Power(103)

He came at me again, full on, and I kicked his ass right through the ceiling.

The floorboards shattered as he changed course radically upward. I lost track of his progress as splinters and shards of wood showered down on me and I was forced to duck to cover my eyes. When I looked up again, I could see the blue sky above.

I shot straight upward, using the power of Gavrikov’s flight to take me after him.

I kept going past the point where I suspected he’d stalled and started scanning the horizon with my eyes. I didn’t see him before I heard him coming, and he slammed into me around the midsection, howling his rage as he did so. He tried for a punch and I blocked it, but he kept coming for another one and I let him carry us with his momentum as I sped up into a frenzy of blocks to counter his maniacally fast strikes. He was untrained but operating on pure rage, while I was in a weaker position but relying on my training.

Without ground to use for leverage, I knew I’d have a harder time getting him off of me. So I kicked the gravity back on and let myself fall, his speed still shooting us forward in a graceful arc. It took him a second to realize what I’d done as I started to slip away from him. He tried to use his legs to anchor himself to me but failed, and as I slipped out of his reach I turned the flight power back on and did an abrupt in-air flip that culminated in a kick to his groin.

I heard the wind leave him in an “Oof!” and righted myself midair. He sailed on a little farther with the extra momentum my hit gave him. He started to come around slowly, and I shot at him, leading with a foot.

I caught him in the face and the impact smashed him into a two-story brick building. Right through the wall, pieces of brick falling down around him. It was almost like in the cartoons when someone leaves a silhouette going through a wall, except his was really more just a gaping hole.

He popped his head out a moment later, looking not quite fresh as a daisy, but close. There was still a rage in his eyes, but some caution had taken over. There was some blood, but I could tell he’d used Wolfe’s father’s power to heal up quickly. “Why?” he asked.

“Because the building was there and I figured if it didn’t break open your thick skull it would at least make a decent backstop for your sorry ass.” I smiled meanly at him and could tell he took no amusement in my joke. “Why what?”

“Why do you fight so hard for this?” He made a grandiose gesture with his arms, the wannabe dictator taking in the unworthy world around him. “Abuse, murder, violence, war, starvation—why would you fight so hard for a world that’s been so cold to you? That has such things in it? That let these things happen to you?”

“Because I’m a shield,” I said. “I’m the shield.”

“You know what a shield is? It’s a tool. You’re a tool of other people!” he taunted me.

I just sat there, hovering, defensive, waiting for him to make his next move. “One of us is a tool, that’s for sure.”

I watched him clench his jaw, baring his teeth inadvertently as he did so. “I thought you were the one.”

“And I knew all along that I could do better than a maniac who set out to destroy our entire species.” I pointed at him. “Helpful hint—women actually do like nice guys. Or maybe a guy who’s confident, and only slightly dickish—not someone who got rejected as a villain from a James Bond movie.”

“We could have done something great together,” he said.

“I would never have signed on to be your Eva Braun,” I spat at him before I lunged forward and kicked him right back into the hole in the wall.

The building was set up as a studio office of some sort, and I saw as I kicked him that everyone had cleared out of the middle of the floor. Which was lucky, because there wasn’t much chance I could have stopped before hitting him.

He blasted through furniture and out the other side of the building. I was after him in a flash, and just as he started to come down, I caught him and punched him in the face, sending him aloft again. I could see downtown ahead of us, looming a lot closer than I would have preferred. Beyond the damage I’d just done, this had the potential to get a lot worse for the city of Minneapolis.

I caught him on the low arc again and hit him with an uppercut that mustered everything I had. He shot up into the air, propelled by the strength of my attack, and I followed after him. He made a grunting sound as I caught him and yanked him forward into a punch, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and punched him again, caught him by the back of his neck before he got away and slammed my elbow into his nose.

He flipped through the air and righted himself, floating. I watched as his face went from deformed to normal in a matter of seconds. “Anything you can do, I can do better,” he said, and it came out as a spiteful gloat.