didn't know where to start. Sylvester himself was the most uncomfortable, however. He shouldn't have said this, although clumsily and convolutedly, he had revealed too much about himself. And for what exactly? She couldn't help him; his problems wouldn't magically resolve just because she knew about his insecurities.

It was supposed to be better than this.

Things almost never go the way they're supposed to.

Cynthia placed a hand on his.

"Thank you."

"Why?"

"For trusting me."

Now, he didn't know what to say.

It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, though.

Sylvester smiled. It was good to have a friend.

The Two Remaining Champions, Part 1: FIN