Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Chris' eyes snapped open as the suit sprang to life, his right hand jumping up to catch Riku's flying left. He clenched the fist with an iron grip and yanked backwards, using Riku's own momentum against him and sending him soaring past the armored seer. The fighter bounced off of the ground twice, like a stone skipping across a pond, digging his hands into the ground on the third bounce to slow him down, carving up the stone and concrete as he dragged himself to a halt. His head whipped up to find Chris' hands both extended, each had in it clenched a submachine gun.
Chris' eyes were narrowed, his first and most important priority had to be getting to one of his weapons pods - he wouldn't last long with the ammunition his suit had on it. His weapons weren't designed to kill Riku, much the opposite, they were meant to knock him out. The problem was the way his powers worked - keeping him fighting at his absolute limit as long as he had any small amount of energy left in him. Riku's healing factor had a harder time dealing with heat and cold wounds, he had to burn more energy to heal those at a more rapid rate, and Chris' 'Snowmiser' guns were meant to freeze Riku from the inside out, simulating something similar to cryo sleep from the sci-fi novels Chris enjoyed. The difference, of course, was that it wasn't true cryo, but rather just something to knock his target out for a few hours. Just one of his icer rounds could knock out a full-grown man with just one shot to the chest, and he knew from experience that, while the effect was small, they did sap bits of Riku's strength away, like a hammer and chisel breaking small bits of stone off of a block of marble. One bullet took away a small amount of Riku's energy and didn't take long for his healing abilities to overcome, but two bullets took longer than one, and four would take longer than two, so, Chris sacrificed the raw stopping power of rifles or hand cannons, for the sheer quantity of submachine guns.
With little fanfare, Chris leapt into the air, hurtling towards Riku, his guns blasting away. His foresight told him where every bullet would land the moment he fired them, this, combined with his suit's targeting assistants, led him to be able to fire with a near pinpoint accuracy even while hurtling through the gas-filled air. Riku clawed at the ground and launched himself at Chris, the deep, icy blue bullets slamming into his skin and covering him in welts as their cocktail of cryo chemicals tried to overcome his healing factor.
Chris swung his legs around, and with his guns still roaring, he slammed both of his feet into Riku's face the moment his friend got within range. He pushed off with all of his and his suit's strength, sending Riku flying back again as Chris backflipped back down towards the ground. He immediately took off running back towards Rikku, his automatic guns barking and bucking with every fired bullet. Riku hit the ground, but recovered just as Chris' first magazines ran dry. Riku smashed his forearms into the ground, fracturing it and raising large, jagged chunks of stone and concrete from the ground. He smashed his fist into the base of the largest, closest self-made stalagmite, the stone breaking from its base with a thunderous crack before he spun around and kicked with the heel of his foot, sending it soaring through the air towards Chris.
Chris narrowed his eyes and stowed both of his guns on the magnetic holsters on his thighs, he clapped his right fist in his left hand and reared it far behind him, before throwing it forward, putting his entire body into the punch. It smashed into the flying chunk of road and obliterated it, barely even slowing him down. He tapped the sides of his submachine guns, ejecting the magazines as he continued sprinting forward.
Riku tilted his head to the side as Chris blasted past the stalagmite and hurtled through the gas cloud. Riku assumed a defensive stance, but when Chris came within three meters of him, the armored fighter hopped forward a few feet, and then smacked his feet into the ground with enough power to crack the concrete, launching himself into the air. In those few seconds he was airborne, Chris reloaded his weapons with a practiced precision and speed. When he reached the top of his arc, directly above Riku, he threw both hands forward, angling himself so his upper half faced his opponent as he flipped over him. Quick as a flash, both guns were in his hands and blasting bullets once again. Thinking quickly, Riku again hit the ground with all of his strength, creating another stalagmite which he ripped from the ground and held aloft, blocking Chris' ballistic assault.
Chris flipped over Riku and landed on the ground, quickly checking with his suit to make certain that he was indeed heading in the direction of the nearest gun-pod. When his HUD confirmed it, he whirled around and sprinted away, his power armor propelling him forth at superhuman speeds, and his computers working in overdrive to make sure he didn't trip himself up and come to a screeching halt. He didn't even need his HUD to know that Riku was following him - the thunderous sounds of concrete rending underneath a relentless superhuman assault was all he needed. What surprised him for a moment was the sound of rushing air, and with a sharp cry, Chris threw himself forward, Riku's stone shield flying over him as the seer rolled forward into a somersault, and then took off running again, the stone crashing into a distant building and destroying a display window. The thick haze of the gas surrounding him only made matters worse, forcing him to turn to fire blindly into the mist while running backwards no less. His bullets left dozens of small contrails, and the infrequent sound of metal striking skin letting him know that at least some of his bullets were hitting.
"Approaching target." The deep, garbled voice of the Hercules suit spoke, leaving an augmented reality-esque line on the ground below him and a readout on the HUD in front of him - he had less than ten meters, and he was closing the distance at a superhuman rate.
"Deploy weapons!" He couldn't afford to waste valuable time on reloading his guns, that was why his suit had so few - with his foresight, he could accurately predict where the weapons shot out of the drop pods would land, all he had to do was ditch his current ones and snatch the new ones out of the air. Chris hopped up and dug both legs into the ground, immediately bleeding off great amounts of his velocity as he skidded to a halt, concrete and rubble spraying in all directions like water.
