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| - James puts on his Emerald Man mask. He leaps out of the bushes and onto the road, where Termite is dragging Emerald to the police station. Emerald Man produces a crystal shard out of his arm and throws it at Termite. Termite catches it. Termite: What is this? Termite looks at Stephanie. She’s out cold. He looks to his left and sees a cloaked man running toward him with a fist. KNACK! Emerald Man hit Termite square in the jaw. The imprint of his fist remains on the jaw as it smashed the metal. Termite’s legs buckle and he falls to the ground, dumbfounded. He looks up and sees the muscular figure, chest in the air. Termite: A-a… Emerald Man? Emerald Man: The one and only, you son of a gun. He lifts Termite by the neck, using his left arm. With his right he punches Termite again. He lets go of Termite, dropping him to the ground. Termite is almost like a rag doll when he drops. He’s in a state of shock from the blows. Emerald Man walks over to Stephanie, as wounded as she is. Termite acts quick and fires a laser to block Emerald Man’s path. Emerald Man notices the heat. Emerald Man: That’ll burn my skin. I must be careful with this man. He’s determined. Too determined. Termite fires another beam at Emerald Man. He dodges, but his cape ignites on fire. Quickly, Emerald Man unbuttons the broach and leaves the cape off. This reveals the rest of his costume. It’s nearly a carbon copy of his sister’s. Termite: Where… Where did you get that? Emerald Man ignores Termite’s question and hops over to Termite grab hold of him. He grabs Termite’s arm. Termite activates a hidden compartment in the gauntlets, and sprays acid. Emerald Man cries in terror and crystallizes before it touches skin. It ate through his clothes. Termite punches Emerald Man at the nose. James falls back, and stays on the ground. James sees a car wreck flash through his head. He feels the impact of the river through that punch Termite gave him. James sees the brightness of his ring from years ago back again. At an impulse he tries to grab the air, but realizes nobody is there. James blinks and sees Termite standing over him. Termite kicks him in the jaw. Emerald Man falls back again. It was years ago when James was riding in a lone car with his father, Harold Barmms. Harold had given James a special ring. James: What’s that in the road? A person in a cloak is holding a gun. It wears red-tinted, triangular glasses. It fires, and the bullet goes through the front window of the car and straight into Harold Barmms’s forehead. The car steers to the side. It falls off the bridge into water. James, out of fear, grabs his father. The car goes into a river. Once the water fills up in the car, James kicks the door open and tries to swim. He’s too heavy for some reason. The ring is glowing. Termite grabs hold of Stephanie and begins to walk away again. However, as he walks near Emerald Man, a green glove grabs hold of Termite’s leg. Termite looks down out of fear. Emerald Man yanks it, and Termite falls over. Stephanie is right on him as he is on the ground. Emerald Man removes Stephanie. Grabbing hold of her arms, he remembers a white-haired man on a shore, in which he did the same thing. On that beach years ago, James managed to get to the shore. He doesn’t remember how. He lays his father on the beach. His eyes are closed. Blood still gushes from his head. James already knows. The man is dead. James winced his eyes and begins to cry. The memory of the person flashes back to him. Red, angular glasses. James blinks again. Termite is already up. James leaps up and gets into a proper boxing stance. Emerald Man: What do you want with her? Termite fires his laser at Emerald Man, who jumps out of the way. Termite: She’s a criminal, fool. She embarrassed me and let all those men and women two days ago get killed by that biological terrorist. How could you even consider that being worthy of saving? Emerald Man: You can’t hide everything behind a mask, Dwarn. I know you were there. You… Your suit malfunctioned. She was just trying to keep away further disaster! Termite gets angered by this and leaps forward, tackling Emerald Man. OOF! Emerald Man wraps his arm around Termite’s neck. He starts the choke-hold Termite. Termite (between breathes): You… You sound familiar. Your athletic stance, your voice, your stature. I know you. Emerald Man: Don’t let that prideful statement go to your head. Termite, with the strength of his suit, removes Emerald Man’s arms of his metallic suit and grabs them. He throws Emerald Man over himself and, like a fly-swatter, swats him to the ground. Emerald Man’s arm begin to shake. The adrenaline flows in