Incident 27 (15 page)

He
turned to face Priscilia who was positively seething. “Damn Bannen! But how?
Don’t tell me Jorg failed? That’s impossible.”

“Jorg’s
gone,” Ev said flatly. “And you tried to kill someone I care about. I’ll have
to teach you some manners. Arcturus, look after Maya for me.”

“He’s
gone,” Maya said, mimicking Ev’s tone towards Priscilia.

Ev
whirled around, scouring the city block. “Gone? Where’d he go?”

“To
take the cane back to the Ark, I think. He just left me here.”

Ev
turned his attention back to Priscilia. “Well, we’ll have to have a talk about
that. For now, though, I’ll deal with what’s left of the Asshole Three.”

“
Awesome
Three!” she corrected him. “And I don’t know what trick you used on Jorg, but
it won’t work on me.” She extended her hand. The shield promptly returned to
her. She again split it in half.

Maya
needed to warn Ev. “Watch out. She’ll ricochet those things off the buildings
or the ground. She’ll move in to attack while you’re distracted. But now she
has to deal with the both of us, so we should have the advantage.”

She
moved to join Ev’s side. However, he put up a hand to stop her. “No, Maya.
You’ve been hurt enough already. Let me handle this.”

“Don’t
be stupid, Ev! She’s an elite student at the Academy. You can’t take her on by
yourself.”

“And
yet, I’m going to. I know you think this is crazy, but I actually do have a
plan here. Jorg may be gone, but Relm’s got to still be lurking around
somewhere; I need you to keep a lookout for him while I fight Priscilia.”

She
had to admit, he’d thought this out. “Fine. But you have to promise me you’ll
be careful. We still don’t know what other tricks she has.”

“I
promise.”

“Finally!”
Priscilia said. “I thought you were going to talk all day.”

“Hmph.
I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to say I don’t want to fight a
girl,” he replied. “Well, when that girl’s trying to kill me, I think I’ll make
an exception.”

“Enough
with your pathetic attempts at humor!” She hurled one shield at him, followed
by the other. Maya’s jaw clenched as she agonized over Ev’s ability to defend
against this. She thought he would try to dodge them, leaving him open to a
hand-to-hand attack by Priscilia. But to her surprise, he stood his ground.
When the first shield got in close, he punched its underside, deflecting it to
the right. He did the same thing to the second one. Both immediately returned
to their master.

Visibly
agitated, Priscilia recombined the halves and hurled the complete shield at
him. Maya thought he would surely try to dodge this one. To her astonishment,
he reached out and caught with his bare hands. Maya was stunned; she hadn’t
thought to do such a thing.

The
force of the shield forced Ev back about twenty feet up the street, but he
managed to avoid getting skewered. He slammed it down on the ground in triumph.
“Is that it?” Priscilia looked like she was about to explode.

Suddenly,
Maya saw something bad. “Ev! Behind you!”

Chapter
X

A
familiar wire wrapped around his throat. “You got cocky, Bannen. You should’ve
known that wouldn’t be enough to beat me.”

“Jorg!
You—!”

The
wire tightened, cutting off his ability to speak. “That’s enough out of you, Bannen.
You have an unbelievable capacity for pissing me off. But now we end this.”

Maya
took a step towards them. However, Priscilia’s shield exploded off the ground
at her. She barely managed to jump out of the way.

Priscilia
laughed as the shield returned to her. “You two were so confident a minute ago.
What happened? Oh, right—
reality
happened. You know you can’t beat the
Awesome Three.

As
before, the wire dug into his flesh, sending fresh blood oozing down his neck.
This time, he realized, he might not get a second chance. This might be the end
for all of them.

* * *

Arcturus
arrived back at Stonecroft, the agreed-upon meeting place. He felt bad leaving
Ev behind, but the sooner he set things in motion, the better off they’d all
be. Besides, he had complete faith in Ev’s ability to handle himself.

Ignoring
the tourists, he strode with definite purpose to the center of the stone
monument. There he knelt before the main stone which was called Kilgore. Easily
ten tons, it dwarfed all others in the vicinity. He placed the Rod of Aaron on
the soft grass. He infused it with his energy, and it began to glow faintly
before sinking into the earth. At last, the pieces of the puzzle were now
sliding into place.

“Oy!”
a man yelled as he marched over to Arcturus. He wore some sort of unimpressive
uniform, so Arcturus guessed he was some constable. “Can’t ya see the sign? It
says no entry beyond that rope.” As a matter of fact, he
had
seen both
the sign and the rope cordoning off the inner circle of stones. He had just
chosen to ignore them.

