CHAPTER 68: EARTH, WIND, AND FIRE, PART 2

1

It was as if the night sky had transformed into the inside of a pinball machine. An outside observer would only see two planned flashes, streaking through the seemingly endless darkness, colliding with each other, sparking, bouncing away only to charge again.

A cycle repeating incessantly, a deadlock they couldn't break, just like before. None of the factors that made fighting each other so difficult had changed. With one exception: now Sylvester had a unique advantage.

Heather kept talking, trying to get through to him, that is, deceive him, make him let his guard down.

But Sylvester wasn’t listening.

He had managed to ignore her. Now he didn’t hear words, only sounds that slipped over him and got lost in the night sky.

Her viper tongue was the only reason she had almost managed to defeat him. Sylvester wouldn't make the mistake of paying attention to her again. In fact, he had gone a bit further.

He hadn't just disconnected her; all other sounds seemed muffled, as if he had put his head underwater.

As if they were now swimming through the midnight sea instead of flying.

Perhaps the tables would turn in Heather's favor again, but if such a terrible thing happened, it wouldn't be because he had made the mistake of listening to the person who had betrayed him even after he had given her his heart for the second time.

Yes, exactly. It was said that man was the only animal that stumbled twice over the same stone.

But he was not a man. He was... something more.

That's why what he had felt, what he had attempted, would have been a mistake with Heather and with anyone, whether they had betrayed him afterward or not. Feelings only served as a distraction. They made you lose the objectivity and iron will necessary to be the hero who triumphed over evil. If he hadn’t realized this before, he certainly did now, as it had nearly cost him his life.

Sylvester finally broke through Heather's guard once more and lunged without wasting a millisecond to seize the opportunity. He felt like a wild animal, starving. Practically drooling at the sign of his prey's weakness.

Sylvester wielded the sword and struck Heather in the chest as if it were a bat. She crashed into a satellite dish, bounced off as if it were a trampoline, and fell to one side until she could regain control of herself. Unfortunately, before he could reach her. So, they crossed swords and the cycle began again.

It didn’t matter.

He could be patient.

Sylvester was the one with all the advantages in this battle. He had managed to break her guard twice, and Heather not even once. She resisted, but just defending herself wasn’t going to beat him, and she had lost her greatest weapon now that her words couldn't reach him.

But, aware that she had no other chance of winning, she acted as if she hadn’t realized it.

She talked nonstop.

She talked almost more than she used her sword.

Part of him resisted using the long-distance attack of this sword, but it was foolish. If he was willing to use any of his many Skills, what difference did it make?

So, the next time they bounced back after a clash, Sylvester shot darkness at that bitch's neck. Six quick slashes, six "shots" of darkness that moved and twisted as if they were alive.

Heather had no trouble dodging those slashes, rising, falling, and spinning. It almost looked like a choreographed dance.

He almost wanted to know what the hell she was talking about, why she was wasting so much time, effort, and saliva, when it should be more than obvious that those tricks no longer worked on him, that he wasn’t even listening to her!

Was she so far gone that she believed her own lies? Or was she just desperate to make him believe she was the wounded, betrayed one, rewriting history? In any case, he couldn’t stand her arrogance. He had to end this, and soon. She had already wasted too much of his time. He had enemies to kill and innocent people to protect.

“I’m the hero, so get out of my way!”

Sylvester lost his temper without hearing a single word she said, but that wasn’t a mistake at all. He had already said that techniques were something humans invented to compensate for their weaknesses. He didn’t need anything like that when he had so much power and speed.

If he tried to fight like usual, tempered, thinking about his actions, he wouldn’t stand a chance against Heather. The only reason he had never lost his edge was that from the beginning he fought like a wild animal, mad with rage over the betrayal.

So it wasn’t a mistake, but he paid for it anyway.

Heather broke his guard for the first time. She made him drop his sword, which spun through the night sky.

Sylvester didn’t even notice the follow-up attack out of the corner of his eye.

