I checked the GPS on my arm, quickly memorised the direction that Shadow was moving, and took off after him. I gave a quick thumbs up to Dr Lyons and Dr Reede as thanks, and was on my way to catch up with Shadow. Sprinting across rubble, I headed north west to find my opponent. After a few seconds, and a few hundred kilometers, I had made my way to the edge of the city. And I took it all in. All of the skyscrapers had the insignia of Black Star on them. They've completely taken over the city. Sirens blared, flames climbed high, and smoke created a thick, choking blanket above the city. Black Star say that they want to create a better world, but all they've done is ruin it completely. I can understand their morbidly altruistic ideals, but how could anyone agree to aid in the destruction of humanity? I have to stop Shadow as soon as I possibly can. And the rest of Black Star, too. Whoever they might be. I turned to my left and saw a giant skyscraper directly in front of me. Is tis the direction that Shadow went? Up? Alright then. Time to see if I can run up buildings. Powering up my legs, I sprint straight at the skyscraper. I plant my foot onto the glass and jump and then push up. And I begin to run up the side.
I'm doing it! I'm actually doing it! I'm so fast that I can run up the sides of buildings without falling! Ok now, calm down, Flint. Don't jinx it, don't jinx it. And after a few seconds of running, I jump up over the top of the skyscraper. With my enhanced vision, I can just about make out a few outlines of people in the distance. Shadow must have soldiers atop the buildings, watching over the city with malicious intent. I keep running, and I jump across the short gaps between each building. They may be small, but a lot of effort is needed to run then jump, land and keep running, and then repeating. After about five skyscrapers, I jump, but don't land. I just fall. There's a much smaller skyscraper here. I tuck and roll and just about manage to keep balance. What I have in mind may not work. Still in Plasmatic Mode, I send some energy down into my legs. I reach the edge of the building, and I jump.
I just barely managed to grip the edge of the building and pull myself up onto the roof. Looking back down, I can see the incredible height that I just jumped. That's probably about 50 or 60 feet! I turned around and was greeted by eight Black Star soldiers pointing assault rifles at me. Equipping my shield, I started deflecting their bullets whilst charging forward. Running to one soldier, I hit him with the shield, causing him to fly off the side of the building. I then moved quickly towards a soldier close to me and slammed my knee into his stomach, then brought my shield down onto the back of his head. The third managed to smack me across the face with the butt of his rifle, and then pulled the trigger. I barely managed to catch the bullet before it pierced my skull. Throwing it back, the lead went straight through his kneecap. I thought to myself, 'I wonder what else N.A.D.A can transform into?' The first thing that came to my head was what my arm changed into: a spear.
I thrusted my arm at the knee-less soldier. The nanotech spear pierced through his chest, brutally killing him. Then through vibrations, I could feel an enemy coming up behind me. But I was too late. He stabbed me directly in the back, and then pulled his knife back out. Wrong choice. My wound healed and I quickly turned and smacked him across the jaw, knocking him off of the building. As the fifth soldier ran at me, I activated my wrist sword and countered his attack. His machete came right out of his hand, giving me an opening to slice across his chest. Three left. Two of them pulled out pistols and fired at me, but were not alive for much longer after that. I used my grapple-sword to deflect the bullets they fired at me, killing them both. The eighth and final adversary did not challenge me at all. Instead he jumped over the edge of the skyscraper. I reached to try and grab him with N.A.D.A, but I couldn't. But then I did! I have two grappling hooks! This is most unprecedented! I pulled up the roof jumper and fired my other grappling hook, pulling him in and smacking his face on the edge of the skyscraper. I then reeled him back in and put him to rest. Wow. What a battle that was. I turn to the next skyscraper I have to travel to, and I see him. Shadow. Standing there with a condescending stare, seemingly glowing in the shining moon. What a prick. I grappled over to him with N.A.D.A and got into a fighting stance. He didn't move. He only blinked at me. "Well? You want me, don't you?"
"I don't want you, Flint. I need you."
"If you need me, then come and get me, you punk bitch!"
"I'm coming, Flint." He zooms down towards me and throws a punch. I barely manage to block it, but when I went to punch back, he had disappeared. Where did he go? Where will he come from? I can't feel his vibrations, but I can still sense his presence around me. And then he reappeared again, from the night.
I moved out of the way of his fist, but only barely. His punch glanced off of my cheek, and he disappeared again. He teleport through darkness? And through shadows? I'm guessing that's why he's called Shadow. I can't sense where he'll come from until the very last second, so it'll be incredibly difficult. He came from behind again, and hit me successfully. It then happened again. And again. And again. Hundreds of times in just a dozen seconds. After the pain and anguish, I finally predicted his movements. He teleported behind me once again, but I turned and grabbed him by the throat, chokeslamming him.
"How can you do this?"
"My name is Shadow. Was it not obvious to you?" I punched him out of frustration.
"Well, how are you gonna get out of this mess, eh?" I said, turning N.A.D.A into a spear, ready to pierce through his chest.
"Like this." he said, smugly. All of a sudden, I felt something stab through my back and come out through the front of my chest. A black spike? And then a second black spike tentacle came through. And a third. And then five more. From the immense suffering, my grip loosened around his throat and he escaped. Gradually raising my head to look around, I could see dark tendrils coming up from the ground. It's Shadow controlling them!
