Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 49

Alabaster smirked, “No.” The hammer of his revolver clicked, the sound akin to the tolling of a bell in the silence that had fallen over the street, “I'm afraid that what I'm best at is a little too messy for that.”

“That's too bad.” Kon said, making Alabaster tilt his head, “Because I'm about to make a much bigger mess and I don’t really feel like cleaning it up.”

“Well you're right about one thing. This is definitely going to be messy.” Alabaster smirked, getting ready to pull the trigger and put an end to his life Just as the man finished the sentence however, Kon kicked the man in the knee as hard as he could, throwing off his aim and his balance and saving the back of his skull frona sudden violent expulsion. 

The cape went down to his knees, and Kon jumped on top of him, wrestling the gun out of his fingers. Before he could let off another shot.

“Ah! Shit!” Kon reeled back as the top Alabaster's head slammed into his chin. He socked the man across the face, accomplishing absolutely nothing, moments before he was thrown off of him like he was trying to ride a bucking bull. 

He managed to get the man’s gun though, so the whole ordeal worked out in his favor. Kon stood up quickly, managing to get to his feet before the other man who he immediately pointed the revolver at, keeping it zeroed on him as Alabaster slowly stood up.

Alabaster looked at the gun in his hands and then at him, “What do you think you’re going to be able to do with that?”

“This.” Kon responded by emptying the weapon into the front of the Nazi’s pale body, blowing coin sized holes into his chest and even his head. Five shots rang out and on the fifth, Alabaster fell back, landing on his back as his body gave up on supporting him through the damage.

Less than six seconds later, there was a blip, like TV static running over the man’s pale body, and all of the wounds and even blood disappeared, leaving him pristine once more. Alabaster stood up, utterly unconcerned and completely fine after what he had just endured, and he spread his arms wide, “See. All you did was waste your ammo.”

“No, I wasted your ammo. I didn’t have any to begin with.” Kon corrected, tossing the gun away “I felt like it wasn’t really fair that you were the only one with a working gun so I decided to even out the playing field a bit.”

Kon reached to his right thigh and slid a combat knife out of its holster. Holding it in front of his chest, Kon gave Alabaster a smirk, “Why don’t we settle this like men? Mono a mono.”

“You want to fight me with a knife? Fine by me.” Alabaster reached down and pulled the knife out of his own holster, smirking at Kon, “I prefer to get my hands dirty anyway.”

Kon's knife skills weren't the best compared to what he could do with a gun, but in a situation like this, he had no choice. This wasn't about winning anyway, it was about keeping Alabaster occupied long enough for his team to get away. That, he could do.

Alabaster moved forwards and Kon rushed to meet him, using every bit of experience and training he had to keep a level head as he ran straight towards the nigh-immortal regenerator. 

In the following fight, Kon’s tactical gear gave him a bit of an advantage in the fight, though not by much. It prevented Alabaster’s knife from slashing him in the body, but it was constructed for piercing anyway so it wasn’t good at that in the first place, and he had a feeling that if Alabaster wanted to jam that stiletto into his gut, there wasn’t much that his vest was going to do to stop it. He was lucky that the man wasn’t taking this that seriously. He clearly didn't see Kon as a threat.

Which was understandable. As the fight continued to rage on, it became extremely clear that there was pretty much nothing that Kon could do to actually put the man down for good. His power reset any damage that Kon did to him only a few seconds after he actually did it. Slashed throat? Gone. Missing fingers? Back. A knife injection straight into the eye-socket? Apparently Alabaster’s insurance covered that too. Nothing that Kon was doing was sticking.

On top of that frustration, Kon was absolutely covered in blood that wasn’t his own. It even soaked through his helmet and into his hair, making it hard to see as it leaked from his scalp down his face, occasionally blinding him. After slitting Alabaster’s throat for the fourth time, Kon stepped away from the man, grabbing his helmet and tossing it away so that he could rub the blood out of his eyes.

Alabaster waited patiently for him to finish twirling his knife as he watched Kon get rid of all of the blood covering his face, “It's been a while since I've had a chance to cut someone up like this. You civvies are too squishy and Kaiser doesn't let me cut loose like Hookwolf. I hope you don't mind if I savor this as long as I can.”

