District 42-Chapter 127: Similars part 3

Once Anton read Alfar’s mind, he was sure that that person was the right one to choose.

After years of wisdom, but emptiness, there was someone who had the same perspective as him. There was no doubt.

If something happened, that man would find a way to do it.

He wasn’t the most strong-willed and determined person like Casper was. He wasn’t intelligent like Olaf, or powerful like him or Ragnar.

Alfar was just someone disposed to fight against his own demons to be able to protect the people he wanted, to do what was right for other’s sake.

"Say something to me, Alfar... After saving everyone here in Halden, what will you do? What kind of prison are you trying to free them? From Halden or... from District 42?" The middle-aged man asked, calmly.

Those words hit Alfar in his heart, his mind went blank for a second, and he didn’t know exactly what he should reply to.

Until then, he just focused in end the suffering that those prisoners had inside that place, but he had remained in Halden for so long that he nearly forgot that the real prison was everywhere.

After he put all those people out there, what would happen? What would be the consequences in their lives?

"Besides, have you stopped for a while to think what Halden made to these people? Do you really think that their place is somewhere other than here?"

Alfar was linking each point that Anton was throwing at him, having his own conclusions about it.

He brought back everything that Anton said to him until now, and what he said to Casper in that large corridor from before. Then, he realized.

"Anton, you..."

Without any more words, the middle-aged man started to run towards Alfar. His speed was so incredible that it was hard to tell that he was a human.

"After all this while, everything you did and said... You were thinking about all these things, didn’t you? You were looking to a much wider perspective than me... So that’s how a Frelsi see the world?"

After each blow, Anton got faster and stronger. He increased his intensity little by little, the measure that Alfar managed to avoid and defend his blows.

Even the Dark elf himself found that battle to be more a class than a serious fight. Anton was teaching him, instructing, giving the right directions.

"Are you saying to me that you are passing the baton? You... You can’t keep up living a dream that you cannot reach? You can’t keep doing awful things for the sake of the others and don’t be recognized by this?"

Alfar began to get hit by some blows. He was running out of gas, after all. He couldn’t keep up with that battle for longer.

Alfar’s mind, after a long while, got clean, and he let Deamhan aside, his ideals aside, and even part of his emotions.

He raised the pistol in his hand and pointed to Anton, at blank range.

"You will not dodge it, Anton. I know this much. You were waiting for me to use this." As the events passed in slow motion, Alfar had enough time to think. "Don’t worry. I will save all of them. Not from Halden, but from their true handcuffs."

"Thanks... and goodbye." Someone talked in his mind. For some reason, Alfar was sure that it wasn’t Anton, but someone else. It was a voice filled with relief. The relief of an individual who needed to wait several years to say those words.

After a second, he pulled the trigger... And as he had supposed... Anton didn’t avoid it.

"I will fulfill what I promised today, Anton. I will not give up on my demons, though. Nor depend on their power. I will find a way."

Then, after praying briefly to Odin, he gave his back to that man.

"Anton surely will go to Valhalla. He didn’t die fighting until the last minute, but he needed to be in a constant battle all this while, one that he needed to carry on his shoulders all alone."

...

Casper and Freygar decreased their distance with a single leap. In no time, they were already at reach, facing each other at a close distance.

For a short period, they just stayed looking at each other. There were no openings on their stances, if one tried to attack, it would surely be avoided and he would be countered. That little time of wait was necessary.

They were thirsty for that fight for a long while, but they weren’t desperate to the point of commit beginner’s mistakes.

After some while, Freygar lowered his guard, and Casper followed with the same. In the next second, quick and hard blows were being executed.

As they were already with their adrenaline at its peak, it was not so difficult to enter the battle’s pace, and just like one predicted the movements of another, they started a fast and fluid fight.

It was like a martial arts show. No mistakes, no pauses, no distractions. If their focus changed even slightly, they would be in a real problem.

At some point, Casper needed to defend one of the blows. It came with such speed and power that he couldn’t take the risk to dodge. So he put both arms crossed in front of his chest and protected it.

The impact in his arms was so strong that he thought that his entire bone structure shook. His feet slip backward, but he held himself to stay firm at the same place.

The soldier struggled to keep his fists clenched tightly, and to force his arms upwards to protect his face.

"So... That’s payback from before, right? Bastard..." He could see under the sleeves of his uniform that he had exoskeletons put in his arms. "Now I feel like you felt before... it’s a slap on the face, indeed."

The Aesir didn’t lose time in the same place and took advantage of that little faltering of Casper.

He charged another blow towards him. Again, the soldier needed to defend it, and this time he heard the sound of his bones cracking. It was not broken yet, but he was sure that more pressure like that would do no good at all.

Still on his impetus, the Aesir kept giving chasing at him, making Casper back some steps. Two more punches aimed at the soldier, who parried one of them successfully, and finally could dodge another.

When another blow came, the White warrior didn’t defend or parry. Instead, he dodged again, but not just this. Casper held his arm when it already past his body, and targeted an uppercut directly at the armpit of that warrior.

"I worked for one month at the Main Lab. If you think that I don’t know how to break one of these..." His knuckles hit something hard on his armpit. It made a cracking sound, and then something shattered. "Then you are dead wrong!"

Freygar looked to him with glazed eyes, seemingly pissed off by Casper’s counterattack. He tried to hit him with another arm but missed his face by inches.

The White warrior ducked when that blow was going to hit him, and stepped to the side, getting into range to attack his other armpit.

The Aesir, however, wasn’t an idiot. He would not be got into the same trick again.

The soldier barely noticed that, in the middle of his motion to attack, Freygar’s knee had targeted his ribs, and the blow made Casper bow his body, such was the pain he felt.

Still, Freygar aimed another attack with his left arm, the one still wearing the exoskeleton, but Casper leaped backward before it could land.

"This guy... I nearly forgot how tough he can be... If my ankle was still messed, I really doubt that I would be able to stand against him..." After breathing in and out real quick to regain his oxygen, Casper raised his arms again and waited until the Aesir came.

"He should be the one attacking now. I need to find a way to break these exoskeletons..." The only limitation that those things imposed on them were that the amount of pressure in the internal bones and muscles could make someone harm himself easily in the middle of the battle, but he couldn’t count with that.

Freygar was probably used to those types of technology, so he would not be broken so easily. Also, that thing didn’t seem to need Indigo. It probably wasn’t Indigo-based, which was something rare.

"I heard that Indigo can’t be used in batteries, it’s an unstable type of energy. Maybe he has something like this because he is an Aesir?" It was another interesting hypothesis. Probably the government hid a lot of different technologies from the folk, just like those deadly machines he saw in the Third Lab.

"It seems that we will have a tough battle here... Damn..." For some reason, though, Casper smiled. He was looking forward to that.