Alkalians (33 page)

Upon erasing the tenth clone to come
at him, Dante gets a sudden feeling that the only reason they are
throwing themselves at him was to distract him. His suspicion is
confirmed when he feels the ground vibrate below him. Acting on
instinct, he launches himself straight into the air on air balance,
just as a large, clawed hand of earth bursts out of the ground and
tries to grab him.

Stopping himself high above the zombie
hand, Dante looks around to find the real Tony standing by himself
on the opposite bank of the river. He thrusts on air balance in a
descent towards Tony, an idea coming to him that this would be a
good time for practice. Startled to see Dante coming right at him,
Tony defends himself by raising his left arm and summoning another
giant hand out from it, stretching with open talons to intercept
the incoming Swordsman. Instead of flying out of the way, Dante
side-thrusts a little to his right, adjusts his sword into a
reverse grip, and continues his descent past the zombie arm,
slicing through it along the way.

Horrified by Dante’s approach, Tony
has to let him land near him, side-thrusting to avoid the katana’s
cut, and throws a gale of corrosive wind at him. Dante rolls out of
the way, jumps back up, and delivers a downward slash through him
as he turns to face him. Flinching from the sword easily cutting
through his decaying flesh, Tony can’t defend himself when Dante
follows up the first slash by floating into the air, spinning in an
upward spiral so that his sword rapidly slashes more wounds into
him. His wounds becoming red from the repeated slices through his
chest area, Tony looks up with terrified awe as Dante stops his
spiral, raises his sword between both hands, and falls down for a
final strike.

Dante’s sword chops through Tony’s
corpse-like body, splitting it in half with a sickening splash of
health energy. Tony instantly demorphs, only to keep his face in
stricken posture as he falls over unconscious. Standing up
straight, Dante looks away from him back across the river to resume
watching his comrades fighting.

The battle over there has become more
of a massacre as they finish off the few officers still in morph.
Paul grabs a Knifeman and fires a burst of bullets into his wounded
abdomen, causing him to demorph. The Arm Blade Warrior cuts up
through an Axman with his left blade, stabs him with the right
blade, and brings the left blade back down to hook-and-rip him,
after which the Axman demorphs. The Sledgehammer Warrior tosses an
Elemental Artist into the air with his hammer and does a quick
rotation to swing the hammer again, smashing into his opponent and
flinging him into the wall of the casino, off of which he demorphs
and hits the ground face-first. And Giovanni pins another Beast, a
Bull, to the ground and sinks his fangs into his neck, red wound
energy leaking out with a loud crunch before the Bull
demorphs.

With all of the officers lying either
unconscious or barely moving around them, the four Alkalians turn
to look back at Dante, and he nods his approval to them. Not only
was it a job well done, but they also had taken little damage to
their battle morphs. Suddenly, Dante’s eyes widen with shock when,
out of nowhere, a wall of aurora energy appears, side-winding past
the fallen officers and slashing through his partners.

Dante watches as Paul dodges the
aurora and fires at its source, only to have the bullets reflected
back at him and hit him in the chest before he falls over. The new
foe then appears, a Sword-and-Shield Warrior, and casts a volley of
magic spikes from his sword into Giovanni, who gets up and bounds
away with his armor glowing from yellow wounds, the cannon on his
back impaled and disabled. The Arm Blades Warrior attacks the new
foe by leaping at him and bringing both his blades down on him, but
they slide off the armor without scratching it. The
Sword-and-Shield Warrior turns, slams him with his shield, and
repeatedly slashes at him with his sword, stopping when he leaps
out of the way of the Sledgehammer Warrior’s hammer and thrusts his
blade into the Sledgehammer Warrior’s skull.

