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Author's Chapter Notes:
upward battle
Even as he turned, mind reeling, trying to figure out how they could reach him up here, already aware that he had nowhere to hide from the snipers, and couldn’t possibly outrun the shrapnel from the explosion, Justin accidentally pulled the trigger, firing at the floor.

At the same time, a power pistol went spinning across the floor, hitting the grenade and knocking it down the stairs next to the pillar.

Both the grenade, and Justin’s smoke bolt, went off at the same time, resulting in a massive cloud of smokescreen, sending the power pistol clacking and clattering down the steps to the enemy.

For all the good it would do them now.

Justin crawled through the smoke and confusion, coughing and sputtering, a barrage of beams from both adversaries lancing haphazardly overhead, as a hand grabbed him and dragged him off to the side. Not sure what kind of trick this was, Justin lunged at his assailant, knocking them both to the floor in a narrow corridor, face to face.

“Shades?” Justin blinked as the smokescreen dissipated.

“You’re welcome,” Shades grunted as Justin rolled off of him, and they both struggled to their feet.

Finally taking note of his surroundings, Justin asked, “Um, what the hell is this place?”

“It was here all along, but you were probably too busy being shot at to notice,” Shades explained as he led them deeper inside. “They appear to connect to doorways all over the tower, and I fear some of the bad guys may have already found them. I was just about to cover you so you could duck in here, but then someone tossed a grenade…”

On the other side of the structure, Maximilian didn’t even see the blow coming as Freedan smacked him upside the head with a clean swing of his cane, that heavy silver knob hitting him hard enough to make him lose his grip on his power pistol as he stumbled back.

“You son of a bitch!” Freedan swung again. “There’s no way in hell I’ll let a pampered brat like you stand between me and my return to New Cali!”

He swung again, but Maximilian regained his initiative, blocking Freedan’s cane with his still-sheathed sword. Freedan felt himself slam hard into his large opponent, feeling him move backward a step. Then, with a short blast of wind, got sheath-butted back against the wall behind him.

Freedan staggered to his feet, already wondering what possessed him to attack like this when he could just as easily shoot him when he had the element of surprise.

Before either of them could draw their blade, though, Maximilian was tackled by one of Rawne’s men, the two of them struggling across the floor in an attempt to take control of the situation.

“Good work!” Freedan cackled, drawing his power pistol, watching the Young Master’s struggle with unabashed amusement. “Hold him down so I can finish him off!”

But before he could do any such thing, Shades stepped out of the same doorway he just used and kicked him upside the head, causing him to fumble his gun. Justin stepped out behind him, drawing a bead on Maximilian’s stubborn opponent and blasting him off of him.

“Thanks!” Maximilian muttered, yanking his hard-won weapon back.

“No problem!” Shades replied.

Even as Justin turned to warn him, Freedan unsheathed his cane sword, charging and thrusting at Shades with a look of barely contained fury. Shades, seeing him out of the corner of his eye, side-stepped and tripped him.

“Wait!” Maximilian called out as Justin took aim, drawing his own sword. “This is my fight.”

“You sure?” Justin cocked his head. Seeing a fierce look in his eyes that was hauntingly similar to their own Max, he shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Suit yourself.”

“Then let’s go,” Shades suggested. “I haven’t seen Rawne since the battle started, and I have a bad feeling about Max.”

Seeing several enemies converging on Max’s position, as he was— sure enough— preoccupied fighting Rawne, they turned to help him, leaving the Young Master to contend with Freedan. With their defenses disrupted to deal with these surprise attacks, the others were free to ascend and bring on their attacks fresh. All chance of mounting another defense lost, it would be all they could do to watch each other’s backs, and take it as it comes.

“You made a big mistake…” Freedan sneered as the two of them squared off. “Without your friends to help you, there’s no one left to stop me this time!”

“We’ll see about that,” Maximilian answered darkly. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

In the meantime, Aden Rawne emerged from a door higher up the tower’s immense structure, finding himself in an ideal position to target that pesky kid with the crossbow, who appeared to be the group’s sniper.

