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The Toccata is, in Baroque music, a kind of composition of free structure, virtuoso character, full of rhythmic energy and sounds like an improvisation or an impromptu prelude. Originally intended to make contact with an instrument, it then drifts to become a demonstration of the talent of the performer and allow to appreciate the qualities of the instrument.

Modern toccatas are richer in harmonies and sounds than old ones. They are alert and retain the same character of rhythmic energy, approaching a perpetual movement.

The rumble of the engine was enough to deafen him, but Lance was persuaded blasting Elvis directly in his ears was mandatory. Necessary. And, admittedly, amazing. The music was directly pumping in his blood, intravenously connected to his brain through the helmet, the beat rhythmically taking over his own heart.
 
In the streets of the downtown city, the night was pushing the day away, already eager to be the theatre of various scenes meant for nocturne eyes only. Lance evolved in that atmosphere with the ease of a fish in water, slaloming on the humid ground like a panther in the jungle.
 
On the corner of his vision, displayed by his eyescreen, the glowing map of the city. Crossed by a blue dot of light.
 
Himself.
 
Lance was late for a delivery. Usually, he would have taken it lightly, but the client was a little special, and he couldn't just brush that off.
 
He squeezed his hand further down the cadran, pressing the metallic wheels of his bike to squeal against the worn down macadam. Crumbled roads decrepitated on his trail. He clutched to the  handlebar, chest glued against the purring tank.
 
Against every safety recommendation regarding hearing health, Lance turned the volume up, accelerating along the music.
 
Elvis was singing louder than thunder, electrifying the night. The headlights of the motorbike lit up the way, shining thousands of reflections over the wet, moist walls of the city. Drips and drops glistered in the dark on his passage, as many stars that shown the way. Lance had always loved the feeling of hyperspeed, a reminiscence of the retro Star Wars movie they would pirate over the net.
 
Soon, the large, empty streets morphed into smaller and smaller alleys. The hardest part.
 
Lance forced his wheels into the narrow passages scrunched between the blocks erected all over the low town, buildings of iron and cement sawn like tombstones all over the land to delay the inevitable overpopulation problem of that part of the city.
 
Scattered at their feet, the waking crowd of the night. Employees getting out of their desk jobs, coming back home, and for some, heading to the clubs and bars raising their metallic shutters. The night workers, barmaids, dancers, and the usual scum of the earth, alcoholics and gamblers, idlers and teen gangs were already gathering in groups at the entrances.
 
Lance avoided a collision with one of them and his wheels slipped on a puddle. He didn’t hear the insults over the music.
 
Wires and cables formed tangling messes above his head, security drones sleeping like giant metallic spiders amongst them, violent dwellers of the webs wrapping the city. One of them lazily opened his red eye, scanning his pass in the microsecond it took the bike to drive past it.
 
Lance smirked. Scans.
 
Yeah, they were kinda fond of them around here. And the system was one hundred percent persuaded nothing could fool its little pawns scattered all over the roofs and neons signs proliferating in the city. Some sewers were vomiting them like rats when needed, the small things summoned by security robots across the whole area.
 
Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Human nature had made it so that whenever it encountered a problem, it tried to bypass it.
 
Lance was made from the same metal that filled the bones of the greatest of this world, a stainless iron, inoxydable. Barriers to others were hurdles waiting to be jumped to him.
 
The drone had just scanned the ByPass of Isamu Kurogane. No idea of whom the guy could have been, though, but his identity had been rewritten from scratch for Lance to use as a sneakout cover, and to be honest, if he had the chance, he would thank the man for his service. If he wasn’t already dead and burnt, that being said.
 
Fluorescent puddles dotted the road, tokens of the growing number of neon tubes sprouting in the street. Elvis had been replaced by an equivalently loud music, technologic sounds of synthesizers harmonising with a feminine voice Lance had yet to name. The audio scan was a bad pirated copy of an actual 20th century record, and the whereabouts of the files had been lost in time.
 
The scenery was getting blurry. Lance removed his eye mask with a flick, the condensation covering the glass. Half of the street was drowned in steaming hot vapor now. Humidity tickled his forehead, grabbed his hair and curled his locks, infiltrating his boots to soak his socks.  
 
Maneuvering the engine was nearly impossible now. Kitchens open on the street, discharging their waste onto the pavement and frying edible and less-edible shit over their oil filled tanks. Drugstores selling needles and bottles along with actual drugs, shoemakers employing rather troubling labor. Tech-mechanics repairing house-robots for a couple of bucks only, the open-hearted operations taking place in the street herself. Fruit vendors, dispatch riders, luridly dressed waitresses, all shared the cramped space of the passages between the dull buildings.
 
Lance had found his place in this intricate ecosystem. As much as he thought the system sucked and so on, he’d learned the laws of the jungle.
 
A new jungle made of concrete.

Lance had already jumped off his bike when the map on his holo gear marked him as ‘arrived at destination’. He did not need to risk running over a kid’s foot or someone’s exotic pet.
 
