Chapter 13: Heated Battle II

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Firefly staggered back from the hit, dazed and bleeding from his mouth. Blood fell on the ground, flames licking it.

Rule flung another projectile at him, this time a piece of brick, still aiming for his lower face. Firefly's reflexes proved better this time as he raised his arms up to guard his face, the brick hitting his armored arms without doing much damage.

Undeterred, Rule once again launched three other projectiles at him in rapid succession, using multiple bursts of {Almighty push}. Firefly dogged the projectiles by stepping to the side with an assisted fire-propulsed side jump. However, with the close-quarters nature of the corridors they were fighting in, the arsonist quickly found one of his rather large wings banged itself against the wall.“Fuck!” Firefly cursed. Plucking a grenade from his belt and undoing the pin, he tossed it his way. 

Rule effortlessly swapped the grenade with a small piece of junk, the debris harmlessly hitting his force field before falling to the floor. In another room, the loud sound of an explosion rang out.

“Oh, I see how it is!” Firefly snarled before raising his flamethrower and pointing it at him. The arsonist began spraying a wave of fire his way, which he immediately tried to dodge by jumping back, his force fields being rather useless against the threat posed.

Keywords on being tried.

A rush of boiling heat swept across the corridor, grazing his body as the flames licked at his suit.

‘No good.’ He furrowed his brows, sweating.

The corridor was unbearably hot. He has been in here for less than 2 minutes and could already begin feeling himself getting worn out because of the sizzling heat in the air. He hasn’t had the opportunity to properly douse down the fire on this floor before he interrupted Firefly and sent the girl to the sixth floor to save the kid stuck on one of its balconies. 

In assistance of the girl and to make her task easier, he preemptively tore down the whole section of the wall leading to the kid's apartment. While putting to use the makeshift hose by extinguishing the fire that had dangerously gotten too close for comfort to the kid for his tastes; the flames had threatened to cook the kid alive.

Until the girl rescues the kid, he needs to keep Firefly busy and inflict as much damage as possible with his current level of focus.

So it was with fingers curled, that in a sweeping arm motion, Rule ripped apart another wall; from his right this time, putting some debris as obstacles between the two of them.

With another sweeping arm gesture, he broke apart a section of the same wall before diving into the flames and into the opening he created; in an effort to lure Firefly inside with him. More space to dodge his fire would be preferable even if the same space would afford him a bit more maneuverability too.

As expected, the crazed arsonist followed him inside the apartment, springing head first and flamethrower wildly spraying fire around.

Which Rule protected himself from by replacing a piece of concrete lying in front of him on the floor with a half-burned couch, placing the couch right in the path of the burning red flames. The red blaze incinerated the remnants of the couch in literal seconds but it still gave him enough time to jump to the side, thus avoiding most of the flames.

He levitated a huge piece of molted rebar along with numerous smaller pieces of concrete and then launched them at him. The projectiles slammed against the Firefly’s unprotected back and wings, momentarily halting his attacks as the man let out a painful-sounding groan.

Rule renewed his assault with vigor and kept restlessly hurling projectiles at him. Firefly reeled forward, grunting. The arsonist turned around to guard himself against his assault but he simply divided his attention and attacked both from the front – striking his once again unprotected back – and from the back, with projectiles the size and weight of a bowling ball.

“Cockless son of a Whore!” The crazed arsonist roared, turned back around and launched himself straight at him, jetpack wings spread wide like the wings of an eagle as he pounced toward him, having likely come to the conclusion that the fact that Rule kept distancing himself, meant that he didn’t favor a close-quarter fight.

He wasn’t going to oblige with his plans.

As the villain was propelling himself toward him like an arrow, Rule swiftly created and placed a telekinesis forcefield as a shield in his path. Firefly slammed against the invisible force field, letting out a cry of confusion as his charge was halted. The shield held strong but the force of the strike still rattled his mind, sending a stab of pain to the back of his skull.

‘The girl was right. This battlesuit of his is sure annoying as fuck to deal with.’ 

The thing was definitely a grade-C Augmented piece of armor. It was making the task of putting him down way harder than it otherwise should have been – even if he was somewhat holding back. That battlesuit of his was the only reason why the man was still in this fight, even in this intense heat, and after his first opening move when he dropped tons of concrete on his head.

And even right now, the heat, fire and flames were playing to his disadvantage. Rule could feel the heat seeping into his suit despite the fact that it was fire-resistant to a good degree.

