I wouldn't let him escape, not yet, especially not after he'd given me more ammunition. I leapt from the palace onto a neighboring building, continuing my pursuit. Et Cetera wasn't far ahead, I could tell that he had sustained damage to his leg from earlier.

"How many calculated risks are you going to take before you wind up dead, Delta? I told you that this would all be on you."

"You wanna settle this?" There was a bit of uneasiness in my voice. I didn't have too many tricks left and Et Cetera seemed to be made of them.

Et Cetera began to slow down. We were approaching the western sector of Meta once again, right near where the bar was located. As a matter a fact, we stood atop the parking garage across the street.

"You've got the clear advantage, I mean, I can't even hit you if you don't attack me right? You could just wait to counter."

Et Cetera moved in, taking a fighting stance. He was injured, but that didn't mean he'd lose to a kid. I struck first, landing a quick jab to his face that he didn't seem to anticipate. I went for a cross, but he vanished through it, stepping back and quickly punching me square in the face. I grabbed my nose and stepped back but he didn't stop his assault. I took the opportunity, ducking beneath his arms and grabbing him. I forced my way into him and through the concrete ground beneath us. As we descended, Et Cetera's eyes shone a brilliant violet color. There were streaks of black emitting from him, making his face reminiscent of a paua shell. Still, his true visage remained foreign to me. I continued to hold onto him until I realized that we weren't hitting the ground. I felt a sharp sting across my back, quickly forcing Et Cetera off of me, then struggling to orient myself.

"Normally I'd have torn your back open. Care to explain?" He faced me, upright but still suspended in mid air. I noticed that his gloves had hook-like spines, such as would line the stem of a rose.

"Me, explain?" I had no intention of telling Et Cetera about my mother--Beta--but just then, I had gotten an idea. I needed time to execute it, so I decided to oblige him. We continued to chat whilst suspended within the center of the garage.

"My mother, Beta. I somehow inherited her intricate muscle fibers, which are typically more resistant to piercing or slashing. None of that matters to you though, if you won't kill me, I know you won't go near her." I wasn't concrete on my explanation, but I was rather truthful to Et Cetera.

"Beta. Oh, the dark haired Astran that serves as Epsilon's secretary? Tch, I've never seen greater gentrification. Tell me, how can you be connected with someone solely by looks? There's no shared experience, so there's no mutual understanding with that woman. She'd be a diversity hire if she wasn't married into the position, which is unfair as well if you ask me--"

While Et Cetera was taking his time insulting my mother, I charged directly at him, ramming him through the side of the thin concrete wall between the inside of the parking garage and the pedestrian staircase. We fell to the ground, to which I immediately stood up and started running down to lure him. I was begining to understand his ability.

"Now you're running on thin air, do you also have some chaotic ability you're hiding from me? Is that his secret?" Et Cetera chased quickly behind, that energy still flooding from him, I could feel it.

"Not on thin air exactly. I had to know my distance between myself and the floor- haha!"

I noticed that we were approaching the ground floor as there was a gap on the left of the staircase just another flight down. I accelerated, gunning for the exit. As my foot approached the final step, the concrete formed another wall in front of me. I looked behind me for an instant, only to be met with his hollow gaze. I continued to follow the staircase down, my heart pumping. I was never big on stairs.

"You will elaborate!" Et Cetera shouted as the chase continued further down. The surrounding terrain subtly morphed, the staircase coming to more and more of a spiral as I descended.

"Right, so once I knew that, I just needed to put enough energy between the ground and my feet in order to close the gap. It probably would've been way more efficient by repelling the charge on the ground, but it was pretty hard to get myself upright in the first place haha." I continued to talk and run, which was making me incredibly fatigued, paired with the stunt I pulled earlier. When the staircase had come to a complete spiral, there was a faint red glow and I took notice to the floor level.

Floor: -∞

Upon seeing the floor, I immediately turned around catching Et Cetera off-guard and let out a violent shrill, somewhat similar to my idol. While Et Cetera was disoriented, I replicated my trick from earlier, flicking the coin and blasting a perfect cylinder through the target that Epsilon had made for me on his abdomen. The picture around us began to shatter, revealing the sidewalk across the street from the bar. I had really made it out. I was frozen in shock for a moment, but I quickly collected myself, careful not to revel at my work with such an unpredictable foe. Oddly enough, the coin was lodged in the same spot that I had shot the initial one at Bixby. Et Cetera was having a rough time in the ground, or, he made it seem that way.

"I don't think you really get how this works, Delta."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

He stood up, his clothing having no sign of being ripped apart.

"You know, it's moments like these that I wish for my buddy Omega to be here..." I clenched my body, my muscles aching from exhaustion. I forced myself to stand, refusing to back away from Et Cetera.

"That's just not right... I had you figured out. No, I do. Too well, that is."

"Speak up, I want to know what you're thinking."

"Obviously when your powers are active, you exist, which means that I can attack you. I'm not sure if it's the same as your cloaking though, you can get selective with that. But that's as far as your 'mastery' goes. That's how Epsilon hit you but couldn't see you afterwards, you had enabled your existence in order to strike, then retreated once again afterwards. Though, you didn't heal then. I'm guessing whether or not your body has continuity is based on the entropy of the situation. I hadn't pushed you far enough. That's completely ridiculous. This is unwinnable."

