Universe in Flames 3: Destination Oblivion (16 page)

“This is boring,”
said Argos. “There’s not much space on this bridge. Let’s change scenery, shall
we?”

Before Chase
could do or say anything Argos burst through the nearest glass windows of the
bridge and the ship lost pressure. Air escaped into space and Chase felt his
body sucked through the hole Argos had just made. He raised a force field
around himself and followed Argos into space right before the ship’s computer
erected a force field of its own, restoring pressure inside the ship.

Chase pursued
Argos through space. He was approaching Earth’s atmosphere at a speed faster
than any sub-light engine could provide. Both of them left an energy trail in
their wake, looking like comets in the dark void of space.

Soon they entered
the atmosphere, their personal force fields lighting up for a few seconds as
they did. As they descended towards Earth, somewhere over Asia, they dropped
their shields and started attacking each other with punches and kicks in the air,
each parrying and dodging the other’s attack. A few fireballs flew here and
there, not finding their targets. The ground was approaching fast. Their
fighting intensified but they were evenly matched and neither took the upper
hand.

They were still
approaching the ground at tremendous speed, aiming a flurry of punches and
kicks at one another. They didn’t even see the skyscraper in their trajectory.
They traversed it, shattering glass and concrete upon both entry and exit. The
branding lights of the commercial skyscraper blinked wildly before turning off.

Then they landed
on the ground in the middle of the city, each creating a fifty-foot crater in
the street’s concrete upon impact.

Chase’s aura
burned its usual deep purple and Argos’ a bright red. Color-matching lightning sparkled
and danced all around them. They locked eyes.

An adolescent who
witness their landing watched the scene with big eyes. He let escape a word of
astonishment. “Sugoi!”

Chase looked at
the boy and made a gesture with his head, signaling him to leave, but the boy
didn’t move. He didn’t like the idea of fighting in a populated area. Fortunately
it looked like a mostly commercial zone, in the middle of the night. Hopefully that
would limit casualties to some extent.

The streets were filled
with bright and blinking lights. From the appearance and the boy’s accent, Chase
identified the city as Tokyo. He intensified his aura and lights around the
city started popping out with sparks and lightning.

He jumped at
Argos and landed a series of power punches. With each, another light would go
out nearby from the shockwave created when Argos blocked the attack. In the
middle of his next combo Chase grabbed two nearby cars with his mind and threw
them at Argos, who only escaped by flying upwards. The cars crashed against one
another and made a commotion, shattering glass. Other nearby cars’ alarms
started to wail.

Chase pursued
Argos in the air and landed a powerful, circling kick to his brother’s face. The
impact shattered a nearby building’s windows and sent Argos flying into the
opposite building, passing through it from one side to the other as if it was
made of carton.

The sky turned
black. Lightning flashed and rain started pouring heavily. Argos rose from
behind the building through which he had just flown and returned at maximum
speed, with both fists extended in front of him. Chase dodged and sent Argos
flying upwards with a perfectly timed knee strike.

He then unleashed
a flurry of fireballs towards Argos, who hadn’t yet recovered from the blow. He
was thrown left and right with each impact, unable to recover or dodge the
sheer quantity of attacks being thrown at him. Buildings and the street all
around lit up in brilliant blue flashes, and more windows exploded in the block
where the fight was unfolding.

When Chase
stopped firing he saw Argos’ body fall to the ground. He seemed unconscious. He
flew after him, ready to deliver the finishing blow. But a few feet before
impacting the ground, Argos somersaulted in the air and landed with a boom,
creating another huge crater in the concrete.

Before the dust
could settle he was already sending cars towards Chase by the dozen. Chase
dodged half of them and had to use fireballs to stop the others, exploding them
to pieces. But then Argos was on top of him with both hands locked, and he
hammered Chase with so much power he almost lost consciousness. He flew towards
the ground and passed through three feet of concrete. The ground-floor windows of
the nearest building all exploded. Water pipes in the street ruptured and water
began fountaining high into the air.

