Anthem's Fall

Chapter Seventy Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Gravitas

It was the mingled sounds of fever pitched shouts rising from the barge below him that snapped Gravitas out of his incapacitated condition. His mind came to attention, and his body steadied itself from freefall just before he crashed straight through the barge's rusty deck. The entire bay spun round and round in his vision. The dreary water and the bright blue sky were barely distinguishable from one another. His eyes seemed unable to focus on anything. At once, the spires of Manhattan, the wharfs of Brooklyn, and the shores of New Jersey swirled and revolved.

In his daze he squinted at three blurry Statues of Liberty standing side by side across the bay, all three raising a green copper torch into the Atlantic sky.

Gravitas could feel warm blood running down his head from above his right temple. He moved his jaw back and forth and blinked the stars out of his vision as he cursed his recklessness. The fight had just begun, and he was already concussed. He trained his gaze on the unsteady horizon and tried to focus on ridding the growing daze in his consciousness. Wind touched a clammy sweat on his cheeks and brow, and he forcefully quelled the rising queasiness in his gut and turned to search for Vengelis Epsilon. As he raised his head, Gravitas could feel the stream of blood change its course and run behind his ear and into his armor.

The dark form of Vengelis was thankfully easy to identify contrasting against the clear sky overhead. He was visibly moving back and forth unsteadily. Gravitas latched onto one hope: that even if Vengelis was stronger than he—which had yet to be determined—Gravitas would prove tougher than the Epsilon. Without a second thought, Gravitas erupted upward at Vengelis with a swerving wobbly charge.

As Gravitas accelerated toward Vengelis, he could hear the Emperor of Anthem scream in unintelligible infuriation. Instead of repeating the same careless stroke once more, this time Vengelis Epsilon held his skyward position and readied himself for impact. Gravitas flexed his midsection and forced his dizzied body into a ferocious swinging kick at Vengelis's side.

But Vengelis was too quick.

The Epsilon turned his body to the side, flexing each of his arms together. Gravitas's uncoiled shin connected powerfully, not with tender ribcage, but with Vengelis's iron biceps. Just as the deafening ring of the impact boomed across the immensely populated shores of the bay, Vengelis pulled up his forearms and grasped Gravitas's leg like a vice.

"Got you!" Vengelis said, his face furious, and launched himself forward while holding Gravitas's leg in his arms. Gravitas flung his free limbs outward and teetered to maintain his balance as he was pushed backward, reeling across the sky in Vengelis's grasp. Salty moisture from the bay touched his face as he frantically considered his next move. Gravitas steadied his upper body as best he could to deliver a swift punch to Vengelis's exposed face. But the moment he did so, he was shocked to feel Vengelis skillfully figure four his legs around his own trapped hamstring and attempt to put Gravitas in a heel hook that would tear every tendon in his knee within seconds.

Gravitas recognized the subtle beginning steps of the submission move as though it were a sixth sense. He had defended the specific maneuver Vengelis was attempting every day for half of his childhood, though the fact that this Epsilon knew how to execute such an intricate submission was deeply unsettling. It was not the kind of move taught by the Imperial First Class.

The figure four had been one of Master Tolland's favorite moves.

Knowing the only functioning counter quite well, Gravitas twisted his body in a tactical position, keeping his knee at a protected angle as he stretched and grabbed Vengelis's exposed ankle. Gravitas rolled his own upper body around, swinging Vengelis by his now vulnerable foot.