Canaan Club - 37. Chapter 37

“The second match shall proceed as follows. Team One, Joe Sloane of Ironward against Ikron Coras of Pratwith!”

Joe considered himself to be a pretty easygoing guy. It was a miracle that he was as chill as he was if where he came from was taken into account. His homelife wasn’t much of a rigid, regulated nightmare as Rafe’s – and probably Landon’s if the stories are true – but the Sloane family was associated with the Coat of Wolfram and have been for “many moons,” as his father would proclaim in his booming, drill sergeant voice. Essentially, they were soldiers working specifically under the Chromium Guard agency – the organization for private security for big names ran by the St. Chromus Kimber family.

What a mouthful.

Joe and his many other siblings – seriously, what was with the COW and making a litter of kids in one go? Parenting sounded like hell – were just the latest generation of cannon fodder, trained at an early age to be bodyguards, warriors, and cold-blooded killers.

Guess they screwed the pooch up with Joseph, here, eh?

His opponent before him would make a much better candidate for the job. With that death stare being thrown at him from across the stage, he’d fit right in.

I mean, the purple tunic and blue wizard cap might have to go, he looked his challenge over. And maybe dye his navy hair a darker color.

“I’m full of surprises, Joe Sloane,” Ikron suddenly spoke up, smirking as Joe realized he had been staring. “So, your pre-inspections won’t do you any good.”

The Ares superhuman had to chuckle. “I’ve never fought a wizard before, so, I can’t say you’re wrong there. But just because I don’t shout ‘hocus pocus’ doesn’t mean you should underestimate me.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m expecting great things from you.”

“Ditto, bro.”

The two, crouching into fighting stances, grinned excitedly at each other as the zebra made its way off the stage to commence the match.

“And begin!”

The wizard promptly gripped his right wrist in his left hand, squeezing it tightly, before pointing his index and middle finger to the noirette. The latter watched, wondering if he should be offended at the gesture, as Ikron’s black fingerless gloves began to glow, rosewood energy concentrating and crackling around his hand.

“It looks like you’re cooking something nasty right off the bat. I’d stay for a taste test, but I got a competition to win.”

Ikron scoffed. “Well, your little quips won’t help you win!”

The wizard let out a battle cry before his magicked hand flashed, and out came a condensed ball of air that warped the atmosphere as it spiraled toward Joe. The Ares superhuman stretched out his right arm and focused his bio-soul energy into a large, circular shield. Strapped to his elbow, it guarded his entire figure. He felt the force a second later, the magical airball shoving him back several spaces.

The tiny hairs on his arm stood up straight as he felt the residual force. “Oof! That made my arms tingle! Got any more of that?”

“Since you’ve asked!”

Ikron fired another round of smaller invisible projectiles like bullets. One of them alone did not nearly have the same effect as the initial blast, but their combined assault inched Joe back toward the edge. The superhuman gritted his teeth and pushed more power into his shield, causing it to grow bigger, and with its size, its sturdiness improved. The bottom end cut into the platform, freezing the noirette in place.

“Gonna need to do better than that, br-” but then the tiny hairs on his leg shot up to attention this time.

Out of the lower corner of his eye, he caught notice of something odd. A hand, bare, translucent, and very human, reached out with its long fingers to grab at his right leg.

Joe paled and shrieked. “Oh, shit!”

Panic and instincts intermingled as he immediately dispelled his shield and leaped for the skies, the wind attacks nipping at his heels for a single moment.

“Am… Am I seeing things,” he muttered shakily to himself as he hovered above the stage, “or was that a hand trying to grab me? Ah man, can he bring back people from the dead, too?”

Before he could speculate more, a cacophony of fire and crashing rocks resounded above him. Turning, his eyes bugged out as a whole, literal meteor slowly sunk from the clouds, its aim targeted for the entire colosseum.

“I ain’t the only one seeing this, am I?” he looked down at his teammates, expecting to find the same terrified and alarmed expressions on their faces. “Guys, you-”

However, they weren’t looking at the massive sphere of death headed their way. Their eyes, wide with perplexity, were on him. As if he was acting crazy.

“Am I going insane?”

With a second look, though, the big thing did look a bit out of place. Like something added to a picture by a bad image editor. Plus, no heat, and it didn’t smell any different. Did this guy-

“Take this!”

