Chapter 4: Escalation

He had heard gunfire before. He was no stranger to it, but it felt different when a small army wanted you and only you to die, and was desperate to make that end result happen.

An RPG slammed into the floor above him, raining plaster from the ceiling everywhere. Argon poked his machine gun out of a nearby window and rained a hail of high-explosive gunfire in the area where the rocket trail originated from. He heard a scream from nearly next to him, and drew his pistol with his left hand, flipped it around and shot him, just as the guy shot at him. He felt two rounds strike his chest plate. It hurt, a lot, felt almost like a broken rib, but the other guy had it worse.

He charged the stairs, hoping he could get to the roof and try for an escape. He kept both guns out, and cleared the path anytime something obstructed it. It seemed like everyone who lived in a quarter mile radius was trying to kill him. Having come to a dead end, he blasted a hole in the roof with a thought and promptly took off, only to find himself caught in a fusillade of small arms fire and what sounded like anti-aircraft fire. Upon hearing the deeper booms, he immediately formed the strongest shield he could muster around him with his crimson energy. Small arms and heavy cannon fire were pelting him, pushing his concentration to the limit. They had him dialed in.

..


..

Later that day…

Raven turned a corner, and for the second time, she was shocked by what she saw.

A crater, with the remains of a building in it, what looked like a couple of bodies, and a large gun barrel sticking out of some rubble. She held her communicator towards the scene. She heard a conversation through it.

"Vic, what do you make of this?" Nightwing asked.

"Looks like someone used a kinetic energy weapon."

"Oh… What's that?" Raven could almost hear Garfield go pale.

"Long story short, something dropped something really really heavy going really really fast."

"Who could do that?" I didn't see or hear anything about aircraft or fighter jets up there." Gar asked.

"Got me there." Vic shrugged. "But that big stick pointing straight up, that's from an old Russian anti-aircraft gun. Looks like what's left of a ZU-23-2. ...How did they sneak that in?"

..


..

Earlier…

Argon collapsed his shield into a bright flash, moments after letting himself fall for a moment. Somehow, he lived. Just as quickly, he concentrated as much focused fire under him that he could control, and found himself flying straight up, quickly breaking the sound barrier. The energy within him was the only thing that kept his body together from the sudden burst of acceleration. He slowed to a stop when he was around a mile up. He wouldn't be able to breathe very well if he went much further. He turned and started to drop, sensing the heat of the inaccurate fire rising up to meet him. Argon held the sword in front of him as he dropped, and started accelerating again, and gave the sword a special mental command. It felt like the weight of the sword multiplied infinitely. He focused more fire behind him, pushing the sword even faster. At a certain point, he let go of the sword, and redirected his flames into leveling himself out. He managed to pull out of his dive mere feet from the ground, but the stress had pushed him a little too hard. He slowed down hard, but not hard enough, as he smashed through a third story window and tumbled to a stop. He didn't move. He sensed threats rushing up to meet him, but his body wasn't responding well. He did the only other thing he could do at this point, and incinerated everything in the building that wasn't him. He could barely move. He tried to reach toward Crimson's sword, but it was buried in rubble a block away. If he were to stay, he'd surely die, but he couldn't force his body to move. He closed his eyes and pressed his pained mind to concentrate hard one more time, on the connection between him and that sword…

..


Raven turned to look at another burned out building, and could almost see Argon's auric energy swirling around the ruins. She felt something strange there as well. It was clearly his energy signature still emanating there, but mixed with his was something similar, but not him. It was hard to put a finger on. She decided a little further investigation was in order. She floated over to the building and placed a hand on it, and began reciting a magical incantation.


..

Argon appeared in Crimson's little realm within her sword, and promptly collapsed in her arms.

"Good job, grandson. You did well. I'm sorry, I thought your body could handle more, but... Want me to take over?"

"Yeah, give 'em hell for me." Argon grunted. This wasn't the first time he allowed Crimson to borrow his corporeal form, but it was also something he preferred to save for emergencies. It was one of the secrets he kept from his family.

