Caped (Book 1): The Burdens of Fate (35 page)

Telan tries to fire beams in any direction he
can manage but is unable to maintain his focus.

From Naim, a black mercury type substance
slowly flows off his back and into a puddle around him which slowly envelops
his body. The moment it covers his ears he's able to regain total control,
staggering to his feet just in time enough to block Laurie's incoming charge. A
black mass nearly devoid of form rises from the ground like a demonic creature
and encompasses Naim’s entire frame. He launches a dark projectile at Prisca
who's forced to abandon her attack to avoid it in time. While Kaylie uproots
the mass of earth beneath Naim to break through the controlled substance
surrounding him.

An inopportune time. As the other men lay
motionless on the ground, barely conscious and trying to muster the strength
the continue, fate intervenes at a moment of its choosing; the city begins to
tremble again, just as before, only this time it continues for far longer than
a couple seconds.

The black goop abandons Laurie, tossing him off
into the nearest building and retreating back to Naim where he uses it to surf
across the ground towards Kaylie, dodging Prisca's sonic waves and piercing
through the cracks in the barrier of rock
 
Kaylie’s erected to protect herself.

"I've got her, quickly!" Raphael
yells, appearing only long enough to grab hold of Kaylie and Naim before
vanishing again.

Yuri, still incapacitated, begins to move ever
so slightly, building up momentum until he's capable of reaching towards
Michael at a normal speed. Michael quickly repeats the same incantation to
repeat the process, but with much less success.

Raphael makes a brief return, this time for
Telan who is just beginning to stagger to his feet; and then again for Prisca,
gripping her hair, forcefully yanking her head back, and vanishing.

The rumbling of the area grows greater, the
walls of reality ripple like waves in a pool flooding out from a central point
that grows increasing more unstable. Brutal shaking that borders on the higher
magnitudes of the Richter scale echo through the district. The ground splinters
and the tops of buildings collapse in on themselves.

Raphael returns for Julius Laurie, again
vanishing just as quickly as he'd arrived. And returning moments later to do
the same with Thomas. "Sleep!" he shouts, causing him to immediately
lose consciousness, a fate made worse by the fact that he'd now begun a
free-fall from a lethal height. He grabs onto Raphael's unconscious body and prepares
to use it as a cushion, muttering a short incantation for safety as he falls.

Through the blinding flash of white light that
completely illuminates the area, and the earthshaking, godlike, roar that
accompanies it, collapses a man. His clothes are ripped, skin burnt, and he’s
covered head-to-toe in copious amounts of blood. He screams in pain that
emanates from all over, his flesh still smoking from the heat of re-entry.

Alvin
has returned.

His accelerated healing kicks into affect and
his charred flesh and open wounds begin to vanish.

Thomas rolls off of Raphael's unconscious body
and begins to crawl towards the almost stagnant speedster who, again, has begun
to move.

Thomas screams out in defiance and disbelief,
coughing up blood from his wounded internal organs, yet still repeatedly and
ferociously screaming, "Alvin,
stop him!"

Alvin
struggles to pick himself up from the ground,
bends over on all fours and fights with fleeting strength to straighten his
back. First one foot, and then the other, yet still slouched over and gasping
for air.

Yuri inches towards him at a snails pace that
double with every passing second. Angry and damaged they both charge towards
each other at incredibly human speeds, this lasts only a few moments at which
point they both vanish.

It were as if God himself had ripped the world
to shreds. Destruction capable of understanding only in metaphor, whatever was
left of the broken island of Manhattan ceased to be, cast to the wind like rose
petals in a hurricane. Nothing remained standing taller that a few meters.
Large tracks of water carved their way out towards the high seas.

London
, New Delhi, Venice, Cape Town, Dubai, Sydney,
all left with extensive tracks of destruction carved through them.

Two seconds later and a thunderous boom signals
its end in the very place it began.
The two runners lying
motionless on the ground.
Alvin,
missing part of his arm and Yuri with open wounds around his torso and down his
back, both heavily scarred and with swords through their chest.

On the other side of the great Atlantic, Prisca materializes in a crippled Parisian
cityscape. Caught mid-stride, she immediately launches skyward in her effort to
escape Raphael. An impulsive action which in fact saves her life as a thick red
beam of energy streaks beneath her. Raphael lets her go, followed by the
distinct suction sound of air quickly filling a void.

"I'm going to kill you!" roars Telan
with a bone chilling laughter. "I'll break you and this pathetic
city!"

A few more pot shots come her way which she
easily avoids, rushing towards him while emitting a barely audible but clearly
disorienting sound wave.

"You don't like it when I mess with your
inner ear functions?" says Prisca, sarcastically. "Kinda hard to
stand, huh?"

Telan staggers about, completely unable to keep
his footing; blood drips from his ears. Prisca swoops down and grips him from
behind, darting high up into the sky. He flails about violently, kicking,
jabbing, and firing streams of energy in any direction he can. Half a mile up and
he's trying to grip onto her in any way possible. She places her mouth next to
his ear as if to whisper but makes a distinct popping sound which ruptures his
ear drum. He lets out toe-curling scream. She then leans over to his other,
"Kill me? Sweetie, I'm outta your league."

She makes the same distinct popping sound,
rupturing his other eardrum and then lets him go as if discarding a used
tissue. She finishes with a sonic scream that sends him into a rapid
uncontrolled tumble, watching as his body bends in unnatural ways upon impact.
He is defeated, but she doesn't stop for many seconds. She must be sure,
there's too much at steak.

In her intense focus she fails to notice the
soft glow of light that manifests above her...

Rio De Janeiro
, Kaylie falls through the cityscape to the
ground below. Large balls of the oily tar-like substance shoot up from street
level and encase her body, clinging to her skin.

