Unexpected Showdown

            The night gave birth to yet another morning, and Tony had barely slept, not only due to the intense discomfort of lying on the scratching, cold and solid surface of a roof, but also because Pascal had been crying all night over Cloudfire’s death during his sleep. The pain had not stopped for a second to continue swelling in his arm and he gave it only one definition: unnecessary. After kicking Pascal in the ribs with a specific rhythm, he too woke up and they just sat on the ridge, looking at the city below, as they did back on the Fiery Cliff when they stared down at the forest.

“I don’t get how you would want to live in such a place.” Pascal said to start the conversation.

“I actually wouldn’t even want to live there myself.” Tony responded, sporting his new black t-shirt with the Boston Bears logo on it that he found in the bag of clothes Pascal had brought. Obviously, it was too big, but it was clean and comfortable. He kept his pants, because of the choice he had; it was either a skirt, a pair of leggings or a pair of jeans that was way too big for him.

“When we get to your place, Tony, what then?” Pascal had changed his shirt for a blue long-sleeve one that was also too big for him, so he had ripped off part of the sleeves to turn it into a T-shirt.

“Well, I’ll be home, and everything will be back to normal! Yeah, I still have to figure out a super excuse though… but that will come in time.”

“No, but I mean what about me? Where will I go? What will I have to do? Will I have to go to school? Will I live with you?” Their feet dangled down in the frightening depths that lead to traffic, parking lots and smaller buildings, but with what the heroes had experienced up to now, that was not much of a thrill anymore, even for Tony in his human form.

“Right…I don’t know at all actually. I’m already not assured things will go great back at home…plus asking for a friend to live at my place, I don’t think that’ll work out. And how could you go to school, you never went to school… they can’t just ship you in kindergarten!”

And then Pascal noticed something up in the sky farther ahead. “Hey look there’s something up there.”

“What is it?” Tony asked.

“I dunno.” Just then, a tiny silver blur shot at the speed of light right into Pascal’s left pectoral. Pascal didn’t budge at all; it was only his head that instantly locked eyes on the stinging blow.

“Whoa, did you just get shot?” Tony asked, surprised.

“Yeah…I got shot.” He answered, as stunned as his friend. Pascal got up slowly, still confused by the swiftness of it all. “Ow, ow, ow…” He chanted softly as he stared at the silver feather, about 10 cm in length and 2 cm in width, with half of it implanted in Pascal’s flesh. He pulled it out quickly, and scrutinized it for a while, his whole chest now feeling numb. A big shadow formed in front of Pascal and then as he got his attention out of the feather he held in front of him with the tip of his fingers, a rain of feathers appeared before him. The blond boy got showered by dozens of feathers all over his frontal body, leaving him only the time to cover his face. “Damn they sting like s**t!” He screamed. With his legs and upper body bombarded with small feathers, Pascal suddenly didn’t feel his muscles anymore. His whole body was now numb and his knees involuntarily bent and made him fall like a doll to the floor.

“What the f**k!” Tony screamed before a large, humanoid chicken-eagle hybrid picked up Pascal by his shoulders with its talons.

The creature dove down to the roof  before letting go of Pascal to send him scrabbling off the rough surface of the rooftop and bang on one of those pipes we always see on rooftops but no one knows what they’re for. Pascal began to win control over his muscles once again, and in a quivering, slow manner he managed to get up awkwardly, still struggling to position himself normally. “Ah, those damn feathers, they make my body parts stop moving for a while!” Pascal hurriedly took off a couple of feathers that stunned him all over his arms and chest before the monster would come back for another attack. The anthropomorphic bird made a loop-the-loop in the sky to get another strike at his opponent.

“Isn’t your comrade going to assist you?” The feathered creature asked as it swooped through the air.

“He…isn’t available right now, but your fight is with me!”

 At the same time as he charged frontwards to get his rock-hard beak through Pascal’s neck, the blond boy himself charged frontwards, but he flew in a line that would pass right under the bird’s straight path. The chicken-eagle’s thrust forward was far too great to make his charge stop so suddenly, and as he flapped his wings frontwards to brake, Pascal had also come to a split-second halt right under his foe, and with the bird’s imbalance he took the opportunity to launch upwards with a whole body momentum’s uppercut. The punch hit the beast right into his stomach and it made him squeeze out a horrible mix of a rooster’s cry with the shriek of raven. He tried flying it off, but the pain and one-sidedness of his position made him tilt towards the ground. After the humiliating landing, he stood up and drew the sword out of the holster in his back, ready to fight.