The engine was growling low under his palms, the magnetic suspensions vibrating gently, feeding themselves off the surrounding energy to keep running.
 
The erratic figures populating the streets moved like droplets of water in a gigantic stream. Lance was a flowing with them, another object lost in the uninterrupted flow of people stomping the naked concrete, whom to unknown paradises of electronic dreams, whom to smoky pleasures of the herbal shops particular to this side of town...
 
Lance passed by a very nice lady in a very low-cut outfit, offering free samples of god only knew what. He smiled and stepped faster.
 
Man never thinks about looking above his head. Well, it does, it used to, back to when its resources were still hung up in the trees of the primary forests. Neon signs and electrical wires had replaced fruits and canopies, and man had stopped looking above his head, and the stars had disappeared with that and the rise of light pollution.
 
Lance glanced at the top of the buildings around. Half of the balconies, especially the lower ones, had fences of metal dressed over the handrails, and the quantity of air coolers stuck up on the facades could have stopped global warming. Never more than five stories, never less than a dozen of glowing adds sticking up.
 
The quantity of information constantly flooding his eyes was depressing. He’d learned to cancel the noise, but he couldn't cancel his vision.
 
Snakes combats, free massages for a year’s subscription to a fitness program, -50% on every illegal medicine in your nearest pharmacy, and so on. The hurl of products would have made anyone’s head spin, would they still have their mind alive and well.
 
Lance was alive. For now.
 
He sneaked out of the main artery to reach one of the sidestreets cracking through the walls of the city. Any building, as displeasing as it remained, needed an entrance.
 
Lance fumbled in his back pocket for the keys of the community’s garage, a secured zone under each tower reserved for its inhabitants. Somehow, an established rule of the down town had emerged : the garages were safe zones. Lance linked his magnetic wheels to a board and removed his hand from the handlebar.
 
As soon as the blue glint of the vehicule vanished, Lance found himself in the dark. With only the help of the holo map, he guided himself to the second floor, third door. He enjoyed those rare moments of calm.
 
He looked at the hours, glowing numbers displayed right under the holo map. He was two minutes late. A record, and not in the good sense.  
 
The door clicked, opening on its own after a retinal scan he’d delivered several years ago had recognized him as ‘friend’.
 
He was basically home.
 
The floor was invisible, hidden under layers of wires and electronics resembling the webs of the city. Some were linked to box covered in leds and buttons, and the whole appartement was bathed in the glowing red of the ‘Ramen’ neon sign hanging just next to the huge bay windows.
 
Lance jumped out of his shoes and waltzed between the fragile installations, up to a worn out couch that would have quit years ago if Lance hadn’t forced its owner to give it to him.
 
The world was so much softer when lying on a couch ! Sighing in relief, he extended a hand towards the most brightly lit zone of the room.
 
“Yo Pidge, mind if I -”
 
On the floor, a flash of light passed over huge, round glasses that Lance would recognize between thousands. “Touch that drone and i wash all your tee shirts with my red backpack.”
 
“The one you’ve never washed ?”
 
“Yup.”
 
“That stains you if you dare touching it with wet hands ?”
 
“That one.”
 
Lance stifled a dramatic huff. “You wouldn’t !”
 
“Then don’t touch the drone.” Pidge snarked, laughing between her words.
 
Lance carefully brought his hand around the disemboweled robot and slammed it on Pidge’s head, giving it a few affective rubs. She hissed, but high-fived him nonetheless right after.
 
Pidge was his best and oldest customer. He’d delivered so much junk at her place he’d stopped charging her money. Instead, she would pay him the occasional lunch, and he was never refused a drink. Also, they were best friends. He rolled on the couch.
 
Something stabbed his back, but after a while, you really get used to the feelings of springs coming out of the mattress for your ass. His hand sweeped the floor, looking for… Ah, there.
 
“Pidge, Could you pass me the thingie ?”
 
“On your right.”
 
Lance patted the floor again and grabbed the metallic lady crowning the lame bottle opener Hunk had brought back about a month ago, to shield them from the impossibility of drinking good old Cacolac due to lack of opened bottles.
 
Something exploded in the street. The steam and smoke mixed together and spread on the windows, blurring the view for a minute. Pidge sniffed. Lance gulped down half of the bottle.
 
An alarm went off, maybe next door, maybe further. Lance finished the bottle. The metallic babe spun between his fingers. Pidge hissed at her computer.
 
The halos of the neons changed the bland windows into stained glass. Lance was the laying god of this insane church, the refracting colors aureoling him of green and red. Pidge, draped in her cover, looked like a cyber sacred virgin, illuminated by the blue of her screen, holding the messenger of a new dawn in her arms. MUSIC : WORAKLS COEUR DE LA NUIT
 
Instinctively, he reached for his neck, looking for the golden chain laying there, just on his skin, under layer of clothes and attitudes. A siren echoed through the night. A bead of sweat rolled down his neck.
 
