The last flame

CHAPTER 17 — The Last Flame
Garpon's attack came like a tide.
Not like a strike. Like something that filled the available space and left no room to dodge. The crimson expanded in all directions from the center of the second layer with a pressure that wasn't only physical. It was the kind of force felt before understood. That reaches the chest before the body knows how to respond.
The four were thrown backward. Not with selective violence. With the indifference of something too large to distinguish between one target and another.
Marek hit the rock wall with his left shoulder. He slid to the ground. His blue armor had cracks it hadn't had at the start of the battle. The yellow aura flickered once. And went out. Completely.
Sira fell to her knees six meters from where she had been. Her left leg gave way under the impact, and she had to brace both hands on the rock to keep from falling sideways. Her unprotected right arm absorbed part of the shockwave directly. She breathed. Once. Twice.
Arlo had rolled across the rock and ended up on his back, staring at the ceiling of the second layer. He took a second to process where he was. Then he got up slowly. His hands searched for the device instinctively. Empty. He knew it. But his hands searched for it anyway.
Zarpon was thrown the farthest. The wave hit his already affected right shoulder and launched him four meters to a rock formation that stopped his trajectory with an impact that made his entire right side temporarily useless. He stayed propped against the rock. Breathing. His yellow eyes open. Watching Garpon.
Garpon stood in the center of the second layer. The crimson burned around his body with an intensity that made the shadows on the walls move as if they were alive. He looked at the team. The four on the ground or against the walls. None unconscious. But none in condition to continue the same way as before.
Garpon breathed. Heavier than at the start of the battle. The wear was real even if he didn't fully show it. Years of working alone in that cave had kept his condition at a level few chara warriors matched. But fighting for this long against four opponents who wouldn't give up had taken its toll.
The crimson was more irregular than it should be. Not enough for the team to take advantage. Yet.
Sira stood up. With her left leg failing. With her right arm unprotected. Without anyone asking her to.
She didn't go toward Garpon immediately. She stayed where she was for a moment. Watching. Not Garpon. The space around Garpon.
She had been doing this all night. Not watching where the fight was but where it was going to be. Anticipating. One step ahead of the present as Zarpon had taught her.
And now she saw something.
The crimson fluctuated more irregularly on the right side than on the left. Not much. But enough for someone who had spent the whole night studying that crimson to notice. The reboot from the core that Arlo had deactivated earlier still hadn't fully completed the restoration of the right shoulder sector.
If Zarpon moved to Garpon's left in the next move, the right shoulder would be exposed for longer than it had been in the entire battle. And if Marek attacked simultaneously from the right, Garpon couldn't orient toward either without fully exposing the other.
Sira looked at Zarpon.
Zarpon was watching her from his position against the rock. She signaled with her eyes. First to Garpon's right shoulder. Then to the space on Garpon's left. Then to Marek. Then to Garpon's left side.
Zarpon followed her gaze. Processed. His yellow eyes went to Marek.
Marek was already looking at Sira.
Sira repeated the gesture with her eyes.
Marek read it. Nodded.
Zarpon nodded.
Sira looked at Arlo.
Arlo was already watching her. With the improvised device in his left hand.
Sira looked at Garpon's right shoulder. Then at Arlo.
Arlo nodded.
Everything happened in silence. In less than ten seconds. Without a single word.
---
They moved together.
Zarpon to Garpon's left. Marek to the right. Arlo activated the improvised device. The localized interference in Garpon's right shoulder sector amplified the irregularity that already existed.
Garpon saw them coming. Both of them. From opposite sides. And he knew he couldn't orient toward one without leaving the other completely free.
He chose Zarpon. He turned left. His right shoulder was exposed exactly as Sira had anticipated.
Zarpon struck Garpon's right shoulder with his left arm. No crimson protection in that area. The impact was real.
At the same time, Marek struck Garpon's left side with pure technique. Without aura. With everything three days of training and ten years of promises and fear and solitary practice in empty fields could put behind a strike.
Both impacts arrived simultaneously from opposite sides.
Garpon didn't fall immediately. He stepped back once. Then again. The crimson fluctuated throughout his body. Not from the strikes alone. From accumulation. Of everything. Of every exchange since the start of the battle. Of every second the team had refused to fall permanently. Of every strike that had connected at the right points throughout the night.
The real wear of a warrior didn't come from a single strike. It came from a hundred strikes that at the moment seemed insufficient and together took a toll that none alone could take.
Garpon fell to his knees.
The crimson flickered. Irregular. Like the flame of something that had burned too long.
Marek walked toward him. He knelt in front of him. Not to attack. To be at the same level.
Garpon looked up.
They looked at each other. In the silence of the second layer. With the crimson nearly extinguished around the chara warrior. With the yellow completely absent around Marek.
Two people who had left everything they had in that space.
"Why?" Garpon said very quietly.
Marek looked at him.
"Why did you keep getting up?" Garpon continued. "You didn't have enough reasons. Not in terms of power. Not in terms of probability." A pause. "Why?"
Marek thought of Joe. Of the farm. Of Zarpon choosing to be here. Of Sira seeing what no one else had seen. Of Arlo building something from nothing with what he had.
"Because there are things that matter more than probability," he said.
Garpon looked at him. The crimson flickered one last time.
"Yes," he said very quietly.
A pause.
Garpon looked at his own hands. The crimson that had burned in them as long as he could remember. That he had turned into identity. Into purpose. Into the one thing no one could take from him.
He clenched his fists.
"I just wanted to stop being weak."
The words came without drama. Without pleading. With the simple honesty of something said when there's no reason left to keep it.
Marek didn't answer. There was no answer that wasn't less than silence.
Garpon closed his eyes.
And he chose.
Not to surrender. Not to fade slowly. The crimson ignited one last time. Not outward. Inward. Collapsing on itself with an intensity that made the air around Garpon vibrate for one second.
One second.
And then nothing.
The crimson disappeared completely. No trace of energy remained in the air. Only the warrior. And the silence. And the second layer that remained exactly what it had been before any of them arrived.
The four stayed where they were for a moment none measured.
Sira looked at the ground. Not with relief. With something closer to the weight of someone who had just seen the result of a tactical decision and understood that tactical decisions have real consequences that holographic maps don't fully show.
Arlo looked at the improvised device in his hand. Built in minutes with emergency materials. That had worked. He wasn't thinking about the outcome yet. He was thinking about the process. About what he had learned building it that he hadn't known before.
Zarpon looked at Garpon with the expression of someone who had seen a warrior fall and knew that moment deserved something more than immediately moving on.
Marek stayed kneeling before Garpon. Thinking of the phrase.
I just wanted to stop being weak.
He thought of the training field he hadn't seen but somehow felt. Of Keth's indifference. Of the years alone in that cave. Of the crimson burning as the one thing no one could take from him. Of the difference between building something to prove and building something to live.
Zarpon placed a hand on Marek's shoulder.
Marek looked up. Zarpon's yellow eyes said nothing specific. But they said enough.
Marek stood up. Wiped the sweat from his forehead. Looked at the three. Zarpon with his right arm partially recovered. Sira with her left leg failing but standing. Arlo with the improvised device and an expression that was half exhaustion and half something he was still processing.
"Is everyone okay?" Marek said.
"Flexible definition of okay," Arlo said.
Sira almost smiled.
Zarpon looked toward the opening in the rock at the back of the second layer. The entrance to the third layer. The pedestal. The Kratar.
"Let's go," he said.
---
END OF CHAPTER 17