RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone

by Frederick S dela Cruz

  The hooded man on the warehouse roof sees the approaching train. As he hears the sound of the rails rumble louder and louder, he raises his right fist above the height of his shoulders.

  Sik’s head snaps around under the force of the longhaired man’s strike. His brain is stunned. Staggering, Sik takes two wobbling steps to his side and hunches down low.

  Seeing Sik is hurt, the man leaps forward, raises his elbow, and then drives it into Sik’s back.

  The pain is unbearable, and Sik falls to his knees.

  Outside, the train closes the distance between itself and the hooded man atop the warehouse, adjacent to the tracks. Cloaked under a shadow, his eyes gauge the speed of the train, timing its approach. Soon, the train reaches him. At that moment, he drives his raised fist down, as though slamming his fist onto the nose of the train itself. His motion causes the nose of the train to suddenly smash down through the railroad tracks and lodge deep into the ground. It is as if the man’s fist is a massive boulder, the size of a house, crashing down on the train, from great heights above.

  The frightening sounds of crunching and folding sheets of metal reach the hooded man’s welcoming ears. He sees the train’s nose and engine sink down, crashing into the wooden railroad ties and snapping and popping the solid wood crossbeams. As the nose of the engine pushes further down, it separates the metal rails, digs through the thick gravel, and cracks the large stones underneath. The gears of the engine grind into each other, with the screech and wheeze of metal-on-metal. Finally, the engine is plunged into the ground. It spews up dirt and rocks up into the air, displacing enough earth to sink more than half of its engine almost vertically into the ground. Hissing steam explodes as all moving pistons burn, expand, and then seize to a halt.

  What happens next is what the hooded man desires. He watches the sunken engine acts as a pivot point from which the rest of the train begins to whip into the air. The passenger cars, immediately behind the engine, start to rise. The tremendous momentum of the whole train pushes and lifts the first six enormous cars, and the people inside, high into the air. Then, the remaining cars begin to join in the whipping motion.

  The longhaired man hears the crashing and wailing of the engine and feels the unnatural movement of the passenger cars, as they are launched high up. Quickly, he leaves Sik and Paige and transports himself outside. Hovering just above the train, he faces the sunken engine.

  As the rain strikes him and soaks his body, the sight takes him aback. He scans for the number of people in the train. There are just over three hundred passengers in it, and he needs to save them from the disaster. His thoughts urgently warn him, I can’t move all these people at once! I can’t read them all and move them out that quickly.

  Another car rises into the air. Sounds of snapping and creaking metal joints between the cars resound, as they tear away from each other.

  Reluctant, because it may prove too slow, he first tries to transport the passenger cars to safety, two by two. His mind scans the first two cars that already careen in the air. Within them, there are just over twenty people inside who are panicked, tumbling, and slamming onto the ceiling.

  As the first two cars flip and roll, they disappear. Then, they reappear, landing not-so-softly far ahead on the railroad tracks. Their wheels grind, spin, and spark on contact, and the railroad tracks shift, groan, and bend into the gravel. The momentum of the two cars pushes them forward down the tracks, at the same speed they had in the air.

  The next two cars disappear and reappear behind the first two, bumping each other and jostling the frightened passengers within.

  The hooded man, on the roof of the warehouse, watches the actions of the man flying above the train. “Good,” he says to himself, approving of the man’s abilities. Then, he adds, “But this I already expected. Show something different.”

  As the longhaired man sees the remaining two cars that were airborne start to drop to the ground, he realizes he does not have enough time to save them. It has taken him too long to transport the first four. Flying over them, he unwittingly does something different. By instinct, he extends his palm out towards them and wills the passenger cars to be guided by him. Suddenly, the massive cars respond and begin to alter their tumble, as if his hand is directing them. They turn upright and start gliding forward in quick and fluid flight.

  He guides them down on the tracks, behind the first four cars; and as they fall, their weight bends and tests the integrity of the solid metal railroad tracks.

  But the rest of the train, almost twenty passenger cars, remains on the tracks and now head unimpeded into the sunken, almost vertical engine.

