It didn’t take long for the sole survivor of Rosemary’s Games to catch up the Red Queen herself, as he managed to cut a lot of distance by projecting himself from the pillow-esque island settlements. That, and she wasn’t running. “Impressive, Mr. Nash!” she exclaimed, rebuilding her lost ribbon—the one that had been sacrificed—from thin air. “You are starting to understand this quasi-verse, it seems. But you must understand that even
if you can match my magic here … it won’t save you.”
“Heh, you’re bluffing… I could smell your fear from a mile away.”
“Do not presume to understand me, Oliver, because you cannot understand that which is beyond time.”
The Wizard growled. The woman spoke in riddles and his patience was wearing thin, “Just what are you on about?!”
“I am one of the Four Prophets of Kijara, my home planet. I can see into your soul, dissect who are you are and who you will
become. I’ve already seen everything that is happening right now, as I can see what will happen next. Even if you come at me, I’ll anticipate your every move… but I know that won’t stop you, so what are you waiting for?” she queried, flicking her hair in a way that would have entranced any other man. But Oliver only had room in his heart for one, and that one was gone. Rosemary extended her arm, and then her pointing finger, followed by the infamous gesture: ‘come hither’.
The Wizard agreed with her on one point. He wasn’t stopping. Not now and not ever. And so, he responded
as expected, launching himself in the direction of the red-haired goddess. Rose scoffed at this expecting something a little less predictable.
The femme fatale waited a few seconds and then jolted to life. She moved with the grace of a feather and the speed of sound; as she playfully dodged his attempt at an attack, responding with a light kick to his back, as if to taunt the warrior. The daughter of Kijara knew he would be easy to take advantage of, if he remained dependent on the more brutish side of his persona.
Wizard roared at this, frustrated at her ease of evasiveness. The reality of it was that she could probably smell the fear on
him. No matter how dry that well was, the feeling still remained at some minute level, but was easily overwhelmed by his rage and determination.
He lunged at her again, this time with a spinning drill-kick. The psychometric princess rolled her eyes and moved around his attempts, with the fluidity of a ballet dancer. This time she wouldn’t go easy on him and she wasn’t going to offer him a chance at close quarters again; in retrospect, it had reflected her arrogance and with that in mind she reverted to her natural art of fighting: distant.
From a dozen meters away, she struck out with one of her scarves. The cloth snapped at Oliver like a bolt of lightning, its twisted fabric infused with some kind of magic. By the time he could react, the ribbon literally
punched him, and it did so with tremendous force. The kinetic impact knocked him way back, off his island and off… a cliff? Rosemary was too quick. She had taken the moment to change the environment; and Oliver was now in a place akin to the Grand Canyon, falling for his dear life.
Kai’s Demon chuckled to herself as she approached the ledge, when—
fwoom!—a white beam of energy struck her hard in the chin. The impact caught her off guard and she was tossed to the floor. It even got her dress dirty…
Oliver, while falling, had done something remarkable. He didn’t know how he had come to it; but he had done it, regardless.
It being a conscious use of his magic, the same energies that coursed through his ‘God-mark’. Not only did he understand this place, but he was starting to understand himself. The gears were finally in motion. Not that he had time to contemplate this. Saving his ass took priority to that.
Abruptly, he caught one of the edges of the canyon wall and felt his spine crack in protest of his choice. “Grraaaggghh!” he roared out in pain as he crashed into the wall he was hanging from. The shoulder was dislocated … again. Despite that, he started climbing up the wall to face his enigmatic enemy. That’s when he got an idea; and the world changed again.
The rock he was climbing transformed into a ladder, one that was scaling a tall building. He was home, in Central City. Or at least a simulation of the vast metropolis. He knew the place better than any. Rosemary was in
his world now.
When the female warrioress found herself in a small apartment room, she looked around. Rosemary was astonished at the detail of the astral environment, from the stocked shelves to the messed up sheets on the bed. About to take leave, Rose was caught unawares came crashing through the window, legs clung together in a flying drop-kick. But it wasn’t enough to take her down as she sent a scarf spiraling his way. It caught onto the Wizard’s legs, which were out in front and aimed for the goddess, and entangled his body. With the strength of a bear, the fashion accessory slammed Oliver Nash into the wooden tiles of his apartment floor. The 4x4’s splintered beneath him and jabbed his back; leaving a network of painful slivers alongside his spine.
Oliver cringed from the pain, but before he could even take in the damage, he was manipulated once again by the puppetress and launched toward a window. ‘
Crash!’ said the glass, as he passed through it with two hundred pounds of elderly. Just as hew was only minutes ago, the human was falling again; as if the gesture in itself was some ongoing gag to the Gods. “Assholes,” he thought aloud.
Once again, he put his mind and will power to use to change this dimension, and prevent his impact from being a sour one. Instead of hitting the hard streets of Central City, which would have left him utterly broken, he splashed into a river, at the foot of a waterfall. Looking up, he saw that the mouth of the waterfall was connected to the sewer system. Memories of Sage and the samurai Kazuya rushed back to him. He guessed it was the first place that came to mind.
Rosemary was constantly taken aback by how quick he had mastered this realm. But she had been here a lifetime … and was quick to display her superiority. The five digits on her right hand were spread apart as she adjusted the world to her liking. Oliver’s eyes became as wide as moons, when the river below him started glowing. He leapt from it—just in the knick of time, too—as the water below him was shaped into molten lava. The river was a pool of magna, while the mouth of the sewer system was now the volcano’s tip.
