Chapter 44: Chapter: 44

Chapter: 44

I took the moment of reprieve from the Winter Soldiers' failed sneak attack to go after two more soldiers. Iron Man was in a fierce one-on-one against Aldrich, but these guys kept trying to interfere by constantly hurling fireballs at him. They didn't seem to be doing much damage to his armor, but the metal was starting to give off a worryingly hot glow. I didn't know what the melting point of his armor was, but I didn't want them reaching it while he was inside.

I flapped my wings hard and rapidly dove down towards the two soldiers. Their situational awareness was pretty good because they both ducked out of the way before I stabbed them from behind. One of them rapidly snapped their arm forward and made a grab for my Lightspear. I could have pulled it away in time, but I wanted to see what he was planning. He wrapped his hand around it and yanked hard, 'dislodging' it from my grip.

"Fuck yeah, Mark! Stab this winged freak with her own weapon!" The other soldier cheered as 'Mark' went to do just that. He had a smirk on his face as he ran forward while yelling triumphantly. He aimed my own Lightspear right at my torso and lunged forward for a stab. The instant before it reached me, I willed the spear in his hand to vanish. Not expecting that to happen, he stumbled forward now weaponless and I fatally impaled him.

"Mark! You bitch, you killed him! How dare you. He was my brother!" The other soldier seemed to lose all reason as he blindly charged forward next. With a shrug, I threw my spear right at him and put him down as well. His momentum was carrying him too fast to dodge out of the way. Did I just wipe out a family? I honestly felt bad about that… except they were fighting for evil, so not really. Upon seeing even more of their brethren slain, the remaining soldiers turned and started to flee.2

"Cowards!" Aldrich yelled out. Now he was truly facing Iron Man one-on-one, and the burning man wasn't looking so hot anymore…

[That joke was cringe, Host. Also, your opponent is back for another round.]1

I heard shuffling of rubble as the Winter Soldier emerged from the debris. With a grunt, he started charging me next, far faster than the other soldiers could. I hurled another light spear at him, hoping the same strategy would work. With some crazy athleticism, the Winter Soldier contorted his torso to dodge the weapon, all while barely losing any momentum.

"I guess we're doing this the hard way," I muttered as I formed a small Lightspear in each hand. If anything, they were closer to Light daggers. The Winter Soldier swung back his right arm and threw a powerful punch at my torso. I decided to take the hit as I simultaneously thrust both my weapons forward.

[-50HP]

I grunted in pain as we simultaneously struck each other. I definitely came out ahead of the exchange. Both my daggers were buried in each of his shoulders. Taking a hit to deliver your own is a bullshit strategy only a Gamer could pull off.1

[Or literally anyone else with regeneration powers…]5

I ignored the system trying to rain on my parade as I conjured two more daggers and leapt forward to try and take this guy down. His shoulder was currently healing, so he couldn't use his arm to defend. He lashed out with a lightning-fast kick. I threw one of my blades in its path, thinking he would pull back to not get impaled again. He did not.

[-100HP]

"Argh." "Ughh"

My dagger simultaneously burrowed into his leg as his kick broke my wrist and arm – well, it would have if I didn't have a gamer's body. Instead, all I lost was HP I could afford to spare. If there was one stat I wasn't lacking, it was Vigor. The next few moments got pretty crazy. Neither of us could back down as we engaged each other in a close-quarters death match. He was delivering powerful body blows against me with fists and feet while I was continuously stabbing him. From an outside perspective, this must have looked like a pointless bout of two immortals going at it.

"C'mon, just run out of energy already and go down!" I yelled at him in irritation as I slammed another dagger into his sternum. In return, he cracked me over the head with a punch that had me seeing stars for a second.

[-50HP! Warning! HP at 1000/3100]

That notification made me a bit nervous, but finally, to my pleasant surprise, he let out a cough of pain. His burning orange skin receded, and he coughed out blood from his mouth. He stumbled forward for a moment and tried to make a final grab at me. I punched him right in the face with my full strength, and he collapsed backward to the floor. I beat him! Now I had to figure out what to actually do with him…1

"Hey, good work there, Layla. I filmed that whole fight, and it was awesome. It's probably gonna rack up a ton of views on YouTube. The whole world always thought the Winter Soldier was a myth. Now they'll know he was actually real and was finally taken down," Iron Man said as he walked up to me. His fight had ended before mine did, and instead of stepping in to help, he sat back and watched… I gave him a mild glare that expressed my feelings about that.

"Woah, you looked like you had him handled. Besides, if you really wanted me to step in, you would have called out for help… which you didn't," he said to me. I supposed he was right. Getting into a slug match like that was surprisingly fun.

"He's famous?" I asked. I didn't think a lot of people knew about him.

"Oh yeah, a whole bunch of conspiracy theorists think he's the boogeyman of the world. And I guess they're right?" He said questioningly. "They believe a whole bunch of the world's craziest assassinations were pulled off by this guy. They always claim he was the one who really killed Kennedy." He said with a laugh.

"...Huh… You know, he probably did."2

XXX