7.2 - Ener-G

I dove out of the way from the first blast, but the superheated plasma grazed the back of my right shin. I winced from the pain as the plasma burned through to my skin.

I clutched the sediments on the ground and felt the sweat moistening my face.

The speed, I thought. It must be the speed of the plasma. It's—

Ener-G fired another beam at me—narrower, more precise—aiming for my chest. I pushed off the ground, leaned to my left to throw off its path, and it blasted through my left shoulder.

"Aagh!" I grasped my burning skin and convulsed on the ground.

Ener-G stalked closer, and I kept my eyes locked on his damn helmet, wincing from the cauterized wound.

"Surprised, Vector? Not even you can redirect such a powerful force." Ener-G held both of his hands out, manifesting two small orbs of superheated plasma above his palms. "The ions in the air are mine to command. Such power is naturally difficult to harness, but for me it is trivial."

I leaned on one knee, clutching my left shoulder.

Of course. Because he launches them at such high speeds, I can't predict their trajectories. His power reminds me of—

"Mass Driver..." I mumbled.

Ener-G stopped walking. "Huh? What about him?? Why'd you bring that bastard up?!"

"The velocity you...give the plasma," I pointed out. "It's...unpredictable. Color me unsurprised."

Ener-G balled his fists, and the orbs of plasma engulfed them. He kicked off the ground as two bursts of plasma fired from below his armored feet.

"How about you focus on your real enemy, VECTOR?!" he bellowed. "ME!!"

He readied his arms for a punch.

I placed my hands on the ground, shooting two trajectories downward.

When Ener-G was only a couple yards away, I raised my hands, and the ground below them followed, forming a solid barrier of rock, concrete, steel, and sediments.

BANG!

The barrier shattered as Ener-G punched through with his plasma-imbued fists.

I gasped and raised my arms in front of my face just as he punched forward.

The momentum knocked me back through the air. The sound of cracking metal pierced my ears as I crashed into a boxcar. A sharp pain swelled in the back of my head, and I felt several stings on my back—likely bits of sharp metal edges that pierced through my jacket and into my skin. My right forearm burned from the punch.

I struggled to find a grip.

Ener-G laughed as he flexed again, and the yellow plasma channeled through his armor. He turned to the two news helicopters circling overhead.

"You see this??" he gloated. "Is THIS the true extent of the infamous Vector's powers?! He's NOTHING!"

I pulled myself up on a damaged slate of steel and rolled off to the ground, getting away from Ener-G's view. Part of my left jacket sleeve tore off—caught on a broken corner cap.

The ground was cold. I crawled behind another boxcar.

Looking beneath it, I saw it was lined up on the same track Ener-G happened to be standing on.

The pain in my back only worsened.

I placed my hands on the boxcar and positioned myself on the track.

I took a deep breath and let my hands relax as I felt the end ladder and brake wheel. I stomped forward and pushed with all my might on the flat back panel.

The boxcar shot forward along the track, its wheels screeching as sparks formed on the track, and I fell again to my knees.

I heard Ener-G cackle. "USELESS!"

A yellowish glow came to life behind the boxcar, and I rolled off the track. The plasma beam roared through the whole boxcar, melting it down to its axles and halting it in-place.

Ener-G caught sight of me as I struggled to my feet.

"There you are!" He raised his left arm.

I glanced up at Madi and Marcus—still hanging from their chains—with Sami just across from them.

"Eat THIS!" Ener-G yelled.

I pushed off the ground with my arms as he fired the first beam. I shut my left eye as the plasma column blasted through the left side of my hood, missing my face by just a couple inches.

Ener-G didn't hesitate with the second beam. He took a step forward and fired from his right hand.

I couldn't react in time; I raised my own right hand. I squinted as the blindingly bright marigold plasma crashed into my palm, and, for a moment, the beam broke into multiple arcs that curved around my body.

But the force and extreme heat never ceased.

I couldn't keep my arm up, and the multiple arcs coalesced back into a single column, breaking my concentration.

I dove again to my left as the beam engulfed my entire right arm. I screamed in pain as my entire right jacket sleeve burned away in the light. Once again on the ground, I grabbed at my arm—the top of my forearm was seared, blackened from the burns.

Ener-G prepared another plasma orb in the space above his palms.

I hated the guy; I hated why I had to go through this damn fight. There was no reason to—only because this guy was "following orders" from his boss, Doctor Molecruel himself.

Right now, this wasn't a fight I could win.

I glanced at the twins and Sami again, and I made a choice.

If I could make it to the top of the boxcars, I could leap up to the crane, free the twins first by cutting and grabbing their chains, then grab Sami's, then get us the hell out of here.

The stinging in my back expanded, and my right arm and left shoulder swelled with pain.

"Maybe I should just kill you," Ener-G taunted. "Then the Doc wouldn't have to worry about anyone else getting in the way of his vision."

I leaned on my left arm, again trying to stand.

"If it wasn't for his interest in your powers, I'd have already killed you. But..." Ener-G increased the size of the plasma orbs and they glowed brighter. "...something tells me you aren't giving it your all! Why do you hold back against me, Vector?! Do you not feel this is a battle of life and death?!"

When he fired the next two beams at me, I fired a trajectory at the ground, propelling myself into the air.

"What?!" Ener-G gasped.

I landed on top of a boxcar—just three away from the twins' crane.

Ener-G barked up when he met my eyes. "Are you mocking me?! HAH!?"

I waited for his next plasma beam, and I leapt to the first boxcar. I waited for him again, and leaped to the second.

He caught on, and didn't fire a beam when I readied myself for the next jump.

But he kept his hands raised.

