Flaming Start (3)

“Say goodbye, kid” the man said as he hoisted his knife above my head, my right arm trapped inside of him.

As he began to bring the knife down I jumped to the right. Since my arm was stuck inside him, the movement caused him to lose his balance and miss an otherwise fatal strike. Although he still managed to make a cut along the side of my face.

“You little brat!” the man grunted. He then moved to attempt to stab me again. I have an idea, but it’s a bit of a gamble… not like I have much choice.

I activated Accelerate while focusing on my perceptions. As the knife came closer time itself seemed to slow down until it appeared as though the world was in slow motion.

“Sweet, I do get bullet time,” I said.

Accelerate is freaking awesome! Aside from the burning up if I use it too much part.

Out in the pink lava fields I had been running for about ten minutes I think. But I doubt this fight would even last that long anyway.

I carefully grabbed the knife and slipped it out of his hand. Now I just need to get my arm out of him.

I tried to pull it out, but the grip on my arm was too tight. This is annoying… On to plan B.

I deactivated Accelerate and watched as he became shocked when he realized he wasn’t holding the knife anymore. I flashed the knife, making sure he knew I had it. I then thrust it toward his abdomen, which immediately changed to liquid form before the knife could even touch it.

Just what I was waiting for.

I pulled out my arm and took a couple steps back. Now I had the weapon.

Using Accelerate, I zoomed forward and slashed the knife across him multiple times, but every time I tried to cut part of him it would be liquid.

Seeing an opening, he punched me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. He hits hard…

He then grabbed me by the back of my jacket and threw me into the wall. After my back hit the wall he rushed to tackle me against it, but I activated Accelerate before he could reach me.

I stood up and walked around him. Although he wasn’t moving nearly as fast, I could still feel his gaze following me the entire time. So, if he could tell where I was…

I punched him. That part of his body turned to liquid before I could touch it.

I guess he can turn his body into liquid faster than I can move with Accelerate. He definitely couldn’t attack as fast as me, but if he could liquify himself before I could hit him then I wouldn’t really get anywhere.

I still don’t think I’ve landed a single hit against him, and I was already getting hotter. I need to think of some way to catch him off guard.

I stood between him and the girl and deactivated Accelerate. I needed to look for an opportunity to strike without risking overheating.

I wonder what he’s going to do.

A smirk went across his face as he faced me and bent forward.

“Huh?”

He then charged at me, yelling as he did so.

I definitely didn’t see that coming. His sudden charge had surprised me so much that I forgot to activate Accelerate. But I still dodged.

I jumped to the side to avoid getting bulldozed over. I then heard a muffled scream.

Crap.

I turned around and saw that he now had the girl in his grasp. His liquefied hand was now covering her face, blocking her airways as he held her up with that one arm. In his other hand he held up an additional knife to her throat.

“Wait right there a dull second, or I’ll slice her throat open!” he yelled as he pushed the knife through the surface of her skin, drawing up blood.

She was struggling, trying to get out of his grasp, although it seemed like she was more concerned with the suffocation than the knife at her throat.

I don’t know if I’d be fast enough to get that knife before he can slit her throat. So I’ll have to stick with my original plan to wait for an opening. Only now I had less than three minutes to act before permanent damage from oxygen deprivation occurred. Even less before she lost consciousness.

Hopefully I can make his guard slip before then.

“What do you want?” I said.

“I just want my paycheck, kid,” he said. “For me, it’s not personal.”

“It’s not all that personal for me either,” I responded. “What’s your point?”

“You don’t even know who this girl is, right? What you said earlier and the way you’re acting tipped me off.”

I guess this thug had more brains than I realized.

“And how does that change anything?”

“I’ll repeat what I said earlier, this girl is a danger to the entire world. Her very existence has the potential to bring about the second coming of the Eternal Night. That’s why there’s so many bounties on her head.”

Bounties? Eternal Night? Who is this girl? What makes her so dangerous?

“You’ve got good fighting sense kid, but I can tell you haven’t been trained. I’ve already seen through your cheap little tricks. How long do you think you’ll last against me?”

I guess he has a point there.

“If I’m being honest kid, your motivation for fighting me isn’t all too great either,” he said. “I noticed you standing there for a bit before you actually did something.”

Wait, what?

“It’s obvious that saving her isn’t really your top priority, you just wanna use some rich kid to make life easier for yourself. When you got here you didn’t see someone in distress and decide to save them out of some sense of justice or stain, you saw an opportunity to save someone’s life and have them be indebted to you. If you really did this because you wanted to save her, you would’ve just grabbed her and ran away by now, but you stayed and fought because that comes off as more heroic.”

How did he-? How did he find out?

“Surprised I found out? Don’t bother trying to hide it,” he said. “I was about to kill someone, of course I was hyper aware of my surroundings. Listen kid, you don’t want to fight me. Even with that speedy flair of yours you can’t win, I’m a trained assassin with A.W.A.K.E. How about this, I’ll give you three options:”

“Option one: You keep fighting me to uphold this false sense of justice you’re trying to pass off, and die.”