"One thing, Argon. Why the Gauss rounds?" she replied, helping him stand up a little straighter.

"They wanted war, so I wanted to return the favor in the best way I could." Argon responded. She held his head up and gave him a smile, and he smiled weakly in return.

"Go, I'm vulnerable out there." Argon told her. She gently laid him down, kissed him on the forehead, and then took his hand in hers. Her eyes glowed red for a moment, then a pillar of blinding red light formed around her, then faded, and she was gone.

In the real world, Argon's body erupted in a bright red light, and stayed that way for several moments. It faded away, and revealed Crimson in Argon's place. She slowly brought herself to her feet, stretched, and checked all her joints quickly. Her sword appeared over her shoulder, and she grabbed it, held it out, and the blade halves spread out into a V-shape again, and rotated around the gun inside it twice, then it closed again, and then opened to just reveal the machine gun.

"Argon? In this situation where there's no heavy armor, and you still want to be sure, use the armor-piercing magnum rounds. That'll put you through basic body armor, brick walls, thin concrete and any thin civvie metals, okay?" Crimson said out loud, knowing he would hear her. Argon was good with her sword, but no one knew it better than her, as she built it and loaded it by hand. She looked over the blasted out window, judged the distance, then ran and jumped out. She started firing while she was in the air, using the one arm holding the weapon to aim, and with the other she conjured a shield that covered her front. She immediately sensed every hostile life form in the vicinity, all human, a fair number still remained, and all being encouraged by some strange unknown power. She aimed at a nearby wall and hosed it with gunfire. She shifter her aim again and took out several people running in an attempt to flank her. She landed, and then flattened herself out, sensing several grenades being thrown at her. She returned them to their owners with a faint bubble of energy, the men screaming just before the grenades exploded. A few molotov cocktails were thrown, and she ignored them. Her abilities might be vastly different, but she was a member of the same race Argon was, and fire didn't affect her, or her clothing, in this case conjured by her power and made real to let her mind focus on other things. She flung her legs up over her back and let their momentum roll her over and back on her feet. She relished the feeling of her body stretching and shifting, the feeling of grit on her cheek. It felt good to be alive and in the flesh again. She almost danced to another building, ducked inside, and closed the blade, and started clearing the building. She sensed more enemies shooting at her from windows at another building, and transferred herself there in a flash. The gunfire stopped when she appeared. The gangsters turned at the sound and stared at her open-mouthed. She greeted them with a smile, and ran a hand through her hair, getting some of it out of her face. She was covered in blood and gore. One eye, purple, and the other, red, gleamed with life.

"Hey boys. Looks like contradictions and shock value still works wonders!" She said to them, then forced one of the guns towards the others and made it open fire, taking down most of the ones standing. The one who was miraculously unharmed didn't last long. He started to raise his submachine gun at her, but she held up a hand, and jiggled a pin dangling from a ring she now held. The man stared wide-eyed, then started quickly groping his pockets, just in time for a grenade spoon to hit the ground. He started screaming at her, watching her fade away just before the grenade went off.

..


..

Raven came back with a gasp. She had seen Argon glow in blinding red right, then he somehow transformed into what looked like a strange woman slightly younger than her. She had seen what had happened from that point on. She followed a trail of carnage and destruction to an area that looked devastated by an altogether different force. There were no freak weather patterns that she had known about, but it was clearly the work of a tornado or three that had ravaged this section, not war. Once more, she held out the communicator for the others in the tower to see.

"Guys, that third presence I sensed? It's all over this area, and very strong as well. There is a massive threat brewing here. Whatever it is, it's tied in with Argon, and it's pushed him to the very limit. I used a spell earlier to see why Argon's aura was soaking a building, and he made a weird transformation. Not just weird like your old cartoons, Gar. Different even by my standards."

"They're ANIME!" he whined, not catching himself until it was too late. He clapped his hands to his mouth, face turning purple in a blush, wide-eyed at what he just said. Victor's shoulders shook in mirth. Even Dick couldn't quite suppress a smile. Everyone needed a little humor right now.