As he skidded across the ground, Chris swung both of his arms in a circular motion, spinning himself around a full one hundred eighty degrees, such that he was facing the rampaging Riku and sliding backwards. Chris shut his eyes tight and felt inside of him for the cold fire of his powers. Unlike Riku's, his didn't keep him at equilibrium - it drank his energy like a dehydrated man in a desert - and it was for such reasons that Chris used his powers sparingly, and in brief bursts. He could control how far forward he looked, and it all would come to him in an instantaneous flash - all possible future realities from that second onward. He truly didn't know how he was able to mentally handle such an information surge, but he had long since concluded that his abilities had changed his mind as much as they had changed him. Suddenly, the ice cold feeling surged through his veins like a shot of ice cold water. He felt his eyes change and in an instant, he knew everything.
The secret to reliable foresight was always knowing the date and time, else one would never know when to expect their visions to come to fruition. Ever since Chris had discovered his abilities, he had kept multiple timekeepers on his person at all times so he would never be wanting for the knowledge of when his visions were, and his suit catered to this with a clock and a mission timer, both accurate to the nanosecond. With the brief pulse of his ability, he knew every possible permutation of reality, relevant to him, for the next thirty seconds, and as such, he knew what could be changed and what couldn't. Thus was the gift and the curse to him - sometimes, he could see something on the horizon, and no matter what he did, it changed nothing, an example of something he couldn't change being the position of the weapons pods dropped in the city. He could not change that anymore - it was set. He could certainly move the pods if he got to them, but he could not change where they landed, as they already had done so, meaning that all futures moved on from the pods being in their current positions, as opposed to any others.
The problem, however, had been an initial inability to control how thorough his visions were - in the beginning, he saw every possible permutation of every possible reality, down to the most minute detail. It had taken him weeks to learn how to stop focusing on the small details and skim over them, instead looking for the bigger picture. One of the details of a bigger picture, for instance, was getting an idea for cause and effect. Chris knew by gazing into the imminent future that if he fired at any angle greater than one hundred eighty five degrees, he would never hear the sound of bullets striking skin. So too did he learn that if he hit with more than half of his bullets, Riku would take the initiative and leap into the air, meaning he would overtake Chris and reach the weapons pod first, which was not a good thing.
However, his attention to detail paid off in that he knew his weapons pod was deploying more Snowmisers for him. If he fired at Riku's legs, the sudden shock would cause his muscles to seize up and contract, tripping him up and sending him sliding across the ground, giving Chris time enough to catch the duo of deployed weapons and open fire. There were countless more details to consider, but Chris knew that the number one weakness of foresight was getting lost in the future - he had to take what he could get, and ignore the rest. In the middle of a fight, foresight could only help so much.
Chris swung his hands around and brought them to bear right in front of him, both of his sleek submachine guns held at a perfect one hundred and ninety five degree angle, aimed straight ahead and a slight bit below. His suit told him the magazines were half empty, netting him thirty caseless rounds each. Chris inhaled deeply, feeling the rough uneven ground skidding and spraying apart underneath his feet as he slid backwards, and exhaled just as deeply, feeling the ever so slight weight of the guns in his hands, and the pressure of the suit on his body. At the bottom of his exhale, the world sped up again and he opened fire, the bullets spraying through the air and carving contrails in the gas. Chris heard a sharp yell of pain and then the sound of skin and bone slapping against concrete, and just a second later his guns ran dry.
Still sliding backwards, Chris tossed his guns to the side, his hands angled thumbs-down. As he had predicted, the SMG's deployed from the weapons pod fell into position barely an instant later, and he clenched his hands the moment he felt the grips slide into place. Chris swung his guns upward to bring them to bear, but his opponent had already recovered, and he launched himself into the air like a rabid wolf. Chris, without hesitation, opened fire and threw his head backwards, generating enough backward momentum for his body to follow suit, and he soon hit the ground, now sliding backwards on his armored back. Riku overshot Chris, who continued pouring the cryo rounds into him. Riku's shirt was quickly turned to swiss-cheese, and his veins bulged against his chest, the ice rounds causing the blood inside to thicken and expand as it cooled down rapidly.
Riku, angrily, threw his hands down and locked them around Chris' neck, using it as a fulcrum to swing himself to the ground. He then hurled Chris over his own head and sent him flying through the air and past his weapons pod. Chris' guns clicked on empty, and the gun pod automatically shot two more into the air. Chris cursed as he slammed into the ground, the impact doing little more than stunning him thanks to his suit's shock absorbers. Chris rolled to his feet and dug them into the ground, forcing his momentum to bleed off, and quickly dived into an alleyway as the gun pod rushed past him, slamming into the building adjacent and burying half of itself inside it.
Chris cursed again, and before he could do anything else, crouched down and cowered in his alley, as Riku haphazardly sprayed his area with gunfire. The icer rounds wouldn't have much of an effect against Chris' suit, but that didn't mean they had no effect at all - if the rounds hit the muscles, the cold could make them more brittle and weaken them as a whole.
"I'VE GOT MYSELF A GUN TOO, CHRIS!" He heard Riku call out, before he blasted Chris' area with more gunfire. "JUST ONE GOOD SHOT AND YOU'RE OUT FREAKIN' COLD!"
Chris narrowed his eyes, sighing as he pressed his back to the wall and slowly slid down it. His heart was hammering inside of his chest, his skin felt like fire, and his injuries throbbed uncomfortably. He flinched when Riku blasted his position with more ice rounds, the fighter calmly strolling towards the alley, shooting it as casually as he would throw away a piece of paper. The bullets riddled Chris' position, hitting the stone wall with the sound of metal striking stone and crumbling rock.
