He was on me and hammering away before it felt like I could even stumble. He didn't even look like he moved, he might have been as fast as Karu. It seemed almost like there was static in my brain, like a feed from a faulty holovid showing someone jumping around glitch-like.

And Terrence had a sledgehammer.

So it was like, a matter of seconds before I had my first broken arm. He just zipped up in my blind spot between a pair of shelves of sodas and there was a crack and a white-hot pain I recognized a little too well. When my swords lashed out that way, I did nothing but detonate forty cans of soda into fizzy froth, with him long gone.

I cradled my arm and swore bitterly, trying to remember how I'd fought Karu in the past. I knew if I gave into panic, into my instincts, the fight was already lost. Odds were, he wasn't moving as fast as it looked like, there was just a trick to it somehow. -- that was how Karu did it, because if she moved as fast as she looked, her body would tear apart.

But Karu was just human. This guy wasn't. And as I closed my eyes and peered out using my other sight, I could see, clear as day, brighter than the sun, really, exactly what he was.

And fuck, if I wasn't at least a little jealous.

When he moved, it was like an explosion to my senses. Instead of being full of little glowing motes of light where his nervous system fired to propel him, his entire body seemed to instantly stretch and glow -- his powers literally transformed his slow, bulky meat-flesh into energy for portions of his travel. That explained the glitchy movement, he wasn't actually a person running, he was a person-shaped mass of energy flitting baster than the eye could detect.

It also explained why he didn't just smack me with a four-thousand mile-per-hour hammer and end the fight with a blast bigger than TNT. His movement and his attacks were different motions, momentum between being energy and being a person weren't transferable. Lucky for me.

There was a flash as he came in again, and I raised my arms and swords in reflex, as though I could shade myself from the sudden light. All that really did was give me a nice, obscured view of him as he whipped around my defenses and came at me from the side again. I tried to slip the blow, saw it coming and everything…

Crack. Same arm, different place, white flashes of another sort going off in my brain. Tore the skin and blood was now dripping freely, almost so slow as to be negligible compared to the fight.

It was probably helping a lot that we were in such a confined space, but it was making me feel claustrophobic anyway. Limiting his movement was much more important than limiting mine, but that hardly made it feel any less irritating when I was trying to get my swords up between us and was smacking into shelves and slipping in pools of soda. It was another frustration I really didn't need right now.

Similarly was the chatter on my comms. They'd been quiet all morning, but it sounded like now, for some reason, Lia and Whitney had cleared up their schedule so they could watch me die here. The hits I was taking were echoed with pained intakes of breath and murmurs from the peanut gallery.

"Just...just magnet him!" Lia shouted.

"I fucking can't," I growled. It was about all the response I could manage between fending him off. I couldn't take away the time to focus on that. I had maybe twenty swords out, all defensively, and it felt like all I was doing was laying out a children's maze for him to navigate.

The trick of it really was, if I could make him take long enough getting through, I had time to move one or two blades, and if I was lucky, I could change the maze to keep him in a part of it the fuck away from me.

That was the idea anyway. Kinda just happened when I was throwing out swords constantly. And while good in practice--

Crack.

Blood gushed from my nose, staining the soda lake with black spots. My vision swam and blurred, and I had to keep my eyes shut to keep from swaying and vomiting. He respected me and didn't go for the follow-through, which was...one one hand, nice, because I was still on my feet, but on the other, I really needed him to make a mistake here.

I reached out looking for anything which could help. Something explosive on the shelves I could set off and catch him with, traps I could set which didn't burn through my focus and get me killed...anything like that.

And all I really found was Dork-hand, idling in a corner, jabbing at the air like a fuckwit.

I put a blade to his throat and tried to announce it, choking on the blood flowing in through my nose.

Thank God Dork-hand was keen to announce things for me.

"Eek!" he said. Literally saying 'eek'. Like what the fuck. "Terrence, he's got me! Help!"

Terrence flashed to a stop, a safe range from me and glared.

"Hostages, eh?"

"I don't want--" I coughed and wiped a red smear on my arm. "--don't even want to fucking fight you."

"Well I don't want the XPCA or their putzes to exist. So I guess we're even."

"What the fuck, man. You know," I spat again "I came here in place of assassins, basically. I wanted to fucking talk things out. This shit is what I was trying to avoid."

"Now, magnet him," Lia whispered urgently.

