Chapter 51: The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Devastation divested many Manhattan buildings of their luster. Engineering marvels crumbled under their own weight, unable to support the floors and floors of majesty because of their weakened foundations. Some unlucky buildings simply winked out of existence, here one moment, gone the next, death by bombs courtesy of the U.S. government. Whether half-gutted or knocked over, every structure bore a bit of the world’s fury.
“Sam?” Using her nose, Paige nudged her brother’s shoulder. “Sam, talk ta me.”
Instead of talking, Sam slid off the three people he protected with his blast field. He thudded to the innocuously pristine ground, his face strained but motionless, his limbs splayed about unnaturally.
“Ma Gawd, Sam! Say somethin’!”
“He’s not breathing,” Bishop noted as he thrashed about in his restraints. “Cannonball might’ve overexerted himself by protecting us from the explosion. His body is probably worn out and just given up. We need to administer CPR and fast.”
Alex, who remained quiet throughout the day’s drama, wobbled back and forth in his ice prison. He rocked so hard that he tipped over and shattered the melting frost like a hammer smashing porcelain. Dumbfounded, Bishop and Paige watched as the younger Summers brother pop his left shoulder out of its socket and painfully extracted one arm from his metal bindings. With a manly cry of pain, he rammed his upper arm into the pavement and righted the joint.
Still wordlessly, the man walked over to a fallen Sam and administered first aid like a trained and experienced paramedic.
Bishop and Paige looked at each other, blinked, and then looked at Alex again.
“Um, how we gettin’ out?”
“I don’t know,” Bishop mumbled, “But I’m not doing what he just did.”
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Every story had a bad guy. Every story had a climax. Every reader wanted the good guy to win. Stories were all fine and dandy but they held no water in real life. First of all, no one ever set out to be the bad guy, much less wake up and say, “Wow, I’m bad. I’m going to do unjustifiable things and bring carnage to this planet for no good reason.” What was this? A comic book? Second, like bad sex, not every occasion had a climax. More often than not, real life dramatics petered out into nothingness, the heat and passion of the moment long snuffed out.
Third? Sometimes, the good guys weren’t guys. Sometimes, the good guys were gals.
Rogue dipped under Vargas’ sword and charged into his gut. Her feet kept moving as she drove herself further into the Spaniard. The immovable object lost ground, and once he did, Rogue hefted him up a few inches and ran his back through trees, bathrooms, parked cars, and other miscellaneous obstacles. Annoyed, he brought the pommel of his sword down on her back once, twice, three times, but the brunette continued her trek.
She even snuck in a few sucker punches.
Again and again he pounded against her. Rogue coughed, each strike coaxing another spittle of blood from her mouth. Dogged determination saw her through, and now, run out of things to demolish, she set her sights and Vargas’s back on the surrounding monsters. Big, small, short, tall, gross, cute, five armed or four, they filled the role of “improvised weaponry” against Vargas.
A particularly spiky, ball-like demon with legs which resembled a puffed up blowfish looked like a tempting target. Rogue charged and the bloodcurdling scream she bellowed frightened the poor, cowardly thing. It waved its stubby hands in defeat, but when it saw no mercy coming its way, it ran for dear life.
Of course, ball-like things with malformed appendages didn’t run fast, but survival instincts added a helping of speed to its diet. It scurried behind a streetlight and tried to tuck its impressive gut in to fit behind the slim cover. Huff, huff, huff, suck it went, but all the huffing and sucking couldn’t shrink its girth. Terrified, it started mewing pathetically and spinning around in little circles.
And then Vargas collided into the light pole.
The tube of metal fell like a tree, uprooting cement and live wires. The pole acted as a rolling pin on dough, flattening the fat demon straight down the middle. Spiky protrusions met Vargas’ body but so thick was his skin that even the sharpest of outgrowths bent and snapped. While not drawing blood, this final attack did hurt, and by reflex, his prized sword dropped to the ground.
Lumbering off the man, Rogue scooped up his weapon and unsteadily held it over his head.
“We’ve been here before,” Vargas chuckled hoarsely, “Do you have what it takes to finish what you started?”
