[08] FINALE - Part 2

[Sage]

Prismatic blades of fury and fire and death glistened in the light. Sage waited. She had given up on the pretension that she was going to fight Alexander. It wasn’t going to happen. The word implied that he would have a chance to defend himself.

No,

Sage was going to stalk, and kill Alexander. No ‘fighting’ was going to occur.

She flexed her fingers, and her elongated claws clinked against one another. Her breaths were short, drawn in and out between clenched teeth. Her body tensed, and she lowered her legs, but failed to pounce.

Something felt... strange. A bizarre, vivid sensation, speaking to her from... everywhere. Confusion masked hatred, and her vicious snowstorm abated. The momentary stillness of the air revealed hundreds - thousands - of pillars of light, dancing on top of her wintry domain.

Her eyes widened as she realized they were everywhere, all around her. The azure haired addict bolted, retreating just in time to avoid the first of many explosions. Rapid explosions thundered in a death metal bass beat all around her as she ran and jumped and sidestepped around the myriad traps Alexander had set for her.

One exploded too close, singing her brand new sweater and tossing her unceremoniously into a snow bank. The detonations shook the ground all around her, and suddenly she felt like Alexander must have when she had rained all those meteors down on him. The girl curled into a ball and covered her head, squeezing her eyes shut until the ground stopped shaking.

Finally, only the whistling of the wind remained, and Sage climbed to her feet. She took a moment to collect herself, but she had been exposed. Her eyes caught a familiar silhouette in the distance, and a pair of familiar weapons raised up at her.

Before she even heard the bang, a wall of ice leapt up before her with the flick of a wrist, and predictably, energy-infused bullets smashed into it, exploding and cracking the frozen shield. Each impact stressed the glassy surface, and the cracks spread and deepened. Finally, Sage sidestepped past the shield, just as it exploded in a shower of dazzling flecks of frost.

What happened next wasn’t so easily predicted. Alexander lifted a dozen of the gigantic blocks of ice that Sage threw at him, and saturated them with his energy. Her mouth fell open, and Trafford unleashed his assault.

The deadly projectiles sailed at her and she prepared to try to dodge around them. But she didn’t. At the last moment, Sage threw her arms out, as if to signal the glowing hunks of ice to stop. What’s more, they actually did.

Sage was just as shocked as her enemy was. Both of them stared at the scene playing out between them with faces twisted up with incredulity. It seemed that Alexander was not the only one who could turn his opponent’s powers against themselves.

They were still close enough, however, that Alexander didn’t hesitate to let go of one of his guns, which stayed there, in the air where he left it, to close his fist. Just as he did, the energy within the icy missiles exploded, and leveled the little woman who had stood before them.

She was groggy, but she had to get up while the explosion’s smokey veil remained to conceal her. She stumbled and took a knee as the world stretched and spun around her. The doctor furiously blinked away the disorientation, and made to rub her eyes before she realized her hands would gouge them out.

With a sigh, Sage made herself upright a second time, and squared off against Alexander, who stood in a wide stance, his guns leveled at her. The girl raised her claws as icy spears and cannonballs materialized over her head. Alexander matched her show of force, assembling and levitating snowballs with his mind, before energizing them with his essense.

The two of them stared each other down, both of them surrounded by floating projectiles. Alexander’s glistening weapons orbited him, but Sage’s hovered still, gleaming points and rock-hard surfaces gently bobbing up and down.

It was hard to say who moved first. Sage and Alexander both burst into sprints, and their respective missiles lanced out ahead of them, racing toward each other. Ace opened fire as he ran, firing one gun, then the other, in a repeated, steady rhythm.

Hail and javelins and supercharged snow collided, exploding all over the battlefield, while bullets harmlessly detonated against makeshift barricades that sprouted up in the line of fire. The street performer knew tricks, though. He peddled them. Sage had used this trick before.

He continued firing, but these new bullets altered course, spinning for a moment, before shooting off in an entirely new direction, arcing around the shield. The pigtailed hybrid could do nothing but hope her Hoarfrost would deflect the coming pain as they converged upon her.

A series of explosions enveloped the girl, but Frostroots began sprouting from the earth, sailing up and nearly goring Ace from all directions. The redhead propelled himself out of harm’s way, and caught sight of Sage far away from where the bullets struck her. He narrowed his eyes in confusion, but wasn’t about to play her game.

Matching Sage’s Frostroot was Alex’s Upshot. Thunderous gouts of energy rent the tundra from below, rushing up into the bracing cold above in search of the ice witch. The once well-dressed man, who now looked like an axe murderer in a suit, landed on one knee as Sage raced toward him.