“Turn on the AC, Lance.”
 
Lance believed in many things, and one of them was the mind reading powers of his tiny friend over there. He resisted. “That’s pollution. I’ll just open the windows.”
 
“And steam the entire place ? Lance, this is serious, if a single circuit of this guy here gets corrupted, I’ll need a new one. Do you want me to need a new drone ?”
 
Lance rewinded all it took to finally get his hands on a functional government’s drone. None of that dish for him again, thank you very much.
 
“I’ll just… Is this gonna be long ?” Lance waved at… whatever Pidge was doing.
 
She raised her shoulders. “Maybe take a while, two hours at least.”
 
Lance didn’t answer. Pidge did not need him too. After years of cohabitation, they had learned to enjoy their mutual silence, especially during tiring days like these. The city was boiling, for some reason, and Lance doubted he wanted to know why.
 
He opened his mouth again, earning a sigh from Pidge. “When’s Hunk arriving ?”
 
“Probably around midnight. The research team keeps him busy, apparently, and he doesn’t want to drop out.”
 
She was referring to Hunk’s university life. He had managed to enter a prestigious school and was currently working on a project destined to improve ‘life itself’, using his words. Lance, despite attending the same school, had no idea what said project was. He hadn’t joined the nerd club, preferring them the piloting sessions.
 
That, and because he wanted to give Hunk some maneuvering space. “It’s because of the girl in there, right ?” He smiled saying that. His best friend couldn’t lie to him to save his life, especially not about a girl.
 
Pidge snorted. “Probably helping, but I think he’s just really interested in that shit too.”
 
“Language.” Lance threw the bottle-opener in the air. “Dope for him. My man, and his big dreams.” He caught the thing back.
 
Pidge typed a bunch of things before pursuing the conversation. “I’ll beep you when he comes, if you want. While you’re out, take some food. I crave chinese take-out.”
 
“Noted. Anything else ?”
 
“Don’t die, that’s gonna be all.”
 
Yeah, thanks.
 
It felt like he hadn’t even gotten a pause in the sanctuary that was Pidge’s lair. The street assaulted him within milliseconds of setting a foot out. The air was just as heavy as when he left, but now it also smelt like burnt plastic.
 
Lance swallowed a pill and slammed his headphones on.
 
His steps were on automatic. Lance knew that side of town like his own pocket, like his bike, like home. And in a way, it was home. The signs written in foreign languages and those written in the ones he spoke all made sense to him, after hours spent deciphering the ones he couldn’t read. The holographic directions floating above every turn had since long stopped being useful to him. He could even turn off the holo map, it was no use in there.
 
Every street could change daily. Dead ends were dynamited open, walls erected for purposes Lance couldn’t think of, and everyone was happy finding a path from A to B like that.
 
Lance was currently looking for a chinese guy behind a counter. The best noodle shop of all area. Last time he’d eaten there, it was around the corner of the spices street and another one, more or less of an electronic souk.
 
“Bingo !” Lance snapped his fingers, a wide smile eating his face. “Hey, what’s up ?”
 
With a long sigh, the man turned to Lance. The yellow lights of his kitchen palished his skin, and he looked more of a corpse than a cook. Lance frowned.
 
“Everything alright ?”
 
Louis, or as Lance and Pidge liked to call him, Noodlouis, looked away from his ceiling fan to briefly stare at the boy. His eyelids closed without him noticing. Lance grabbed a stool and reached over the counter.
 
“Hey. Hey, everything alright?”
 
Louis seemed to only realize now that Lance was literally touching his arm. “Huh ? Yes. Long day. So, what’s it gonna be ?”
 
“The usual, three bowls and that one special sauce. Now seriously, what’s wrong ?” Lance knew he had been eating there long enough for the guy to lend him the conversation. Persistence was key.
 
Louis shot glares at both sides of the shops, checking for ghosts. Lance instinctively hunched over.
 
“That… Gang. You know.” Louis started. Yeah, Lance knew. “They raided the street yesterday. I was supposed to pay for protection, or something. I didn’t have enough.”
 
Lance already feared the worst. Gangs and patrols of both police and vigilantes, and mafiosos and criminals of all sorts, all raided the streets. So far, everyone had found a balance, and each had they jurisdiction, prohibited to the others. Regular clashings happened had the borders, but the system was made so that every random passerby was either under the protection or the authority of a different group.
 
That was the old system.
 
Recently, confrontations had risen up exponentially, and Lance himself had bailed out of a warzone once or twice. The streets murmured a new name, a rampant fire propagating like a virus, menacing the established order.
 
And of course, the most directly touched were the citizens. Lance felt his blood boil in his veins. Louis ran a hand in his rarefied hair, white like the salt he sprinkled over a bowl. His story was not over. Lance had the patience to wait for it, aware of the meaning of the words.
 
“They took Bagha away.” Lance was witnessing Louis’s face decompose, powerless. “She was my only family.”
 