Chase put his
hand on his head and shook it, just in time to see more cars careering towards
him. He jumped away right before five cars smashed the ground where he had been
standing a second before. He flew at maximum speed in between buildings and
Argos went in pursuit.

Then Chase abruptly
stopped, taking Argos by surprise. He punched him with a fireball-lit, right
uppercut, sending him flying upwards. He pursued and, when he reached him, knocked
him back down with an incredibly powerful reverse kick. Argos crashed into the
street at a forty-five degree angle that left a ten-foot-wide and hundred-yards
long trail of broken concrete. More pipes broke along the trail and more water
flew all around.

Not willing to
let him breathe, Chase flew towards Argos and unearthed a tall lighting pole
from the street on his way. He used it as a gigantic baseball bat and sent
Argos flying through three buildings on his way up, ending his homerun somewhere
within the seventieth floor of a fourth skyscraper.

When Chase
entered the building, Argos was getting back up, blood, burns and bruises all
over.

Chase felt his
anger quenching little by little with every bit of pain he inflicted on Argos. But
the pain within his heart was still very present and the resulting hate
overwhelmed him to the core. Would it end once he had killed Argos?  he wondered.
He checked his energy levels and noticed he had used about thirty percent of
his pool of energy. This fight was only beginning.

Argos spat blood
on the floor. “Having fun are we? Think we can take a minute to talk now?”

“As I told you
before, I have nothing to say to you.”

“Yeah I got that,
like twenty minutes ago, but I have things I want to tell
you
.”

“Not interested!”

The floor they
were on was a company’s open space, filled with desks and computers. Chase
started throwing desks with his mind, one after the other, at Argos. He then
kicked him straight in the torso and sent his brother crashing towards the
nearest drink dispenser, which was flattened in the middle where Argos hit it.
Soda cans rolled from the bottom, many exploding on their way out, sending soda
spraying all around.

When Chase
arrived near the dispenser, Argos jumped, grabbed it and used it to smash Chase
and send him flying through three sets of walls in nearby offices. Lights
exploded, sparks flew, and sprinklers turned on.

When Chase jumped
back to his feet, Argos was behind him and had grabbed him by the hips, locking
his hands tight, and they both flew through several walls before exiting the
building. In midair Argos threw Chase away and kicked him in the face, sending
him even higher into the air.

Chase somersaulted
in midair, regained his balance, joined his hands together and created a soccer-ball-sized
fireball that he threw towards Argos. He promptly deflected it with a swift
movement of his forearm and sent the fireball crashing into a nearby building.
Multiple explosions occurred and the top of the building collapsed on itself,
sending a ton of fiery debris and broken glass towards the street below.

“Are we gonna
play this game for much longer?” inquired Argos.

“It’s not a game.
These are your last moments.”

“I don’t think so.
I mean, you’re not nearly powerful enough. You control your anger, instead of
channeling it as you did when I nearly killed your friend on Damocles-3. You’re
nowhere near that level of power at the moment. Therefore we could fight all
night and sure, we would make a lot of noise, probably kill a lot of innocent
bystanders in the process too, but you won’t kill me with this pathetic
display.”

Chase wondered if
Argos was perhaps right. He didn’t feel the same level of power as when he
unleashed his full Fury power during their last fight.

“It might just
take longer, but I’ll end you. This ends here, tonight!”

“Right, then I
suggest you get properly pissed off. You’d think that killing the love of your
life, Sarah, and your unborn child would do the trick, wouldn’t you?”

As the words
echoed within his unconscious mind, Chase went ballistic. The mere uttering of
her name by Argos generated a blast of furious and destructive hatred in every
cell in Chase’s body. His aura glowed ten times stronger and his long hair was
thrown into the air, creating a beautiful, black, dancing flame effect. His
eyes glowed orange and soon the tint of his aura changed from purple to orange
as well.

