The Final Confrontation

“It’s been a long time, old man,” said Alec Lynch as he stepped into the hallway of the prison.

General Tapiwa Bonfils looked up from the prisoner list. The sound of gunfire in the upper levels of the complex was near deafening and echoes of dying men found their home down in the underground jail of the complex.

There was only one thing: there were no prisoners in this hallway. They must have all been taken to the lower levels, Alec thought. There’s no way he could have so few left. He’d never allow it.

“So my delinquent experiment returns home,” Tapiwa said after a long pause, raising an eyebrow. He placed the pad on the rung next to him and stepped towards Alec. “You, my child, have been quite the pain to find.”

The pair were now circling each other. “This won’t be like the last time, Tapiwa,” Alec said, allowing energy to pass into his hands. A shadow began to rise to his fingertips. “I’ve come for—”

“You’ve come for Fen and Chen Mao, I know,” the general said. “But you’re not the only one with lycanthropy here, Alec.” A bolt of electricity had formed in Tapiwa’s left fist. “Do you think I’d work with people with superhuman abilities without giving them to myself first?”

“You truly are mad…didn’t they tell you the chances of survival were less than one in fifteen hundred? Didn’t they tell you how they tell you how people persecute you when you’re wolf? Didn’t they tell you how terrifying it is to transform into a wolf every six weeks?”

“Of course they told me.” Tapiwa threw the bolt at one of the empty cells and its gate shattered instantly. “Of course they told me. But I took a necessary risk, Alec, because I had to protect my men.”

“Protect your men for what cause, stepfather? Surely there’s no sane point in making hundreds of people like this, only to send them out to be slaughtered in a war you started.”

“At last…you call me as a child should call his creator. Don’t you ever forget that, at the end of the day, I made you as you are.” Tapiwa inspected Alec fully. “This isn’t a war I wanted to fight. I was forced to fight it because the government—and I mean both ends of the government, both the elected parliament who make all the real decisions and the needless monarchy which exists out of tradition—couldn’t see the prowess of having a population of lycanthropes.

“Can you imagine, Alec, what it would be like if everyone was like us? We wouldn’t be the same humanity that came here two and a half centuries ago. We’d be related, of course, but we would no longer be replicas of them. We’d be our own people. Then, and only then, could this planetary republic beat out a national identity befitting us, befitting what it means to live on a world so large.

“Alec, there’s another reason for this. Have you not seen the statistics on lycanthrope communities? Lycanthropes don’t kill, they don’t steal, don’t do drugs. There’s never been a rape in a lycanthrope community. And that’s beside the anecdotal evidence saying that lycanthropes have closer-knit communities.”

“Tapiwa…nothing happens in lycanthrope communities because lycanthropes have nothing. A lycanthrope can’t hold a permanent job because no-one wants to hire someone who goes wolf every time both moons are full, so there’s never any money in a lycanthrope community. And given that lycanthrope communities usually only have twenty people living in them, are you really surprised they’re close-knit and there’s no theft?”

“Damnation, Alec! Why can’t you just accept what I’m saying?”

“I will never accept the words of a tyrant.”

“I hear your abilities have become even stronger since the last time we met, Alec.”

“I’ve become so strong that even the colonel fell before me.”

“It’s too bad that you won’t survive against me. I don’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no other choice, Alec.”

A ball of electricity came flying towards Alec. He reacted instantly, using the shadows at his hand to create a shield. The electricity was broken into a dozen different pieces.

The safety provided from the shield was short-lived: a second ball crashed through the shield and a third knocked him to the ground. Alec tried to stand up, but a fourth ball pushed him back down. The taste of blood now filled his mouth, and he was sure his elbow had broken from the fall.

Tapiwa crafted an electric whip as Alec stood up again. The general let loose his new weapon as Alec fired a dozen or more black darts from his fingers. The whip knocked Alec into the wall at the same moment the darts made contact with Tapiwa’s chest.

The general stumbled, clasping his chest. “Is that all that my most ingenious experiment can muster?” he shook his head. “It’s going to take more than that to kill me!”

He let loose the whip again. This time, it got Alec by the ankle. With his free hand, Tapiwa crafted an electric sword and forced it down towards Alec’s throat. Alec rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding it, and let another set of darts go.

Tapiwa was on the ground now. Alec jumped onto him, struggling to get the newly-created sword. The general punched his adversary several times in the face to no avail. Finally, the general rolled up and kicked the shadow-weaver off him.

Alec felt his back crash against a cell door. He quickly cast a set of black hoops and aimed them at the general. The hoops forced the general up and locked him squarely against the cell door opposite Alec.

