"That took you long enough." Carmilla lay huddled against the wall behind a water pipe; Gun in one hand, smartphone in the other. Her finger hovered above the call button. Julian recognized the number as the one she used to call concrete. How did her Artifact work, anyway?
"What are you doing there?" Julian whispered into Carmilla's ear as he ducked into her shadow. The purple-haired woman grunted and carefully gazed into the street. No one, as expected. In this world, they are alone.
Then why could Julian hear maniacal laughing in the distance?
"Let's go." Without answering his question, Carmilla stepped out of her hiding place and waltzed straight onto the street. She primed her gun to fire at a moment's notice and scanned her surroundings. Her emerald eyes were focused as she inspected every nook and cranny in her vicinity. Julian quickly followed her. The young man slapped the box that had been transported alongside him with his left hand. With a flick of the joystick on his Artifact, Julian made it hover right next to him.
"I'm right behind you." Julian took a deep breath and focused. One wrong move in this world meant death; He knew that better than anyone. The two emerged from the alley and walked unto the street. With no one else around, the only sounds were their own breathing, the sounds of their footsteps laced with the maniacal laughter of their target.
The male-sounding voice bounced from every single wall, which made it impossible to track him down. Julian closed his eyes and tried to focus his ears. He succeeded in isolating the laughter and busied himself to track their target's location. Until a dry scratching noise pulled him out of his concentration.
Through the slits of his eyes, Julian noticed a small bar lying in front of his feet. It was barely noticeable as it had the same colour as the unnatural bloody glow that blanketed the entire city. Only a wild sparkling at the end revealed its location to the two Artifactors. Julian shrieked and sent the box, contents and all, straight at the weird object.
"Wait, don't—" A loud bang overpowered Carmilla's complaint. The object exploded the moment the crate touched it, scattering its contents. Julian gasped as the shockwave rippled through his body. In a storm of debris, his world spun around several times as his body unkindly brushed with the concrete before he skidded to a stop. The rough ground left deep burning marks on the young man's hands.
"Note to self: Don't attack everything on sight…" Julian groaned in pain as he slowly pushed himself back on his feet. Long smears of blood stained his shirt as he dusted himself off. The crate had shattered with its contents scattered all around him. Pieces of rebar stuck out of the nearby walls while cracked concrete had smashed straight through the nearest windows. It seems he escaped the blast relatively unscathed. His ears still rung, but his body was still intact.
"Are you—" Julian heard a voice right next to him. A cough, accompanied by a splattering noise, doomed up from within the smoke. Slowly a figure stumbled out, a flash of purple followed her every move.
"Carmilla!" Julian grunted and jumped to his protesting knees. He felt a spark of pain course through his veins. In a couple of steps, he reached his boss and held her up by the shoulders. Blood bubbled up past her lips as she stumbled forwards.
"Don't worry. I just bit my tongue during the blast…" Carmilla's voice cracked as she took a deep breath. She brushed her bloodied hair behind her ears. As she steadied herself, another one of those explosives landed right in front of her. A maniacal cackle echoed from somewhere in front of the two, which made Julian scoff. The bastard enjoyed toying with his prey, didn't he?
Well, two could play that game.
"Calling concrete," came Carmilla's voice. She was prepared and ready to fight back. "Raise temperatures without limits!" She yelled. Her fingers dug into Julian's shoulder and pulled him back. She dragged him along as far as possible. Her purple curls whipped after her as the temperature around the explosive rose exponentially.
A second later, it exploded. Luckily, the molten stone clung to the debris thrown around by the blast and limited its effective radius. Someone clicked their tongue.
"Awww, man…. You would've looked so good as a bloody stain." Why did they sound so disappointed? A couple of irregular footsteps echoed from a nearby alley before a figure dashed out from the shadows. Their long grey hair flapped after them. The figure dashed towards the two injured Artifactors and came to a stop thirty feet away from them. He was quite a curious figure.
His pepper-and-salt coloured beard pointed at different directions, just like his gaze. His leather jacket had been burned away in various place, just as his long pants. Only his black trekking boots seemed new. His wrinkles contracted and relaxed every time the old man cackled. A single piece of dynamite hung from his leather belt. Julian instinctively shuddered when he saw the thing; An Artifact. Judging by the fact he had just thrown two sticks of dynamite, Julian assumed it was a type of Artifact that could generate dynamite at will.
"Aren't you too old for these games, old man?" Julian frowned as the man nursed his back. Just how old was this guy anyway? His beard told Julian he was at least past the age of 60. But his mental attitude looked more like that of a teenager throwing a tantrum. The old man didn't put any effort into answering Julian's question. Instead, his crazed gaze bounced from Carmilla to Julian and back.
