Empires | Arc 1 | Chapter 7 | How Dare You?

Taglia has his back turned against them. As Jarrod‘s voice reaches his ears, he sighs, mumbling, “Fuck. Me!”

Then he slowly turns to face them with a casual smile and says, “Name’s Taglia… needed some money so I decided to tag along with these guys.” He slowly raises his hands to his sides, saying, “I am not leading them, nor was I the reason the meteors dropped.” Then he looks to the ground, mumbling, “Though the damage might have been partly my fault.”

He looks up again, saying, “But now that you have stopped them, my job is officially terminated, so why don’t you let me go? You stop all these guys, you can be this city’s hero, and I can…” He looks up at the night sky, thinking, and finally puts his head down to look Jarrod in the eye. With a terrific level of acting, he says, “Visit my therapist and process what happened… it’s a lot, you know.” Taglia makes his voice tremble to sound genuinely unsettled.

But Jarrod looks like he left mercy back in the tower when he departed in a hurry.

Jarrod steps forward, his voice dangerously low, fists clenched so hard that the blood is being drained from his hands, and says, “You think this is a simple business transaction… people died. Lives were lost which weren’t supposed to be! And you are responsible, even if you aren’t the catalyst of it all.”

Taglia gives a calm smile as his eyebrows go flat, the acting mask dropping.

It’s not like how Jarrod‘s words hit Leon; it’s quite the opposite. It’s like Taglia is seeing a limbless man trying to swim the ocean, but instead of feeling rejuvenated by his willpower or at least pity, Taglia looks disgusted. Jarrod is trying to bring an absurd amount of righteousness into what, for Taglia, was indeed a simple give-and-take gig!

So Taglia says, “When did I not take responsibility for all this? I just said what’s done is done, and we should go our separate ways.”

Jarrod is beyond words at this point. Friling and Lesca hear the last line coming out of Taglia‘s mouth as Jarrod, in an instant, uses Pull.

Raising his left hand, palm facing Taglia, this time much stronger, he tries to bring Taglia to him. Surprisingly enough, it works. Taglia gets pulled toward Jarrod. Partly because Jarrod now knows Taglia‘s mass since the cafe encounter, and partly because this is the definitive proof Jarrod has gotten stronger.

Friling turns back and shouts, “Lesca, take cover!”

Lesca is looking at Taglia being dragged toward Jarrod with a slight tilt of her head, like how a child reacts when they are in the zoo for the first time. But Friling‘s voice breaks her trance as she looks quietly at Friling‘s face before taking a few steps back, giving the boys some space!

As Taglia is being pulled toward Jarrod, he curls up his fingers to make a fist. The moment he gets close, he uses his foot on the ground, sprinting the remaining distance and closing the gap between him and Jarrod. This breaks Jarrod‘s calculation of what his next move will be, and before he can block, Taglia‘s punch lands on Jarrod‘s solar plexus.

The impact is so strong that it pushes Jarrod at least 25 feet backward.

While Jarrod is still on his feet, the moment his sliding backward stops, he vomits out thick red and black blood which splatters onto the road. He is coughing, putting a hand over his mouth. Taglia looks unfazed, his fist still suspended in mid-air.

Jarrod, while controlling his coughing blood by putting his left hand over his mouth, extends his right hand toward a nearby car and activates Pull. The car gets pulled toward Jarrod. As it is in a perfect triangular position between Jarrod and Taglia, Jarrod uses Push and throws the car at Taglia.

Lesca, a few meters away from their clash, narrows her eyes as she sees that Taglia‘s duster coat gets a little tighter around his arms and shoulders, the same way his cargo pants get tighter around his calves. The car hits and drags itself, and possibly Taglia, inside a nearby building as the car bursts through its window.

Jarrod has bought some time.

Friling, as soon as seeing the opportunity, runs toward Jarrod to heal him!

Lesca roars out, for the first time out of character, “Stop… Above you!”

Friling freezes and slowly looks up; so does Jarrod, and sees Taglia on the top of a lamp post, perfectly balancing himself as the tips of his boots are on the small surface top of the lamp post.

Jarrod doesn’t wait, puts his hands at his sides, palms facing the ground, and uses Push to jump to cover the distance between him and Taglia, who is a couple of feet above him. As he is closing the distance, Taglia simply hops, and

BOOM!

He is gone, but that sonic boom is enough to blow out the lamp post into shreds and throw Jarrod backward simply by the shockwave release from his hop. As Jarrod is about to hit the concrete floor or a wall, Taglia appears behind him and kicks Jarrod on his left flank, sending him flying away.

