Chapter XVII: And the winner is...
Connor heard the whistle of the air being sliced by Kane's blade drawing closer and closer to his neck. Kyra's quickening was going off but he was still unable to put up his sword and parry the blow. The Spartan was a truly powerful immortal, and as such, her power had him completely immobile.
A deafening clatter astounded him and he saw Kane being repelled. The quickening went off and Connor fell to the floor. He painfully looked up and found his former friend Jacob Kell presenting opposition to Kane.
"The Highlander is mine!" Kane bellowed.
"I'm a Highlander as well." Kell stood in a fighting stance. "I'm Jacob Kell and only I will take the head of Connor MacLeod!"
Kell struck forward, slamming hard against Kane's blade. A struggle began, with one's sword hooked in the other's. Connor stood up and produced the gloves he had kept all the time in his trousers pocket. He knew that whoever won would come after him next and he had to be ready. He fitted them in his hands and waited.
Kane unhooked his weapon and lashed at Kell's chest, slicing it shallowly. Jacob replied with a failed chop that Kane's shoulder escaped by a hair's distance. The sorcerer punched Kell in the face before he could react and Kell staggered back. Kane regarded Connor from the distance.
"Hey, MacLeod. Four hundred years. Oh, and you never wrote." Kane hissed. "Though you look like yak waste!"
"Ever knew what you can form with the words 'MacLeod'?" Kell taunted. " 'Came old'. Like him."
"That's sorely bad, baldie." Kane threatened. "The Devil will take you as his personal joker."
The sorcerer struck. Kell parried and countered with a neat slice that carved deep in Kane's free arm. Still, Kane found a clear path at Kell's left for his sword to take Jacob's head and took it... or so he thought. Kell lifted up his left arm and a small blade surged from under his sleeve, blocking the katana. Jacob withdrew his blade, causing a painful stir in Kane's arm.
"Does it hurt, Ruth?" Kell joked as he deflected off a bad attack.
He lunged forward. Kane stood frozen and suddenly he split himself in two, each him standing at a side of Jacob. Kell stared baffled, uncertain of whom to attack. He hit the one on his left, the image of which disappeared in the air.
"Bad choice, Church Bell." Kane whispered in his ear while his blade sliced off Kell's head.
"Kell!" Kenny shrieked sadly.
"Don't worry, little bastard. You will join him soon." Kane said before glorifying in Kell's quickening.
The man-boy started to run towards Kane, wanting to take his head as the sorcerer was still possessed by the quickening. But not only did Connor stop him, the nature of the quickening made him shiver. Evil, pure evil. He had learnt of something called "dark quickenings", but never thought he would witness one.
"Don't. It's against the rules." Connor hissed. "And he's mine."
The quickening went off and Kane glared at them with a renewed vigour. Connor made his blade twist in his hand and grinned defiantly as he approached. Kane guffawed silently. Suddenly they crashed. Kenny could not believe the speed at which the ancient enemies had attacked each other. He lay back, hoping not to be hit by either of them.
They began to chop at each other's blade like two amateur fighters, intending to wear the other out. Suddenly, Connor shifted and sneaked under Kane's blade, slashing the sorcerer's stomach. Kane grimaced in pain as Connor took distance to recover his breath.
"Hey, MacLeod. You've learned something in these years. Let's see how you manage now."
Kane raised his sword to the sky and the blade of it started to glimmer. A thunderbolt escaped from it and hit the floor to his right. Before Connor's eyes, a face familiar to him appeared. To Kane's left, another shape out of another bolt glared at the Highlander.
The former was a Japanese aged man, wearing monk costumes and wielding a neat Japanese katana. The latter was a slender darkhaired man, known till his death as Duncan MacLeod.
"Nakano... Duncan." Connor stammered.
The sorcerer lunged towards him. Connor remained frozen in disbelief. Only when the Japanese cut him hard in the stomach did he react. Nakano's second blow was promptly parried. The Asian took distance and struck forward in a final attack. Connor closed his eyes and dropped his sword. He opened his eyes again and reached out for Nakano, from whom he stole the katana, and making a twist, took the head of the illusion resembling the ancient sorcerer.
The blade in his hand disappeared and Connor picked up his tiger-head katana. The shape of Duncan MacLeod struck at him. Connor avoided well his advances and delivered a lash across the other's face.
"MacLeod!" Kane taunted. "He's one of yours. Don't be so mean."