  Turning his attention to them, he flies above them. They appear in a line below him. Again, he extends his hand. Then, grabbing the air, as though grabbing the front car, he then yanks his hand back.

  Just before ramming into the sunken engine, the line of cars lifts and leaps up and over the engine, and then lands on the other side of the tracks. Like a millipede gliding over a twig, the whole train glides over the engine and smoothly continues on the tracks on the other side of it.

  The hooded man sees. His tone is devoid of emotion, but the quiet word he uses uncovers his true thoughts, “Impressive.”

  Seeing that the danger has been averted, the longhaired man transports himself back to where Sik and Paige were. But he finds that the two are no longer there.

  Almost expecting that they would be gone, he mumbles, “So, now where are they?”

  Searching for Sik, he scans up and down the line of passenger cars of the train. Not finding him, his thoughts pan completely out and around him. Then, inside a large warehouse - the very one the hooded man stands atop - Sik is there.

  Almost at the center of the warehouse, Sik carries Paige in his arms, and then carefully sets her down, next to an old, dark wooden desk. With the workday ended, the warehouse is empty.

  In dripping wet clothes, the goateed man appears a few steps behind Sik. He calls out, “Alright, Sammy boy.”

  Sik calmly turns around.

  “There’s no use reasoning with you, is there?” the man asks.

  Sik says nothing.

  “Well, then…it’s time we do a little dance, isn’t it?”

  Sik takes two slow and measured steps closer.

  The man takes his own two steps forward. Then, he adds, “But no tricks from me, big boy. This is mano a mano.” He knows that without his abilities he is not likely to beat Sik, but he has something to prove. The defeats he has suffered against Sik in the multitude of time loops do not sit well with him, and he feels a childish need to redeem himself.

  Finally, Sik speaks, taunting with a scowl, “Tricks or no tricks, I’ll still drive your head down into the concrete.”

  Sik’s statement generates a picture in the man’s mind that unnerves him a bit. He blinks and tries to shake away the image of his own head driven into the ground. Then, he wonders to himself whether his no tricks statement was wise, and his thoughts say, Maybe that wasn’t too smart. I might get hosed. Anyway, too late now - can’t take it back. Thus, with resolve in his eyes, he readies his stance.

  Sik begins to move.

  Then, simultaneously, the two leap at each other.

  Before the man can throw a punch, Sik wraps his arm around him and slams him down on the ground.

  With Sik on top of him, the man slides his body to one side. The elbow of one arm shoves against Sik’s ear, pushing Sik away. It gives the man’s other arm sufficient striking distance. Immediately, he slugs his fist into Sik’s jaw. He hears a snap and crack, as Sik’s teeth collide into each other.

  Dazed, Sik lets him go and rolls to the side.

  The man jumps to his feet and sees Sik facing down on the ground, blinking and shaking his head. He wastes no time and dives down on top of Sik’s back, sinking an elbow deep into Sik’s ribs.

  Sik’s bones give way, and he arches back in pain. But he counters by swinging his fist backward at his opponent’s face, and
the man’s head jerks back to avoid it. Still in pain, Sik rolls away, at a safe distance. Cautiously, he staggers and stands to his feet.

  The two face each other, with the old wooden desk behind the goateed man.

  On the floor, Paige gradually regains consciousness. She squints to focus in front of her. To her left, Sik crouches. To her right, she sees the water-soaked figure of a man familiar to her. She begins to feel the dull pain from the gash on her forehead, and then carefully she presses her palm over it.

  The goateed man, seeing Sik’s difficulty moving, says to himself, He’s hurt! Keep pounding on those ribs.

  Sik, though in pain, is unrelenting. He believes, because of his greater weight, size, and strength, his best chance is to keep his foe close, in order to grapple and wrestle with him. Sik dashes forward and crashes into the man, slamming him into the top of the desk.

  The legs of the desk screech against the concrete floor, and its top bends with the weight of the men above, but the wood does not give way.

  As the goateed man’s back hits the desk, he grabs Sik by the trunk, and using Sik’s momentum, flips Sik above him and over the desk.