“I’m sure you’ve had better entries in the past.” Pascal mocked with a smile as he himself raised his fists for battle.

“Shut up!” Chickle shouted angrily. He rose up his sword, giving it a glimmer as it reflected on the sun. “Do you remember this sword?” He said, now smiling on his end.

“You weren’t able to get your own so you had to steal it from your dead brother?”

 Chickle ignored the comment and said, “This sword was meant to slay you two little twerps, and I’m here to make sure this is to be accomplished.”

“Let’s see if you can take your word.”

Pascal kicked on a thin roof pipe that stuck out from beside him and it broke off. He took the rusty old thing that was about as long as a police baton and charged for his foe, pipe held in both hands in the air, and so did Chickle, but he was holding his sword beside him in the way of the samurai. A big clash echoed through the sunny sky, making the fast-food hungry pigeons fly away from the nearby rooftops. Both combatants swung their weapon at each other, but it was either a block, a parry or an unnecessary blind shot. Pascal, in contrary to his opponent, had never actually fought in a weapon battle except for his experience against Jaw. He did build himself weapons back on the island, but they were only used to whack trees and beat up animals. Those wild, large and overpowered strikes that he did just made it easier for Chickle to take advantage of his open guard and imbalance. What did make it harder for the creature though, was Pascal’s useless screaming after every swing, and it seemed to give him more authority and ferocity for some reason. As Pascal shot down a vertical strike, the hybrid bird bobbed under the hit while sliding to the right of the boy, and then gave a powerful roundhouse kick behind Pascal’s thigh, making him bend down one on knee and tilting on the other side due to the imbalance of his exaggerated swing. As Pascal used his right arm to prevent himself from dropping on his side, Chickle struck the pipe Pascal held in his other hand with his sword. It flew off a little farther behind, leaving Pascal on one knee, vulnerable and unarmed.

“You’re lucky,” Chickle pointed the tip of his blade right at the blond boy’s neck, a centimetre away from touching it, “I was aiming for your wrist, but even in your blunt and slow manoeuvers, you always agitate at the right moment, like a fortunate beetle, innocently moving out of the way right before you stomp to squash it.” The creature’s feathery hand clenched harder on the handle of his weapon. “But these poor insects always end up squashed sooner or later.”

In a sudden heroic fashion, the pipe that Pascal had dropped was supposed to hit Chickle painfully due to Tony’s courageous throw, resulting into an opportunity for Pascal to recover while Chickle ate the epic blow right across the face, sending him off confused and unbalanced for a sudden moment. However, it did not happen that way. In fact, Tony ran to get a hold of the broken pipe that flew off from Pascal’s grasp. He wanted to throw it in Chickle’s direction as quickly as possible with his only functional arm, the right arm. Tony, of left-handed nature, threw the pipe as hard as he could, luckily even managing to launch it in the air, but not yet close to either Pascal nor the feathered target, rendering it an almost pointless and unnecessary addition to this fight scene.

            Chickle squinted with an evil grin as he slightly moved back his shoulder to give a harder thrust through Pascal’s trachea. But then an unidentified flying object hovered past the corner of his eye and with the stressful fear of failing his almost successful mission, he turned his head around just a wee bit to notice the swivelling, useless pipe about to fall back to the ground. The miniscule moment of inattention gave Pascal just enough time to slip his head right past the tip of the sword as he pushed his legs and supporting arm off the ground and forward to lift himself up, and tackle the bird in the groin while his right hand grabbed and pulled on the blade of the sword to assure that it was kept out of harm’s way. When his left shoulder charged right into the lower abdomens of the bird, Chickle’s eyes looked like they got spat out of their sockets for a mere second and he then bent in half and fell backwards. The sword’s blade sliced out of Pascal’s hand, leaving him with a deep, bloody slash across the palm of his hand and under his fingers. Chickle, still lying on his back, let go of the sword handle and flapped his arms, shifting them back into winged form, to project himself back on his feet. Once back up, he thrust his foot under the sword to kick it in the air and catch it so he could get back in his defensive stance. Pascal got in his fight stance as well, ready for the second round.