“Bagha, your… Daughter ?”
 
Louis sighed in a smile, shy tears welling up over his eyelids. “No, dear gods, no. I know it might sound stupid, but Bagha was my cat.”
 
Lance watched Louis transfuse the noodles in three hermetic packets and hand them over, the boiling soup clouding the atmosphere of the shop. His lips burnt to say something,

anything.

But his mind blanked out. He just slammed a 50 credits bills on the counter, rage growling in his stomach.
 
“That’s just unfair.”
 
Louis’ face disappeared into the steam clouds. Lance seized the opportunity to run, his noodles in his arms. By the time Louis was back, he was at the corner of the street.  
 
“Wait, that’s… That’s far too much ! Young boy ! Come back here !”
 
Lance heard the old man yelling, and so, he yelled back.“Keep the change !” Lance didn’t need an extra income. That old guy, on the other hand, was the only one knowing his infamous sauce recipe, and Lance would have given up on him for nothing in the whole world.
 
Without even breaking a sweat, he ran to Pidge’s apartment. A little effort couldn’t hurt him, sat all day, whether it be on a chair in class or on his bike.
 
He could roam these innards of the town with closed eyes. He could note the littlest change faster than a prey smells danger. That’s probably why he twitched while passing the latest posters for this week’s handfights.
 
The Danger Tiger.
 
It’s been weeks of the same champion, a mountain of muscle and rage named something like the Riper. Or the Viper. Ok, Lance wasn’t sure but that definitely wasn’t the Danger Tiger. Something creeped at the back of his neck. If there was a guy able to take down a monster like the River -which name was it already  ? -, then he needed to check up on that.
 
After all, better die informed than pass out an occasion to sneak in. Terrible life proverb, but Lance had never been much of a poet. More of a… daredevil kinda guy. Hunk repeatedly told him to slow down, or something would blow up in his face, but heh, man did not land on the Moon by being careful.
 
The poster mentioned a full week’s of fun. Poor new guy. Rules had made it so that the first week was just designed to kill him, with a fight planned every evening. If he survived that, he could probably last a year.
 
Lance was already well past today’s horary for the match. A match starting every day, for seven days, at nine pm.
 
Lance blinks.
 
Neon signs.
 
Welcome to the Jade Dragon, next day.

The sun was about to set, the air was humid. Lance wished he could say ‘everything was normal’, but the febrility in the street obliged him to think otherwise. Merchants were twice as loud, and the clouds hovering above the east side rolled like deaf waves far away. Electricity was ambient, running through the wires and the veins of each and any random passerby, himself included.
 
Last day of the Judgment week.
 
Yesterday’s noodles had vanished, replaced by the excitement of a show. Lance, somehow, had convinced Pidge and Hunk to join him for the last match. It probably had something to do with him chatting them out of their mind to get them to say yes, but whatever the reason, they walked by his sides in the animated streets of the evening.
 
Needless to say, the Jade Dragon underground activities were only highly illegal. That didn’t stop them from being the highest attending spot of the block. People pushed to get past the entrance, forcing themselves under the eyes of the sculpted animal guarding the door.  
 
Lance had never been a fan of the decoration.
 
The establishment was just about two blocks away from Pidge’s lair, and it was no uncharted territory. Hunk had once been challenged during an open contestants nights, and Lance regularly spotted the guy dusting off the trophy on his shelf.
 
He’d never been much of a ring guy himself, but he enjoyed the feeling of being on the bleachers, for once. Screaming and breathing to high and too loud along with dozens of others, bewildered by only two opponents and their sweat and blood. That had something deep inside of him waking up.
 
Pidge was there too. She was the one taking bets, and probably lived off them. Not entirely,  for sure, but Lance suspected her new screen to be affiliated with the rise of the new champion, somehow. There was no way she’d ignored anything going on in the city.
 
He was even surprised she’d decided to tag along. Usually, he was the errands boy.
 
The bar was quite clean. Lance knew better than to trust appearances. What really mattered, what counted, was under the surface, two levels lower than the street, unreachable by the satellite system of surveillance of the city, linked to the upper bar by a unique greenlit staircase covered from the bottom to the top with signed posters of the champions of the ring.

The establishment took pride in his reputation.
 
Lance progressed with difficulty. His top was already glued to his skin with sweat, and he would have loved to pass by a bathroom.
 
Hunk was sipping on something. The color of the drink was undefinable under the colored lights. His headband was darker than ever, sweat staining it black. From afar, he looked like a champion himself. He offered a smile at Lance, and the neck of his bottle.
 
The liquid wasn’t even cold. Sticky throat, fizzing eyes. Lance was on the edge and impatient. To bring in clients and hipe up the crowds, the face of the new champion was kept secret for the first week, and he couldn't wait to plaster a visual on name.
 
Danger Tiger. What kind of name was that ?
 
