"Mary, are you alive?" The Field Commander's voice boomed out of her radio right before it turned to static. "Sorry, someone forced up a call on us. It was the Choir and we just received our orders."
"Yes, sir, I'm doing fine." Mary took a deep breath and looked at the unconscious knight with her face buried into the ground. "I pulled my leg though…"
"What," he laughed. "did you drop-kick her or something?"
Mary looked down and mumbled, "Actually…."
"Oh… OH MY GOD, YOU ACTUALLY DID!" The man behind the phone celebrated before silence shoved itself back on her radio. Mary knitted her brows as she waited and the man came back, screaming, "GODDAMMIT, WE DIDN'T GET IT ON TAPE!"
Mary pursed her lips and frowned. "Excuse me?"
"Bro," the man whispered with a serious tone that sounded as though his mouth was too close on the mic.
"Bro?" Mary looked at the knight once again.
"No, sorry," he let out a nervous chuckle. "seriously though, it was something that we, on the lower bracket of the reaper crew, would like to try for ourselves. It was a super risky move that involves you jumping into the air and kicking your opponent down. It had such grace like a swan braving the journey towards the mouth of an alligator.
"So, drop-kicking?" Mary replied with an uninterested tone.
"Yes," the man shouted in celebration once more. "YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YEEEEEES, WOOOO-HOOOO! FUCK YEAH!"
Mary scratched the back of her head. "Why are you so happy, wait, do even swans share the same lake as an alligator?"
"Bro," the man behind the phone said with his words sounding a bit authoritative and domineering. "It's hyperbole…"
"Metaphor," Mary coughed, pursing her lips as she gazed at the unmoving knight at her side for the third time.
"Bro, you gotta learn this shit, man!" The man slammed his fist into the table. "What matters the most at this moment is that you drop-kicked that bitch!"
"And knocked her out cold…" Mary finished his words.
"AND KNOCKED HER OUT COLD, YES," the man shouted once more. "NOW THAT'S A BONUS!"
"Oh my god, why are you so happy?" Mary sighed and turned her eyes on the ledges of the buildings on top of her. "What about the mission, why did you get disconnected earlier when I needed you the most?!"
"Aw did you miss—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, AVATAR ROKU!" Mary stomped the ground and screamed into the radio.
"What?" The man let out a nervous chuckle.
"What, wait… no, I'm sorry… again…" Mary added, taking a deep breath before she bit her lip.
"You watched avatar?" the man continued, speaking as though he was about to cry. "That's like my favorite show, Aang is my hero… it's like my favorite anime—"
"Cartoon…" Mary faked a cough and looked at the knight lying down at her side. She squinted at the moment she saw her finger twitch.
"Anime of all time…" The field commander repeated, with the same grace in his tone as he pretended not to notice Mary's words. Then, with a wide smile, he continued, "Girl, we are so connected!"
"Oh god," Mary groaned and tightened her jaws as she inspected her surroundings once more. "You guys made a bet about who's gonna do a drop-kick, someone—"
"AND I FUCKING WON BABY!" The man celebrated before his voice shrunk back as if someone grasped his throat. "Oh, wait, no that's bad, I'm sorry…"
"Who… I'm… I don't even know what to say…" Mary muttered.
"It's Choir, he started the bets… the one who wins gets to be one of the guests in his next show. He's gonna announce the dates after all of this shit is over," the man boasted.
"God fucking dammit." Mary let out a long breath through her nose. With her radio still hovering in front of her lips, she said enunciated, "Is there anything else that you would have to say to me?"
"Actually, when I thought about it… yeah, I might have something to tell you... that I might've forgotten until now," the man replied and let his words end with a nervous chuckle. "It's actually really important."
"What is it?" Mary replied as soon as he finished his sentence.
"Really… really important," the man went on with a hint of fear on his tone.
"WHAT IS IT?" Mary shouted before letting out a gasp as soon as she noticed what she had done.
"Promise me you won't get mad?" The Field Commander asked.
Mary shook his head and sighed. "Fine… fine, I promise I won't get mad and—"
"Another knight showed up and culled the other field commander's task force all by himself…" The man interrupted her as he pushed a few buttons on his keyboard. "None of them could touch him no matter what we did; the reapers who went in and attacked got one-shotted right under their noses. It feels weird… at one look, it seemed that he's going to get decapitated but at the next second, it's just him shoving his sword on the guy that's attacking him. Man, why is everyone too fast today? Anyways… we're being pushed back and we're doing our best to see if we would have a way to do him in. He's actually a nice guy by the way."
"What... the fuck?" Mary replied with a forced sweet tone as her right eye began to twitch.