Friling realizes the force of that kick; if Jarrod hits something at that speed, he will not survive! He opens his wings and flies after Jarrod to catch him.

Friling uses all his stamina and then some more to catch Jarrod. He reaches up to Jarrod‘s feet, grabs them, and pulls him back by extending and spreading his wings fully in the air, using his wings as speed brakes to cut the momentum of the throw.

Again, Taglia simply stands there mid-motion, one leg in the air, as he stares toward where Jarrod has flown off to, Friling following.

Lesca is watching the whole thing, her eyes wider than usual.

Her mind is trying to process what is going on in front of her eyes.

First, the disappearance when Jarrod threw the car at him—he went supersonic, but why wasn’t there a sonic boom?

Then second time he went Mach again when at the top of the light post, but this time there was a sonic boom when he broke the sound barrier, and then the shockwave pushback.

The question that is bothering Lesca is how the hell he can go Mach speed while controlling the sonic boom as he wishes?!

Lesca wants to walk up to him and ask him point blank, but something in her heart or maybe in her gut tells her that there is still time to do it! All she can do right now is observe him as much as she possibly can!

Jarrod, on the other hand, is bleeding from his nose and mouth from the punch. Then the sonic boom shockwave caused him concussions; his head is zinging. And the kick, he is sure, has broken or fractured his left elbow and a couple of left-side ribs.

Friling holds him up, saying, “You cannot beat him hand-to-hand, Jarrod!”

Jarrod whispers, “Then what do I do? All I know is direct confrontation. If I do not use head-on attacks, my Heat is useless!”

Friling says, “That’s not true and you know it! Use your Heat as a distraction as I give you cover. Let’s do it together!”

Jarrod finally looks up from the ground, saying, “Together? Friling, you cannot fight, and if something happens to you because of me…”

Friling cuts him off, saying, “Okay, first of all, we are a team! And second, how can you say I am not a fighter? Just because you have only seen me heal and not fight, do not assume things, my friend.”

He lightly elbows Jarrod‘s chest, a playful gesture but with heavy psychological underlining. Friling already knows Taglia is a different breed from how he moves, and right now Jarrod is their only defense, but his morale is at an all-time low.

So Friling is trying to make him feel like everything is okay while it clearly isn’t!

Jarrod huffs, “Oww!”

As Friling holds him around his shoulder and waist to stand him up, Jarrod stands up and nods, and Friling extends his wings again and flies toward Taglia.

They start their second charge, Friling forward. As he gets close to Taglia while maintaining his vantage point from the sky, he flaps his Raphael’s Wings to create a gust. He knows it’s not going to make Taglia move an inch, while ordinary humans would get tossed away; he is making sure Taglia is distracted.

Taglia, as predicted, does not move an inch on the ground. He only uses his right hand to cover his eyes from the dust and debris as Jarrod comes running, using Push to throw everything from the street—cars, bikes, cycles, billboards, fire hydrants, benches, small plantation trees, light posts—at Taglia.

And then as they hit Taglia, and they do because Taglia is distracted by the wind, Jarrod uses Push again by spreading his arms wide, like mashing them on Taglia, like squeezing a piece of paper, with the intention of crushing him!

Lesca thinks,

Did Jarrod forget his no-harming rule?

Was Leon right when, during their fight, he called Jarrod a hypocrite—that under real pressure, Jarrod will always choose himself?

Or is it the pent-up stress of the last few days and the agonizing pain in his body, especially since he is using his left arm, which is pretty much cracked!

From any normal civilian’s view, Jarrod is pushed into a corner and abandoning his code. But from the point of view of Heat users, maybe Jarrod has already calculated that this much pressure is not enough to crush Taglia; rather, it may break his arms and shoulders, incapacitating him effectively so that he can be taken into custody.

But will it work?

Before everyone present can find out, something happens! Taglia is being genuinely crushed as he finally growls, shifting from pain to frustration, and then to pure wrath!

“AhhhhHahhhhh!”

As his duster begins to tear around his arms and shoulders, veins are showing at the back of his forearms.

His 5’10” frame starts to become almost 6’2″.

Lesca, from a distance, can see Taglia become more vascular, more defined.

Taglia stomps one of his feet on the ground and a sonic boom hits—

DHAM!

He is up in the air; the shockwave blasts Friling away in the sky.

Jarrod screams as the sonic boom and the shockwave hit him simultaneously while he is on the ground.

“AAAAHHHHHHHH!”

As he stops his Push to cover his ears from exploding, the cars, bikes, and billboards covering Taglia get thrown off, first by the sonic boom, and then they drop on the ground as Jarrod‘s Heat deactivates.