  But in mid flight, Sik maneuvers his body to the side and lands on his feet at the side of the desk. Sik grabs one of the goateed man’s arms and pulls the man towards him. Sik slugs him in the face. As the man tries to pull away, Sik tugs him back and punches him again.

  The goateed man’s head snaps back, when Sik’s fist makes contact. With Sik still grabbing his arm, the man maneuvers to Sik’s side and kicks the back of Sik’s ribs.

  Feeling the tremendous pain, Sik lets him go.

  The man positions himself behind Sik and begins to smash away at Sik’s damaged ribs.

  Sik falls to his knees, swinging wildly to stave off his enemy.

  Soon, the two men separate, both tired and breathing heavily.

  Sik slowly stands. He straightens his back and flexes his arms out to his sides.

  As the goateed man sees Sik try to regain his strength, he knows this fight is about to end. This is it, he says to himself. Rush at him and he’ll do same the move…he’s gonna try to pick me up and slam me down, like he’s done a thousand times before.

  With a deep-throated growl, the man seizes the moment and lunges at Sik.

  Sik readies himself for the collision. His leg anchors forward, his arms flare out, and his muscular chest leans in. Waiting for the impact, his jaw clenches. A bead of sweat drops from the side of his forehead.

  The two men collide, pounding chest to chest.

  Sik momentarily shudders backward, but his strong legs help him regain his balance, and he leans forward again. His arms lift his opponent up by the waist and squeeze him tightly in against his chest.

  The man’s feet rise high into the air.

  Lifting further, Sik arches his back. But, unlike the thousand times before, his back strains because of the pain in his ribs. Then, Sik whips his body forward, taking the man with him. Their momentum sends the two bodies, for a split second, into the air, on their way down to the ground.

  The goateed man remembers this moment, the moment in which his back and head are about to slam into the floor. He remembers it from the hundreds and hundreds of times, when the dark entity attempted to break him by trapping him in the repeating loops of time. Each of those times, he lunged at Sik inside the room of the Marsters Hotel, and each time Sik succeeded in defeating him: over and over again, Sik slammed him down, knocking him out.

  Now, swiftly, while in that brief moment in the air, the man’s hand shoves Sik’s head to the left, and then he shifts his upper body quickly to the right. Rapidly, the man’s arm wraps around the back of Sik’s neck and clamps around Sik’s throat.

  With a mighty pull, a split second before hitting the ground, the man forces Sik’s head down past his back.

  Sik’s head crashes into the concrete floor long before the goateed man’s back hits the ground.

  The impact tears open Sik’s scalp, severely jarring his skull.

  As Sik topples over, his glazed eyes roll.

  Not giving Sik a second to recover, the man jumps and straddles over his chest. His left fist raises and pounds down, and he growls, “That’s for hurting the nice young lady!”

  His right fist cocks back then lands on the other side of Sik’s jaw. “That’s for stabbing me!”

  Sik’s brain jostles in his skull. Feebly, his arms try to shield himself, but they cannot rise.

  The man rocks back his left fist, and then swings down with all his weight to pound down his last blow. It is a solid fist-to-jaw connection.

  He growls one last time, “And that’s for going dark side!”

  Sik is completely knocked out.

  The man stops.

  Breathing hard, he puts a hand on Sik’s chest and leans on it to support his weight. Closing his eyes, he takes in a few more deep breaths then waits and rests to regain his strength.

  Feeling his exhaustion fade, he finally stands on his feet. Staggering, he looks down on his foe. With a sudden urge to put an exclamation point to his victory, he proclaims, “Nobody! Nobody kicks my ass a thousand and one times.” He wags a finger at Sik. “A thousand is where I draw the line and not more!”

  His head lifts, and then drops with a heavy sigh. Then, he focuses on Sik’s bleeding head, and his mind examines Sik’s skull and brain. “Oh, he’s alright,” he says dismissively, “…nothing that won’t heal anyway.”

  Tiredly, he walks away, but then stops. Wanting to rub it in further, he turns and he says in a loud voice, “Now, who’s drivin’ whose head into the concrete?” He walks away. “The irony, huh?”