Alright… If I want to win this, I need to keep it ranged for as long as possible, and the only way to do that is to keep him on his toes. He looked up at the weapons pod, it was largely trashed, but had enough room to deploy one more set of weapons. As he continued thinking, he tossed aside his weapons and retrieved two more. Best way to do that is to do something he just won't be prepared for… I need a lot of chaos and a lot of distractions. He chuckled, and looked up. I've got to drop a building… It needs to be primarily stone, and it needs to be big. He knew exactly which building he had to go for, but the problem was whether or not he was willing to go through with it. It wasn't the largest, but the Feslor Building was one of the oldest skyscrapers in the city, it was as much of a landmark as it was a defining aspect of the city's skyline. It was on post cards, was he willing to drop the whole thing on the off chance it might win him a fight against his friend?
Another burst of gunfire caused Chris to flinch, he turned his head towards the street, the thick gas hanging in the air restricting a great deal of his vision. He didn't know how close Riku was, but he knew he was getting closer with each passing second. Chris gritted his teeth - he knew, in the end, the cost shouldn't matter. If he lost to Riku, that meant whoever was controlling him would have access to a living nuclear bomb, and the kinds of damage he could cause would pale in comparison to a destroyed building and some carved up streets. With a grim determination, Chris sprang into action, pushing himself to his feet and ordering a retrieving a targeting beacon from the weapons pod, before he punched both hands into the pod with two loud metallic crunches. He waited, peering over his shoulder, both feet braced on the ground and both hands clenched inside the pod. The moment he saw the thick, milky-white gas begin to part, and a shadowy figure wielding two submachine guns haphazardly, he roared loudly and ripped the pod from the building, flinging it at Riku with all of his strength. Rocks hit the ground, metal screeched and stones crunched, Riku grunted and his bones broke, blood sprayed from his mouth as he flew backwards and disappeared in the cloud.
Chris didn't wait, he ordered Hercules to give him the location of the Feslor building and the quickest route to it. The suit didn't disappoint - the quickest route was the straight line, and that obviously meant going through, or over, any buildings in the way. Chris set his jaw and clenched his chest, he took two steps back, and then rocketed forward, his feet hammering on the ground. He smashed into the wall of the building he'd ripped the pod from, the fire alarms started going off, pouring water from the sprinkler systems and flashing bright, white lights. Chris didn't slow down a bit, his armor absorbing a great deal of the shock and deflecting any damage done to him. His collisions shook the entire building, the thunderous sound of his feet hitting the ground and his body turning small sections of walls into dust mixed with the fire alarm, creating a cacophony of chaos.
Chris blasted his way into the building's main lobby, hopping over the receptionist's desk - and forcing himself to ignore the panicked shriek of the woman hiding underneath it. He knew he should have let the gas loose earlier, but he rationalized that there would always be people who were too stubborn to evacuate, who thought that as long as the gas didn't get inside, they would be fine. Chris hit the ground and briefly lost his balance, falling forward into a somersault. As he rolled, he heard distant crashes and the sounds of stone and concrete being obliterated, letting him know that Riku was, as predicted, following his path of destruction.
He won't care about that woman… Thought Chris, as he hit his feet. Still crouched down, now skidding forward from his momentum, Chris ripped one of his SMG's from his thigh and swung his arm in a circular motion, while digging the other into the ground and carving five deep grooves into it. He clenched his eyes tight and pulsed his powers, beginning to feel a pit of emptiness in his stomach - a warning sign that he was digesting his earlier feast as fast as he'd predicted he would. If he kept glimpsing into the myriad futures, he would run out of food to digest and turn to energy, and his body would have to start digesting his own muscle mass. It was a problem, but not one he had to worry about at the moment - he had eaten enough food for three men so he would have enough stamina to use his abilities frequently. His foresight told him exactly where Riku would pop out, so, gun aloft, Chris spun around, and when Riku blasted through a wall, both arms held out to the side as if he were wading through water, he opened fire.
His gun barked out a staccato of bullets, deafening him and Riku to the terrified shrieks of the woman, who cowered underneath her desk, covering her head, trying to hide from the titanic battle. The cryo rounds all hit their mark, slamming into Riku's chest and turning the veins beneath it a deep, blue, visible beneath the multiple holes, rips, and tears on his shirt. Riku scowled and kicked to his left, his foot hitting the wall and hurtling him to the right. The action temporarily revealed to Chris that he had looted the weapons pod - there were two more pairs of guns stuffed down his stolen pants. The golden eyed fighter bared his teeth as he raised both guns like an action movie star and opened fire. Chris, still skidding across the ground, pushed himself off of it with both feet, all of the bullets fired by his golden-eyed opponent hitting the ground and scoring it with ice-covered pock-marks, that quickly filled with water from the sprinklers. Chris grunted loudly as he hit the ceiling and stuck to it or a moment, before falling to the marble ground with a large splash of water. He scrambled to his feet, water streaming off of his suit; he made a hasty retreat to the waiting area of the lobby, taking cover behind one of the square support beams, which quickly was accosted by Riku's gunfire. He caught a brief glimpse of a television that was currently sparking out bits of electricity, but had to throw his head down when another wave of bullets whizzed by.
Thinking fast, Chris whipped around and took a step back, before unleashing a steel-rending front kick onto the support beam in front of him, breaking a person-sized chunk of concrete and steel off of it and sending it hurtling towards Riku. Riku, however, didn't back down and merely headbutted the flying support beam with all of his strength, destroying it and turning it into a cloud of dust and debris. The metal rods clanged on the ground, and a coughing Riku fired blindly with one gun as he tried to clear the debris from the air and his lungs. Chris had vanished, but there were no new holes in the building - he was still here, inside.
The sound of the sprinklers spraying water everywhere, the fire alarm blaring its klaxon, Riku slowly scanned through the lobby, one gun aimed out in front of him and the held up near his ear. He took a tentative step towards the destroyed support beam, which still streamed debris. A spark stole his attention, but it was just a television that had been torn from the wall during the chaos.