Behind him, Ikron fell from the atmosphere, a white, translucent blade sticking out of his right hand behind him and ready to cut the superhuman in two. Joe reacted with lightning speed, summoning a sharp, black sword of his own and slashing forth. The duo clashed in an echoing clang of metal, sparks emanating from where the weapons connected. From his peripheral, the meteor has vanished.

Ah. Now he got it.

“So, you’re like some kind of illusion master, right? Those were pretty good. Scared me right out of my wits, man!”

“It’s always the first couple that creates the best openings,” Ikron responded before they collided blades once again, “but you’ve managed to skate around my attacks even with them activated. Impressive.”

Joe smirked. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure one of my sisters can do something similar, so I can’t say I’ve never experienced something like that before.”

“You shouldn’t have flinched at all, Joseph! You are beginning to slack in your training!”

Holy fuck! What!?

Foregoing the enemy right in front of him, Joe spun his head around so fast, his neck slightly throbbed in protest.

“Wha-”

His jaw dropped.

Black, straight hair styled into a pixie cut, leaving open a familiar stringent face, with gunmetal eyes set into that glower he knew all too well. He balked as Selene Sloan, his mother, in her all-black ops uniform, floated behind him. Next to her was, of course, her footman, business partner, and husband – level of importance in that order – Kellan Sloane.

Sometimes, Joe wished he wasn’t a spitting image of him.

“M-Mom!? Dad!?” he sputtered out.

His dad shared a disappointed look with his wife before glaring at his son. “And now you’ve lost your guard. My father always said that that’s the fastest way to get a punt to the face.”

Joe blinked. “Is that-”

He was almost instantly cut off by a boot to his cheek, snapping his head to the side and pelting him down to the arena. He would have laughed if not for the sting. The Ares superhuman backflipped midair, regaining his senses before landing on his feet.

By then, his parents have vanished.

“Okay,” he gazed up at the wizard, who grinned down at him. “That was almost too real. How’d you know what they looked like? You got Dad’s eye scar and everything!”

“I am merely leaking out my magical influence,” Ikron shrugged. “Your own mind is doing the rest of the work.”

“Thanks for the diagnosis, doc. Can’t wait to shock the folks at home with the news later tonight!”

He fashioned a silver hammer, the handle about his height and the head five times bigger than a regular one. Effortlessly, he raised it over his head, then brought it down on the stage surface. Not only did it cave the area it hit, but tendrils of electricity, cerulean and violent, surged out, splitting rock as it zipped toward Ikron.

The wizard had no time to move, and as soon as the current reached his feet, he and the space around him exploded into clouds of dark dust and grit.

Joe didn’t stop there. The next second, he created a red and black machine gun and began firing into the billow a series of crimson energy bullets. Ikron soared out, his figure highlighted in purple as he performed acrobatics to weave around the piercing projectiles.

“Nice moves,” the wizard spoke as he twisted and turned almost impossibly. “I would have mistaken you for a mage if I hadn’t read up on you beforehand.”

With a sharp turn, he started for the superhuman, pointing all fingers of his left hand at him. “But you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get around my magic!”

Five, thin beams were unleashed, too quick for Joe to react and move in time. Though, his mind braced for the painful results. They passed through him, however, they were completely harmless.

Another illusion.

Sadly, the knee to his gut wasn’t, Ikron taking advantage of his distracted moment and planting one right below the chest. Joe coughed before swinging out a left hook, but the wizard just had to split into two different copies.

Okay. He was good at guessing.

The illusions were getting pretty easy to work through the more he was exposed to them. So, the millisecond he noticed a slight flicker on the ear of the Ikron on his left, he leaped for the one in front of him.

Bullseye! He yelled enthusiastically in his mind as his strike rang true, the real wizard’s cheek flattening under his knuckles.

Ikron spat a speck of blood as he quickly regained himself. “Alright, then. How about this!”

He used the same cloning technique, but this time, Joe was surrounded by a massive swarm. It nearly took up most of the stage.

“Okay. That’s just not fair,” Joe sighed.

He knew how this song and dance went. Try to punch one, it fades out like a dream, and get sucker punched by the real one. Rinse and repeat. One of his little sisters loved to play those games with him a lot.

Sadistic little shit.

Still, he had to try. He was prepared.

As predicted, swiping at one only awarded him a thump in the back or a cuff to the face. The wizard was hiding in his own illusions, dashing about to rain blows on his opponent from every direction. This guy was really good. Another fist to the chest had him sputtering, skidding back until he was only a couple of feet from the edge of the platform.

