The Law of Averages

Book 2: Chapter 62: Worthy

The entrance to the motel was a long, 'S' shaped drive that connected to the highway feeder like a tributary stream. Gregoir ignored the curves, threading a needle through poorly trimmed rose bushes and trees rather than taking the time to turn and lose speed. His headlights and flashers provided the only source of illumination in the hotel, casting the parking lot in shades of blue and red.

Cannibal stood beside the wrecked truck that Dan's fridge had launched him into. His emaciated frame showed no signs of pain nor injury. He kicked aside a piece of debris laying next to him, and stepped away from the broken shell that he'd peeled himself out of. The villain glanced over as Gregoir's lights hit him, before disregarding them and turning to face the motel. There was a clear path of broken vehicles and shattered concrete leading from Dan's location to the parking lot. Dan watched Cannibal's eyes follow the path, before landing on him.

Cannibal's lips curled into a snarl, he took a step towards Dan, then Gregoir's cruiser slammed into him at full speed. The villain braced himself a heartbeat before contact, leaning into the crash and bending his knees. The cruiser crumpled around his body and the concrete below his feet cracked. The vehicle's force drove him backwards and down, gouging a deep furrow into the parking lot, but Cannibal remained on his feet. His clawed hands gripped into the metal around him, and he lifted the car into the air without the slightest sign of strain.

Gregoir's meaty fist caught the villain's jaw, the big officer having dove free of the car at the moment before impact. Cannibal's head rocked to the side, and he took a single step backwards, before bringing the cruiser down on Gregoir's head. The car slammed into the officer's massive form, folding in half. A moment later, it shattered like glass as the blonde giant ripped his way free. Dan could hear Gregoir roaring like an enraged elephant as he plowed into Cannibal, tackling the much smaller figure to the ground and raining down punches that shook the earth.

Dan was frozen with indecision. Should he flee, as Gregoir had ordered? Should he help fight? Or should he try and evacuate the nearby civilians, who would almost certainly end up as collateral damage. The first was solidly nixed as a hysterical thought crossed Dan's mind: he'd started the fight. Technically, legally, he was at fault for attacking without cause, though no court in the country would convict him for pre-emptively striking out at Cannibal of all people. That said, all that followed lay on Dan. He could have left. He could have obeyed Bartholomew. He could have kept his nose out of all of this. He hadn't.

He wouldn't run; he could only see it through.

There was a roar of effort from the parking lot, and Dan watched as Gregoir wrenched Cannibal into some sort of submission hold. The officer's massive forearms were wrapped around Cannibal's neck, slowly twisting. The villain seemed unperturbed. He stood, letting Gregoir's body tower over him, and casually took hold of the blonde's arms. Sharp talons pierced skin, and red blood dribbled across the ground, as Cannibal wrenched Gregoir's limbs away from his neck.

Gregoir countered with a boot to the chest, sending Cannibal cartwheeling across the parking lot from the force of the blow. Gregoir shook out his arms, and his wounds seemed to close between movements, but Cannibal was already upright and leaping forward. Gregoir met him with a sweeping haymaker, but Cannibal dipped beneath the blow and raked his talons across his enemy's chest. They tore off bloody strips of flesh and Kevlar, and Gregoir bellowed in rage.

Dan looked for something large to chuck at the villain but found nothing handy. His mind recalled an old plan, and he blinked himself across the city, to a familiar mall and smithy. The place was empty, closed for the night, but the blacksmith's anvil lay unguarded. Dan's veil swallowed it whole, surprising even him. It must weigh at least four hundred pounds, but he felt like his veil had power to spare. It landed in t-space, wrapped in Dan's power, and began to accelerate.

He blinked back to the broken motel room, and found the renter on the phone, calling the police. Dan strode to the man, who flinched away. Dan held up both hands reassuringly, and said, "Good idea, but they know already. You need to evacuate."

The man didn't answer, shivering in his night clothes and clutching the motel phone like it was gold. Dan sighed and flicked it into t-space. The man jumped, pointing at Dan and gibbering something incomprehensible, before fleeing out the front door. Dan shook his head, and turned to check on the battle. Part of Dan hoped Gregoir would simply beat the villain, and everything would be fine. The more realistic part of him knew that was impossible.

Gregoir struck with speed that belied his size, but Cannibal was far, far faster. Each swing was dodged lazily, effortlessly, and countered with a punishing slash. The wounds mounted, yet seemed not to slow Gregoir in the slightest. His shirt was in tatters, his pants little better, but he charged forward undaunted, forcing Cannibal back through size and force alone.