Seeing his own men at a stalemate, he took out a grenade. The one weapon he held back during his run-in with the underdwellers, the risk of burying himself under tons of rubble a last-resort alternative to being eaten alive, if it came to that. Fortunately, it hadn’t, so now he tossed it down at Justin’s feet, catching him completely off-guard.

Then something happened, and there was a big cloud of smokescreen. Not wanting to let him get away now that he had the advantage, he unslung his power rifle. Watching the smoke carefully, to see which way he might go—

Back turned as Max ascended from the shadows, his teal energy blade slashing through the darkness, taking Rawne by surprise.

Rawne barely dodged, Max’s attack cleaving his rifle in half. He threw what was left of his weapon in Max’s face, buying himself enough time to draw a laser sword to counter.

“I owe you from back at the mansion,” Rawne told him, a tight smile on his face. “You’ve humiliated me for the last time, kid.”

“And you’ve hurt my friends for the last time,” Max responded, both his face and tone dead serious. “You also have something that doesn’t belong to you.”

“Kid, possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Reaching inside his tattered duster with his off-hand, he produced a knife. Wishing all the while those underdwellers hadn’t wasted all of his flash grenades. “Now that I’ve seen your swordsmanship first-hand, don’t expect me to play nice.”

“The weapon doesn’t make the warrior.” Max shifted his stance, having neither an off-hand weapon, nor any good tactics for one. “As long as you can’t use both hands equally like Erix, then I’ve faced worse.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Rawne warned him, starting to sweat in spite of himself after the mention of that name. First Ma’Quiver, then the dreaded outlaw Erix… “Bluffing will get you nowhere with me, kid. Aside from that crazy bitch, no one fights him and lives.”

“Then see if I am,” Max challenged.

That finally provoked Rawne to take the offensive.

As the two of them dueled their way across one of the larger platforms, Max quickly picked up on the method to Rawne’s madness. Having no other choice, he constantly countered Max’s energy blade with his own, at the same time angling to stab or slash at him with the knife while Max’s lone weapon was occupied. Most likely based on some dual-knife style, judging from how readily he adapted it, but at least it betrayed no hint of Erix’s natural ambidexterity.

Dangerous enough, though, given that he shared Shades’ close-range knack for stepping inside his zone.

The main thing Max had going for him was that the very nature of their weapons forced a measure of predictability on his opponent’s tactics, and he was starting to see the kinds of opening Ma’Quiver always warned him about. Still he held his ground, not wanting for fall for the sort of feint he could easily picture Erix offering him.

Just when it looked like he might have a feint or two of his own to try out, he spotted a movement out of the corner of his eye, seeing that another of Rawne’s men had made it up to this level in the absence of resistance.

Taking advantage of Max’s moment of distraction, Rawne moved in for the kill. Trapped between a rock and hard place, Max decided to deal with the greater threat first. Borrowing a page from Erix’s playbook, he maneuvered around Rawne, placing him between himself and these fresh enemies, silently hoping these guys weren’t keen on friendly fire, at least against their own boss. Parrying Rawne’s attack at an angle that blunted his knife thrust, and taking a page from Ma’Quiver’s playbook, Max brought up his back leg and kicked Rawne, staggering him, but also getting his leg slashed for his trouble.

He then followed up with a move he had practiced countless times with Ma’Quiver, flipping his laser sword out of Rawne’s hand smoothly enough to do even his childhood friend Cleo proud.

As the neon green energy blade winked out in mid air, Max followed it with his eyes as he dove after it, catching it just before it could roll off the platform.

Only to find himself staring up at the other mercenary pointing a power pistol down at him, too late to deal with both threats.

Before the man could do anything, though, he was kicked square in the ass by Justin, who had somehow gotten behind him.

Not only had this guy made it up here, but the remaining half-dozen or so of Freedan’s henchmen had regrouped, making their way up to the next level down just in time to get bowled over by that man as he rolled down the stairs, the whole thing snowballing into an avalanche of flailing forms.

“That’s what you get for messin’ with Justin Black!” he crowed triumphantly.

