Ch 31
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Chapter Thirty Two
Antiphon
—
“I know what you’re thinking.”
Ren’s fingers slipped off the remains of Rook’s neck. He immediately disappeared, one of the fire sprinklers appearing in his place and clattering on the floor. “Why do all this? It clearly isn’t helping the Pangolins at all to crack a couple vertebrae in the kid’s neck.”
His glowing socket turned towards Corey, whose eyes were rolled so far upwards they threatened to disappear into his skull entirely. “Know was a clever man. He said that people who are desperate are far more capable than otherwise, but with the right pulling of strings that capability becomes confidence, and with confidence idiocy.”
“It seemed too contradictory to me. How could someone so desperate also be so confident?” He gingerly laid Corey’s body at the base of the rubble, lightly petting his hair before he stepped across the now supine figure. “He couldn’t use his mask on me, so he tried to circumvent it by hiring Odgu as our leader. Desperation to get around me.”
“I took his fears away by adhering to every word the big insect spoke.” Hawk folded his hands behind his back, passing Ren and failing to draw the Wild Mask’s eyes away from Corey’s body. “That made him confident. And I compounded it into idiocy by taking away any resistance to his plan for getting rid of you.”
“See, he relied too much on his ability to see the future.” He spun about, lowering his head right behind Ren’s ear, watching a tear roll down his cheek. “He bragged about how precise he was with details, always able to predict and account for every thing by his thorough inquiry. Always thinking about the littlest details, never missing the most insignificant particular. I took that away too.”
“And now you have him.” Hawk slowly drew himself up to full height, his teeth glowing in the limited light. “Will he die? Can you save him? You don’t know. Desperation. And Know was right all along.”
“But you have hope, don’t you? Hope that somewhere, somehow, there’s something I don’t know about. Something Know was unable to foresee, something he in his idiocy did not blab about. That I wouldn’t recognize Fred Jones when I saw him.”
Ren’s eyes dragged his head away from Corey in a fraction of a second, locking onto the glowing orange socket that stared down at him. “You think he’s found the other eye, don’t you? Well, he and I had a long talk about his involvement, and I took him on a sightseeing tour of all the greatest places in Japan.”
The baseball bat furiously swung at Hawk’s mask was deflected by the back of the Pangolin’s hand, which turned about and tightly squeezed the wrist that held it. “He loved them so much he decided to stay. Well, all of him except this.”
A small chunk of bone was retrieved from inside a pocket and shoved towards Ren’s face. “A bit of jaw, I think. Don’t look so sad; with how fast he was going, he was pretty well atomized by the time I looked back. He’ll be with you forever like this. In fact, you’re probably breathing him in right now.”
“Tell me,” His glowing eye socket completely engulfed the vision of one of the holes in Ren’s mask. “How’s that for desperation?”
—
Drip
Tone looked down at his gloved hands and followed the path of the droplet to the floor. Recalling that the limousine company would charge extra fines for cleaning, he quickly relinquished his hold over the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat, cradling his hands in front of him and watching despondently as droplets fell into the stomach of his otherwise spotless shirt, hoping to mimic what Ren might expect to see based on his previous comment.
The flurry of thoughts that rushed through his head concerning Corey were immediately quashed by the sudden appearance of bright lights directly to his right. Even as he flinched away instinctively, Tone’s mask stopped the incoming van in its tracks with a pulse, acting as a hard barrier which the van plowed into at full speed.
“Gotta move.” Tone nearly twisted the key in half as he started the limo, tapping at the radio on his hip. “Race, stop what you’re doing and get over here pronto. I’m on one thirty seven, moving away from twenty three. Hurry it up, we’ve got Koi Blood after us.”
“Never a dull moment.” The limousine slowly crawled forward off the shoulder, barely managing to get up to speed before a number of black vans emerged from parking lots and side streets, all bearing down on the ceremonial vehicle. “How polite of Makuei not to tell us.”
—
Ren’s fingers dug into the elaborate support holding the massive chandelier on the ceiling. He had almost fallen off, as Rook’s swap had been less precise than what he would have preferred, but a careful use of his mask was more than enough to compensate for the discrepancy.
And since the universe didn’t seem to like that very much, Rook’s reappearance took out that center support he was clutching, tearing the much less capable side supports out of the ceiling and sending the chandelier into a spiraling tumble towards the distant floor. Sliding off, Ren desperately clutched at several of the decorative flourishes on the chandelier as the floor spun about beneath him, trying to determine in his disorienting fall which way was up and how close the impact was to Corey.
