Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 57: Chapter 57

— Léon —
"Raw Life Force?" Rob asked. "What does RLF has to do with any of this?"
"Please, Beto. You were there when Fofo—when Anhangá—explained it to us. That's what oozes out of people and trees when their organs melt because of the sickness," Rafa said.
"So Jackal wants to feed the trees Raw Life Force to stop them from dying," Satina mumbled. "That's... actually not a bad idea."
"I don't think this is only about the trees," Rafa said. "You saw the flowers Jackal gave us in Toni's undimension, didn't you? Opalean Thronbushes are extinct. Jackal wants to use the Life Force stored in the pocket dimensions to revitalize our world, every single aspect of it."
Rob frowned. "And how exactly is that bad? I'd think that bringing our world back to its feet is a good thing." He reached out and took Léon's hand. "And it's even better if they don't have to torture Léon for that."
"It's crazy, Bhalu!" Léon barked. "She can't force nature to heal, she... she just can't! It's unnatural." Léon's heartbeat sped up, and his breathing shallowed. His palm was way too hot and way too sweaty against Rob's, so Léon pulled his hand free.
"He's right. We're talking about entire ecosystems with their own pools of chemical elements, Beto." Rafa leaned over the table. "An entire world's worth of Life Force poured into a single planet with limited space. Think of... a water balloon. What happens when you keep pumping water into it?"
Satina took in a sharp breath and rubbed her face. "Oh, shit."
"Yeah. And, there's one more thing," Rafa continued. "We met Caidara. She lived in one of those pocket dimensions, along with that tree-friend of hers. There must be others; what will happen to those people?"
"Well." Satina sipped the last of her coffee, placed her mug back on its saucer, and licked her lips. Never before did Léon see someone who reminded him so much of Iara. "We're not gonna discover the answer to that. Cause we're fucking stopping her."
Something cold swirled in Léon's stomach and spread a wave of shivers across his whole body. Oh, not again. The last time Léon, Satina, and Rob faced a megalomaniacal bastard, Mary was there with them, and Léon lost half of his powers and one of his tigers to save the city.
Léon's breathing quickened. His vision darkened, his head emptied, and his fingers trembled. What could Léon do alone? Rob placed a hand on his back and rubbed it in a slow, gentle caress.
"Tiger? Are you okay?" Rob whispered.
It wasn't enough to calm him down.
"I'm fine, Bhalu." Léon faced Satina. "What do we do?"
"We take the fight to Jackal, of course." Satina crossed her arms. "Cae must know where she is; he's been following us the whole day, so we just need to make him talk."
Satina pointed at someone in the corner of the room. Among many scared, unknown faces, Cae was leaning over an almost-empty plate of pasta. The small plastic fork looked even smaller between Cae's thick fingers. He raised his head and cleaned his lips with a cheap napkin. Their eyes met.
Léon averted his gaze and scoffed. According to Rio, they would now have less than eight hours to make a plan and stop Jackal.
Unless, of course, Rio had lied.
We're caged. We don't have help. We're all weakened, broken, or powerless. I mean, I knew we'd have to fight, but I wasn't expecting this kind of responsibility again. I wanted to stop Jackal from hurting people and not from... destroying the world!
I can't do this alone.
Léon shook his head, trying to free it from those thoughts.
"I need a minute to cool down," he said. Léon got up and forced a tiny smile. "Don't worry, Bhalu." He popped a kiss on his forehead. "Let me have some air; I'll be right back."
That entire conversation still circled in Léon's mind when he closed the water faucet and placed his hands on the sides of the concrete sink. Léon took in a deep breath. Dizziness was creeping closer, so he tried to shut his eyes again.
He sneered and let out a derisive little laugh. How else would he deal with something like that?
Léon plucked another handful of paper tissues from the dispenser on the bathroom wall and cleaned his nose, dried his face, wanted to run away. He stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He was getting sick again. These anxiety attacks were definitely no fun to deal with.
There was nothing but silence around him as Léon hid his face in his hand and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the sink. Yeah, he had decided to fight. No, he didn't know what that meant.
The bathroom door opened, and a pair of heavy boots approached. Léon recognized the cadence of those steps—quicker on the right leg as if it was hurt—but from the position he was now, seeing them upside-down, the boots looked far too new to be Rob's. Léon straightened his back to look at the newcomer.
Shit.
With widened eyes and a sidestep, Léon dodged the hard blow aimed at the back of his head. His movement was so quick and so desperate, he lost his footing and stumbled a few steps backward until his back hit the bathroom wall.
"What the hell, Cae?" Léon barked.