Kon spat out blood that wasn't his,À wiping his mouth and giving Alabaster a grin, “Savor it as much as you want. I'm not planning on making it easy for you either way.”

Alabaster's smile widened, “Excellent.” He said, before he moved forward and they were back at it again.

~~~

Miki’s hands clenched the steering wheel hard enough to hurt as he drove them all out of Empire territory and away from danger as fast as the van would allow him to.

Hiroki groaned beside him in the passenger seat, gasping every time the van hit a bump or a pothole, and Miki looked at him worriedly. He was looking much worse than he had a few minutes ago and sounded just as bad. They needed to get him to a medic fast.

In the seats behind him, his comrades disagreed. Jamie leaned up between the seats, glaring at him angrily, “So we're just leaving him there?”

“We have to. He told us to get the weapons back to Muto.” Miki said, tightening his hold on the steering wheel, “He said he could handle it so we're going to trust that he can.”

“Kon says a lot of stupid shit!” Jamie snarled angrily, “He can't fight a cape by himself, he's gonna fucking die if we don't help!”

“And we'll all die if we do!” Miki shouted right back. Hiroki winced at the volume and Miki immediately lowered his voice, “Hiroki already has one foot and the grave and we're all out of ammo except for what we picked up. If I turn around now, he's going to bleed out and we're gonna run into whatever reinforcements we're behind Alabaster. We're going back to Muto.”

Miki knew that he probably sounded like an asshole but Kon had the right idea. As long as he was keeping Alabaster occupied, the man wouldn't be able to send anyone after them or come after them himself. If they went back now, they'd accomplish absolutely nothing but losing Hiroki and the weapons they stole.

The van was silent in the wake of his proclamation, only broken by the sounds of Hiroki moaning in pain. Jamie gritted her teeth, and Miki glanced at her with sympathy.

“If we go back there, none of us are coming back. Kon knew that and that's why he told us to go on even with that cape back there. He's giving us a chance to get away and tell everyone what happened. Maybe… maybe if we're quick, we can stage a rescue and get his body back.”

Jamie didn’t have anything to say to that. She stared at Miki angrily but knew that everything that he said was true. She growled, sitting back down angrily, and Miki sighed.

As the silence stretched, Miki began to relax as his surroundings became familiar again as they reentered ABB territory. They were safe, which was more than he could probably say about Kon. Miki felt sadness well up in his chest at the loss but stubbornly tamped it back down, knowing that now wasn't the time.

A few minutes of tense silence later, the van rolled into the warehouse where they were told to deliver the weapons. Miki expected to see Mito waiting for them or maybe even Takumi. Muto was indeed there, but Miki was shocked to see the red and black mask of his leader was also present alongside a tall figure in a black cloak. That shock turned to relief as he realized that Yosei might be able to help Hiroki before he passed on from blood loss.

The conversation that the group was having was clearly very important judging by the look on Muto’s face, but it was cut short as Miki’s van screeched to a halt in the middle of the warehouse and the doors slid open. Miki and the rest of the crew stepped out of the van, pulling Hiroki out of the car and propping the man between them, “Can we get a little help here? I don’t think he’s gonna last much longer.” Miki called, spurring everyone into action.

“What the hell happened?” Muto asked as Yosei stepped past him, trailing mist as she walked. She raised a shrouded hand and as the mist faded away, her fingers had become long and clawed with nails as black as the night. The limb glowed a dull silver in the daylight, and she stopped directly in front of the group, gesturing to Hiroki, “May I?”

“Please, Yosei-sama.” Miki said, and Yosei put her hand directly to Hiroki’s bleeding abdomen. The man tensed at the touch, before gasping and then sighing as whatever power Yosei was using went to work, supposedly healing him.

Relieved that one of his closest friends wasn’t about to die, Miki turned his attention to Muto, answering his question, “There was resistance. Way more than we expected or were prepared for. We barely got out of there with our lives, nevermind our weapons. If things played out differently, I don’t think any of us would be here.”

Muto’s eyes widened, before narrowing in thought, “That doesn’t make any sense. The intel we got was up to date and definitely accurate. That was supposed to be a soft target. Maybe two or three men guarding it at any given time.”

“Soft target my ass.” Jamie hissed as they laid Hiroki on the ground, “Soft targets don’t have crates full of rocket launchers! We were lucky we all  got out alive and intact.”

“Clearly that statement isn’t true.” Miki and the rest of the crew froze as Yosei’s soft voice pierced through the warehouse. She stepped away from Hiroki, withdrawing her hand from the man’s middle as she turned to face them all, “After all, how could you all have gotten out if your team is missing a member””

Her steely grey eyes dug into Miki’s from underneath her mask, and the man swallowed at the eerie calm in her voice, like the silence before an impending storm, “Where is Kon?”