Lance suspected the guy to be put up like a fridge, a massive pile of meat and bones ready to crunch anyone under his teeth. He remembered the first time they’d discovered the Bull, the previous champion. Hunk’s jaw had hit the floor, and his own face had probably been decomposed and put back up in a minute.
 
Humanly speaking, the Bull wasn’t one.
 
Pidge had disappeared from his vision. He pushed a few bodies and waited for Hunk to join him at the top of the staircase. The bottle in his hand was different than the previous. Still not refreshing.
 
“Shall we wait for her ?”
 
Lance weighted the question. On one hand, he couldn’t just leave a bite-sized human alone in a crowd alive on its own. On the other hand, Lance would not want to miss the first punch for a thousand of credits.
 
After all, Pidge was a tough one. And yet, he couldn’t decide himself to go without her. Six minutes before curtain rises.
 
“We wait for five minutes. After that, we go down.”
 
Lance hoped he wouldn’t have to.
 
It felt like in a eternity lasting four minutes, half of the city had passed by them. Glowing tattoos, leathers boots, holographic dresses, spirited smiles. Old and young alike, everyone wanted to gather around a good old blood bath. The Jade Dragon wasn’t particularly renowned for its display of violence, but it had made its fair deal of clients on the spectacle of the fights.
 
“Lance.”
 
A hand on his shoulder, and a bottle pointed out to a figure progressing through the crowd. Pidge crawling out of gods knew where.
 
“Where were you ?! It starts in a minute !”
 
Pidge shook something at his eyes.
 
“I know. I waited to see the bets ratings. It’s a one vs ten.”
 
“What does that even mean ?” Lance was already jumping down half of the steps, eager to side with the rest of the crowd to witness the event, no matter its outcome. Pidge was by his side when they finally made it to the ring’s chamber, a stadium sized cave of cement, ran by at least a thousand seats and just as many standing places, all turned to the center of the room.
 
Hunk stepped down with them.
 
“It means the new champion is dead.”
 
The crowd was already cheering, a leviathan of individuals roaring in unison. Pidge smacked her hands on her ears, grimacing. Lance’s attention was already glued to the giant screen towering the ring. Flashing numbers decreased, in synch with the increasing noise around.
 
Three ! And the walls trembled already. Two ! Lance’s heart was beating along the imposed rhythm of the sound. 1 !
 
The presenter and referee jumped on stage. Lance howled.
 
“Hello my gentle people !”
 
Gentle indeed was the sound of two thousand people screaming. The host chuckled.
 
“Rough week, huh ? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s been a rough week for me too. I’ve been yelled at by you folks every evening since the last knockout that changed the History. And lemme tell you, it was in fact,- and he took a pregnant pause-, a

pleasure

!”
 
Wrapped around his fingers, the spectators erupted in laughters and clapping.
 
“But there’s someone else whom, I think, has gotten quite of a rough week.” He gestured to the entrance, covered of a long veil. Lance made himself the reflexion that the whole setup kind of looked like -“Introducing this little fella !”
 
Behind the ring, the red curtain opened itself.
 
- a circus. Lance’s thought reconnected.
 
Yes, that’s what it was. A circus. The sandy ring in the middle, the whole attire of the presenter, even the bleachers had been set up for the whole underground basement to look like a circus tonight.
 
“The Danger Tiger !”
 
Forgetting everything about decency, Lance jumped on his feet, hands on fire. Hunk grabbed him by the side and shook him up, euphoric. His eyes had trouble focusing on the silk draped figure, all of red and black, taking its place on the ring. Hunk let him go, his feet touched the ground and his heart exploded in his chest when the face of the champion bursted on screen.
 
Thank god for the cameras.
 
Danger Tiger, wrapped in his red silk, was probably the second hottest guy Lance had been given to see in his whole entire life. Bruises and black eye apart, his skin was surely amazing. He glowed green under the neons, the peliculle of sweat covering him glinting in the light.
 
The new champion, the one that stood still for a week. The animal on the track.
 
The host grabbed his wrist, earning a constricted grimace from the guy, and threw his hand up, parading around the ring like a kid showing his friends his new toy.
 
“Danger Tiger, undefeated for a whole week !”
 
The crowd was raging fire. Lance felt the waves of the noise hit him like a train at full speed. He repeated the words, screaming, yelling, the words dancing on his tongue and in his brain. Danger ! Fire, rage ! Tiger ! Claws and teeth, violence and power !
 
“Danger Tiger, here tonight for your pleasure ! My gentle people, please, a tour of applaud for the new champion on his last night !”
 
Lance reached down to Pidge, grabbing her waist to hoist her over Hunk’s shoulders.
 
“That sounds like he’s gonna die tonight.”
 
If Lance hadn’t been so close to her mouth, he would have missed the words. He almost dropped the girl. “Why would you say that ?”
 
“The guy’s practically dead already ! They don’t plan on keeping him !” Pidge shouted over the roaring of the claps. “Look !”
 