"Argon transformed… into a woman. An incredibly powerful one."

"As in that's his true form?" Nightwing asked, sounding a little confused.

"I'm not sure. What contact I've had with him hasn't shown him to be hiding anything like that, and I've seen how this woman fights in my vision. Two completely different people, only alike in the way they use the same power. Argon struggled against the five of us, and seemed to be having trouble against this many unremarkable people in armed combat. This woman, it seemed like she knew where everyone was, knew where the threats were and reacted accordingly. She had no trouble at all in this fight, like she had spent her life fighting wars in urban environments. I think what I'm looking at now is where it ended."

..


Crimson stood at the end of the block, sweat running down her body from the exertion. She was breathing harder than she expected, and decided to spend some time training herself when she went back to her life in her sword. The smell of the blood and death mixing with her own smell was nearly causing her to gag. It had been far too long since she had been involved in combat this close. She formed a ring of intense energy at her feet and brought it up, incinerating the blood, sweat and gore covering her. She held her arms up when it got to her chest, and kept them up until the ring passed her fingertips. An extra moment of concentration normalized her breathing, heartbeat and body temperature. She whirled her sword around her for a minute, and then put it away on her back, having cleaned it off as well. She began meditating, the concentration of energy around her gently pulling her a few feet off the ground, her hands about 2 feet away from her hips, an old pose she was comfortable with, and had assumed naturally when meditating for most of her previous life. Old habits die hard.


..

She saw Argon, still laying on the ground, but his attention had been locked to the monitor for some time. He twitched when she called his name.

"My gods, grandma, seeing you fight from the first person is something else, what I would give to see that from an outside angle!" he enthused, still clearly tired, but sounding relaxed.

"How are you feeling?" Crimson asked, unsure of what to make of the situation.

"Really, really comfortable. I've hardly moved since you set me down."

"I can tell." Crimson replied, laying down next to Argon. "This is my realm. I can do what I want with this place, and I thought it best to make you comfortable so you can heal up a bit. Can you move now?"

"Don't know." He replied, turning to face her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I haven't tried. This is the most comfortable I've been in decades." He said, and she glared at him. She jabbed her elbow into the ground, the ground tossing him into the air and onto his feet. His knees shook for a few moments, but held, and he straightened himself out, long enough to stumble into one of Crimson's recliners. She flipped herself upright, then sat in the other one.

"Time for me to take a break, kid. In case you haven't noticed, I don't get to do this much, so I'm kinda tired."

"And I'm kinda broken. I think a lot of my tendons are stretched and my muscles are pulled. I'm pretty sure I was pushing mach two or three when I pulled out of that dive. And I haven't got an aerial combat suit, so that shit hurt."

"Make me a stream. I was killed once." Crimson replied, using an ancient adage that had the same meaning as 'cry me a river.'

"And yet, here you are." Argon couldn't resist a friendly barb.

"Okay, I have an idea. I'll back down from your body, but just enough to make you you and give you control of yourself and your fire. I'll be just forward enough myself to be aware of everything instinctually and control my power, and keep you functioning until you can find a place to rest. Just in case. I'll even try to heal what I can to make things easier."

"That's acceptable." And just as Argon said that, he found himself being pulled away from Crimson's realm, and everything went dark. When he opened his eyes again, he was back on Earth, the ruins of a bad part of town behind him, a nightclub in front of him, and a gathering storm above him.

'Glad you agreed, because you're about to have a visitor, and I think this one is your battle.' He heard Crimson's voice in his mind.

'What?'

'It feels like one of your shades is coming.' Crimson said, able to remember the vague feelings from Argon's past of his friends.

Something caught Argon's eye and he looked up, just in time to see a rotation in the clouds form and immediately start to drop. When the funnel cloud hit the ground, it came to Argon who it was.

"Aine?! You escaped?!" he yelled out.

