Chapter Fifty-Six

Lux looked up at me and sneered. “Don’t you remember what I just said? We’re all villains at this point. The civilians don’t matter anymore. They won’t be around if I don’t win this fight. To me, they are secondary.”

“Don’t you realize this type of mindset is what caused me to become bloodthirsty in the first place?!” I shouted. 

He laughed. “Now you’re self reflective? Too little, too late.”

He shot a green beam at me. I conjured an ice shield that absorbed the attack, but he flickered and appeared behind, throwing a wild hook with an energy-lit fist. I ducked it in time and froze his feet in place before sliding up to him and uppercutting him high into the air. His back snapped and his eyes flashed as a wave of green energy shot out from behind him, indicating he stopped himself from going any higher. 

Next, he pressed the bottoms of his palms together and shot a beam of energy directly downward. I got out of the way in time, but the spread of the beam making contact with the concrete caused cars surrounding me to explode. I lowered the temperature around myself to slow the fire from reaching me, but he appeared, barreling through it and punched me into a convenience store front.

The cashier gasped. I glanced at her, then averted my eyes, keeping watch for Lux. “Get out of here. Now.”

She tried to hop over the counter, but a stray beam came through the store, missing me and obliterating the cashier. I gritted my teeth and froze the hole in the wall of the store, knowing it wouldn’t stop Lux, but I knew he’d attack it, thinking it’s where I was. Instead of planning, I took a second to mourn the cashier’s ashes, before Lux punched through the ice wall I set up. The shards from the wall flew past me, but I manipulated them to float next to me and point at the Noble. 

“Why prolong this?” he questioned. 

“You tell me.”

“You’re terrified of dying.”

“That so?”

“You’ll be glad to see your friends again, but you truly won't know where you’ll end up ‘cause of the things you’ve done.”

“Who’re you trying to convince?”

That shut him up. I tried to send the ice shards at him, but he flickered and appeared just in front of me, swinging. I shifted my foot and caused ice spikes to rise from where I was standing. He grimaced, powerless to stop his own swing as my spikes rose through his chin, skewering several vital areas of his body. He groaned as his blood dripped down the clear, frozen water that held him prisoner for a moment. 

I knew this wouldn’t kill him and walked past his regenerating body to step outside to see how much damage was done. It appeared as though any civilian that could have cleared out did, but I was sure there were stragglers. That’s when Adriel reappeared, ready for more orders. 

A streak of lightning split the sky as the Fractional Angel landed at the store front. He looked at me and pointed inside. I nodded and he sighed before looking at the rest of the city with me.

“How do we stop him?” Adriel asked. I exhaled.

“I’ve yet to figure that out,” I admitted. “I’ve pretty much just been stalling the whole time, but that’s only going to get more innocents hurt.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Just save anyone you can. I don’t think this’ll end well.”

“For who?”

“Me. Him. Or anyone in Haven.”

He nodded and bolted off. I turned around to face the store front again to see Lux was stepping outside, almost completely having healed from his mortal wounds. He raised his arms and glared at me.

“This can all end when you’re dead.”

“I’m aware.”

“So why fight this? Why continue to fight me? You don’t have a way to kill me.”

I tried to flash freeze him, but he dodged and counterfired, hitting me in my rib. This stunned me long enough for him to dash up to me, grab me, and chuck me to the apartments above the store front. I crashed through the bricks and landed in a living room. Thankfully the apartment was empty and I had hoped the rest of the building was because his next attack came from beneath me as he sent a blast from the ground floor that shot me all the way up to the roof. 

Before I had a chance to even set myself upright mid-air, I saw Lux’s pissed off glare appear as I tumbled, then I felt a guttural punch that sent me back through the building. The sounds were something that were difficult to describe, but it was a combination of screaming, crunching, crumbling, shattering. All boosted to the hundredth power. I was saddened as I lay there, waiting for my body to heal, realizing not everyone had made it out. 

Through the dust I saw a green glow as Lux slowly made his way towards me. Where he was placed in the cloud made him seem even less human. It was difficult to shape his face as I could barely see through the hot bright green burning from his eyes as his fists lit up.

I sat up and pushed some of the rocks off me as I heard lightning crackling in the distance. I had only hoped that was Adriel saving others from this building and the surrounding ones that would be affected by this one’s collapse. 

“You know, as many villains as I’ve faced and taken down, I gotta admit, you’re definitely one of the most stubborn,” Lux said. “Your healing factor isn’t much better than some of them and worse than most of them, yet you continue to get up. It's admirable. But annoying as shit.”

“Well, then I apologize for the inconvenience,” I said, rolling my shoulder before popping it back into place. 

“Shall we continue?”

I sighed, staring at the shattered ground before me. I wasn’t physically tired, as my stamina was unaffected by this fight. My mental stamina, on the other hand, was drained. I thought there was only one possible temporary solution that could slow him down while I came up with a way to permanently end him that didn’t end up with me dead as a result. I just needed a way to get him to the river without him realizing I was setting him up.

Unfortunately, this would require me to fight him in multiple areas of the city, putting more innocents in harm's way.