Lance dropped her off to Hunk and stared at the face displayed by the giant screen. The guy looked exhausted, dark bags under his eyes. Maybe the color of his skin wasn’t only the fault of the neons. Maybe he really was

that

pale. Suddenly, Lance felt sorry for the poor guy.
 
And, just like that, Lance’s brain grasped what was really, really off. The guy was shorter than him.
 
How did he even won a single fight ?
 
The host stepped back to the center of the ring, decided to maximises the energy of the crowd. Passing behind Tiger, he reached for the collar of the silk robe and sent it flying on the border of the ring.
 
Lance internally gasped. Probably externally too.
 
Danger Tiger, as lame as his name was, had been directly sketched out of an art manual. Hunk whistled. The crowd went crazy at the sight of that guy in his red shorts. Sharply sculpted, carved out of marble, but that didn’t compensate the fact that he probably couldn’t reach top shelf. Admittedly, he was ripped. But

everyone

stepping on that ring was.
 
Lance watched him bit his lip and stare at something off screen. Something turmoiled in his stomach.
 
“And for this special night, please welcome our special contestant… Brought back especially for tonight, someone you love and adore, your champion, Rider the Raging Bull !”
 
Ah, so that was his name.
 
The red curtains rose again, and Lance started to suppose the color covered more blood stains than imaginable. In his golden attire, the previous champion made its entrance. He synchronised his steps with the repetitive applauses of the crowd -or was that the contrary ?- and when he finally hopped over the ring’s barrier, Lance understood Pidge’s predictions.
 
This guy was twice as tall and three times as large as the other dude, and he was literally fuming. The makeup artist backstage had made a wonderful job of covering his skin in golden sparkling cream. If the first was a marble statue, solid as a rock, veiny and pale, this one was a golden sculpture, a living trophy eating peebles for snacks.
 
“He’s so, so dead.” Lance was barely conscious no one but himself could hear him.
 
“Ah, I see you like what

you

see, my loved public ! And I hope you’ll appreciate what comes next !” The host twirled his mustache and retreated back to a platform on the side of the ring.
 
Rider, for his part, stepped to the tiny frame on the other side of the ring. His breath moved dark hair out of the Tiger’s eyes and Lance decided fate was against him, because destroying such a pretty face was definitely waste.
 
Silence somewhat dawned on the room, and the atmosphere tensed up. The screen replaced the faces of the combattants with numbers. 0, and 0.
 
Everyone breathed in. No backwards count. The match could start anytime.
 
Lance watched the mountain of golden muscle mouth something. From the distance, he couldn’t hear him, but he would have given a kneecap to know what was being said at this crucial instant.
 
The other guy never got to answer, because the host pointed a finger at the sky and yelled.
 
“It’s a seven round base. FIGHT !”
 
There it was. The first punch. It sent the Tiger flying across the floor. No redeeming, no apology, just a full blown punch to announce the colors of the fight. Crimson and gold, and red and violent.
 
Lance felt his throat scream, but he couldn't hear himself. He drowned in the sound of the crowd, his voice a drop in an ocean of roars. Hunk launched his fist in the air.
 
Hung on the ropes of the ring, Tiger was putting himself on his feet. He spat on the sand. Lance remarked he was already bleeding. The Bull made a move and towered him from all his power, his metallic painted fists ready to strike again.
 
Only there was nothing to strike. Tiger had flown to the other side, a feet already in the air. His heel crushed the spine of the other, and slipped down his back, leaving a trail of sand on the skin.
 
Rider turned around, his fist extended from his body. The hammer passed a millimeter away from the nose of the Tiger, already on the floor.
 
“Slippery asshole !” Pidge had decided to invent curses.
 
A feet stomped a thigh. On the sand, Tiger contorted himself, his scream echoed silenty on the screen. His nails racked for something, and he pushed back, slapping the air in the same motion.
 
“Sand, he threw sand in his eyes !” Lance realized his brain had cut out the words of the presenter for the first part of the fight. In fact, he realized his body was there, and he was back in it, as if he’d been transported for the last minute, directly on the ring.
 
Rider threw his head back, his balance changed, and the tiger still laying on the floor used this second to rise up, his fist charged with intent. The fingers met the cheekbone in a red effusion.
 
“Wooh, his first blood ! He’s angrier than yesterday.”
 
Tiger swept the feet of his opponent off the floor, pushed his plexus and took off. His body was dragged down abruptly, a hand grabbing his ankle, and he got slammed onto the floor. His head hit first, and Lance was sure he heard something cracking. Maybe just the sound of his heart breaking.
 
There was another row of punches and steps and the crowd is being fed blood with a golden spoon. Hunk was definitely rooting for the small guy, Pidge was in trance and Lance could’t feel his hands no more.
 
Something rang in the arena, stridulent, acid, and Lance watched the fighters separate, one crawling to his corner, the other not even flinching.
 
