NOVEL NEXT Iris and Me
Chapter 57 : Tempus fugit (That’s all I ask)
Chapter 57 : Tempus fugit (That’s all I ask)
In the Mirror Dimension, image of Manhattan, 31st of March, 15:02
“Alright, again.” I say to the armor-clad Jessica as I lend her a hand to pull her back on her feet.
Her heavy breathing reaches me despite her helmet muffling the sounds quite a bit.
She raises a hand in an ‘a moment’ gesture.
The Fly-1 prototype that doubles as her training tool is now riddled with scratches and dents after three weeks spent training with it.
At first, she could barely do anything while wearing it but several sessions of constant use have borne some fruits.
Her heavy breathing slows and her hand finally falls, and she gives me a tiny nod to indicate that she’s ready once more.
I take a running start straight at her.
Our usual sparring sessions usually vary between two types : either full flight combat where she tries to avoid me for as long as she can since I’m way faster than her or, like now, flier vs landbound opponent where her goal is to make it so I can’t reach her at all, or shrug me off as fast as she can if she failed.
For the purpose of the exercise, I’m limiting myself to only touch-TK augmented strength and speed and the basic enhancement of my bond with Iris. Fighting at Iris and I’s full strength would be way overkill after all.
That doesn’t mean that it is smooth sailing for Jessica though, as can attest the current state of her armor/training tool.
She takes off as soon as I start to move, flying backward while keeping me in her field of view. I’ve beaten that habit into her when we started that kind of practice. If a Brick rushes at you, you keep your eyes on them otherwise you’ll get a car thrown at you at some point.
It also allows you to shoot them continuously if you have any kind of ranged weaponry, so it’s definitely a good reflex to have.
Jessica actually can see where she’s going while flying backward by means of some cleverly placed little mirrors in her visor that give her an almost 360° field of view.
She starts taking evasive maneuvers as I start raining some rubbles down on her, Iris picking them while on the move by distorting our battleform adequately.
It had become one of her favorite things to do when in training and her sadistic streak sort of surprised me at first.
Then I realized that I too was finding it funny to bully Jessica out of her flying dominance.
I think we spend too much time bonded those days due to Iris’ condition and her predatory instincts are starting to get to me.
Jessica veers left to break line of sight when she reaches a building’s corner.
I follow her, my feet denting the asphalt with each step as I run.
I extend a hand to catch the building’s corner, shredding concrete under my claw as I bounce on a conveniently placed post with my legs.
I get a very warm welcome mid-jump in the form of two feet slamming into my midsection while I’m still airborne.
Under my sister’s skin, I grin.
Jessica is already back to her flight, not giving me any second look as I’m thrown away by her kick.
Another habit I did beat into her was that if she can make some distance, she does so without dilly-dallying.
My claws dig into the road’s asphalt as I tumble on it and it takes me precious seconds to come to a screeching halt.
Jessica has already made good time and the distance between the two of us has considerably widened.
I’m proud of her because she set up a well thought ambush during one of the rare moments I would have not suspected. Against the vast majority of land bound adversaries she might encounter in the future, it would be game over for them.
Sadly for her, I’m not the kind of game that she can prey upon that easily.
“Time to ramp it up.” I mutter under my breath, smiling.
Iris agrees mentally and I feel her own smile stretch upon my face.
Our minds align and we barrel forward behind the distantly flying form.
When we reach the nearest building we jump, landing vertically on all fours, concrete and windows' glass falling apart under the force of our impact.
We start hopping on Jessica’s trail.
That is not the first time she managed to make us use our bond like that but she definitely set a new record there.
She’s still creating distance by angling her flight ever upward, though it is a slow going affair.
We discovered an interesting little detail while training like this. The reason Jessica’s flight relies on her training it like a muscle, just like her super strength, is because she’s constantly fighting gravity and the further she is from the ground, the harder it gets. It’s even worse when wearing full body armor weighing several hundred pounds.
I sort of suspected it, but it’s nice having empirical data confirming it. It also explains why her comic version tended to fly low to the ground.
She didn’t have a slave-driver of a trainer constantly pushing her behind her back, after all.
We bounce ever up on her trail, debris falling under each of our impacts on the building.
Jessica angles her flight away from us but she’s slowing down and we’re catching up.
She clears the roof line of the buildings surrounding us as we’re hot on her trail.
Our legs coil under us and we take our last opportunity to jump towards her. The strain of that much strength on the building’s facade caves it in when we take the plunge, only leaving a spider web of cracks behind us, the nearest windows exploding inwards due to the vibrations.
As we near the apex of our jump, we stretch out our right arm.