Below him formed a toadstool, on which he floated. She was good, he observed, ‘too good.’ He had to do something unorthodox. ‘I have to think fast. Intelligently, but impulsively. First-minute choices, because if anything is too premeditated, she will see it coming…’ It was a convoluted idea that might’ve only made sense to one.
The volcanic atmosphere shifted again, with a bit of focus from the Wizard, reverting back to the abyss of silvery-purple. “Enough with the games,” he announced, challenging her, “let’s fight for real.”
They were levitating now, by their own will to power, and the pair exchanged dramatic looks.
“Then your end will be a quick one,” she uttered, stepping back into a fighting pose that paid homage to ‘Mantis’ but gave way to a more unique martial form. If one could describe it, they would call it the art of the ‘Dancing Petal’.
Not even
half a second had gone by when those words were replaced with actions. The pair darted towards each other. Two parallel pillars of cloth were shot off towards the Wizard, but Oliver slid inside the gap between them, firing off some of his own ammunition. The bright dart of magic struck Rosemary in her breasts, but she didn’t even flinch. Launching herself backwards, the girl withdrew her psycho-kinetic weaponry and instead turned to her mastery of ki.
Rose was dancing in a gracious rhythm when wisps of ki started emanating from her core. The didn’t look much different than clothing ripples and it took every muscle in the old man’s body for him to become flexible enough to avoid the slashing energy. He only narrowly evaded her assault, and a deadly assault it was; leaving gushing wounds in his thigh and cheek. Blood trickled from the old man’s body. If he had moved just an inch out of place, he might have lost a limb.
In retaliation, he tried to gain on her again, but she effortlessly made his actions futile. A ribbon had met him at the middle and though he had caught it in his left arm, it still managed to disable his advance with a pulse of what felt like electricity. Oliver’s body was numb for a few seconds; and he wanted to make a plan. However, he remembered his prior notes to himself. Intelligent, but impulsive, he would remain—despite the pain it was causing him. ‘Opportunity,’ he told himself, ‘would arrive in due time.’
And it came sooner than he expected.
It seemed as though the Red Queen was sick and tired of this endless parrying match, one that would inevitably end in Oliver’s defeat. It was this that provoked her to make the appropriate motions toward a finishing blow. She made sharp penetrating strikes into the air, much akin to the Mantis Style, followed by a spinning dance that illustrated a flower’s beauty. The entrancing dénouement had her fabric spiraling about her, until she thrust both hands forward, the yellow scarves forming a drill around her arms; and they were targeting the old man opposite her. Bolts of energy crackled about this new weapon, and before the Wizard could utter that famous four-letter word: it fired. “Goodbye, Oliver.”
The attack—emerging as a bolt of magenta—travelled at mach speeds, reaching the battered veteran in a fragment of an instant. On impact, it exploded …
violently; like a bomb. Rosemary shielded her eyes from the light, sighing at her own decision (though thinking it necessary). There was a moment of silence that followed the noisy eruption.
Then, suddenly, from out of the smoke that had only
just emerged, there was a familiar figure: the Wizard. His body was broken, bleeding from a number of places. He almost lost a leg to the blast, and it was hanging only by a thread. Yet he persisted. With one eye closed and a grin on his face, Oliver glided toward her. With the little strength he could muster, the man uttered his words of defiance. “Exterminating…”
“Last…,” his words were followed by the ignition of a plume on his black, in full force this time; not like before, “…BULLLLEEETTTT!”
With the momentum of a fighter jet, the technique launched him—fist out—toward Rosemary, one of four remaining demons under the employ of Kai Demolic. The old man exploded with maniacal,
haunting laughter: the kind that said ‘I’m not afraid of death.’
Too bad Rosemary had seen it all minutes earlier. She had seen the chain of events and it was playing out before her eyes exactly as it should have. His end was on the rails; no matter how hard he fought against it. The woman frowned, holding out her hands, ready to let loose another bolt of annihilating ki.
“Predictable…” she muttered, as she fired a second shot. Like the first, it moved faster than light and sound, and hit the man—poof!—leaving only a small cloud of dust. Wait… “What?!”
Crash! An iron kick to her back quaked her frail bones.
Rosemary’s eyes were cracked open, bloodshot, and stricken with disbelief. That instant seemed to last an eternity as she tried to understand what had just taken place. How could her visions have failed her? What…? It occurred to her, then. The Oliver she obliterated was but an astral construct, like her own Couatl. That meant that the former detective planned all this while she charged her final attack. In only 2.9 seconds, he had learned how to build a copy of himself and acted on his new discover. His impulsive, but elaborate creativity had forged … a paradigm shift.
“I.. Impossible,” was her stuttered response, returning to the reality that was—where time ran at a normal click.
The Wizard, who had snuck behind the prophet, moved only milliseconds after his kick connected. He only had one opportunity to act afterall and so he twisted himself with the fluidity of water, in preparation. All the while, Rose’s back arced from the impact. It was there, with seamless timing, that he put his grapple into motion.
With the skills of a professional wrestler, the ex-soldier threw one arm around her neck and another between her legs, placing her in a
reversed fireman’s carry, called a
‘Torture Rack’. From here, he put pressure on both holds, arching her spine in what could only be described as an inhuman stretch.
Rosemary was not adept in close quarters comment; that much was quoted from Jackson Pride. And it showed as she yelped in pain. He continued to put pressure on her neck, leg, and spinal cord; intent on pushing her limits, but not breaking the porcelain doll. He wouldn't kill her if he didn't have to.
“You
will give me the emblem!!” Oliver bellowed, his face dripping with sweat and red with testosterone, “SUBMIT!”
“I - aaggh! … I …”
Was this check-mate fore the Red Queen?
An air of defining silence isolated the two as the jury of fates made their final decision…
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