“First Round Down !” Announced the presenter, skipping on the sand. “Looks like our first contestant’s having a bad night, am I right ?” Saying this, he hoisted Danger Tiger -gosh, what a stupid name- up, making him scream in pain.
 
“There’s definitely a broken bone in that arm.”
 
Lance looked up at Pidge. Behind the glass of her lenses, she seemed terrified, and he knew that. Not for herself, but for that poor guy down there. She pointed at the screen and shook her chin.
 
“Look at how is hand is contorted. He broke a finger.”
 
Definitely.
 
“One minute left of break. Square up, my beautiful fighters !”
 
“That’s not even the reglementary time. They’re really trying to kill him.” Hunk shook his shoulders, Pidge shaking with them. “That’s unfair.”
 
Golden Guy rose from his chair, and his suite left the ring. The boy on the other side was alone and breathing harshly.
 
“Three, and two, and one ! Here we go again !”
 
The host happily commented the slaughter happening under their eyes. It was gruesome. Tiger boy was down every two seconds, and stood up only miraculously each time. The referee had barely the time to count to five, and then Lance would do the same in his head and the boy was beaten again, his jaw or his elbows hitting the floor hard. But he stood.
 
Lance watched the second round go down just like the first, and the next, and the one after.
 
It’s at the sixth break that the crowd ceased to scream. The presenter had ran out of jokes last round anyways. This was only a matter of time before the finish line.
 
On the sand, the steps back to his corner were printed in blood. Danger Tiger was this close to missing a beat and anyone could see. His lips were cut and his eyes closed themselves.
 
“Isn’t there a merciful soul to help a poor man out ?” The host called at the void. Danger Tiger sagged down his pole. “Just someone to lend him a hand.” The voice was louder and louder in his head. “A gentle friend for Tiger’s last moments ?” Lance felt like his body wasn’t controlled by his own will.
 
And somehow the host was right there next to him and Lance realized he stood at the bottom of the ring, his shirt in his hand and his hand getting through the ropes.
 
Something warm dripped down his wrist. Blood, but not his own.
 
“Thanks.”
 
The ragged, worn down voice coming through strings of saliva and blood mixed together was still vibrant enough to confuse Lance.
 
Between ‘no problem’ and ‘you’re welcome’, his brain short-circuited and he went for “No thank you, welcome.” Needless to say, he was mortified.
 
Tiger wiped his face and his hands on the fabric. Lance watched the cuts on his arms drip beads of red every now and then. His tank top was reddish so far and Pidge’s threat emerged in his head. So she did see the future, now Lance had proof.
 
The fighter threw what was now a stained rag at his feet. His eyes had reopened wide, a fire revived from its ashes burning inside. Lance stepped back, bewitched.
 
“A little less conversation, a little more action please, boys !” The host was impatient, and so was the crowd.
 
The last round was a minute longer than the others, and if by the end they had no winner, the contest would start again tomorrow. Most people couldn’t come back for another row, and the Jade Dragon needed its clients to have something to celebrate.
 
Whatever the outcome, this round would be the last, and Lance had a ringside seat.
 
---
 
It’s a punch and a slap. It’s a bruised thigh and a bloody fist slamming against ribs. It’s a sound, an echo on the ring. It’s like a baseball bat cracking, only there is no ball and no bases. Just sand and blood and the sound of dozen of bills flapping around, the roar of violence flooding the air.
 
Keith was blinded by the green neons. His skin didn’t look alive under the light, the red flesh greying under opposed wavelengths. His body was looking wrong, his sight was tilting. There was no way the ceiling could twist like this naturally.
 
Facing him, laying on the adverse rope, an opponent he

should

have no chances against.
 
Keith was the David facing a two-meters high Goliath. The guy was shaped like a bull and definitely heavier, and Keith had no doubt on how the dude got his surname. He wore his crown in the form of a toothy smile, his pride like an armour.
 
Keith was the Ulysse with no friends left, trying to triumph against a cyclop whose arms were twice the size of his head. It was the mouse against the lion.
 
First it was a pause and he feels like he belonged to the crowd, like he was not really there. Then the train hit him, the realization that yes, he was, indeed, standing alone in the arena. And then it was a match falling on gasoline, and the feeling exploded and his nerves started screaming, all at once.
 
The ring got shocked by the seventh bell. New round, last round. Here we go again, folks.
 
The ground was not really horizontal anymore. Keith’s ears rang and the howlings of the spectators were replaced by the piercing sound of bleeding eardrums.
 
He had a broken rib. No. Two.
 
Keith felt his left arm was not responding to every impulse and his balance was… Unsure, that was to say the least. The shadow of the giant moved closer. It grew along with the impatience of the watchers. They were tired, they wanted their show, they wanted their dramatic apotheosis.
 
Keith could give it to them.
 
His fist could barely close itself ; under the tip, his nails were black. His other arm was useless, gripping the rope, the fence between Keith and the safety, the anonymity of the crowd, and a pair of friendly arms, if he had any left.
 
