Chapter 48: Unquenched vengeance

The serrated teeth of the blade bit into his shoulder, tearing through his suit and his inner shirt, scoring a line of fire across his skin. This wasn’t a fight. This was a feral assault. Dave wasn’t trying to win; he was trying to annihilate. He bit my hand, his teeth sinking deep into the flesh between thumb and forefinger. Lupingo almost cried out, a sharp, involuntary sound, and his grip almost loosened.

Lupingo did not know what to feel about the dust that’s covering his vision. Without the dust, his viewers would be seeing how he was being beaten by a psychotic fellow. But because of the dust, he has lost visual aid. He can’t see clearly, which in turn makes the psychopath more dangerous.

With a guttural snarl, Dave wrenched the knife free and scrambled back, not to retreat, but to come at him from a different angle. He was like a predator that has gotten a taste of its favorite prey’s flesh, all snapping teeth and reckless, suicidal fury. He charged again, head lowered, aiming to gut Lupingo with a wild, horizontal swing.

Lupingo rolled, came up in a crouch, and drove his elbow into Dave’s temple. It was a solid, jarring blow, one that should have dropped a normal sane man. Dave staggered, his head snapping to the side, but he didn’t fall. He just shook his head, foaming spit flying from his lips, and turned back, his deranged psychotic eyes somehow gleaming with a fresh, maniac energy.

"You feel that?" Dave panted, a grotesque, maniac smile on his face. "That’s pain. It’s real. It’s the only thing that the heroes cause, the thing the so-called heroes do to innocent people like my friend! My Ariadne felt pain, pain I don’t fucking know! My Ariadne felt pain, serious pain while smiling in my presence, and I have no idea about it! And it’s the fault of every hero out there. The heroes will die, they will be tortured to death, they will scream for help, and anybody that supports the heroes can just... join them! Now I get to share the news with everybody, and you will be the first victim to share that joy of mine with the world!" he said in a deranged manner.

He lunged again, but this time, Lupingo was ready. He sidestepped, grabbed Dave’s outstretched wrist, and used his momentum to slam him against the brick wall of the entrance of the roof. The impact was sickening, a wet crunch of bone and flesh. Dave’s head bounced off the bricks, and for a moment, his body went limp.

Lupingo released him, breathing heavily. His shoulder throbbed, his hand was bleeding, and his lungs were on fire from the graphite in the air. He looked down at the crumpled form of his attacker. It was over. He could leave. He should leave. But first, he wants to crosscheck if he is truly down. So it won’t be like all those horror film villains that always come back.

But before he could check, Dave’s body moved. He pushed himself up, his movements not even shaky, he moved with finesse and determination. Although a flap of skin on his forehead was peeled back, revealing the white of his skull. Blood continued to stream down his face, mixing with the grey dust to form a grotesque, muddy mask. He had lost the weapon, but he didn’t seem to care. He simply launched himself at me again, not with a weapon, but with his bare hands.

His fingers, hooked into claws, went for my beautiful eyes. I caught his wrists, and they stood there, locked in a stalemate, two men straining against each other in the dust and the filth. Dave’s breath was a hot, rank puff against his face. He was impossibly strong, fueled by a bottomless well of grief and rage for the heroes. I don’t understand why I am the one receiving the beating for the heroes especially. Why did I disagree, I wonder to myself. If I had known that this is how the outcome is going to be, I would have shut up my mouth instead.

"You can’t stop it," Dave hissed, his face inches from my frickin face. "You can’t stop the pain. It’s everywhere. It’s in the world. It’s in the air. It’s in me. And I’m going to give it back to them. All of them. I’ll be a plague. A fire. I’ll burn it all down. And you... you with your principles, your fucking principles that make you support those frickin heroes, and for those principles... you’ll burn with them!"

He kneed me in the stomach, a vicious, dirty blow that doubled me over. Dave’s hand broke free and clawed at Lupingo’s face, nails raking furrows of fiery blood, and tears flowed from my face to my cheek. With every scratch on his face, the blood from Dave’s body and face flowed to my body. I staggered back, my vision swimming. His blood flowed out from his body.

He realized then that Dave wasn’t just a man on a suicide mission. He was a force of nature. A human-shaped storm of pure, undiluted trauma. You couldn’t reason with it, you couldn’t bargain with it. He doesn’t even understand how he was being beaten black and blue. His powers are not even working at all. Maybe it’s because of the smoke in the air. If he survives this, it would be another lesson he should remember. If he survives, he would train efficiency in different martial arts and perfect it.