"Don't," Whitney replied.

"...you think he'll sense it?" she asked.

"I think they're finally talking. That's what he came here to do."

As much as I agreed with Whitney's sentiment, it reaaaaaally didn't seem like Terrence was interested in chatting. But I had to try, she was right that it was what I'd come here for.

"Look," I said, trying to sound more like a mediator and less like a smashed-face, broken-arm prick. "If the XPCA goes down, it'd be fucking anarchy. Everything we like about America would go up in flames."

"Everything we hate, too," he shrugged. He was breathing pretty hard from swinging that hammer around, and I was guessing he didn't actually object that much to taking a breather. That did mean if this chat ended, he'd come at me with redoubled force.

"Then why don't you fucking leave? Go live in...Siberia or something. Or the Canadian wilderness, I've got a place I can recommend. If you hate it here, why not just leave instead."

He frowned like he hadn't given that thought. That was good.

"Feh! Because why should I have to leave just because some schlump has a stick up his tuchus."

"Because when you destroy everything, you're going to wind up in the exact same kind of shit hole as if you'd just left in the first place. Except you'll also be responsible for the deaths of millions. Is that better for you?"

He did pause and seemed to give it serious thought. And then, with a small shake of his head, seemed to decide not to.

"I'm just one person," he said. "Not my fault if things go to hell."

"Everyone's just one person. It's when they all act like you do--"

"Can't control everyone. Not my fault."

I kinda wanted to scream at him but steeled my voice to keep it level. "Well by that fucking logic, you can just do whatever the fuck you want, because as long as it's only you doing it, nothing fucking matters. So why worry about the consequences of your actions, ever, am I right?"

"No, that's just schmegegge. 'Course things I do have consequences. If I break your face, your face is broken."

"And if you twist the screws to the XPCA…?"

"They're a trillion-credit, million-man, country-wide pot of stew."

"And you refuse to think that you could be the one pushing them over the edge."

"I think," he said, waving his hammer at me "that if they're on the edge, they deserve my push."

"God, you're like a child," I spat at him, flecks of blood flying. "How the hell can you not get this? It's like...like people who think that voting does nothing. If you all just stopped--

"I'm not you all. I'm me. And I'm about ready to pound the rest of your face in."

I tightened the blade at Dork-hand's throat, and he yelped. "Don't do it, man."

"Or what, you'll kill an innocent? Listening to you prattle on about saving lives and how everyone should be at peace, I've had a realization."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"You wouldn't." His eyes narrowed dangerously, and I realized...Lia was probably right here. I should have spent this time laying a trap. Talking to this guy had just been a waste of time.

There was still the whole problem of these guys dying. That's what I'd come out here to avoid in the first place. Word would get out that there were some allegedly-peaceful Exhumans trying to just meet and talk...at a fucking summit, or what have you...and the big bad XPCA showed up and killed them all. It'd create more sympathy, make it harder to talk to these people in the future, for edgeline cases which weren't as fucking irresponsible as Terrence over there.

I considered for a moment just killing them anyway. I'd make AEGIS make it public, maybe even use some of the footage linked over comms to prove it was 'just Athan', and had nothing to do with the XPCA. But again, that'd just make it harder for myself in the future to talk to people like this.

Terrence seemed to take my consideration as confirmation that I wouldn't act, because he blitzed off again, the fucker. I was still staggered, still reeling, and honestly, still only upright because of the exoframe keeping me up. Three blows with a sledge was pretty fucking brutal.

I couldn't keep up when I was at full potential, much less wasting a couple blades holding Dork-hand by the neck. I needed those weapons back if I was going to have a chance. I felt like I was...so close in keeping him mazed away from me, but I needed every ounce of my potential. I managed to squeeze another couple blades out but I needed more.

But if I wanted those swords, I had to choose. Let Dork-hand go, where he'd undoubtedly run like he did from Dragon, and I'd be hearing all about this in the future. Or kill him.

The blade at his throat flinched as I saw the hammer coming in at me. This time, I raised my other arm and tried to get inside his range, but that just dropped the hammer on my shoulder, half-glancing off with a painful blow that didn't seem to break anything. Fucked up my arm pretty bad though, and I felt paranoid that now I had no arms functioning...not that they were doing much. Couldn't lift that arm up at all hardly, to say nothing of the fucking pain.