"I didn't know they allowed couples to join their side?" The man's eyes went in all directions. He licked his soot-covered lips as he ogled both Carmilla and Julian with a crazed gaze.
"All the better," He reached behind his back and pulled out another stave of dynamite. "You can die together!" He rubbed the fuse against the sole of his trekking boots and threw the explosive straight at Julian.
"We are not—" Carmilla's complaint disappeared in her throat as Julian tugged her to the side. The two of them looked at each other, ice-blue against emerald, and nodded simultaneously. Carmilla pushed Julian away before she ran away from him. Julian raced towards the nearest lamppost and slammed his left hand against it.
"Let's go!" Julian laughed at no one in particular as the streetlight pulled itself free from the concrete. He twisted his thumb into a small circle as the steel pole dashed towards the old man. With a swift motion, he reached for another stave of dynamite and threw it at the lamppost. A loud bang made Julian stumble. The explosion's energy managed to temporarily overwhelm his control over the metal pole and sent it flying into a nearby wall.
"Tsk, what a dodgy old bastard." Julian mumbled under his breath and jumped. . He used the explosion's shockwave to give his escape a boost as he slapped another streetlight and took it along.
"Calling concrete, raise temperature 200 degrees!" Carmilla's voice echoed from the other side of the street. She jumped up against the wall of a house, and without a single glance, she fired over her shoulder. She didn't wait for the results of her shot; She simple dashed towards the crazed man, her eyes trained on the ground below him. Ripples of heat passed through the man's legs, who realized something was amiss. The rubber soles of his shoes started to sizzle, plumes of foul-smelling smoke billowing around his feet.
"Two Artifactors, huh? Ha, you'll make for exquisite stains!" The man held his hair and cackled before he jumped back. A thick strand of molten rubber followed him. When he landed, the man howled in pain and reached for his feet. The rubber had stuck to his soles.
"You bitch!" He reached for his belt. A deep red glow covered the palms of his hands before two staves of dynamite materialized between his fingers. Now that his shoes had melted into a putrid bubbling mess, the man used the roughness of his denim jacket to ignite the fuses. Carmilla loaded another bullet into the barrel of her gun and fired several rounds. The first few missed and flew off into the distance. However, her last shot hit its mark.
One of the staves exploded in the middle of its trajectory. A shockwave crushed the concrete underneath it. Carmilla crossed her arms in front of her to protect her from the few pieces of debris. The other slammed into a flying lamppost. The explosion knocked the steel pole out of Julian's control. The young man didn't stand still and had already taken control over a nearby steel bench.
They went at it for a long time. After the hundredth explosion, Julian lost count about how many lamppost and benches he had thrown. The entire street started to look pretty barren. Soon, he'd run out of ammo. His body wasn't in the best of shapes either. The pain in his knees intensified with every step he took. His inhaler slowly lost its powers; Julian felt like his lungs were trying to suffocate him.
Carmilla hadn't come out completely unscathed either; Her hair looked like it had exploded with several ends being burned off. She had put her glasses away after one of the lenses had crumbled and cut her cheek. Her right arm had been lightly pierced by flying shrapnel, which created elaborate rivers of blood on her usually pale skin. Her breathing heavy, she launched another barrage of bullets at her enemy.
"We need a plan and fast!" Julian ran up to the purple-haired woman under cover of a flying lamppost. "I don't know if my Artifact can handle much more of this crap." Carmilla looked at Julian's controller. A faint plume of smoke crinkled out of one of the joysticks. The purple-haired woman looked at him, her emerald eyes filled with determination.
"Right. Can you hold him still for just ten seconds? I'll finish him off then." Carmilla's tone was resolute; She wouldn't accept any other ideas. Julian gulped and looked around; It was clear to him the old man, despite his age, was too fast for his lampposts and benches. He needed something lighter, something easier to control. His gaze fell onto a particular object, half-hidden by shadows.
"Got it." With those words, the two stormed towards their enemy.
"Tsk." The old man knew something was up. Amidst the dust, he saw how his two targets talked, nodded and charged straight at him. The crazed bomber bit his lip and drew some blood as he focused his addled mind. In a matter of seconds, he had produced an impressive amount of dynamite. He quickly lit the fuses and started wildly throwing them at his enemies. One after another, never stopping a single second.
"Ah, shit." Julian cursed under his breath as he flung the bench straight at the dynamite cloud with a simple flick with his right thumb. While every explosion triggered the next one, Julian and Carmilla charged. Accompanied by thundering roars and flames above their heads, they shielded their eyes from the cataclysm going on above.
"Not today! You won't have me today!" The old man turned around and ran. Julian ran past a trash can and smacked it with his left hand. A second later, the trashcan barreled straight towards the fleeing man. However, the targeted man used a simple explosion to knock it out of sight. At the same time, Carmilla tried to shoot him while summoning a pool of magma straight in front of him.