"He said that his name was Walter…" The man hesitated, but after letting out a sharp breath, he continued, "He shouted that he's looking for her… another knight who disappeared and got her men killed… which is probably that girl who attacked you. Listen, we're doing our best to keep him in line and judging by his direction… he's going towards you guys, he prolly knows where you are now. I need you to not let her get out of that alley, we don't know what would happen if they were to meet. According to what the Choir said, there must be a reason why he's just walking in, especially when he knows that we're boxing him in, got it?"
Mary scoffed. "So, after rambling about your drop-kicks and your favorite cartoon, you're telling me this now, and you're telling me to keep ghost girl Barry Allen in line?"
The field commander paused and replied, "I'm telling you to fight the Flash, yes."
"Oh—" Mary smiled as she took a glance at her side to check up on the knight but her eyes widened in fear. She was confident that she would see her enemy with her face still flat on the floor, however, she wasn't there. A crippling dread of death overcame her body and without moving her eyes, she decreased her weight in panic. At that moment, something came flying down and shattered her mask along with the radio she kept in her hand. She jumped to her side after turning her body to normal and there, she got ahold of the knight's form before got herself blown off with a kick that crashed into her stomach.
Mary already felt herself rolling on the ground even before she could realize it. It didn't take her more than a few seconds to get herself to stop and when she raised her head to breathe and recover, she was shocked to see that the knight was already there in front of her. The knight took a single heavy step with her broken left leg and wound up her right arm all the way to her back to give her enemy a wide swing, but something went wrong. She intended to whip her arm and blow Mary's head off from the rest of her body, but the alleyway was too narrow. The cold rough walls met her arm midway and broke it even before she could deliver her devastating blow.
The knight froze in confusion. She wondered what kind of magic shattered her arm and made her feel this sense of pain as her body began to burn. It appeared as if she found herself in this unsolvable riddle as she looked into the bones sticking out of her forearms. This allowed Mary to step up and bash her face in with her first.
Mary turned her world upside down. The knight's eyes rolled at the back of her head as she gasped for air. She couldn't help but throw up a mouthful of blood to the reaper in front of her before she fell down with her mouth wide open. Her armor rang at the moment her back met the cold floor but as though she treated it like a morning bell, a glint of life came back into her eyes and urged her to kick herself away from Mary.
"Dammit… why are you always pussying out…" Mary gritted her teeth to force up a smile as she pressed her hand over her abdomen who made her feel like she's breathing in a stream of embers. "You should've not been able to move… too…"
"Cheating… you're cheating… but don't worry, me… see… I am not the problem," the knight cackled as she staggered into her view with the slowest of steps as though a building was brought upon her back. She revealed her blackened form with a horn, twisted and branched, sticking out of her forehead. It appears as though she tried to rip her armor away from her chest, now looking like it fell from the tallest of mountains. She carried no metal over her limbs that now seemed like it had been rebuilt using a thick sticky muck with its bits slowly dripping down from her fingertips, even from the cuts and the bones sticking out of her broken right arm. "You see, I've identified the problem… I've been receiving help…" She threw up a mouthful of blood on the floor and smiled like nothing happened. "Some stupidass, who think that I'm weak gave me this fucking suffocating armor, there are people behind my back wanting to help me too but then I realized," she laughed with a wide smile before it was cut after a second. "I realized that I could already do this on my own without their help. They're dragging me down… I don't need all these shit… This armor, all their help is worthless. This shit right now proves it! I'm the only one capable of leading them, but they're the ones dragging me down. I can't lose to someone like you who's basically cheating!"
"Actually the reason why you're still alive right now is because you had that armor, while also being a pussy," Mary replied, squinting to prevent her vision from slowly turning into a blur. She stole a glance at her back to scale her distance from the wall that she was supposed to go earlier and when she realized that she could get there if she ran, she looked back at the knight in front of her and smiled. "Also, the reason why you're losing is because I've been hugging these walls, so yeah… you are the problem..."
"You-what are you saying," she laughed in denial and watched Mary taking a few steps back. Then, without dropping her smile, she raised her left hand and ripped her cuirass from her body. "I don't need this. You're just cheating… if you've fought me fairly… I would've killed you already… so… fight… me… now… you can no longer cheat here!"
"Yeah, I figured… it's time to end this. I'll have to use my secret technique that has been passed down to our family from generation to generation," Mary smiled and gazed into the knight's eyes. She pulled out her knife from her side and lowered her stance.
The knight mirrored her actions with a wide grin as though she was waiting for her to bolt in. They shared a moment of silence as they waited for each other to make their move. Then, after a deep breath full of anticipation that caved into her heart and made her limbs burn and quiver, she froze in disbelief when Mary turned her back on her with a grunt and broke into a run.