The Grand Opening

The explosive shells echoed off the titanium tentacles. Fire and smoke engulfed the Coil as a sharp pain reverberated up his extended arm. The explosive shell that Elaine fired in desperation hit him square in the palm, the concussion of the tiny detonator cracking his wrist. Despite the pain that overwhelmed his arm, he grasped her throat, the anger in his heart numbing the pain in his wrist. His visual acuity had once again been scrambled by the most recent assault, and his HUD was telling him that the several other tentacles had sustained damage. Constantine still had plenty at his disposal, but the suit was getting more and more damaged as the fight wore on.

The girl dangled in front of him; held up by a swathe of tentacles and his own, black, armored gauntlet. "Laugh..." Constantine hissed, slowly, and jerkily leaning in closer to the helpless girl. Elaine denied him, giving a look that said she was desperate in her refusal to submit. A flash of fury washed over him. "LAUGH!" he demanded, tightening his grip on the girl's fragile neck.

A much stronger force grabbed, but strength did not mean everything. Elaine knew she could not withstand the strangulation from the man, and she saw an opening with his weakened hand. A little experience from a few fights let know if she tried to shadow jump it would only move her and the predicament in the same action. With that knowledge she knew she needed to leverage herself away from the situation. Basic self defense dictates that the defender always can break a grip if they focus on the pressure of the two fingers. In this case his attacking her neck with an injured hand gave her a little more in her favor.

Elaine shot her feet up to attack the hand. If she could weaken his grip she could pull her neck back just enough to get a breath of air. After she freed her neck, she would kick at his chest to gain movement, and the try something she never tried before. In previous fights she grabbed combatants and jumped with them in full charge to run into one another, but she never knew what would happen if she jumped someone into a wall.

Elaine looked at the hole in the ground in front of her, she planned on making her jump into the hole with Coil trailing behind. With any luck encompassing the same space would break his tentacles, but as her foot slipped she knew her luck faltered. Quickly she wrapped her legs around Constantine's arm in an attempt to grapple against his strength; she needed to place it so that by resisting he would harm his own arm with his own strength.

"Is this what you thought about doing in NASA?" Elaine fought against the restraints on her arms, hoping the restraints on his arm would hold him back. "Killing a 19 year old because she wouldn't let you murder people in a public place. You think you have strength in that suit, but its just a weakness." She started to laugh.

The girl grappled his arm with her legs. Elaine was determined to survive. Had all the people he killed held within them her tenacity? Had they all clung to life as she? Constantine's train of through was broken as the leverage on his left arm began to cause flares of agony to consume his body. Her taunts and accusations were the final straw as he reacted to the physical and emotional blow, releasing the girl's neck and tossing her through the window of the room, her body flying onto an out-of-service conveyor belt.

Creating a makeshift sling with his tentacles to brace his broken and battered arm, Constantine peered down at the girl. "I never asked for this. I play with the cards I've been dealt!" With the final word, he jumped down through the shattered window, tentacles prone to impale the girl.

Relief came over Elaine as air returned to her lungs. The mask hid the man's emotion, but his fury let Elaine know exactly what he desired. She flew through the air and crashed through the window that lead to the loading bay. The conveyor belt that she saw earlier gave her more comfort than the tentacles that previously held her up to the death grip that Coil tried to use to end her.

As she lay on the belt she reached down to reload her pistols. Flying really is faster than ground travel. She loaded four explosive rounds into her pistol before the mechanism stood over her. She knew firing at the tentacles would only delay the inevitable. She fired shot after shot in this battle, and they kept coming at her. Coil just needed to wait out Elaine's attacks and he would extract whatever revenge he wanted on the her.

She aimed the explosive rounds towards his head, firing all the rounds. He used some tentacles to sling his arm while the other came at her. With how he acted and responded he needed some form of air filtration system. Hopefully one of her rounds would damage that system so that it would cause him to lose oxygen or cause the dust in the warehouse to clog up his air system.

As the tentacles appeared to prepare to attack she prepared to shadow jump just below the tentacles to keep them from sticking her to the conveyor belt. She kept her left hand on the pistol in her holster and loaded a remote detonation round into the chamber, waiting for the perfect moment to strike with the bullet.

Constantine was getting sloppy in his anger. As he jumped down, he felt the storm of bullets rain upon his face like the first raindrops in an raging thunderstorm. He had been fortunate up to this point that his 3D mapping system hadn't sustained any permanent damage, but the constant, oppressive heat of the explosives that enveloped his face were too much for the optical systems to handle. The 3D mapping was getting more and more jagged and uneven. His HUD read that the mechanics were overheating and a system restart of the entire suit was required to prevent permanent damage to its operating systems.

