Alkalians

by Caleb S. Bugai

  Grimacing, the woman waves back her long hair, explaining, “Well, it wouldn’t have made sense to shoot her when she was still in morph. And by the time she was weak enough, it was clear that Matt was already unable to shoot her. A witness, especially herself, would know that Matt had not shot her, so it would have been a pointless shot.”

  “No, no, Irene, you stupid bitch! If somebody had seen what had happened, a simple paying-off could have convinced them that Matt had shot her!” Not admitting it would be impossible to pay off Rose if she was the only witness, since she would have been the one shot, he turns on James, saying, “Okay, you’re going to dig up some dirt on Sean, and then you’re going to…”

  “Forget it, Cain,” James interrupts him. “I am stepping out of this before it gets any messier. And besides, Sean and Dante now have dirt on me. I couldn’t continue cooperating even if I wanted to, for my own sake and the stability of the community.”

  The look on his face and the sporadic movement of his fingers is a clear sign Cain was about to explode at James, but he manages to calm himself down, slightly, before turning to Buster instead. “You, Buster. You’re from Riaquen, right? Talk to Rose, get to know her. Turn her against Matt, even if you have to order her to do it. Got it?”

  Buster shrugs and replies, “Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to her.”

  “Good, good. There may still be a chance, then, despite some people around here screwing us over!” As he screeches out the emphasized words, he then stomps pass the table to the other end of the room, stating, “I’m heading to the casino. I’d better not hear any more bad news tonight, from any of you!” He goes to the door and exits the room, slamming it closed behind him.

  After they watch Cain leave, the three look back to each other before Buster says, “He’s losing his mind. I tell you, the guy’s got a mental problem or something, becoming so obsessed with trying to make one kid’s life hell.”

  “Well, one could say it’s better than doing nothing around here,” Irene comments. “I’m all for it, this place has needed some kind of excitement besides boss students and their turf wars.”

  “You just don’t care about anything, do you, Irene?” James glowers at her, explaining, “If Cain is becoming this unreasonable and insane, he’s not only a threat to himself, but to anyone close to him. I’m his own cousin, but even I can’t make him out anymore. If he keeps going like this, it’s going to blow up in his face and take out everything around him. If you had any sense for your own well being, you’d get out while you can, as well.”

  Looking back at him, Irene smirks before saying, “Since when have you ever been concerned for my well-being, James? Besides when you were taking my clothes off? I can make my own choices around here, and I can take a chance on where this thing between Cain and Matt goes. After all, the show must go on, right?”

  While James puts a palm to his face, Buster asks, “And how are you going to explain you going turncoat to Cynthia, once she recovers from her fever and leaves the infirmary?”

  Shrugging, Irene says, “Oh, I’ll just say it was temporary, and then I’ll help her to, heh, forget about it.” A sly smile crosses her lips at the thought of it.

  James shakes his head before walking to the door. “Yes, well, I’m out of here. I don’t know, nor care, what you two do, but take my advice, if you will, and take no further part in Cain’s plots. It could cost you dearly.” He opens the door and leaves the two behind in the room.

  Looking back to her, Buster tells Irene as he rises from his chair, “Yeah, I’ll be going, too. Have a good evening, Miss Goros.” After a polite nod, he exits the room, leaving her alone in it.

  Fully aware that the men became uncomfortable in her presence and wanted to get lost fast, Irene doesn’t care. After all, she likes people becoming uncomfortable around her. Strolling over to Cain’s chair, she sits down in it, placing her feet on the table as she leans back, blissful as she anticipates her next encounter with her ex-boss, twirling her long hair around her finger as she licks her lips. Another moment goes by with her thoughts to herself before a strange look comes over her, she kicks back from the table, and stands up to unzip and pull down her pants.

  ***

  Later that night, Dante takes the initiative to begin what had been discussed with Matt. He and four other men huddle in a spot behind the casino, yards away from the river flowing nearby. The four men, about the same age as him, each dressed in leather suits like him that are colored grey, white, red, and yellow respectively, have positioned themselves to look in all directions around Dante, standing in the center of the group and smoking. Some time has passed before the gray-coated man looks over his shoulder to Dante and asks him, “Are you sure we’re going to meet them here?”