“Option two: You drop the knife and walk away. Forget this ever happened and get back to worrying about how you’ll get a decent meal tonight.”

“Or option three: A.W.A.K.E.’s always looking for people with potential,” he said, extending the hand he was using to suffocate the girl. I hadn’t even noticed that she had lost consciousness while he was talking. “Use that knife of mine to finish the job and I can get you initiated. You’d be able to hone that fighting sense and turn into a top notch assassin like me.”

“But you gotta hurry and pick, if she suffocates to death without you picking an option I’ll just kill you.”

“I-” I tried to speak. He had read me like a book.

This was…

What am I gonna do?

He saw through my façade, he saw past my mask.

What am I gonna do?

Then, as my mind was frantically searching for an answer, I began to recall something. A scene from the past, when I was around twelve years old I think…

…

I was sitting at the kitchen table. My father was looking in the fridge to get out a snack, before…

Before getting to why he had us stay behind when mom and Lucy were going out for ice cream.

He hadn’t said as much, but I knew what the problem was. I had let my mask slip, and he saw it.

He saw me hurting that other kid. He saw me without my mask on. He saw my true face.

Now he knew that I was a bad person.

He closed the fridge and came back to the table with a small plastic box of lychee fruit and sat down.

“Lychee?” he asked, holding one out to me.

I shook my head, unable to meet his gaze. I could only stare downwards.

“More for me then,” he said as he started peeling the skin. “Son, do you know why we’re here right now?”

Yes.

You and mom are going to send me somewhere far away. Where bad people are supposed to go. I’ll never get to see you guys or Lucy again. It’s probably better for her to grow up without someone like me influencing her anyway. I don’t want her to become a bad person too…

“No,” I lied. Even if I knew it, I couldn’t face the truth. It hurt too much.

“Hmm…”

He finished peeling the lychee fruit and ate it in silence. The trash can was close enough so that he could throw the seed away without getting up. His eyes were locked on me the whole time.

“So,” he said as he grabbed another lychee, repeating the process. “Why did you get into a fight with that kid?”

You already know why, so why do I have to say it? Is it because I have to get what I deserve? Is it because I have to suffer for what I’ve done?

“B-because…” I started, I have to think up something quick or-

“Don’t lie, Oliver.”

I hung my head even further.

“Because I’m a bad person.”

“Is that what you really think?”

I already know, okay? Why do you have to make this worse than it already is?

“Yes… I know it’s true…”

Wap.

A lychee fruit hit me in the forehead. It didn’t hurt, but I still wanted to cry. I didn’t want to go away forever.

I held the feeling back, if I cracked again there’s no chance they’d let me stay. Maybe if I promised to be better-?

No.

Bad people get punished. That’s how life’s supposed to work.

Dad then grabbed the lychee off the table.

“Do you know why I just hit you with this lychee fruit?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“Oh? Why then?” he asked.

I already told you, didn’t I?

“I-it’s because I’m a bad-”

Wap.

I got hit by that same lychee fruit again.

“Wrong!” Dad said. “Do you wanna try again?”

“N-no…” I responded.

“It’s because you and this lychee fruit are one in the same,” he said. “Well, actually you’re more like the opposite of a lychee fruit though.”

He continued speaking as he started to peel the skin. “On the outside we have a rough, defensive exterior with spikes. That’s you on the outside-”

My mask.

“-Obedient, hardworking, does his chores without being told to, gets good grades at school, super nice…”

He finished peeling the skin off and held up the newly unprotected lychee fruit.

“This is the flesh of the lychee fruit, Son. The juicy part,” he said as he started to peel that off too. “This is you under that outside layer-”

My true face.

“-Cunning, ruthless, manipulates situations to work in your favor, always scheming, super mean…”

He took the newly peeled flesh and put it in his mouth before continuing. He held up the last part of the fruit.

Still chewing, he asked, “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s the seed…” I answered.

“Right, do you know what part of you this represents?”

“My heart…?”

“Righto!” he said before swallowing down the contents in his mouth. “And do you know why?”

“Because it’s dark and hard, unpleasant to taste and it gets in the way when you’re trying to enjoy the good parts of the fruit. Just like my heart is empty and worthle-”

Wap.

He threw the seed at my forehead. It bounced off and landed directly in my line of sight.

“No, no! That’s completely wrong!” he said. “And you were so close too…”

“Huh?”

“You completely forgot that the analogy was a reverse analogy,” he muttered while shaking his head. “It’s because you have a good heart.”

What? Did I miss something?

“Do you remember why you got into that fight?” he asked.

“I wanted to hurt him-”

Dad reached for another lychee fruit.

“H-he had pushed Lucy off the spring rider, she scraped her knee and it started bleeding. He made her cry,” I said. “I wanted to make sure he’d never hurt her again.”