“There we go,”
said Argos with a crooked smile.

Chase pressed his
fists against his hips and released an inhuman shout that generated a powerful
shockwave. The buildings around Chase were incinerated. His rage was unbounded,
overriding whatever control he had managed before.

He flew so fast
it looked as if he teleported towards Argos, and he unleashed a combo of punches
and kicks at near light speed. Argos blocked only the first few but was soon overwhelmed
by the sheer number of attacks. He miraculously managed to fly away amidst a
few hundred hits. Chase pursued, but Argos collapsed two nearby buildings on
him as he flew past them.

Chase pierced
through their rubble with ease, to Argos’ surprise, and smashed him on the chin
with a powerful, ascending knee strike that sent Argos flying for miles,
destroying one building after another in his wake, until gravity took a hold of
him and he hit water near the harbor. The impact sent tons of water splashing
upwards.

Chase pursed him
underwater, throwing even more water into the air upon entry. He then he
continued hitting Argos with fire-lit punches under water. Many underwater
shockwaves created giant, illuminated bubbles on the surface.

Underwater the
fight was slightly slowed down. Fish of all sizes fled the area; many, caught
in the wake of some of the attacks, were thrown into the air along with the
water.

Argos created a
gigantic fireball and sent it towards Chase, who promptly did the same. Their attacks
met in the middle. Water was driven away in all directions and soon they were
standing within an air bubble they had created. Gigantic bolts of lightning flashed
among the colliding fireballs. Then, at the center, an explosion threw both
Chase and Argos into the air, spinning uncontrollably.

Chase was the
first to recover and he lost no time raining hellfire upon Argos in the form of
dozens upon dozens of medium-sized fireballs, which all found their target. Not
wanting to lose his advantage, Chase flew toward Argos’s face with his knee to
the forehead and sent him crashing back onto the shore of Tokyo’s harbor.

Chase
purposefully landed with force on the bow of a petrol tanker, sending it spinning
above him. He grabbed it by the edge and smashed it down where Argos had crash
landed. The moment the ship impacted with Argos, Chase ignited it with a
powerful fireball. The ship and everything around it exploded, and the entire
area was engulfed in flames.

Then he heard it
in his mind.

“Chase, help me!”
That was Sarah’s voice.

But it couldn’t
be. He was simply going insane.

Tears flowed from
his eyes and were thrown into the air by the intense, pulsating energy Chase’s
aura was radiating.

He flew within
the flames and found Argos motionless in the furnace. He saw Argos’ body on the
ground, flames burning his limbs and blood gushing from a deep cut on Argos’
scalp.

This is it
, thought Chase.
Now I finish this once and for all
.

He approached
Argos. The flames burning all around were repelled by Chase’s aura. He grabbed
Argos by the hair, set his fist on fire and started power punching Argos again
and again. With each punch he could hear facial bones cracking and breaking
under the pressure. Cuts opened and blood flew all over the place.

When he released
Argos, he fell like a rock on the still-burning ground, with a satisfyingly
crushing thud. Chase kicked Argos and sent him flying yards away. With a
thought he sent a powerful shockwave that promptly extinguished the fire around
them.

Argos tried
getting back up but stumbled back onto his face, now a bloody, pulpy mess. One of
his eyes was so bruised it was completely hidden. Argos used telekinesis to
lift himself up, but his legs were shaking.

The moment I
have dreamt of for so long is finally here
, thought
Chase. He approached him calmly and raised his hand with his palm open. Time for
some decapitation.

“Any lasts words,
asshole, before I put you out of your misery?”

Chase’s rage was
palpable. He was a paroxysm of fury. Logic and kindness were a long lost
memory. In this moment he was the pure expression of his inner hate.

“Ye
. . . yeah. Sarah’s still alive
. . . But she will die if you
swing your arm.”

“I’m not falling
for this a second time!” shouted Chase.