Seeing the opportunity that Friling is nowhere near and Jarrod is down, Taglia pushes his legs in mid-air, using the air current as a pad, and launches himself using supersonic speed to close the gap between him and Jarrod.

Lesca catches it as her eyes narrow and the pieces fall into perfect place: Muscle Manipulation!

Unlike an ordinary person who only has control over their entire body or a full limb—like a person can move his hand, but can an ordinary person transfer his bicep muscle fibers toward his front delt? No!

But Taglia can!

And he uses that manipulation to control the impact of his attacks, be it a punch or a jump. That is why Taglia can make sure when the sonic boom will occur and when it won’t!

The first time, when the car was thrown at him, he went Mach by not using the ground as a pad but using the air currents around his feet. He must have used the minimal force required by channeling his leg’s muscle fibers towards his waist or glute to weaken the jumping force, but to still go Mach. And since he was using the air as a trampoline, hence there was no sonic boom! As booms only occur when the air cannot displace fast enough! Not when air is the pad.

But the second time, a few moments ago, he stomped the ground with force, causing the air molecules to move faster than they could, so the sonic boom occurred!

Jarrod is looking down at the ground, covering his ears.

Before his eyes can register Taglia‘s shadow, Taglia spreads his arms and—

THUMP!

—claps Jarrod‘s ears from both sides.

There is no sensation, no explanation for Jarrod; the feeling is painful, and then a thump, and then there is nothing.

Only blank!

No more sound comes after the clap, no screaming, no coughing.

Jarrod‘s eyes simply roll back as he falls to the ground face down, unconscious.

After Jarrod falls to the ground, Taglia finally looks around to see the damage. He sees his supersonic leaps and hops and jumps, and the sheer shockwave generated from them, have caused big holes in the middle of the roads. The glass windows of the nearby buildings are shattered, and the concrete walls of those buildings have cracks more intricate than a spider’s web!

Out of the blue or in this case the night sky, Friling charges in toward Taglia headfirst.

Friling flew off when Taglia jumped off the ground. He does not know what followed it. When he controlled his balance mid-air, without thinking twice, he flew and now flying straight toward Taglia and Jarrod, following the sound generated by their clash.

So he does not know Jarrod blacked out, or the fact that now he is charging in alone pointlessly toward his death.

In his mind, he is thinking he has to resume distracting Taglia so that Jarrod can land the finishing blow!

Taglia is still in his battle stance, even if he looks like he is in his head.

Given the sheer amount of wind cutting that Friling‘s wings are causing to close the distance, Taglia simply looks at his direction, takes a gentle hop from the ground, and disappears without a sonic boom!

One moment he is on the ground, the next moment he is behind Friling mid-air. Taglia grabs his right wing and drags him to the ground as Taglia falls.

Taglia is squeezing his right wing hard, as Friling is kicking and punching and reaching out in the air. He does not know what he is doing; the pain is blurring his logical senses. As Taglia grabs Friling‘s left traps and pull his right wing tighter to rip it off his body, Friling screams—

so loud and so haunting that it could make demons cower back into hell.

Yes, they might not be literal wings, but they are not some astral projection either. When Friling activates his Heat, the wings form in the physical world. That means as long as the Heat is activated, the wings feels to him like they are made of flesh and bone.

So the agony that Friling is feeling is what anyone would feel if their arms or legs were being torn off!

Taglia does not stop.

He has already ripped off a quarter of the wing from Friling‘s back, and slowly half.

Thinking this is the end, Taglia looks away from the wing, to stare at Friling‘s contorted face, and then—

FREEZE!

At first, Taglia does not realize what is happening. But as he tries to move his right hand, it’s not moving. He slowly looks to his right side, confused.

Friling, as the pain stops for a moment, is gasping for air; he is still stuck in Taglia‘s hands.

Taglia sees a structure. A human structure made of bones, and maroon blood coursing through its cracks and openings. A normal human would think it’s a moving skeleton. There is no light in its eyes, just a pair of black hollows. Its bony arms are holding onto Taglia‘s arm.

One of the skeleton’s hands is grabbing Taglia‘s elbow, and the other hand is gripping his wrist, effectively squeezing them hard enough not only to stop his hand from moving, but the grips are also in such specific places that the blood flow in Taglia‘s arm slows down effectively, ensuring he cannot use the full force of his muscles to overpower the skeleton.

Taglia is trying to wrap his head around what is happening when a hiss comes from behind, from where minutes ago someone told someone to take cover!

The hiss is low, but filled with poisonous loathing and murderous rage.

It says:

“How dare you?!”