Chapter Twelve

The battle between the Protector and the villainous Ex.

Commanders of Fire

      Kenny removed his cape and fake breastplate that had burn holes in it around the front. He left his tunic on in the cold windy weather as he stood in horror at San Francisco in a blaze and plume of smoke, from the front to the back. Just as he blinked he noticed a sapphire flash rippling through the streets of the city, smothering the fire out. The Transamerica building was broken apart and the Bank of America building no longer stood. But even as the dreadful thought of innocent lives lost, all Kenny could think about was the people he care more than anything about.

      Why was he here and not protecting Tonya, Teddy, Junior, Jerry, Shawn and Malcolm? What if Christian was badly injured and couldn’t defend them? These thoughts sent him into a panic and he ran around the tier looking for an exit until he spotted a door ajar under the clock tower. Once he had climbed down in a rush and burst through the door, he found himself in a black marble stairway, the steps winding in a square fashion. The hanging lights flickered as he descended the stairs in urgency, jumping over two steps at a time. A sinister laugh echoed through the stairway, causing Kenny to peer over the railing and gasped at the lights shutting off below as a three headed creature scaled the walls with its life size scorpion legs and an abdomen like a snake.

      The sight of the bloody creature caused Kenny to fall back in fright through a metal door into a mirrored hallway, looking into office after office. He took off running through the maze of glass toward the other end of the building, franticly looking for the other emergency exit. The creature burst through the concrete wall and shattered the glass effortlessly while crawling with immense speed toward Kenny. Just as it pounced on his back, knocking him into a solid wall, fear gripped him and sent a searing bolt of golden energy ejecting vehemently from his veins and eradicating the evil creature in a second.

      He wasted no time getting to his feet and running again in and out of the maze of concrete and glass walls. But as he passed a hall leading to the elevators, the ding of the doors caught his attention and skidded him to a halt.

      With a determined stride and murder in his eyes, William marched out the elevator in that long tan trench coat, the chains on his boots clinking as he made each step. There was a blood stained submachine gun in his hold with its aim on Kenny.

      Just as if time had slowed, shots rang out but Kenny jumped out of the opening and skidding on the ground. The bullets had pierced through the glass and left an acid that was eating through it. He scrambled to his feet as William rounded the corner and telepathically flung Kenny through the walls with such force that he shattered three separate walls. Agony and excruciating pain seared through his body as he pushed himself up.

      “Stay down.” William snarled, kicking Kenny over to his side. He let out a muffled scream and held back the tears of pain.

      “This isn’t like you…Why?”

      William picked Kenny up by his neck with a malevolent grin on his face. Kenny saw no love in his ex’s eyes and no compassion in his voice.

      “Your death will bring me power to free me of the crimes I committed.”

      “What…crimes?”

      “ENOUGH!”

      He flung Kenny into more offices, sending shards of glass soaring through the sky. Kenny knew that he couldn’t take much more brutal beating before he gave out and died. Christian would’ve been here by now if he was okay and when the painful realization hit him that he was alone, William had conjured an electric rope that wrapped around Kenny’s neck, shocking him violently and yanking him back at his feet.

      The shocks ceased but the ropes stayed tight as William lifted Kenny off his feet by sheer force of his mind, tightening the rope with each rise. Shards of glass levitated and pointed its sharpest ends toward Kenny. He felt his neck start to pull back until he was sure it would snap, but at that very moment when the shards started shooting, a rolling tsunami of fire crashed into William, burning the rope from Kenny’s neck and turning the glass to ash. There was a deep scream of anger and pain and then a huge purple beam blasting the fire up and out the building.

      But Christian, beaten and bruised yet dressed in loose pants with a sword holster and a tank top, had jumped in front of Kenny, who was gasping for air and punched William dead center in his face and the two were locked into an aggressive hand to hand combat, exchanging blows and blocks. Christian landed a few hits to William’s face and abdomen likewise the Ex knocked the Protector off his footing a few times with rapid hits to the chest and roundhouse kicks.

      “Ha! Is that it?” William taunted, “Your strength is beneath me.”

      “Don’t boast,” Christian wiped his bloody lip and kept a cool smile, “You haven’t even begun to see my strength.”

      Kenny had managed to get to his feet and was looking back between the two men in front of him.

      “Get down.” Christian muttered, not taking his eyes off of his opponent. Another laugh escaped William as he summoned his submachine gun from a swirling thin black air and begun shooting. Christian had given off a short whistle at the same time and the blue throwing star spun out his back pocket and rejected each bullet by cloning itself and repelled them back.

      William had flailed his coat of his face to give a black force to block the bullets from hitting him, obliterating them instantly. But in that moment, Christian had jumped kicked William back into the glass wall but the villain instantaneously teleported in a dozen of bouncing balls of fire. Christian had grabbed Kenny and broke off into a run, ricocheting spheres of flames with cloning throwing stars, spinning an energy field around them anytime a fireball fell.

      Once they were around a solid wall, Christian began quickly doing the design on his hand and slamming it on Kenny’s chest with a cyan glow. But the wall exploded as they were transporting and the hot force knocked them off track, slamming them into the bird sanctuary on Lake Merritt. Kenny tumbled through bushes while Christian crashed into a large willow tree.

      “Hey are you okay?” Kenny asked, making his way to his hunched over Protector.

      “Yeah,” He heard him utter and then abruptly use his shoulder to aid getting up.

