Head to Head

“Are

You Not Entertained? Are You Not Entertained? Is This Not Why You Are Here?”- Maximus:

Gladiator.

“GO!!!!!!!!!!!” The crowd yelled as the competitors

pulled from their starting positions and onto an up ramp that shot them six

metres into the air and up onto the starting leg of the first section of the

course.

  Wasting no

time at all, Marcus took the lead from the early beginning, as he manoeuvred

through the various edges and pitfalls with relative ease, wasting no effort to

show off his impressive skill and ingenuity as he grinded on paper-thin rails

that broke down the moment the bottom of his deck touched them. Making it

virtually impossible to follow directly behind him.

  As the gap

between them began to grow, the other racers followed suite by risking their

lives with insane tricks to drum up crowd support. With a swift low shift and

turn of his board, W was able to take the lead from under Marcus and snag his

first overhead hanging flag in the process, as the two battled neck in neck,

with Damien and Bloodstorm not far behind.

  It was an

odd strategy the two had seemed to employ at the same exact moment, as they

purposely let Marcus and W take the lead and devise a path for them. One that

pre-triggered all the traps like swinging construction bars and pitfalls in

advance, allowing them to pass through with minimal difficulty – though for it

all to work, they had to look as though they were actually trying to catch up

to the lead, all until the right moment to counter.

  As the

racers approached an abrupt fall, the only way forward was to grind along what

appeared to be an inward curved wall that was suspended by a crane and swung

back and forth.

  The timing

had to be perfect, as missing it even by a fraction of a second or even jumping

too early would result in a collision and a fatal fall – a factor that the two

leads both assessed as they came to an abrupt halt just inches from the edge,

as the monstrosity came swinging by – a decision that inadvertently proved

costly for the duo as Damien and Bloodstorm came rushing past from behind,

jumped over, and successfully placed on the swinging wall in less time than it

took them to blink.

  The crowd

cheered with excitement as the sudden takeover spurred a frenzy within the

audience. The almost impossible lead had just been lost and the two tail

runners were now leading the charge into the second section, The ‘Luck of the

Draw’, and so far besides demonstrating incredible athletic feats, none of the

competitors had resorted to using their abilities.

“You see that folks; looks like it takes more than a

couple of miles to keep these two from their prize!!! I wonder how their luck

will fair in the next one though, cause let’s be real, ain’t nobody making it

pass this route without using even a little of their fancy pansy abilities!! Now

can I hear those cheers?!!!!” The announcer commentated through her hologram as

Damien and Bloodstorm snagged their third flags and proceeded forward. With

Damien wearing them as a face mask and Bloodstorm tying them around his left

forearm.

  With a strong

squint and a forward lean, Damien and Bloodstorm rocketed down the curvy slop,

claiming two of the central roads that streamed downward in a rotating

clockwise motion, as Marcus and W took the far left and far right paths respectively

upon their arrival.

  It was a

clear line to the finish for all – that was, until the shaking began.

“Uh-oh!!! Now please don’t tell me you all thought

it was gonna be that easy!!! I mean we came here to see some blood and action;

so there’s no way you’re getting passed this without some broken bones!!!” The

announcer cried out vengefully and sadistically, as the roads ways raptured and

began to detach, floating around aimlessly as they banged and crushed into each

other at violent speeds.

  Damien’s

road broke off in three with him in the middle, as it began to spin counter

clockwise and gain altitude, as the motions distorted his perceptions, inadvertently

giving him the feeling of extreme vertigo and nausea, a feeling similar to that

of having ones blood drained to their skull and spun around whilst they

maintained consciousness, as he span about a fixed point – though when compared

to the others, he had it the luckiest.

  Marcus was

trapped on a completely detached segment that floated off to the side, with no

humanly possible way to get to another piece, as the swiping commenced. Segments

from other roads began to switch around him, nearly grazing the top of the road

he stood on as the massive chunks of concrete came scrapping by. At first he

could avoid a direct collision by crouching down, but with each new piece that

came sweeping by, the gaps underneath them began to lessen. Eventually getting

to the point that even though he had laid chest down, he felt the concrete graze

his shoulder blades and leave a scrape scar – as it not only snagged his coat,

but scrapped off the back of his turtle neck and undershirt in the process,

leaving him the blood equivalent of bare back as it flew by.

