5.4

Sirens.

Across the whole city I can hear them. Police, Firemen, ambulances, PRT, they were all here.

Hundreds of wailing screams in the air…

It reminds me of something…

It reminds me of…

A time? Was it a time?

No… an event.

Not with Dad… Not with Mom.

Emma?

Was I standing with Emma?

Ahh yes. It was like that time before. Long before our friendship dissolved into bitter hatred.

When they came from across the sea.

On the day they slew Syan…

I remember...

I shake my head, a sudden headache lancing across my temples, boring through my skull. I groan, a hand rising to rub the ache away when the pain fades as though it was never there.

I blink, trying to bring back the image that had passed, fleetingly, across my mind. A dull fog over my thoughts. I close my eyes, trying to focus.

The murk shifts and stirs. But as I try to peer through the depthless fog I gain no answers…

The phone rings. Lisa.

"Yeah?"

"Ok this shit is crazy. I'm trying to keep it all straight in my head but, frankly, use your discretion to avoid the bullshit. There's no way I can guarantee diverting everyone from your location enough so that they don't see you. Be careful."

"Just tell me where he is." I demanded. ABB, E-88 didn't matter. I already fought off Hookwolf and sent Oni-Lee running with his tail between his legs.

"Alright, Coil's main base is in the basement of an independent business. The business is a front obviously. You're looking for 'New Frontier Architecture' Thirty-second and Cloranth. It's a three story building. All of it plastic walls and fake bullshit. The real base is underground. The compound is a grand total of five levels below ground, the sixth houses some of his vaults and stored goods. I'm not exactly sure what he's got down there so be ready for anything from Tinker-tech tanks or a private robot army."

I paused. "Private. Robot. Army?" I made sure to enunciate as clearly as possible.

Was she serious?

"I don't know! Its freaking vaults! What else would you be hiding down there if not some kind of weapon?"

"Stockpiles of goods or drugs to sell later?"

"Look whatever, make it there fast and hopefully we'll never have to find out. The ABB is focusing on the north end apartments and north-side downtown. E-88 is hitting the docks, the boardwalk and marching through uptown. Go quick and quiet. I'll be giving them the location to some of the escape routes and exits I've managed to pinpoint out of that place. If you just burn him out rather than kill him hopefully they'll be ready to shoot his ass at the end of it."

I frowned. Her little revelation earlier that she'd used our hitting Coil's spies in E-88 to… by some roundabout way turn the E-88 and the ABB against Coil by convincing them he was the one pulling the strings… annoyed me… irritated me.

Something to address after I'd finished this thing.

I'm standing at the roof of an apartment building, hand on a water tower as I see the stacks of smoke rising in the distance, and the sirens sounding out like some cruel opera.

I use my phone to input in the directions Lisa told me about. Five miles from where I am now. Good.

I jump down from the roof tops as I could see helicopters in the distance. I land in the alleyway and begin running.

In the distance, I could hear tires peeling and gunfire, with sirens accompanying them. I run across the street and into the alley way. Stopping by a dumpster I set all the trash inside on fire.

The ash begins to crack and accumulate around me, forming a thicker armor before I continue. I see some police cars drive by at the end of the alleyway and jump back onto the roofs, grappling onto a fire escape before I use it to jump again onto the roof itself.

I rush to the edge, seeing vans and trucks with skinheads attacking an office building off in the distance.

I take a moment to readjust myself with the lack of street signs up above and take off. Pounding off across the tar roofing to leap over towards the next building across the street. I spy some PRT agents forming a perimeter as some police officers moved forward to engage the rioting gangsters.

I keep running, eventually moving back down to ground level after a couple of blocks, taking to the rooftops quickly as I try to avoid the streets that are filled with gangsters, agents and pedestrians.

I hear a helicopter nearby. I pan my eyes, searching, I find it to the east, it passes right above me. Either that was a news chopper, or I had about twenty seconds until the PRT and police have my location.

Luckily, even if it wasn't a news chopper, the PRT have their hands full right now.

The thought made me laugh.

Now…

Where is the king? The Giant Lord?

Not far. I am the sword that must slaughter the rabble. Emma will lead the mortals. As ever she will be the Shiel-

I grip my head, the sharp pain catching me off guard.

What… the hell? What's wrong with me?!

The pain vanishes…

Then, there are arms wrapped around my waist.

My eyes go wide, but I don't have time to move before I'm somewhere else, the glare of the setting sun gone, I hear a scream of some woman behind me, there's a TV to my left, a couch to my right.