  After one more heaving breath, his thoughts quickly turn back to the person for whom he fought.

  “Paige,” he blurts, as he turns completely around to look for her.

  But she is gone.

  Turning around again, he scans the area for her but cannot sense her. With a frustrated sigh, he says, “She just can’t stay put.” Irritated, he adds, “And what the heck is keeping me from sensing her and finding her!” Trying yet again, he searches for her throughout the building.

  Unsuccessful, he disappears, and then reappears outside, at one end of the warehouse.

  The sky is dark and cold. The rain immediately lashes down on him once again.

  Turning his gaze up and combing the hair from his face, he sees a swirling, gigantic, black cloud above him, almost completely covering the sky. The center of it seems relatively close. His eyes draw a line in the sky, creating a path directly to the coastline.

  Out beyond the shore, a powerful waterspout churns and spins its vortex.

  He is amazed by what he sees.

  Below the massive black cloud that spawned it, the length of the vortex sways and curves its body in fluid motions, but its contact point with the bay is strangely fixed and immovable. Also extending down from of the cloud, around the perimeter of the large vortex, smaller vortexes spin like dancing tentacles that celebrate the creation of the larger offspring.

  The goateed man’s eyes follow the swirling arm of the waterspout down to the surface of the bay, where it makes contact. With his new sight, he notices a strange energy, like a light, radiating a short distance just above the turbulent waters, and very close to the waterspout.

  “What is that?” he asks himself. He transports himself to the shoreline for a closer look. There, the wind gusts swiftly and the rain stings his skin.

  He sees a figure hovering in the air, just at the other side of the vortex. After putting himself there, he floats above the water, down a distance from the figure.

  The wind is agitated and energetic. In its counterclockwise motion around the waterspout, it flings darts of rain into his face. Below him, violent waves rise and crash, around the edge of the spinning vortex.

  He raises his left forearm, as a shield for his eyes, revealing the symbol upon his wrist. He sees that the figure in front of him is the hooded man, in his long
, black, thick coat. The wind behind him presses the hood over his head and face, ensuring his anonymity.

  The two men face each other, as they have many times before, over the centuries, in circumstances just as tempestuous as this moment.

  Suddenly a random gust whips and blows the opposite direction. It tosses the hood from the man’s head, finally exposing his face. For a fleeting moment he seems caught off guard, but quickly he regains his dauntless visage.

  His eyes are striking, piercing blue.

  His blond neck-length hair pulls back with the gust.

  The skin on his face is light and pristine, without a line or wrinkle, almost without a follicle of hair around the jaw and lips. The fair skin effortlessly reflects the minimal sunlight filtering through the thick clouds above.

  His face is contoured in perfect angles, and in every form, exactly like the face of the goateed man directly in front of him.

  As the gust continues, the man calmly raises his right forearm to shield his eyes. The wind pushes back the sleeve of his black coat, and a familiar symbol is revealed on the inside of his right wrist: a circle within a circle. The outer circle is created by a double helix, with its two lines intersecting six times. The inner circle is made of two flames opposite each other, connected by the arcs of their long tapering tails, and eternally chasing one another. The symbol is etched cleanly into the cells of his skin and burned deep into the marrow of his bones.

  It is the name given to him, written through flesh and bone.

  The gust vanishes, and the counterclockwise wind once again prevails. But the hood remains off, flapping at the side of the man’s neck. He raises his voice just enough to be heard above the swirling wind and lashing rain, and his projected words lack any emotion. “Hello, brother.”

  Chapter 21

  His name is Gemini, but the ancient Babylonians called him by another.

  Nearing the end of the thirteen-year siege of Nebuchadnezzar II, against the ancient, walled island city of Tyre, in the years of 585-572 BC, he appeared to them as a great warrior wielding miraculous powers.

  The siege took place in the southern coast of the land that is today’s Lebanon. Before the campaign against Tyre by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, Tyre was still an island. Stone walls fortified and completely surrounded it, reaching as high as sixty meters where the island faced the mainland.