The villain seemed puzzled by his prey's refusal to die, but seemed content to keep chipping away at the man. Gregoir kept each engagement brief, taking wounds that quickly closed, but never a killing blow. Dan saw it for what it was, a stalling tactic. Gregoir was clearly waiting for backup, but all the SPEAR teams were still recovering from their bout with Coldeyes. None were even mobile, last Dan had heard, leaving Gregoir as the greatest combat asset of the APD. Would backup even help against Cannibal? All they could do is shoot him, and Dan doubted that bullets, no matter how fancy, would do anything other than irritate the villain.

Dan needed to act before this became a full-fledged warzone. He blinked to the motel lobby, finding the clerk cowering beneath their desk. Dan ignored them, striding past to the small, wall mounted lever labeled 'Villain Alarm'. He jerked it down, and a siren began to ring across the entire motel. Anyone who'd managed to somehow sleep through the ruckus was now firmly awake, and anyone too paralyzed by fear or confusion to leave should now be evacuating. These were the sorts of things that civilians practiced as children, instincts baked into their societal framework and upbringing. If the villain alarm rang in a building, they ran.

He blinked back outside, only to notice Cannibal's head turning towards him. The alarm had clearly drawn his attention. It cost him, as Gregoir landed a powerful uppercut that drove the villain off his feet. He floated in the air, weightless for a moment, before Gregoir's straight right took him in the chest and sent him soaring backwards. Gregoir glanced briefly at Dan, giving him the slightest of nods, before turning back to Cannibal.

Dan began to coordinate the evacuation as best he could. Every person who exited their motel, he directed away from the fighting. Few took more than a few loud shouts to get moving, as the brawl in the parking lot grew ever more destructive. It felt it had been hours, but mere minutes had passed since Dan had encountered Cannibal.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he paused long enough to glance at it. It was a text from a string of numbers that he'd never seen before, but could easily guess the source. The text was simple, a question that made Dan's heart stop: Did you think it would be so easy?

His phone buzzed again, and another line appeared a moment later: Better luck with the next one.

There was no picture, no call, no more words or taunts or contact of any kind. A hollow pit formed in Dan's chest, composed entirely of gnawing guilt. He killed it before it could burrow deeper, feeding it to the Gap. He couldn't afford to feel right now, not when there was work to be done. He let the cold settle in him, and focused on the here and now.

He'd given directions to three more people—Dan thought they might be the last in the complex—before Cannibal grew bored of his fight. Dan watched in horror as the lithe figure danced between Gregoir's strikes, made a blade with his hand, and drove it into the officer's chest. Dan's friend staggered, impaled on Cannibal's limb, before the villain withdrew it in a sharp motion and a spray of crimson fluid.

Dan's mind stuttered to a halt.

Cannibal held a red mass in his blood-soaked hand. He held it up to the moonlight, examining it like a trophy. It was a heart, Dan realized: Gregoir's heart, and Cannibal sank his teeth into it without hesitation. He moaned sensually as dark blood spilled over his lips and down his bare chest. Flecks of meat and gore coated his cheeks and hands. The expression on his face was rapturous as he tore into the heart of his enemy, which made it all the more absurd when Gregoir slammed an uppercut into Cannibal's jaw.

The villain's head rocked back, and he stumbled over a piece of debris. Gregoir took full advantage, driving his knee into Cannibal's chest, before seizing him by the leg and hurling him like a discus. Cannibal tumbled through the air, stunned, and slammed into a tree that overlooked the parking lot. The hole in Gregoir's chest shrank, sealed, and disappeared.

Dan's brain rebooted, as he quickly re-evaluated Gregoir's chances in this fight. The healing wasn't like in the movies that Dan had seen, where regeneration was imagined as a quick regrowth. Gregoir's healing occurred between blinks of an eye, cuts smoothing away as if time was skipping backwards.

Dan heard a sound in the distance, a repeating thump from high above. A spotlight blinked into existence, bright white light shining down from an APD chopper that came screaming down from the sky. It scanned the dark parking lot until it landed on Gregoir, then Cannibal. The light stuttered slightly as it fell on Cannibal, who rose to his feet covered head to toe in Gregoir's blood.

"What does it take to kill you?" Cannibal called across the parking lot in his hoarse, raspy voice.

Gregoir planted his fists against his waist, chest heaving and elbows jutting outwards as he bellowed, "MY BODY IS BUT A VESSEL FOR MY FIGHTING SPIRIT! AND THAT SPIRIT CANNOT BE EXTINGUISHED BY THE LIKES OF YOU, FOUL VILLAIN!"

Cannibal regarded him with a cocked head, then a smile. He bowed over, the smile turning into laughter, the most genuine noise Dan had heard from the man. Great, gut-wrenching, heaving guffaws echoed across the parking lot, even while the APD helicopter bellowed down commands out of a loudspeaker.

The villain ignored it all, facing Gregoir with a predatory smile.

"At last, worthy prey!" Cannibal cried out in anticipation, and stepped forward once more.