  “Absolutely, Giovanni. We won’t have to wait much longer, either. This is the time they usually show up.”

  The red-coated man asks, “And we won’t have to worry about actual officers among them, right?”

  “Correct, Paul. This is where they come to get away from the other officers.” Taking out the cigarette to exhale a puff of smoke, Dante puts it back in his mouth as the yellow-coated man announces, “They’re here.”

  All of them turn to look, and they see another group of men approaching them from around the corner of the casino. They are twice the size of Dante’s group, and all of them are dressed in fine tuxedo suits and wearing sunglasses. At first, they don’t notice Dante’s group, some of them displaying drunken behavior as they come closer, but the lead man soon sees them, holding out his arms to stop his fellow officers. He takes a step forward, removes his glasses to reveal he was Tony, and asks with authority, “Who are you, and what are you doing out here?”

  Their only response is to keep glaring at Tony for a moment before Dante’s friends step aside to allow Dante himself to walk forward. While he discards his cigarette and stomps it out, the officers behind Tony recognize who he is, the drunk ones mumbling angry words. Dante says to Tony, “I, Dante Goros, and my compatriots from Saratu, Giovanni, Leonardo, Paul, and Raphael, have a petition for your boss, Cain Incarein.”

  Snuffing, Tony remarks, “Oh, really? And what would this petition be?”

  Placing his hands in his jacket’s pockets, Dante declares, “We would like him to endorse to you, his subordinates who serve as student casino guards, to lessen your strict policies upon the other students who come to the casino.”

  Holding back laughter, Tony smirks and replies, “I’m sorry, but Cain doesn’t have the time to hear petitions that are so trivial. Plus, we do our job just fine. We don’t need to change what’s been working for years.”

  Sighing, Dante says, “I was afraid you would say that. Very well. Now, I, Dante Goros, and his compatriots have a message for you, the subordinates of Cain Incarein serving as casino guards.”

  Narrowing his eyes back at him, Tony gestures to the men behind him to be ready while asking, “And what’s that?”

  His partners stepping forward to flank him on both sides, Dante declares, “Our message is this. As long as we are around the casino, you will be removed from your jobs and sent to the infirmary.”

  Stunned by the threat, along with the officers behind him, Tony responds, “Are you actually threatening us, your fellow students who do an honest service for the community? You are either misguided vigilantes, or just plain idiots. Such behavior cannot be ignored, and people who present this behavior are hazardous to those around them.” Giving the signal, he and the rest of the officers morph, adding promptly, “We will now ask you to leave the casino area immediately, or else.”

  “…You had your chance to run away. Now, we won’t let you leave this place conscious.” Raising his right hand above his head, Dante snaps his fingers, the signal for his partners and him to morph.

  Coming right out of their morphs, Dante’s associates attack Tony and the other security officers. Paul becomes a Gunner with red armor, turns his left arm into a light-machine-gun, and open fires upon the gro
up, his bullets stinging or piercing many of them and causing the drunk ones to stumble in their scattering. Giovanni becomes a large, gray Beast, Machine Cat style, and levels the double-barreled cannon set on his back and fires a round into two Swordsmen and a Shotgun Gunner, throwing them in three different directions from the blast.

  The white-coated man changes into a warrior with white armor and two arm blades of energy, rushing forward and shoving one of his blades into a Magician before turning to slash a nearby Spearman with the other. And the yellow-coated man transforms into a yellow armored warrior, jumps high into the air, and comes crashing down on a hound-like Dog, crushing him with a sledgehammer whose head is nearly as big as his own torso.

  Unlike his compatriots, Dante himself has not taken part in the action, nor moved from his spot. Instead, he simply watches the chaos, waiting for something. He is yet watching the battle when, from behind him, a brown clone of a Zombie appears out of the ground.

