Momentum

Momentum

The wind whipped through Azul’s long pale hair as he gazed down at the streets thousands of feet below him. Even from his vantage point, he could still hear the shouts and gunshots, and see the flashes of light as riot grenades exploded.
President Fife had made a major mistake this time.
For twelve years now, the President had pushed his personal agenda on the nation of Duuk, taxing and working them mercilessly as he slowly saved money for something he promised would greatly benefit his entire nation. Tonight, Fife had finally revealed that he had been paying off a bounty the Gungalize Mafia had put upon his brother’s head all along.
Judging by the massive riot taking place in the streets below, his people had not taken it well.
As Azul watched, he moved his cupped hand in small circles in front of him, causing the tiny glass marble it held to roll around his palm. As it rolled, Azul felt its momentum leak out of it, sinking through the skin of his hand and into his body. It wasn’t much, and he used almost all of the momentum that he drained just as quickly as he gained it, but what little he could save would be well worth it. Every little bit would be important to him tonight.
President Fife’s next move was obvious, at least to Azul. This was not the first time that the president had offended his citizens to the point of an uprising, and this was certainly not the worst he had ever faced. Whenever the tempers flared too high for his liking, Fife would retreat to his private sanctum, deep within Capitol Tower. Armed to the proverbial teeth, the place was a veritable fortress. And once he was sealed far away from his violent subjects, Fife would use his secret weapon. He lovingly called it his Eraser. Due to a law he passed at the beginning of his reign, every person within the boundaries of Duuk was required to have a special chip planted into their brains that Fife claimed would aid the authorities in keeping the peace. When someone was caught committing a crime, the chip within their head would allow the police to track them down and dispense justice. Their benevolent President swore that the chips would never be used for another purpose.
Not that they would remember, anyway.
As of that day, President Fife had used the Eraser to wipe his subjects’ memories four times. With the press of a button, he was able to make them simply forget whatever it was they were angry about, restoring peace to Duuk once again. There was no doubt in Azul’s mind that Fife was loading himself into his private railrider to lock himself inside Capitol Tower and do just that.
The mayhem below intensified. Seven police rollers roared down the streets, bursts of electricity erupting from the antennas mounted on their roofs, stunning passersby indiscriminately. A small gang of protestors had somehow managed to take down a squad of riot police, and began firing the weapons they had stolen at the rollers. Most of the bullets bounced harmlessly off of their armored exteriors, but one managed to find its mark, driving itself through the thin crack that led to the roller’s gas tank, sending the vehicle up in a pillar up fire.
A loud siren cut through the air as the railgates on the side of the building opened up, allowing the Presidential Railrider to glide smoothly out of it. It traveled across its single rail track like a snake slithering between the buildings, quickly taking President Fife back to his protected sanctuary. Now was the time to move.
Azul concentrated, and the wind stopped blowing. The four long braids of fabric hanging from the ornamental vest he wore came to life, rising up and flailing about as if being buffeted by a nonexistent storm. His hair did the same, thousands of long pale strands defying gravity and moving like living things. The air around him was still and muggy, having lost all of the momentum the wind was blowing it with.
Azul quickly ran his plan through his mind once more. The buildings in the spot he had selected increased in height as they ran alongside the President’s rail. At a time such as this, it could be assumed that every one of their rooftops, and the rooftops of the adjacent buildings, would be crawling with guards. Snipers would most likely be placed at every position that would give them an advantage, and the railrider itself was probably armed well enough to take down a small army. If Azul was to make it to the tracks, he would undoubtedly have to fight his way there. Luckily, he had the means to do so. The challenge would be conserving enough momentum between fighting and leaping between rooftops to be able to make it to the tracks.
Taking ten steps back, Azul rushed at the edge of the roof. Upon reaching it, he bent his knees and jumped, releasing his collected momentum at just the right moment to rocket him skyward. He flew through the air, the ground sinking further below him with every passing moment, until the building in front of him leveled out, and he eased himself forward and descended, landing neatly on the roof. He was now more than six hundred feet above his starting point.
“What the- fire!” a nearby soldier ordered, leveling his gun at Azul.
The sounds of gunfire erupted all around him, but Azul was prepared. It was as if time slowed down for him, and he could feel the bullets as they sped towards him. Not the bullets themselves, but their movements, the momentum the propelled them towards him at deadly speeds. Aided by his remaining momentum, he extended his hand and halted the first bullet just before it struck him between the eyes. It hovered in the air before him, completely devoid of momentum. Acting purely on instinct, he whipped around and released the bullet with all the speed of being fired out of a gun. It flew forward and struck another oncoming bullet, sending them both ricocheting harmlessly off of each other. He did this five more times, until the air around him was clear of projectiles. Before the soldiers could reload and fire again, Azul thrust both his hands out to his sides, releasing two bursts of pure motion, which was enough to throw all of the soldiers off of their feet and over the sides of the building. Rather than allow them to plummet to their deaths, though, Azul reached out with his mind and drained the momentum of their fall, leaving them frozen in midair and reigniting his own powers.