~~~ 

Kon struggled to hold back the knife trying to sink into his stomach, splitting his focus and strength between it and the knife that he was trying to lodge in Alabaster's throat. His face was soaked in blood and sweat, and he was almost completely gassed thanks to the effort required to keep up with his super-powered opponent.

This life and death clinch they had been forced into wasn't the first, but Kon had a feeling that it was going to be the last, one way or another. He didn't have any strength left in him and Alabaster was still completely fresh thanks to his power. He had to end this now or he was done for.

Alabaster's knife moved forward another inch, and he grinned sadistically as Kon tried and failed to push it back, “You're a pretty good fighter for a chink! Most of you can't even hold a knife by the right end. Where'd you learn to do all this?”

Kon grunted as he pushed against Alabaster's grip, “Oh, here and there. I'm not really one to dwell on her past. I'm more of a ‘here and now’ kind of person.”

Alabaster chuckled sinisterly, “Here and now you're about to die. So maybe you should start thinking about those happy little memories while I take care of business.”

“This isn't over yet.” Kon grunted. As he and Alabaster pushed against one another, the gears in his mind slowly turned as an idea formed. One that might let him make it out of this alive.

Alabaster laughed, “Is that so? You're out of options and out of stamina unlike me. You out up a good fight, but you're just a subhuman chink and I'm so much more.”

Kon smirked as sweat rolled down the back of his neck, “That's the thing about you Empire assholes. You always lose the mental game before the fight even starts.”

Alabaster gave him a confused look which turned to shock as Kon did something incredibly stupid. So stupid that even as he did it, he questioned whether or not the blood all over him was his, because this kind of idea could only be born from the kind of decision making that normally came with acute blood loss.

Kon let go of Alabaster's arm, letting the man have a free shot at his stomach. His entire body tensed as several inches of ice cold steel slid into his stomach, slicing through kevlar and muscle like they weren't even there as it lodged itself firmly inside of his flesh.

Blood soaked his shirt and pants as the handle of the blade landed solidly against his abs, and Kon grit his teeth and did his best to ignore the pain as his now-free hand pulled the other knife out of his vest, before slamming it into Alabaster's stomach, twisting harshly.

Alabaster stared at him like he was an idiot, and Kon withheld the urge to cough as he felt blood welling up in her throat, “What did you expect that to accomplish? The moment you pull that out, it's going to be like it never happened in the first place.”

In lieu of responding, Kon just gave the man a bloody smile, letting his other knife drop out of his hand. The movement caught Alabaster's attention, making him look away from Kon for a split second, and Kon used that time to reach you and grab the grenade from his bandolier.

Kon ripped his knife out of Alabaster’s body with a jerk, sliding the blade through the man’s soft flesh as he ripped a sizable hole in his stomach that immediately began gushing blood. He plugged that hole with the grenade that he had just primed, before using his knife to cut off the hand that was holding the stiletto shoved in his own abdomen, freeing himself.

Kon stumbled backwards, clutching his stomach as he staggered a good distance away from the eruption that was about to happen. Alabaster looked utterly unconcerned and even a little amused as he looked down at the grenade lodged in his body, “How many times do we have to do this-”

His sentence cut off as the bomb detonated with a noise straight out of a sci-fi flick. Instead of fire and shrapnel however, what erupted from Alabaster’s body was much more volatile.

Kon was pretty sure that nobody else could say that they’d seen a black hole in person before today, much less one that had been manifested in someone's stomach but he had to say, it was pretty damn cool to watch. It was also super gross.