“Ah shoulda shut up when ah had the chance,” she said, prepared to bring the weapon down, “Ah ain’t gonna make the same mistake twice.”
Somewhere between the attack and the beheading, Vargas clapped his palms against the blade. Inches from his neck, the sword menacingly gleamed, a violent extension of Rogue’s darkest urgings.
“What makes you think a few feet of forged steel will stop me?”
His hands turned and yanked, throwing the sword backwards after Rogue unwillingly let go and he willingly so. Vargas himself bounced back up and grazed his opponent with a wild right hook. Duck, weave, jab to her stomach, one to her side, one to her side--she readied herself for another jab to the same side, and that gave him the split-second opening he needed to sock her jaw with a bone crushing sound.
Rogue stumbled into one of the park’s railings, the same ones used to prevent people from falling into freezing waters. Vargas pinned her down by firing a series of rapid kicks and punches into vulnerable, difficult to defend spots. Despite her attention devoted to defending, relentless blows hammered against her so hard the railing began to give way.
Creak.
Metal twisting.
Crunch.
Cement breaking.
The hits kept coming, the next stronger and faster than the last. A hand grabbed the back of her head and brought her face into a sharp elbow. Snapping back, she almost tumbled over the railing, but Vargas grabbed her shirt. With cocky smile and fist readied, he geared up for the final curtain.
“Give my regards to Destiny.”
Suddenly, Rogue’s half-lidded eyes sprung open. “She says hi.”
An unexpected knee to the groin hunched him over. Then, up and over he went, dark waters rushing up to meet him. Splash. The might of an ocean slammed him against jagged rocks. Harsh iciness made his entire body tingle, and while he didn’t doubt his physical conditioning or superior genetics, he realized that staying in these waters wasn’t a smart idea.
Throwing an arm around an outcropping, he slowly hauled himself out of the current. Only halfway up, a tremendous weight landed on his forearm and depressed his limb a good six inches into the stone.
Looming above him, Rogue locked onto his elbow. “Ah reckon ya got a choice, Mr. Vargas. Get outta Dodge or get dead.”
“You’ve been making the threat since we’ve met,” the man smirked, oblivious to the attempts to harm his chiseled body, “Even your mutant powers can’t slow me down.”
“Yer human, Vargas.”
“Homo sapiens superior.”
“Unless ya suddenly grew a pair o’ gills on me, ya still gotta eat, sleep, and breathe.” Her free hand pushed his head under water.
“Breathe,” she whispered.
Oh, Vargas didn’t want to submerge quietly. He struggled, but unsteady waves bashed at him, a current threatened to pull him under, Rogue had all of her weight on top of his arm, he couldn’t use his other one to grab hold of anything else, and damn was the water cold. He fought for breath, but the mutant girl’s strength seemed to be growing, perhaps gleaned from him by her power. Hm, probably spoke too soon about that annoying power earlier.
Just above him, just above the water’s surface, Rogue’s distortedly grim features bade him farewell. Yes, even homo sapiens superior needed to breathe, and while Vargas’s lung capacity far outstripped a normal human’s, he couldn’t exist indefinitely under water. He kicked, he wiggled, he battled, but he didn’t have the leverage to pull away or the wherewithal to break through to the surface. Lungs searing. Nose clogged. Eyes blurred and dimming. He floated in a world of nothingness suspended in the nebula of wakefulness and sleep. His heart raced, spurred on by adrenaline and mental panic.
If he could, he’d groan in frustration. Done in by water: how embarrassing. Water, the origin of life--funny how it spelled his doom. From water rose his species and to water now he’d return. Water... the maker and destroyer of nations... water... his tomb...
No glory, no honor, no cataclysm, just a desperate gargle, a bunch of bubbles, and then silence.
Breathe. Everyone had to breathe. Finally, Vargas succumb to the need and his lungs opened up to get a rush of life-giving air. Instead, water flooded his system. His muscles became rigid, all of them starved for air. He felt like his body was about to burst. A permanent chill soothed his aching throat and stuffed up his mind.
One more breath escaped him, and then he was still.
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- To be continued...
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