The next building sat on the other side of the tracks, still more than two thousand feet below where the President’s railrider would pass by. Again he ran to the edge of the building and leaped out across the chasm. He soared forward at blinding speeds, angling himself upwards. He knew his current path would not take him to the rooftop, but he wasn’t planning on it doing so. The building he was heading towards was covered in windows, providing an opportune hiding spot for snipers. Sure enough, as Azul flew towards it, he heard the sound of bullets whistling towards him, and felt them careening towards him. He extended his hand and reversed the first bullet, sending it flying straight back on the path it had come from. The sniper toppled from the window, killed by his own bullet. Another three bullets were sent back to their masters, and the last four were halted as Azul stole their momentum. Finally, he struck the side of the building. Grasping a ledge, more than a hundred feet below the rooftop, he swung his legs to the right and released his grip. Instead of going to the top of this building, he went straight to the next one, which had a lower roof.
Predictably, another squad of soldiers awaited him on that rooftop. Azul deflected their bullets with ease and, upon landing, released a shockwave of motion that threw every one of the soldiers off of the building. Once again, Azul stole their momentum, leaving them hanging in midair and filling himself with power.
A roar filled the air as an attack glider came out from around a building in the distance, flying towards Azul like a falcon descending upon its prey. The twin metal prongs on its nose hummed with electricity. A pair of lightning bolts were released, hurtling at Azul at speeds that even he could not alter. He threw himself out of the way just in time to avoid being incinerated. He gritted his teeth. He had hoped this wouldn’t happen, but had expected it all the same. Another barrage of lighting was loosed at him, and he managed to dodge it as well, but not without expending a good amount of his stolen momentum. If he were going to get past this thing, he would need to take it out quickly.
Throwing himself off the building once again, Azul flew at the glider. It released a third lightning strike, and Azul avoided it by rolling out of the way before angling himself back towards the glider and slamming into it with all the force he could muster. The impact hurt, and he knew that several of his bones had cracked, but he could not allow the pain to divert his concentration. He clung to the glider as it righted itself and took off, attempting to throw him off. Azul allowed its momentum to flow through his body, and he altered its path, sending the glider flying straight towards a nearby wall. He leaped off of it with a graceful backflip, allowing his momentum to carry him back onto a nearby rooftop which, thankfully, was devoid of soldiers. The glider careened towards the wall, out of control, until it struck the building and exploded in a massive fireball.
Azul turned around just in time to see the Presidential Railrider appear in the distance. It would be in the opportune position in less than a minute, and Azul had significantly less momentum in his system than he liked, but he had no choice. Racing across the rooftop, he leaped over the edge and propelled himself towards the tracks. He did not have enough power to get him to the top in a single bound, but he alighted on a ledge less than five hundred feet below his destination. Gripping the rusted steel with both hands, Azul thrust himself upwards, crawling up the wall like a monstrous spider. The tracks began to rumble as the railrider drew closer, but they could not shake off the determined man. His hand grasped the top ledge just as the railrider shot past, and he heaved himself upwards, using the last of his momentum to carry him up and over the train, landing nimbly on the fourth of the seven cars.
The moment his feet touched the car’s roof, an alarm began to blare. Behind him, a giant machine climbed up to join him. It was fifteen feet tall and had a basic human shape, but it was armed to the proverbial teeth with every type of weapon imaginable. It was a deathsuit, a massive suit of robotic armor that a soldier would pilot from within. The mechanical warrior raised its hand and fired a rocket from its wrist. Devoid of momentum, Azul could only move as fast as any other human being, and so was struck head on by the rocket. By his hand before it hit him, he managed to reverse enough of its momentum that the impact did not kill him, nor did it detonate the rocket. It knocked him off of his feet, though, and he landed hard on the railrider’s roof. The deathsuit surged forward and raised its fist to crush him. Azul rolled out of the way just as the metal arm came down, punching a clean hole through the railrider’s ceiling. Azul leaped to his feet, nimble despite the pain that racked his body, and ran behind the deathsuit, trying to create some space between them. The deathsuit ripped its arm free, a ball of shrapnel now grasped in its fist, and it wound its arm back and threw it at Azul with all its might.
Finally seeing his opportunity, Azul did not try to dodge the flying ball of metal, but instead made sure he was directly in its path. He extended his hand just as the metal struck it, and immediately drained the entire thing of its momentum, leaving it behind, suspended in midair as the railrider sped away. With his power surging through his veins once more, Azul charged at the deathsuit. It fired a second missile at him, but he managed to reroute its momentum so that it spun around and flew straight back at the deathsuit, the explosion throwing it off balance. Knowing that this would be his only chance, Azul took advantage of the situation and sent a blast of motion at the deathsuit’s leg, knocking it out from beneath it, and then a second, even bigger one that threw the mechanical soldier off of the railrider, tumbling to the street thousands of feet below.