She was getting too close. Alexander backpedaled away from the furious medic, but his feet plunged into the deep snow while Sage ran clear overtop it. There was no getting away from her, so he turned to face the inevitable.

The intimidating Desert Eagles faced Sage, but she had anticipated this. Alexander moved toward her with deliberate steps, and felt his footing give out beneath him. The deep snow had suddenly been covered in a sheet of the slickest ice the heroin junky had ever dealt with, and he fought hard to keep his balance.

Sage raced toward him, surprised and impressed that he hadn’t fallen. Nobody had ever stayed standing after that trick. It didn’t matter, though. Finally, she closed the gap. Sage raised her claws.

Ace lifted his right hand, but slipped again, and threw his arm to the side to keep his footing, but ultimately let himself fall as Sage’s huge claws reached out for him. He looked up at her and lifted his guns, but found them encased in ice.

“I control this whole thing. The cold, the snow, the ice, what you’re standing on, what you run through, what you fight with. You can’t beat me,” Sage glared down at him. “I can’t slip on ice. I don’t sink into powder. You can’t make me cold. This entire sector is my weapon. All you have are those stupid guns.”

Ace stared up at her, feigning fear-paralysis as he artfully searched for any sort of out. All he needed to do was turn the tables for a split second. But Sage’s claws plunged at him, so he rolled out of the way, and onto his feet.

The girl matched him step for step and lashed out at him again, and just as Alex willed the ice around his weapons to shatter, an ice-sheathed backhand slapped against his temple, sending him stumbling away from Sage, who tactlessly lashed out as his back, digging her claws across his flesh and sending his knees plunging into the snow.

The girl raised her hand behind him, and prepared to stab him through the back of his neck, when Ace suddenly twisted toward her with a yelp of pain. He pushed through it, raised his Israeli hand cannon, and fired.

Sage threw herself out of the way, but the bullet bit into her shoulder, before tearing out the other side. The crystal haired girl slapped against the snow as strokes of crimson tinted the virgin snow.

The girl rolled onto her back and let one of her Chillrend claws fade away, so she could clutch at the wound in a vain attempt to dull the pain. No doubt Alexander’s pain was excruciating - those slashes across his back and chest were deep. Ironically, the cold which sought to claim him was slowing his blood-flow. If it were hot, he might not have been able to stand up.

But he did stand up, and he towered overtop of Sage, his guns both pointing right at her. “How did you get away from my bullets?” he demanded, thumbs cocking hammers. “They came at you from all sides.”

“They didn’t... come at me,” Sage explained, “They came at a statue of me.”

Alexander took a moment to process that. The statue had looked just like the Valium addict. The girl took advantage of his momentary distraction of thought and grasped his wrist with her uncovered hand.

“Wh-?!” he exclaimed, before his eyes went wide. Her hand was freezing! “Let me go!!”

Instead, Sage lifted her clawed hand, and but Ace threw a savage knee to her face, forcing her to break her grip as a spray of blood escaped her lips. Before he could finish the downed girl off, a pair of Frostroots chased him back, before dozens more began bursting out of the earth as he sprinted farther and farther to stay out of harm’s way.

Her Shivering hand enveloped itself with its claw once again, and she climbed to her feet. An enormous, frosty bulwark erupted from the ground, cutting off Alex’s escape route as Sage raced after him.

The temperature plummeted to an inconceivable chill, and the obscuring snow kicked up in renewed fervor. Howling, shrieking wind drowned out all sound as Sage raged across the tundra toward her opponent.

She hurled herself at him, but he picked her form out through the flurry and evaded the downward slashes meant for him. Sage lashed out at him, slashing through air as he ducked and bobbed around the massive blades.

He dropped one of his guns and wrenched his tie from his neck, and snapped it like a whip, tying one of Sage’s wrists with it. She gave him a look of shock over her immobilized appendage, but it turned to annoyance as the girl merely severed the garment with her free hand before Alex could infuse it with himself. His expression crumbled.

Only feet from each other, the two tortured souls paused to stare at one another. The only movements was Ace’s constant shivering.

“You can’t know how important it is for me to beat you, Alexander,” Sage spoke with a much gentler tone than before. “I-I didn’t... I didn’t know I would cause so much harm, but... if I stop now, if I give up now, then it was all for nothing. If you just accept that I’ve beaten you... maybe you don’t h-have to die.”

“I’ve got a lot riding on winning, myself,” Ace retorted. “You’re not the only one with unfinished business.”

“If that’s what you want...” the girl looked at him with eyes brimming with hurt. “You’re going to die here, Alexander Trafford.”