Gone in a Flash

Belle moves toward the wounded, to see if she can help them. She immediately recognizes Richter as terminally burned, but Sonny-boy's leg wound is bleeding badly. (He hasn't noticed). Michael is also trying to help, but he hasn't written Richter off as a lost cause yet. Richter is clutching the severed leg in both badly burned hands, and won't let go.

Belle kneels to apply a tourniquet. She also begins summoning rain to put out the fire. Getting clouds to rain is not an instant action, especially with the updraft from the burning airship.

Voinovich runs through the flames unharmed. Steam bursts from his footsteps as he freezes the burning brush. He slips on the ash, scrambles on all fours, and makes it to the other side.

Then a bullet hits Michael's gun. Fortunately, no one ever aims a Thompson like a rifle; they sweep them from the hip. The bullet rings off the weapon's receiver and flicks past his eyes, less than an inch away. He feels like he's been punched hard in the gut, but doesn't lose his wind.

Voinovich makes fists of absolute zero and swings them through the air. They leave tracks of ice in their wake. Quickly he builds up a wall of ice thirty-three inches thick between Christine, Belle, Sonny-boy and Michael and the shooters on the cliff.

A bullet hits the ice and stops. Another hits it and cracks the ice. A dozen more hit it and splinter the surface.

Voinovich keeps freezing more onto the back while the gunners chip away the front …

… and a one-legged man covered in tattoos Travels in, grabs Richter around the belt, and disappears.

+++

Kaze replies to Rock:

"I might be willing to do that, but these Westerners have honor..."

Out of her peripheral vision she can see several preparing attacks.

"And it seems they do not run." A ghost of a smile.

She attacks Yurasu with karate, fading in and out as she does so, like the shutter on a moving picture.

Yurasu lands a killing blow on Kaze’s neck, but it goes through her. Kaze counters with a spear-hand punch to the kidney, which doubles Yurasu up in pain.

The Heavy gestures at Kaze, applying his power and waiting for her to solidify again. However…

Sky asks Belle if she can pick up his coat (where his two pistols are) with an updraft and blow it over to him. Belle, however, is dealing with the wounded, and does not hear him. All right, time for Plan B ...

Sky peers carefully through the flames. As the Heavy turns his back to Sky to confront Kaze, he takes a switchblade knife in either hand, kissing his St. Cajetan medal (he is not Catholic, but why take chances?) says his Viddui prayer (the traditional prayer before death), using as much stealth as he has and all his brawling experience ...

.... and leaps across the fire onto the back of the Heavy, and tries to leave one knife in the Heavy's liver, the other in his trachea. He holds the blade and strikes just like Pappy Masterson taught him.

The Heavy is focused on Kaze and really didn’t expect anyone to leap through the flames. Sky Masterson, his hat, shirt and trousers on fire, stabs the Heavy in the neck and chest.

The Heavy cries out. Everything near him loses all weight. Sky hangs four feet off the ground, burning, unable to reach the dirt. The Heavy hangs in his grip, slowly relaxing his arms, then drops. Sky drops too.

Rock goes for Kaze. Janet passes a Faded hand through his head, leaving some rocks and sticks behind. Rock spasms and collapses, repeatedly kicking the ground. Janet doesn’t manage to get Yurasu the Brute, because she is already on the ground, out of the fight.

The Torch sets her on fire, as everyone expected him to. Janet grits her teeth and shoots the Torch, dropping him to one knee. She could Fade, and perhaps the fire would go out, but then the Torch could just kill Sky with a gesture. So she shoots him again, and watches him fall, before Fading out.

Turns out, Fading does indeed put out fires! So Janet is merely hurt bad, rather than dying.

The flames on Sky's clothes expire in a hiss of steam. Voinovich limps to a halt. He's run from the fire to the other fire, picking up a leg wound from the gunners on the cliff, and put out Sky's flames. He touches his bloody pant leg and freezes the wound shut.

The blue Mover is the last Iron Guard on his feet. He snatches his hand backwards, yanking Yurasu and Rock to the top of the cliff along with him. The Torch, he leaves; he’s seen dead men before.

For a moment, all is still save the crackling of the flames.

Then a blue flash and a thundering CRACK echo from the top of the cliff! Blasted splinters shower down. An effect like a Boomer, but much louder, has blown up all the soldiers and Iron Guardsmen.

When the Grimnoir reach the top to investigate, there are unidentifiable bodies scattered here and there, but wearing canvas and leather only. No silk, no brocade, and no trace of the Iron Guard …

Except at the point to which all the fallen trees point, the center of the Boomer blast. There in the ashy earth are three sets of footprints, one quite large, and two silhouettes of people curled on their sides, one small, one tall.