Her bullets missed entirely as the man had used an explosion to knock up some concrete and dust, which threw off her aim. The second attempt missed since he simply jumped over the small pool of bubbling lava. Carmilla muttered something under her breath about becoming stronger as Julian took control of something new: a bike. He had found it lying around.
However, instead of throwing it like an imbecile, Julian decided on a different approach. He released his control over the bicycle and rode it for a little while. He passed his purple-haired companion whose eyes grew to the size of marbles when she saw her fellow Artifactor travel on two wheels. When he passed a traffic light and a billboard, he smacked both with his left hand.
"Here we go!" Julian felt his energy being tugged at. Controlling two objects drew more power than he would've liked. But he managed; Both of his thumbs fiddled with the joysticks as he jumped from the bicycle. He tapped on his controller and clicked his tongue. He felt the heat penetrating his fingernails. A little bit more and it would overheat, shutting down and completely nullifying Julian's powers. The young cursed his own reluctance to training himself.
He wasn't the only one hitting up his limits.
"Shit!" Carmilla cursed loudly, something she rarely did. She looked at her phone. Specifically, she watched the battery icon. Only one bar filled the small white battery, and that bar was flickering. Her collection of bullets had been running thin as well. She cursed her own forgetfulness. Usually, she recharged her phone every night. But since the previous one was a bit different than all others, she forgot. And that bit her in the ass.
"Come on, come on! Just a little bit more…" Carmilla whimpered when her phone's screen flickered. No matter what she tried, she couldn't make the call to concrete to activate her powers. Her eyes trained at the enemy in front of her. With Julian ahead of her, she was left relatively defenceless. The old man flashed a crazy smirk when he noticed the distance between the two Artifactors.
"Oh? Are you abandoning her, little boy?" With those ragged words, the man pulled out another pair of dynamite. He swiftly lit the explosives with the help of his rough jacket and threw them straight at the purple-haired woman. Carmilla grunted and aimed her gun directly at the staves of dynamite. She pulled the trigger and…
A dry click. That's the only noise her gun made. No bang, no bullets whizzing from the barrel. Just the dry sound of the hammer hitting against the gun's cylinder. Carmilla cursed and reached into her pockets. The colour drained from her face as her fingers only touched empty air. She had run out of ammunition.
"Change of plans!" Julian, who had turned away from his earlier idea of using the bike's wheels as a makeshift cage, threw the billboard in the middle of the small cloud of explosives as a makeshift shield. Right before they detonated, Julian jumped forth and pulled Carmilla out of the blast radius. The purple-haired woman let out a guttural yelp as she tumbled to the ground. At the same moment, her phone blipped.
"Calling concrete, melt a circle around me." Her words hadn't cooled down yet, or Julian felt a scorching heat around him. He wanted to ask what was happening, but Carmilla put a finger on his lips. She glanced once at the approaching cloud of explosives and pulled the young man towards her. She put her body protectively in front of him, ready to bear the brunt of the explosion.
"This is going to hurt…" She mumbled as the ground slowly sunk. Julian saw a tiny fraction of concrete glowing. She must've melted only a small part of the earth to make them sink deeper for protection! At that moment, Carmilla's phone emitted a loud, beeping noise and shut down. Its battery had died. The purple-haired woman didn't give it a second thought; She straddled Julian and forced him down, holding him tightly. A moment later, all hell broke loose.
Carmilla screamed as a piece of rebar, dislodged by the explosion, tore through her back and left a deep gash behind. Her blood stained both of them as it trickled down her body. From the moment the trembling stopped, Carmilla rolled away from Julian. Her breathing came in short bursts as she rested on the cold, debris-ridden ground.
"Carmilla! Are you alright?" Julian climbed out of the small sunken hole the purple-haired woman made and crawled towards her. He checked her pulse and smiled; She was still alive. The wound didn't bleed much. She opened her emerald-eyes and smiled softly at the young man looming over her.
"Don't--" She coughed up a wad of blood. "Don't worry about me. What kind of boss would I be if I let my subordinates die in front of my eyes?" Something shone inside Carmilla's eyes. It wasn't fear but… When she talked about having someone die in front of her eyes, her gaze was filled with recognition.
"However," Her smirk twisted into a pained grimace. "You'll have to finish him off." Julian flashed her a crazy smirk and looked around. Near him, there lied all kinds of concrete and rebar. The young man leapt at a huge pile and took a look at his target. The crazed old man didn't come out unscathed either. His right eye was bleeding profusely, and he dragged his left knee along with every step.