  Meanwhile, W

on the other hand, was closest to the brink of sudden death. He dangled from

the edge of the road as he gripped one of the iron rods that stuck out from its

interior. The road he had been on collapsed right underneath him as one of the

projectile paths that flew aimlessly around collided with it, leaving his only

viable option to be grappling onto whatever he could find and trying to hoist

himself up – but unfortunately his added weight onto the unstable mass forced

it to lunge downward, with the echoes of cracks and breaks filling his near

proximity whenever he tried to climb up to a safer point. Essentially keeping

him trapped in place until either he or the road gave out and fell.

  Despite the

heavy circumstances however, to the audience’s surprise, Bloodstorm did not

seem to be fazed by his current predicament. He held strong with a focused demeanour

as he made his way across his upside-down path, overcoming the toppling

sensations and feelings of blood vessel rapture to strive forward in a crawl.

With pure and utter determination, he veered forward, as he gripped his board

in his left elbow and crawled.

  The crowd

gasped with anticipation as each competitor was faced with a life threatening

situation that would be fatal for most, as the thought of watching them put

their abilities on full display for their amusement was all too tantalising for

most to resist, as it spoke to the sadistic nature of the event.

“Wow we got a real kinkfest tonight hunh; if I

didn’t know any better I’d say you wanted them to paint the streets red!!!! Well

I get it; you’re frustrated about ‘D.E.A.D’ and the new vote they wanna get

passed in congress; but that’s what we’re here for tonight right!!! So let out

those tensions and let me here you scream!!!!!!!” The announcer yelled as the

audience cried out in a glorious horde of sadistic excitement and wonder, as

the roads began to shift once more and twist into a cylindrical spiral like

fashion with a singular path at the centre.

  It was on

this path where each of the competitors was violently slammed onto, as each of

them was seconds away from facing the final call, as Damien’s path began to

crumble from the force, the next sweep was at an angle to spread Marcus’s

insides, W’s road was finally about to give out, and unbeknownst to Bloodstorm,

a second path was rapidly rising from underneath to flatten him – leading to

their relieved, but unsettled realization.

“Please tell me you saw that Zee!!” Gerard asked

through the noise as he turned to face Rosetta.

“Of course I did!!” Rosetta responded with a

sizeable gulp as she looked onward in horror. Her eyes had taken on a more

peculiar appearance, as her irises had turned grey and expanded to cover a good

portion of her eye socket. The now whitened pupils expanded to twice their size

as star-like edges sprouted from them, with the longest edge at the bottom and

an hourglass-like marking appearing as the top. “How twisted!” She stated once

more with a gasp of shock, as her usual bright demeanour instantly grew colder.

“What; what’s wrong!!!!” Conner asked Rosetta as the

sudden shift in atmosphere threw him off his seat.

“She’s crossed a line for sure this time!!!” Stacy

grunted furiously as she struck an indentation into the rail and inadvertently

shocked everybody in the audience that was in direct contact with the metal.

“I don’t get it; somebody explain!!!!!” Conner

yelled out as he grew frustrated from the constant unclear referential

dialogue.

“The course; it’s alive!!” Luke stated bluntly as he

stared on attentively and bit into his fritter.

“What the actual f--!!” Conner snapped angrily with

a squeeze of his now flash frozen coffee.

“Actually to be more accurate; it’s reactive!!” Dean

stated as he interjected on the attempted swear.

“How though?!!” Gerard paused as he scratched his

head in confusion.

“It’s the audience; the more they cheer and let out

their frustrations, the deadlier and more intricate the course becomes!!!! It’s

praying on the announcer’s ability to rattle up the crowd; using the people

competing as collateral!!” Rosetta exclaimed as her concern grew ever direr by

the second.

  Conner and

Gerard jerked back into their seats as the realization slowly dawned on them.

