Ice Battle

“How clever. So you froze yourself to your seat. I thought you were wearing some kind of seat belt. Hmmm. I need people like you. After all, we have the same powers. So what do you say? Will you care to join a fellow Icemaker in a quest for world domination?”

The guard just made two simple hand gestures. One a hushing movement like a child putting her finger to her lips asking her teddy to be quiet, and the next was a thumb across the throat, the universal sign for off with your head.

“Are you threatening me?” Dreary sounded menacing. His mood had changed.

“Trying to act all hero I see. Catch the bad guy all by yourself? You can’t talk but you are still the same as them, too much bravado. Instead of sitting there, you should have taken the opportunity to run,”

The silent guard still made no sound.

“Your silence is starting to annoy me,” Dreary said, his fist now glowed with an iridescent blue.

“Cocky, aren’t we? Let me guess since we have the same powers, you think you can defeat me. Well here is a little hint or two for you. Icemakers freeze in ice too. I have had first-hand experience testing that for myself on the unlucky few!” Dreary shouted as he fired a huge ice blast at the guard.

The guard did not dodge but allowed the beam to come right at him.

“You know during my last break out, there was a guard who was also an Icemaker. He too met his end after declining my offer though he was a little more verbal.”

Dreary grinned a little as he was expecting to see the guard be frozen into a chunk of ice. His grin disappeared as the guard lifted up his hand, unaffected. In it was a shining crystal, that look like ice but Dreary could not sense any coldness emitting from it.

“You blocked my ice blast. This is getting interesting!”

Dreary began to feel the heat of the battle. He never felt this excited since the night he destroyed all his fellow classmates in an Ice Duel on Frost Land Noab. Now both his hands glowed blue. He began a flurry of more assaults but the guard seemed to crystallize them back into strange-looking ice cubes in his hands.

That was no ordinary guard. Something was definitely wrong. The gunfire outside still continued on. In a few more minutes, his help would have arrived. Despite attacking the guard in a blitz of frozen hailstones, the guard came closer and closer to him and unaffected. The attacks, no matter from which angle they came seemed to be sucked into the strange-looking crystal in the guard’s hands like light being pulled into a black hole.

Suddenly the guard lunged forward and took a grab at Dreary’s glowing blue hand.

“Hah, fool! Feel the icy cold grip of my wrath!” His hand glowed into a fiery blue.

Any minute now and his opponent would be trapped in overwhelming coldness.

It was impossible to dodge at such close range. In addition to that, he found his own hand being encased in ice like crystal.

“Impossible!”

He looked in astonishment. The crystalline structure was not cold but felt just like any object would at room temperature. It took his genius intellect to figure out what really was going on. His opponent could even freeze the coldness of ice!!! This was an unnatural Clan ability!!!

He withdrew his arm quickly. He was desperate. His opponent had superior powers and at such close range would make short of his move. Quickly his genius criminal mind made a desperate attempt. Arm-to-arm combat. That way he could avoid his opponent’s strange ability.

He might not look like it but Dreary had fought his way out many times defeating agents and even martial artist masters in arm-to-arm combat.

He lunged at the opponent going for the face. The guard calmly steps sideways and then lets a foot out, tripping him. He managed to regain his balance and swiftly turned around. Compared to his opponent, he seemed to be clumsy and slow. This made his anger rise. He did not like to be trifled with. Dreary launched out a flurry of blows, each missing his opponent as he dodged with relative ease.

“Come on! Hit me, you mute scumbag!” the supervillain roared.

The insult must have hit a chord because the guard immediately began a counter assault. Dreary tried to anticipate the attack, may it be a punch or a kick. The opponent was too close to punch effectively at such close range.

The only way would be for a grappling match and he felt confident to win as his size would dwarf the smaller opponent. On top of that, he had super strength and agility.

Dreary grinned as he went for a tackle, ready to dodge a kick or a flying fist. Neither happened instead his jaw connected to his opponent’s elbow, knocking him backward. Too late to realize his opponent was fighting with a very unusual style. He was hit with a flurry of elbows and knees. Through his blurred vision, he now slowly recalled where he had seen such a fighting style.

“That style…is Muay Thai, an ancient form of kickboxing.”

He had seen it during his business travel around First Earth on his numerous underground dealings. But his opponent seemed to wield a very complex and advanced version of it. The movements were too fast and damaging for him to anticipate. Dreary tried to contain his fear. The guard in front of him was at a totally different level from the others in the convoy.

“Is this the end to one of the world’s greatest criminal masterminds?” He thought to himself.

That was not what he was used to. Usually, he was the one who dominated his opponents, especially the so-called generic nameless soldiers. Too late to realize all this while his so-called convoy of bodyguards cum captors was harbouring an assassin waiting for the right time to strike. The hitman had use Dreary’s own escape plan into an assassination plot. Without the guards which he had already neutralized, there were no witnesses. For the first time, the usually calm and cruel villain began to panic. He was being beaten back in hand to hand combat.

In agony and a final desperate attempt, he gathered his remaining energy and lunged at the guard’s mask. At least he would see the face of his would be killer. He would not die being taken out by some faceless nobody. His opponent did not expect such a suicidal manoeuvre. Both his arms made contact with the gas mask and for a brief moment his opponent stumbled a bit. With a triumphant shout he tore the mask off together with part of the guard’s protective amour.

Then he froze, the triumphant feeling vanished as he glanced at the face of his opponent. The guard was a she. Staring back at him through irises as dark blue as the frozen seas of the north, the girl had extremely fair almost pale complexion making her enchantingly beautiful. What was most striking was her strange beautiful frosty white hair which had a very light silvery bluish glow to it. It was tied into a single braid at her side. He sprang back in alarm.

“You!” he cried out in recognition.

He noticed the tattoo on her neck. A picture of a figure with a finger to the mouth like the first hand gesture she did to him, the sign of absolute silence.

He recognized the tattoo but did not believe his eyes. The Silencers! So they finally found him. This was definitely not Dreary’s day.

“What do you want?” he shouted in panic.

His question was answered not by the girl. In fact it was being felt like some kind of overwhelming telepathic message which burrowed into his mind.

“The Key, Dreary? Where did you ask Dolores to send it?” A strange nightmarish voice sounded in his head. So they knew. The one noble deed the heartless super villain did, had come back to haunt him.

The telepathic thought that now bombarded Dreary’s mind gave him chills all over. He looked pleadingly at the girl and realized it was not from her. She was just the muscle and that was the brain of the operation. Dreary shivered at the thought of how terrifying those would be who gave her the orders.

“Call her off and I’ll tell you,” he thought back, trying to protect himself as bravely as possible.

It felt like a small and pathetic effort compared to the terrible sound which had resonated in his head. The girl took a step back. Time was the essence. He did not have the Key with him. And he never intended to give it to them. No, this was where he drew the line. Even a stone-hearted criminal had his own weaknesses, and it was the only person he cared about. One he would sacrifice for.