As Jessica still flies backward and ever upward, for a short instant, both of our forms replicate that moment so many weeks ago when we had our first scuffle and we look like a demon going after a warrior of heaven.
One of my quick thought streams, having nothing better to do, makes me realize that I’d probably pay to have a picture of this moment : Iris and I’s battleform grasping heavenward in the midst of battle with a crumbling facade in the background.
Like our first foray in the Mirror Dimension, our hand closes around Jessica’s leg.
We’re instantly rewarded with a kick in the face that would probably give a grown up man a concussion at a minimum.
Sadly for Jessica, while my brain is rattled my mind is still sharp and Iris is completely unphased. So, in true Brick fashion, our grasp holds.
That doesn’t stop her from doing it again though.
It’s interesting to notice how superhuman strength interacts with speed. When you can exert your muscles beyond human limit, it also means that your explosive strength is increased in turn.
Jessica is no speedster, far from it. But when she rains down a flurry of kicks with her right leg on us in close proximity like she does now, we can’t do shit to stop her.
I mean, we could if we were to engage our quickest minds in the battle, but that’s not the point of the training.
We start to fall.
It’s not because we’re too heavy for Jessica to lift us, there’s too much of an acceleration for that.
No, it’s because she chooses to do so.
As our falling speed starts to increase, she bends forward, starting to rotate as rapidly as she can while she keeps hammering us with her leg.
We’re giving up on catching her free legs, preferring to ascertain our grip on the caught one.
It’s too late, though.
Next thing we know, we hit the edge of a rooftop with tremendous force.
The cumulation of the gravity, Jessica’s speed while flying downward and the speed of her rotation finally makes us lose our grip.
We feel a lot of things break in our meaty body under the impact as concrete and plaster explode around us. We cross paths with a lot of furniture, kitchen appliances, plumbing and electrical wires as we end our course after going through at least four different flats.
A low groan escapes my lips as I disengage from the merged state.
Breathing is, strangely, extremely difficult right now.
“[Excitement, worry] : Are you alright blood-sister?” Iris immediately asks on our merged-mind part of my mind.
“Peachy.” I answer raspily, feeling something that definitely isn’t saliva in my mouth under her skin, “That was one hell of an impact though. She wins that round.”
Iris let go of my face.
Still laying on my back, I angle myself to spit on my side.
Yup, definitely blood.
“What did she break?” I ask aloud, my voice feeble.
“A lot of things.” My sister answers as her head oozes out of my torso to look at me, “Your lower spine is broken, your pelvis shattered and most of your ribs are in places they shouldn’t be.”
I cough a mixture of phlegm and blood.
“Including in my lungs I guess...” I say as I look at my newest addition to the floor distractingly.
“I’m not even gonna start with your internal organs because it’s hell in there.” She comments offhandedly, her big upslanted eyes darting from one place to another, looking at things inside of me that I cannot see myself.
That’s apparently Jessica’s clue to fly by.
“Oh my god!” She blurts out when she sees the mess I am in right now, “Are you alright?”
“Great…” I answer, wincing slightly as things start to snap back inside my abdomen.
“That doesn’t look great to me!” She exclaims.
I laugh weakly.
Not my fault if her voice sounds a bit funny when muffled like that.
Or maybe it’s the slight concussion I’m almost sure I have. Who knows?
“It’s alright Jess’,” I answer with a dismissive gesture, “I’m getting better as we speak. Five more minutes and I’ll be right as rain.”
“It’ll take a little more than that, blood-sister.” Iris corrects softly.
“A bit more than five minutes, then.” I amend, still a bit woozy.
“How are you even able to talk while looking like that?” Jessica asks, voice aghast as she crouches near me.
“I’ve dialed down my pain response to an absurdly low level months ago.” I answer, the simple act of breathing that I always took for granted until now getting easier by the second, “I still feel it because it’s important to be able to, it’s a necessary input to know that something has gone to shit in your body after all, but this way I’m not completely out of the picture if I take a debilitating injury like right now.”
“I’m so, so sorry…” She starts to babble, voice getting strangled.
I sigh, coughing a bit.
“Relax.” I tell her, “You didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, you even did great! That was the first time you managed to shrug me off!”
“But you got hurt!” She cries.
“Enough.” I clip coldly.
With a flourish of my TK, I raise and straighten myself on my feet, another flash of my white energy banishing the plaster, concrete and wooden dust from my body.
“The whole time, I was in control.” I reassure her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, “I could’ve negated all of those injuries by using my telekinesis at any time.”
“Then why did you not?” She mumbles, badly hiding a sniffing sound.
I raise her chin with one of my fingers.