him. Before Emerald Man can get back up, Termite rests his leg on Emerald Man. Termite: I’ve had enough of this. Stay down. Emerald Man grabs Termite’s leg and flings Termite forward from him. The metallic creature falls into the bushes. A weak Stephanie gets up from the ground. She crawls toward James. Around James is the beads to her necklace and the crystal which is the center of it all. She takes some extra string she had in her suit’s pockets, and starts to reassemble the necklace. Termite sees what she is doing. Termite: No! He blasts at Stephanie, but someone blocks the blast. AUGH! Emerald Man falls to the ground. His chest is on fire. His body is shaking. James is starting to bleed as the crystal around his body is receding. Termite gets back up to finish Emerald Man and Stephanie. However, Stephanie finishes tying up the necklace. She puts it around her arm to get some of the power. Termite is about to blast at her. She creates a shard and throws it at Termite’s antennae. It cuts one of the in half, disabling it. Stephanie puts the necklace around her neck. A bright light emerges from her eyes. Her mouth is wide open as she re-surges with power. Emerald is back. Termite sees the angered Emerald. Parts of his suit is destroyed. Termite runs from the scene. James watches the Termite run. He breathes a sigh of relief, and groans in pain. He sees his sister coming over to him. Stephanie: Ja- er… Yes. James. Are you alright? Emerald Man: I’m bleeding from my chest. The ring… It doesn’t have power over healing like yours does. Only immunity. Please. Take your necklace. Put it on the ring. Stephanie does just that. It starts to heal Emerald Man. Emerald Man sighs in relief. He gets up and looks around. No Termite. Emerald Man: I’ll need to go after him. Stephanie puts her hand on his chest. Stephanie: No. I will do it. I must reap what I sown, James. Emerald Man: He’s deranged, Stephanie. I don’t want you getting hurt! Stephanie: I won’t. You’ve given him a good beating. Now your little sister wants to finish him off like a big girl. James grins under his mask. Stephanie cracks her knuckles. Stephanie: Oh, and one more thing. May I use that mask? James takes it off and gives it to Stephanie. She thanks him and runs off. James, meanwhile, gets up and flees the scene. ~~ Termite hides in the woods for a moment, near the Willamette River. There he takes a few quick breaths, after removing his helmet. He shakes his head a bit, and starts to think more clearly. He looks around. He breathes heavily. Suddenly, something crawls out of the trees. Dwarn turns around, pointing his wrist at the creature. He is full of fear when he sees a hooded creature, dressed in scarlet. Dwarn: W-who are you? You’re not another one of those super-humans, are you? I’m tired of your kind. You’re unrestrained, uncontrolled. I have to keep you in check. The creature muses. ???: The only one keeping them in check will be me, Termite. Dwarn’s eyes widen. Dwarn: What? Why did you refer to me like that? ???: I constantly watch you. Dwarn: What? ???: You may think you’re in a small world, Seth, but you’re not. None of your secrets are yours. None of your friends are yours. None of what you own, not even that suit, is yours. It all belongs to me. I am the all-seeing eye. Dwarn presses a button on his gauntlet. He positions it toward the hooded figure. ???: Your weapons won’t hurt me. At least, in the long run. Oh you fool, if you harmed me, I can and will ruin your life forever. Even after you die, your pathetic existence would be remembered the worst way I could ever fathom. I have every power to do so. Dwarn: Just shut up! Tell me what’s going on? ???: Fine. Maybe I can get some sense into you. Dwarn: Please do. I just escaped an attack from James Barmms. I was going to turn in Emerald, but I had to retreat because I was badly beaten. Dwarn sits on a log and rubs his face. Dwarn: Oh, what a mess I’ve gotten myself into. I haven’t been thinking the last few hours. ???: Don’t waste your time telling me what I know. Dwarn: Then tell me what to do. I’m distressed. ???: Well, to put it harshly, you’re a disgusting coward only bent on self-accomplishment and pride, and now you want to turn in some woman who could easily speak out against you. So basically, you lose. From all positions. Check mate. Dwarn: Then… What do I do? Turn myself in? ???: No you fool. She hunches over and steps carefully to him. She approaches his face and whispers in a song-like fashion. ???: I can give you legal immunity… If you do me one favor. A blue essence comes into Dwarn’s face. He seems emotionless. Dwarn: I’m listening. ???: Finish the job, and bring her to me. Then all of this will go