“Is this how you’re going to kill me, Alec?” the general asked softly. “Bound to a cell door without any hope of escape?”

The shadow-weaver stood up. His mouth was almost full of blood now and his broken elbow was bleeding as well: blood could be seen through his shirt. The general bore no such injury from the brief fight: the only sign that Tapiwa had fought at all was a scrape on his left hand.

Alec spat the blood out of his mouth. “God knows you’ve done worse, Tapiwa,” he said. “God knows you’ve massacred a hundred lycanthropes or more like this because they wouldn’t fight your war.”

Tapiwa laughed. “So I have!” he looked down at Alec now. “And you know what? I don’t regret slaughtering pigs who wouldn’t help their own kind for a moment.”

Alec created a heavy sack with his free hand and hit the general flat in the stomach. The general cringed in pain.

“Maybe I should make this last for all the people that have suffered under you,” he said as he struck a second time, and then a third. “Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to kill you.”

“Alec! Everything I’ve done for you—”

“Everything you have done for me has been based on a lie!” Alec shouted and hit the general in the stomach for a fourth time. “Where are the prisoners, old man?”

“The prisoners…” Tapiwa coughed. “The prisoners are two stories down from here.”

“Good.” Alec stepped back and opened his arms. “For that, I’m going to let you keep your life…but the prince’s men are going to be down here pretty soon. They’ll want to put you on trial.”

“And what are they going to say about my bruises, Alec? Do you think that you’re exempt from war crimes as well?”

Alec forced the sack into the general’s chest. Tapiwa gasped for air. Alec said, “They’re not going to view a couple of bruises as badly as a broken elbow. This was self-defence.”

The shadow-weaver walked away from the general. As he turned the corner, a bolt of electricity charged through the wall. Alec turned around and saw Tapiwa free from the restraints.

“They’re on the third basement level,” Tapiwa said, “but you’re not going to live long enough to see your friends again.”

Alec cast himself a black sword at the same moment that the electric sword flew from the ground to Tapiwa’s hand. The general charged Alec and swung directly at his head.

He ducked and went for the general’s knees as he leaned back up. This was blocked by the general’s sword, who then went on the offensive again. Two torso-level strikes were parried by Alec.

The shadow-weaver clasped his sword with both hands and swung his blade downwards. Tapiwa side stepped the blow and swung directly for Alec’s throat. This blow was parried again, and the two combatants held the parry, attempting to force the other’s sword downwards.

Sparks of electricity and solid shadows flew. Some hit the walls and cell bars, creating small dents. Others went to the combatants’ hands, leaving burns from where the sparks of the opposing element had touched their skin.

The general spun around and aimed for Alec’s knees. Alec jumped and landed back down. The shadow-weaver lengthened his sword and swung at the general’s chest. This blow landed, forcing the general back a couple of steps.

“Very good, Alec,” Tapiwa said. “It’s too bad your command of your abilities doesn’t meet your command of your blade!”

“My command is lacking?” Alec demanded. Blood trickled down slowly from his lip. “I just needed to get warmed up.”

“You needed to get warmed up? We’ll see about that soon enough, Alec!”

With his free hand, the general sent a bolt of electricity towards Alec. The shadow-weaver blocked it with his sword and let it ricochet onto the ceiling. He then commanded a shadow to come out of the floor and force the general back.

Balls of lightening were coming at Alec from all directions. He spun around, desperately trying to block them all, but two hit and he was suddenly on the ground again. The shadow-weaver sent a dozen black darts at Tapiwa as the general prepared to behead him.

Alec was up quickly and knocked the sword out of the general’s hands. The shadow-weaver’s sword was now directly on Tapiwa’s neck, and Alec backed the general against a wall.

“Alec…please!” Tapiwa begged. “You don’t have to kill me! You have other choices!”

“If I let you go, you’ll kill me!” Alec snapped bitterly.

“And if you don’t, I’ll be forced to kill you anyway,” Tapiwa said.

“You’d never be able to kill me now!”

Tapiwa swung an electricity-clad fist towards Alec’s head. A shadow appeared, protecting the shadow-weaver’s temple at the last moment.

“You didn’t even move your hand.”

“At this distance, I didn’t have to. As I said, I just needed to get warmed up.”

“Prove it!” Tapiwa demanded. He tried twice more, both times they were blocked with equal ease. “What are you going to do, Alec?”

“I’m going to kill you, stepfather. I have no other choice now.”

“Please…Alec, you don’t understand! You were the creation I loved the most! Out of all the lycanthropes this facility has created, you are the only one to have command of shadows!”

“And how many lycanthropes has this facility successfully produced, Tapiwa? It can’t be many! The rate of survival is one in fifteen hundred, you yourself have said that many times!”