“I’m
sorry, sir,” he said sheepishly. “I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Take
yer curiosity someplace else. I’ll let it slide this time, but don’t you be
doing this again.”

Arcturus
bowed graciously. “Right. Of course. Thank you.” It didn’t matter that he had
been caught. Everything was going according to plan. Now he just needed Ev and
Maya to do their part.

As
he returned to the outer edge of Stonecroft, a strange voice called out to him.
“The split man, he pledges allegiance to both sides, but can stay true to
neither.”

Arcturus
looked up. A young man floated down from the sky, his arms crossed over his
shoulders. He wore glasses, along with some sort of school uniform—though none
Arcturus had ever seen. He stopped about ten feet off the ground and quite
literally looked down on Arcturus.

“Who
are you?” Arcturus said.

“The
redeemer, come to cleanse you of your sins, the eternal fire forever lit.”

He
shook his head in disbelief. “Are you some sort of simpleton?”

The
stranger’s nostrils flared and his eyes widened in anger. “Shut up! I’m Relm
Masters. I’ll have you know I’m at the top of my class at Divine Protector Academy. That means I’m the best, so I mustn’t speak like some sort of commoner. And
for your information, I work very hard on my prose.”

“You’re
from the Academy? Since when did they get such pathetic uniforms?”

“We
made these ourselves! I won’t have you insulting them.”

“Whatever,”
Arcturus said. “I take it you’re here to collect the bounty?”

“Indeed.
Now, then—I must get back into character. Ahem.” He was silent for a moment
before speaking again. “The twice’d traitor, lost to all who held him dear, now
begs for release.”

“Uh…no.
You’re not my type.”

“Not
that type of release, you imbecile! Oh, forget it. Let’s eliminate the
formalities and attend to the business at hand. Arcturus Reich, I have come for
your head!”

A
weapon formerly, called a halberd, appeared in Relm’s hands. It consisted of a pole
with an ax in the middle and a long narrow blade protruding from said ax.

He
dove at Arcturus. The halberd hit only ground, however. Arcturus easily jumped
on top of the pole and balanced on it with the sole intention of making a fool
out of this Relm Masters.

Relm
roared, lifting up his weapon. Arcturus back-flipped off of it before landing
gracefully on the ground. By now, the tourists at Stonecroft had gathered to
watch the display, thinking it was part of the attraction. Based on their
murmuring, at least a few of them had come to the conclusion Arcturus and Relm
were reenacting a famous duel, and the guy with the long pole-arm was
reenacting an inept hothead. If only they knew he wasn’t acting.

Relm
stabbed repeatedly at Arcturus with little effect. Arcturus deftly sidestepped
each attack. After that, Elm switched to swinging the ax part of his weapon in
the hopes of taking his enemy’s head. Arcturus simply got in close and blocked
the pole section with his arm. He then punched Relm in the face with no care at
all. This was like swatting an arrogant fly.

“You
pooslicker!” Relm yelled. “You broke my glasses!” He held the shattered remains
of his eyewear in his hand as if it was his only child.

Arcturus
shrugged. “They weren’t doing you much good anyway if you couldn’t see you were
no match for me.”

Relm
leapt to his feet angrily. Arcturus thought him the spitting image of a child
throwing a tantrum. “You’ve merely gotten lucky up until now. Just wait; I’m
going to
crush
you!” He picked up his halberd and twirled it in his
hands. That was probably the most impressive thing he could do with it.

Arcturus
said, “I’m going to level with you. I gauged the strength of your two friends
in Adlo before coming here. They’re fairly strong. But you? Not so much. I
intentionally led you away because it would have been an insult to Ev to make
him deal with you. It’s obvious you’ve been relying on your friends’ combat
ability while you developed your book smarts.”

Relm
pointed his weapon at him accusingly. “Bastard! Of the three of us, I am the
greatest. And after having battled you, I say this for a certainty. Of the
three of
you
,
you’re
the greatest. That’s why my skills don’t
seem as impressive as if I were to face, say, Ev Bannen.”

Arcturus’
eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. “Did you just insult Ev?”

“What
does it matter? By now, I’m sure Jorg has butchered him already. You fools
never stood a chance against us.”

“Ev
will win,” Arcturus insisted.

Laughing,
Relm replied, “Even if he were to somehow beat Jorg and Priscilia—an
impossibility, I assure you—I would put him in the ground without fail.”