The way that the man’s flesh warped alongside the light around him as the impossibly powerful mass of pulsing gravity was created just below his chest cavity was like watching water ripple in a pond. If that water took less than a second to settle and the pond blipped out of existence afterwards, leaving behind a fleshy puddle that looked like someone had gotten  bored halfway through making their own ground beef and dumped it on the side of the road.

Kon eyed the pile of viscera, waiting for Alabaster to spring back up like he always did. Ten seconds passed, then a minute, and he slowly relaxed as he realized that the man wasn't going to come back from this one. That was good, if Alabaster could survive having his body forced through an event horizon, Kon wasn't sure what he would do.

He put his knife back in its holster, groaning as the movement sent pain shooting through his abdomen where Alabaster's knife was lodged, “Well… That fucking sucked.” 

Kon grimaced, stepping back as blood trickled towards his shoe, emanating from the pile of pulped flesh and bone sitting on the sidewalk, before groaning as another spike of pain pulsed through his body at the movement, “Oh my god, this hurts. Why’d you have to aim for my gut, you asshole?” 

Wobbling over to the nearby wall, he slowly slid down into a sitting position that was only marginally less painful than standing. Sighing, he looked down at the black handle of the knife sticking out of his gut, “Well this is just dandy. Shot in the shoulder, stabbed in the gut, and I'm pretty sure I gave myself tinnitus from that rpg shot. Yep. Living the dream…”

It could be worse, he supposed. He could be a pile of goo on the street. Kon chuckled as he remembered the look on Alabaster's face moments before he was pulped like an orange. He probably thought that it was just a regular grenade that he would be able to come back from. Guess it was a good thing he couldn’t feel pain, unlike Kon who was really starting to regret his whole plan to make an opening.

“Guess I’m sitting the rest of this war out, huh?” He said as he stared off into space. His hands slowly began to tingle with encroaching numbness that was probably caused by all of the blood leaking into his body, and his head lolled as he stared at the knife in his abdomen, and a disappointed smile crossed his face. “That’s too bad. I wanted to see the look on Kaiser’s face when Yosei finally kicks him to the curb.”

The blood loss was setting in fast. His stomach felt bloated and just in general not okay, and Kon knew that he was about to either pass out, or just straight up die here on the side of the street. It wasn’t how he imagined himself going out, but at least he took Alabaster with him so it wasn’t all bad.

As his vision began to tunnel and blur, Kon’s ears perked up at the sound of something extremely loud approaching him from a distance and growing closer by the second. He raised his head just in time to catch a glimpse of green, moments before a large metal creature touched down on the street in front of him, metal scoring the concrete as several metric tons of weight was put onto razor sharp claws.

He stared at the machine, recognizing it. It was one of the mechs that the PRT brought in a few days ago. It was made of gleaming green metal segmented along a long, snake-like body with four legs. Four massive engines were mounted on the upper body, though even with the blood loss, Kon could tell that they were more than just a method of propulsion. The mech’s snake-like head tilted as it examined him, looking oddly human despite its robotic nature, before a voice rang through the street, “The area is clear. Several casualties, one wounded and in critical condition. The response unit is free to enter.”

Kon slowly blinked and suddenly the area was filled with geared up PRT agents securing the area. He looked around lethargically, taking in the two hovering over him as he realized that he had just momentarily passed out.

“So you guys are the cleanup crew, huh?” Kon said, ignoring the taste of iron on his tongue as something was injected into his thigh, “Sorry for the mess. There was a little case of mistaken identity but I cleared it up, don't worry. Nobody will tarnish your good name ever again."

They ignored his rambling as they performed emergency first aid, wrapping his middle in such a way that the knife lodged in his gut wouldn’t slip out and cause him to bleed to death. The pressure hurt a bit, but Kon could barely feel it as whatever they injected him with immediately went to work numbing his body and making him even more drowsy than he already was. 

He didn’t resist, knowing that at least now there was a good chance he wouldn’t just die in his sleep. He let his head hang and his body relax, succumbing to the sweet oblivion that begged to release him from his pain.

‘Maybe I won’t miss Kaiser getting his ass handed to him after all. PRT prisons probably get great coverage…’