            Tony, in the meantime, ran sneakily to the other end of the roof to get the pipe back for increased security and he swore to never get involved in the fight again. He was sure that the monster would have started chasing after him. He couldn’t help but imagine the sight of himself getting swooped down by the eagle and then get dropped down the building. He witnessed the feeling of falling down from an excessive height before and he absolutely did not need another sample of what it felt like. The nightmares he had in which he fell from heights were one of the things he was the most scared of, but that horrible sensation in his dreams  wasn’t even near the one he had felt when he fell down the Fiery Cliff.

            The two fighters advanced towards each other slowly with little steps, without breaking their stance. When they both arrived in their respective danger zone (where a kick and punch could reach the other fighter), they stood still, waiting for an overture and trying to anticipate an attack so they could either block it, dodge it or counter it. Pascal stood there with a grin, evidently with a sort of plan in his head, while Chickle looked emotionless, waiting for Pascal’s obvious move. His move wasn’t obvious, but it was obvious he was going to do one. Pascal’s right hand was still leaking drops of blood, and all his fingers were painted with it, but that did not seem to bother him. He made a quick and small movement forward with his left arm and in a reflexive response, Chiggle took a mini step forward to fake an attack. Pascal backed up a moment and then whipped his injured hand forward, 2 inches away from Chickle’s face, spraying him with blood. The bird closed his eyes and flinched for a moment, and with that, Pascal threw a punch right at his face but Chickle still felt it coming so he instantly caught his fist and swung his own forearm right on Pascal’s nose in a very swift and static movement. He then clinched the boy’s head with his palm while the other hand still took a hold of his fist, and then he bent Pascal’s body down to send him back up with a knee below the chin. Pascal lifted up with a line of blood spewing out of his mouth, and he fell back a couple of steps before he got back in his fighting stance. Chickle was now the one with a smirk, finding it too easy to be true.

            This really isn’t a problem, Chickle thought to himself, Maybe then I will have the chance to kill the other boy too…ha, what an easy mission! Chickle swung another poisonous feather at Pascal with his arm. The feathers came out of his forearms, where visibly his feathers were of different color and a lot more rigid than the feathers on the rest of his body, almost forming little protectors like the ones on Jaw. Pascal tilted to one side and caught the feather with his arm on the opposite side. To respond to that, Chickle turned around and shot dozens of feathers at Tony, who was standing, but leaned on the corner of the roof (there was a little wall all around the edges of the roof for security, a wall about as high as Tony’s waist). Tony, caught by surprise, closed his eyes and swung the pipe in front of him in every way and manner, not hitting even one feather. The feathers came too fast for the boy to even turn around, and they all stung him all over his frontal upper body, except for his arms and head. The pain and the impact made Tony tip over the small safety wall and fall down. As he fell over the ridge, he flipped backwards with the swing, and by instinct, his right arm was able to catch the ridge just in time. His broken arm was swinging in emptiness but it was still holding on to the pipe, which made his arm hurt more than ever with the gravity’s weight on it. “Oh my god I’m gonna die!” Were Tony’s only words he could say, followed by screams and screams and screams.

            Pascal saw the tragedy unfold before him so he rocketed to help his friend but then an unexpected slash crossed over his chest, and with the immense agony of sliced flesh, he started seeing blurry and then fell to his knees. Chickle swiped the sword in the air to get rid of the excess blood on its edge and then he ran to where Tony was still holding on. He must not kill him, he remembered, but he could damage him as much as he’d want, as long as he’d still be breathing. “Let’s start by this arm that keeps him from falling!” He said out loud as he swung his sword upward to then slash it down at Tony’s fingers.

            “No! No no no! Owww!” Tony screamed from below, having clearly heard what Chickle had pronounced. He wiggled his legs, in a certain desperate hope that it would ease the pain or help him find a solution. Chickle arrived and swung his sword back down to get a clean slice of Tony’s fingers. The boy felt like he was about to throw up to this horrifying scene, and then just before deciding to let go, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard a clang and an instant heavy pain on his fingers, but not painful enough to make his fingers let go. He looked up to notice that his broken arm had blocked the sword with the pipe. By covering his fingers with the pipe, the blow had only hammered his fingers instead of chopping them, which didn’t feel good, but felt better than the second option. He held the pipe right over his fingers as a shield, but his fingers were slipping more and more, and Chickle was laughing.

            “Okay then, Hero, let’s see how much hits it takes before you let go….or before your fingers break and forcefully let go by themselves. Ha-ha!”