"If haven't guessed already, Flint, my name describes my powers. Exactly like how Lion looks like and has the abilities of a power-boosted lion." Why didn't I make the connection earlier? It's so simple! Without hesitation, Shadow sent more shadow tendrils at me. I could barely redirect them away from me with me shield in time, and two of them even slashed me. In retaliation, I clicked my fingers and fired a bolt of lightning at him. But he had a tatic. He summoned one of his shadow portals in the way of the bolt, and it vanished. He then opened a bolt facing back at me, and the bolt struck me in my chest. His proficiency in portals is extraordinary! I know I'm fast, but how can I beat the speed of darkness? By thinking up a counter. Somehow. "That arm of yours is impressive, Flint. But it's nothing compared to the technology that we have at Black Star." He told me, attempting to convince me to join him. He still kept up the barrage of shadows, however.
"I'm sure that it is," I said, attempting to block them all with my shield, "but I'm happy where I am, thanks." I fired both of my grappling hooks at him, attempting to stop his movements. And sure enough, the shadows stopped.
"Pathetic. You really think that you're physically strong enough to hold me?" He was right. Grabbing the grapple wires, he pulled me towards him and planted his shin into my stomach. I fell down, only to quickly jump up again before Shadow could stab with another shadow skewer. I then tried to concentrate some plasma energy into my palms. What appeared was a bright blue ball of lightning, just like when I fought Rachel. I thrusted my arm at Shadow, and fired.
What the hell was that! That was not like my fight with Rachel! When I fought her, the ball flew out of my hands and crippled her! But this time, a giant laser beam emitted from my hands! My power has increased dramatically since my battle with her. And when I fired it, Shadow seemed to be weakened by it. Of course!
"That was quite the lights display, Flint." He said, seemingly panting. This is it! I'm so stupid! The way to beat a shadow is with light! I charged up more energy and blasted him again. The beam was smaller, but still packed an insane punch. It tore a hole through his arm, which meant it was working! "You may be strong, and you may be fast, but isn't it tragic that you were never fast enough to save your pals Ricky and Holly?"
Oh my god.
That really struck a nerve.
The death of my friends must be some form of psychological trigger for me. I felt power surge all through both of my arms, and N.A.D.A glowed with enormous electrical energy. I could barely see Shadow's eyes widen at the sight of me through all of the purple lighting releasing from my body. I readied a N.A.D.A spear and ran and stabbed him straight through the heart. He tried to send more tendrils at me, but I brought forth my grapple sword and blocked his shadow attacks. I pushed him into the ground and started punching him repeatedly. The roof of the skyscraper caved in and collapsed. With each punch that landed, we fell through a floor. I smashed him through 17 floors before he caught my fists and stopped my assault on him. He put his feet to my stomach and kicked me. The kick had enough force to make me fly back up through the building. I looked back down, expecting him to fly up and keep kicking me, but he didn't. Instead, he teleported next to me and kept punching me down, like I was doing to him. He punched me back through the 17 floors, and then continued to smack me straight to the ground floor, through 33 more floors of crushing pain and torment. The onslaught only stopped when we hit the ground.
"I did say that you'd never be able to defeat me," Shadow reminded me, as he stood up, "So stay down there, and do not move." But I moved. I rose up and sprinted at him. I transformed N.A.D.A into a sword and, in a fit of rage, I went to stab Shadow between the eyes. But I froze.
What felt like an overwhelming force stopped me from doing any more harm to Shadow. It isn't any of his tendrils, nor is it any of his cronies or henchmen. It feels like something internal. Something dangerous. Something other-worldly. Shadow looked at me with confusion. He didn't say anything. He just turned around and walked away. "Death will come for you." he said without looking back at me. I tried to shout out to him, but I couldn't talk. What's stopping me from moving is also stopping me from talking. And a familiar phenomenon happened. All of my surroundings turned black, and then flames started rising from the floor. A nightmarish face appeared in front of me. The man with the jagged mouth. After about six seconds of being frozen and staring into the piercing white eyes of whoever is in front of me, I completely blacked out.
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When I woke up, I could hear eerie beeping noises. Am I being microwaved? Once my vision cleared, I could see Dr Lyons and Dr Reede sitting by me, whilst I lay down. I'm in a hospital bed, with small plastic tubes entering my body, leading to bags with various and copious amounts of liquids. "Flint! You're awake!" Sophie cried out in joy.
"Why were unconscious? Were you beaten by Shadow?"
"Well.." I struggled to reply, "Not exactly. Intruth, I don't know what happened. I saw a weird looking face, everything went black and was on fire."
"That's some non-science stuff that I cannot help you with." Ben replied, "Is it a mental or internal thing?"
"Most likely."
"I don't mean to get philosophical, but perhaps you may need to look within yourself to battle the struggle."
"Yeah. Yeah you're right! I'm going to take what you said literally."
"Huh?"
"There is something inside of me, and somehow I need to communicate with it."
"Try meditation, maybe?" Sophie chimed in. It could actually work. Getting up out of the hospital bed, I went to sit on the floor to start meditation, but I was stopped by Ben.
"Before you go in," he said, pulling a briefcase from underneath his chair, "I have a gift for you." He opened the case, and inside was a familiar-looking outfit, only modified. Inside was a brown leather jacket, that looked like it had been cut off just below the waist. It had metal shoulder and elbow guards attached to the leather. Its collar was popped and looked slightly reinforced, with enough protection that it would stop harm coming to ones neck. There was also a black undershirt that also seems to be hardened by some form of armour, like a thin yet effective stab-proof vest. I put on the undershirt and the jacket, feeling a comforting sense of relief. I sat down and began to meditate.
I'm finally going to fight the man with the jagged mouth.
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