The Woman with Stilettos Made of Gravity

Rome took a breath. Closed his eyes.

And pulled the necklace off.

There was no warning, no gradual build-up like before. One second he was Rome Angelo, scared seventeen-year-old who'd had the worst night of his life. The next, something ancient and ravenous tore through his chest like a caged animal finally finding the door unlocked.

A roar ripped from his throat. Not his voice. Something layered beneath it, harmonics that didn't belong to anything human. The sound bounced off the warehouse walls and came back wrong, distorted, hungry.

Purple light erupted from his body in a shockwave that sent chunks of concrete flying. The air itself seemed to crack. His vision went electric violet, and those black markings he'd seen before crawled up his arms like living things, writhing under his skin in patterns that hurt to look at.

Everything smelled like blood and ozone and something sweet that made his mouth water.

Mine, that voice whispered. She's strong. Take her. Feed.

"Sensei, look out!"

Ryoko's scream sounded distant, muffled. Rome was already moving.

His body launched itself forward before his brain could process the command. The concrete beneath his feet shattered. Dust and debris exploded upward in a massive cloud that swallowed everything. He moved through it like a missile, locked onto Amelia's position with a certainty that felt like instinct.

She was right there. Crouching. Vulnerable.

Take.

Rome's fist came down where her head had been a microsecond before. The impact with the floor sent another shockwave through the building, cratering the concrete so deep his arm disappeared up to the elbow. The sound was like a thunderclap in an enclosed space, making his ears ring.

Smoke curled from his knuckles. Purple energy crackled around his fist.

He'd hit her. He knew he'd hit her. She couldn't have moved that fast. No one could move that fast.

The dust began to settle.

Rome was on his hands and knees, panting, grinning. Victory tasted like copper and starlight. His glowing eyes found Ryoko's across the warehouse. She stood there, one arm hanging uselessly, her face pale with shock and something that might have been fear.

Wait.

He wasn't standing. He was on his hands and knees because something was pressing down on his back, pinning him to the ground. His arms were trapped beneath him, bent at angles that should have hurt but didn't. His cheek was smashed against cold concrete.

And he could hear... clicking.

Heels.

"My, what a good cushion," Amelia said from directly above him. Her voice carried that same playful lilt, like she was commenting on a particularly comfortable chair. "Very firm. Ten out of ten."

Rome tried to turn his head, something kept it locked in place though. The weight on his back shifted slightly. Through his peripheral vision, he could see the hem of her skirt, the crossed legs.

She patted his back twice.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Rage exploded through his system hotter than the demonic energy. Rome roared again, this time pouring every ounce of power he had into throwing her off him. Purple light blazed around his body. The force he generated should have launched her into the rafters.

She rose into the air, flipping once, and landed on her feet with the kind of grace that belonged in a ballet.

Not a single hair out of place.

Her smile hadn't even flickered.

Rome charged.

The demon inside him had stopped whispering and started screaming. Every instinct demanded he close the distance, make contact, feed on that massive pool of energy he could feel radiating from her like heat from a bonfire.

His fist shot toward her face. She didn't move. Just stood there with that infuriating smile.

His knuckles stopped an inch from her nose.

The air between them had turned solid. Like punching through molasses that kept getting thicker the harder he pushed. Purple energy crackled around his fist, trying to force through whatever barrier she'd created.

She tilted her head slightly, examining his fist like it was a mildly interesting insect.

Rome snarled and swept his leg low, aiming to take her feet out from under her.

His ankle redirected. The motion felt like he'd planned to spin past her all along. He hadn't though. Something had nudged the trajectory of his kick just enough to miss completely.

He stumbled, caught himself, and immediately launched the copied technique from the Abattoir Amalgam. Purple-black energy gathered in his palm and erupted in a beam that could punch through concrete.

Amelia raised two fingers.

The beam split.

Not blocked. Not deflected. It divided perfectly down the middle like she'd cut it with an invisible knife. The two halves carved smoking trenches into the floor on either side of her, missing her body by inches.

