Chapter 66
June felt bad. It was a cruel trick to have played on Ken. She surmised that he was a man of extreme rationality and control who had never learned to process the feelings developing between the two of them. But she also knew he was a shrewd tactician who would do whatever he needed to do in the throes of battle to come out victorious– as would she.
He had been face down in the gently flowing waters of the nearby stream for a while now. Too long? June was starting to get worried. She had tried to calibrate her attack to human physiology, and during their sparring, she had come to suspect that Ken was more durable than your average guy. But there was a chance that the wear and tear of a month of War Games had weakened him in some way.
She slowly approached his submerged, seemingly lifeless body, snapping off a low-hanging branch as she walked. As she got close, she surveyed the damage. There was no blood. But that didn’t mean anything. Her attacks were of the concussive, bludgeoning kind, not piercing. Which meant that any bleeding would likely be internal. She poked him a couple of times with her stick, but he didn’t move at all. Then, as she bent down to turn him over and call for help, she noticed some bubbles popping in the water around his head. Shit! It was too late for her to react.
His hand shot out of the water, and light emanated from his body as he levitated in front of her. The super-metal rock tune blared, and in the outstretched hand of the now human-sized retilian was his trademark katana. As the light diminished, Samurai Tortoise smiled back at her.
“Clever move, dudette! But if you wanted to take my alter-bro out of the fight, you needed to hit him a little harder.”
“Well, I didn’t want to ruin the goods. Luckily, I don’t have the same affection for you!” she quipped. The flirtatiousness had left her voice, replaced by annoyance and determination. The problem was that water was her kryptonite, and her opponent was not only standing in it but drenched in it. She needed to lure him from the little river and, ideally, dry him off in the process. “But, if you want to beat me, you’re gonna have to catch me!” She shifted her bottom half and rocketed up into the trees. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get too far before something clipped her shoulder, creating a huge gash across it before glancing off and lodging itself into the closest tree trunk. June glanced down to see a shimmering throwing star made of some kind of consolidated energy. She bit back a scream from the delayed momentary pain. Through gritted teeth, she asked, “Ninja star? Isn’t that more of a, and I’m going out on a limb here… Ninja thing?”
“That’s a common misconception,” he answered. “Throwing stars have been used throughout history by Ninjas and Samurai alike.”
“Huh. Good to know.”
“And knowing is half the battle,” Samurai Tortoise laughed back
“Isn’t that a different show?” June mocked.
He looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Uh-huh.” She perched on a high-up branch just out of sight. Samurai Tortoise stayed put. He clearly knew her water weakness and wasn’t going to waste his advantage. This gave her two clear options: Fight at a disadvantage or abandon the battle and head toward her ultimate goal. Her pride eliminated the latter, so she needed to figure out the best way to go about the former.
Her opponent seemed unperturbed as she stalled for time to recover and think. He tauntingly began humming a tune and bathing in the stream, scrubbing his armpits and spitting water out like a fountain. This irked June. How could Ken be so disarmingly charming while his alter ego was such a jackass? She shifted fully into fireworks. BAM! POP! BANG! The birds flew from the treetops to escape whatever loud threat had just arrived in their home. That impertinent samurai had better be ready for a barrage of firepower, because June was unshackled.
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She streaked over the stream with a whistle, raining colorful rockets down on her green opponent, blasting apart the rocks along the riverbank and lighting the nearby brush on fire. After that onslaught, she transformed her top half to human to survey the damage. When the smoke cleared, she realized that she hadn’t done any damage to Samurai Tortoise. He had turtle-shelled and was completely submerged in the stream, with his indestructible shell popping out of the water like a moss-covered rock. She imagined him laughing in liquid safety at her inadequacy. She groaned but decided not to give up. Maybe if she could sustain the attack for a longer period of time, he would be forced to come up for air. Wait, that may not work. Tortoises are amphibious, so he could potentially outlast her. Or is that just turtles? Her judgment was clouded by emotion, so she continued to hover over her crush’s alter ego, dropping pink, and purple, and blue, and yellow bombs on his impenetrable hull, to no avail.