away, forever. Imagine that. You can get Emerald out of your life, and you can get this incident out of your life. You can go back to your family and job. All you have to do is capture Emerald. Dwarn: That sounds simple. The creature muses, almost in a seductive manner. Her yellow eyes stare at Dwarn, lighting up her whole face and revealing blue skin and a beautiful face, speckled with patterns. ???: Yes, it’s stupidly simple. Dwarn places the helmet on his head. The creature smiles. Termite leaves the scene, devoted to capturing Emerald. ???: I’ll be waiting for you here, Termite. ~~ Emerald is side-tracked when she is attacked my Termite from behind. She falls onto her belly with Termite on top of her, grasping her head. Termite: We’re not done yet. He slams her head into the concrete. However, after he does this 5 times, Emerald manages to grab his other arm, and uses her strength to make him fall on his side. She rolls out of the way with incredible speed. Emerald runs down 12th street. Termite jumps after her, but she narrowly dodges his landing. She runs into a building being constructed. Termite follows her, running through cars making their way through Salem. Termite throws a barrel at the scene and hits Emerald in the back. She’s knocked onto the floor. Termite pulls out a sign from the ground to hit her with. As he leaps into the air with the concrete on a pole, she jumps out of the way. She produces crystal shards and throws them at the sign, breaking the metal. Termite blasts at her with his laser beams. She dodges. Emerald: I can’t keep playing on the defensive! I must find a strategy to beat him again. Something that won’t harm the man. Outside of the construction site, a man in a crashed car calls the police, reporting a sighting of Emerald and that something wrecked his car. Emerald jumps behind a beam, but Termite grabs it and breaks it into two. He smiles at the sharp end. He tries to ram it into Emerald, but she leaps onto the beam and knocks it out of Termite’s hands. Emerald: How did you even find me anyways? Termite: Hah! Do you not remember? You still have a tracker on your suit from Johnson. Emerald’s eyes widen at this information. Emerald: Completely forgot about that! She picks up the beam before Termite gives her another blast. The blast hits as lightning strikes. The sparks on the beam set a fire on nearby wood. Emerald looks around at the fire. But before she tries to put it out, Termite punches her square in the jaw. Emerald falls back and through the floor. Emerald coughs from the dust. Termite jumps down to try and crush her. Emerald takes a bit of the dust and throws it at the Termite’s helmet. Termite gets blinded momentarily as Emerald crawls away. She sees a bag full of sand. Emerald: Here goes nothing. She throws the sand at Termite. It gets stuck in his costume. He tries to see but more dust and sand comes into his eyes. Termite: I won’t go down THAT easily! He randomly fires a laser. It hits the ceiling. Acting pure on adrenaline, Emerald lunges into Termite as the ceiling falls down. Termite’s mask pops off of his head. Dwarn and Emerald both fall on the ground. Dwarn coughs from the dust. Dwarn: Ergh… Why won’t you just… Go out cold? He sprays acid at Emerald. It touches Emerald’s costume and she quickly tries to wipe it off. It burns her and she winces in pain. Then she kicks Dwarn in the chin as a reaction. Lightning strikes again. Emerald produces a crystal blade and uses it to swipe the fire away. Dwarn gets back up. He picks up an iron bar nearby. He holds it up against Emeralds’s blade that strikes against the iron bar. Lest to Emerald’s knowledge, he hit it at a certain angle, making the blade shatter into a million pieces. Dwarn smiles. He hits Emerald across the face, successfully knocking her to the ground. Dwarn picks up his helmet. But before he can place it on his head, Emerald flings a crystal at the helmet. It goes strait through it, breaking the machinery. Dwarn throws the helmet to the ground, and clenches his hands out of anger. Emerald gets back up, shivering from the constant thrashing. Dwarn is tired too. Dwarn: I can’t… Finish the job. I’m a failure. Emerald punches Dwarn, and the world goes dark. Termite had been defeated. Emerald looks outside of the construction site. Police cars are lined up in the street, waiting to arrest someone. Emerald looks back at Dwarn. Emerald: Someone has to be arrested for this mess. The guy who caused all this harm is Dwarn. Emerald runs from the scene. Meanwhile, police men go into the construction site carefully and arrest Dwarn, and confiscate his armor. It is over. For now, anyways.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)