Putting away the stunned expression on
his face, Dante realizes who this new foe must be as he dashes
across the river toward him in a burst of air balance. Racing up to
him as he keeps stabbing the Sledgehammer Warrior, he thrusts with
his sword into his back, not piercing him but instead pushing him
over, allowing his victim to stand up and hurry away with wounds on
his head, left arm, and side. Keeping his eyes on the
Sword-and-Shield Warrior, Dante stands still, his sword posed to
defend between his hands, and waits for him to get back up. After
standing, he turns around to show a wicked grin and evil green eyes
beneath his helmet.

Laughing, Cain says to Dante, “Well,
well, so you’re the one behind this mad attack on the casino
guards, eh? Dante Goros, might I ask for what fathomable reason you
have assaulted my officers tonight?”

Dante calmly replies,
“First of all, my men and I didn’t start this fight. Your men were
the ones who morphed first. Secondly, the person who did start this
entire conflict was
you
, on the day you had your fight against Matt
Calamos.”

With amused surprise, Cain exclaims,
“Ah, I see! So the rumors are true, you are helping out that
ridiculous excuse of a prodigy. If you ask me, this doesn’t seem
like something you’d do, Dante.”

“
What do you mean by
that?”

“
Oh, well, you’ve always
struck me as the
laissez faire
kind of guy.” Nonchalantly spinning his
broadsword in his right hand, Cain continues, “I just can’t
understand why you, who never voices his opinion, who stays in the
shadows, would all of a sudden become a comrade to a rebellious
freshman, of all people. I dare say, your behavior could be just as
illogical as your older sister’s.”

Seeing Cain was humoring himself,
Dante adapts a little of his tone in his reply, ignoring the subtle
insult towards him and his sister. “Heh, you obviously don’t know
me that well, then. Just because I’m not acting out anything
doesn’t mean I’m not going to act at all.”

“
Hmm? Are you saying you
were actually
waiting
for someone like Matt to come along?”

“
You could say
that.”

Getting serious, Cain says as his
sword stops twirling, “That’s such a shame, Dante. A wise man like
you, wasting his time and efforts to help a foolish child who is
destined to be overcome by superiority like me. If I were you, I
would abandon such useless commitment and stay out of this business
between us. Besides, in what possible way could you aid him against
me, the Invincible Warrior?”

Dante growls back, “On the contrary,
Cain, I’m not wasting my time helping out Matt. You see, people
like you need to be put back in their place, one way or another. In
fact, I will show you what I mean this very night.”

Angered, Cain cries, “So
you think that
I
am the inferior one!? I am inferior to no one!”

“
Oh, how wrong you are,
Cain Incarein. I can think of many people who wouldn’t even care to
know who you are. For example, Nicholas Narqailein.”

Twitching at the mention
of the name, Cain snaps, “Don’t you
ever
mention that name in my
presence! He’s long gone, and now
I
am the greatest student on campus! Now prepare
yourself, as I show you why!!”

Glancing to see his compatriots
watching from a safe distance, each with vital wounds on their
morphs, Dante gestures to them to stay back while keeping his cold
stare upon Cain, his hands parting to leave the katana in his right
hand.

***

A frenzied Cain restarts the battle,
lunging at Dante with a sweeping arc of his blade. Dante parries
the sword and launches himself up and away on air balance. Cain
takes off after him, and they both come to levitate above the river
flowing quietly below them. He throws numerous flashes of magic at
Dante, who either dodges or deflects each one of them. Infuriated,
Cain charges forward with his sword raised for a great slash, but
Dante drops down toward the river, having him fly right over him
and clumsily swing his sword through the air.

Cain turns and rushes back at him,
their swords clashing while they are a few feet above the river’s
surface. The blades cross a few more times before Cain does
something unanticipated. He keeps his sword arm held back, allowing
Dante’s sword to strike him in the chest, which causes no damage to
him. Seeing his folly, Dante is stabbed, pushed off air balance by
Cain’s shield, and slammed into the river with a loud splash by a
magic wave thrown from Cain.