I had my eyes closed all the time now, since with them open my vision just swam and I thought I might fall over. I couldn't see the shelves or anything, so they were getting eviscerated. I was really going to die like this at this rate, bludgeoned to death in the middle of this cramped fucking gas station with all the goddamn signs outside.

And in that light, my decision was actually pretty obvious. If I killed Dork-hand, it'd be bad looking for me. But if he killed me, people would actually fucking listen to him, given my apparent infamy, and this stupid fucking XMN of his might actually take off.

Plus, y'know, I'd be dead. Anything was better than that.

"Terrence!" I shouted. "You fucking hold right now, or I'll kill him."

"Athan, don't," Whitney hissed. "He's defenseless."

Terrence paused, evidently seeing something which wasn't there before.

"I will. I swear to God."

"Do it then," Terrence said, resting the hammer on his shoulder. "Prove me wrong."

"No, don't do it!" Dork-hand whimpered.

"It does no good for me to!" I shouted back. "I don't want to, but if you force my hand--"

"Do it."

"Just let him go. Just focus on getting out."

"I can't get out, I can't get away, the man is literally made of fucking lightning," I shouted. "And talking isn't working, what the fuck am I supposed to even do?"

"Well, let's not do anything too hasty!" Dork-hand pleaded. Using regular words seemed to pain him but he wasn't going for his thesaurus now.

"Why can't you just fucking listen to me," I asked. "All I wanted was for this to end without bloodshed, and here you are forcing me into it. Why?"

Terrence snorted. "Because you're on the wrong side. We talked, Athan, and you said you'd rather be with them than with us. We want them gone, and you want them up."

"And why can't we resolve this peacefully? Why does everything have to end in violence, all the time? I tried talking to them and got the same fucking thing -- why does it feel like nobody, nobody, in this whole fucking conflict has even the tiniest interest in solving things peacefully? What the fuck is so wrong with this situation that we can't ever talk?"

I stared at Dork-hand, sweating bullets with the sword to his neck and another holding him from behind. He was ready to talk. All the Exhumans I'd fought, they were always killing first, and then only willing to talk when they had no other option. The XPCA, too...technically, they were still unwilling to hear us out. The only reason we had their ear is because Saga had shoved her fist in their mind to bend it.

It made me sick, actually. Made me wonder, why the fuck was I -- apparently the only person in the whole fucking world who was trying to resolve this shit -- why was I the one who was suffering for all their bullshit. It wasn't fair. Wasn't right. They should be the ones to pay for having their heads up their asses, not me.

"Here's how this is going to work," I growled, finding my bewilderment at the fight now steeled into sheer, pissed-off seething. "You and I are going to sit down and talk like human beings, or I'm going to treat you like the animal you're acting like. Whether you fucking want to accept it or not, you need the XPCA, and I can help you understand that. You can tell me what you disagree with, and we can meet at a mutual consensus."

I stared at him with my blood-soaked teeth bared. "Or you can fucking die. Both of you."

"Again," Terrence said, crossing his arms. "Bullshit."

Whitney gasped as Dork-hand's head hit the floor with a wet thump. His body crumpled afterwards. Terrence went wide-eyed, but more importantly, flat-footed. My blades went after him without a pause, and he screamed.

The smell of burning flesh, somehow stronger than the blood seeping from my face filled the room. Dork-hands white eyes were stained red, his mouth forever open in a scream.

I found I didn't care. Maybe what he represented was okay, but he himself was a waste of space. Of all the Defiant who could have lived, he didn't deserve to.

Neither did Terrence. I understood why he was with them. He cared more about his own safety than any danger the Defiant could pose to the politics of American well-being and stability. He cared more about himself than pretty much anything. He was a greedy, awful louse of a man, and it made me sick to think of all the other Defiant who died so this fucker could live.

Hell, he didn't even intend to keep his bargain with them, did he? They were meeting to ensure their group's survival, to consider pulling that trigger on the mutually-assured-destruction angle...and he never even bothered to show up.

The things that became clear once you saw the worst in people.

I'd only singed him, really, a cut through his side, and another through his leg which didn't slow him down at all. But killing Dork-hand seemed to change him too, and he was coming at me even faster now. I could tell when he wasn't made of energy because he spent all that time screaming at me, incoherent yiddish-and-expletive-filled incoherent rants.

