That was some of the best exercise I've had in months. A great way to stretch my legs. But it's time to get back to work and the wasted moments we took give Bianca time to prepare for us. I can't imagine what she could put together to try and rout us, but unwanted surprises have been a recurring theme tonight.
We arrive at the door the men and the boy are hiding behind, and I turn the handle to find them both soothing his leaking eyes while he sits on a toilet seat. I'm happy to see they've followed my orders perfectly. No need to shed any more blood, at least not theirs.
"Thanks for keeping an eye on him." I hold out my hand, and the boy sniffles, scooching to the seat's end before one of the men blocks him off with his arm.
"You can't have him. He needs to go home to his parents." Says the stubble-faced man, combatting me with his glare.
"That's what we're trying to do. So, the faster you give him to me the faster-"
"No!" The other one says.
"No?" This pompous insect thinks he can walk over me! This rich clown thinks he has any idea of what's going on here!?
"I got it!" Vilma volunteers, but I put my hand up to stop her.
My sword slips out of its comfortable sheath as I calmly approach the bravest men in the world. Some drops of sweat start creeping out of their face with each of my steps, and one of them even slides further back into the corner of the bathroom. Funny, trying to run away from something you brought on yourself.
I jerk my arm back once I'm in range of the man who screamed 'No' at me and thrust the blade at his forehead. He closes his eyes, frozen, unwilling to even try to fight back despite all his posturing. And his partner's the same, cowering in the corner instead of even trying to save the person I'm about to slice in half. Why did these two have the nerve of speaking up if they're too cowardly to back it up!?
"It's your lucky day," The man opens his eyes, probably surprised he can still hear anything at all, and finds the blade's tip stopped inches from his head. "After killing every armed guard Bianca could send after us, we're wracked for time," I put my hand around the boy's shoulder, staring at both their dripping faces. "So, you get to live to see another day." I wretch the kid from his handler with little resistance and pass him back to Vilma just as the space I cut through fills itself in. The air vortex grabs the man off the toilet, and I catch him in my arms mid-flight. "You'll only get this offer once, so if you don't want to indirectly kill yourselves, stay here. If I see your faces again, I'll cut you down."
I shut them out of my sight, expecting to have to get more fool's blood on my hands. But it looks like I won't have to. Besides a few murmurs, I hear no sound that would hint at an act of defiance or movements to escape.
"The disrespect today is agitating!"
"I said sorry..." Vilma murmurs.
"Not you! Everyone else in this tower doesn't understand who they're talking to. The King of the Night, owner of King's Edge, it all means nothing to them! It's like every single insignificant piece of dust in this tower banded together to annoy me! The next person to treat me like I'm not the most feared thing in this city is going home as pieces in a body bag!" Steam from my nose accompanies a drained sigh.
"Feel better?"
"I have a headache coming on but yeah, let's go and kill Bianca so we go home."
"Oh, maybe we can visit the Pharmacy after we finish!"
"That's not going to do anything. The only remedy for the pain is above us."
Vilma peeks her head out the hallway and puts her hands on her hips. "How are we getting up there? We can't use the elevator because... something broke it on its way down." I throw up a finger towards the yawning hole above us. "Woah, you cut a hole in the ceiling?" Her head is nearly a foot and a half from scraping the sealing and she just noticed? "Why'd you do that?"
"I had to after you left me up there alone with the kid."
"Sorry. I got caught up in the moment."
"It's fine as long as you keep your head where it needs to be now," I say, grabbing hold of the ceiling hole and pulling myself up. "Get up here."
Vilma latches onto the hollow layer in between the ceiling of the room and Bianca's top floor domain, pulling herself up the beams supporting the top floor while I have to jump to reach the same height. Our heads peek out the top of the hole like groundhogs, curiously watching Bianca and her two guards nonchalantly stargazing. I thought she'd be pacing, that she would be preparing something that could save herself. But she's not worried about me... at all? She thinks that little of me!? That I'm a pushover who'd be beaten by guards like that!? Bianca, it's going to feel almost cathartic to kill you.
"Throw me up to the platform," I command.
"Throw you?"
"Yes. Throw me as hard as you can up towards the platform."
Vilma scratches the back of her head, probably considering how crazy of a plan that is even for her. But then she shrugs, grins wide, and shoots me a thumbs up. "You're small so it shouldn't be hard for me to get you there!"
"It's never too late for me to leave, Vilma."
"Oh, sorry! I wasn't trying to say you were small in general, it's just that I'm big so compared to me you're teeny tiny. But that doesn't mean-"
"Just shut up and throw me."
"Ok. Sounds like a great plan to me!"
Vilma grips the back of my shirt, lets me droop down into the VIP room like I'm hanging from a bungee cord, and bounces her shoulder up and down building up a momentous rhythm. I pull against the front of my shirt as it's pulling on my neck threatening to choke me out. This... is... humiliating...
"Vilm-" I manage to cough out.
"Have a safe flight!" She finally blasts me upwards like a catapult, rocketing me into the starry hole above. Before I know it, I rocket past the layer inside the ceiling, flying inside Bianca's top floor. My hands press down on the hilt of my King's edge to keep it inside the scabbard while we climb up space. Sometimes I forget how absolutely boundless Vilma's raw physical power is. I bet if she was locked in a cage with a gorilla and a bear, both would be scraping against the bars to try and escape her. And that's without considering her Antique.
The pressure pushing back on my hair lasts all but three seconds, the wings Vilma gives me break apart and I can freely move my head to look down at the platform Bianca is cowering from.
So this is what they see... the stars that look down on my city every night. I get it now.
The city's lights, people, cars, all scrambling below me. While I remain in cold stillness. Obsidian space holds me in its palm while I absorb everything the moonlit air can offer. Specs of starlight flock to me, and the empty void invites itself over my skin. Up here, on an untouchable throne where no one could dream of bringing me down. This is my rightful place. Above Bianca, above this tower, sitting at the throne of my entire world! I've worked too hard to be anywhere else!
"Bianca!" Her decadent chair nearly tips back from her shocked reaction. "You and The Dreaming Stars are finished! You've taken my city, infected my people, and stifled my businesses, and you're going to pay for it all!"
The two guards light up the night sky, hoping to land a lucky shot on me, but their efforts are in vain when I'm here, in my infinite expanse. High in the night sky, I grip King's Edge's handle, point the tip at Solaine's little viewing booth, and cast down the black thunderbolt at the guard standing next to her. The black streak plunges through the sky, piercing through his leg. My unstoppable edge slices clean past his flesh, digging perfectly into the booth's floor and the trail of erased air King's Edge leaves gives way to a gust of air that pulls me towards Bianca.
Bianca would never expect something so reckless from me, which makes it the perfect way to get to her. Couple that with her lack of preparation and she'll be helpless to save herself.
I roll onto the platform to offset the fall, pull my sword out of the ground, and swing it as I stand to my feet, slicing the impaired guard in his chest. Crimson paint stains my sword while it seeks out the second threat to my life.
The blade finds the second guard, and once cornered by its edge, he drops his gun and puts his hands up. "I'm alright, I'll pass." With no way out, he finds a corner on the platform and curls up in it.
"Smart choice. The only intelligent employee you have Bianca." I inhale in a satisfied breath, turning to face the source of my headache when a strange warm feeling dances around my muscles. The heat grows warmer and warmer until my body lights up in a soothing fire that subdues my body into a numb state. The foundations of myself became looser with each breath, the objective I had set becoming fuzzier. And soon, all of it stifles me enough to make me crumble under the tranquil feeling.