Confusion is the order of the morning, as Enjyu makes his way down to the arena. Packs of kids are out in full force tonight, each one he vaguely recognizes even though Boss always insisted on keeping each child apart from each other. They line the roads, keeping to the shadows, and Enjyu can hear them whispering amongst themselves as they move along with him toward the deepest section of Vega City.
He smells the ruin before he sees it, the familiar thick scent of smoke and fire having turned something inside out. He breaks into a jog, moving swiftly through the winding streets of the lower city, only to stop in his tracks as he rounds the final corner. Enjyu stares, blinks, and rubs his eyes, but reality does not change. Little remains of the underground arena but a pile of rubble, and there is no longer any visible way to descend into its lower floors.
Enjyu backs away, back up into the street he’d just come out of. The other children, all younger than him, move around the edges of his vision as they hide in the alleyways and other streets that surround the fallen arena. Some even peek out at him from the rooftops and from the windows of forgotten half-buildings.
One of them darts out of the shadows and at him, a small girl in a tattered dress with matted brown hair. She holds out a folded paper to him. “He said to give you this, Mr. Thunder.”
Enjyu blinks. “Who?”
“The boy with the sword!” exclaims the girl, “He was on fire when he came out of there, but he didn’t care. He was amazing…”
“What did he say to you?” he asks, taking the paper from her gingerly.
“He asked me to give that to you,” she answered, nodding at it. A pause, and she quietly adds, “He also said…that the Boss is dead and we’re free to do whatever we want now. But, um. We don’t really have anywhere else to go…”
Enjyu doesn’t stop himself from groaning and smacking his own face with his palm. “That idiot,” he growls, even as he unfolds the sheet.
Thunderking—
I won’t count this as a favor, no debt needs paying. Boss is dead but the Foreman got away. You can have everything in the safe if you can find it.
You don’t have to stay in Vega City. You don’t have to fight for anyone but yourself, and you don’t have to be alone anymore. The offer stands and the League of Power waits. You know how to get to Cowtoon.
I’ll be waiting,
—Fireblade
The paper bursts into flames in Enjyu’s hand, rage coursing through him as he crushes its remnant ashes. The audacity of Yamato, to come here and think he can burn away all of Enjyu’s problems in a single night! The insolence, the cheek—
Enyju looks down, into the eyes of the girl before him. He grits his teeth. Yamato, naturally, did not think about what would happen next to anyone who was outside the little circle he cared almost exclusively about. What did Yamato think would happen? That he and every last one of the children ensnared in Vega City would just…climb out and go to Cowtoon?
No, surely not, and if Yamato has left already, then he intends for them to fend for themselves.
Enjyu should just go.
He should just take up Yamato’s offer and go to Cowtoon and live out the rest of his days in the League of Power with its nice and shiny morals and nice and shiny family. He could be part of that. No more of this awful city where everything was foul, where every day he is certain he is going to sink past the point of no return.
But the man who owned a good chunk of Vega City’s underground fighters is dead.
And with his death, the demise of his criminal network. And a hole opens up in Vega City’s structure. He’s left that sort of life behind, but power is something Enjyu knows, and perhaps he’s in no state to take charge of others’ lives, but maybe…
He gazes up at the rooftops. Heads that were peeking out at him a moment earlier quickly disappear. He grins. Maybe this isn’t the outcome Yamato wants, but it’s the only outcome that Enjyu thinks makes sense, because to leave such a large crack in Vega City is simply irresponsible.
“Listen to me!” he shouts into the air. He can feel their gazes on him, perhaps a hundred in number, perhaps more. “The Fireblade killed Boss and burned the arena down, but he’s left you all behind to survive on your own. And worse of all, he wants you to leave Vega City and join the League of Power.”
The hush that drapes across the immediate area around them is a curious weight on him.
“He doesn’t know you like I do,” says Enjyu, and the words come after being held back for so long. “It’s not easy to leave this city. If you’re like me, you came here because you believe there’s nothing left for you outside. Maybe some of you came here after the Shadow Alliance too. No matter why, you’ve come to this hellhole and there’s no going back.”
When he looks back down, he finds the girl staring up at him with eyes wide like saucers. Something shines in them, a flickering swirl of clouds held back only by her age.
