The Red Hand

Placing himself between the five marines and Elna, Excelsior spoke in accented English. "Are there more of you coming?" He hoped they could understand him.

"Yes." the marine captain confirmed. "We were tasked with supporting the Japanese agent being sent to help, and I would assume that's you." he eyed up the heavily armored man.

"Good. Your small arms will be good for catching her off guard." He noticed that a few of the men had grenade launchers and he knew they would be quite useful. "I'll do my best to keep her off you, she's quick, and I'm not exactly built for speed." He let out a chuckle.

Excelsior channeled some power into his left hand and threw a ball of radiant energy at Elna, who swatted it away.

"Pathetic is that all you have!" She gave a punch and a kick, one sending fire and the other sending a wind blade. Seeing this, the marines ducked out of the way while Excelsior stood and took both, he was confident that Elna's elemental attacks wouldn't be very effective against him.

"I'll ask you the same thing!" he threw another blast at her, which she easily dodged.

{Come on, get frustrated and charge right at me. I know you hate these stupid games.} Excelsior was betting that Elna would move into close combat. He knew her personality, and she wasn't one to sit back and throw attacks at range. On top of that, he wanted to stay close to the marines. If Elna got on top of those men, they were dead.

"Hmpf." Elna laughed. "Alright, let's see you block this!" She swing her arms in a wavy motion as a jet of water came up from behind her and wrapped around her body. "I'm sure you know what high-pressure water does to metal!" She pushed her arm outward and the water stream carried straight toward Excelsior, it was too fast to dodge so he took it head-on.

"Augh!" he cried out in pain. His armor was quite strong, so he was surprised when Elna's attack managed to pierce through. Damage was minimal, but his chest piece had a small hole that was leaking blood.

Seeing that her attack had an effect, Elna charged forward kicking off the flight deck. She was going to try and end this as fast as possible and she charged up Ki in her fist. "Now you die!" she yelled as she punched Excelsior square in the chest, causing him to stumble backward. He was reeling from the wound caused by the water, and the unexpected pain made his concentration lapse.

{Shit!} He cursed in his mind.

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

Elna began landing blow after blow on his armor. The individual attacks were starting to hurt. Unlike when she fought Minazawa, Elna was wearing her monk equipment under her outerwear so her blows could pierce his defenses. However, in the heat of the moment, she'd forgotten about the marines, who opened fire on her back. Annoyed, she turned around and jumped towards the nearest one. This was what Excelsior was waiting for. Just as she reached the marine and swung her fist down, Excelsior activated his cleric ability and swapped places with the man, catching Elna off guard and punching her straight in the face with his gauntlet sending her flying across the deck.

"Thanks for the save," he said to the marines. "Stay close to me, my ability only has a short reach." The men nodded and moved in closer to him.

"Excelsior!" Elna stood up, furious. Her face was bleeding, and her cheek was swollen.

"Good, now you look just as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside." he chuckled.

"Fuck you!" She screamed as she dove toward him.

{Good, that's it get angry.} Elna fought worse when she was pissed, so Excelsior was trying to get under her skin. Once she got close enough, Excelsior swung his war hammer, which caused Elna to back off just out of range. This interaction continued for nearly a minute as Excelsior would stand just out of reach of Elna and keep her from getting close enough to punch him or the marines. "You bitch, stop trying to zone me!" Elna was furious at this stupid game.

"Well, hey, if you want to just take my hammer head on and go lights out, that would be cool with me." he shook his head, as he cast a healing spell on himself. "But, I can do this all day, Elna, and you know that." With his healing magic, it was unlikely that Elna could defeat him in a war of attrition. However, if she managed to get him another one of those combos from earlier, that would be the end of it.

The marines had spread out behind him, they were discussing just how to deal with Elna since their weapons weren't effective. Hearing this, Excelsior asked.

"You guys got flashbangs?" to which one of the men nodded.

"Good, get one of those ready. I'm resistant to that stuff, but she's not. If you can blind her, I can pummel her with my hammer."

"Done with your strategy meeting?" Elna screamed as she dove in once again, but before she could get close, she was stunned by an explosion. One of the marines had launched a grenade, and Excelsior took the opportunity to blast the stunned Elna with his radiant spell. The twin explosions rocked the carrier, and Elna was knocked to the ground. The grenade didn't do much damage, but Excelsior's spell burned her clothing and her face.