“Justin… Black?” Rawne gasped, blinking at him as if seeing him in a totally different light.

“Thanks,” Max told his friend as he rose to his feet, relieved that the wound on his right leg only stung, but didn’t seem to hinder his movements.

“Look out!”

Shades’ warning already coming too late, as Rawne flung his knife at Max.

Barely spotting the movement, Max tried to dodge. Though he managed to turn enough to avoid being hit in the chest, the blade still buried itself partway in his left arm, near his shoulder. Seeing that his attack failed to kill Max, Rawne scrambled over the edge of the platform, apparently retreating through one of the doors.

“You alright, Max?” Shades gasped.

“I think I’ll live,” Max remarked, carefully removing the blade, but still visibly wincing.

“Stay there!” Justin told him as he and Shades hit the stairs, overrunning the mercs at the bottom, leaping into their midst with energy blades flying before they could get their act together.

While Shades bandaged Max’s wounds, and Justin covered them in case there were any more hostiles still afoot out there, Rawne decided to go see what was up at the top of this thing, hoping to find a suitable place to spring a better ambush.

What he found on the way up there would prove far more interesting.

His employer, meanwhile, continued to push Maximilian around, keeping him constantly on the defensive.

“You’re really starting to piss me off!” Freedan told him, pressing the attack.

“That’s my line!” Maximilian shot back. “I won’t let you get away with what you did to my father!”

“Ha! Your father did that to himself,” Freedan countered. “Still, he did save me the trouble. I’ll show Rawne by dealing with you myself. And then I’ll take Edric’s journal, and the treasure will be mine!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Maximilian demanded. “It was you who looted it off my father’s corpse!”

“Don’t lie to me, boy,” Freedan snarled. “I’ll loot it off of your corpse!”

Though Freedan might have superior fencing skills, it was quickly becoming apparent that he was not conditioned for prolonged combat, and even Maximilian could see his form starting to suffer as much as his stamina.

In spite of this, though, he found it hard to think about killing him, even as he kept his father’s mangled remains furiously fixed in his mind, while facing down a psychotic side he never dreamed anyone as composed and modulated as Freedan even possessed.

And that was when Freedan tried it. The same disarm he had used back at the manor. But this time Maximilian was ready for it, parrying and pushing him back, Freedan staggering under the onslaught.

“Ha! I don’t fall for the same trick twice!”

Deciding it was now or never, Maximilian put all his force into one mighty slash.

And Freedan dodged, tripping him up, his elbows hitting the floor hard enough to break his grip.

“I’m no one-trick pony, boy!” Freedan informed him, looming over the Young Master. Grinning with triumphant satisfaction: “I made this company! I deserve more.”

Seeing his only chance, Maximilian kicked upward, nailing Freedan’s wrist, sending his cane sword sailing through the air and clattering down the steps— chipped, cracked, finally shattered against the indestructible stonework as it hit the bottom.

As Freedan gaped, Maximilian rolled out from under him to reclaim his own weapon.

He turned to find the Young Master’s blade pointed right at him.

“This is all your fault…” Maximilian hissed, his chipped, but still deadly, blade quivering in his hands. “My father is dead because of you…”

He took a tentative step forward, and Freedan took a shaky step back.

“Then do it,” Freedan goaded him. “You can’t, can you? You’re still just a pampered little shit who can’t do anything for himself! You can’t get what you want in this world without getting your hands dirty. You’re a bigger fool than your father!”

“You murdering bastard!”

At his next faltering step forward, Freedan didn’t even bother backing up.

It was right about then that he noticed that Freedan was paying more attention to something behind him.

Maximilian barely dodged the scarcely-visible blade that slashed past his arm, slicing his own sword clean through. As he staggered back, he realized, too late, that Freedan was just stalling for time.

“You were a pain in the ass this whole time, always having to keep dragging you back alive,” Rawne told him with a wolfish grin. “Now I have different orders. You’re going to disappear in this place, never to be seen again. Another mystery of the Lower Ruins, just like your old man.”