“Oliver, you started with good intentions, but you can’t just take revenge like that,” he said. “You shouldn’t be trying to take care of everything by yourself, me and your mom are here to help, you know? But whatever your reasons, you shouldn’t go around picking fights. Violence should never be your go to answer, so I’m going to have to punish you, okay?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” he said. “And remember this: Even if you have bad tendencies sometimes, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. As long as you try your hardest, you can still do the right thing. Okay Oliver?”

“O-okay…” I answered, my voice shaky.

“Just promise that you’ll try your hardest for me, for your mom, and for your sister.”

“I-I promise…!” I said as tears began to fill my eye ducts. “Just… please don’t send me away somewhere…”

He then got up and put his hand on my forehead, where he had thrown the lychee three times.

“You have another thing in common with lychees,” he said. “Do you know what it is?”

“No…”

“I love you so much, that even if someone told me I’d die if I didn’t give you up, I’d never do it.”

S-so dad has an unhealthy addiction to lychee fruit, huh? Th-that’s…

I couldn’t keep my tears in.

“B-but, it’d take a miracle for someone like me to-”

“Well then you’d better get started, Captain Miracle,” he said to me with a wink before pulling me close and whispering in my ear, “But no matter what happens, I will always believe in you.”

…

Now that I think about it, that analogy was probably just a way to get me to share in his unhealthy addiction.

And that’s where the name Captain Miracle came from. I always wondered why I willingly coined something so cheesy…

I can’t believe this…

I want some lychee fruit.

Wait, they still have that in this world, right?!

I’m getting off topic.

“Well kid, what’s it gonna be?” the thug said. “Or have you not decided?”

I just noticed he wasn’t holding that knife to the girl’s throat anymore.

“I’ve already decided,” I replied in a cool, serious voice. “No one tells me what to do! Especially not some filthy low life! I’ll go with option four: Despite all the odds, I beat the hell out of you and rescue that girl!”

“Are you kidding me kid? I’d take a miracle for you to beat me.”

Okay, somebody had to have set that up. There’s no other way.

“Well then it’s a good thing you're standing before me, Captain Miracle!”

Without giving him the chance to mock my stupid hero name I rushed him and cut through the arm he was using to hoist the girl up. Well, partly though.

His liquified arm solidified around the knife, trapping it in place.

At the same time he had liquified his leg and put it over mine before solidifying it, trapping me.

Using his other hand which still had a knife in it, he stabbed me in the gut and twisted the blade.

I don’t feel like describing how it felt right now.

Just know that it hurt… a lot.

As I was coughing up blood, he left the knife in my gut and grabbed me by the neck. Lifting me up and out of his leg, he was choking me the old fashioned way.

“So I guess it was option one,” he said. “Too bad that useful power of yours has to go to waste.”

I then felt something welling up inside me.

A feeling?

No. Multiple feelings. Of myself, and others, my family.

My dad believed in me. My mom believed in me. My sister believed in me. And I believed in me.

Even though they weren’t here, somehow I could feel it. I felt it burning up inside of me. A powerful energy, welling up from their belief mixed with my own.

Or not, I’m just saying what it felt like.

“I-I already told you,” I began as I felt blood flow into my mouth. “I already decided what option I was going to take…”

I clenched my right fist. I felt the energy converging into it.

“Although, you were right, Liquid Assassin. The only way I could make it work… was with a miracle. And I’ve got a miracle for you right here…”

I raised my fist. I could see the weird energy coming off of it. It looked like a particle effect made out of blue, light blue, and white stars.

“Miracle Punch!”

I wasn’t actually able to hit him. His arms were longer than mine so he was just out of my reach and I ended up punching the air. But that turned out to be more than enough.

The air around my fist exploded forward. The thug’s body, which he had completely liquefied in an instant, exploded and split apart. The girl’s unconscious body was harshly blown aside by the air force, and I was knocked back into the wall behind me.

The building I had been facing exploded into rubble, the blast tearing apart some of the building behind it too.

What was this destructive power?

Just like with Accelerate, I heard a voice deep inside of me, telling me what this power’s name was…

Miracle? So is this my special move or something, like in a video game? I thought I’d only get one power, but I’m not complaining or anything.

Before I could focus on anything else I heard a voice.

“Stop right there!”

I turned my head and saw two guards. This didn’t look good.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed liquid going down a drainage pipe.

That bastard! Now I’m the only one who this can be pinned on.

Wait, didn’t that mean I only beat him because he ran away? All that power still wasn’t enough to defeat him.

Also, a more pressing matter is that those guards were running up to me. They didn’t look too happy.

I tried to activate Accelerate and run away, but the moment I did-

I hacked up blood and fell on my face. The pain from the knife in my gut was too much for me to handle.

My consciousness slowly faded before I felt cold metal around my wrists. I didn’t hear anything they said, but it sounded like they were pretty surprised about something.

Damn it, this isn’t gonna be good.