“I’ve been doing this for seven years, Alec! I’ve seen thousands of lycanthropes be created and die in combat! I’ve been doing this since the day I got hold of the special jump machine!”

“That jump machine won’t be yours for much longer, stepfather.” Alec laughed bitterly. “Not long at all.”

Prince Patya Pijari and a dozen soldiers stormed down into the prison cell at that moment. They came around the corner and stopped as they saw Alec and Tapiwa against the wall.

The prince looked at Alec and the general and said, “I thought you said you could handle him yourself.”

“I can,” Alec said, motioning towards the general’s discarded sword. “As you can see, I have disarmed my opponent and I’m about to kill him.”

“And the prisoners? Where are they?” the prince asked.

“Third basement level.”

Patya motioned for the soldiers to go down and then looked down at the discarded sword. “I didn’t know the general was a lycanthrope,” he said. “Looks like the two of you are two of a kind.”

Alec glanced at the prince. “Didn’t you know, my lord?” the shadow-weaver said. “The general was using the people he jumped as subjects in genetic experiments. He had the surgeons operate on him as a precautionary measure.”

“And he has the power to command electricity?”

“That’s right. This was a fight between shadows and electricity, my lord.”

“It looks like your victory had a price.”

“Prince Patya Pijari, I’d like to say that Alec’s victory over me isn’t a certainty as of yet,” Tapiwa said. “I’d also like to say that you have been very stupid to come so close to a known rebel.”

The prince stood back as the general once again commanded the sword to his hand. Alec’s sword remained at the general’s throat and the pair locked eyes.

“You can’t move, Tapiwa,” Alec said. “I’ve got you pinned to this wall.”

“This is basic military strategy, Alec,” Tapiwa said. “If there is no opening, create it.”

The general kicked Alec in the groin, and as he leaned over, kneed him in the face. Tapiwa jumped straight over the shadow-weaver and called the electric whip to his hand.

“You won’t survive this time, Alec…you might have help, but you can’t defeat me!” Tapiwa screamed as he unleashed the whip.

Alec stood right up. At the moment the whip uncoiled to its fullest extent, he pulled his sword up with both hands and cut off the tip. Pain instantly jolted through his elbow, forcing him to lower the sword again.

The general and the shadow-weaver charged at each other for a second time. They both threw their weapons down and called bolts of power to their hands. When the two met, the shadow-weaver ducked as the general lunged at his head.

Alec punched the general twice in the chest and then kicked him in the head. The general fell to the ground and instantly called his sword to his hand. Tapiwa stood back up as the shadow-weaver called his own sword to his hand.

Tapiwa walked confidently up to the shadow-weaver. “This is where it ends, Alec. I’ve got you beat.”

“It doesn’t look that way to me, Tapiwa,” Alec said. “You could have said that at the start…but now, now I have the advantage. Even if you strike me down, you’re still going to die…your strength has been used up.”

“We’ll see about that,” the general snarled. “The prince cannot stand up to a lycanthrope unassisted.”

“He won’t need to get involved in this fight. I’ll be able to kill you by myself.”

At that moment, Tapiwa stabbed Alec in the stomach. Before the general could get the sword out, Alec slit his throat. Both men fell to their knees—Alec clasping his stomach, Tapiwa his throat.

“I created you, Alec! How could you?”

“I had to, stepfather. There was no other way…” Alec coughed up blood from his earlier wound. “There was no other way that this war could end except with your death.”

Tapiwa fell completely to the ground. He struggled to get back up, but he had lost too much blood.

“I suppose this is a new sensation for you, stepfather…to lose so much blood in one go. Even when the doctors performed the…the surgery on you, I imagine they wouldn’t have taken more blood from you than necessary…it was never the same for us, stepfather. They never told you, but the surgeries were painful and we all lost so much blood…”

A single tear ran down Alec’s face. “We lost so much blood and we were all in so much pain and we were all so scared. How could any of us ever be normal, functioning members of a society after that, stepfather? How were we meant to face the world with the nightmares we had?

“Your men…they were sadists, you know? You have an army of sadists. They loved watching us in pain, especially knowing that we were lycanthropes…lycanthropes they themselves had created. What could you do? They’d stop as soon as you entered the room…"

Alec’s tears were becoming uncontrollable now. “What were we supposed to do, stepfather? What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t fight your war…I mean…I’d be fighting alongside sadists who’d leave me for dead…I had to run, stepfather. There was no other choice.”

Tapiwa looked up at Alec. “I’m sorry, Alec…I never knew.” And then his eyes closed.

The prince helped Alec up. “Come on, let’s get you to the hospital department,” he said.