“Two reasons.” I answer, hiding my relief as I feel my lungs being whole once again, “Firstly, I wanted to know how much of a punch that combo packed. It exceeded my expectations by a landslide, so well done. That’s definitely a move you’ll be able to rely on if you find yourself in a similar situation without any support one day.”
I pause and she takes the lull in the conversation as a permission to bat my offending finger off her helmet.
“And the second one?” Jessica asks after a beat.
“So you know what you’re capable of.” I explain softly, “Because you need to know what you’re able to do when push comes to shove so you can act accordingly when the situation needs to.”
“You were able to shrug me off and incapacitate me while I was restraining myself to a level that you wouldn’t have dreamed of scratching a month ago.” I carry on gently.
“You’ve gone far.” I end, patting her on the shoulder, “There’s a lot more to be done but you’re the one that made the most progress so far. And now, you’ve seen a mark of your progress. Granted, it was a bit gruesome but I’m nearly unkillable anyway, so no harm done.”
“Thanks, I guess?” Jessica answers hesitantly after a beat, shuffling her feet awkwardly.
“Now, those kinds of extremes, that kind of strength?” I say while gesturing to the wreck around us, “I want you to remember it. So that when someone who’s also powered goes after either your life or those you love, you unleash it without any restraint.”
I eye the ceiling critically for a second.
“...Maybe with less collateral damage, but you get what I’m saying.” I add thoughtfully.
The silence stretches for a beat.
“But I could kill them!” She blurts out after a while.
“Yes, you could.” I answer without batting an eye.
Her breath accelerates and she starts fumbling with her helmet.
I disengage it with a flourish of TK that unscrews the fixation, levitating the helmet aside.
Jessica looks at me wide-eyed, face pale and gasping.
“You don’t really get it, do you ?” I ask a bit sadly, shaking my head lightly.
“I don’t get what?” She asks, seemingly lost.
“Step next to me.” I ask softly, gesturing with my hand.
She hesitates for a beat before complying.
I look at her in the eyes and all I see is confusion and fear.
“You’re strong Jess’.” I explain slowly, “Crazy strong after that training regimen. And you’re going to get stronger. I don’t know if you have an upper limit but I swear I’m going to do anything I can to find out if you have one.”
She slowly nods, her confidence coming back a bit.
“But you have to remember something…” I carry on, Iris and I merging again as all of my thought streams synchronize towards one simple objective.
Isolating Jessica and us in a bubble of TK, we push all around us in sync.
Everything blows outward around us the next moment, shredded under our combined telekinetic strength, like the world has suddenly turned into one giant sand castle that got blown apart by the exhale of a mighty titan.
The blast doesn’t stay that long, in fact Jessica barely has the time to scream in distress before the rubble of the upper floors starts raining down on us.
Instead of waiting for us to get buried under metric tons of concrete, plaster and various other things, we levitate us upward. It doesn’t take us long to clear the perimeter.
Under our levitating forms, a massive cloud of dust extends in every direction.
Even without having a clear view of the blast’ consequences right now, we can already tell that for at least half a click around us, no buildings stand upward anymore.
Jessica’s mouth is agape when faced with that much destructive power.
“You aren’t strong enough to allow yourself the luxury of mercy.” We say, Iris and I’s voices merging seamlessly, “Because even we are not.”
“But…” Jessica starts, eyes roaming the senseless destruction we have brought as easily as if we had sneezed.
We disengage once more, Iris taking her usual perch as my face becomes visible.
“No, Jess’.” I answer softly, “I’m not strong enough to pretend that I can protect everyone, and neither should you.”
I sigh softly under my breath.
“And if I lose any of you because you hesitated when someone was coming after your life, I’m never going to forgive myself.” I add while closing my eyes, the wind making my white curls dancing around my face.
“Just promise me that if you ever feel threatened and for some reason can’t back away from the fight, you’ll end it as soon as possible and without any heroic bullshit.” I carry on, my eyes locking into hers as soon as I open them again, “I’ll be there for you, we’ll all be there for you in the potential aftermath but you have to stay alive for that, no matter the cost.”
Jessica’s eyes go downcast.
She stays silent for a moment, the sound of the wind my only companion to my churning thoughts.
She finally sighs after a while.
When Jessica looks at me again, her eyes have a spark of determination in them that I hadn’t seen before.
“Alright.” She says softly, “I’ll promise I’ll do anything to stay alive if push comes to shove.”
I slowly nod, my curls batting my face as they dance into the wind.
“That’s all I ask, Jess’, that’s all I ask.” I answer with a little smile.
I cannot express how relieved I am when she smiles back.
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