“You’ve all got something in you,” he declares. Enjyu raises one hand and lets fire flow from within. It appears in a light swirl just over his fingers. He holds it there and raises his other hand, tugging on the other half of his heart. Lightning crackles forth, earning loud gasps all around him. Effortlessly, he keeps both elements hovering over his hands. “So do I. Now I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick of letting other people tell me what to do with everything that makes me me.”
Visible faces peer down at him now. Hundreds of children, in the alleys, on the rooftops, in the shadows, gazing into his fire and lightning. Hopeful faces, disbelieving faces, fearful faces, downcast ones—each one reflecting emotions he’s worn in the past six months. Enjyu knows them, he realizes. He knows each and every one of the multitude because each and every one is like him in some way.
His hands tighten into fists, dispersing the fire and lightning, and he yells up at them all. “We’ll make our own team, our own gang! We don’t need to depend on the Fireblade or the League of Power. We were thrown away by the world, and now we’ll make our own world.
“You can leave if you want,” he tells them. Enjyu pumps his fists. “But if you stay—then welcome to the Junkyard Coalition.”
Powers and gangs. Shaping the world. These are things he swore he would never be involved in again, but today something shifts. He is tired and ready to sink into nothing. But maybe this time—he’ll keep his head high.
EPILOGUE—
Fire dashes against the shield of shadows, scattering away and fading. Yamato throws another pair of fireballs, and once again, the shield comes up just in time.
“You’re getting faster again,” he tells his opponent.
Biarce smiles and lowers his shield. “That’s only because you won’t let me slack off.”
Yamato laughs and strides close, balls of fire dancing around him in a circle. “You’re the one who asked me not to let your skills get rusty.”
“We better get back—” Biarce starts, only to be cut off when the wind picks up, kicking up dust and sand around him. They turn around and look up into the Cowtoon sky.
Gray lands a moment later.
“Urgent,” he tells Yamato. “Wind changed for a moment, then some kid fell out. She’s demanding to talk to you. Says she’s from…Vega City…”
Yamato quashes the flames around him immediately.
Six months. He has been hoping for six months. In that time, he’s been restless, impatient. Enjyu must have gotten his letter, so why hasn’t he come? Why hasn’t he joined him here, where it’s safe and everything’s all right?
Six months of questioning and wondering, and finally, word from Vega City.
Yamato arrives back at the Cat Cafe to find his other friends out in full force. They stand before the cafe, facing their visitor. It must have been an absurd sight, that of a tiny brunette girl staring down three trained warriors.
He recognizes her right away. One of the children he’d talked to in Vega City, and the one he’d entrusted a letter for Enjyu.
“Stand down guys,” he calls out, and Liena, Wen, and Li look between him and the girl before slowly backing away. He hears Gray and Biarce land behind him a moment later.
“Fireblade!” shouts the girl as soon as she spots him. She does not give him room to respond, immediately launching into a well-practiced spiel. “The Thunderking has a message for you. He says: If you claim to be his friend, then let the League of Power and the Junkyard Coalition be friends too.”
“Junkyard Coalition?” hisses Gray. Surprise makes its rounds through the others, but Yamato—
Yamato can’t help but laugh.
He shouldn’t have thought that things would be simple and easy when it comes to Enjyu. Everything about Enjyu is the opposite of that, and he’s always been out to challenge what Yamato believes in.
He should have expected this. Extend a hand to Enjyu, and he swats it away and pulls himself out of the pit in a different direction instead.
“Okay,” Yamato tells the girl. He can hear his friends starting to protest. Gray, in particular, won’t be pleased that he’s making this decision without consulting his right hand. “The League of Power will be friends with the Junkyard Coalition, on one condition.”
The girl is unfazed. “Name it.”
“Thunderking will first have a battle with me.”
“That’s what he said you might say,” she says. “As Thunderking’s right hand, I accept on his behalf. He’ll send the terms of battle soon.”
She does not wait for him to answer. A cloud forms around her, and she jumps into the wind, and off she goes.
Yamato sighs as the breeze passes, and the Cowtoon wasteland settles into stillness again. There will be plenty of preparation, plenty of strategizing, but for now, he is simply relieved. Vega City is a distant memory for him by now, with its towering skyline and sour scent that traps the unsuspecting visitor.
Good on Enjyu, he thinks, for taking the city for himself instead.
- Fic complete!
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- Or continue to the next fic in the series? The Descent of Orpheus