"No, she did not." A distinctly masculine voice replied, and the funnel cloud evaporated, leaving behind a man. "Argon G. M. Rage, son of Millia T. and Sam M. S. Rage, I have underestimated your abilities and your resourcefulness, much to my detriment. Thusly, I have been given the task of personally collecting you." The man's knowledge of the names and initials of himself and his parents was worrying. He hadn't spoken much of his family, preferring to avoid the subject at the time.

"I will tell you this much. You will ask, so I'll spare you. I know such personal information via the same way I now possess the special ability Aine possessed. Nothing more follows." He added, indicating to Argon a military background.

"Past tense, implying she is either dead, or otherwise drained." He responded, catching the unnamed man's phrasing.

"That bothers you?" he asked lightly. He chuckled when Argon pulled out his swords. He stopped when the massive sword on his back started floating of its own accord.

"You're damned right that bothers me…" Argon growled. Every breath he exhaled released a small plume of red flame. He felt a near complete absence of the familiar energy he had grown used to, but in return, his command over fire felt limitless, infallible.

"I'm giving you fair warning, I've had several years to perfect how to handle this ability of mine." the man warned him.

"You're a damned fool. You don't understand the vagaries of space time and interdimensional travel. You're telling me things better kept to yourself. You've had only a few years to practice using that ability you've stolen. I've had over a hundred years to PERFECT my physical combat style, my command of fire, and my command of Crimson's power." The man was caught off guard by this. He doesn't -have- to know Crimson herself has control of that energy at the moment... he added mentally. "You know mine and my parent's names, then certainly you know how long-lived my people are, and how realistic that scenario is!"

"My boss didn't say anything about that…" the man responded in a mumble, on guard. He didn't know whether it could be a lie or not.

Argon roared, planting an explosion behind himself, flying towards the man with Aine's power. His target flew away just in time, then ripped the roof off of a nearby building, shattered it and sent the shrapnel at Argon. The sky had darkened and clouded up to the point where it felt like they were fighting in a hurricane, and Argon was almost unaware of small jets of flame keeping him steady in the windshear. Argon gave the man a rude human gesture he had learned in the past known as 'The Finger', and every piece of shrapnel that came within twenty feet of him was incinerated, regardless of size.

"You made one other mistake, as well!" Argon yelled, holding his arms out and looking around. "You're by yourself! No distractions!" he added, laughing deeply. He wrapped himself in white flame, and shot up to his opponent's level. The roar of the wind and the scream of the highly focused fire drowned out any further conversation. The man conjured a tightly focused tornado rotating at a speed fast enough to shred anything it touched, and attempted to strike Argon with it, who simply avoided it by flying around it. After doing this for several minutes, Argon disappeared.

'Still a damned fool, limiting your field of battle...' Argon thought.

'If it weren't for the sentiment of this fight and how drained I am, I'd ask to fight him.' Crimson chimed in. Argon looked at the swirling mass of wind from the outside, and then decided to scare him. Crimson, sensing his idea, joined in by flipping her sword around, moved it over his shoulder and lined up the hilt with his head, gently opened the blade, and started firing the machine gun into the storm. After sending about a hundred rounds downrange into the storm, the sword pulled back, and Argon raced around the storm to the other side, put some distance between the two, and then thundered back towards the storm, building speed at a blistering pace. He reversed the grips on his swords as he flew in, and quickly aimed himself at the man, who was looking in the wrong direction. He rotated just enough to make holding his swords in a reverse grip easier, letting Crimson help guide his aim. He passed by the man, letting the edges of his two swords gently graze the man's head as he flew by at nearly eight hundred miles an hour. The man barely even saw the blur flash in front of him, but did notice the horrifying burning sensation on his skull and the blood cascading into his face, so he screamed in pain.

After he flew out the other side, Crimson shifted him to a stop, a massive gust of air rushing past him, since he had stopped nearly instantaneously. He thanked her for that, as it was something he wanted to remember for another time. Large pieces of framework, lumber, and rebar concrete started flying out at them. Argon incinerated anything made of wood, and Crimson returned and doubled the speed of everything else. Argon decided to make him stop. He came in low at high speed, missing all the thrown objects, and Crimson shifted him to a stop right in front of him.