“Shit,” Joe cursed lowly. “I’m losing ground. How do ya get outta this one, cadet?”

He searched in his mind for the lightbulb that’ll light up and give him an idea.

Maybe… he should use magic of his own? He was no master, and certainly not on the level Ikron, a literal wizard, was at. Thank goodness he had been actually paying attention in Rotar’s class. The arcane world was completely foreign to him, and he liked to learn about things that were far out of his reach and would have been if he stayed with his family.

We all know that fighting fire with fire only makes a bigger flame, Mind-Rotar spoke, sage advice whispered like he knew the trouble the superhuman was in. However, magic, in place of them, has a variety of effects. Will it enhance or nullify? You just have to find the correct spell for the desired results.

Looks like all the meditation will come in handy.

While he kept his eyes peeled for any more attacks, Joe shifted the rest of his concentration within himself. Anyone could use magic, as Rotar said. And the moment Joe utilized it, he would no longer be just a superhuman.

He would be a mage as well.

Man, the looks on his parents and ancestors’ faces once they realized that as well. Priceless!

He sought, hunted, and explored before he came upon… a sword. A sword deeply entrenched with a boulder. The familiar sight took him back to the day Rotar used his Snapshot ability on them to measure their magical availability. Joe had tried pulling the weapon out from its rocky confinement, but he failed to even manage a centimeter.

This time, though, when he sauntered up to it and grasped the handle, it stirred. Crumbs of red lights emanating from the minuscule gap the sword edge leaned away from.

And Joe could feel it.

Suddenly, the fake-Ikrons were a lot more see-through than before. And the real one was closing in on him, the grin on his face telling the superhuman that he thought he was about to get the drop on him once more.

Well, not this time!

Joe shot an arm out and wielded a large axe, staring straight at real-Ikron. The wizard must have realized how screwed he was since he abruptly stopped zipping. The Ares superhuman smiled like a shark in confirmation before launching the deadly weapon.

Of course, it was made easy to dodge, Ikron simply sidestepping the thing but looking no less shocked. “Y-You found me!?”

He exclaimed… to no one because Joe was no longer near the edge. The purple-eyed fighter sped behind the wizard and summoned the same hammer he used before in quick succession.

“No! I caught you! Like a good ol’ game of whack-a-mole!” he taunted before promptly walloping the tunic-wearing opponent across his side.

Ikron flew back with a scream of pain and surprise, the force of the object twisting him around only to get a knee shoved into his stomach, Joe having swiftly caught up. Bile exploded from his mouth in a wheezing gasp.

“Payback for earlier!” Joe grinned.

Ikron took a raspy breath, face twitching from having air forced out of his lungs. “Vindictive, are we? Well, two can play at that game, Joe Sloane!”

The wizard snapped a punch to the superhuman’s face, pushing him off. Joe immediately responded, giving his other leg a chance at vengeance and delivering a solid turning kick to the solar plexus. The violent exchange went on for a bit, an all-out brawl of trading fists and feet until a double axe handle plowed Joe into midair and over the outer bounds.

“Better luck next time, my friend!” Ikron shouted, victory already gleaming in his eyes.

Too bad for him.

Joe hurriedly gathered a hefty amount of energy and produced a chain scythe. Luckily for him, the stage had these pillars in the corner as, he was guessing, decoration. He mentally thanked and wished the designer all the good fortune in the world as he threw one scythe toward it, the metal clinking and cutting through the wizard’s presumed triumphant laugh.

It wrapped around the column nicely. He was relieved he wasn’t that far from it. The chain rattled as Joe hung on, allowing it to swing him back safely into the arena. And to add salt to the wound, he made sure to close in on the slack-jawed wizard and send a spinning kick to the chin. Ikron twirled like a top before skidding harshly on his back, partly cracking the floor as he went.

It wasn’t enough to ring him out, but damn, did it feel good.

Joe settled on the stage floor, somewhat teetering upright. He was bruised, bleeding, and running low on power, but the prospect of winning kept him awake and ignited. He’d honestly never had this much fun in a while. The Sloane progeny was born and bred for battle, and this was checking all the boxes for his idea of a thrilling fight.

From the sidelines, the cheers of his teammates reached his ears.

“Get him, Joe!” Rafe yelled.

“Make him bleed, man!” Landon flashed his sharp teeth in a terrifying Cheshire-like grin

“Take him out!”

“You got this!”

“Bring ‘im before th’ god o’ death! He demands his pay!”