However, this was no time to stay in place, he decided, running through what was once this apartment living room/dinner room, switching the place of furniture that were on his way and deftly weaving through the fire and some immovable obstacles. 

He quickly reached the kitchen, Firefly hot on his trail, determined to corner him and not let him put more distance between them.

Rule’s answer to this was bringing down the entire doorway trim’s wall on top of him.

“Shit!” Firefly let out another curse as he found himself buried alive under plywood, drywall and plaster.

As he placed another telekinesis forcefield in front of himself, levitated some pieces of debris in preparation for his next attack—

‘She is finally there.’ Rule noted, relieved.

The girl has reached the sixth floor.

Once she would be out of the building with the kid, this would allow him to allocate more of his focus on dealing with the threat in front of him.

The girl made a bee-line for the apartment, having noticed the small path he made for her as she rushed straight to the kid. Once inside the apartment, she ran to the balcony where upon reaching the kid, she scooped him up, fired a thin cable to a building across the the street and then jumped over the railing, throwing herself out of the building, using a small, square line launcher. Something that greatly surprised him.

The girl safely landed herself and the kid on the street, just at the foot of the building she used to set up her launching line.

The short inattention cost him however. Firefly, having extracted himself from the wall’s fragments he buried him under, brought out the shotgun grenade launcher strapped to his right thigh, aimed it and fired the shell at him.

The shell smacked into his forcefield, destroying it instantly and sending a sharp twinge of pain onto his skull, making him recoil back and hissed in pain. A deluge of heat, a bright flash of light and a loud noise caused by the explosion proved too intense for him, causing his ears to ring despite the fact that his helmet was soundproofed.

Numerous metal fragments of the grenade collided against his second force field, the one shielding his body. The force field shimmered into view briefly, threatening to break due to a combination of his momentary lapse of focus, and the stress that it was put under. However, he held strong, remaining steadfast as he bit his lips and forcefully reigned it back.

Firefly was about to shoot a second shell but he didn’t give him the opportunity to as he swapped the shotgun with a piece of burnt wood outside, putting the weapon out of his reach.

That didn’t deter the arsonist, who went for his flamethrower and discharged its liquid fire at him.

‘Enough is fucking enough!’ Only for Rule to levitate a random piece of debris in his face before switching it with the fire extinguisher he left behind on the fourth floor after using it. 

With a pulse of {Almighty push}, Rule viciously bursted open the extinguisher. The liquid carbon dioxide inside erupted forward in a shower of white foam and red metal shards, extinguishing the flames coming out of the flamethrower and blinding Firefly, completely snuffing out some of the flames surrounding him too. 

Firefly let out a literary of curses and insults at that.

Behind his helmet, his smile was all teeth and shark-like as he savagely pulled apart the apartment’s exterior wall, letting in some much-needed night air ventilate the place.

Firefly tussled with the white foam, widely wriggling his limbs around in an attempt to extract himself from his white foamy predicament.

Hand held high – two fingers close together – Rule swept his hand in a horizontal arc and ducked down.

A jetstream of highly pressurized water suddenly surged forward from behind him and slammed into Firefly, sending him crashing back first a good meter away, knocking the man’s wind out of his lungs.

Rule rolled to the side and stood up, water still gushing out and hosing a down Firefly who was spluttering and groaning, drowning in the water. 

Rule began levitating some debris as he stopped the water assault and directed the stream of water around him, stuffing out the fire that had been raging on.

Amidst the white puffs of steam rising in the room and the sizzling and crackling of the fire that was being extinguished—... Rule let out a contented sigh, feeling alive, adrenaline flooding his veins as a smile of exhilaration stretched across his visage.

“Well, time to finally put an end to this farce.” He said, brushing off his shoulder from some dirt, ash and snoot. “I have better shit to do.”

Firefly coughed and whizzed, spitting out water mixed with a thick glob of blood as he shakily rose to his feet.

He looked at him. While he couldn’t see his eyes because they were hidden behind his mask’s protective lens, he could tell that the glare he was sending him was filled with hate.

“Y-you! You! Fucking bastard! Cockless, worthless son of a bitch!” He swore, “Who the fuck are you to dare stand in my way! Who do you think you are to dare look down at me while in my domain!” He began to rant, “You interrupting the visions of the flames! You stopping me from understanding their message. The fire… the flames… they beckon me, whispering their secrets and visions of riches, glories and the future! And you… you— you encroaching on it!” He spat, “Disrespecting the flames!”

