Another red full moon, and this time, Nathan hoped, he could at least hold his own. He'd made a point of watching Tiger's fights against Lunatic, and the key seemed to be closing the distance. The problem was that Tiger's super-powered durability had let him survive contact with Lunatic's flames, which normally killed pretty damn quickly. Nathan wasn't sure his ability to withstand his own flames would grant him immunity to Lunatic's. On the other hand, if the vigilante got him mad enough he might get reckless and find out. He lingered indoors, two flights below the roof, wrestling with adrenaline. It was more anger than fear, but he was twitchy, amped up, heart racing, and he longed to land a few kicks on something nice and solid and not human. A warmup. An outlet.
But he had a cowl, and years of experience in front of the cameras. He didn't have to show any unease if he didn't want to. When he emerged from the empty doorway — someone had removed the door he'd mangled, but not replaced it — he scanned the rooftop and moved, calmly but with a practiced sweep of his cape, to the center of it.
This time, Lunatic came into view as blue-green sparks, some distance away, flying closer in his uneven way. Nathan would have been lying if he'd denied ever trying to make that work for himself. Truth be told, he'd first experimented with it after seeing Lunatic in action. But he didn't seem to have the raw firepower for it. He watched Lunatic come closer, letting himself down gradually and slowing his descent to the rooftop with jets of fire from his hands. They were on a level, and Nathan lunged at him even before he saw Lunatic's eyes flare. The punch went wide, but he was surprised to see the vigilante stay in range, swinging at him with a fist full of flame, and Nathan ducked inside Lunatic's swing, drove a fist into his gut, and leaped back, shoving a quick double handful of flame at Lunatic as he did so. He was surprised to see it hit, taking out the stupid flammable cloak, and more surprised when Lunatic doubled over, letting out a hoarse cry.
"So you're not immune to my flames," Nathan said. His satisfaction at landing an attack — or two, really — warred with his discomfort. He didn't normally get in close with criminals, and he didn't normally use his fire on human targets, not deliberately. "And now you have some idea how it feels to burn. What you're doing to all those people you murder."
Lunatic stood, slowly, and Nathan couldn't tell how much was the deliberate, creepy weirdness of the vigilante's movements and how much was a human being in pain. "You taught me nothing. I already knew how that felt, Hero. I learned that before I ever took up this quest."
"'Quest.' Like you're off to slay dragons." Nathan readied another fireball, and as he'd half hoped, the vigilante winked out of existence before him; he spun, checking behind himself, but he wasn't fast enough. Maybe angered, maybe just tired of toying with him, Lunatic had already leveled the crossbow and fired, eyes flaring, before Nathan could loose enough fire to deflect it. He threw himself to the side, but the missile bit into his right shoulder, seared, and he fell to his knees, clutching at the wound with his left hand. No physical bolt, just the fire, and he tried to clamp his hand over it to smother it. So I'm not immune, he thought, feeling his hand burn too, wishing he'd thought to shield it with his own fire first.
"I slay the monsters that threaten this society. The killers that your beloved justice system cannot stop." Lunatic was walking towards him, and Nathan forced himself to his feet. The flames didn't seem to have spread, but the pain was still too intense to let him remove his hand from the wound. "I know the justice system. I know its failures, its weaknesses, its loopholes."
"And you think I don't," Nathan said, through gritted teeth. "You think I don't know anything about injustice, just because I'd take the system we have over vigilante killings."
Lunatic stood only a few yards from him, the crossbow at his side, fire on his hands but not in his eyes. "The risk of vigilantism is the risk of error. I know that I only target the guilty."
"By magic," Nathan said, not wanting to back away, not wanting to mount another attack with his hand and shoulder still throbbing from the first. "You can read minds, like Jake Martinez."
"I have my methods."
"I have my doubts," Nathan said, moving sideways, and, yes, maybe a bit backwards at the same time. The vigilante matched him, until they were circling each other.
"Benoit Depardieu," Lunatic said. "The Lady Killer. He was at large in Stern Bild, yet Hero TV aired a seajacking rather than dedicate resources to tracking him. Because the rape and murder of women linked to prostitution troubles your advertisers." He flipped the crossbow in his hand, readying a bolt with the other. "Michael Heywood. A serial rapist, arrested by heroes, yet his apprehension only merited a mention, as filler. Your announcer called them 'attacks,' not rapes."
"So Hero TV is a family show. You may have noticed," Nathan said, finally pulling his hand from his shoulder, forming a shield before him, "we're not the only law enforcement in this city."
"You may ask," Lunatic said, "how many of the citizens are aware of this."
"And I care? Our job is to assist the police. We come in for the hostage situations and the hijackings because they're dramatic, and half the criminals pull them to get their faces on camera."
"You identify the flaws in your own system and describe them as if they were harmless," Lunatic said. "You create crime rather than deterring it."
"I'd rather they plan elaborate publicity crimes than mass murders," Nathan said, and figuring he might as well press his luck, he took a step toward his opponent. Get in close enough that Lunatic couldn't miss the exposed skin. "You wanted to talk about police brutality. The unfairness of the system. Oh, here's an idea — let's talk about who got executed the most back in the good old days. Why did Stern Bild discontinue the death penalty? If you know so much about the legal system?"
"If you ask these questions, clearly you know the answers," Lunatic said evenly. He was holding the loaded crossbow upright. He wasn't aiming it. Not yet. A small part of Nathan marveled at the amount of focus it must take to keep that bolt of fire tangible without burning bow or string; Face it, Seymour, you're outmatched. "And if you know the answers, you know precisely what I mean when I describe your broken system."