Chickle stomped heavily on the pipe and therefore Tony’s fingers under it. In a thundering pain, Tony immediately let go of the ridge, but simultaneously let go of the pipe and held on to the ridge with the other hand instead. Well, you know, that’s what should have happened, but in reality, the odds of catching a fairly slippery edge with a broken arm aren’t that likely. His fingers slipped and scraped the wall of the building instead, which marked the beginning of his horrible descent down to the traffic below. The tip of his broken fingers were flaming with pain, and luckily--or unluckily, depending on one’s opinion--somewhere along the fall his shoulder had caught the pointy corner of a rectangular sign that stated the name of the building they had been camping on. Until now, he had never known that the building they were on was a Rickard’s beer brewing factory. It was not of real importance to him, but except for looking at the distance below that could make any ten year-old boy soil their pants, he preferred taking time off reading the sign he was painfully hooked to. The sharp tin corner of the sign had caught and ripped through Tony’s shirt leaving him with a severe incision between the upper right pectoral and the anterior deltoid. The ripped shirt had caught on the corner, which was the very weak support that held him there, but not for much longer.

Chickle had almost dove down to catch his prey before it would splat down and die-- so close that he even had the squat motion under procedure-- but Pascal jumped on his back, an arm around Chickle’s neck looking for a choke, and they both dove down to the busy streets below. Pascal held his forearm tight around the bird’s neck as they were upside down, and he pounded him on the head with his free arm, eyes closed and gritting his teeth. Chickle was able to land a few elbows in Pascal’s abdomen with the arm that held the sword, and he gave a few backward head-butts on the boy’s chin. From time to time he also managed land a blind hook in Pascal’s ribs with his other arm. During the free-falling close combat, Chickle finally let go of the sword that was now only a burden to him and it permitted him to free himself from Pascal’s chokehold. Even so, they were as tangled up as in a Jiu-Jitsu ground fight, but in the air. They were both trying to prevent the other from getting to the helpless child hung up on the Rickard’s sign.

“You little brat, don’t think you can stop me!” Chickle yelled, and then his arms shifted to wing form once again. As soon as he did that, Pascal got hold of his back and succeeded in locking one of his wings with a bear hug while both of them were still upside down, dashing to the ground. A glimpse of surprise was noticed in Chickle’s eyes, and left with no other choice, he flapped his free wing in a desperate effort to fly but it only directed them more towards the building. They zipped past the sign Tony was attached to, and as they did, Pascal took a back glance and shouted as hard as he could, “Red Laser!” and pointed his arm at the Rickard’s sign’s direction, his other arm still latched on to Chickle.

The shirt became looser and looser, and Tony was gradually reaching lower and lower from the sign. His whole face was white and tears once again covered the inner curves of his cheeks as he tried to think of something else than the dire height below him. The shirt was ripping unceasingly and with each tearing noise he froze in terror and couldn’t refrain to take a look down. Then so suddenly, a red light rose out from nowhere and before he knew it the whole area over him exploded into bits of brick and smoke and he felt himself released from the sign’s grip, lowering down in slow-motion, and rapidly the speed of his fall became faster and faster until the pressure made him feel as if he would explode any second.

The two opponents kept tearing and punching away when parts of the Rickard’s sign and many other chunks of brick zoomed down beside them. Chickle kept flapping his free arm and Pascal was left hanging only from his strong hold on the eagle’s right arm. Chickle’s flapping made them zigzag down through the sky, bashing from time to time on the building beside them until they both finally crashed heavily on the wall to a point that they both got knocked out. Pascal’s hand softly let go of Chickle’s arm and they were now both pummelling down like the motionless bodies that they were.

The creature landed from an angle, right on his front and in the middle of the street with an impact so hard that his body recoiled and landed back on his side. A car sped past right on the other lane and Pascal fell right on top of that car. Chickle had time to stand on one juddering knee before a speeding car popped him right from the side and launched him back to the floor somewhere a little further. Pascal woke up while tumbling down the street (and the totalled car went crashing somewhere unimportant) and he instantly remembered having stupidly shot the building in an attempt to make Tony fall so he could then catch him in mid-air after he’d free himself from Chickle’s clutches. He looked up at the sky, stepping in every sort of direction as if doing a dance to determine the specific landing area of his falling friend. A screaming boy eventually fell down in Pascal’s arms, followed by the building’s sign that shattered down beside them. After that, it wasn’t very clear.