"Keep your mouth shut and come with me," Cae growled in response.
Léon furrowed his eyebrows and curled his fingers into a fist. He couldn't take care of Toni with the strength he had now, but he was still powerful enough to fight someone like the Count.
And so they fought. Léon growled as he pounced, aiming a punch at Cae's face. He just needed to be careful. He just needed to stay in control.
Cae ducked and swept his leg to knock Léon down, but this was a movement Phillip had shown him countless times. When Cae's foot was about to hit Léon's leg, he jumped.
"I don't have time for this, Léon," Cae growled.
"Me neither. You can either let me go or tell me where Jackal is; your choice."
Like a bull, Cae huffed and lowered his trunk to charge. Léon tried to dodge, but he wasn't expecting how fast and brutal Count Cae could be. Cae's arms locked around Léon's waist, and he pushed him hard against the tiled wall.
Léon's air left his lungs as Cae took a step backward and reached for something at his back.
"I need you to come with me, Léon. Vanessa needs that serum, and she needs it now!"
"Go... to hell," Léon managed to say. His back hurt like a motherfucker. He tried to force the air back into his lungs, but it got harder after every attempt.
"You stubborn piece of—" Cae finally swung his arm back; with it, secure between thick fingers was one of Toni's pistols. "Freeze, Léon. Hands where I can see them; I don't wanna hurt you."
Léon's eyes widened. He had seen what that weapon could do. With one shot, Cae had broken the walls of Toni's undimension, and, earlier, he had used it to put a crack on Caidara's pocket dimension.
"Shit, shit, shit," Léon mumbled. He didn't want to see the kind of damage that garbage could do to that small bathroom or to his face.
"Well, it seems we're understanding ourselves better. C'mon, Léon. With me."
Cae flicked the gun, and Léon obeyed the silent request with a grimace, raising his hands.
"Good," Cae said—but there was a fair amount of surprise in his voice. "I can't believe Modraniht was right." He scoffed and shook his head. "You're not using your powers on me, kid. Why? Do you want to be caught or something? Is this some kind of guilty complex?" He raised a finger and twirled it as an order.
With a growl, Léon turned his back at Cae. Léon's eyebrows furrowed deeper. He needed to distract Cae for long enough to fish his phone out of his pocket or to run away. One call was all he needed to bring Rob and the others here; Cae would never be able to fight them all, and if they came, Satina would make Cae take them to Jackal in a way that they would have the upper hand.
"What? Not up for a chat?" Cae clicked his tongue. He relaxed his shoulders—or seemed to; Léon couldn't be sure with him—and grabbed Léon's shoulder, guiding him towards the exit. "Ah, yes. I forgot you always get directly to the point. Like a tiger to the jugular." He smirked.
Léon looked forward again. He had to be quick. One, two, three steps.
"Once outside, I want you to put your hands in your pockets and to go to your left," Cae said. "You'll see a cement staircase after two corridors; climb them and go right. Stray one step from that, and I'll start shooting, got it?" Something metallic was shoved against Léon's back. "Answer me!"
"Yeah," Léon said with an attitude. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had seen Rob doing this attack enough times to know how he did it. Besides, Jackal needed him alive, so Cae would have the courage to shoot him. All he needed was concentration, the element of surprise, and a little luck.
Another step. "Listen, Léon. If you as much as think of trying to esc—"
Now.
Léon jumped, supported a foot on the bathroom countertop, and pushed against it to pivot around and hit the side of Cae's head with his knee. Léon's sight darkened for a moment, and he put more strength than he should on the blow.
No! Control yourself!
It was too late. Cae was launched towards the sink. The cement countertop broke with a loud noise, and water gushed from the cracked plumbing.
Oh, shit. Oh, fuck, there was blood mixed with the water.
Please, still be alive.
Léon panted and ran his hands through his short hair. He considered calling Cae's name and making sure he was still among the living, but he needed to tell Rob what had happened. He needed him now! Without thinking, Léon faced the door and raced toward it.
But Cae was faster. He bounced back on his feet, bloody and soaked, and kicked the plasmetallic dispenser as Léon's foot went down for another step.
Léon stepped on it. And slipped. He fell on his back with a loud thud and slid on the wet floor; the nape of his head hit the ground so hard, the corners of Léon's sight grew black.
"Too slow, kid," Cae said in a pain-filled, hoarse voice. He barred the door with his body. The gun, though, wasn't in his hands anymore.