Panic seized his heart as he saw the sword fall.

He knew it.

He knew it.

He knew he needed that sword!

Somehow, he knew.

Even as he chased after it, he couldn’t help but wonder why. His katana, which had accompanied him in countless battles, hung at his waist. He could have unsheathed it and continued the fight without any problem instead of turning his back on his enemy.

But did that stop him?

Not at all.

That was definitely a mistake, and he paid for it twice over, deservedly. A moment after his fingers closed around the hilt, he was struck from behind.

The black crystal sword cut his skin easily, he felt the blade even graze his bones, but the worst part was that it cut his right wing. Sylvester lost control of his trajectory as well and ended up crashing through the windows of some office that was still populated at this hour, though not in operation. Fortunately

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(he hadn’t dropped the sword)

, the people around him were more enemies. Hurt, with shards of glass embedded all over his body, he got up as quickly as he could, adopting a tense defensive stance.

Which was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to launch himself, savage, to destroy his enemies. But a bit of prudence was natural when you didn’t understand what was happening.

That is, how had they mounted a large-scale invasion and carried it out so quickly? In the blink of an eye, the nightclub had been filled with enemies. Then those winged demons. And now this.

Normally, he would worry about having to fight Heather and so many other bastards at once, when things between them were so balanced, but they weren’t exactly intimidating enemies.

They growled and made threatening gestures, but they didn’t come close. Even those from the nightclub had fallen and fled with their tails between their legs immediately, offering only symbolic resistance, begging for their lives. Of course, that didn’t mean they were harmless.

If they didn’t have something hidden, some ace up their sleeve, they wouldn’t have bothered to bring so many into this world.

Like that Rasputin, of whatever species he was. So weak in a direct fight that it hadn’t even happened. But instead, he had dragged everyone on the ship into a world of imagination that he shaped like a god. If he hadn’t been able to use their own weapons against them, he would have been defeated without being able to do anything about it.

For all he knew, their secret weapon could be something as devastating as killing him with just a touch. In any case, they must have something, and it would always be worth sacrificing hundreds to save billions of people.

The calculation was very easy.

Only someone monstrously selfish wouldn’t volunteer to sacrifice themselves if they had the chance.

Heather arrived immediately, landing, putting an end to his useless speculations. It might have seemed like a long time because of the turns his thoughts had taken, but in reality, it had been less than a second.

She was here to kill him. She had no reason to give him a break. The shockwave from their weapons' clash sent office tables and chairs flying, shattered glass, the floor beneath their feet creaked, filled with fine cracks like spider webs, but it stood. At least for now.

As a consequence, it took out a few of the enemies Heather had prevented him from killing while they were fleeing in a panic. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but if anyone asked, he would never admit it.

He had an image to maintain, and that helped.

“You have to fight, regain control,” Heather said, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t drown out her voice. She was too close (to what?), and he was too... broken. “Sylvester, I’m not sure you can take this anymore. If you keep going like this… Don’t look at me like that. They are people, you understand? People! They can’t be enemies, they’re not even trying to attack you, right? He can’t have manipulated you to this extent or you wouldn’t hear my voice. Or... there wouldn’t be any hope.”

It was true that the office enemies hadn’t even tried to attack him, they had fled as soon as they saw him, except for those who had been paralyzed by panic.

But it could have another explanation. For example, they could be non-combatants, instead helping the main forces with a communication system... He didn’t have to explain how that system would work and what they had been doing in that office, it didn’t matter, it could have been any other place, he supposed it was a position from which to observe the incident as good as any other.

It made sense! Of course, it did.

Inside the nightclub, the truth is that only the first of the enemies had fought him, but that made sense too. You just had to think about it a bit... They were weaker than him, scared because he had easily killed the strongest of them and taken his weapon...

Besides, his theory, so to speak, couldn’t explain the winged demons that had attacked him on the roof.