They soon came to understand the real reason why each prior challenge was as

intense as it was, to weed out the week and insure the only people who made it

through would be those whose actions in the finals would yield the highest

ratio of crowd interest – the real reason Damien and Marcus’s bans had been

lifted and why they had been asked to return.

“So you see it too hunh?!!!” Damien stated

reassuringly to a dazed W, as he reached out his right hand to help him to his

feet, “Good; I thought we were the only ones!!” He snickered cheerfully as he

pointed back over his shoulder to Marcus and Bloodstorm, who stood silently as

they observed the obstacle in front of them.

  Though the

path ahead appeared to be a clear straight away, it was clear to them all that

something was amiss.

  With the

flick of his right wrist, Marcus tossed a small piece of stone a few

centimetres in front of them, as upon its touching of the path, one of the

overhead spirals rapidly came crushing down onto it and destroyed it in one

fell swoop, as it slowly returned to its original position and continued to

swirl around. “Interesting; I take it we can’t go back either!” He said

patiently as he right glanced over his right shoulder and observed the large

pile of stacked up street segments that blocked the path behind them.

“What was the touchdown velocity?!!” Bloodstorm

asked cautiously as he stroked his chin and observed.

“0-200m/s from rest; give or take!!” Damien remarked

as his demeanour turned serious and his smile faded.

“As long as I can touch it I can distribute the

force more evenly to the environment; but it’d come at a cost!!!” Bloodstorm

stated confidently as he observed caution.

“So you have ‘Momentum Manipulation’!!” Marcus

stated curiously as he recalled watching Bloodstorm successfully crawl on the

street when it was upside-down, without any form of holds or grip. “If we do

choose to trust you, what’s the cost?!!” He asked as his demeanour turned

friendly and he patted Bloodstorm’s chest.

“I’d essentially be able to delete its initial force

by spreading it, but you’d all have to get a significant distance away to

prevent it from spreading to you; plus I myself would inevitably succumb to its

mass and be crushed!!” Bloodstorm explained, in a tone that conveyed no hint of

dishonesty.

“So it’s suicide!!” Damien stated bluntly as he

squeezed his temple with his right thumb, index and middle fingers.

“It’s the best I can do right now; otherwise if

anybody were to stay behind with me to help move its weight--!” Bloodstorm

stated with a heavy heart.

“Then they’d be instantly crushed by the resultant

force from your ability!” W interjected understandingly, as they all took a

moment to let the reality sink in.

“It’s fine really though!!” Bloodstorm said as he

broke through the ice with a nervous chuckle, “I don’t usually tell people I

just met this but since I might die; I figured it’s worth being remembered by!”

He said nervously once more as they all stood patiently and awaited his secret.

“I once tried to join the ‘C.O.R.E’!! Actually a couple of times now, primarily

the ‘Opps’; but despite my powers being rare, my lack of mastery meant I’d

always put my comrades in danger; so I was turned down by the Captains every

time I tried!! But when I heard you two’d be here and that drummed up a storm,

I put two and two together and figured that if I managed to impress you; then maybe

you’d put in a good word for me!! Haha!! It’s foolish I know!!!” He grinned

nervously as the calmness in his eyes faded and his expression grew depressed.

“I might not have elemental powers, but I’ll make

sure you get out of this and get a shot at trying out again!!!” W insisted in a

spontaneous outburst that unified their attentions.

“So it’s settled!! W and I will trigger the spirals

to smash! Marcus; you need to tie a chain around him and make sure we can pull

him back to us after he neutralizes the biggest one! We take off once we all

regain our stamina!!” Damien commanded with an air of leadership as the three

of them were set on the plan.

“But there’s no guarantee I’d even get in; so

there’s no need for you to risk your lives like that!!!!!” Bloodstorm yelled as

he tried to get them to rethink their decision.

“It’s bold of you to assume we gave you a choice! So

get ready!!” Marcus stated stoically as he brushed passed Bloodstorm and

attached a refined smoke chain to his left shoulder that grew from his wrist.

“I guess we finna get ready then!!” W said with a

nervous grin as he stretched out his right arm and his skateboard came flying

out of the rubble and into it.

  The three

got into their starting positions, as Marcus placed Bloodstorm’s skateboard on

his back and manifested a smoke rope to hold it in place.