"Sometimes something can keep working despite some broken parts," Nathan said. Another step. "Until you get someone who just doesn't care, who wants to run it into the ground, tear it all down because obviously, the replacement in his head is better." Now, he thought, throwing himself forward, a fistful of flame aimed at Lunatic's mask. He felt it connect before he felt the searing impact with his own face, part of it absorbed by his cowl. He stumbled, his follow-through faltering but his momentum carrying him past Lunatic, then whirled, trying to force his eyes to focus on the wavering figure. Was his vision really affected, or was it just pain, or damage to the cowl's eye screens? Lunatic had dropped the crossbow, and was holding a hand to his own mask.
"If you feel fire is so inhumane, why do you use it against your opponents?"
"Seems to me like the only language you understand," Nathan said, willing himself not to touch his face. The fire hadn't clung to him, and the blow itself had only been glancing - without the cape, he could see that the other man's costume with its puffed sleeves was designed to hide a thin build. No doubt he was strong, given the way he flew, but probably not trained to fight. "If I'm going to make you listen, that's what I have to use."
"Ah, the goal is to communicate? I thought you wished to see... 'whose flames were stronger,' was it?"
"The goal is to stop you," Nathan said, his voice twisting into a growl again. His hands were extended, an uncoordinated blast of flame at Lunatic, or at least the spot Lunatic had been.
"Perhaps next month," Lunatic said, from the first upright of the H, and then he leaned backwards and fell. No amount of studying the vigilante's recorded appearances, and no amount of reminding himself that he wasn't Tiger or Sky High, was ever enough to keep Nathan from moving toward the edge of a building when someone fell or jumped, even if only a few steps. This time, he darted between letters to look over the edge of the roof, and saw, of course, that Lunatic had vanished.
He went down to his car, slowly, trying to find the ways of moving that would do the least harm to his burns. The half-finished Goddess of Justice was still there, undisturbed by whoever had moved the damaged door. The rusted exterior door was still stubborn, if a bit less so than it had been on the way in; even though he only put his left shoulder against it, his right still throbbed with each shove. He managed to gather up his clothes, but he couldn't stomach undressing and then putting more fabric against his shoulder; anyone he saw on his drive home would just have to assume Fire Emblem had had a rough night. He pulled the rearview mirror down to check his face, the damage to his cowl, and then he pulled his personal phone out of the glove compartment to call his doctor.
Yuri hadn't wanted to end the fight, but he'd wired his helmet to receive certain calls, and he knew the ringtone for the psychiatric wing of Asclepius Hospital. He didn't dare to answer, but he'd return the call once he reached his car. He doubted Fire Emblem could track him, but he still made a point of flying as smoothly as he could, masking the pain; if he stumbled on his landing, and leaned shakily against his car for several minutes before he began to change, no one was there to see.
The coat, gloves, and mask were the most incriminating elements of the Lunatic costume. Without them, most nights, he could pass cursory inspection; admittedly, he would never leave his house clad only in a pair of strangely-cut bellbottoms and the undershirt he wore beneath Lunatic's jacket, but a policeman pulling him over for speeding had no way of knowing that, and he was always a cautious driver anyway.
Most nights, he could pass inspection. But this time, when he removed the jacket, he found a wide semi-circle of the undershirt was singed brown, over the most painful area of his abdomen. Gingerly, he lifted the hem, and sucked in his breath at the sight of the angry, red blisters already forming. He'd thought the pain was mostly the result of the punch, but clearly the flames had also made their mark, without doing obvious damage to the jacket. He levered himself gingerly into the driver's seat, wincing with every movement. He should have recognized the feeling of a burn. He'd lived with this before, and he could do so again. His mask was undamaged, at least, and his face appeared unmarked. Seymour didn't have the raw power of Wild Tiger, it seemed. Once he would have placed the return call to the hospital immediately, but he didn't want to risk distraction while driving, even the mild and wholly legal distraction of a hands-free phone call. Not when he had this degree of pain taking up his attention.
It didn't look good, in the mirror at home; second-degree, he guessed, probably deep. He didn't have enough gauze in the house to cover even the smaller, fist-sized central burn, the worst of it. He'd need a cover story if he took it to a doctor. Maybe his mother had thrown something boiling at him. It had happened before, though usually her aim wasn't good. He'd tend to it after he'd checked on his mother's status. At this hour, a minor emergency center, he thought. Or a hospital's emergency room. With luck he could make do with the former. He took a handful of aspirin, hoping he wouldn't regret the blood-thinning effect later.
His mother's suicide threats were almost routine by now. The health aide who stayed with her during the day ensured that she was never able to act on them, so he'd come to think of them, guiltily, as almost a relief. The hospital would keep her until they felt sure she was no longer at immediate risk, he'd get a bit of a vacation from her, and if they successfully coaxed her into taking medication while she was with them, she might be a bit easier to live with for a short time after she returned home. She'd be better off, as well, able to live in her dreamworld for a bit, until the medication dispersed it. She wouldn't have his presence constantly upsetting her, frightening her, reminding her of Papa. At times, he wondered if he should leave his scar uncovered around her, a constant reminder of their reality, of Papa's death, and why it had happened. What stopped him was uncertainty that he could take seeing his father's hand reflected in every mirror, window, or polished bit of metal, never mind her violent responses to such reminders.
Did Fire Emblem have any hidden scars, Yuri wondered, any disfiguring mishaps, even a simple house fire in his past?
He contacted the hospital, and spoke to the psychiatrist on duty. On the screen, she looked weary, but her voice retained the determined level of calm, reassuring cheer that he knew from his mother's previous visits. He promised he'd try to keep her on her medications, this time. He wondered if the young woman, surely not much older than he was, placed more blame on him or on his mother for her return visits, or if she even remembered his mother between incidents.