So don’t listen to that damn bitch

maybe you are in pieces, a broken man, but she isn’t even a person

she has no identity

if you were a woman she would call herself a man, she’s alone in the world and looks for something to fill that void no matter how many holes her ship has, do you understand? It’s just that, need, not love and because you confused the two things you are here now

you haven’t killed anyone you haven’t ruined that something you’ve been working for since you can remember since you really started to live

as always you’ve only killed enemies and enemies don’t deserve to live

Sylvester stabbed her.

The blade sank into her flesh and came out the other side. As usual, there was nothing even resembling blood, so it was hard to judge the severity of the wound. Still, fragments of black crystals fell and shattered against the floor, and it sounded as if something was coming to an end.

It had been too easy. As if she hadn’t even tried to defend herself.

Heather opened her mouth as if to say something, one last thing. But then Sylvester withdrew the sword, and her weakened body, with no support, collapsed.

She lay there, arms and legs spread out, like a snow angel. For some reason, that was the first image that came to mind, even though it had never snowed much where he lived, so of course, he had never seen that or had the opportunity to do it himself.

Only in movies, he had only seen it there.

Yes, this was unreal like a movie. How had things gotten to this point? He had taken a vacation and entered the nightclub with the stupidest name he could find, trying to have fun. A strange guy with an even stranger sword had attacked him, but he had easily defeated him, and then…

All this.

There was no problem with his memories. He remembered the journey he had made from point A to point B, but he didn’t understand it. He simply couldn’t understand how things had gotten to this point.

Sylvester put a hand to his head. Pressing hard, as if he wanted to crush his skull.

He had won, proving his superiority over Heather, who had always made him feel inferior. That was the fundamental difference between Heather and him. Heather desperately sought an equal, while equals frightened him. Because he had been forced to see that the only extraordinary thing about him was his uniqueness. When someone was at his level, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t win.

Until now. So he should be happy.

But somehow this didn’t feel like a victory at all.

Rather, he felt like vomiting.

He looked into her eyes. She looked back.

She might be mortally wounded, but she wasn’t dead yet. He should finish the job. It wasn’t that easy to kill her. If he gave her the chance, she would recover.

you said it come on wield the sword silence her voice and the doubts will disappear forever

IN THE DARKNESS

Sylvester raised the sword, using both hands, over his head.

Heather’s eyes didn’t move to the blade hanging over her like the executioner’s axe. They remained fixed on him, as if searching for something that might no longer be there, that might have disappeared forever.

Sylvester took a deep breath, preparing to lower the sword, to cut off her head.

But in the end, all he did was look away.

Move the blade away... and jump through the large “hole” that were the now glass-free windows. With only one wing, he wasn't going to get very far. It was good that he didn't intend to. From above, he saw Ryan, transformed into the Lunar Remnant, making his way towards him. Cynthia wouldn’t be far behind...

Oh, there she was.

On his back.

Good, he had defeated an enemy, a traitor.

But there were two more, and they were right there, within reach.

“Damn, he won?” Ryan said, his voice trembling. He said it, didn’t ask. Even in that monstrous form, the fear in his eyes was evident. He was climbing the façade of a building, digging his claws in deeply and causing countless damage to innocent people’s property, but that wouldn’t matter much when he had decided to betray humanity. Betraying him was the same as betraying all of humanity, since Sylvester was its eternal champion.

Yes, I won, he thought as he fell.

As he tore him apart.

I always win.

Ryan was defeated in an instant.

The great beast fell with dozens of cuts all over his body, and the blood gushed out like water from a sprinkler.

Cynthia, of course, tried to shoot him, fully employing her new tricks.

But he didn’t even let her pull the trigger once.

He destroyed her guns and then destroyed her, slicing her open from the waist to under one arm. He saw her glistening organs threatening to spill all over the pavement.

Just like with Heather, he didn’t bother finishing them off.

Sylvester raised his head towards the moon that had always been watching him, pressing, burning him with its light. He had been walking the same dark corridor since then.

It was time for everything to end.

Sylvester howled at the moon.

Earth, Wind, and Fire, Part 2: END