  With a crack

of their necks, they were off – launching three metres forward and chipping

their front wheels as they indented the ground and gushed passed.

  Damien took

the lead with an explosive rapture from his back stretched right arm as he used

his left to help him veer and weave passed the smaller spirals that came

crushing down on him in a heartbeat. His moves were impressive, as he crouched,

jumped, and spun under the many spirals that came shooting out randomly from

all directions – allowing Marcus and W to get passed almost as quickly with

minimal effort, as Bloodstorm stood and watched from where they began.

  The three of

them together felt like a well-oiled machine, as the crowd watched from the

audience and cheered even louder than before.

  The louder

the cheers grew, the more dangerous the course became, as gorges began to open

up randomly underneath them and the speed of the spirals increased. The result,

the initial approach being rendered invalid as they now had to work together to

get across, as they had only managed to cover a quarter of the total distance

they needed to complete the section.

  A barrage of

spirals darted for Damien as he caused the weaker ones to smash into each

other, as the ones after him were so fixed that they changed course and

curvature just to keep up with his impressive speed. As he sensed the close of

the gap, he was left with only one option.

  As Damien

pivoted around to blast them with a ‘SHI’ infused fireball he created by

circling the index and middle fingers of both his arms and generating a refined

fire ring that charged the ball at its centre, he was blindsided from the back

by a spiral that seemed to have estimated his next course action and remained

hidden until the very last moment, as its tip laid inches from piercing through

his spine and squaring him through the back.

  Time slowed

in the audience as Stacy, Dean, Luke, Gerard and Rosetta rose from their seats

in horror as they saw what everyone thought would be Damien’s final moments. As

the tears slowly ran down their faces and their powers triggered in response, a

thunderous rapture sounded through the arena that sent the crowd back with its

pressure and enveloped the course in a large cloud of smoke and debris.

  With barely

a second to process, the three came shooting out unscathed and unfazed as they

shot through the path at breakneck speeds.

“Woooooo!!!!!! Did you see that!!!! Somebody hit the

replay!!!!!!” The announcer yelled excitedly as the hologram screen rewound a

few seconds to show what had transpired when the audience was shocked back.

  At the very

last moment, just before Damien and the spiral became one, Marcus came roaring

down on it – completely engulfed in smoke and a golden-like substance as he

jumped over a flinched Damien and made contact with the spiral. Having the

entire spiral shatter all the way to its origin at the moment the two made contact,

and Damien’s fireball was launched.

  Stacy

breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she tried to calm her still frantic heart.

The crowd around her cheered louder and louder as they saw the replay and cried

for an encore.

“Well I was planning to save this for the finale of

the section; but what they want, they shall have!!!!!!” The announcer yelled as

all the spirals bulleted forward and fussed into one mega mass that far

exceeded the size of the path they were on by multiple margins. “Now

launch!!!!!” She commanded as the mega mass kicked violently into gear and

charged at them, ripping the path and other side elements of the section apart

as it barrelled towards them, too large to jump and too fast to dodge

  Although

their fates seemed to be sealed, the three stuck to their conviction and charged

forward with demonic grins.

“So they’ve chosen to accept their fates hunh; well

we can always crown a king next year!!!” The announcer cried out in a sorrowful

tone as the audience watched on with frustration and angst as the distance

between them and the spiral closed rapidly.

“Are you ready?!!!” Marcus cried out like a ‘War

Chief’, as he leaned down to stream line his body and took the lead.

“What the hell are you--?!!!!” The announcer yelled

scrappily as the screen focused on Marcus and a faint glistening could be seen

trailing behind him, “Oh my god; did you really?!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!” She cried

out with intense excitement and joy as the audience burst into a frenzy of

cheers and celebrations.

“DO IT!!!!!!!!” Bloodstorm yelled from the back

through his conned hands as Marcus smirked villainously.

  With a

sudden circular pivot and twist, Marcus let the chain fly – as barely a second

before he could get up close and personal with the mega spiral, a fist brushed

passed the side of his cheek and struck its centre.