Kaylie tears off the concrete shells of the
buildings around her, using them to slow her fall. Pulverizing the concrete and
wedging it next to her skin to release the dark matter's grip.

She’s able to break free and uproots a portion
of the street below to ride off towards the lush green jungle and mountains
that tower in the distance behind the city. Large arm like constructs reach out
for her as Naim trails in hot pursuit; deep into the jungle where she raises
one massive column of rock after another. A deep orange sun rises higher into
the sky while Kaylie, against her better judgment, backs herself up against the
side of a mountain, lifting herself upon a mass of rock to its summit. Naim
sinks into the black oily mass and it begins to grow to an enormous size,
towering over Kaylie and shrouding the land in shadow. It forms a dark eagle
shaped creature that fills the whole of her periphery; poised to strike.

Behind the mass rises a dozen monolithic
pillars of earth from the jungle below, and just as the beast begins to attack,
Kaylie slams them into the back of the beast. You could almost hear it scream.
A visual mess of black tar and rock crashing into the side of the mountain.
Kaylie becomes lost between the mesh of muck and rock. The mountain where she
stood, collapsing in and quickly consuming the now formless mass. The ground
sinks and twists as deep pangs and groans emanate from below.

Through the ground the mass begins to peak;
dozens of tentacle like constructs breach the surface only for the ground to
sink in further and the surrounding earth to collapse in on it. The ground heaves
up and down as if struggling to breathe. More pangs and groans, growing weaker
until finally nothing is heard.

From the center of the commotion springs a dark
black mass of rock that lands and crumbles on the ground. Kaylie stumbles from
it covered in the black matter, purging it from her system. She's screaming in
pain and her leg is nearly torn open from her mid-thigh down to her ankle. She
lies down on her back facing the sky, half screaming in pain and half screaming
for help.

A bright burst of white light pierces through
the dense foliage of the jungle, coating the uprooted trees and earth in a
heavenly glow. There is slight a ruckus, after which Kaylie's screams fall
silent.

Gravity has officially made enemies with Laurie
Stahl, he'd been dropped and tossed more times than he'd care to recall and as
he now fell helplessly into an active volcano, this was certainly not his ideal
day.

Julius, a young man, watches from the corner of
the lava pit, the scorching heat wafting over his skin like a warm breeze.

Laurie falls vertically into the lava pool,
fighting the brisk current. He sinks down to the hard rock bottom and pushes
off with great force, bursting from the glowing pool with globs of red-hot lava
still sizzling on his skin.

Julius watches on in frustrated admiration,
rushing quickly over the lava field and tackles Laurie to the ground. He
strikes with a quick combination of blows to the head; Laurie strikes back but
is countered. With a twist of the waist and a push of the leg he is able thrust
the young man off of him, coming to his feet and centering himself just in time
enough to resist another tackle. Laurie hammers down on Julius’ back, dropping
him the ground, and follows through with a hearty kick to his abdomen, which
sends him skidding along the ground.

Laurie reaches down into the ground and flips
over a large chunk of land on top of him. It topples over in the sky before
crashing down directly on Julius. Laurie walks towards with the confident vigor
of his youth, shaking the tension off his arms and wiping the grit from his
face, "Get up! C'mon, that isn't all you've got, is it?!"

The mass begins to slowly move before being
not-so-easily shoved to the side. Julius charges at Laurie with a runners pace,
striking at him with a wild right hook. Laurie blocks in time but the force
alone is enough to sink his feet a half foot into the hardened rock. Laurie
counters with a powerful rib shot which drops Julius to his knees, and quickly
moves behind him for a choke hold. Julius fights back in obvious desperation,
landing one thunderous elbow blow after another without having an effect.

"Give up, son," says Laurie, tighten
his grip. "You're done."

And with a raspy voice, forcing the remaining
air from his lungs, he replies, "You should have killed me when you had
the chance."

The transformation happens so fast Laurie
doesn't have time to act; a stark-white, hairless, and pasty beast that vaguely
resembles his former self except for his towering frame prominent a nose.
Muscular, yet extremely toned. Julius turns to grab Laurie who'd released his
hold, grabbing him by the wrist and slamming him into the ground which buckles
beneath their feet and causes him to lose his grip on Laurie. The massive
release of pressure sends fountains of lava spewing into the sky and out onto
the rocky field.

Julius throws another punch which Laurie
catches against his side before pulling the beast closer for a blow from his
left; it connects, but he doesn't let go. Laurie pulls back for another when a
blow to the hip catches him off guard, followed by a strong blow from Julius'
right. Still Laurie doesn't let go, kicking the beast just behind the knee to
bring him to the ground and leveraging upwards to break his arm. Julius screams
out in pain, backing away from Laurie who pursues relentlessly by attacking
with more body shots. Julius smacks Laurie away, and he skids across the thin
layer of lava flooding the area. Laurie regains his footing and charges again,
leaping high into the air. Julius leaps too, catching him by the ankle, and
hurling him to the ground which cracks and buckles even more.

He comes down directly on Laurie just as he's
emerging from the lava to catch his breath, repeatedly stomping on his head.
Laurie manages to move out the way and grab his ankle, coming to his feet fast
enough to knock him off center. The beast feverishly tries to shake him from
his ankle but Laurie doesn't relent, and in much the same manner as before
manages to knock him down to one knee. Then, like before, Laurie manages to
apply enough downward pressure on his thigh and upward pressure on his shin
that it pops. Checkmate.

Julius screams out in pain but Laurie just
moves in for the finish. Two panicked blows connect on his way in but Laurie
doesn't stop and, with both hands, secures a strong grip around the throat of
the beast, forcing it under the flowing mass of lava. Julius kicks and
struggling in defiance, even managing to come up for air once, but after a few
more blows from Laurie it's assuredly over.