"Marco…" Riku taunted over the loud, deafening alarms, and the ringing in his own ears. There was another zap from the wall the television had fell from, attracting Riku's golden eyes. "Maaaarcoooo…." He took a few tentative steps forward.
In the corner of his vision, he saw movement beyond the water collecting in puddles on the ground. He whipped around, extending both of Chris' submachine guns to the potential threat. It turned out to be the red-haired woman behind the desk, who screamed and slipped in the standing water at the look in the eyes of the madman with the guns. Riku kept up his scowl, his hands slowly beginning to shake, his eyes widening in rage, his jaw clenching. The woman trembled in fear, completely frozen, unable to break the fierce gaze of the golden-eyed man whose mere presence seemed to take up the entire lobby.
It was when the muscles in his hands started to stiffen, when his scowl turned to a look of struggle, did Chris reappear - sprinting out from the waiting area with two sparking wires held in each hand. He hollered loudly, causing Riku's head to whip around in surprise. Before Riku could bring his weapons to bear, Chris closed the distance between the two and jabbed both wires into his stomach. The running electricity, combined with Riku's soaking wet body, meant that he was hit with the full force of the power grid. He convulsed, he shook, he jerked, he screamed, his dark skin began smoldering, the electricity coursed through Riku's body.
With his hands still clutching both wires with an iron grip, Chris picked Riku up and arced him through the air, before slamming him into the ground. Chris' head snapped up to the receptionist, still frozen in fear. "Run!" He yelled over the alarms, before he did just that, content with knowing that this would only temporarily stun Riku - while he did have a lot of electricity running through him, it was nowhere near enough to incapacitate him.
Chris sprinted through the lobby and leapt through a window, his hands raised to protect his face as his increased weight smashed the window with little resistance. He hit the ground outside and rolled into a run. In the Hercules suit, Christopher was capable of running nearly sixty miles per hour, and the suit itself was capable of keeping balance and reacting should Chris not be fast enough. The Feslor building was two miles away - if Chris kept running in a straight line, he would make the trip in less than two minutes. He didn't want to do it, but he also didn't want to risk not knowing how long Riku would be out of comission, so as Chris hopped over cars, crashed through store fronts and obliterated walls with his shoulders, he felt for the cold fire in his veins, and called forth his abilities of foresight.
With the two seconds of warning he had, Chris was able to juke Riku, who had, instead of crashing through the buildings like his friend, leapt over them in a single bound, and came in hard with the intention of burying Chris into the ground. As he spun, Chris nearly lost his footing, but his suit corrected the problem before he could try himself, and got him back to pace, before he bolted off again. Riku dug himself out of the ground and, after his feet finished healing, tore off after Chris, the two running parallel down a wide main street. Rampaging down the street at superhuman speeds, the two held their guns aloft and fired wildly, neither able to see the other through the gas hanging thick in the air. Their gunfire drowned out the pouring rain and tore up the windows and doors of the buildings they sprinted past.
Growling as he felt ice bullet after ice bullet hit him, and angry that he couldn't tell if he was hitting Chris, Riku shoved his guns down into his pockets and sprinted ahead, his target a large minivan. When he got close, he dropped to his back and slid underneath it, before kicking upwards. The vehicle, now airborne, was then punched with the whole of Riku's superhuman strength, and sent hurtling down towards Chris' side of the street. Chris' suit detected the incoming object, and after doing several split second calculations, deduced Riku's position on the other side of the street, considering his earlier position, his possible momentum, their current velocity, and the weight of the vehicle.
Before Chris could even blink, Hercules took over. He leapt into the air and reached forward, latching onto the bumper of the vehicle and its rear suspenders, before spinning around, the suit's immense strength overcoming the weight of the vehicle effortlessly. Now in control of the airborne vehicle, Chris hurled it at Riku, who landed barely a second before the minivan smashed into him, and carried him into the nearest building. Chris arced back towards the ground, his momentum still carrying him down the street at great speed. He hit the ground and rolled forward, pausing for a split second as he hit the top of his roll; his hands slapped the ground and his feet dug in, giving him an almost predatory pose as his head snapped up and he got a confirmation from his suit that the Feslor building was at the end of the street.
With a powerful heave, Chris pushed off of the ground with his feet, and pulled at it with his hands, tearing apart the road and taking off like an olympic sprinter. As he ran down the street at superhuman speed, he carved a contrail through the rain, as if nature itself was bending to his will. He reached the end of the street after he heard a distant crash, letting him know that Riku had gotten back to his feet and was coming.
"Hercules, rocket strike on the Feslor building! Bring it down, maximum collateral, I need as much debris as possible!" Chris called out, digging his feet into the ground and skidding to a halt, rainwater spraying in all directions as the air caught up with him.
The Feslor building loomed above him, its massive stone visage constricting every dozen stories, giving the look of a pointed spire. A dull golden glow penetrated the gas cloud as the lights within tried to reach the outside, but were beaten by the rainfall and the gas. The ancient building was as much a characteristic of the city as it was a national landmark - and Chris was about to blow it up. His HUD immediately scanned the building, and it didn't disappoint him - the building had been one of the first to be evacuated when the gas hit, and it was completely empty.
Chris whipped around and hoisted both of his submachine guns into the air. The gas was still thick in the air, the rain was doing nothing to clear it up, if anything it only made it worse as fog began filling the air and mixing with the gas. Chris could barely see past his outstretched arms, but his suit told him everything he needed - Riku was rampaging his way down the center of the street, tackling aside abandoned cars and tearing up the street with his bare feet. Before Chris could open fire, however, his heads up display highlighted a massive incoming object - his eyes widened as he realized that Riku had thrown a trash truck at him.
