Alkalians (56 page)

Cynthia looks aghast at him for a
moment, shocked to have heard his view toward Rose dying, and then
lowers her gaze, hands clenched while she speaks in a deceptively
calm tone. “You know, Rose and I are in the same music performing
class.”

“
Oh, really? How
unfortunate for you. Has she been competition for you in there? In
ways besides playing with your silly instruments?”

She ignores his taunts and
says, “Not too long ago, I pulled her aside and told her what I
knew of her fight with Matt, and Irene watching and waiting to
shoot her. She understood, as she was already aware of it. But
then, I asked her about the scars on Matt’s neck. Where did they
come from, and why had they not healed yet? She hesitated, and then
she explained that in the fight, she and Matt had been so misled
about the other, so full of doubt and fear, that they were
intending to fight to the death. Only when Matt demorphed did the
fight stop, with her daggers just reaching his neck.
That
is where the scars
came from. That is why they are still there, wounds unable to heal
because of the mental trauma tied to them.”

Cynthia raises her gaze to
him, glaring as she concludes, “Matt, and likely Rose, are mentally
traumatized from fighting each other for their lives. They fought
for their lives because James had deceived them both, filling them
with doubt about the other. And James had deceived them
because
you
had
him do so.”

Cain blinks before saying,
“They were trying to kill each other? Wow, I didn’t know that. But,
they were trying to kill each other?” He mumbles something to
himself, his head nodding, until an eager expression crosses him.
“Ah hah! Then that means
they
have committed the crime here, not I! All I have
to do is go to the officers, tell them what they did, and the two
will be seized and locked away, and my victory will be swift and
complete!”

“
Don’t even think about
it, Cain,” rebukes Cynthia, “because the only reason they did so is
because you, through James, manipulated them to do so.
You
are the criminal
here, they are the victims! And Irene and James are also at fault
for being involved by doing the dirty work for you!”

Cain snickers, laughs, and remarks,
“You can’t prove that! You have no evidence, no witnesses, to prove
I am at any fault here.”

“
Have you been listening
to anything I’ve said? I told you that Irene herself told me what
she did, that she was working for you, and Rose told me how James
was involved. Plus, Buster was aware of the plan, and even Sean and
Dante know, from what James and Matt have told them. So I
have
plenty
of
witnesses against you!”

Cain flinches, a weird panic in his
eyes, and after some more mumbling sneers back at her, “And how do
you know, that those two know, hmm?”

“
Because Sean told me,
obviously. One of the things about Sean is he likes to talk, a lot,
and at one point he mentioned to me Dante and his run in with
James, and how Matt told them what James did to him and Rose. And
how it all comes back to you.”

Grinding his teeth with
frustration and anxiety as the countdown to their match begins,
Cain exclaims, “Enough of this nonsense. I have done nothing
wrong,
they
are
the guilty ones,
all
of them,
I
am the innocent one! They are all conspiring against me,
traitors and rebels alike, but I will not take it anymore, I shall
expose them for their lies and conceit! I will turn them all in to
the officials, after my glorious victory over you, and neither you,
nor them, nor
nothing
shall stop me!!”

***

Cain and Cynthia both morph at the
sound of the siren. Cain is in his green-and-white colored armor
with sword and shield, his helm slightly obscuring the scowl on his
face. Cynthia’s morph stands opposite him, covered from the neck
down in a skin-tight, bright red suit with no armor, her long hair
changed into living flames. She is a special kind of Magician, her
element obviously fire.

Cynthia’s hair, and temper, flares as
she leers back at her foe, magic already burning in her clenched
fists, before she attacks first, casting a large fireball from her
left hand at Cain. Cain, his scowl turning to a smirk, doesn’t
bother trying to dodge it. When the fireball hits him, its blast
shrinks and vanishes within him, the only trace of it left being a
heated glow across his armor.

