"Impossible-"
Before Emilio could express the tiniest bit of surprise, Dirac went straight for the offense. Plasma flames shot out of his right ankle, with the immense acceleration twisting his body around, using his left foot as pivot. His right foot drew a white circle around him before landing the powerful blow on his target. Emilio desperately held the ground, blocking the hit with his arms. There was a loud thump upon impact, rumbling the air around his chest. Yet he did not fly away as Dirac expected.
Emilio smiled.
"Is that all you got? You can't even move me by an inch!"
Sweat dripped from his forehead – a sign that he was struggling to hold his ground. Yet Emilio persisted, even if he knew the opponent's power was way beyond his imagination. But he was not going to quit, since this was not just any villain, but the murder of his father.
Worst of all, he didn't even care about it! Why would such a despicable and rotten monster obtain such power? Why did the world think it was appropriate to grant such strength to him?!
"This is unfair…unfair! That is why I cannot lose!"
Emilio bit his teeth.
"Why am I not granted such power?!" The furious thought burnt him from inside out. "I need more strength…to crush him, to tear him to pieces…at all cost!"
Veins crept up his anger-twisted face.
"I will murder him – even if it means bringing the world down with me!"
"Quit resisting!" yelled Dirac, the plasma flames roaring louder and louder.
"GHAAAA!" Emilio increased his mass to a ludicrous level. Yet Dirac's foot was thrusted into him with increasing power, pushing Emilio backwards, digging a pair of short but deep trenches with his foot, which anchored themselves into the ground due to sheer weight.
"AHHH!" At last, the asymmetry of physical laws began showing effect on Emilio: the huge mass he put into himself was beginning to crush the structure of his body. Sharp clicks resonated inside him.
His bones were cracking under their own weight.
"God…you are…" Dirac gasped – a rare sign of worry from him, "…mad. Even madder than I am."
Yet Dirac kept increasing the propulsive power without mercy. A chaotic mess of warning lights screamed from the devices around Dirac's limbs. They were was on the limit as well.
Emilio's throat went hoarse with his screaming. A tooth of his couldn't hold its weight and was pulled out by its root into the ground.
Finally, Dirac reached his highest power capability.
With a white explosion, the light blinded all witnesses in the vicinity. The shockwave soon arrived and demolished the concrete pillars still standing among the ruins.
◆ ◆ ◆
"…Hey…wake up!" The faint voice grew clearer every second, accompanied by the feeling of someone slapping Emilio's face.
He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the little store. On the edge of his view were two familiar faces staring down at him.
"Edwin…Tracy…what just happened…" He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his mind and remember what happened. Soon enough, the details of the fight kicked in, and the impulse to keep fighting drove him up to his legs.
"Wait, don't go!" Tracy yelled after him.
"You need to work on your anger management," said Edwin, "you will kill yourself that way."
"Exactly!" exclaimed Tracy, "for a moment I couldn't tell who was the villain back there!"
"But he killed my father!" Emilio clenched his fist and shouted back, "I want my revenge!"
"By torturing yourself to death with your own power?" Edwin laughed in a sarcastic manner, "no need for that…we got a plan…to kill Dirac."
The burning rage cooled down inside Emilio. He turned to look at the ruins outside and sighed.
"How?"
◆ ◆ ◆
With a little push, he got his body out of the concrete wall in which he was burried into. The crackling debris rained on the broken machines on his feet. The propulsive devices on his feet moaned with the sound of the system powering down, then vomited a cluster of sparks from its fried circuits.
"Tsk, that little bastard…" complained Dirac, lowering his head to examine the shattered machines around his feet, "guess I'm grounded for tonight."
With a solid stump, he got rid of the plasma-directing device – now a burning pile of junk – from his legs. The power show down between him and Emilio proved to be a bad idea.
"That kid's got some power, I'll give him that," thought Dirac, "but he sure is a demon inside…that anger is stronger than mine."
A twenty-kilograms tire came flying at him, which was easily deflected, like all the bullets before it.