Then there's an explosion at my back, amplified by the enclosed space of the apartment.

I lurch forward, my head slamming into a wall.

I hear the clicks of several grenades, my mind already realizing who's attacking. I dive to the side, behind a night table to try and avoid the worst of the concussive force, ash flooding my ears to lessen the damage.

Then the grenades go off.

Plaster and mulched filling collapses over me as the divider wall between the living room and the kitchen is blown out, the ceiling collapsing over my head with its absence.

I push myself to my feet, turning and finding my attacker.

Oni Lee.

The masked psychopath drew his sword in one hand, a knife in another.

The ash from his recently deceased clone came to my aid, rising from the ground to form the familiar length and weight of a longsword in my hand.

Round two it seems.

I charge forward, and suddenly there are three of them, I stab the first through the chest, ignoring the swings of the other two, feeling their blades slide across my ash armor before my elbow is snapping the neck of the clone on my left, releasing the ash blade in my right hand to claw out the throat of the third.

More ash for the pile. I feel a pressure at my leg and look down, Lee planting something on my hip. I stomp down on his face with one boot reaching down to rip off whatever he put on my leg.

The bomb goes off, the force is massive. I don't see fire, I don't feel shrapnel, what I do feel is force. I feel like my hip and knee were just wrenched out of their sockets as I'm thrown like a pinwheel, smashing through an already crumbling wall into the outside world.

I barely even register that Lee is suddenly in front of me in mid fall before we're back in the building, my body still carrying its inertia from the blast to send me through another set of walls before I shattered a porcelain bathroom sink with my skull, the water spraying up from ruptured pipes to soak the ash armor on my body.

I spy my leg, red stains were visible beneath the ash, Bakuda's bombs then. Either by adrenalin or power fueled bullshit I don't feel any pain.

The ash idol rises without my calling it, cracking as the healing light envelops me. I feel a jolt of pain as the bone is wrenched back into its socket.

The ash armor falls off of me in wet clumps. I have a moment to register this before two Oni-Lee's are bursting into the destroyed bathroom.

With a piece of pipe in my hand and the brutal force that the remnants of my armor still gave me the impromptu weapon broke straight through Lee's guard, shoving the blunt edge of his sword into his shoulder hard enough to dispel the clone in and of itself if the blow across his head wouldn't have done it already.

The other Lee placed a bomb on the idol.

I rush out of the way through the door, I only had the briefest moment to feel another pulse of that healing warmth before the explosion destroyed the idol and whatever had been left of this person's bathroom.

My hands lit up in flame and spread fire through the home, turning everything to ash in seconds.

I saw Oni-Lee to my left, a sword forming in my hand and slashing at him before he could touch me, I slashed at another behind me and the third coming from the bathroom before I felt a hand over my head and we were somewhere else, and then we were in a different place, and then in another before my reflexes kicked in and I slashed straight above me, cutting the over-ambitious teleporter in the shoulder before he was gone, his clone in his place that crumbled to ash as it hit the ground.

Three stories down? You'll have to go alot farther than that to try and get me far enough from my ash.

Through the vents, in from the window, the doorway. The ash came and coalesced as if I'd never lost any of it.

Then a Hummer plowed through the wall and slammed into me.

I cough, the air pushed from my lungs before I dig in my heels, grinding myself to a halt. I hear the squeal of tires before the pressure finally abates, the idiot at the wheel letting go of the gas.

The car door opens and I'm greeted by six foot something of muscle and tattoos.

"Lung." I growl.

"Ashburn." He drawls, hands in his pockets as he sauntered his way over the ruins of yet another apartment, getting around his car to face me. Fucker was walking as if he was strolling through the mall.

"How'd you find me?"

"You were not subtle." He answered with a shrug. "And you are not faster than Lee. From there, communication was simple." He tilted his neck, cracking it.

"Stay out of my way." I hissed. As much as I want to cream the ABB right now, I can't be tied up with Lung. Not with the possibility of Coil escaping in the chaos. "I have a score to settle with Coil. Not with you."

The man reeled as though surprised, then he threw his head back and laughed. "Who doesn't at this point?" Laughed the man. "He is already dead. His body just hasn't realized this yet."

He grinned, showing his shark-like teeth. "But Coil is merely a hare to be hunted for sport. It will be at my leisure, and nothing is lost from some other fool claiming such a small prize. You though, you are a beast much more apt for a challenge."