I took another hammer shot to the cheek, glancing as I turned to go with the blow. Another one to my busted shoulder, and one which rebounded painfully off my exoframe, making me wobble for a few moments and leaving a dent.

But I was furious now, I had maybe forty blades, and they were tearing through the air as fast as he was. Still, I couldn't catch him, couldn't keep up. It was obvious that I only thought as fast as normal, but he could see and think and move at speeds which matched his pace. Despite everything, all I'd done is drive both of us to the edge of a rampage.

I unleashed my magnet and threw him and all the mountains of shit in the whole store into a corner. Dork-hand's body flopped on top of the pile, disturbing in its lifeless animation. He screamed as the mass of crap crushed him, and twice as loud as my blades impaled the mess, darting into him like a swarm of needles into a pincushion.

And then my chest burned and I fell over in my exoframe, a painful crack which seemed to echo forever in my head as he caught me right in the torso without my defenses. And then again, and again, my swords too far, too useless, as I staggered backwards and ran into the doorway of the now-empty place.

My guard was out of position, and the room was now clear for him to hit me from any angle. My gambit hadn't paid off, I could destroy his body all I wanted, but unless it killed him, it didn't slow him down at all. His blows were weaker, he only had one arm now and was holding the sledge at its neck instead of swinging away. But even so, I was well and truly fucked as my ribs cracked and broke and he kept coming.

This fucking tiny-ass gas station that nobody gave a fuck about would be the end for me, I thought. Stupidass pointless little place in the middle of nowhere, with Dork-hand for company at the gates of hell, fuck me.

I lashed out, pathetic, with my arm and caught him in the face. A weak blow, but all we had were weak blows at this point. Both of our powers were beginning to fail from exhaustion. But he had a hammer and I had two broken arms. If I could use the exoframe for kicking, I thought. Or maybe just run, just put all this behind me.

I stumbled more and realized I was in the doorway, the door open right behind me. Whitney and Lia had been screaming in my ears without me hearing it, their voices muted under the pounding in my head and the smell of burning flesh. They wanted me to run. And I sure as hell didn't want to die in this claustrophobic little shitty-ass tomb.

My hand reached out and touched the door. He hesitated in front of me, fended off for the moment by one of my blades which hadn't fizzled out. I took a lazy swipe at him and he energy-walked right through it to be in my face again.

Fuck this guy. Fuck this meeting. Fuck trying to talk to these animals. Fuck this whole place.

I swung the door closed behind me, staying inside. This piece of shit wasn't going to beat me. I wasn't going to let his stupid, goddamn short-sighted selfishness hurt anyone else, ever again. If he had been there with the rest of the Defiant, with his powers he stood decent odds of holding off Dragon. Selfish prick let them all die. Only out here now because he thought it was easy, thought he'd get a piece of the pie for taking down the XPCA like a wounded animal.

Well it wouldn't be that fucking easy.

As the door swung shut with a faulty bang, I imagined it sealing shut and locking us both in here forever. A claustrophobic tomb, where we'd both be buried. Tiny, cramped, locked, shut-in, inescapable--

My shield had had it, and blew the fuck up, just as I'd hoped. Just as he came in for another swing. It exploded with the force of a bomb, blowing out the entire front of the store.

I couldn't see through the blast, my eyes and senses both showed nothing but white. But somehow, I saw it in my mind's eye, the look of stupid, selfish contempt on his face, vanishing into confusion as some new, unexplained power entered the fray and reduced him to his constituent particles. He burned, he screamed.

And then, like the front half of the store, he was no more.

I spat blood on the ground and stood there for a long moment, feeling the pain, feeling the rush, trying to right the horizon and still my swaying.

When none of that worked, I just concentrated on wanting to move forward, and the exoframe did the rest, carrying my useless-ass meat pile with it.

I'd come here to bring peace to these people and instead I'd just brought justice, the kind that Justice meted out. People like this didn't want or deserve to talk, they wanted violence...and if that was the only thing that worked, that was what we'd give them. Fuck them, and fuck me for trying.

"You...are you okay, bro?" I heard Lia ask in my ear, sounding tinny and broken. I wasn't sure if it was the comms, or her, or me that was.

"I need an evac," I said.

"Already on its way. But...other than that?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine. It's these animals that should be concerned."

I heard her murmuring, but it was Whitney's voice that I caught.

"...that's what I'm worried about."