'Let's wrap this up, grandson, I'm almost done…' Crimson warned him. The man tried to blast him with pillars and gusts of violent wind, but Argon blocked it with massive plumes of intense fire, and then counter-attacked with more. As the fight continued, Argon's flames only increased in intensity.

"You're only making the fire stronger!" Argon yelled as he swung both swords at the man, who caught Argon off guard with a pressure wave of air, blasting him away. He caught himself and returned the favor with an explosion of his own, but the man blocked it with a severe pressure wave of his own. Argon was about to create a much bigger explosion, but Crimson warned him off, saying that one of that power would break through the wind barrier and level a couple city blocks. Argon focused his fire again, rushing the man, but he somehow managed to form a strong enough constant pressure wave to hold Argon off. He pulled back, but found himself bombarded by shearing wind. He shielded himself with a massive fireball, with him at its core. He could feel Crimson's presence weakening; his entire body was starting to ache with exhaustion. He dismissed the fire, sheathed his swords and charged him again. He was held off once more, but this time, took a different approach with fire. He conjured a small fireball in front of him, and then altered it to recreate the surface of the sun for just a split second. Argon's own vision dimmed a bit as a set of protective eyelids closed over his eyes, but the other man was far less fortunate. He was blinded and flash-burned both by the burst of radiant light and heat. He screamed and flailed, and the wind around him dissipated suddenly. He fell, and hit the ground hard, but he was still alive.

Argon followed him down, and after a few minutes, noticed colors around him grow more vibrant as his secondary eyelids opened back up. He walked up to the writhing man, and he picked him up by his neck. Argon asked Crimson to do just enough to keep him on his feet, and let him use the rest. She hadn't been kidding; Argon didn't have much to work with. With his free hand, he pulled out one of his blades, and held the point at the man's heart.

"Where is your boss?!" he roared at him. He focused some energy into the burned man, numbing the pain, then poked the tip of his sword through the man's skin, and allowed him to feel it.

"Where is your boss?!" Argon yelled again.

"I will not betray him!" the man gurgled. Argon grew frustrated, and frustration started breeding anger within him. He tossed away his sword, and focused more energy into the man's body and let it cascade over him, setting off every pain receptor in his body.

"Where?!" Argon demanded again.

"No!"

'Argon, pain isn't going to work on this guy. We don't have enough time to do this properly and break someone of his mental fortitude!' Crimson warned. 'Mental' gave Argon an idea. He refocused the energy into the man's brain, scrambling it for a moment, leaving him disoriented, confused and dizzy.

"Again! Where?" He yelled, but only got a gurgled yelp in reply. Aiming indiscriminately, he fired energy into his brain. Storm clouds started gathering. The man shrieked. Argon started to sense something with his harsh invasive probing.

"Answer me!"

"Ngh, noooOOO!"

'He's about to die, Argon! I'm out, I can't do anything else for you anymore!' Crimson cried out, starting to fade from his mind. Her cherished presence, now fading, the pain in his body, and the frustration over his situation and the uselessness of persuading him to talk was too much. He now had full control of what little of Crimson's power remained within him, and he sank into a fury. The two fell into a pile, Argon landing on top of him.

"You useless…! You will return what you have stolen!" Argon yelled. He clapped his free hand to the man's face, and forced as much energy into his mind that could be mustered. He couldn't sense much of anything solid, but as he stumbled around feeble mental blocks, pain and burgeoning madness, he felt something familiar. It felt like Aine. He clung to it with a death grip, and tried to pull it loose from the man's mind. The harder the man resisted, the angrier Argon got, and the harder he pulled. Argon screamed in rage, and focused all his energy on what he wanted. Energy snapped between them. The man screamed in mental agony. Argon felt it loosen, felt it coming to him. He almost had it…

A loud crack thundered between them. The man was blasted away and out of Argon's hands, and Argon himself was sent tumbling. Despite the pain, Argon felt like he had recovered something precious. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he opened his hands to see an incarnation of what he now had. In his hands he held a small whirlwind.