"Speaking of the devil…"
"We are not done yet!" Emilio spread his arms, preparing for the final showdown. "It's on!"
"Quick, I'm getting tired!" shouted Dirac impatiently. He wasn't lying – the long battle was exhausting his strength.
With a solid stump, Emilio planted his feet firmly on the ground, then pointed at Dirac.
"Time for round two!"
Dirac walked towards Emilio, with his hands stuck in his pockets. He tilted his head and sighed in tiredness. The fight has been wasting away his playfulness.
Seeing him approaching, Emilio lowered his body, posing himself in a dashing position, then placed his hand on the ground.
"Whatever you are up to…" said Dirac, the white light, once again, growing in intensity within his palm, "...it's not gonna help."
Emilio held his position, despite the fact that he could be evaporated by the energy beam at any second. The light grew stronger and stronger, the air surrounding the area buzzing louder and louder as its being ionized…
"You'd better show up, Ed…" Sweat drops crawled down Emilio's forehead.
The plasma beam leaped through the air towards its target, devouring every molecule in its path.
Simultaneously, Emilio swept the lowered arm forward in lightning speed. The handful of sand he grabbed just now left his hand. Emilio injected the extra inertia into the dust particles. What used to be a puffy clump of particles turned into a hailstorm of microscopic bullets.
Dirac's eyes widened. Fear and confusion surfaced temporarily.
A blue flash struck where Emilio stood, milliseconds before the energy beam swallowed the space where he used to occupy.
On the other side, thousands of sand particles easily overcame the air resistance that should've been a solid wall to them. Dirac, who was yet to finish releasing his attack. Moved his head slightly to the right in an attempt to dodge, but the cloud of bullets still grazed his face, leaving a red trail on his cheek. Behind him, the rest of the hailstorm blew through a metal pole, with the latter bending from where it was hit, then collapsed in a thump.
"That…" Dirac murmured.
◆ ◆ ◆
"…was close!" shouted Emilio, with a trembling voice. If Edwin had teleported him away milliseconds later, the warmth he felt from the plasma beam would've been the last sensation of his life. He laid Edwin down, who was clinging to his shoulders for support.
"You sure you got this, Ed?"
"Yes…I'm good." Edwin breathed heavily while sitting on the ground, "plus, you've just proved my hypothesis."
"So, the truth stands." Emilio gazed behind him, where Dirac stood a block away. "His force field is used for both shielding and attacking…I was wondering how he could contain the energy beams!"
Edwin nodded, signaling Emilio to continue with the plan.
◆ ◆ ◆
"They seemed to have figured it out…" Dirac looked his palm. Red dots bloomed as blood dripped onto his hand "…welp, change of strategy."
A familiar-looking ice spear drew a curved path around him. Dirac looked back.
"I'm afraid it won't work again, Miss," he sneered.
"Well, I might be lucky again," the lean figure walked out of the shadows. The pinkish-red ponytail swinged left and right as she strode closer. "Can't hurt to try."
"Oh, no, no. This will hurt…a lot!"
A burst of compressed air sent Tracy flying at Dirac, her hand, in the meantime, collected every bit of water vapor it could reach from the air around it. The microscopic droplets condensed, the attraction between the molecules grew from fragile linkage to inseparable bonds. Ice crystals extended out of an equally clear handle.
The blade slashed through the shortening distance between Tracy and Dirac, like a white lightning striking through the air. With a little step to the side, Dirac narrowly dodged the attack. Tracy, gliding right over Dirac, twisted her body midair, before driving the blade of a second sword towards Dirac's neck.
Yet, just like the countless bullets shot at him, Dirac's force field redirected the blade away, forcing it to draw a curved path around him.
"Out of luck now, Miss." Dirac put his hands together, blasting a plasma beam at the still airborn girl. "Let's see which one's faster – my plasma pillar or your reflexes."
Yet Tracy, half a second later, was running in the air – meters away from where Dirac predicted she would be.