Hawk wasted no time bolting away from the incoming chandelier, seemingly unaware of the disembodied head floating above him and matching his speed. Just before the chandelier was due to collide with the floor, Ren zipped out from underneath it, rolling across the floor and trying his best to land in a ready position. The moment his fingers released the decoration, it disappeared, swapping places with Rook and smashing into Hawk at full speed, crushing him into the floor.
“Rook.” Ren huffed, pointing the bat at his radio, which had been flung from him during his roll. Without looking, Ren held his other hand underneath Rook’s head and caught the radio as he swapped with it. “Race, I need-”
“Race, stop what you’re doing and get over here pronto.” Tone’s voice crackled over the speaker. “I’m on one thirty seven, moving away from twenty three. Hurry it up, we’ve got-”
“How impolite.” Hawk grinned, bursting out from underneath the chandelier with blinding speed and lunging at Ren. As he flinched from the impact which thanks to Rook’s swapping never came, the radio in his hands sputtered and fell silent.
“I thought we were having a conversation.” Hawk swept back in, the glowing orange light in his right eye socket bearing down on Rook for a brief moment. “Weren’t you taught to respect your elders?”
Ren doubled back, his pupils dramatically shrinking as Hawk’s massive fist tore through the snout of his mask, cracking it off and shattering it into a thousand splinters. What remained of the mask pushed itself to the limit, trying desperately to dodge the incoming hand which grabbed at his shirt front.
“Looks like I found your speed limit.” Hawk chuckled, lifting Ren into the air. “We need to have a talk away from all this noise.” His eye bore into Rook for another moment, and the pair quickly ascended, flying through one of the many holes in the glass walls of the building.
Rook slowly turned around, trying desperately to gather his thoughts, when his eyes landed on Race’s expression, despondent horror soaked into every pore of her skin. Her eyes shifted from the static form of Corey to the decapitated head, which tipped itself back ever so slightly in reply. There was an unspoken message between them, desperation in one pair of eyes and obstinate resilience in the other.
With a deep and shaky inhale, Race disappeared.
—
Tone’s fingers screamed at him to stop gripping the steering wheel quite so violently. The vans that descended upon him were driving far more recklessly than the ones that had pursued Race, and the limousine was already beyond returning, having been too badly battered by the vehicles.
The blare of sirens made it clear that, while the police were too cautious to approach the ruined hotel with the many masked freaks flying about, they had no compunctions with taking out the manic yakuza. As the surrounding buildings became more and more rural, Tone growled under his breath and took a sharp left to keep following one thirty seven as long as he could.
“There you are.” Tone sighed as Race appeared next to him. “What took you? We’ve got less and less city here, I’m worried we might hit someone-”
His voice immediately died out as he got a good look at her, with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest and her eyes sullen and averted. She was undoubtedly smaller than he had even seen her before.
Another one of the vans smashed into the rear fender of the limo. “I’ll need the two in the back taken care of. Make sure you don’t tag them until they won’t hit the cops behind them. Go.” He swerved dramatically to avoid the full impact of another van, sending a pulse to crack its side window in reply.
The side door of one of the vans in pursuit opened, and one of the men inside turned sharply towards the sudden appearance of Race. Two shots were fired point-blank, which clattered to the floor as Race stepped away from him, the magazine of his handgun suddenly absent and the belt from around his waist now tied around his ankles, dropping him to the floor. She calmly walked to the front of the vehicle, entered the passenger seat politely offered to her by the unconscious man whose head she had slammed into the airbag cover, and waited the two seconds it took for the driver to notice her.
Three well-placed seated kicks to the ribs brought his gun arm down before he could fire back, and leaning across him Race calmly slammed his head into the side of the door at high speed a couple times while her foot searched for the brake. The van began to decelerate, and as it did so Race pulled one of the high-caliber rifle rounds out of her pocket and aimed it at a sign further along the road, sticking off the overpass of E6.
BANG
Her thumb slammed into the base of the shell at high speed, firing the bullet at the primary connection point of the sign. It hinged down, and Race took her hands off her ears and gripped the wheel. The sign hinged down, snapping off another connection point and flipping directly into the path of the oncoming van. It screeched and turned, but was unable to avoid slamming into the sign and blocking another van behind it.
“How many more are there?” She asked, causing Tone to jump slightly at her sudden reappearance. “I’ve been down here before, you’re gonna run out of road soon.”
“I know.” Tone grumbled, his hands slipping on the wheel as his gloves became too saturated to maintain his grip. “Go ahead of me, try to keep the road clear. And tell me if there’s any buildings in the way of a straight shot to the ocean.”