"Aine, I did it… I actually did it!" he said, laughing to himself. Thinking about her brought back a feeling of nostalgia, remembering when he first met her, decades ago to him. He remembered her blonde hair, a rarity for his people back home, and her bright green eyes… Before he realized it, the whirlwind had quickly grown out of control. Wind was whipping around him. Tornadoes were starting to form. A house exploded a few moments later, punctuating the devastation surrounding him. At a complete loss, he grabbed for Crimson's sword, and gave it some energy.

"Crimson, help!" Argon pleaded, at a loss.

'Your sword, Grandson. I know you did with it what I did with mine, the shades will be there too.' She replied, in his head.

"Which one?" he asked out loud in a panic. He noticed the dead body of his opponent sliding away, and then start tumbling. Argon realized what she meant after a moment when he noticed she wasn't responding. The wind was growing stronger, and he found himself using focused fire to keep himself on the ground. He concentrated hard for a moment, and his black walking stick appeared in his hand. He then tried to meditate with it the same way he would Crimson's sword, but nothing was happening. He cried out in frustration. He felt something coming, and reacted almost unconsciously. He grabbed the walking stick at one end, and the tsuba expanded out from just above his hand. He snapped the long sword out and slashed at something. He felt himself pelted by a dozen small chunks of wood, and then he realized he had almost been smashed by a large section of roof. He quickly sheathed the sword, and concentrated on it. After a moment, he felt the crimson energy within him suddenly drain.

"Noo, not now!"

'Argon, it's okay, I'm right here! Let me help you!' he heard Crimson say in his mind. He felt her presence next to him, and looked over to see her, like a soul-self. She was there, faintly shaped with his energy. She meditated with him, guiding him to the way to enter the realm within his long katana, the blade that held a small piece of his own soul.

Argon found himself in a large white empty room. Everything within was lit, but there was no singular source of light. Crimson had taken on her normal look now that she was in a realm similar to her own, but she looked incredibly tired. He saw the shades standing by a corner, and he quickly approached them. He held out his hand, a small whirlwind in it barely visible. One of the shades stepped forward towards him, and stretched out a faint hand. He reached out a little further to the shade, and its hands closed over his. The whirlwind stopped spinning, and started travelling around the shade's hands, before fading into the body. The shade darkened a bit then, and started to take on some distinguishable features. Long hair, a feminine shape to the body and face. He felt a feeling of gratitude, and it almost was like the shade was smiling at him.

"Aine…?" a faint nod.

"You're welcome, old friend. I'll see you again soon, I hope." The shade stepped back. Crimson put a hand on his shoulder.

"Grandson, when this is all over, I'll show you how to shape this place into something comfortable to you. It'll always be available to you as a temporary retreat, but you're next in line to the throne. Don't spend too much time here. You'll miss things. Time for us to go, Argon. I've pushed myself too hard for too long, it's time for me to rest." He felt her guiding them away and out.

Argon's eyes shot open. He was surrounded by disaster. Buildings behind him ravaged by flames, gunfire, and explosions, and ahead of him, buildings shredded by wind, impaled by shrapnel. The nightclub was nothing more than a concrete slab with torn piping sticking out. He reached behind him for Crimson's sword, and was struck at how it felt. For the first time in over a hundred years of living memory, the sword felt… tired, and it felt as if it were asleep.

The sun was high in a cloudless sky. He could hear birds and bugs, and sirens in the distance. He needed to go before he was caught and had to fight his way out of another problem. His ship wasn't overhead, but he knew roughly where it was, so he could reach it again. He focused fire at his hands, enough to push him into the air a few feet, and then he focused afterburners at his feet and flew straight up. It was difficult, commanding his weakening body to fly. At a couple thousand feet, he turned northeast and flew on. He had much to think about as he rested himself, and healed, yet again. He was growing tired of losing battles, or winning them at the expense of being beaten up so thoroughly.