Frodd’s cries got a laugh out of him. It made his chest burn, but that encouragement flowed through him and hold the fog back for just a little longer.

“I still got a bit left in me,” the noirette wiped a strand of blood from his mouth as Ikron struggled to pick himself up. “So, pick your poison. A sword? A machete, maybe? Ooh, maybe a flail! I haven’t used one of those before in a fight. We could test it out. Don’t worry. The balls won’t have spikes on them."

"Not yet. I'm...” the wizard exhaled hoarsely, “not done yet. You may have seen through my illusions, but you hesitated to strike out against your own family. You wouldn’t hurt them, would you?”

“Ossie! I miss you!”

That voice.

Joe’s head swiveled to right and found a fellow purple-eyed tiny girl in a flower dress, long hair equally as dark as his over rosy cheeks and a small mole in the corner of her mouth.

“Ami?” Joe gaped at his youngest sister suddenly standing before him.

In the back of his mind, he knew she wasn’t actually there, but still. It just now felt like an eternity since he’s been home. He’s only been gone for… for…

How long has he been here for?

“It’s been a while, lil’ Blacksmith,” the baritone, Boston accent sounded much closer, and Joe flinched back to come face-to-face with his older-looking clone. “How’s my baby brother doin’?”

“Richie?”

He hadn’t seen his youngest older brother Richard ever since he came home from college for the summer vacation, and even that was incredibly short due to being commissioned into the Chromium Guard. Their much older siblings were pretty distant, but he and Richie had always been the closest.

Joe swallowed a lump in his throat, but he was unable to dwell on it further because he was hit with another familiar voice.

“Jojo, come here!” out of bounds, a second small girl, this one with anomalous sapphire hair and shiny argent eyes, called to him in a deceivingly light tone. “I know how to make insects now. This is so gonna get Richie the next time he comes home. He’ll pee his pants!”

Wayla, the “sadistic little shit” as mentioned earlier, beckoned him to come, a mischievous grin telling all that she found a new way to prank her brothers and sisters with her illusionary powers.

Richie shook his head. “Man, you two are always trying to give me a heart attack. You know, I don’t have to be super old like Ma and Pa to get those, right?”

“You guys-”

Before he could express his disbelief, his jaw was painfully snapped shut by an unsuspecting fist, making him go airborne for the longest second before tumbling like a ragdoll onto his stomach.

“Oof! Gotta watch out for those uppercuts, bro. It makes eatin’ a bitch afterward,” Richie hissed in sympathy.

Joe didn’t get to answer prior to feeling a foot on his temple sending him rolling closer to the edge of the ring. Once again, he was losing ground.

Above him, a slouched Ikron huffed and gazed down with a hint of regret. “I apologize for my method of getting you out, but this battle needs to come to an end.”

“Y-Yeah,” Joe breathed heavily, keeping his wavering attention on his opponent as he inched toward the pillar he swung back into the ring from. “You’re right. But I still have a couple of weapons in mind that I could still use.”

“Your blades and hammers won’t work on me anymore, Joe Sloane. I may be a wizard, but I’ve adapted to the ways of those kinds of weapons as a part of my training. Can’t always rely on magic to get me through.”

“Blades and hammers?” the noirette had to chuckle. He kind of loved it when someone underestimated his capabilities. “No, man, I summon weapons. Not just scary, pointy stuff.”

The wizard’s eyes narrowed down at him. “You mean, other than your energy reserves, you’re only limited by your imagination?”

Joe was sure his smile looked a little frightening with the blood and discoloring over his face, but it couldn’t be helped as he stretched the last reservoir of bio-soul around his body. “Tell me, wiz. What do ya feel about bombs?”

Silence.

Then… sweet, sweet realization.

Ikron paled.

“No-”

The wave of energy that exploded from Joe’s very shape was quite catastrophic. It didn’t completely destroy the platform, but it was several inches shorter than before. A dome of pure scarlet energy blew chunks of rock and grass into the outer areas, everyone close by leaping back and ducking for safety. And everything close by, including the pillar he leaned against, was partially wiped out.

Though, thankfully, not his wizard adversary. Nah, he was currently on the other side of the demolished platform.

Unconscious.

And out of the ring.

As the edges of his vision began to fade while the pain became much more apparent, the Ares superhuman grinned to the blue sky, settling back on the crumbled mess of the stage with a relieved sigh.

“Atomo Obliteration. Always… comes in clutch…”

Then darkness.