“Clear any ‘no diving’ signs, got it.” Race mumbled, disappearing once more as the buildings broke away into empty fields and distant farmhouses. The cold air whipped around the limousine as Tone lowered the side window, running his weary fingers through the air to fight back against the pain.
A thought occurred for a brief moment. Clenching his fist, he smothered the thought until he could not discern it any further. There would be time for weakness later, years and years into the future, when there was no Corey to protect and no criminal organizations to destroy.
“…The dear one’s all…”
—
Ren felt a droplet hit his hair.
“You look tired.” Hawk’s teeth shone in the darkness, the distant lights from the entrance occasionally striking his grey face. “I haven’t felt what tired was like in years.” His glowing eye repeatedly drew Ren’s attention away from his efforts to not slip out of his shirt and fall to the ground, the Pangolin’s hand still clutching the front of it.
“Do you know if he sees what I see?” Hawk’s voice did not match his expression, a subtle melancholic air slipping into each syllable. “One eye is the Demon’s, and the other is dead. I’m seeing both infinity and utter finality at the same time. My inclinations are his, my mind is his. Or is there a mind? Am I subject to the whims of this invisible host, or is it he who is subject to me?”
“What’s your game?” Ren gargled, his chin pressed up against the top knuckle of the immovable extremity.
“I haven’t decided.” Hawk loomed, the angle of his head making his permanent grin all the more ferocious. “If why, then why not? Why not deceive Know into getting him killed? Why not vaporize Fred Jones? Why not lose? Why not win?”
“I’m a dead man, boy.” The glowing orange haze enhanced the silhouette of the droplets that passed through it. “Nothing matters. I go as long as I can, and I do what I please along the way. Your little group couldn’t ever have threatened my fun, and I’ll toy with the lot of you 'til there’s nothing left to do.”
“I just figured you should know.” Hawk lightly tapped the tip of his finger against Ren’s nose. “Now we’ve got one more dance tonight before it’s over, and I’ll lead with this.”
Hawk’s free hand slid his middle and fore fingers around Ren’s throat, but before much pressure could be applied Ren disappeared, his fingers now crushing the inanimate cables and cords of the decapitated head of Rook’s frame. In a lightning-fast motion, Hawk’s hand smashed into Rook’s mask, pulling it off his former frame and letting the peculiar head fall to the earth below.
“I’ll break you for that one.” Hawk clamped both hands on the sides of Rook’s mask and shoved his thumbs into the middle of it, but it suddenly disappeared, leaving him to break a sodden leaf in two. “I see… He never needed a frame to use his power. That’s a shame. And there he is now.” His glowing socket eyed the distant shoreline. “Should I…”
“Nah.” The fiend soared through the air, aiming towards the base of the once elegant skyscraper. “It’s more fun this way.”
—
"How on earth do they have so many vans?"
Tone looked over his shoulder as yet another black van barreled past him, as one that had already sped past the limousine had taken out the side mirror. The sky was flashing red through the rain, which now smashed against his windshield in waves as he neared the open sea.
“How many?” Tone immediately commented as Race reappeared in the passenger seat, swerving as another van veered away from him, caught on one of the small concrete blocks that lined the side of the road, and smashed into a telephone poll. “How many vans, Race?”
“Seven before that.” Race reappeared yet again, having disappeared for a fraction of a second. “Car doors don’t like it when I do that so quickly.”
“My condolences.” Tone growled, tugging on one of the steering wheel’s middle supports as another van tried to force his rear bumper off the edge of the asphalt. “I’m gonna need you to get out now, stand somewhere next to the water. If all goes well, we won’t have to worry about-”
“I already had to leave him and I’m not leaving you.” Race snapped, locking eyes with Tone as he turned towards her in surprise. A second of uninterrupted silence reigned supreme in the limo despite the torrential downpour and the the encroaching vehicles.
"I said OUT." Tone snarled, his brows smothering the implication in her words. “Get to the water, you’re gonna need to move quick if this works. Move it.” He turned his eyes from her and did not return them.
“Alright, Corey,” Tone gritted his teeth, reaching across the empty passenger seat and buckling the seatbelt before tightening it down, a red droplet running down the edge of it as he gripped it. “Stay safe.”
A turn in the road indicated the final stretch before the run to the coastline. Yanking on the steering wheel, Tone sharply drifted around the bend and did his best to ignore the sound of one of the vans failing to slow down in time. A narrow bridge cut off another van, but one of the remaining five slammed into his bumper, causing his already speeding vehicle to hydroplane, pushed along by the much bulkier vans behind him.
