As Zen's shout of "FIGHT!" echoed through the clearing, King's polite retreat vanished. He spun around, a blur of motion, running straight at Rose, his fists already clenched. "Ready or not, girl, here I come!"
The word "come" barely left his lips before Rose moved. King's outstretched fist was met not with resistance, but with a blur of motion as Rose caught his wrist mid-swing. In the same fluid, impossible instant, she used his forward momentum against him, twisting her body and slamming his massive form sideways into the trunk of a towering pine tree. The thick wood groaned and splintered on impact, creating a shower of bark and needles.
Zen, still lounging at the clearing's edge, watched the entire exchange unfold in a mere second. A lazy, amused smile spread across his face. "Guess this is going to be interesting," he whispered to the forest air.
King slowly peeled himself off the shattered wood, brushing pine debris from his shoulder. His movement was deliberate, yet a slow, predatory smile surfaced on his lips. "Girl, you are now beginning to piss me off," he said, his voice low and rich with building power. "But you are going to regret this. Trust me."
He never got the chance to initiate his next move. As King finished his threat, Rose exploded into a fresh burst of speed, meeting him in a silent, blinding motion, their fists and feet colliding head-on in the center of the clearing.
King staggered back a step, stunned that he had been forced onto the defensive by a girl half his size. Rose was a phantom, weaving around his brute-force swings. Her movements were not the mechanical, drilled efficiency of a soldier, but the unpredictable grace of a dancer who knew exactly where the next blow must land.
King roared, throwing a haymaker aimed at the clearing's center, but Rose was already gone, using the momentum of his miss to vault onto the nearest tree trunk. She kicked off the wood, using the resulting splintering fracture to launch herself back at him, delivering a rapid-fire sequence of short, sharp strikes—a heel strike to the sternum, an elbow to the jaw, and a spinning back kick that whipped King's head around.
Each hit felt like a stone hammer; King was a giant boulder being chipped away by a tireless river. He returned fire with raw destructive power. When Rose dodged low, his fist missed her head by a hair, but the resulting shockwave pulverized a nearby oak tree into a shower of dust and flying splinters. King's power was undeniable; his mistakes were simply tactical errors of scale.
Rose didn't stop. She used the destroyed forest environment to her advantage, leaping from one trunk to the next, using the remaining trees as springboards to maintain impossible speed. She landed two hard kicks to his ribs and one straight to the knee, momentarily dropping King to one side. As he tried to stabilize himself, Rose hit him with a powerful rising uppercut.
The blow lifted King clean off his feet. He crashed heavily onto the ruined earth, kicking up a cloud of damp soil and dust.
King gasped, a sound of frustration and pain, but as he struggled to rise, his body changed. A sound like tearing silk filled the air as two massive, soot-black wings—feathered and sharp—erupted from his back, sending bits of fabric and bloodied skin flying. They were beautiful and terrifying, stretching nearly ten feet across the clearing.
Zen's amusement deepened as he crossed his arms, leaning against a tree that was miraculously still standing. "Looks like he's using wings now," Zen whispered, his voice low with morbid curiosity. "Let me not stop them. I wanna see what happens."
With the forest decimated by King's earlier attacks, Rose now stood in a clearing surrounded by jagged stumps and broken earth. There was no more cover, no more trees to provide vertical agility. This was now a contest of raw strength.
King surged forward, using his new aerial reach to cover distance, his movements faster and more fluid. Rose didn't flinch. She pivoted, delivering a savage, focused kick straight toward King's exposed left rear flank. King anticipated the move, crossing his arms and shielding the blow with the reinforced armor of his wings. The impact still shuddered through him.
Before King could counter, Rose launched herself off the impact point, using the resistance of his wing shield as a final springboard. She flew into the air, spinning her body, ready to deliver a powerful, ax-like kick straight for King's now-exposed face.
But King was quicker now. With a massive flap of his wings, he generated a blast of displaced air—a focused, invisible wall of wind that slammed into Rose mid-air, throwing her twenty feet away. She skidded across the dust, struggling to regain her footing.
Before Rose could fully rise, King was upon her. He descended with terrifying speed, dropping one knee onto the ground to stabilize his form, and delivered a devastating, wing-assisted kick straight into Rose's midsection. The force sent her flying backward, crushing her into the heavy, splintered trunk of the last remaining tree. She slumped against the wreckage, gasping.
King, moving with newfound rage, closed the distance. As he came near to deliver a finishing strike, Rose's hand flashed out. She scooped up a handful of loose soil and fine sand and threw it with precision into King's eyes, temporarily blinding him.
King stumbled, howling and pawing at his vision. Rose didn't hesitate. She used the second he was disoriented to launch a crippling, side-on kick, not at his body, but aimed with surgical precision at the joint where his wing connected to his back. The powerful blow impacted with a sickening crack, severing a key tendon. King roared in agonizing pain, collapsing onto one knee as his left wing sagged, completely useless.
Zen finally began walking slowly toward them, his eyes gleaming with entertained satisfaction.
King, blinded and severely injured, suddenly burst into flight, soaring straight up through the canopy to clear his eyes of the blinding grit. He vanished for a fraction of a second, then reappeared silently and instantaneously behind Rose, a terrifying, dark-blue blast of coalescing energy emitting from his outstretched hand, aimed directly at her back.
Before King could release the fatal shot, a blur of golden light flashed between them. Zen delivered a casual, but impossibly powerful kick straight to King's face. The blast dissipated harmlessly as King's body went limp, sent tumbling backward into the woods until he crashed in a final, heavy thud against a distant tree.
"Looks like this is where our training ends," Zen stated, his voice calm and completely lacking the playfulness it held moments ago.
Rose slowly turned, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with confusion. "When did he get behind me?" she whispered, the shock of the near-fatal attack sinking in.
From the distance, King, crushed into the tree, shouted, "I have to admit, girl, you're strong!" His tone was now grudging, stripped of all arrogance.
Zen turned back to Rose, the dangerous intensity gone, replaced by a soft, proud smile. "Looks like your training is paying off, my dear Rose. Then why don't you look happy?"
Rose slowly lowered herself to the ground, sitting heavily against a stump. "It's still not enough," she replied, shaking her head.
Zen sat down next to her, easily bridging the physical space.
"Really, Zen? Can't you sit anywhere else?" she replied, irritation coloring her exhaustion.
Zen leaned in close, his voice dropping to a low, intimate whisper, laced with dark promise. "You had your fun with King. What about us?"
Rose didn't meet his gaze. "Zen. Can't you see that?"
Zen smiled, the whisper vibrating against her ear. "I can wait...."
At the SSD Headquarters
Agent Marcus, burst into Director Yamato's office, foregoing all protocol.
"Sir! I have bad news, Director," Marcus stammered, bracing his hands on Yamato's desk. "More than a hundred Rifts have opened up simultaneously, and all of them have a danger level above 7.5. The highest is a 9.7, followed immediately by a 9.5."
Director Yamato, was already standing, staring out the window at the distant, placid cityscape. He slowly turned, his face etched with grim realization. His voice was barely a whisper, laden with the weight of inevitable catastrophe.
"This is not going to end well..."