"What the – wait, she had help." Dirac's mind raced, trying to read the situation. It soon became obvious: she was stepping on a huge chunk of concrete thrown towards her, which then dropped heavily into the ground, forming a vertical wall.
With the chunk as the platform, Tracy launched herself into a flat parabola over Dirac, who immediately pointed his hand upward, trying to shoot her down like a turret. Yet more boulders were hurled towards the battlefield, each one acting as a temporary platform for Tracy, who bounced between them like a pin ball. The concrete chunks, after serving their purpose as platforms, plunged into the ground, forming a ragged fence of rock around Dirac.
"Bloody gimmicks!" Dirac yelled in rage, "This ends now!"
Without even looking, he stopped aiming for Tracy, then shot a blast parallel to the ground. Infront of the hurling plasma stream was the source of the flying chunks.
"Edwin! A little help!" shouted Emilio, his hands occupied with a concrete wall five-times his own size.
The beam curved away according to the curvature of space and dissipated into the night sky.
"Don't get distracted, prick!"
An unexpected strike of claymore came from above. Pulling his attention back, he jumped sideways, before the crystal blade – as large as him from head to toe – plunged downwards and shattered upon impacting the ground. After the failed surprise attack, Tracy hopped backwards and landed on a flat sheet of steel from a collapsed advert stand. The steel plate immediately melted as she weakened the attraction between the atoms. The sluggish metal condensed into a thin beam two meters long, then bent into a huge ark.
Propelled by another pack of condensed air, Tracy flew up, and drew a thin stream of liquid steel. She gracefully connected the ends of the steel arc with the liquid stream, then stepped into the middle of the ark. Suddenly, the weakened force between the atoms grew stronger than ever: the thin stream of liquid became a hardened steel string, while the metallic arc gained back its strength – threefold. And so, before touching the ground again, Tracy had drawn an enormous, metallic bow, holding it tight with her entire body.
"Those moves…could she be…" A faint reminder went through Dirac's head.
An icy arrow formed in between Tracy's fingers.
A silent woosh. The exchange of momentum threw her backward by at least ten meters.
Before Dirac could react, the icy arrow had penetrated the air before him at nearly the speed of sound.
"Crap! Gotta set up the shield-" Dirac temporarily panicked. Before the force field could operate at maximum power, the cold reflection of the arrow tip already sliced through the space right next to Dirac's head.
The arrow smashed into the floor behind him. Following its trajectory, a bloody ear – still warm – dropped to the ground.
"GHAAA!" Screaming in pain, Dirac covered the right side of his head with his hands, where the red liquid gushed out of the open wound. Looking at his hand, it was drenched in his own blood – something he never expected to see.
The exhaustion took over the girl as she stumbled heavily upon her landing. Tracy rolled on the ground before hitting the side of the road, finally stopping. Blood leaked out of the scratches on her explosed thighs, while her back burned with pain.
"You, you are right, Dirac," Tracy coughed heavily, forcing a smile up her face, "this does hurt a lot!"
"Crap…seems like I underestimated her…" Dirac looked up, "The handling and building of short and long ranged weapons…the reflex that can only come from training and experience…"
The explanation immediately occurred to Dirac. Ignoring the pain from his missing ear, he stood straight, then opened his arms and laughed into the sky. Confused, Tracy looked at the madman.
"Quite a despicable plan, I see…that sure fits your twisted personality, Doc!" Dirac talked into the sky, trying to pour his anger into someone he knew…someone he never respected, never worried about, yet stupidly dangerous.
The seemingly mad talk frightened Tracy. Her pupil shrank, as she took a step back. Could he have guessed it already…
"Your 'master' sure have trained you well! What is your purpose here?"
Tracy froze where she was. "Purpose…" the word resonated in her brain, bouncing off the inside of her head, pounding for an answer.
"Answer me…" Dirac recovered from the temporary madness and looked at her in defiance.
"What is your purpose here… cursed orphan?"