The trash from inside the spinning, airborne vehicle flew out in all directions, saturating the air with disgusting debris. Chris cursed, but when his HUD let him know that the missile was about to impact, he decided it was time to try something impossible. Both guns still clutched tightly in his hands, Chris ran forward and then leapt up into the air, on a collision course for the garbage truck. The suit immediately took over, extending both legs towards the spinning vehicle. Chris hit the side of the massive garbage hauler, and when the suit detected he was properly positioned, he leaped off of it, soaring into the air, directly to the Feslor building, and pushing the truck right back towards Riku. Riku hopped over the truck after it smashed into the ground with a loud metallic crash; the vehicle tore the ground apart as it skidded to a halt, sending the remaining trash inside of it spilling onto the pavement, filling the air with the sounds of bags bursting and glass shattering. The dark-skinned fighter stumbled a bit on the landing, but kept sprinting forward, his head whipping up to lock eyes with Chris, who repressed a grin, as the countdown timer on his HUD hit zero.
Still flying through the air, his back towards the landmark building, Chris clenched his chest, and not a second later the air lit up as a fireball split into several and slammed into the center of the building. The detonation was massive, for a moment deafening out everything and turning the dark, rain-filled sky a bright white. The thermobaric missiles detonated inside the building, drinking in and igniting the very oxygen in the surrounding area and detonating with a blinding white flash. Debris, both massive chunks and smaller fragments, immediately started flying through the air, raining down like the rain and spraying outward with the shockwave, which cleared the gas cloud in their immediate vicinity, creating a small, expanding arena of clear air inside their gas-filled one.
The Hercules suit flipped Chris around and landed on the underside of a bridge-sized hunk of jagged rock flying down the street. He sprinted down the debris, gravity not seeming to affect him as it spun through the air. His HUD locked onto Riku, who was still sprinting down the street, but now in the opposite direction of the exploding building. Chris' arms snapped up and he opened fire, his ice rounds spraying all over the place as his piece of debris spun lengthwise through the air. When it reached the top of its spin, and Chris neared its upper edge, he stopped blasting away at Riku and stuck both guns to his thighs. The wind howling through his helmet and into his ears, and the rain now coming down even harder than before, he grabbed at the surface of the enormous hunk of rock and flipped over to the other side, his feet planted firmly on its uppermost edge.
With a loud grunt and a tremendous shove, Chris launched the hunk of rock down to the ground, where Riku, in an impossible feat of lower body strength, slammed both legs into the ground, bent them at the knee, and leapt backwards, managing to overcome his tremendous speed and momentum and avoid the bridge-sized improvised spear of smoldering debris. When he landed on the ground he pulled the same trick again, launching himself forward at the same speed he had previously been running, ripping apart the concrete and shredding the soles of his stolen shoes. His right leg extended, it hit the scalding surface of the scorched rock, and he began sprinting up its uneven surface to meet his opponent in the air. When he reached the uppermost edge of the chunk of building, he leaped off of it and whipped both guns out in front of him.
Cursing, and still flying backwards through the air, Chris ripped both guns off of his thighs and they both began blasting at each other at the same time, as the debris that had been launched up into the air now began falling back down, and the debris launched outwards began arcing towards the ground. With Chris' precise accuracy, and Riku's immense strength, they both were able to counter the recoil of the guns in their own way, meaning that where the bullets landed had everything to do with where they were aiming - and they both were aiming for the same thing: their best friend's head. The result was a feat of superhuman accuracy, as the bullets and the fighters all arced through the air, the former slamming into eachother and leaving no harm done to the latter. Chris' guns clicked on empty, and with a curse, he ejected his magazines to either side of him and inserted new ones. He felt a few bullets hit his armor, and one hit his bicep - it immediately feeling as if it were exposed to sub-zero temperatures, even through the muscle suit.
The sensors on his suit went off, warning him of a fast approaching object from the rear. Chris looked over his shoulder and saw a basketball sized rock that he was on the fast track to intercept. He slapped one gun to his thigh and spun himself around with his free arm, catching the rock and hurling it at Riku. The smoldering rock from the former Feslor building slammed into Riku's chest, bleeding off some of his momentum, but it was immediately recovered when a stage-sized circular platform of stone and steel crossbeams hit him in the back and carried him forward.
With a scowl, Riku stuffed his guns down his pants and grabbed at the crossbeams, before spinning himself around and then launching the platform at Chris like a frisbee. Chris cursed and crossed both arms in front of him, bracing for the inevitable, meteoric impact. The platform slammed into him with the force of a dump truck, exploding into a cloud of pebbles, rocks, and steel, and he hit the ground barely a second later. Now back on the ground, with the debris raining around them, Chris grabbed one of the steel crossbeams and ripped it off of the rest, before throwing it through the air like a spear, managing to catch Riku in the chest. Chris' sensors warned him of a large piece of debris on a collision course with his head, Chris hopped back and it slammed into the ground, lodging itself there like a pillar.
Not questioning his good fortune, Chris used this new addition to the street as a springboard to launch himself up into the air, shoulder first. He and Riku, now traveling in opposite directions at great speeds, slamming into each other with enough force to create a small shockwave, which blew away some of the debris falling around them and temporarily convinced the rainwater falling around theirs was the will to obey, not gravity's. When the rain and the debris caught up with reality, Chris and Riku were already back to their struggle. Chris had his hands on the crossbeam, his grip crushing it. Riku was blasting away at Chris with one gun, while his other fist smashed at Chris' head repeatedly, the sound of his bones striking Chris' helmet drowned out by the raining water, debris, and distant flames.
