I landed in front of Carmen's house just in time to watch Lato knock on the door.
He turned to smirk at me with such maliciousness.
I grit my teeth and summoned a sword.
The door opened and I saw Carmen's dad poke his head through. I jumped from the street, cracking the road, and landed on the front porch just in time to swat, Lato's dagger out of the way.
"Get back!" I commanded.*
Carmen's dad slammed the door shut and fled into the house. Hopefully to take the rest of his family and leave.
Lato backstepped, snapped his fingers, and said, "Boros."
A man fell from the sky with a massive claymore and crashed through the roof of the house.
"No!" I tried to go in, but Lato was there.
I heard crashing and screaming in the house.
I tried to get Lato to leave me alone, but he was persistent.
"Move," I growled.
He smirked.
I grunted and pushed him away. Then clenched my fist, trapping him in a crushing area of gravity.
I turned and leapt at the front door, only to be blown back by an explosion. I hefted myself up and saw that the house had been blown to bits.
"Take me lightly and you'll die," Lato said from behind me.
I warped behind him and went to chop off his arm but missed as he sidestepped.
We traded blows back and forth for another minute or two and then he stopped.
"Well, that should be long enough," he put his sword away. "I'll leave you with Boros. Be careful or you'll die."
"Don't you leave!" I shouted.
"Try and stop me!" He said with a laugh as he warped away.
I turned back to the wreckage of the house and saw that the man named Boros was poking around the wreckage looking for something. He was tall and muscular, his skin a dark shade of brown and his head shaven, his claymore easily six feet in total length and a foot wide.
"Hey!" I shouted.
He looked up at me, and I noticed that he wasn't bald or African American, he was Asian, and he was covered in caked dirt and dust with his hair slicked back tight to his scalp.
"Oh, the boss leave?"
"Yeah," I answered. "Yeah he did. Now, step away."
"Sorry, kid. I can't do that," he admitted, not sounding apologetic at all. "He told me to test the depth of your strength."
I braced for the fight that I knew was inevitable.
He came at me like a bullet train. I blocked his strike but was pushed back six feet.
"You're pretty strong for having such a small body," Boros complimented.
I did not reply, but managed to break free from our lock, and swiped at his torso. He sucked in and managed to avoid disembowelment. He then backstepped, but I followed. He brought his claymore down toward my head. I sidestepped and then cut off his arm.
He grabbed his sword with his other hand and then leapt back to the wreckage of the house.
I followed and kept him on the defensive. I kept up my pursuit coming close to killing him several times.
During our exchange, I heard the wreckage and rubble shifting, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carmen's family coming out from it. Carmen was close to the front, and when she saw me, she paled.
I didn't react, but Boros noticed. He managed to go on the defensive just long enough to deflect my sword and stagger me for just enough time for him to jump to Carmen.
I whirled around and teleported over to him and blocked his sword before he could hurt her. But he kicked me with enough force to knock down a house and managed to move me. He took his chance. Carmen backed up just enough to keep her from getting killed, but it wasn't far enough to keep her from getting hurt.
I watched, horrified and enraged as his sword slashed across her eyes.
She screamed in pain, and I punched him so hard in the side, I opened a hole in him.
He managed to heal it pretty quickly, but I had lost my patience for fancy tactics. I was going to kill him in my specialty way: brawling.
He swung his sword, but I hardened my skin and bent the sword on impact.
The light around me was sucked from the air and my skin cracked and turned gray. Then my mind went blank.
-
I do not recall the fight that ensued, but I am told I was like a wild animal. Apparently, I attacked with such incredible bloodlust and ferocity that even my allies who showed up not long after I blacked out were nervous to approach me. I successfully killed my opponent, who apparently called for backup, who I also slaughtered. When I came to, I was being held down.
I looked around and saw that it was Rust and two of the King's Sisters holding my limbs down.
"Nierix," Rust said calmly. "Is that your right mind?"
"What?"
"Are you going to go berserk?" One of the Sisters asked.
"No," I answered, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You lost all control until a second ago," the other Sister said to me. She was solid with long brown hair and an eyepatch. On her back was a large machete-like sword. She was very pretty.
"Oh." I laid my head down on the pavement. "Wait! Where's Carmen?"
They all got off of me.
"She is fine," Rust said. "Well, she's alive and she'll recover mostly."
"What do you mean 'mostly?'"
"Before I tell you, you shouldn't blame yourself," Rust told me. Which is a terrible way to start a sentence, by the way. "Carmen has lost her eyes and will never be able to see again."