      “Okay, just lean on me.” Kenny stated, “We got to get off this island.”

      But as soon as the words left Kenny’s lips, dozens of flocks of birds flew into the sky out the trees and the water around them started to boil. As the steam grew thicker, they saw a figure of smoldering earth rise out the lake and onto the island, solidifying into William. He popped a crick out his neck and focused on his prey only yards away.

      “Let me.” Kenny started but Christian resisted, pulling the illuminating katana from its holster on his side.

      “No.”

      William laughed hysterically which made Kenny cringe.

      “If you’d like, I can send you to rot in the rampant Hells together.”

      But Christian had charged toward the sinister being but was thrown off when William suddenly faded from view becoming a vortex of flame, lighting the entire island on fire. Kenny had managed to summon a faint golden shield around him as the fire had stranded and raged around him but Christian had sent a beam of shimmering blue light through the strands, eradicating them away.

      “I control the fire and only I command the flame!” Christian yelled toward William, slamming the blade into the ground and shimmered into a static of blue fiery energy that crashed around Kenny like protective lightning. Christian counteracted every whip of red flame that William controlled with explosive blue ones of his own.

      Kenny felt the force push past his body like a never ending gust of wind but was able to hold his own small protection around him with the burning power coursing through his veins now. He was trying to help Christian but he didn’t know how to activate anything. There was no more voice and no more beaming double edged sword. The only thing was the faint shield that was only enough for his own body.

      As the wind rushed around, he spotted a dark figure appearing sporadically around him in the flame trying to attack but with each appearance, Christian would spin into view from the blue flame and block each hit with his katana. Each hit would cause a ping of light to bounce off the blade helping Kenny be able to follow the action and he noticed right away, that when Christian had cloned himself to counteract William doing the same in the flame, that it was a trap and two green tailed bullet pierced Christian’s chest.

      But as he fell, he staticed into a blue mist and disappeared before hitting the ground and now Kenny was left to quickly figure out his next move as green tailed bullets rang from the appearing dark figures. He fell to his knees covering his head but noticed dust falling past his face and saw the bullets disintegrating as it hit the dusty shield. A loud growl was echoed out the flames and a language not known on Earth was uttered.

      That’s when Kenny saw the swarm of winged creatures collecting over the flaming bird sanctuary island from every direction. They attacked swiftly, hitting the shield and staggering Kenny off his footing. But somehow with each wave of fear that he felt, it gave the shield a stronger effect and he saw the golden energy rushing in his veins. And as his muscles strained against the weight, he outstretched his arms and watched the golden energy emit from his palms and form the double edge sword. The crimson blade was translucent to an inferno inside of it as Kenny gripped the handle.

      Immediately, the golden force expanded in a divine white flame but quickly was noticed that it wasn’t strong enough against an onslaught of winged creature slashing, crashing and attacking the shield with red hellfire. Slowly, the dome of energy that was protecting Kenny began to shrink as his body was weakening with the extraordinary weight he was holding back.

      “Oh, come on.” He groaned to himself as he slipped off his left foot and caused a fatal dip in the shield. The moment he tried to regain his footing, he heard William’s laughter and the claw at the shield causing a nail scratching sound, making it crack and web out. Kenny couldn’t take the sudden weight gain the opposing power was having as his shield weakened and he completely fell on one knee.

      Now the sword was beginning to dim and fade away from physical view causing the white flame to simmer. Kenny screamed at the sword in protest as it completely disappeared and with one last blow, the shield shattered into dusty fragments falling around him. But just as a huge hand of black energy was reaching down on Kenny’s hunched body, he felt another hand reach from under him and yanked forcefully and swiftly, pulling him into a spinning wormhole of blue energy causing him to crash on a plush green opening.

      The air was calm, the grass smelled cleaned and like lilac with lavender. While quickly but painfully turning over, he saw Christian stooped over him, his wounds and chest bandaged, blood cleaned up and hand stretched out. That smile he loved to see was full and bright.

      “You’re very courageous.”

      Kenny grabbed his Protector’s hand and slowly rose to his feet, wincing as he went.

      “Where’s everybody? Are they okay?”

      Christian nodded quickly and placed his arm around his Custody for support.

      “Yes, yes, everyone is okay. They’re at the safe house I go to, well actually, where we are now. Straight through the trees and over the hill.”

      Kenny stopped and looked at his complete surroundings; he was in the middle of a plush green pasture, hills rolling out parallel to the cliffs and oceans in the distance. He heard the crashes softly in the air and watched the moonlight shine over a patch of oak trees that opened a path over the horizon. They began walking slowly in silence, Kenny sniveling at the afterthought of everything and Christian sighing while tightening his hold.

      “You’re safe now.”

      “But…William…he….he…”

      “I know. I’m sorry.” Christian quietly answered in a groaning sigh, “You’ll be okay now, I promise. You’re finally going to meet the guy who informed me all about you and who also saved your friend’s lives and my own.”

      And as if on cue, a tan man with ash blonde hair, same height as Christian, dressed in a silvery blue vest, matching creased pants and a bright white collared shirt, was hurrying down the path toward the two. He carried a thick leather bag and Kenny noticed the bow tie had been untied and ruffled.

      “Kenny, I now present to you, my best friend and holder of the Intelligence Soul,” Christian introduced in a mock announcer voice with his free hand extended, as the man got within hearing distance and flashed a baffled but blushed look at him, “Give a round of applause to the one, the only Percival Beal!”