Tone fought the desires of the limo to spin out with his mask as much as he could, finally sending a pulse to the top of the vehicle with enough force to partially collapse the ceiling that reconnected the tires with the road. slamming on the gas, Tone pushed as fast as he could before sending the limo into an incredibly sharp turn, rolling it almost instantly, with just enough momentum to carry him out the moment he opened his door.
The rolling limousine cleared the large concrete slope and flew out into the water, but a massive pulse at the peak of its arch flung it significantly further, cratering its side as it departed. Tone was flung in the opposite direction, rolling down the slab at high speed and skidding across the sand as the pursuing vans rocketed past him, unable to slow their momentum in time. Standing back up, Tone ducked back down as the final van barreled towards him, a couple of powerful pulses cratering the front and aiding the momentum of the vehicle to carry it over his head, a small piece of metal scratching against his mask as it went and spewing sparks into the sand.
The flashing red lights quickly descended on him, filling the air with their blinding glare. Orders were shouted at him in Japanese, orders he could not understand, but the implication was obvious. Turning his head as subtly as possible, Tone was barely able to make out the vague silhouette of Race standing on top of one of the police vehicles, almost fully shrouded by the night sky.
Get to Ren.
As the silhouette disappeared into the darkness around it, Tone slowly raised his hands and lowered himself onto his knees, quietly murmuring to himself as his wrists were forced behind his back and he was pushed onto his stomach.
“I owe you one, Corey. Remind me to make it up to you.”
—
“Corey?”
Ren reached out a hand to touch the boy on his cheek, but spun about as Hawk suddenly reappeared, the air rushing after him. His mask prevented the first two blows from landing, but could only lessen the impact of the must faster third, which slammed into the pit of his stomach with bruising force.
Hawk grinned even further as he turned towards Corey, and sensing something different about his demeanor, Ren rushed forwards, grabbed Hawk’s thumb, and violently yanked it in the opposite direction, forcing his body, however lifeless, to respond and follow the motion. As he turned, a beam of light erupted out of the amber eye, whipping around the room and bathing it in a yellow light, the heat of which made Ren flinch away as the air around him briefly stung. The building immediately groaned in reply.
“Cheater.” Hawk spun about and gripped Ren by the front of his shirt again, seemingly unconcerned by the sight of the steel supports wreathed in what remained of the concrete statues slowly start to slide off their lower halves, carved in two by the peculiar beam. “I would’ve made that shot.” His free hand delicately pinched Ren’s mask, pulling it off his face as his other hand made it impossible for Ren to dodge the maneuver.
Pocketing the broken wolf mask, Hawk eyed the beams as they slipped, which prompted the horrible thundering of the hotel that followed as it began to tip forwards. “You know, I think we’d better split before we’re crushed. No no, I insist.”
Flying up diagonally, Hawk moved to beat out the advance of the building, as Ren tried desperately both to stay in his shirt and keep gripping his bat. As the pair sped alongside the ruined glass wall which threatened to crush them, Ren’s hands clamped onto the sides of his head in retaliation to the noise which roared from all directions. The squeal of steel twisting about under the immense pressure was almost intolerable, but Hawk was barely able to miss the lip of the roof, and the noise lessened, with the Pangolin moving above where the building had first stood and watching the massive eruption of dust that followed.
“Oh.” Hawk’s voice trailed off into silence, the smile fading from his lips as he looked at the ruin beneath him. Ren’s eyes welled up with tears as he tried to find some solace in what had occurred, some sign that Corey had survived, some impossible presence of purple cloth he had not worn that night. The wreckage continued to crumble for a moment longer as Ren’s limbs started to shake and his breath became more and more erratic.
“Whoops.” Hawk’s glowing eye landed on Ren as the most vile, twisted, and utterly smug grin took control of his features, splitting his mouth into a grin far greater than anything he had ever shown before. “I forgot to grab Corey.”
Ren’s shuddering body translated its pangs of sorrow into a boiling rage, his nostrils flaring furiously and his teeth bared almost as boldly as his opponent’s reflective grin. The tears that had welled up in his eyes were spilling over the hand that held him, and as his blood boiled he viciously bit down on the unnatural skin in front of him to little effect, while his feet kicked out at the torso of the figure in front of him.
“I’ve an idea.” Hawk sneered, undeterred by the retaliation as the pair began to rise, higher and higher. “I don’t need to breathe, but you do. If I get you into orbit I can watch your head pop from the pressure, and you can die knowing you could do nothing to save him.”