It would not be long before more defenses arrived, and Azul doubted he could last through another fight with a deathsuit. His momentum was running low again, leaving him with far less than would be needed to fight his way through the railrider, as he had originally planned to do. There was only one thing he could do now. He had to derail the railrider.
It would be the most difficult thing he’d ever done. The railrider was running at speeds of over two hundred miles per hour, and Capitol Tower was looming in the distance. He wouldn’t need to stop the entire thing, just the first car. If the first car were to suddenly stop, the rest of the railrider’s momentum would work against it and throw the whole thing off the tracks. But so much momentum was more power than he’d ever held before, not to mention that he’d have to absorb it all in the space of less than half a second. If he wasn’t fast enough, the railrider would crush him. If he succeeded, he’d likely explode from the sheer amount of power he’d absorbed. It didn’t matter, though. He knew what he had to do.
Azul quickly made his way to the first car. Taking a running start, he leaped from the front. He used the last of his momentum to propel himself far enough away from the railrider to give him time to prepare. Landing on the tracks, he turned to face the oncoming behemoth of steel and speed and forced himself to focus. It drew nearer, and he extended his hand. He die here, but it didn’t matter. His mission would be complete. The people of Duuk would be liberated of their oppressive ruler and free to select a new leader. That was all that mattered.
The railrider crashed into him, shattering the bones in his hand, but went no further. Suddenly devoid of any momentum, the first car stopped in its tracks. Just as Azul had hoped, the second car surged forward and crashed into the first one, as did the third, and fourth, until the momentum of the last six carts together proved too much for the first car to handle, and, almost as one, they rose from the tracks and hurtled over the edge, where it fell to the ground thousands of feet below in a burning spiral of fire and steel.
The first thing Azul realized was that he was not dead. His right arm screamed with pain, and he doubted any of its bones were anything but dust now, but he was alive. How, though? He opened his eyes, and was shocked to see himself flying through the air, backwards, the scene of the railrider wreck already nothing but a speck in the distance. Of course! All the momentum he’d stolen from the railrider hadn’t been able to stay within him, and now his body was purging it out of him. For the first time that night, Azul smiled in satisfaction. He’d done it. He was tempted to leave now, escape while he had the chance, but he knew that he couldn’t. Since he was alive, there was still one part of his plan he needed to finish. Reversing his momentum, he began to fly back towards the wreckage.
The scene was a catastrophe. Fire and steel was everywhere, and three buildings had collapsed from the railrider’s impact with them. As Azul touched the ground, though, there came a weak groan from underneath a large chunk of metal. Azul would have recognized that voice anywhere. He forced the block of metal to move, and found none other than President Fife lying underneath where it had been. He was in a bad state, but still alive, and if it had not been for their different clothes, one would not have been able to tell the two apart, for they both had the same face, the same pale hair.
“Hello, brother,” Azul said.
“Azul?” Fife asked, forcing his eyes open. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Rojo,” Azul said, using his brother’s first name.
“What are you doing here? You have to get away before that man comes back.” He froze, and his eyes widened in shock, “It was you!”
“It was me,” Azul confirmed.
“Why?” Rojo demanded, anger causing his crushed body to shake. “After all I did for you!”
“I never wanted you to pay off my bounty, Rojo,” Azul said. “I told you that taking care of this nation was more important. Why did you ruin it for my sake?”
“Because we’re brothers,” Rojo answered. “Twins! We were supposed to take care of each other!”
“Not at everyone else’s expense!” Azul insisted.
“So, it’s come to this?” Rojo asked. “You will kill me and allow my nation to fall into anarchy?”
“No,” Azul said. “I’m here to kill you and take your place. Nobody is to ever know of this, and with your Eraser I will make sure they never do.”
Azul’s eyes darkened, “I will assume your position and use your greatest weapon one more time. Tomorrow, nobody will remember that any of this happened. I’ll let them believe that a massive storm caused all the damage. They won’t remember all the money you stole from them, or why. And then I’ll rebuild this nation from the ground up, the way I’d always hoped you would do it.”
For a moment, Azul was convinced that he saw a tear leak out of Rojo’s eye, but it was quickly replaced by his brother’s natural disdain and apathy, “So be it then, you traitor. But may you never forget who it was that you killed to make this possible!”
“I never will,” Azul promised, and flicked his finger, causing Rojo’s head to bend sharply to the side, snapping his neck and killing him instantly. He bowed his head for a moment, his grief overtaking him.
“I will never forget, brother.”
And without another word, he began to strip his brother’s clothes from his corpse. He had a lot of work to do, and he’d need the right clothes for the job…