Legacy(28)

“You know what?” I said, and felt my annoyance burn to a new high at how much she’d held back from me, how much she’d kept secret. Her casual reference to the time she locked me in a box and just left made my fists clench so tightly I thought my knuckles were going to break. “I think you had the right idea before. Let’s just fight.”

I didn’t do anything as prosaic as jump at her, striking before she was ready. No, I stood there and raised my hands defensively. A sneak attack now was just as likely to go wrong for me as right, and I had faith I could break through her defenses without having to resort to cheap tactics. I didn’t bother bowing, though, as we would have back when she was training me, just situated myself for offense and defense and waited for her to do the same.

She didn’t disappoint, lowering herself into a defensive stance. “So it comes down to this.”

“Again,” I said. “You trained me. You helped make me what I am, even though I didn’t ask for this.”

“You think you can ... what?” She had her hands up, looking at me over balled fists. “You think beating me will avenge all the wrongs of your childhood?”

“I think beating you is going to feel damned good,” I said. “Beyond that, I don’t much care.”

“Well, you’re all about feeling good in the moment, aren’t you?” she sneered. “Everything I tried to teach you was about long-term planning, keeping your eye on the bigger picture, the long game.”

I shrugged. “Probably got lost under the fact that you were so busy planning for the long game that you never actually lived your life, or let me live mine.”

Her expression changed, and suddenly her face looked haggard in the day’s dim light. “The world changed, sweetheart. Changed from when I was a kid, changed in a heartbeat. This Sovereign guy? He didn’t need to be planning anything as grandiose as the end of our kind to scare the living shit out of me. He’s simply the most frightening man in the meta world, which is saying something if you know some of the other candidates who have vied for that title. Metahuman life is dangerous, especially for exiles like us.”

I eased a little closer to her, and she to me. We both stood, waiting to see who would throw the first punch, make the first move. “You’ve met Sovereign. Fought him?”

“If you could call it that.” She swiped at me with a jab and that was all it took. I dodged and came back at her with another one that she evaded. “He beat my ass flat in about ten seconds.” I flung a high kick at her and she went inside and hit me in the stomach as I hammered her on the top of the head, causing her to stagger back as I tightened my gut from the extreme pain. “What he did ...” she breathed, her head bobbing like I’d caused it to swim. “You have no idea.”

“It’d be tough for me to have any idea since we were never allowed to talk about what happened outside our house.” I came at her again and this time landed a punch that she couldn’t block, slamming into the side of her head. She hit me in the jaw in return, but the fact that I’d struck first weakened the blow a little since she was rocking back from the impact of my punch. Only a little, though; it still hurt like hell.

“There was a reason for that!” she said and came up again, her eyes aflame with anger. “I had to protect you! From Omega, from Sovereign. How else was I going to keep you out of the spotlight? Didn’t you notice I only ever left the house to go to work? That was it. That was all. The rest of the time I bought groceries, bought necessities, and came directly home. I didn’t leave you alone any longer than I had to. I was right there with you in confinement.”

“Except for your work furlough,” I said and came at her again, this time with a round kick that was far too slow. She turned it aside and popped me in the nose with a counterpunch that she tried to follow with a kick of her own. I raised a knee and ran her into it as I sidestepped, though. “I never realized how much I missed of living in the outside world until I was in it. It was always the little things, too. Cake on my birthday, friends to share my life with—”

“You don’t think you’re actually gonna win this, do you?” she said and came at me sideways. I blocked her and threw her back with a volley of punches.

“I did last time,” I said. “I’m still convinced part of the reason you ran out on me is because after all those years of training when I couldn’t touch you, I started to manifest and land some hits. Then you disappear. You’ve been slumming it all these years, fighting a little girl without a tenth of your speed or power, and when I started to get good enough to take you out, your ego was too big to handle it.”