The illusion attacked again. Connor eluded all the attacks without inconveniences and impaled the fake Duncan against his sword.
"Connor... don't... do it!" Duncan begged.
"Duncan's dead, Kane." Connor stiffly uttered as he took the head of the false other MacLeod. "Now, fight!"
He slammed against the sorcerer. Kane dodged him and gashed Connor's back with a good thrust. The Highlander retreated but Kane attacked him, causing him two more fresh scars, one in the shoulder and the other in the chest. Connor hit the floor.
"Hey, MacLeod. Do you know what Kane rhymes with?" Kell's quickening had evidently bequeathed Jacob's particular sense of humour to the sorcerer. "Pain."
He chopped at Connor's head. The Highlander rolled to a side and stood up again. He took aim with his left hand and raised his sword above his head. Kane struck but Connor moved faster and carved deeply the sorcerer's belly. His opponent fell, feeling the pain of the wound, unable to endure it.
"It also rhymes with lame!" Connor hissed as his blade tore at Kane's throat, slicing head and body apart.
That was it. Only Kenny remained between him and the Prize. Kane's quickening grasped him. Connor soared into the airs as all the knowledge and power of the sorcerer raped him. The quickening was magnificent, even the Kurgan's paled in comparison. He shrieked, enduring the mixed emotions unleashed. He could feel nothing except it. It went off all of a sudden and he landed harshly on the floor, experiencing a new stage of power... and something else.
Darkness. He was sure. He felt something inside him pushing beneath the surface, consuming and confusing him. He staggered up then fell on his knees again, noticing a lack of self-control that devoured him. No, he could not be the one. Not like this. He had not allowed it to the Kurgan, and he sensed that even the Russian brute would be nothing compared to the evil struggling to break free inside of him. He rose, wanting to warn the boy. But he couldn't.
A force from within directed his movements and he could only delay it exerting himself beyond his possibilities. He saw black sparks emanating from the movements of his hands. He gave a step forward and dove to the floor again, fighting with his own body, feeling he would be unable to win the inner battle against the darkness of all the evil immortals together.
-----
Kenny stared bewildered, grasping a full notion of what was going on. Connor MacLeod was being consumed by darkness. He had taken Kane's quickening, who had taken Kronos'. To that malicious mix, the Kurgan's could be added, spicing up the dark quickening. In the sorcerer it did not make much of a difference but inside the Highlander, it would obliterate the noble warrior and mankind would face an eternity of darkness.
What could he do? Take MacLeod's head? It was not a solution. The dark quickening would act upon him as well. Though a small being is easier to handle than a large one, Kenny would rule the world as a spawn of darkness, his powers enhanced by the Prize. The Prize...
"The power of a strong quickening... multiplied a million fold."
He recalled Katana's words and gazed up to the skies, feeling something he had never felt. Something like fulfilment, mixed with sense of purpose and thrill. It had to be done. There was no other way. He determinedly stepped towards Connor and lifted up his weapon. The Highlander eyed him as he put his body under transient control.
"Do it, PUNK!" Connor muttered calmly in a voice that was barely his before the petty sword of the petty immortal severed his head.
The Game was over. To his own disbelief, Kenny had won.
-----
The Quickening rose as a black stag that galloped around him before seizing him. Kenny felt his skin stretch, boil, melt and scar. The final process was underway. He felt the darkness taking hold of him, but there was nothing he could do to stop what he had unleashed. He yelped as he felt his hands and legs burning.
In the past, single quickenings had caused deep scars across his body. So the power of the Prize would be too much for his small, undeveloped body. Therefore, he would be consumed by it and disappear without a trace. It was his sacrifice to mankind, to save all those who had despised immortals since the watchers had revealed their existence. He did not think they were worth it, though.
As a beam of light surged to heavens, dragging him with it towards the atmosphere and eroding out slowly and dolorously his body, he remembered all those who did deserve his sacrifice. For they had cared about mortals, and had perished still caring. Amanda, Methos, Katana, Kyra, Kell, the two MacLeods, and many others. His limbs were painful history now and he felt how the invisible force that was consuming him made his stomach and chest become stardust.
His neck began to vanish and he let out one final shriek that echoed all across the world before the head of the last immortal vaporised and the particles of his body joined the breaking dawn, to be one forever with daylight.
END
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any similarity between Kane and Shang Tsung in "Mortal Kombat: The Movie" is not a coincidence. And I relied lightly on a couple of lines from Linkin Park's "Crawling"