While Dante is underwater, Cain smirks
as he backs up several yards and lowers his feet into the river.
Then swinging his sword through the water, the resulting splash
thrown up is kept in mid-air from magic energy possessing it. The
suspended globs of water stretch out to form liquid spikes,
floating in space before him. Reaching the surface to look, Dante
does not like what he sees coming.

With a crazed expression, Cain points
his sword at him, and the water darts dive towards him. Quickly
turning his back, Dante has to let the spikes land in him as he
sinks back into the river. After the lancing pain passes through
him, he swims underwater towards the shore.

Dante’s comrades, already demorphed by
then look worried after watching their leader beaten into the
water. Rising back into the air on his end of the river, Cain looks
thrilled as he waits for Dante to reappear. When he does, Dante
crawls onto the right-side river bank, orange wounds glowing on the
back of his red armor.

Cain humors himself with wild laughter
before boasting, “You’re even more pathetic than the rebellious
freshman! Like I said before, you are forcing a pointless struggle
here. Not only will I soon finish you off, but you can’t harm me in
anyway, you can’t even scratch me. Face it, Dante, you have no
chance against me, because I am invincible!”

His left hand tightening into a fist
over some wet mud, Dante glares back at his foe while raising
himself back into the air. Turning to face him directly, he
declares in his controlled, intimidating voice, “You are so
predictable, Cain, that you cannot see your own fault. Prepare
yourself, for in the next ten seconds, I will defeat
you.”

Surprised by the warning, Cain’s anger
rekindles as he cries, “The only fool around here is you!” while
bringing his glowing sword down and forward, throwing a large
sphere of magic at Dante. Side-thrusting out of its path, Dante
then charges at Cain on air balance. Before he reaches him, Cain
thrusts forward on his own air balance with his blade. Dante,
however, rolls out of the way, and the two swordsmen fly past each
other.

Whirling around in agitation, Cain
throws another magic spell at Dante, who ascends in momentum to
avoid it, turns around, and comes back at him. Putting his shield
out before him while raising his sword, he expects Dante to hit his
shield while he would chop into him in response. What happens next,
however, Cain could never have foreseen.

Dante slows to a stop in front of him,
brings up his left hand, and throws the mud he grabbed earlier into
his face. Blinded by the mud, Cain rubs at it with his sword arm,
forgetting to keep his guard up. He pays for it when Dante grabs
his arm, pulls it out of the way, and thrusts the point of his
katana through his exposed neck, the only part of his body besides
his face that isn’t armored.

Gagging with shock and pain as the
wound flashes green, Cain is so stunned from what happened that he
is unable to react when Dante brings his sword out his neck, does a
quick rotation, and cleaves through his neck in one clean motion.
With his head thus decapitated, wound energy spouts from his neck
like a fountain, quickly turning red in color, and he remembers to
demorph after realizing what was going on.

***

The battle is over as Cain in his
human form drops into the river, and a moment later resurfaces,
unconscious and dragged along by the current. Tempted to leave him
like that, Dante instead swoops down to him, grabs him by the
collar, and lifts him out of the water, carrying him back to dry
land. Setting him next to his fainted subordinates still lying on
the ground while landing, he looks to his own men as they gather
around him, the discipline on their faces betrayed by the amazement
in their eyes.

After glancing at each of them, Dante
demorphs and says, “Well gentlemen, we accomplished more here
tonight than I thought we would. Not only did we knock out all of
his minions, but we also vanquished Cain himself. The only thing
that puzzles me is how Cain knew we were fighting his henchmen.”
Turning his gaze to a bush near the wall of the casino, he focuses
on it to pick out someone hiding behind it. Realizing he was
spotted, the person morphs into a Dog and runs away, disappearing
behind the corner of the building. “Ah yes, the cowardly Johnny,
Cain’s spy who doesn’t like to fight at all. Leonardo, why don’t
you go and chop him up for us?”

“
At once, sir,” replies
the white-coated man before he turns away, remorphs into the Arm
Blades Warrior, and runs after the Dog.