“I don’t give a single fuck about that. You’re a piece of shit who goes around putting buildings on fire and killing people,” Rule calmly pointed out. But there was not hiding the anger in his voice behind the nonchalant tone. “It’s reason enough for me to intervene and beat the shit out of you.”

Firefly snarled and tried to bring up his flamethrower to fire at him before pausing, his eyes flickering to the stream of water hovering nearby– assessing it – he could tell. 

Firefly then turned around and ran, taking him aback. The man had done the mental calculation and concluded that he was outmatched and losing this fight; and thus, had taken the decision to cut his losses and run away.

With a jump assisted by fire propulsion, Firefly launched himself out of the apartment, wings folding back as he used the opening in the wall he made early, to flee. Firefly swerved and made a hard turn before crashing against the burnt door of the apartment next door, then propelled himself and slammed against a wall, then another one before shoulder bashing against the apartment exterior’s wall; the fire having made the wall feeble, he found relatively little to no resistance when he burst through it.

‘Oh no. You don’t!’ He wouldn’t let him escape and continue to run around unchecked and unpunished while causing mayhem everywhere he went.

Out of the building, Firefly spread the wings of his jetpack wide and launched himself into the air, propelling himself by the use of short bursts of flames, flying away while spewing fire.

Rule acted. He created a bigger forcefield than usual, three meters long and five wide, and placed it right on the arsonist’s path. Firefly crashed against the shield head-on, the force field stopping him dead in his tracks while causing him to lose control of his flight. He was precariously wobbling around, in danger of dropping to the ground.

He was no longer moving and was a still target. 

‘Good enough.’

Rule gestured with his hand – sweeping the appendage to the side – and directed the pressurized jet of water sailing toward him. It struck his unguarded back dead on, making Firefly plummet to the ground and violently slam on the concrete street, dropping hard from a 5-meter fall.

Rule sprinted toward the edge of the apartment, and using his telekinesis, he created multiple platforms that served as step footings to step on. He then leisurely hopped down toward the street, closing the distance between them.

People shouted and pointed fingers as they saw him seemingly hovering in the air and slowly coming down. The stream of pressurized water kept flooding Firefly, pinning him down in place on the ground even as he fought to rise and struggled against the water’s pressure.

Multiple broken pieces of debris, flaming concrete blocks, half-burned stones, bricks, rebars and melted steel rods began rising all around Rule, slowly coming to float behind him and taking up a good portion of the space, casting a huge shadow on the street.

People screamed and scurried away from the place, putting as much distance between him and the debris hovering behind that spelled doom.

Rule concentrated, mind churning as he spread his arms wide, fingers curling, eyes alight in preparation for what he was about to do. Firefly’s struggle grew even more frantic and desperate.

‘I’m sure that he can fucking takes it!’

The blaze in his eyes vanished, the debris trailing behind him momentarily wobbling.

Before flaring up with double the intensity. Pupils shrinking, Rule swung his hands down in an X-cross, sending simultaneous pulses of repulsive force behind the projectiles and bringing them down on the man.

A sharp crack was heard and the debris whistled through the air all at the same time before smashing against the down form of Firefly. Multiple thuds and booms rang out throughout the street.

Dust rose around the arsonist, obscuring his view and that of people.

Just in time as he landed on the ground, bending his knees to break the shortfall.

The crowd initially attracted by the fire and people living in the apartments around, began to gather on the scene, surrounding the two of them. He saw the girl he helped jogging and squeezing through the crowd to get to him.

Rule cleared some of the debris around to look at the result of his work.

When the dust finally settled, the crowd gasped. The noise of mutters and chatters picking up in intensity as various people began filming and taking pictures of the scene.

Firefly was lying on the ground unconscious, blood freely flowing out of his unresponsive body and spreading out, painting the street in red. A rod was embedded in his right shoulder, dangerously close to his pectoral. While his left leg was bent the wrong way. He could even see white bone dyed in red sticking out of the limb. A particularly big piece of concrete was crushing his right thigh, which he levitated away.

His battlesuit has seen better days too. The wings were dented and bent, the flamethrower’s muzzle completely crushed while his face mask was ripped in pieces. Rule could see the man’s shattered jaw bleeding all over his throat. The battlesuit proper, sported multiple holes, tears and scratches.

It was a gruesome sight. It also was a miracle that his jetpack hadn’t exploded.

‘Probably not a coincidence. He built it in mind so that even if he gets rough on, it wouldn’t explode on him like a car full of fuel would.’ He evaluated.

Looking down at his unresponsive form, Rule addressed the crowd.

“Someone, call an ambulance.”