"Aren't you 14? Who taught you about any of that?" He paused, the purple from his eyes fading for a moment, allowing me to see a glimpse of his rugged exterior.

"You are exceptional, you almost give me hope somehow..." His voice was lower than before.

"Yeah, well, I go to private school."

"Heh... so what now? Oh, I know, I'll go deal with that band you like. Sweet World, right? It's actually detestable that despite killing them I'll still have to live with that noise in my head..."

Et Cetera began to cross the street. Bixby, who had one too many drinks on his break, had quite the delayed reaction to the whole ordeal. As it approached evening, he stood on the inside of the door, perhaps even watching me talk to the man that wasn't really even there for a moment. He took a look at the gash in the wall, now slightly deeper, then called out to me, his tipsy brain unable to think of me as anything besides an odd kid.

"Hehe, that another bribe?"

"Maybe next time you'll really get me, Delta. Probably not though."

He began to run at Bixby. The shock on my face intensified when I had realized that he had no idea of his impending demise.

"BIXBY HE'S INVISIBLE CLOSE THE DOOR!"

Without a second thought, Bixby fled behind the door, Et Cetera ripping at his white jeans. It honestly made me giggle knowing that Bixby's lower half was exposed in there, but my chuckling allowed air to seep deeper into my wounds.

Et Cetera attempted to phase through the wall, however, there seemed to be something preventing him. It might've been that the bar had some sort of protective measure, specifically able to block Et Cetera. The only thing that I could imagine working against an ability like his would be one of similar caliber, which was shocking but not out of the realm of possibility for the dive.

"What..?!"

I ran up to Et Cetera, ramming him into the wall and subtly retrieving the coin that was stuck there. It took me a moment to understand why the coin had gravitated towards the same spot, but once I caught wind of the coin from Bixby's pants, I had a clue. I could sense the other disc pulling itself towards my hand. I pushed Et Cetera away, diving for the other it.

Upon retrieving it, it confused me for a second. I had forgotten what I was looking at, no, I knew that it was for. It was a means of access and purchase. But what was it?

"Manganese... aluminum..." I looked at them both more intently. The discs had an imaginary rope between them, one that was harder to stretch than it was to shorten. With my fatigue, I couldn't pull them further apart.

"Those silly coins, haven't you given up Delta? If I can't kill those guys, and Epsilon knows about me, there's no reason to leave Omega alive, right? Wherever he is now, I just have to reach him before he gets to the palace!" He gave me a devilish grin. Et Cetera had clearly studied Omega and I for longer than I had anticipated. He knew of his schedule, and he knew that Omega would be too busy with Ophelia to consider Epsilon's warning, at least not immediately.

They would both die.

Et Cetera once again poised to run away, but I quickly jumped up, a coin in each hand. It was incredibly dangerous, but I had devised a way to destroy Et Cetera even if he didn't exist. Et Cetera's ability specifically defied logic, and the universe automatically corrected said defiance. I didn't know what, but I was certain that if the coin that I had pulled from Et Cetera's fabricated "past" united with the coin from Bixby, they would have some sort of reaction. Against all odds, I flipped the coins up, firing them both at Et Cetera in a way that they collided with each other as well. Et Cetera, aware of the impending danger, attempted to fade away, but the cosmic forces at play were beyond his control.

The coins, their paths calculated to perfection, closed the gap between them and their target. In the final moments before impact, the coins seemed to defy reality, shimmering with a strange energy that heralded their inevitable fusion. Et Cetera's eyes widened in realization, but it was too late.

The collision occurred with a blinding flash of light that illuminated the entire city block. A shockwave rippled through the streets, shattering windows, upending cars, and toppling buildings in its wake. The fusion explosion erased the distinction between past and future, merging the two coins into a singular, cataclysmic force. In the aftermath, the once-thriving city block lay in ruins. Smoke billowed from the wreckage as dust settled upon the shattered remnants of a bustling metropolis. I fell to my knees once again, holding my head. He was right, I wanted to die.

"Woahh! You did all this? I take it that guy's not coming back anytime soon, haha. Didn't even need me."

I wanted to die.

The only body linked to that voice belonged to my father, whose presence alone made me feel heavy somehow. I hadn't noticed him as he descended from the sky, his appearance monstrous to me at 14. He stood a good two whole feet above me.

"Why don't you tell me what happened, huh?" He sat down next to me, patting me on the back. I couldn't even move away from him. His blueish black hair swayed in the wind, blowing in the direction of the capital. His facade made him out to look only seven or eight years older than me.

"Oh, I think Epsilon is calling for us. Delta, you can head on home. I can brief him on the situation for you. I swear I wrote that guy a letter regarding our friend back there..."

He paused, thinking for a moment. That must've been the note on Epsilon's desk.

"In truth, I kind of watched this thing unfold. You really handled it though, nice work by the way." I couldn't tell if he was being genuine or not. I got the impression that he was trying to be, but damn was he bad at it.

"..." I didn't respond to him, not even acknowledge him. If there was some way I was meant to feel, I was completely numb to it. He rubbed his temples, then ran his hand through his hair.

"Well, I'm proud of you, okay? I'm gonna clean this up. Could I at least get a name?"

I was hesitant, but my body spoke for me.

"Et Cetera."