  Before the clone can claw at him, Dante draws his katana from his left hand, turns, and splits it in a diagonal cut. After destroying the clone, he glances around to find a whole group of clones surrounding him, slowly walking towards him with their arms reaching out for him. Over the next few seconds, he simply waves his sword to hack down every clone that gets close to him in quick order.

  Upon erasing the tenth clone to come at him, Dante gets a sudden feeling that the only reason they are throwing themselves at him was to distract him. His suspicion is confirmed when he feels the ground vibrate below him. Acting on instinct, he launches himself straight into the air on air balance, just as a large, clawed hand of earth bursts out of the ground and tries to grab him.

  Stopping himself high above the zombie hand, Dante looks around to find the real Tony standing by himself on the opposite bank of the river. He thrusts on air balance in a descent towards Tony, an idea coming to him that this would be a good time for practice. Startled to see Dante coming right at him, Tony defends himself by raising his left arm and summoning another giant hand out from it, stretching with open talons to intercept the incoming Swordsman. Instead of flying out of the way, Dante side-thrusts a little to his right, adjusts his sword into a reverse grip, and continues his descent past the zombie arm, slicing through it along the way.

  Horrified by Dante’s approach, Tony has to let him land near him, side-thrusting to avoid the katana’s cut, and throws a gale of corrosive wind at him. Dante rolls out of the way, jumps back up, and delivers a downward slash through him as he turns to face him. Flinching from the sword easily cutting through his decaying flesh, Tony can’t defend himself when Dante follows up the first slash by floating into the air, spinning in an upward spiral so that his sword rapidly slashes more wounds into him. His wounds becoming red from the repeated slices through his chest area, Tony looks up with terrified awe as Dante stops his spiral, raises his sword between both hands, and falls down for a final strike.

  Dante’s sword chops through Tony’s corpse-like body, splitting it in half with a sickening splash of health energy. Tony instantly demorphs, only to keep his face in stricken posture as he falls over unconscious. Standing up straight, Dante looks away from him back across the river to resume watching his comrades fighting.

  The battle over there has become more of a massacre as they finish off the few officers still in morph. Paul grabs a Knifeman and fires a burst of bullets into his wounded abdomen, causing him to demorph. The Arm Blade Warrior cuts up through an Axman with his left blade, stabs him with the right blade, and brings the left blade back down to hook-and-rip him, after which the Axman demorphs. The Sledgehammer Warrior tosses an Elemental Artist into the air with his hammer and does a quick rotation to swing the hammer again, smashing into his opponent and flinging him into the wall of the casino, off of which he demorphs and hits the ground face-first. And Giovanni pins another Beast, a Bull, to the ground and sinks his fangs into his neck, red wound energy leaking out with a loud crunch before the Bull demorphs.

  With all of the officers lying either unconscious or barely moving around them, the four Alkalians turn to look back at Dante, and he nods his approval to them. Not only was it a job well done, but they also had taken little damage to their battle morphs. Suddenly, Dante’s eyes widen with shock when, out of nowhere, a wall of aurora energy appears, side-winding past the fallen officers and slashing through his partners.

  Dante watches as Paul dodges the aurora and fires at its source, only to have the bullets reflected back at him and hit him in the chest before he falls over. The new foe then appears, a Sword-and-Shield Warrior, and casts a volley of magic spikes from his sword into Giovanni, who gets up and bounds away with his armor glowing from yellow wounds, the cannon on his back impaled and disabled. The Arm Blades Warrior attacks the new foe by leaping at him and bringing both his blades down on him, but they slide off the armor without scratching it. The Sword-and-Shield Warrior turns, slams him with his shield, and repeatedly slashes at him with his sword, stopping when he leaps out of the way of the Sledgehammer Warrior’s hammer and thrusts his blade into the Sledgehammer Warrior’s skull.

  Putting away the stunned expression on his face, Dante realizes who this new foe must be as he dashes across the river toward him in a burst of air balance. Racing up to him as he keeps stabbing the Sledgehammer Warrior, he thrusts with his sword into his back, not piercing him but instead pushing him over, allowing his victim to stand up and hurry away with wounds on his head, left arm, and side. Keeping his eyes on the Sword-and-Shield Warrior, Dante stands still, his sword posed to defend between his hands, and waits for him to get back up. After standing, he turns around to show a wicked grin and evil green eyes beneath his helmet.