Chris pushed forward, forcing the crossbeam to break the skin on Riku's back and fully impale him on it. His head reeling from the multiple superhuman punches, Chris acted on instinct and twisted his body around, throwing Riku from the crossbeam and down to the street. One boulder from the Feslor building smashed into Riku as Chris flew past him, but crashed into a building instead of the ground. Chris slid across the carpeted floor of the office building, skipping across it like a stone on water. His entire body felt cold and sore, and nothing his suit's temperature regulators did was helping him. Blackness was encroaching at the edges of his vision, but he shook his head, lumbering to his hands and feet. He didn't get any time to recover, however, as crashing and shattering sounds began to surround him, the debris from the Feslor building cascading down around him and turning the once quiet office into the touchdown point of a tornado. Chris scrambled to his feet, dodging rocks and debris, but unable to evade all of it, several sizeable pieces of debris hitting him on his head, his chest, and his side, tossing him about like a ragdoll in a rainstorm. To make matters worse, he heard Riku shouting after him - he was already making his way up the building.
Move, Chris… MOVE! Chris ordered himself, clawing at the ground like an animal in a desperate attempt to get out of the kill zone.
He made it to the edge of the floor, the windows to the outside a mere meter away from him, when Riku crashed upwards through the floor beneath him and then slammed both feet down onto Chris' back. Riku grabbed the back of Chris' head and then ram his head into the ground, digging it in there like a triumphant bully.
"THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT, CHRIS?!" Riku yelled over the sound of debris smashing apart the building around them. "WHAT'S NEXT?!"
"Vent core." Chris said lowly, his suit's spinal mount immediately exposing its core to the open air around them, turning the temperature from a comfortable seventy four to an unbearable one hundred and sixty eight in less than two seconds.
Riku screamed, stumbling backwards and pressing his hands against his burning face. All of the rainwater covering the two had been flashed into steam and it had all scalded Riku, covering him in welts and burns. Hercules' cores retreated back inside the suit, and Chris rolled over onto his back, bringing both guns to bear upon his friend and pouring everything they had into Riku's burned chest. Riku's shirt was shredded apart and his chest turned a deep jet black as the ice rounds froze it nearly to the point of frostbite. When his guns clicked empty, Chris threw both of his legs up and then hopped to his feet, before he threw one of the guns at Riku's face, it impacting his hands with an audible 'crunch'. Chris closed the distance between the two in a second, elbowing Riku in the gut and pistol-whipping him with his remaining weapon, before reaching into Riku's pants and grabbing Riku's backup pair.
With a powerful side-kick, Chris launched Riku out of the building and back into the monsoon outside. The debris had stopped falling for the most part, with the odd pebble or small rock still hitting the ground with a dull thud. Chris leapt out of the building after Riku, both arms extended and both guns blasting their steady staccato of stunning rounds. All of the bullets hit their mark, hitting Riku with the never-ending sound of ice forming and shattering, bones crunching, and skin breaking. The two arced through the air and rushed straight towards the ground, Riku hitting first, and then Chris colliding on top of him.
Breathing heavily, Chris rolled off of Riku, whose body was practically aglow with the energy running through it, healing him. Chris' breaths came out as shallow rasps, his heart was hammering in his chest, blood thundering in his ears. The air around him slowly filled back up with gas as it flowed in from the surrounding area, but much thinner now than it had been earlier. The warm rain helped warm Chris' ice cold body up, it visibly steaming as it hit him. Chris struggled to his hands and feet, stumbling to his side and then hitting the ground on his shoulder.
Gasping, trying to flood his body with as much oxygen as possible, Chris watched as Riku's body slowly simmered down, looking no worse for wear, save for the shredded shirt, torn pants, and damaged shoes. Riku placed his hands on the ground and pushed himself to a sitting position, causing Chris to silently groan as he hauled himself onto his knees, his own armored hands hanging limply at his sides.
"Come on… Riku…" Gasped Chris, as he let his submachine guns tumble from his hands. "We've… We've gone past the point of no return…. There's no… No hiding from this." He nodded down the street, where the burning remains of the Feslor building struggled to support their skeletal weight. "You need to… To wake up…" He swallowed thickly, through his dry throat, the action causing him to cough briefly. "I saw you fight it… In the receptionist's lobby. You're… You're still in there…" He dragged one leg to a kneeling position, and slowly stood up, his entire body aching. "We… We can still… We need…" His mind was a haze, he was coming down from the adrenaline rush, and to his abject horror, Riku's expression hadn't changed from that of euphoria.
"We need… To finish our fight." Said the dark-skinned fighter, as he got to his feet. "So we've had a big ass gorilla… And a gunfight…" His smile turned into a sneer. "Is it time for fists now, or do you have another trick up your sleeve?!"
Chris sighed, mentally calming his mind and clearing it of the haze that filled it as thickly as the gas flowing in around them. He steadied his stance, and took one big breath of air, before exhaling it all in one go. "Alright, Riku. Just you and me, now. No more games. No more stalling." Riku's sneer grew wider and wider with each syllable, as he took a few steps back in preparation. "I won't promise 'no more weapons', but I can promise that I've exhausted my ranged arsenal. Trying to take the fight back to guns… It'd just take too much time." Riku was practically giddy with excitement. "Mano a mano. Good 'ol fisticuffs." He settled down into a loose fighting stance, his damaged and dented armor groaning, almost as if it knew it was about to be thrown back into the fray. "A good fight. The one we've always wanted." His augmented voice cut through the air. "Are you ready?"
Riku chuckled once. "Are you?"Chris sighed one last time, stretching both arms behind his back and popping his neck. "As I'll ever be." He said, before he thundered forward with no warning.
