July 2, 2011, at 23:27

—Won't you ever get tired?

Exhaustion began to sap the strength of the elite black soldiers. Each time they finished with a batch of about forty copies of George White, another forty would appear. Their faces expressed frustration, they had not even noticed that there were two who were not fighting alongside them. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, they tried to prevent the priest from escaping with the Eyre stone he carried inside him.

Below, on the street, one of the mercenaries was going head-to-head with the urban hero, Zero. She had the upper hand, but the boy, covering his face with a green scarf and glasses, laughed confidently.

—I don't like cheating, but right now I can't lose. If we meet again, I promise to fight fair.

At that moment, Zero pulled out six small spheres from his black belt and placed them in the space between the fingers of both hands.

The mercenary ran towards him, trying to stop him from doing anything with those spheres.

He squeezed them, she recoiled at the sight.

“Will he blow himself up? No, it doesn't make sense”.

—That's just what I needed -he said.

The spheres opened, and gray smoke billowed out of them and quickly covered them both.

“A smokescreen… Will he run away?”

PLAF

A full blow to the mercenary's jaw.

She staggered for a second and then stood on her guard.

“I must move!”

But that blow disoriented her.

PLAF

PLAF

PLAF

PLAF

One after the other and from left and right, the blows hit the face covered by the hard mask with a force capable of knocking an untrained person unconscious. She was unable to react to the combo, she could not see. She covered her face with her arms, the armor on her arms reduced the impact of the blows, which soon ceased.

A few seconds later, she tried to see if the smoke had cleared, but the view was even less.

“Did she throw more?!”

At that moment, she noticed a quick, thin, celestial light piercing her right thigh.

—GAAAH.

Pain coursed through her body.

—That shielding is element 347, isn't it? Very effective against dark energy, but against energy, it's useless.

Philip pointed the index finger of his right hand at the mercenary like a gun, the gray glove lit up and shot out a light blue light.

—AAAAAAAH

This time it was the left forearm.

Then the right shoulder.

Finally, his abdomen.

Pain and burning coursed through her body as if she were on fire.

She fell backwards and rolled to escape, just enough to get out of the smoke.

She gasped slightly as she stood up and stood on guard, waiting for Zero or the smoke to dissipate.

“Those glasses… Damn!” —She realized the trap she had fallen into. She couldn't see anything in the smoke, but he could.

One of these lights passed through the smoke, heading for the mercenary's head. She dodged it by jumping to the right.

—You're paying more attention to the energy now.

Zero rushed through the smoke, charging his right fist and then burying it in the mask covering the mercenary's face. It crunched and then fell to the ground.

Philip laughed a little.

—That thing was pretty tough… Huh?

“What?!”

Light brown locks peeked out from the black hood, one of them was tied by a pink rope. Behind that tough mask hid a beautiful porcelain-white face.

“Cla…”

Philip's body froze. Although until a moment ago his doubts and worries had disappeared so that he could concentrate on the fight, reality hit him hard again. He thought of nothing, the sight of that face there was enough to shake his whole world.

How did this happen?

“CLARA?!”

A choked scream inside him.

Her friend, her partner, the boy who was willing to give her all to help others.

That story just crumbled in their face.

Desperate screams rang out above them. They both looked up at the same time. A shadow covered the entire sky, the mercenaries were running away from it in dread.

That shadow or cloud, descending rapidly, was hundreds and hundreds of copies of George that mingled and kept on reproducing.

No, to say hundreds is quite wrong. They easily exceeded two thousand copies.

—Is that the power of the stone? —Clara muttered.

She saw that Zero was engrossed in watching Georges' army descend and took the opportunity to grab the mercenary he had knocked unconscious earlier, deploy the devices on his calves and fly away.

Philip shook his head, turned on the thrusters under his trainers and started chasing Clara, who had already joined the rest of the mercenaries to flee.

—Do it now, Number 12. Throw it sideways to reduce the chances of us being affected. —The thick-voiced mercenary said into a radio he pulled from his belt.

—[Oke!] A childish, animated voice came through the radio.

A loud sound pierced the sky very close to the buildings, a trail of fire curved across towards them.

Philip immediately realized what it was.

BOOOOOM!

A couple of hundred meters from where Philip was chasing Clara, an explosion destroyed many, many of George's copies. Philip backed away as he felt the heat and smoke approaching. The mercenaries used that to escape.

Philip landed on the street.

—Guh. He got away.

—Never mind, the good thing is that I was able to keep the stone. Thank you very much for your help.

George, who came down from the rooftops and landed beside him, gave him these words.

—Ah. It's nothing.

Philip trembled slightly.

For him, Clara was an example. Not only with her contribution to society, but also as a human being.

"There was a bully in our class who tormented all the psychos in the school in cruel ways.

She confronted him, and just by talking, she surprisingly brought him to his senses.

That helped a lot of our classmates. I saw how one boy, with only her ideals, tamed a violent beast that was doing harm. For me, it was heroic, I wanted to be just like her".

—Aaah.

A faint sigh came from Philip's mouth.

George rested his hand on the urban hero's shoulder.

—Well, since it's all over, I have to tell you a few things, Zero.