Cain can’t help snickering. The armor
of his morph is adapted to absorb magic intent on harming him, and
then he can use the stored energies in his own spells. With this
special power, he knows Cynthia should have no chance of hurting
him, and believes he is going to easily win this fight.

Cain begins his offensive by raising
his sword above him, the energy blade charged with arcane power,
and with a chop forward throws a spray of spears at Cynthia. In
retaliation, Cynthia casts another spell from her right hand, and
two masses of fire, similar in shape to dice, roll out and collide
with the arcane spears, exploding and negating each other on
impact.

She didn’t take her concentration off
of Cain as she side-thrusts on air balance away from his charge,
straight through the blast of their spells, and his thrusting
blade. When Cain slides to a stop on the floor, growling at having
missed, a flamethrower from Cynthia drills into him from behind.
But, just like the first fire spell, the stream of flames is
devoured by his armor, and a brighter glow of stored energy shines
off him.

Even more confident of his advantage,
Cain turns and continues his offensive, raising his blade and
charging back at Cynthia. She side-thrusts again to avoid his
slash, and is about to counter with another spell when he lashes
out with an aurora cast from his sword. Its cutting edge scrapes
past her, and she falls backward with a well-shown green wound
along her body. At the sight of her being damaged, many men from
the audience moan in lamentation for her or boo down at
Cain.

Standing up, Cynthia ignores the
damage upon her as she looks back at Cain, casually walking toward
her. She summons a blaze to engulf him, but the blaze is engulfed
by him, instead. Cain, very sure of himself, decides to give
Cynthia a taste of her own attacks. With a sweep from his sword, a
manifested arc of fire races towards her. However, instead of being
slashed and burned, Cynthia waves with her arms to catch the fire,
swirl it around her, and throw it back at him, double its original
size and power.

Cain isn’t impressed as his armor
absorbs the magic once again without a problem. He completely glows
a bright shade of heat’s orange, as if his armor came fresh from
the blacksmith’s furnace. Both glad and annoyed, he says to
Cynthia, “Your persistence is futile. Any one of your fire attacks
will only make me stronger! There’s no way you’re going to even
scratch me!”

Suddenly, something he wouldn’t have
noticed if he hadn’t heard a soft sound similar to a musical note
happens. A tongue of rogue flame jumps out of his left shoulder,
leaving a scratch of wound energy. As Cain blinks at the wound, he
hears another note, simultaneous to feeling a bigger flame crack
along his right leg, and he glances at it to see another green
wound. When he looks back at Cynthia in confusion, he notices her
arms are positioned like she is holding up a violin and bow, ready
to play.

Confusion turns to horror when Cain
realizes what she’s going to do, before, with no more delay and to
his dismay, Cynthia plays music from her imaginary violin, a
malicious melody, sparks spitting from her fingertips and out of
Cain’s armor in harmony. As the fiery energy bursts out of him at
her control, his own armor is turned against him, bending and
cracking to expose jagged wounds all over him, and the spikes of
flame sear and incinerate the wounds for rapidly accumulating
damage.

***

Cynthia could have continued her
“performance”, charming the inferno binding and branding Cain with
her violin music, to the point he would have to demorph if he
didn’t expel all the fire magic burning out of him as one,
explosive blast. With her music, and the audience’s cheering, cut
off, Cain remains standing despite the overheating of his armor
leaving it asunder, orange wounds glowing hot between the cracks in
it. His expression goes from sour anger to sheer insanity as he
raises his fractured and bent shield, casts a spell to pulse a wave
of energy to heal the most of his wounds, and tosses it
aside.

While Cynthia and the
students watch, Cain maintains the deranged look on his face as his
morph’s body starts to transform. His armor, rather than having
been repaired with the healing of his wounds, breaks even further
as sickly green and orange energy seems to
crawl
out of him, spreading across
his frame like an infection, and crystal growths of the energy
sprout from his shoulders and back like spines.