Léon groaned and blinked until his sight went back to normal. For a moment, Cae and Léon did nothing but pant and stare at each other, reading the other's movements. For every small twitch in Cae's muscles, Léon answered in kind as if to show he was ready to keep fighting if necessary. He knew Toni's gun lay somewhere under the gushing, broken sink, but he also knew that Cae had the upper hand now. If he moved but an inch to get it, Cae and his inhuman reflexes would reach it way before he could.
It was a stalemate, at least for now.
Cae opened his mouth and tried his jaw, moving it right and left. "Holy fuck, you have a mean knee, huh." He chuckled. "You'd be working for me if your mother hadn't dragged you to NC, that I assure you."
"Shut up," Léon barked. "You don't know anything about me."
With a deep breath, Cae mumbled, "Mokk used to say the same thing." Something crossed his features. Anger or sadness, Léon wasn't sure which one. "It's funny. I knew him—my own brother—so I thought I knew you too. Powerful people, not the money-hungry kind, but people with developed power traces like you, Mokk, Jackal, and McCockay... I thought you were all the same. But you are scared, Léon. I could feel it as we fought. What scares you, kid?"
Cae took a step forward, and Léon crawled backward.
"Stay away!"
"Are you afraid of your powers? Cause I could tell there was a moment there you didn't wanna hurt me." Cae took another step. "But I'm threatening you. Is your fear so great you won't fight for yourself? For your own life? What the hell."
"It's not that! I... d-didn't want to kill you, I just—"
"Oh. I see. I'd be scared too, man," Cae interrupted. "All that power. The things you did. The people you hurt."
Léon scoffed. As he got up, he balled his hands. "You don't know half of it. You don't know anything. And you don't have any right to talk about it!"
"I was in Aíbetama too, Léon. Just like Modraniht—why do you think he betrayed you, huh? You ruined his fucking life, kid. And mine too!"
Léon shook his head. His vision blurred.
"Oh yeah, you did. So many people relied on you, Legend." Cae smirked. "We thought you would protect us. We thought we could count on you. Instead, as you did to Modraniht, you hurt us all."
"You don't understand! They forced me. They used me." Léon sniffed and stumbled backward. "I never asked for these powers. I never wanted this responsibility! It's so lonely to be always—"
"That's where you're wrong, Léon," Cae cut in. His stance relaxed even more, and he took a step closer. Blood dripped from his clothes, diluted in water. "You're not alone. There are people out there who need you to use your power. There are your friends, of course, who are counting on you to save the day. And then, there is Jackal, who'll hunt you down if you don't come with me."
"Well, I don't fucking care what Jackal wants. I want her to stop!" Léon shouted. His last word echoed inside the bathroom and rippled inside it like a gale, freezing everything in place.
Cae whistled, looking around. "All right. Nice trick." He crossed the bathroom towards Léon. "Well, this is nothing personal, but I don't think she'll just... do what you want." He stepped over the floating debris from the sink and avoided the frozen water gushing from the broken plumbing. Cae turned around and squatted to get something from the floor. "My brother Mokk also had a hard time learning to control his powers, Léon. That's what this is, isn't it? He had this very weird combination of probability, venom, and mnemonic trace. The kid was a beast in a fight." He sighed and chuckled. "All he needed was a little guidance, patience, and people to rely on. He needed to trust his powers like he trusted his own two feet."
When the silence stretched, Cae insisted, "Don't you have that, Léon? Don't you trust that the people around you are strong enough to help you through anything?"
Léon stood a moment in silence. His mind's eyes showed him images of his family and friends, and everything they'd been together in the past two and a half decades of his life. They had been through a lot, but they always managed to find a way.
Instead of pushing them away for fear of hurting them, maybe they could do that again. Not just fight but fight together. Triumph together.
Léon only noticed how still he was when his lungs claimed for air. He took in a lungful and sighed again, his muscles relaxing for the first time in the past two weeks. As he calmed down, the floating debris fell back on the floor, and the water went back to normal.
"I have that too," Léon mumbled. The weight of those words was too great, so he fell on his knees. "Minus patience, I guess," he completed with a teary chuckle.
"Exactly." Cae turned around with a smile, and for a second, Léon thought those words had been his only objective there. Cae walked up to him and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I want you to remember that, all right? Trust your people. And learn enough about you so you can trust your own powers. Be patient. Heal. Do better next time." His smile shrunk. "But remember you can't trust everyone around you. And you definitely can't trust me."
With those words, Cae's hand latched around Léon's neck while the other covered his face. Léon tried to fight, but his connection with the flow was temporarily cut—and when Cae raised Toni's gun again, he hit Léon's head just right and with the exact amount of force to knock him out.