  Laughing, Cain says to Dante, “Well, well, so you’re the one behind this mad attack on the casino guards, eh? Dante Goros, might I ask for what fathomable reason you have assaulted my officers tonight?”

  Dante calmly replies, “First of all, my men and I didn’t start this fight. Your men were the ones who morphed first. Secondly, the person who did start this entire conflict was you, on the day you had your fight against Matt Calamos.”

  With amused surprise, Cain exclaims, “Ah, I see! So the rumors are true, you are helping out that ridiculous excuse of a prodigy. If you ask me, this doesn’t seem like something you’d do, Dante.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, well, you’ve always struck me as the laissez faire kind of guy.” Nonchalantly spinning his broadsword in his right hand, Cain continues, “I just can’t understand why you, who never voices his opinion, who stays in the shadows, would all of a sudden become a comrade to a rebellious freshman, of all people. I dare say, your behavior could be just as illogical as your older sister’s.”

  Seeing Cain was humoring himself, Dante adapts a little of his tone in his reply, ignoring the subtle insult towards him and his sister. “Heh, you obviously don’t know me that well, then. Just because I’m not acting out anything doesn’t mean I’m not going to act at all.”

  “Hmm? Are you saying you were actually waiting for someone like Matt to come along?”

  “You could say that.”

  Getting serious, Cain says as his sword stops twirling, “That’s such a shame, Dante. A wise man like you, wasting his time and efforts to help a foolish child who is destined to be overcome by superiority like me. If I were you, I would abandon such useless commitment and stay out of this business between us. Besides, in what possible way could you aid him against me, the Invincible Warrior?”

  Dante growls back, “On the contrary, Cain, I’m not wasting my time helping out Matt. You see, people like you need to be put back in their place, one way or another. In fact, I will show you what I mean this very night.”

  Angered, Cain cries, “So you think that I am the inferior one!? I am inferior to no one!”

  “Oh, how wrong you are, Cain Incarein. I can think of many people who wouldn’t even care to know who you are. For example, Nicholas Narqailein.�
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  Twitching at the mention of the name, Cain snaps, “Don’t you ever mention that name in my presence! He’s long gone, and now I am the greatest student on campus! Now prepare yourself, as I show you why!!”

  Glancing to see his compatriots watching from a safe distance, each with vital wounds on their morphs, Dante gestures to them to stay back while keeping his cold stare upon Cain, his hands parting to leave the katana in his right hand.

  ***

  A frenzied Cain restarts the battle, lunging at Dante with a sweeping arc of his blade. Dante parries the sword and launches himself up and away on air balance. Cain takes off after him, and they both come to levitate above the river flowing quietly below them. He throws numerous flashes of magic at Dante, who either dodges or deflects each one of them. Infuriated, Cain charges forward with his sword raised for a great slash, but Dante drops down toward the river, having him fly right over him and clumsily swing his sword through the air.

  Cain turns and rushes back at him, their swords clashing while they are a few feet above the river’s surface. The blades cross a few more times before Cain does something unanticipated. He keeps his sword arm held back, allowing Dante’s sword to strike him in the chest, which causes no damage to him. Seeing his folly, Dante is stabbed, pushed off air balance by Cain’s shield, and slammed into the river with a loud splash by a magic wave thrown from Cain.

  While Dante is underwater, Cain smirks as he backs up several yards and lowers his feet into the river. Then swinging his sword through the water, the resulting splash thrown up is kept in mid-air from magic energy possessing it. The suspended globs of water stretch out to form liquid spikes, floating in space before him. Reaching the surface to look, Dante does not like what he sees coming.

  With a crazed expression, Cain points his sword at him, and the water darts dive towards him. Quickly turning his back, Dante has to let the spikes land in him as he sinks back into the river. After the lancing pain passes through him, he swims underwater towards the shore.