Scene 31 - December 19th

Interior “Higgins Museum”, Continuous

Quinn Kaufman

I pushed myself into the air while pulling Anima’s head and pushing her legs, causing her to topple and overbalance. I reached the high ceiling and pushed again, dodging the hands that began to grow from the surface to grab me.

Meanwhile, Anima somehow completed a full front flip and landed on her feet again. Before she could move properly, however, I pulled, bringing her off the ground to prevent her from getting any leverage and coming at her feet first.

She grabbed a hold of my leg and flared her aura, trying to drain me like she had Loki. The only result, however, was the belt of the PA4 letting out a long, pained-sounding beep, and the bright blue of its eyes, buckles, and the palms of the gloves and flats of the boots faded out.

I lashed out with my mind, grabbing a hold of the air just in front of Anima’s face and instantly generating a bright burst of light, causing her to flinch back and release me. Another push and we landed a good 20 feet away from each other.

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I tore off the mask of my suit and pointed at the heroine. “You better not have damaged this thing,” I told her, “the warranty is way out of date.”

“Better your suit be damaged than you be hurt,” Anima said with that same, sickly-sweet smile as golems began to rise around me.

I began bouncing off of them in the style that Canaveral had taught me - pushing off each golem to overbalance them, allowing the backlash of pushing my presence to move me in midair rather than actually damage me, and slamming them into each other when I could. The goal was to break the golems - while they were made of solid stone and could take a lot more force than any living person, I could put out a lot more force than usual too, right now. Even the PA4 being broken - something I would have to freak out about later - didn’t seem to have slowed me, and it was only a minute or so later than Anima paused the horde.

Of course, she only paused her attack to rush at me herself, once again with her aura flared high. This time, however, she came at me rapier first.

I was surprised, but not enough that I couldn’t dodge her - this time I went low instead of high, rolling onto my back and pulling and pushing in just the right way to send Anima over my head.

She landed easily enough, and I asked, “What was that about not wanting to hurt me, Anima? That blade looks pretty sharp to me.”

Her eyes were hard and uncompromising even as her voice was sweet when she answered, “I can always heal you later.”

“Okay, enough,” said Referee, stepping in between us.