The mechanical tendrils crashed down on top of the conveyor belt in an attempt to crush the bitch into a bloody, broken corpse. Sounds of metal clanging against metal rang through the warehouse as Elaine shadow jumped to the left of his assault. The bashing of the conveyor belt caused large chunks of machinery to fly across the room. A long steel shaft pierced an steel drum on the right wall of the room, causing putrid, brownish liquid to pour onto the floor. As Elaine reappeared to his right, she wasted no time in firing off her pistol. The bullet shot through the only gap in the wall of tentacles before it, screaming towards the opposite end of the room and hitting the wall of drums. With a thunderous boom, the bullet ignited the liquid that hid within the drums, causing a raging inferno to form.

Like a demon slowly crawling from the gates of hell, the flames licked and grew, slowly consuming the room. It wasn't until now that Constantine felt an odd taste in his mouth. The wretched taste of smoke and ash lined the inside of his mouth. His air filtration wasn't working which to him was a sign that systems in his suit were already beginning to shut down. The building began to crumble from age and flame, a mass of burning rubble cascading down on top of the Coil. He felt tons of burning steel and wood crash on top of him, burying him in its weight. Were he at full strength, he'd have had no problem bursting from this rubble, it would have been a minor inconvenience. But as the systems slowly shut down from overheating and electrical failures, so too did the strength of his tendrils diminish. The Coil's tentacles slowly wound their way back into their ports, a fail-safe action that signaled a system restart. "SHUTTING DOWN" flashed repeatedly on his HUD as he slipped into the darkness of unconsciousness. His last thoughts before he fell asleep were whether this would be his final moment.

Had beauty killed the beast?

Smoke clotted up the warehouse, giving her a signal that her time to leave crept nearer and nearer. During the initial attack she felt a weight come over her as the bullet flew past the coiling mess of a human. Now that she saw the after effect of her stray bullet her stimulus shifted priorities over the importance of dangers. While Elaine got to her feet and braced herself to survey the surroundings, Coil began experiencing mechanical failures that caused him to relapse and writhe in pain. Elaine bound forward seeing her opportunity.

She pulled out her lasso and threw it to grab the suited man as his tendrils pulled back into his suit. With flames rising and beams collapsing Elaine knew she needed to get as far away from this as possible. Formulating a way to get the man out of the warehouse while his suit malfunctioned, Elaine shadow jumped to the top of a beam that looked unaffected by flames and wrapped the lasso around the beam and tried to hoist the suit up to save Coil from the flames and smoke of the warehouse. Smoke rose faster than she could pull, tugging at her lips and drying her skin. Whatever damage her knee sustained would need to hold itself together as she needed her bandanna to kept he smoke out of her mouth.

Her strength tugged against the weight of the man. She could hardly pull him up quick enough to save him, but she gave it her most valiant effort. As she struggled against the pillar she could feel her lasso give way. Flames burned away the hemp in her lasso, leaving only the small strands of titanium she used to give the lasso strength. With her leg unable to assist her in lifting, Elaine knew that she could not pull the man up and hoist him over to the hole that he erupted from.

Once the fire spread too rapidly Elaine knew only once option remained. She would leave Coil behind and make her way to the tunnel system and return to the museum. She could not ascertain what would come from the warehouse explosion, but she knew that if she could not save Coil perhaps he could find some peace in the world here after. She jumped from the rafters extending her right leg to take the impact. As soon as she planted her leg she would shadow jump into the tunnel and leave this cursed place.

Constantine looked down at his hands, the pale white flesh an alien sight for him to behold. He touched his face. The sensation of finally being able to touch the warmth of his skin was almost euphoric. He lay on the warm sands of the beach. The sun kissed his skin, invigorating his body as the steady pulse of the tide soaked the bottoms of his feet. Constantine had never felt so good in his life. He felt calm. He felt serene. He felt human. All the anger he felt, all the rage, all the sorrow; it didn't matter any more. It was over. None of it mattered any more. He closed his eyes at that thought, finally at peace.

Constantine slowly opened his eyes to find nothing but darkness. His body ached and groaned with the subtle twitching of someone who had just awoken from a long sleep. He could hear the light patter of rain all around him, and the frequent sound of shifting rubble. Had it all been a dream? No. A nightmare. It mocked him the same way his very existence mocked him. His anger began to grow. All the pain, all the sorrow, none of them could boast that they were more influential on his spirit at this time than his anger. The 3D mapping slowly came online revealing red-tinted light once more. His filtration system reactivated, letting him breathe clean air once more. With all the strength he had left in his battered body, aided only by the mechanics in his suit, he punched up through the rubble, revealing a paint-chipped, black, metallic and that clenched into a tight fist.

There would never be peace.