Chapter Seventy

Alice realized that Pria had stayed behind her instead of going off with Scenario. She had begun to stretch her arms out as Pria came up beside her. ‘I’ll help out as much as I am able to.’ Alice heard Pria’s voice. “Thanks,” she replied.

            Jaime watched as Alice stretched out her muscles. Every time they encountered her, she felt so much hatred towards her and she knew Matt must feel the same way. She glanced over at Matt, who was now cracking his knuckles. Jaime felt so sure that they were going to beat Alice and finally redeem themselves.

            “So Matt, if memory serves me right, we have a score to settle,” Alice said. Almost instantly his hands went into fists. That signaled to Jaime the she needed to stand down and let him handle Alice, and that didn’t bother much since she liked fighting at a distance.

            In that exact moment, Alice and Matt ran at one another. Matt attempted at a punch to Alice’s head but she swiftly moved to the right and spun kicked. He ducked forward, grabbed her right leg and flipped her backwards. Just as she was going to land on her head, she quickly placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself back up using a back flip. Matt kicked but she moved along with the kick, barely avoiding its impact. She then used his leg while it was still out for support, jumped, and hit him on the side of his face. Just as she landed she watched as he held his face, but she soon heard laughter. Matt stopped laughing and quickly ran and grabbed Alice’s arm pulled it behind her and suddenly popped it out of her shoulder socket. She grimaced, then gritted her teeth together and fell to the ground. Within seconds she had gotten herself up, grabbed her limp arm and sucked in the pain as she pushed it back into place. The pain soon subsided and she turned back to Matt, “We should really stop with this child’s play and get serious.”

            “Agreed,” he spat back. Matt began to concentrate his inner energy directly to his upper and forearm muscles, which doubled in size. He believes it to be the greatest gift to be able to transfer energy to any part in his body and enhance its strength to his liking. As Matt was feeding his muscles with energy, Alice had already begun to chant, “Με αυτήν τη μεγάλη δύναμη, θα ζητούν τις φλόγες για να προστατεύσουν εμένα. Δανείζουν μου τη δύναμη του Θεού Sun, Helios, γι 'αυτό μπορούν να καίγονται και εκείνων εναντίον μου βούληση. Μαιος αυτές φλόγες ανάφλεξη και του χορού μέσα μου, και σε αντάλλαγμα θα σας τις ζωοτροφές τους σπινθήρες υπόλοιπο της ζωής”** The fight was just on the verge of beginning.

            Jaime knew she couldn’t just stand around and let Matt have all the fun. She was about to intervene but Pria moved in her way. Jaime laughed, “Hah, I get stuck with the dog, how nice.” Pria lunged herself at Jaime, just at that moment Jaime flung six knives at her. Pria dodged them all and kept running directly at her. Jaime immediately had three knives in between her fingers, using them as long metallic claws. And it was in those few seconds that Pria discovered how Jaime was capable of holding so many knives, she now could understand her power. Pria had seen when Jaime slid the knives into her hands, and she even saw the slits on the center of her palm. The pieces seemed to be placed together for Pria to realize that Jaime was capable of creating the metallic knives within her arms.

            Pria didn’t notice how close she was to Jaime, so she didn’t get enough time to avoid the swinging of the knives and she growled loudly when they pierced through her fur and into her neck. Just as Pria backed away, Jaime slid three more knives into her hands. She had come to enjoy the feeling of the fidget steel between her fingers, unlike before when she was first discovering her abilities. She would always be able to remember that day clearly.

            Alice had run away from them without even a brief reason into the burning city. They all seemed a bit dumbfounds by her action, but since she was Alice, they knew she had a certain reason and that she would be fine. Matt, Scenario and Jaime ran out of the city before it was all engulfed by the fire, but suddenly one of the buildings came crashing down, separating Matt and Scenario from her. She shouted out their names, not out of fear, but to make sure that Matt and Scenario’s asses weren’t dead because that would leave one pissed off Alice to deal with. Jaime told herself that they had probably gone off to find a way out of the city, and so she also went off to find an alternative way out. But everywhere she went led to a dead end, but luckily since she’d lived in Rouge City she knew the area pretty well. And right then she remembered the hidden tunnel in one of the warehouses. She quickly turned around and ran to the warehouses down on Crosslet Road. Once she had reached it, the place was already taken over by the fire, but she still felt she needed to check. She ran to the back of the building and went down into the cellar, where the underground tunnel was located.