Cain exclaims, either
oblivious or thrilled of the changes happening to him, “Do you mean
to make me look like a fool? Do you honestly believe, in that puny
and inferior brain of yours, that
you
are going to defeat
me
? No, I can assure you
that
they
have
assured me that is not going to happen. I will be the victor here,
I am the superior one, and I shall please them by crushing
you,
all
of you,
and your pitiful spirits!” The malevolent energy crackles off him
and across the floor around him, which rumbles and fractures before
two large, crystalline stones levitate into the air on either side
of him.

Cynthia, as well as many
of her peers in the audience, gape at Cain. Not only have they
never seen him use a power like this before, but he is also
speaking nonsense. She addresses the red flag concerning his
sanity, shouting, “Cain, what are you talking about? Who is
they
?”

Cain doesn’t seem to have heard her
question, cackling maniacally to himself as the crystals crackle
with static shocks before he says, starting out at a low tone and
ending in a scream, “Do you want to know what they’re telling me
now? Do you want to know what they want me to do? Well, I’ll tell
you. They want me to tear you to pieces. They want me to scalp the
pretty flames off your head, to split your chest in two and rip the
vital energies out. They want me, to, DESTROY YOU!!”

Cynthia doesn’t know who she is more
worried for, her own safety or Cain’s sanity, before he raises his
blade, bolts of the sick energy from his crystals strike it, and he
cries out with fury as he launches a spear of lightning at her.
Spinning on air balance to avoid that first attack, she finds
herself on the evasive as Cain madly maintains a bombardment of
spells upon her, his sword and crystals sending more jagged bolts
and arcing blasts at her.

While she neatly dodges Cain’s spells
with air balance thrusts or her own spells colliding with and
cancelling them, Cynthia soon notices that, somehow, she is still
being wounded with the long stripe on her and new patches breaking
out on her becoming orange like amber. When she is at the farthest
distance from Cain yet, about fifty yards from him in the center of
the arena, she then sees the problem. Wherever his spells had
touched the ground, their sickly green and orange energy remained,
radiating upward like an ethereal haze. When she sees the radiation
reforming into volts surging back to their source as a web, Cynthia
gets a bad feeling about what is going to happen next.

With a rabid look on his face as his
radioactive power surges through him, Cain points his sword forward
in a stab, the massive energy stretches out from him, far and wide
like a funnel, and he yells, “Gotcha!!” before the funnel condenses
inward and explodes in a blinding blast, its shockwave and
illumination dazing the spectators closest to the action. When the
wave of radiation fades out, a seared floor between him and the
wall left behind, his grin grows bigger as he sees what remains of
Cynthia, blown into the wall with her whole figure, once brilliant
red and orange, a pale grey like ash, her fiery hair then a
flickering flame like a candle. As the candle goes out, she goes
limp and falls forward, becoming ashes floating through the air
before she reached the floor.

While the audience unanimously gasps
in horror at the sight, many of the students and faculty standing
from their seats, Cain doesn’t seem to realize, nor care, what he’s
done as he breaks out into crazed laughter. All eyes but his are on
the ashes, swept along by a breeze not there, towards and pass him,
where they settle into a swirling pile behind him. As he looks
around at the audience, perhaps wondering why they are so quiet and
rigid, the pile of ashes ignites in a flash fire, and when he
whirls around his freaky grin fractures, his left eye twitching.
There, reborn from the ashes, stands Cynthia, her figure and hair
blazing in glory, and a wave of relieved sighs and whooping cheers
goes through the crowd.

Cain’s moment of stunned disbelief is
brief before, like a wild animal, he snarls and lunges at Cynthia
with his sword. The mad stab misses when she leaps backwards,
casting out a single fireball that splits into many in mid air at
him, swirling and side-winding like a mass of serpents. In
response, Cain casts a burst of his radioactive energy from his
left hand, wiping out the flames converging upon him, and glares at
Cynthia as she plays upon an invisible violin again, her swift and
sharp music ringing around them. He scowls, then yells, “Quit
playing that infernal music, or I’ll take that burning bush for
your head off your shoulders!”