She yawned.

"Are you quite finished?" she asked.

Rome wasn't.

He threw everything at her. Punches that should have broken the sound barrier. Kicks enhanced with enough kinetic energy to crater walls. He grabbed chunks of debris and hurled them with the speed of bullets. None of it landed. She weaved between his attacks with minimal movement, sometimes shifting her weight, sometimes just leaning slightly to one side.

She wasn't even trying.

Then Rome overextended. Lunged too far forward on a punch meant to cave in her ribs.

Amelia moved.

One step to the side. Her leg came up in a roundhouse kick that connected with his chest.

The world went sideways.

Rome registered the impact somewhere distant from his body. Then he was flying backward, tumbling through the air like a rag doll. The concrete support pillar hit his back with enough force to crack it. Not him. The pillar.

A spiderweb of fractures spread across the reinforced concrete. His body left a perfect indent in the surface, like someone had pressed him into wet cement.

He slumped to the floor. Coughed. Tasted blood.

Get up, the demon voice snarled. Get up and take what's ours.

Rome's ribs were already knitting back together. The demonic healing worked fast, burning through the energy he'd absorbed from the Tyrant. He could feel the reserves draining, he didn't care though.

He pushed himself up.

Charged again.

This time he only made it ten feet before he hit the wall.

Not a physical wall. An invisible barrier that stopped his forward momentum like he'd slammed into solid steel. His body froze mid-stride, one foot off the ground, arms pulled back for a strike he'd never get to throw.

Rome couldn't move.

Not an inch.

He pushed against whatever held him. Purple energy blazed around his body. The demon inside howled in frustration. His muscles strained until they felt like they'd tear.

Nothing.

"What... what the hell is this?!" The words came out as a snarl, layered with harmonics that made the air vibrate.

Amelia started walking toward him. Each click of her heels echoed through the warehouse with the steady rhythm of a metronome. She took her time, letting him struggle against the invisible prison while she closed the distance.

"It's called Dominion, darling," she said. Her voice had shifted from playful to instructional, like a teacher explaining basic addition to a particularly slow student. "The inherited technique of my clan. Control over attractive and repulsive forces."

She stopped directly in front of him, looking up at his suspended form with those spinning lotus eyes.

"Right now, you're experiencing a simple application of repulsion. Think of it as..." She paused, considering. "Your own personal gravity field, cranked up to an inconvenient degree."

Rome tried to speak. Tried to move. Managed to shift his eyes enough to glare at her.

She raised a single finger and pressed it against his forehead.

"And this," she whispered, "is a focused point."

The pressure multiplied.

It felt like every direction simultaneously decided to crush him into a singularity. The invisible forces holding him in place became a vice that squeezed from all sides. His bones creaked. The air in his lungs compressed.

Rome slammed into the concrete hard enough to leave another crater. The impact drove every bit of air from his lungs. He lay there, spread-eagle on his back, unable to move anything except his eyes.

The purple light flickered. Dimmed.

No, the demon voice whimpered. No, we're stronger. We ate the Tyrant. We're...

"Thirty seconds are up," Amelia announced cheerfully.

She stood over him. One foot on either side of his head, looking down with that same satisfied smile.

Then she lifted her right leg.

Rome's eyes tracked the movement involuntarily. The sharp point of her stiletto heel came to rest on his sternum, directly over his heart. The angle gave him a perfect view up her skirt.

Red lace.

"You know," she said conversationally, "I had such high hopes when Ryoko said you'd taken down a B-Rank Tyrant. I thought maybe, just maybe, you'd make this interesting."

She leaned down slightly. Her heel pressed harder against his chest.

"You're just a battery with no circuit though. All that delicious demonic energy, and you can't even land a single hit on me."

The purple light in his eyes guttered like a candle in the wind.

"Goodnight, Rome Angelo," she whispered.

She applied just a fraction more pressure with her heel.

The last thing Rome saw before darkness swallowed him whole was her face. Those twelve-petaled lotus eyes spinning in the violet glow.

Then nothing.