Lupingo’s mind, the mind that had orchestrated countless complex schemes and manipulations, finally stripped away all the calculations and the chess-like strategies. It boiled down to one, primal instinct: survival.

He saw Dave charge again, a shrieking, bloody shriek in the rain. This time, I did not bother to meet him head-on. I dropped low, swept my leg, and hooked his foot around Dave’s ankle. Dave tripped, his momentum carrying him forward to crash head-first into a stack of wooden pallets. The sound of splintering wood and cracking bone echoed in the alley.

Lupingo didn’t wait to see the result. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards him. He didn’t run with the grace of a master strategist, but with the clumsy, desperate speed of a man trying to stop a monster. He moved toward his body, searched it, found the remote control, and immediately ran. As soon as he ran away, he heard a roaring sound behind him, a sound of raw, thwarted fury. He heard him scrambling to his feet, the crunch of wood under his boots.

Lupingo reached the door, but the dust was still in the air and still in his system. He burst out of the door, and almost tore the door handle off. He entered the stairs. His powers were still not working. Those blasted dust were still in his body.

Although he is running, there is no shame in running. There is a reason why cowards always live long. But even though he was running, that didn’t mean he is truly running. For a psychopath like that, preparation is needed. He wouldn’t go back unless his power began to work. His shoulder was screaming in protest, the taste of his own blood thick in his mouth.

He ran towards the end of the stairs, and unlucky for him, the door to the open passage was locked. He saw this and then calmed himself down. He was already feeling the dust in his system leaving his body at a high rate. He could feel his power already recharging at a fast pace. He found that very odd, because his powers don’t recharge as fast as this. His powers normally recharge slowly. Maybe this is the boon I was given by the altar.

He had survived. But as he stood there, feeling the hypnotic spin of his system, he knew nothing would ever be the same. The next battle with Dave will be a different one. He had looked into the abyss behind Dave’s eyes, and the abyss had looked back. He has survived it. It had shown him a chaos of what a bad judgement system can do to people’s minds. But just because he understands Dave’s pain, that doesn’t mean he would forgive him. There would be blood to pay. There would be absolute vengeance that would need fulfilling. Whatever constructed world of disorder Dave’s finds him in is not his concern at all. His taste for vengeance is like a strong tidal wave, and that tidal wave wants to destroy something right now.

Dave was still out there. A calm madman, a plague, a fire. He was waiting, not fully realizing that the remote has been taken yet, but soon he would realize, and he would want to escape. But before he comes to that realization, he has to face him. He would show him the principle of a man out for vengeance. His psychotic rabidness would be nothing compared to his own show of madness.

He walked towards the roof entrance, leaving behind the stairs. He lets his darkness cover his mouth and nose like a mask. His normal mask has been damaged and it’s not working properly against the dust in the air.

As soon as he reached the roof, he could see that the visibility of the place has improved. The dust in the air was already reduced to the bare minimum. He didn’t look far before his eyes met with Dave’s eyes. Dave saw him also. He looked at him and smiled his deranged smile.

"Lupingo, I thought that after you ran, that it would be the end of our little bout. You see, Mr. Lupingo, I am a calm person normally, but when my emotions come out, I lose control of my emotions and turn into the kind of deranged person you fought.

"Mr. Lupingo, I am truly sorry about that, but we both know that our fight was expected. I can see your hand shaking like you are ready for round two, but I am sorry to disappoint you. I have no more reason to fight."

Dave continued to talk, but he brought out a pill from his pocket and swallowed it. He then continued.

"You see, Mr. Lupingo, I am very aware that my bomb remote control has been taken by you. I have no intention of collecting it back. My mission was to see if you could be a part of our organization, but as I have seen now, you have no intention of joining us.

"Although I am very offended that you didn’t join our cause, I understand your reason. Mr. Lupingo, I don’t know what you will count this as, maybe a warning or a threat, but whatever, still listen. Anybody that interferes with our mission would die. They would die a very painful death. Mr. Lupingo, if you interfere, you will die also."

"Who are you to tell me what to do? I will interfere in your mission. I will bring your organization down," Lupingo said.

Dave began to laugh, but not a psychotic laugh. He laughed a calm kind of laughter.

"I understand, Mr. Lupingo, but that would be another day. But for now, I need to relay your message to the bosses. I need to tell them that our dear Mr. Lupingo chose the path of death.

"Who said you are leaving here? You are dying today. This roof will be the end of the road for you," Lupingo said.

"Truly, I understand your need to fight, but you just can’t stop me," Dave said and teleported away.

Lupingo looked at where Dave was calmly, his thoughts unknown to whoever was watching. He just stood there and continued to look.

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