It would have continued a stalemate, but in her frustration, Skyrocket flew too low on one of her flybys, coming in range of his katana. She wasn’t worried since she was fully shifted, appearing to the world as a collection of tiny colorless explosions, like a shimmering pixie dust cloud, crackling and buzzing overhead. No physical attack would harm her in this form. Alas, her certainty was unwarranted. His katana struck her side, forcing her torso to rematerialize–blood pouring from the wound. A scream erupted from the combustible pyrotechnic cloud, and June struggled to gain control of her trajectory, pulling her disparate pieces together in preparation for the inevitable crash landing.
She plummeted into the creekbed, churning the calm water, throwing dirt and small rocks into the air. The water extinguished her capability and forced her to rematerialize into human form. Tears streaked down her face as the water ran red with the blood from her wound. Usually, she could have healed gashes like this by shifting into fireworks. But, usually, she would have been invulnerable to physical damage in that form in the first place. Something about this injury was special. And not the good kind of special like a surprise party in Paris. This was bad–really bad. She’d never felt this vulnerable. She heard footsteps splashing through the water, moving in her direction, so she forced herself to stand up and get to shore. The footsteps and sounds of rustling were getting louder–closer. She tried to dry herself off and attempted to shift, but the water dripping down her body wouldn’t allow the pyrotechnics to light. She couldn't generate enough heat or a spark to power her ability. June was stuck. Powerless.
A voice sounded just around the corner from the tree she was leaning against to hold herself up.
“I come in peace.” It was Ken… not Samurai Tortoise. June exhaled in relief. “If I do not treat your wound, it will fester. An injury from Kawa Bun Gah cannot be healed by non-magical means. Or at least, not to my knowledge.
It was June’s instinct to reject the help. They had been locked in battle, after all. But the wound was causing unbearable torment, and as she locked eyes with Ken, she realized that he was being forthright. He was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them.
The moment she dropped her resolve, the intensity of the pain overtook her. She moved toward the young samurai and collapsed into his arms.
***
“Hey there, Hieroglyph. I’m a little surprised to see you. Our team assumed you guys would send Skyrocket our way.” Ashley waved to Bailey while sitting snuggly in the branches of a nearby tree.
“Yeah. We wanted to change it up,” she responded.
“You wanted the glory of taking on the current leaders, didn’t you?” Ashley wasn’t sure if her assumption was correct. Bailey was ambitious, but she was also situationally strategic. Was her need for exposure blinding her to the power mismatch, or did she know something that Ashley didn’t?
“June is a hammer…” Bailey thought for a second before continuing to answer. “...Or a stick of TNT, really. I felt we needed more of a Swiss army knife for this job.”
Ashley tsked. “Hieroglyph. Didn’t anyone ever tell you? You shouldn’t bring a knife to a Herald fight!” It wasn’t in Ashley’s day-to-day personality to flaunt her power or shit-talk. But if she had learned anything from Bailey, it was that they were on a television show. And TV audiences demanded some bravado.
Ashbury struck out with her vine staff, extending verdant tendrils to wrap around Bailey and restrain her. Bailey didn’t try to dodge. Instead, she just put her clasped hands out in front of her. The vines wrapped around Bailey, creating a cocoon with just her head sticking out the top. Ashley hopped down from her perch and moved closer to Bailey. Theoretically, she had prevented the powerful scribe from writing anything, neutralizing her and hopefully ending the fight before it could start. But she also recognized that Bailey’s being at the top of the leaderboard was no fluke, so she remained vigilant.
“You gonna surrender peacefully?” Ash asked. “I really don’t want to hurt you, Bails– Hieroglyph.”
Ashley suspected it would not be that easy as Bailey’s mouth very subtly slanted up in a slight smile. “You know. People underestimate the effectiveness of a good knife.” Her eyes closed, and a machete shot through the thick tangle of vines and then retracted. After a short pause, the long, flat blade shot out. Again and again, the blade sliced through her floral prison until Bailey fell from the tangled mess and landed on one knee, looked up, and opened her eyes. Camera drones swarmed in their direction, clearly interested in their battle, circling Bailey, who was kneeling in her best splash-panel pose. She grinned, “Sorry, Ash. Not gonna make it that easy for you. But, if you wanna surrender, it might save us both some time.”