The tensing of his shoulders was the only warning I got before he rushes me in a full on tackle. He slammed me into the wall and my fists came down over his spine and ribs, legs kicking out to hit him in the chest, thighs, and stomach. I would have aimed for the groin if I had the chance.

He pulls away with an uppercut and I counter with a fistful of flame right to his face.

He grunts. Arms rising to slam down in a hammerblow before all those grappling training sessions with Carlos kick in again. I step forward, into his guard, slipping under and around to get behind him. I grip at his arm with one limb whilst my other arm wraps around his neck from throat to nape, falling and pulling with brute strength Lung loses his footing and I squeeze and twist. I'll either strangle him or snap his neck in two.

I hear him laugh.

His free hand reaches up, already glinting with metal scales along the back of his hand.

Up around, to the back of his head, he grips my hand and starts to pull.

My ash armor is strong. Unbelievably strong. Even so, I feel him, slowly, inch by agonizing inch, pulling my grip off, every passing second making it that much harder for me and that much easier for him.

I jump and kick with both legs, slamming my heels into his spine. He roars in pain but regains his footing quickly enough.

I chuck two fireballs at his face only to see him tank it and laugh.

"Disappointing." He mocks.

I roar and slam the ground with my foot and Lung is greeted with incinerating pillars of flame that set the whole room on fire, the smoke immediately becoming stifling and overpowering. I can barely see beyond my own hand.

I hear him roar, and the glint of steel through the smoke is easy to see as he charges, I form a sword, and Lung's swing is laughably simple to dodge, enough so that I get the impression he's barely even trying.

My hunch pays off.

As I duck he turns, faster than before with an uppercut that would have taken my head off. I'm ready and manage to avoid the blow before shoving my sword into his exposed armpit to cut open the artery there.

The fatal blow is shrugged off, and the next thing I know Lung's foot is all but caving in my chest as he counters with a brutal kick that sends me smashing into the front of his Hummer, destroying what little of the car wasn't already burning.

I groan and push off the debris, and I can hear the cracking of ash as my statues come to life and whine away, and I feel their healing power wash over me, numbing the pain and aches as I get back to my feet.

Lung was now almost fully covered head to toe in steel scales, pulling out the blade to let blood gush from the wound, completely unconcerned. His neck hadn't elongated as I heard it could do, nor had he grown wings, but he was already getting beyond my ability to beat since I couldn't just burn him and be done with it.

He looks to be nearing towards eight feet tall now. "You're not entertaining me girl."

"I'm not… your cheap whore!" I hissed and like a memory of a half forgotten dream, I remember, the flame burning in my hand coalescing, small, tiny, a sphere of pure flame. All the energy stored in the center, ready to be unleashed rather than sputtering uselessly in the wind.

I throw it.

It was like a sun went off in the middle of the room, I see liquid fire burst from the sphere like an exploding balloon, the heat rising to unbearable levels in an instant.

Lung howls in pain.

Then I hear him laugh.

I back away but don't even make it a step before a clawed hand lashes out. I jump away, landing on my feet as I see a stream of white hot flame a second before it slams into my armor.

I breathe, and realize too late what a mistake that is.

Instead of air, I suck down fire into my nose, my mouth, my throat.

My lungs burn. I pull away, trying to scream now, feeling the heat burn on my insides, I feel the ash flooding my helmet and visor, protecting me as I hear the idols come to life around me to heal the worst of the damage.

I feel a hand at the back of my head and I can't even move before I'm slammed face first into the ground, once, twice, a third time before I'm thrown like a rag doll.

I hit something, not sure what. When I came to a stop I cough and feel razors on my throat, bloody bile filling my mouth, nails through my chest. I move to pick myself up as I see Lung approaching.

His metallic scales were orange with heat. The metal simmering as though it was just pulled from a forge.

His mask had fallen off somewhere, and the face I see is reptilian. A row of teeth glinting, filed to a point, horns are growing from the top of his skull.

He was becoming… a dragon.

I take in deep breath as I try to get back to my feet.

When he speaks his words are warped, I can barely understand them, his mouth having morphed to something inadequate for human speech.

"This is it? This is what they were so afraid of?"

"Fuck off…" I curse. My head rings like a bell courtesy of a backhand. One that sends me to the concrete wall and slumping down. I felt a searing hot foot on my armored chest and it presses down!

"You're disappointing me girl..." I can hear him sneer. "I expected more."

