47 - Final Showdown

The ceiling of the tea room bursts open, as Jessica crashes into the room, landing in front of Lumo and me, crouched with one hand on the ground, a blade in the other.

She doesn't waste time.

Immediately she springs into action, lunging forward at the man.

The man fires six rounds in quick succession, all of which Jessica dodges, moving so fast as though she's teleporting from one spot to the next as she closes the distance.

Lumo, behind me, grabs her arm, powering up her laser cannon.

I place a hand on her arm, shake my head. "No, Lumo—stay out of this. It's too dangerous for you."

"But … I want … to help."

"You've done more than enough." I smile at her. "It's my turn to protect you now. … Now go! Get out of here. Get out of the house. Run as far away as you can."

Lumo stares at me, tears in her eyes. Then she nods.

And then she runs out of the tea room, into the hall.

I turn back to the ongoing fight. I raise one hand in the air and—

—summon a phalanx of incorporeal, glowing energy swords that appear in a row, floating above my head.

With a wave of my hand, I send them flying, one by one, like homing missiles, toward the man with the eyepatch, who's busy fending off Jessica's flurry of attacks.

He turns to the swords flying at him, manifests a dagger in his hand, and deflects them as they come.

… Except one sword, which stabs him through the leg.

He stumbles, winces in pain.

I move in.

I lock eyes with Jessica. We nod at each other.

Then, our movements synchronized, Jessica and I dash forward, and spring into a twin flying drop-kick that sends the man crashing through the wall of the tea room, into the adjacent room.

Even as the dust and splinters of wood rain down, we're already in the next room, which just happens to be the living room.

The man stands up, dusts his coat off.

"'Jessica', huh? … Is that what you're calling yourself these days? … How many names does that make it, now?"

Jessica glares at him, fists ready.

"… The same old dance," he says. He cracks his neck to one side, then the other. He adjusts his cap. "… Well? Let's get it on, then."

I put my guard up. "… Let's finish this," I say.

And then the fight's back on.

We clash all throughout the house in Parallaxia. This false reality, where we were once kids. Where Lumo watched over the five of us, as we spent the days playing from sunrise to sundown every day. The kitchen where we baked the cake for Lumo's party. The library where we spent our time, drawing, reading, telling each other stories we would come up with. Where our imaginations ran wild. Each room that once held so many fractured memories now being torn asunder by the sheer violence carried forth by the relentless impositions of our respective wills.

Nothing held back. On either side.

Jessica and I manifest katanas, axes. He pulls a halberd out of thin air. Daggers, knives, maces, polearms, flails, gauntlets. Each illusory armament shattering against the other's, while all around us the house crumbles.

Walls blown apart. The floors and ceilings collapsing.

We fight with our bare fists. He launches me into bookshelves, a grand piano. All manner of furniture.

The man grinning as he parries our blows.

It's like this is a game to him.

Jessica uppercuts him up through the roof of the house; he comes tearing back through another part of the roof and kicks Jessica down into the cellar.

I leap into the basement after them, rip a metal pipe off the wall and swing it once, twice, the man dodging each blow. With a single slap he sends me slamming into the concrete wall.

Jessica conjures up a sledgehammer, swings it in a wide underhand arc, launching the man up through all three stories of the house above.

She crouches—and then jumps up, the concrete ground cracking underneath where she stood, as she flies up to meet him in the attic, where the fight continues up above me.

The house shakes, trembles. Sound of wood creaking, its foundations groaning.

I run up the stairs to the main floor. The floor underneath me wobbling unsteadily.

I head for the front door, and run out into the front lawn—

—just in time to turn around and catch the arching of the roof, the buckling of the walls. Glass shattering. Cloud of dust. The ground quaking beneath my feet. Total cacophony from not only the house collapsing in on itself, but also the battle sounds from the two combatants, continuing to fight, even as everything crumbles around them.

I'm choked by the dust. Coughing and hacking, trying to wave the air in front of me.

For a moment, silence.

A brief respite in the noise, the pandemonium.

The dust begins to settle.

… I can see again.

The pile of rubble that was once a house.

And standing atop it, is Jessica.

She's clutching one arm, panting heavily. Bloody and battle-worn.

She looks at me. Nods.

Then she makes her way down the rubble, joins me on the front lawn.

As she approaches me, her legs give in.

I'm there to catch her, as she falls.

We don't say anything. Too tired for our usual comedy routine. We just look at each other for a while.

I look around me.

The sky is disappearing.

The illusion is collapsing.

I can only hope that Lumo's far, far away by now.

And that we'll all see each other again, back in Point Parallax.

And that we'll—

A sudden noise from the pile of rubble cuts my thoughts short.

Jessica and I turn to look to the collapsed house.

… Out of the top of the wreckage, the man with the eyepatch bursts through, and rises into the air, floating, sustained by nothing.

He raises his pistol. Tips his cap with the barrel.

His terrible smile.

The sky above reappears, all at once—

But it's now a deep crimson, a frenzied red.

Against the blood sky the man laughs.

With his free hand he rips off his eyepatch.

Blue. Yellow.

"Now, then!" he bellows. "Come, all!"

He fires a shot into the air. Sound ringing out across the village.

"… IT'S TIME FOR THE CLIMAX!"