I stared at him, waiting.

For a moment, Ener-G glanced at the twins, then at Sami.

That was the moment.

I jumped to the third boxcar.

But this time, Ener-G fired two beams at the tracks, which caused them to ricochet from rail to rail in my direction. I leaped upward just in time as the top of the boxcar was disintegrated, but one plasma beam shot me out of the air.

I winced from the new burn on my right abdomen, and I crashed once again onto the cold, sediment-ridden ground.

Ener-G raised his eyes at the twins and Sami again. "I see. You want to save your friends. You choose not to fight me, but instead you prioritize your friends' safety."

I looked at the visor on his helmet.

Ener-G stopped in the middle of the second track.

"Do you not see how your way is wrong?" he asked. "You try to save your friends, only for you to suffer because of them. You are held back because of your compassion. Instead of embracing your power, you choose to be selfless."

"I...am...not like you..."

"...We are both Abnormals, Vector."

"But I...am not like you. You guys in the Science Division...All you do is cause pain...You don't know...what's it like to care...for friends...to care about others..."

At that, Ener-G removed his helmet again.

"Vector," he began, "I fight for the Science Division because I believe in Ambrigado's words. His vision for all Abnormals is a just one, and I see no other alternative that could possibly be better."

"You guys...care about Abnormals?!" I spat out blood. "You guys are all just nuts."

Ener-G glanced at the crowd of Normals gathered at the entrance to the train yard, then up at Sami.

"You care for them?" he asked me as he stared at her. "You care for those who are not like us?"

"It...doesn't matter...if they're a Normal...or Abnormal...Protecting people...shouldn't have any...restrictions..."

He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. "And you think protecting that Normal up there will somehow gain you something?!" He shook his head. "Vector, there is no way you will ever be accepted by the Normals of this city! There is no way any of us will ever be accepted by Normals! I have seen what you can do. You are just trying to find acceptance among other Abnormals, and I do not find anything wrong with that about you. That is why you made friends with the Starlight Twins."

He placed his helmet back on.

"Perhaps if we had met sooner, you and I could have been friends. A pity, really."

He manifested another pair of plasma orbs—both of them glowed a terrifying orange-yellow hue.

"But unlike you, I have made my choice. I know what side I stand with! I have been there before, Vector—that place of loneliness, self-loathing, and doubt about whether I should even be alive or not because of my powers!"

I leaned on my left arm, feeling the pain grow on my shoulder.

"Please..." I began to say. "Let my friends go. They—...They did nothing to you!"

"Nothing to me, yes," Ener-G replied. "They, like all Normals, are nothing to me. Ambrigado gave me orders to bring you to him, but if you will not go willingly, then I will force you to make a choice: prove now that you stand for all Abnormals and join me and the Science Division, or defend that crowd of Normals over there and prove you are a traitor to every Abnormal in Ave Strata!"

He raised his left hand to point at Madi and Marcus, while his right hand pointed at the crowd of people outside the train yard.

The crowd of onlookers panicked; they gasped and slowly backed away.

"V-...Vector!" Madi's voice cried out.

"Vector! Jacen!" Marcus called down to me. "What are you—...W-What's going on?!"

"W-Why are we here?!" Madi panicked, "What is this?!"

Sami's eyes remained closed, and I prayed she was at least unconscious and not actually...gone...

Ener-G looked at my friends. "Hm. Looks like those two are finally awake." He lowered his head back down to me. "Now then, Vector. I will give you a different choice. Whom will you save? Your silly friends, the Starlight Twins?..."

"G-Get us down!" Madi screamed. "Help! Someone!"

"Vector..." Marcus said weakly. "S-Save Madi! Don't worry about me!"

My eyes watered as I heard them.

Ener-G continued. "...or will you choose to protect that other friend of yours? The Normal girl? Or maybe I should fire at that crowd over there?! Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of Normals among them who would rather see us kill each other!"

I glanced at the people, and some ran for their lives away from the scene.

"Please..." I managed. "Don't do this...Aster, don't do this..."

Ener-G's visor glowed. "I'm disappointed in you, Vector. You're hoping to be a bridge between Normals and Abnormals, but look at you now—torn between saving the lives of the Starlight Twins or your talentless waitress 'friend!' You should be ashamed of yourself."

"STOP!" I bellowed at him, and I coughed up more blood, falling down to my knees. The burns on my body took their time as the pain grew. A terrible headache returned to the back of my head. My back felt moistened with something—blood from when the metal spikes at the first boxcar pierced through my skin.

Ener-G shook his head repeatedly. "Do you see now how hopeless it is to choose between our gifted people and those of dirt? Surrender, Vector. Your power is wasted in defending Normals and those who would defend them."

I glared at him. "Stop...please..."

Superheated plasma arced through Ener-G's white and gold suit.

He took a deep breath.

"You are no hero. You're just a sad boy who never knew what to do with your life. And now...when you think you've found a purpose...I will be the one to crush it. I will be the one who breaks the once-unstoppable, the once-infamous Vector! The Normals used to call you a monster, yet now you have no fangs. You're pathetic."

Elaina flashed in my head, and for a moment I could almost hear her trying to reach me.

Jace...! Jace...! her faint, telepathic voice yelled.

But I ignored her, hearing only the voice of the enemy standing before me.

Ener-G laughed. "You can't save anyone, just like how you couldn't save your parents!"

My eyes widened, as—

The image of a regal-looking young man with long, spiky hair wearing an outfit of black and gold flashed in my mind. He stared at me with a disappointed expression as he closed his flaming, golden eyes and shook his head.

And then—

I lost all feeling, all reason, all emotion, and all care.