Riku was in a defensive stance before Chris could blink. Chris closed the distance between the two in one second, he threw a fast straight right, which Riku palmed away, before he heavily slammed his fist into Chris' armored gut twice. On the third attempted strike, Chris brought up his knee and blocked the strike, before pivoting around and roundhouse kicking Riku twice on his side, before he pulled his foot back and swung it in a powerful arc, his boot striking Riku's face with a horrendous crack, Riku's cheek bones rending to Chris' armored foot. Chris' foot hit the ground, and he used his momentum to spin around and kick Riku again with the ball of his other foot. The force of impact whipped Riku's head around, but before it even began to heal, he had recovered and was in the process of throwing a wide right cross. Chris' suit acted faster than its operator and threw up its left arm to block the strike with his forearm, and then with the free hand, it palm striked Riku's throat, causing him to gurgle and choke as he stumbled backwards.
With a small scowl, Chris took a slow walking start before he broke out into a full sprint. He hopped into the air with all the power his suit could supply, destroying the ground beneath his feet. In a flash, the armored fighter's feet were in front of him, making him look as if he were falling through the air horizontally, his feet pointed towards Riku. With a loud yell, Chris struck Riku in the chest multiple times with a bicycle kick, before slamming both feet onto his chest and launching himself off of it, flipping through the air and landing on his feet, quickly falling back into a defensive stance.
Riku, his ribs broken, his chest severely bruised and bloodied, and his face still healing, scowled as well as his shattered jaw would allow. He rushed forward, feinting left and then swinging right. As he predicted, the suit grabbed ahold of his arm, giving him barely a millisecond to act. Riku slammed his left fist into Chris' face, jarring him from his hold on Riku's right arm. Lightning fast, Riku punched Chris in the chest four times, before hitting his face again with a titanic right cross, rain from Chris' suit and blood from Riku's split knuckles splattering through the air as the sound of skin striking metal filled their ears. Chris recoiled from the blow, but turned it into a dodge as he bent under Riku's next swing, the air humming as Riku's fist flew through it.
Utilizing Riku's momentary loss of balance, Chris rocketed upwards with an uppercut to Riku's jaw, undoing any of the healing it had accomplished in the few seconds Riku pressed his advantage. Chris followed it up with a palm strike to both of Riku's ears. The golden-eyed warrior was prepared for this, however, and had both of his arms up just before Chris' hands hit him. He pushed outwards and caused Chris to lose balance, giving him the opportunity to ram the ball of his foot into Chris' chest with a bone-shattering front kick. Chris was sent flying backwards, smashing through some scattered debris before he was finally stopped by a parked station wagon. The vehicle's doors bent as if they had been hit by a boulder, glass shattered and flew everywhere, and even through his suit's shock absorbers, Chris felt a lot of the impact and all of the air burst from his lungs.
Chris groaned deeply, shaking the stars from his head and forcing himself to ignore the sound of water beating his armor. It was a minor miracle the car alarm hadn't gone off, though with the force of impact, Chris didn't write off the possibility that he could have simply broken it. With a deep, dry swallow and a grunt, Chris tore himself from the side of the station wagon and looked up, seeing Riku - fully healed - dashing over to him. With another shake of the head, Chris too sprinted towards Riku; with both of them moving at superhuman speeds, they reached each other before they could blink. Chris leaned back and dodged a fast hook from Riku, sliding forward and striking Riku's stomach with an underhand punch. Chris locked his arm to Riku's stomach and used him as a pillar, around which he spun; when he was properly positioned, he elbowed Riku in the face, but Riku backhanded Chris and then followed up with an elbow of his own. Riku's elbow struck Chris' gut with a horrendous crunch, as his inhuman strength failed to penetrate, or even dent, his armor, though it did force the armored fighter to double over involuntarily. The suit barely had enough time to react to a blindingly fast knee from Riku, slapping it out of the way before knife-hand chopping Riku on the back as he spun around. With a double palm strike, Chris pushed Riku away and straightened back up, a bolt of lightning briefly lighting up the sky and drowning out their fight with a clap of thunder.
Riku skidded to a halt on the rain-slicked ground, the gas cloud briefly obscuring him, but the spray of water as he whipped his head and then the rest of his body around assuring Chris that he wasn't making a tactical retreat. Riku growled, his white teeth stained red with his blood, his dark skin awash with the rain in the air and the blood from his injuries, his clothes ripped and torn. Chris assumed a defensive stance, one fist held low and the other curled up inches from his face. His eyes narrowed as Riku's chest began expanding and contracting faster and faster, the latter's golden eyes almost glowing with an otherworldly energy.
With a growl, Riku sprinted forward, reaching Chris after a second of superhuman sprinting. He crouched down low and threw a right cross at Chris' midsection, trying to get in between the invulnerable plates of armor and to the weaker, mortal bits. Chris' suit jumped into action, batting away the fist and countering with a downward punch to the base of Riku's skull in one smooth motion. Riku lurched forward, but threw his hands in front of him, his momentum carrying his legs into the air and leaving his hands to keep him balanced. With a flurry of movement, Riku spun his legs around, one foot hitting the back of Chris' forearm and the other smashing into his helmeted face. Riku continued whirling around, lifting one hand off of the ground and spinning like a top. After the first blow, Chris dodged each one with a violent jerk of his upper body backwards.
