Everyone has a rhythm.
One which they follow in their everyday lives; one which dictates their actions or lack thereof, one which decides their tastes in art, literature, sexual interests, determines the places and people they are drawn to, and those things which repel them as surely as poison.
Fighting is no different.
You concentrate not on your own blows, your own movement, but in tying yourself to the rhythm of the enemy, synchronizing yourself with them as though you were two minds in the same body. If you can't determine what fuels the person behind the hail of fists, what they communicate with every blow, then you'd best hope they don't know it either.
For the first time in his life, 47 didn't know his foe.
There was no rhythm; just a knotted ball of strikes, punches, claws and kicks which somehow co-existed together, a demented conga-line of moves which burrowed into and over each other. He had fought those before who were almost wild animals; possessed of enormous strength and speed, but this was more like combating an alien – a creature with some huge, foreign set of principles which simply didn't conform to any known style or rule.
Chaos.
47 slipped easily past his foe's lack of measured defence and slammed home blows which would have felled any normal man, yet he may as well have been striking a bobo doll which just rolled right back into every hit. Driving his knee up into 1's stomach, he then stabbed the point of his elbow between the top vertebrae of the other man's spine. It was a move designed to incapacitate, sending such sudden and dark waves of pain into the mind that it simply blacked out.
Even though he had yet to consciously acknowledge it, 47 wanted to avoid killing the clone if at all possible. The cycle had to end somewhere, he needed to start learning from his brothers before there were none left, he had to make them understand.
1's mouth jerked open, sending out streamers of saliva when the blow struck home, but he didn't fall. In fact, with an impossible resilience, he was already straightening up. 47 pivoted, the edge of his foot snapping 1's head round whiplash fast with an audible crack, 'This is madness, we can't keep killing each other!'.
The clone staggered back, his breathing coming in rapid blasts.
Good, I hurt him.
It was only when 1 looked up that 47 realized how wrong he was, the killer's mouth split into a wide, bloody grin and he quivered as though someone had lanced him with an electric cable. Insane, shrieking laughter ripped through the apartment, bringing 47's mind to the past with a horrible clarity.
He remembered that sound, what was worse he remembered Ort-Meyer's explanation of it when the cackling reached the two of them. It was during one of his etiquette lessons; mathematics, languages, geography, history, they had all been fed to him via subliminal means, but it seemed that social nuances were an area that Meyer would rather cover himself.
Sat there at opposite ends of a huge, oak table draped with white cloth; covered with a number of silver platters on which food steamed invitingly and filled the room with wonderful aromas, ornate cutlery laid out as precisely as an assassin's tools during the selection process, the two men could have passed for father and son.
Meyer was watching 47 eat, hands bunched together in an arthritic cluster on the table, when the laughter echoed through the corridors.
His son was too well trained to pay obvious attention to the noise, that would have been most impolite whilst dining at another's residence, but Meyer knew his curiosity well enough.
'A father holds much responsibility, as well you know' he said, 'but that responsibility does not only extend to his most favored sons, the ones who he will be proud to send out into the world'.
47 sipped Chardonnay and gave a slight nod, he could tell by the tone that there was more to come.
'Each of us makes mistakes' Meyer said, his voice carrying no regret but rather a simple statement of fact, 'logic dictates that we never forget these mistakes, we learn from them, and in doing so we become stronger for the future'.
47 dabbed his mouth with a nearby napkin, 'all life hinges on the same concept'.
Meyer smiled, 'precisely, my son. I have much pride in you, but I also have pride in my mistakes. I see each of them as the desire to achieve, to create something greater than myself, and so I do not erase them as one would wipe clean an incorrectly penciled equation'.
His creation considered this for a moment, 'some of my brothers are mistakes?'.
'You are my only perfect son' Meyer nodded, 'The others…'.
He leant back in his chair, musing, 'some are brilliant, possessed of great intellects which could add much to civilization, yet they are trapped within psychotic shells – two forces forever battling for dominance of the psyche. Their very existence is painful, and I deeply regret that pain, but someday they will be as admired and held in just as much awe as you will be. They are all part of you, and you of them, and you will all have your time to shine'.
The conversation ended there, 47 never heard the cackling again after that night but it forever lingered in his memory, he longed to meet his brothers and see what elements and traits they shared.
Now, with 1's shrieking laughter assaulting his senses, 47 knew this deranged abomination was the very same he had heard that night.
He also knew that his surgical strikes had not hurt 1, the rapid breathing was due to a state of growing excitement, like the eager acceleration of bodily functions before climax.
This clone was only just starting to enjoy himself.