I try to push him off me, using what strength I still have left.

His foot doesn't even budge.

Lung's eyes burn. Searing pits that don't even resemble what was once human.

Dragon.

I feel a tug at the back of my mind.

I groan, hand to my helmet as the tug gets stronger. Insistent. "What the…"

Dragon… Slaying...

I close my eyes for a second. An instant.

And I see it there, descending with the sun at its back. It lands before me amongst the misty vale… Bigger than the wyverns, bigger than the drakes. I can smell the stink of old blood in its mouth, its claws are blades, every rippling muscle of the beast powerful enough to tear down the castle walls of our keep. Its wings wide enough to darken the sky.

The King did not send me. He did not need to. I am his knight and this is-

Knighthood's highest calling.

My hands rise, gripping my skull. "Who… What… get-get out of my head."

"Hrgh?" Lung tilted his head.

"Get out of my head…" I muttere, closing my eyes, trying to find some peace in the Dark where I had such comfort once.

And there… I see the armored hand reach out. I follow it and see him. A knight in black. I can't see what's inside the visor. Only emptiness. His gauntlet was closing in on me…

What?

I can only hear the light rumble of a growl, as if the knight was a beast of sorts in human clothing.

I pull away.

"Get out of my head! No! Get out!"

It can't be… Was I… really being Mastered? I thought… that was just… am I really being Mastered!?

Its a song I hear. It soothes and comforts.

Brings peace.

I recognize the sound. Its…

Its mother's flute.

She plays this for me when she wants me to sleep.

Mother wants me to sleep now...

"Your big brother just wants to play is all…" I see the black knight retreat into the darkness, unseen and I see mother's tender pale hand, wedding ring and all reaching for me.

"But… but I..."

"Dragons are dangerous beasts daughter…"

But… that's dad's wedding ring. Not-

And suddenly, I am frightened.

The hand, my mother's hand changes right before my eyes, becomes something different. I try to follow it, to see its owner but find only blackness.

I turn my eyes back to what was once mothers hand.

It isn't human!

The features crumble away, the skin cracks and peels back. The delicate fingers warp and lengthen, too many knuckles, claws grow where nails once stood, seven digits instead of five, a grotesque mockery as though someone who had forgotten what humans looked like was trying to mimic a human limb.

"Sleep my Little Owl. Sleep. Let us protect you now…" The velvet voice was still there but not, a duality stood out to me now where there was none before.

This is-

And the hand closes in, wrapping around me. The song goes on. And I let out a scream before I am dragged down. Down into dark.

What's happening to me!

I was… I was being used. I've been used. Violated...

I need help…

Dad!

Lisa!

Missy!

Chris!

Someone!

Anyone!

Get me out! Get me out! I don't want to stay here anymore with the blood and the bile! Let me out! Let me out! I don't want to be in the locker anymore! I was out! I was out!

I WAS OUT!

God please!

Anyone!

HELP ME!

I'm brought close, and… Mom's hand caresses my cheek.

My lips move, but no words come out.

Then…

I smile.

I let out a small giggle as my eyes begin to close. My arms wrapped around her as I listen to her tune and voice. I hug her close, sinking into her embrace.

The Dark… It is peaceful… a deep peace.

I allow myself to be content, sighing as I closed my eyes.

Mother really is the best…

"Mother tell big brother… I love him too… Just like how I love you…" I could feel her hands through my hair just like before and I can feel her kiss on my brow.

"Of course my Little Owl… of course…"

I listen to the song of my mother's flute as I sleep.

(X)

Lung roared as he flew. The dragon skidded on the pavement like a stone, torrents of blood spilling from his bleeding chest. He came to a stop, laughing, chuckling as he reached his feet. He brought his gaze up, looking at the building now swallowed by bright flames, claws over his chest as it heals rapidly.

Surtr. In his rigid and sharp black armor, and a massive slab of stone that was his sword over his shoulder marched out of the flames as though born from them.

Lung grins. This sixteen foot monstrosity made the PRT retreat like cowards. His shoulders shuddered… He's chuckling, but in his state it sounded more like scraping gravel rather than laughter.

Kenta couldn't care less if Brockton Bay became smothered in fire and ash, or even if an Endbringer Siren sounds from all the chaos that is being unleashed.

He laughs as hard as he can. "Kakatte koi! Bakemono-da!" He taunts in his native tongue.

That moment back in Kyushu against Leviathan. It was the same. And…

This moment… is all that he lives for.