Twisting about, Ren’s furious and incoherent yells went unacknowledged as Hawk’s gaze turned towards the skies, and after a moment of ineffective contorting he managed to slip somewhat out of his shirt, taking the opportunity to lunge forward as far as he could. His fingers barely touched the mask, catching the corner of it in the tip of his middle and ring fingers.
He pulled it off.
Hawk immediately plummeted, the mask following behind as Ren’s swipes to grab it out of the air failed to connect. The massive hand relinquished its grip on Ren’s shirt as the pair began to fall faster and faster, the mask being too aerodynamic to ride the air at all as it descended. Ren tried to kick off Hawk and reach the mask, but his hand grabbed the back of Ren’s belt and pulled him away from the ancient wooden carving.
Ren felt Hawk’s arms wrap around his waist and pin his hips to the giant’s body, but he refused to take his eyes off the hooked mask. Hawk’s laughter vibrated through his body, the glowing orange eye in the socket of his opponent illuminating the air beneath him.
Looking down, Ren suddenly clamped one hand over the giant’s glowing eye, reaching out with the opposite hand towards the mask. The air was too thick to see where the mask was, and his eyes stung from the debris and smoke, but the power of the eye glowed through the backside of his hand, silhouetting the bones inside. His desperation pushed forwards, hoping that somehow the power of the eye would force the mask to near him.
The air grew so thick that the sky was obscured from vision. Ren’s body was stretched to its absolute limit, and his eyes slowly shut as it seemed the calling of the ground below was impossible to hold back any longer. And as the sensation of the world below reasserting its existence crept under his skin, with the rain matching the speed of his descent, his fingertips brushed against the edge of the mask.
Hawk’s hold could not resist the force at which he moved, slipping out from the behemoth’s grip and sending the Pangolin spinning out. The impact that followed was one Ren was not present for, as the leader of the Wild Masks quietly swept through the sky, letting his racing heart return to a state resembling normalcy.
The rain was quiet compared to the thunder in his mind, and as he slowly flew back to where Hawk had landed, descending as gracefully as he could, the noise grew louder and louder. The sensation of his feet softly returning to the earth was ignored at the sight of Hawk skewered on one of the ruined primary supports, which had been sheared and twisted into a fine point by the falling building. The beam had entered his body just above his knee, and exited out the shoulder blade on the opposite side, completely eviscerating his lower leg and doing significant damage to his chest.
Yet despite the severity of the injury, he seemed undeterred by it or by anything else, confidently beaming his ever-present grin at Ren as he silently approached. The face had perhaps once been the visage of a blunt, yet kindly man, but now was marred with savagery and death. One eye glowed orange, the Demon eye, while the other was entirely grey, matching the deep and lifeless tone of the rest of his skin. The twisting wounds that emanated from his right eye socket ruined any emotional appeal his visage may have possessed, but there was a finality in his manner that silently spoke the message in his absent heart long before he opened his mouth.
“Like a beetle.” He chuckled, gesturing as best he could to the metal beam passing through him. “No mercy, please and thank you. I know your rules about killing and I’ve never thought much of it.”
“Just so we’re clear,” His manner implied a motion of leaning forward despite his inability. “The mask is in my left pocket. One day you’ll have to tell me how they manage to fit in spaces too small to accommodate them. My, my!” Hawk chuckled at Ren’s unchanging expression and immovable gaze. “On a mission, are you? Well, I won’t keep you from it any longer. Just tell me, before I go… How did it feel?”
“How did what feel?” Ren flatly replied.
“The desperation.” Hawk’s voice tried to hide its curiosity under a condescending air. “I’m told it feels like it’ll never end.”
Ren didn’t reply. His fingers reached for the orange light.
—
The rain that had previously been yet another force pushing against him now felt like nails dipped in frost, stabbing into his skin and reminding him of a bruised stomach and aching leg. The wolf mask felt alien on his skin, the hooked mask Hawk had worn now tucked in his pants pocket. The world was at the wrong angle. Nothing felt how it should.
Race’s appearance caught his sullen gaze, and the mortified eyes of his cohort recalled the reason for her concern to his mind. Turning, he rushed towards the ruinous heap of rubble, darting under a broken beam to where Corey had laid, and where Race now speedily cleared any debris she could lift on her own.
One large slab of what had formerly been the ceiling now covered the spot. With a tremendous amount of effort they forced it aside, and Race cleared the rocks that lay underneath it.
Nestled in a wreath of debris, the wooden fragments shimmered in the limited light, their silver exterior even more brilliant than the mask Ren wore. He and Race looked down at them in silence, the pattern of the crushed pieces arranged in the shape of a five-pointed mask.
—
Ch 33
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