Okay, maybe the kid didn't need to be cyclops, but Grin had been asking for it. Don't act tough with a guy who's smoking and you're sweating gasoline, Kenji thought. He was thinking of saying it out loud if the guard had manned up and came over, but unlike the smoldering corpse in front of him, the guard remembered where he knew Kenji from.
Kenji rolled his eyes, picked the unconscious boy up, and propped him against one of the seats on the sidelines. He tossed a vial of Oxycontin on the boy's lap; a parting gift for the eye. When he woke up, if he had the nerve, the kid could just pop enough of those for the pain until he found someone to patch him up for real. As for his boyfriend, Kenji didn't have enough burn gel.
Kra-boom!
Dry lightning cracked in the sky. Strange for a storm to suddenly start. The sky was cloudless, as blue as the eye he had plucked with his teeth.
The spaced out crowd continued to cheer on the carnage. A small group in the nosebleeds had erected a banner when they had figured out who he was. It said "Hero of Hammerbog" in big, black letters on flimsy, poster paper. The rough people of that city had found their way to the games and once again gave the spellwarrior a thumbs up for how he got s**t done.
He was beginning to think he could do no wrong when they were concerned. Nice to have groupies.
Kra-boom!
The cheers were interrupted by yet another crack of lightning. The coliseum's officials and sideline EMTs and clerics were picking up the passed out Smiles and the charred remains of Grin. The freak storm didn't bother their sensibilities. They had a fatality in the ring. That was a big PR no no. Something they wanted to avoid.
The healers gave Kenji dirty looks. He was never thought of much in their community. White magic users and godly folk weren't fans of his work. He catered to more blood thirsty people, the people who got excited to watch big men burn and lose eyeballs.
They put the boy on a stretcher as a woman held a hand over his face and chanted.
Kenji didn't really feel bad for the guy. He should have made a better decision. Least he didn't look like the bottom of an ashtray.
Kra-boom!
Yet another strike of electricity reigned down, but this was more like a blast of energy. It blinded Kenji and everyone in the stands with the exception of the YouTube blogger on the other side of the arena who was decked out with a high tech camera headset that allowed him to witness the light show firsthand.
"I see, I see a man falling from the sky," Mike said, speaking into his small microphone. He was doing a live show, a special for his devoted fan base back on Earth.
"He's covered in glowy tattoos," he continued.
"Holy -"
Holy was right.
When Kenji's eyesight came back he would know how holy ******** he was. Unlike the thunder, he heard the impact first and felt he ground cave in as if it had been hit by an asteroid. He rubbed his eyes as his vision began to focus in. He squinted to see a dark figure in the center of the crater.
A man he hadn't seen in almost a decade.
Sieg Ecstuffuan.
He gulped; no longer the biggest fish in the fish bowl. The last time he ran into this crazed superhero had been a nightclub a few years after this guy ironically ripped his eyes out during Heaven or Hell 2008. Sieg was no longer the same calm, collected martial artist but a mad celestial being.
The amount of power he had pulsated throughout the coliseum. Kenji felt it like pings of static electricity against his open skin. He was ten times as strong and ten times as old as he had been that night in the club. Kenji had no idea where this guy had been spending his life, but it apparently had a great gym program.
Kenji was older than what he should be as well. Being born in 1985 would make him twenty-seven, but all the years drifting throughout various dimensions, mainly The Realm of the Worlds, had aged him to his early thirties. He still looked the same, but he had traded the spiky hair of his youth for a shorter do.
He also was far from a "Weapon of Mass Destruction." All the powers he had been granted so many years ago had been fought out of his body like a virus by the powerful immune system he had been given as a teenager during an experiment. The immunity kept him from being sick and damaged from all his years of drug and alcohol abuse, but it also had grown to such point that it didn't let him hold any powers for a long period of time.
There standing in front of the practical god was a mere mortal with a black jacket and a blasting rod.
"... and I don't know if I want the Hero of Hammerbog to engage in a fight with the legendary Sieg," Mike went on.
Sieg had elevated to mythical status as of late. His tales of heroism was being taught in private schools all around the Primus. He was the Goku of this world. Kenji was a footnote of people he showed whats what, but even his pride didn't want to stop him from thanking Sieg for altering his life from its destructive course.
If it hadn't been for his three days of blindness, Kenji would have never calmed down and just sat down and actually thought something out for once. He never would have fell in love with Josie, never would have had two beautiful children with her, and never would have developed into the man he was now. At least he and a few others felt he was making progress.
He had fans that didn't worship the blood god now.
Cheers erupted from the stands. The place wasn't packed but word traveled quickly when magic and tech worked together seamlessly. People began to pour in, taking advantage of the free entertainment and ballpark franks. Mike circled his view all around giving his audience a look at all the people coming. He taped the Hammerbogians move down the stands, moving everyone and anyone out of the way, to get to the best seats in the house.
"C'mon, you defeated Grasht!" one of them said.
"Sort of," Mike canted to his show.
Kenji felt the sudden urge to smoke and took out another Lho stick.
"I finally return from my journey, and I see filth such as you. Perhaps a reminder from god that despite all my toils, my job is not over," Sieg's voice thundered like the lightning he had rode on.
"Can't argue with that. I am dirty," Kenji said, slowly approaching the edge of the crater.
Sieg didn't bother with acknowledging that he had made a joke.
"No not over at all," Sieg said to himself. It was like he was too far gone to notice where he was. All he saw was a giant target on Kenji's shirt.
Kenji's days of being a maniacal rapist were over but not the days of fighting unfairly. He kept his trusty blasting rod in his hands, a weapon Sieg had never seen Kenji use before. He felt the power of his materia flowing through his body. Fire might be the only way out of this, he thought.
"Orchtay," he said. The rod lit up like a torch.
The man wasn't without his tricks still.
100
KRA-KOOM