"Ha… Haha! Hahaha!' The man lost it when he found Carmilla lying on the ground in front of him. Just when he reached for another stave of dynamite, generated from his belt, a piece of rebar smashed through his wounded knee.
"Hey, asshole…" Julian's voice turned stone-cold, his eyes dead-set on eliminating his enemy until he was less than a bloody pulp. Not because he wanted to avenge Carmilla or anything—He appreciated her sacrifice, but she was an adult and knew fully well what she was doing. The young man appreciated her sacrifice but it didn't spur him on more than he already was. This old bastard was just annoying the hell out of him. And for that, he would pay.
As the man screamed in pain with his eyes as large as marbles when he stared at the piece of rusty steel stuck through his knee, another part of concrete raced through his right shoulder. A sickening noise echoed throughout the street as the bones inside shattered.
"Gatling gun." Julian took a deep breath and took a look at his Artifact. Not much more or he'd have the same problem as Carmilla. If his Artifact decided to quit on him, he'd be screwed. He decided to finish this entire thing before that could happen, though. In a rapid tempo, Julian sent several pieces of debris at the man, taking him down bit by piece, bone by bone.
"Stop, I'll do any—" Julian shrugged as he rammed a piece of concrete straight down the man's throat. Luckily for him, he managed to spit it out before it went any deeper. Julian didn't care what the man had to say; The only thing in the young man's mind was to finish this as quickly as possible. The crazed man stumbled backwards. He used his arms as makeshift shields against the never-ending storm of debris. Until Julian broke them to bits with the help of a peculiarly large piece of concrete.
"Shut up and die, old man." Julian's voice dripped with ice. He stepped towards the bloody man and rammed the heel of his shoe straight into an open wound. The young man ignored the pained screams of his enemy as the crazed man wriggled back and forth. The sound of bare bone against concrete flooded Julian's ears as he wiggled his foot back and forth.
"Aaagh! Stop it, stop it!" The man tried to beg for mercy, but Julian would have none of it. He continued to grind the man's bones into the ground, reaching out for a long piece of concrete and made it levitate with the last bits of his power. He pushed it as high as his powers could take it. However, the moment he looked up to check if it was high enough to kill, the bomber reeked his chance.
"Hehehe…" He coughed up a wad of blood as he reached for his belt. "Stupid Artifactors… If I can't kill you, I won't see her again… So I'll take you with me. For her!" Julian clicked his tongue as the man ignited the stave of dynamite in his grasp. Julian wanted to smack the concrete hovering high above him. The painful sparks in both his legs reminded him what a mistake that would be. His gaze bounced over his surroundings, desperate to find something –anything!—that could turn this around.
Julian saw a curved piece of rebar lying right to his foot. It was not long, not even exceeding the length of his arm, but a plan bubbled up inside of him. It was desperate, and one fuck-up would mean his end. Yet Julian felt calm inside. Whatever the outcome, this would all be over.
He took a quick step back. The crazed man cackled and lashed out at Julian's ankle. The young man was prepared for that, however. He jumped up and smashed the old man's hand underneath his heel at the same time he retracted his power from the floating concrete. With one swift motion, he poured his remaining energy into the small piece of rebar.
"Fore!" Julian smashed the old man sky high with a harsh flick on his game controller, not unlike how a golfer would hit a hole-in-one. His target? The falling concrete high up in the sky. A crazed scream followed the old man as he tried to throw his dynamite away. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get the time. Face first, he smashed into the falling rock, crushing his skull in the process. The stick of dynamite, crushed between the man's body and the concrete, exploded. Julian didn't care for the gory spectacle; He turned around and ran towards his fallen purple-haired companion.
He quickly hoisted her up and held her up. He gently tugged her to the side of the street, checking on her wounds. Luckily, they weren't as deep as he had anticipated. The gash at her back had clearly hit bone, shown by the milky-white spots surrounded by blood-red flesh. Julian flashed a soft smile at no one in particular before he closed his eyes.
"Come on." His voice cracked as he felt his controller shut down. All power left his body as plumes of smoke erupted from his Artifact. Julian smiled softly and looked up at the scarlet sky. His shadow jumped excitedly up and down, seemingly exhilarated by having killed another human being. The young man felt it but decided to ignore it.
As he looked at the sky, a small piece of paper flacked against his face. He ripped it off, thinking it was some kind of enemy. However, when nothing happened, the young man took a careful look.
"Gromwell? That border city?" Julian's eyes rapidly scanned the words inscribed upon the half-charred paper. "...That's for later." Julian ignored the paper for now and crammed it into his pockets. His first priority was getting both of them out of this world and into a safe hospital bed.
"Let's go home." A dark red glow engulfed him before whisking him away to the ordinary world. He missed the pair of leather-booted feet watching from a distance.