            As she followed the tunnel, Jaime began feeling this burning sensation in her hands and forearms. At first she ignored it but it quickly became too unbearable. The upper half of her arms felt as if they were being placed under a frozen block of ice and then she felt her skin being to pinch itself together as if something where stabbing her. Jaime kept on walking until she no longer could avoid the pain. When she looked down at her palms she saw all these cuts gushing out blood. She leaned against the dirt wall and watched cuts being to appear all over her forearms and more along her hands. She gritted her teeth against the pain and suddenly realized that her arms had gone completely numb. Suddenly she watched as three large slits began to appear n her palms and she saw silvery colored liquid pouring out of the cuts. Dark blood came gushing out with the silver liquid. Jaime bit hard on her lips and soon noticed that the irony smell of the blood and the massive loss of blood began to make her too lightheaded. All she could do was stay still on the ground since she was too dizzy to go one. It was an hour later that Matt and Scenario found Jaime in the underground passage, where she was passed out and covered in blood.

             It seemed as time passed by that Jaime had made her more accustomed to the feeling of the knives between her fingers and she pushed herself to train to the limit right after Alice left them, she promised that she would improve her skill.

            Quickly glancing over Matt and Alice’s fight, Jaime noticed how both of them seemed so intense, but nothing less was expected from either of them. In the time that she had looked over, Pria took advantage of it and lunged at her. Jaime barely avoided the attack and once Pria landed, she immediately attacked again and repeatedly did this. Eventually Jaime realized that Pria was rapidly increasing her speed and she was becoming tired and slowing down as she continued to dodge the attacks. She could not find an instant to attack because she was becoming so exhausted, and Pria noticed this and so she saw it as her chance to use her illusion method. She created double illusions of herself and Jaime seemed a bit shocked at them but she assumed they were just illusion, and wouldn’t be able to harm her. But, what Jaime didn’t know was that Pria’s illusions were far from fake, they absolutely real.

            Matt couldn’t look away from Alice’s burning ruby eyes. She’d punched, kicked, and dodged him but he’d never take his eyes away from hers. He would never deny to himself that it was her marvelous eyes that made him fall in love with her. When he met her four years ago, the moment he saw her, he was immediately drawn to her but it was those eyes of hers that really go to him. They were the most mesmerizing things he’d ever laid upon. Eventually he couldn’t help but ask her out, and even after their break-up they were still close. And even now, when all he wanted to do was kill her, those feeling were still present inside of him.

            Alice was kicking and punching Matt, but every one of her blows seemed to be ineffective. This was beginning to frustrate her and now she was at the point where she would do just anything to take him down. From her back packet she took out her Fire Ticks. Within the two years Scenario and she were together, she had created a new weapon, the Fire Ticks. They were small black balls full of explosive ingredient. All she needed to do to activate them was aim a certain amount of heat at the opening of the Ticks otherwise they would be utterly useless.

            Just as Matt went in for his attack, she ducked, tumbled forward and quickly stuck the Ticks on his back. Matt winced as he felt several pinches along his back. Alice then quickly sent a heat wave to the Ticks, causing them to set off. She knew that at the time of the impact Matt wouldn’t even know what hit him. And she was right, once they exploded, and he fell forward stunned from the explosion.

            As Matt fell to the ground, Alice watched his shirt and his back burned with black flames. She could see a lot of blood oozing from his back in clumps and bubbles, but those were just the effects of the Fire Ticks, the person they were used on would have their skin burn and melt, and their blood would boil and clump together as it flowed out of the person’s body.

            Alice already knew in her mind that if Matt wasn’t immediately cared for, he’d most likely die right there. As much as she wouldn’t admit how much she hated what she had done, all she did was turn and walk away from him, and she was almost gone when she heard him attempt to get back up.

            “It’s not over yet!” he shouted as blood dripped from his mouth.

            She stood, staring at how he was slowly getting himself up and couldn’t hide the amazement from her face. He’s not even supposed to be moving! The Ticks contained a drug, called Efium, which she specifically created. And the drug was supposed to exhaust all the muscles in the body and cause a person’s nerves to slow down. So simply the fact that Matt was even capable of moving, was a display to Alice to how much the Matt from the past, no longer existed. This new Matt was driven by a rather strong will to survive and win. This seemed to excite her and sparked this new flare in Alice, her eyes were glowing a lustful red and she felt a craving to fight him even more.

            Matt could sense the change in Alice’s behavior and when he glanced up to see her eyes, he was taken back. She had the look of a ravenous animal on the verge of killing its prey, but he would absolutely fight back.

            As he finally got himself up, his whole body ached and he knew that just like everything in the world had its limit, he had reached his. He was running out of energy fast and he felt himself dozing off. Matt found it so hard to keep himself in an upright position while his body was releasing so much blood.

            All Matt could do was wait for Alice’s finishing blow, but when he looked back at her face, and her whole expression was completely different. Instead she now looked a little more upset and that infuriated him. The last thing he needed was his enemy feeling pity toward him, “Why the sudden change Al?!”

            She sighed, “Matt you’re going to knock out in ten seconds and you know as well as I do that I don’t attack people in your state, so just give up.” Alice turned away and began to walk.

            “Al! No, come back…” Matt could feel himself fading and Alice knew that the drug was now starting to kick into overdrive. His vision blurred and his eye lids became heavy, and the last thing he saw was Alice walking away, again.