“Now!!!!” Damien yelled in the blink of an eye as he

and W pushed forward and jumped at the spiral with the bottom of their decks

facing it.

“DISPERSE!!!!!” The words came echoing out as

Bloodstorm stood at the centre of a large gust of wind and pressure. So much so

that it rocketed Damien and W over the spiral and onto the other end of the

section.

  There was a

sudden halt in the crowd mentality as the audience froze in shock from what

only could be described as a cheat in the system. Despite their excitement and

the impressiveness of the spectacle that had just unfolded before their eyes,

the build-up to the eventual climax was more than their minds could comprehend

in the moment – so they froze.

  Unable to

understand and unable to move forward, the crowd was essential rendered

inactive and in operational – at least, that’s how it would have been if the

flaw in their brake wasn’t spotted.

“Hey; it’s still moving!!!!!” A random figure in the

audience yelled out as all their attentions fixed to the screen – and loll and

behold, the spiral slowly creped forward. Though no longer spinning, it still

moved with enough force to crash the section pieces in its path as it was on a

one way collision course with and exhausted Bloodstorm who fell to the street

due to bodily shock.

“Well folk; it might not be as good as four, but

watching one massacre ought to be satisfying enough right!!!!” The announced

commented as she tried to regain the crowd’s excitement to no avail.

“Where’s the other one?!!! – We only count three?!!!”

Multiple voices from the crowd yelled out in an outrage as they demanded to

know what had happened to the fourth competitor.

“C’mon; don’t be silly; he’s right--!!!” The

announcer stated cockily with an abrupt pause as she glanced over at Damien and

W who glanced back with an equal level of cockiness, “Oh no!!!!!!!” She yelled

as the screens panned back to a gigantic shadow that loomed over both

Bloodstorm and the spiral.

“GIGGA-----CRUSH!!!!!!!!” Marcus yelled out at the top

of his voice as he fell from the sky and brought down with him, a large

amalgamation of rubble wrapped in a highly dense amount of smoke chains,

collected from the destroyed segments of the first and second section, and

brought it roaring down onto the spiral with so much force that it totally

whipped out the remainder of the second section.

  With a quick

pull of his chains and some rapid manoeuvring, he was able to grab Bloodstorm

as the rubble fell to the protective barrio that laid underneath the course to

protect the audience.

  It was an

incredibly exhausting strategy, one that used Damien and W’s launch forward as

a distraction for Marcus to be catapulted into the air by the dispersed

momentum, and use his altitude to gather the various swarms of debris under the

cover of the gale force with his smoke, and fashion it into a weapon that could

be used to destroy the spiral once and for all.

“YEAH!!!!!!” The crowd cheered with jaws dropped as

they witnessed the destruction that had just unfolded – and loved it.

“What took you so long?!!” Damien childishly asked

Marcus as he landed at the end point with Bloodstorm on his back.

“It was your plan wasn’t it?!!” Marcus responded

stoically as he helped a disoriented Bloodstorm to his feet and handed him his

skateboard.

“Sigh!! So what do we do now?!!” Bloodstorm inquired

pessimistically with a large joyous grin, as he tried to get his head to stop

splitting.

“There’s only one this you can do!!” The announcer’s

hologram stated as it appeared beside them at the entrance to the third

section, and her real counterpart faced her microphone to the audience.

“GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!” The crowd cried out in

an excited frenzy.

“Well it’s not like going back is an option anyway

so!!” W stated as he looked back to the cloud of rubble and dust behind them.

“Well this was meant to be a race so; shall we get

ready!!!” Damien stated as they popped up their boards and got into their

starting positions.

“Ready!!!” Yelled Marcus.

“Set!!!!” Yelled W, as the crowd’s attention was

back upon them.

“Go!!!!” Yelled Bloodstorm as they all jumped onto

their boards and snatched their final flags of section two.

  Shooting off into the upper inclines of the

helix as the roars of the wind raged on.

:

:

:

:

   – but unbeknownst to Damien, due to all the

force he had applied to his wheels over the period of the day, their cracks and

chips slowly began to open up, even more so now that he had such a violent take

off – as the crowd cheered on and his wheels chipped away underneath him.

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