*Coff* *Coff*

"You bastard I'll-" She was stopped mid-sentence as Excelsior appeared right in front of her. Still stunned, she was only able to partially deflect the blow with her right hand, but the sheer force caused her wrist to break in the process.

"FUCK!" She screamed in pain.

"Now!" Excelsior screamed to the marines, who threw several flash bangs toward the injured elf. She was too busy screaming in pain to notice the flash bangs that landed at her feat, which exploded and blinded her.

"MY EYES. MY EYES!" She screamed as the flash bangs blinded her and caused massive pain. She would soon find herself in even more pain as Excelsior's full-force smash with his hammer collided with her side. The force broke several ribs, and she was sent flying to the edge of the carrier. Her broken arm hung off the side, it seemed that she was unconscious.

{It's over.} Excelsior walked over to his once-good friend and prepared to end her life right then and there. She was too dangerous to let live and they lacked the facility to safely restrain her. {I'm sorry Elna, please find it in your heart to forgive me for failing to help you when you needed it most.} He rose his hammer and swung it down aiming at her head, but just before he hit home, he was blasted in the side by a beam of energy. Not enough to hurt him, but it pushed around twenty feet back.

He quickly looked to see where the attack came from, only to be greeted by Herlex squatting down next to the unconscious Elna. "You really are an idiot aren't you?" He berated her. "I told you not to do anything stupid and here I find out that not only did you attack a U.S. military base, but now you just got your ass kicked by Excelsior." He was pissed. "If I didn't need you, I would let him kill you for your stupidity. But alas, you're too useful." He picked her up and slung her around his shoulder.

"Excelsior, it's been a while." Herlex looked at him.

"Where do you think you're going?" Excelsior threw a blast at him, which was countered by one of Herlex's own.

"I'm not here to fight you. This idiot is just too valuable to let her die. So how about we just both walk away, ok?" Herlex gave a wry smile.

"As if I would allow that!" he charged forward, but Herlex threw himself off the side of the carrier. Stunned, Excelsior quickly looked down only to see Herlex floating in mid-air and he rose back up above the carrier's flight deck and out of range of Excelsior's attacks.

"Did you forget I can fly?" Herlex laughed at him. "This idiot might have been stupid enough to let you get in close, but not me."

"Herlex, just what the hell do you think you're doing!" Excelsior screamed. "All these innocent people are dead because of you! Why! What purpose does it all serve?!?" He knew Herlex wasn't exactly the nicest person, but it baffled him that the young man would do such horrible things.

"Well, this attack wasn't our fault." He shrugged. "This idiot went off and did this all on her own."

"But you've still been killing people across the country! Armalthy killed twenty college students in Osaka!" Excelsior exclaimed. "So don't you try and talk your way out of that. And even if Elna did this without your say-so, you're still responsible since you put the idea of killing people into her and everyone else heads!" He wasn't having any of Herlex's bullshit. Superbia was put into a coma trying to protect those kids.

"Listen, I don't expect you to understand our motivations or reasons. Honestly, I don't either. All I know is that I want to cause chaos and destruction." His words stunned Excelsior. "This world sucks and we have the power to change it to our liking, so why shouldn't we? Why should we allow ourselves to be ruled by inferior people like those men behind you?" He was referring to the marines.

"I don't know how or why, but we were granted ultimate power in this powerless world. So forgive me if I don't see any merit in just going back to my old miserable life when I can just do whatever the hell I want." Herlex's face contorted as he recalled living with his parents.

"Anyway, I have to go tend to our wounded idiot. She's lucky I'm quite a good healer. She would definitely kill you if you left a permanent scar on her face. Bye-bye." Herlex snapped his fingers and teleported away.

Excelsior was left on the flight deck with the five marines, and the sight before their eyes was appalling. The entire dockyard was on fire, several boats had begun to sink, and the entire base was in chaos. It reminded Excelsior of the old film reels of Pearl Harbor that he'd seen in history class. One of the marines walked up next to him and said.

"Just one woman caused all this fucking destruction." he shook his head. "What the hell are we supposed to do against something like that."

"We're going to have to fight fire with fire." His stomach turned at the thought of requesting Akagi's help to deal with Libra.

{What the hell is going to happen to this world?} He stood silently, as he watched the fires rage around the base and wondered if the world could survive having people with this level of power in it.