After a few seconds of Riku spinning like a top, Chris jerked his body backwards one last time, but then curved around, bending down low and striking Riku in the stomach with a double-fist punch. Riku flew back several feet, a splash of rainwater spraying out in all directions as he skidded across the ground, blood leaking from behind his clenched teeth. Chris bolted forward as Riku hopped to his feet, the former clapped his right fist into his left hand and reared it back, before hurling it forward, right towards Riku's face. Riku, however, managed to grab the fist and then lock his other arm around Chris', before swinging him overhead and slamming him into the ground like a sack of potatoes, the concrete splintering and cracking, scraping against the nearly impervious metal of the Hercules suit.
Riku stood over Chris and crouched down, before he unleashed a savage flurry of fists onto the armored seer's brought both of his arms up to shield him from the lightning fast, superhuman strikes, his suit's shock absorbers barely managing to bring the intensity of the raining fists down to manageable, human levels. Unfortunately for Chris, that still meant he was being beaten repeatedly in the face, his skin was beginning to split and the back of his head was beginning to bruise as his head bounced off of the ground. His head clouding up, Chris began seeing stars in his eyes and black on the edge of his vision; the suit saw the slow decline in Chris' brainwaves and acted for him, curling his legs up to his chest and then kicking out with all of its power, catching Riku in the chest and sending him flying through the air, towards one of the few buildings that the two of them hadn't ravaged.
Coughing and groaning, Chris slowly flipped himself over. He shook the clouds from his head, braced both legs against the ground and crouched low in a pose reminiscent of an Olympic Sprinter waiting for the starting gun. After just a second's hesitation, watching his friend fly through the air towards the ground floor of a skyscraper half of a block away, Chris rocketed forward, his feet slamming into the ground and tearing large divots out of it as he hurtled forward, overtaking Riku in a manner of seconds. He blasted past his friend and reached the entrance to the towering building and skidded to a halt, before whipping around and rearing his fist. The suit's computer had Riku's speed and trajectory calculated, and compounded with Chris' reaction time, knew exactly when to tell the seer to throw his fist forward so he would impact Riku with all of the titanic strength wielded by his suit.
When the 'Swing Now!' notification started flashing on his HUD, Chris threw his fist forward with all of his strength, smashing it into Riku's face with a bone-jarring thud. The sound of metal striking skin and bones breaking managed to overpower the pouring rain for a brief moment, before the lower portion of his body kept its momentum and swung around in a U-shaped arc. The golden-eyed warrior immediately countered, swinging both legs around to create more momentum, before he smashed one foot into the back of Chris' helmeted head and another into his back, smashing Chris into the ground in an explosion of concrete and rainwater. Riku was on top of the prone seer in an instant, smashing both of his hands onto Chris' armored back like a rampaging gorilla, the sheer force of his blows sending the water covering Chris' armor splattering into the air and digging them deeper into their crater.
On the third blow, Chris gave the suit a silent command to vent its core, and less than a second later the power cells vented into the air around them, distorting it with its intense heat and stunning Riku long enough for Chris to twist himself around and launch a savage right hook into his friend's face, sending blood spraying into the scalding air. Chris scrambled to his feet and grabbed Riku by the scruff of what remained of his soaking shirt, lifting him into the air with as much effort as one would exert lifting an ant.
"I don't know what's going on or who has stolen your will, but I will bring you back, even if I have to BEAT the sense back into you!" Chris roared, his augmented voice thundering around Riku's head, before he reared his right fist and smashed it into Riku's chest, sending him flying dozens of meters, leaving a contrail of rain in his wake as he flew through the air. Chris leapt into the air and smashed both of his legs on Riku's stomach upon landing, causing blood to spray out of the fighter's mouth as his stomach was crushed by the impact.
Chris crouched down and savagely beat Riku's face with a series of lightning-fast, crushingly powerful left and right crosses. Blood sprayed from Riku's mouth and face as each blow cracked bone and each punch tore skin, by the time Chris had to pause to regain some steam, the left half of Riku's face was beaten and torn to the point of showing bone, and his right eye socket was crushed, caved in on the man's swollen shut eye. Riku, however, grinned, and caught Chris' next fist as his skin stitched itself back together and his skeleton forced itself back into position with horrendous grinding and crunching noises. The golden-eyed warrior caught Chris' second hand as well, and shoved upwards, stumbling Chris and sending him to his rear.
Before Chris had even hit the ground, Riku had gotten to his feet in one smooth motion, almost like a vampire from the old movies. When Chris' rear hit the ground, Riku was already in front of him, he slammed his foot into Chris' chest and punted him into the air, sending Chris careening into and through a nearby building. Chris dug his hands into the floor of the building he was crashing through, managing to bring himself to a halt just a few meters before the other side of the tower, but when he looked up he was met by another punting kick to the face. The shock of impact and sudden movement of his head temporarily overwhelmed his shock absorbers, and he was stunned as he was sent sprawling across the floor, crashing through cubicles and sending wood, plaster, and bits of plastic flying through the air.
Chris coughed, already feeling bruises starting to form on his face and his chest as he got to his hands and feet. His heart hammering in his chest, his suit picked up on it and informed him that the worst of his injuries was the whiplash from the kick that had sent him here. Chris shook his head, his motion tracker telling him that Riku was taking his time, enjoying every second of their fight. The seer knew it would put him in a bad spot, but he didn't need to look too far - he only needed a few minutes. He focused hard, clenching his eyes shut tight and feeling for the ice cold fire within him. He felt a snap and then the information poured in.
The way he had presented it to himself, he had three options - reengage Riku, flee, or find weapons of a kind beyond firearms. The problem was that if he continued fighting Riku in hand to hand, it would only accelerate Riku's rise to power, making it more difficult to fight longer. Fleeing, however, would only give Riku time to heal, which made him more powerful. So the best answer, as demonstrated by his visions of the future, was to find weapons.
All of that information, in less than a picosecond.