Arcturus
clenched his teeth. He had heard just about enough out of this upstart. “You
seem awfully determined to murder my friend.”

“Yeah?
So what?”

“So,”
Arcturus conjured his katanas, “I can’t let that pass.”

* * *

Maya
launched several more arrows at Priscilia with little effect; she easily
blocked them with her shield. And even when she threw it at Maya, she still
managed to dodge any incoming attack.

Behind
her, Ev’s life continued to drain away. Maya desperately wanted to save him
from Jorg, but she couldn’t turn her back on Priscilia.

“You
about ready to die, Maya?” she cackled. “I know Bannen sure is.”

Maya
tensed up. She could not let them get to her. She had to figure out a way to
beat the both of them. But the more she thought of it, the more that seemed
like an impossible task. These two were the best the Academy had to offer. They
excelled at everything, including combat. How could she hope to overcome them?

“Maya!
You…can…do it!” Ev managed to speak in spite of the wire around his throat and
the blood issuing forth. “Just need…an opening!”

“Quiet,
Bannen!” Jorg squeezed even tighter, and Ev went silent again. However, his
words had relit the fire in her heart. She
would
save him, no matter the
cost. She just needed to find the right moment to attack.

Without
warning, the police arrived in at least a dozen cars. They quickly filed out
and leveled their guns at all the participants of this chaotic play. “So, it’s
trouble you be startin’? That’s enough out of you. You best be getting on the
ground with your hands behind your back,” one of them announced through a
bullhorn in that lyrical accent of theirs.

Things
had just gone from bad to so much worse. With the local authorities involved,
this complicated matters exponentially. They were surrounded.

Nevertheless,
the police presence failed to stimulate any emotion stronger than annoyance in
Priscilia. “Get lost.” She hurled her shield at the police cruisers. It bounced
between two of them, knocking them over and tearing deep gashes along the
sides. The officers quickly scattered.

“What
are you doing?” Maya yelled. Picking fights with other gods-in-training was one
thing, but now Priscilia risked war with an entire country.

“Shut
up!” The shield returned to her, and now Maya finally realized the important
thing that lay just out of reach of her consciousness. Whenever Priscilia reached
out to grab it, her attention wavered for a split second. She had to focus on
safely retrieving it or else she might get skewered. That was the opening Maya
needed. As soon as Priscilia tossed the shield again, Maya would get her.

But
to her surprise, the haughty woman didn’t throw it. Instead, she charged in and
began swinging it like an ax. Maya frantically dodged left and right while
struggling to adapt to Priscilia’s new tactic. She raised her bow to block; it
might not have been a proper shield, but she had made it durable. In response,
Priscilia pressed forward, forcing her back. The shield gave her greater
leverage.

Abruptly,
though, she withdrew the shield and tried bashing Maya with it. Maya gave it a
swift kick, knocking it into her face and sending her careening back down the
street.

When
she recovered, she lowered the weapon, revealing a smashed and bruised nose.
Blood dripped down. Her face contorted in rage as she realized what had
happened. “You yurring bitch! I’ll kill you!”
I thought we had already
established that
, Maya thought.

Having
seemingly abandoned all rational thought, Priscilia launched the shield with
all the force she could muster. It came in much faster than Maya had expected.
She hit the ground, the weapon coming within a hair’s breath of taking her head
off. Her knees and arms scraped against the harsh gravel of a street torn up by
that thing.

It
hit a car behind Ev and Jorg and came back toward Maya. She rolled out of the
way a split second before it pounded her location and caused a shower of
concrete to explode upwards.

Now
it was headed back to Priscilia.
This is my chance!
Maya focused
intensely on this single moment, almost seeming to slow down time.
Come on,
come on, come on, come on!
She drew her bow and prepared to fire.

Despite
Priscilia’s enraged state, she still had the presence of mind to turn her
attention to safely retrieving her weapon. Her hand reached out to take hold of
it…

Now!

She
let her arrow fly. It sailed through the air like the most majestic bird alive
seeking to take down its prey. In no time it closed the distance between them,
spearing Priscilia in the throat. She fell to the ground and made incoherent
gurgling and coughing noises. The shield then fell on top of her, puncturing
her midsection.

Maya
had scored a victory, but there was no time to celebrate. In the blink of an
eye she leapt to her feet and trained her bow on Jorg who still held Ev
captive. The color had drained from Ev’s face, and she became deathly afraid
for him. He just stared out into space with lifeless eyes.