His eyes caught up on the form lurking on the other side of the ring, on its feet taking a step after the other, towards him.
 
Keith poked at his sides. Hissed through the pain and closed his eyes to hide the tears.
 
He didn’t know what he expected, really. It was fucking broken.
 
The boy wished he could spit, but he needed to keep as much blood inside as possible, thank you very much. He could feel it leaking down his chin. Unless it was sweat. He didn’t know what was coming out anymore, besides pain.
 
He heard it before anything and dived, the whooshing sound of air being pushed by a fully speeding object passing over him. The punch missed his eyes by two inches.
 
“OH, COME ON!” The giant thundered, and Keith felt noise rumbling through his bones.
 
The man lost all his kinetic energy by crashing on the barrier, and Keith stumbled to the other side of the ring. A quick glance behind and he was back on his feet, rolling away from the  new attacks.
 
“Stop escaping, kitty.”
 
Keith heard the murmur. It came out even more threatening than the screams. The words of the presenter were just a bubbly mess, even though they were blasted at 90 decibels just right above his head.
 
He jumped away from another swing, from a closed fist of the size of his head. He dived and whimpered, an arm clutched to his side, like his organs needed support to stay inside. It was not even exaggerating.
 
His ankles twisted in weird ways, attempting to leap away from a jap that would have snapped his neck.
 
The crowd hurled its deception. Not enough blood to quench their thirst.  
 
“YOU CAN’T KEEP RUNNING AWAY FROM ME, KID.”
 
Rider, if that was his name, was huge, heavy. His presence was raising the air pressure ; rarefying the oxygen. His lungs growled lower than the rifts he’d crawled out from. Keith eyeballed his face. It was hidden behind so many layers of anger and fury that the eyes were hardly anything but glints.  He was tall and his jaw a square and his muscles rolled under the fabric he’d tore down after the six other rounds.
 
But he was slow.

Oh god he was so slow.

Time for their so desired show. The holographic timer indicated a two minutes remaining time. Victory at the fingertips if he could make the clock count.
 
Keith arched back. He turned. He skipped a meter and teleported to the other side. He dropped on his knees and flipped and suddenly he was behind the mountain. Not without the violent outburst of delirious pain exploding in his ribcage, but he’d manage.
 
The giant was not so smug anymore.
 
Keith was

unattainable

. He was beaten down, broken in several places, and leaking his own body through the cuts, but no matter how hard he tried, Rider kept missing, only brushing air and grabbing a couple of dark strands. It was like fighting against a shadow. Against smoke. From a fire that everyone thought extinct.
 
What’s the use of immense force if you’re never to use it against someone who’s so fast he cannot be reached ?
 
Keith was recovering. The pain was not fading but adrenaline had decided to cut some wires. His arm had left his side and he could use both hands to push up from the ground. First hit, behind the kneecaps. Keith used the heels, and jolted away from the stumbling man.
 
“Here comes your Danger Tiger.” It was his turn to be smug, and he wore it like a soldier wears warpaint. To hide.
 
Goliath, or Rider, or whatever, rose up. He was not even finished and Keith was already swinging his ankles again, twisting his hips mid-air, and screwing his broken ribs. Both of the fighters screamed in pain, one because his side was on fire, the other because a foot had just crushed his cheekbone.
 
Bull was no longer a mountain Keith was battling against. He turned into a volcano, fuming and raging. The boy’s second ankle never made it to the forehead it aimed for. It got stopped by a wrist of gold and Keith grimaced under the sting.

How ? He can’t have seen it coming.

But there was no time for questions left. The timer only displayed seconds now. Keith was being dragged by the leg, and wiped the floor with his back. Let the bodies hit the floor, let the broken ribs rip out on the sand. Keith lost sight again.
 
He couldn’t hear his scream over the alarm blaring in his brain.

Danger, tiger

.
 
The giant pulled him closer, drawing red lines on the sand with his body. Keith emerged from the border of consciousness. There was another fight going in his head, about who was going to take the wheel. He felt flesh wounds opening more and more. The sight of blood excited the crowds. The host was yelling the numbers decreasing.
 
Keith knew the spectators were exulting, spluttering over the action, shaking in anticipation of the big end, the climax. He knew the bets were going down, just like him.
 
It was a greek tragedy, the law of the jungle. Eat or be eaten. While the others watch.
 
“Caught you.” There was no joy in the smile Keith saw creeping on the bloody face of his adversary. Only teeth. If the guy was a bull, he sure as hell was no vegetarian with a mouth like that.
 
Keith pushed back against the arm pinning his leg down, but there was nothing he could do. You just don’t push back walls.
 
This was bad. This was extremely bad.
 
Keith let his head fall down. His throat exposed, white and fragile under the green light. He felt like a mouse trapped in an unhealthy aquarium. The crowd was boiling. Green bills, green tickets, green light. Everything was ecstatic on the other side.
 
The other side. There was someone on the other side.
 
He couldn’t quite put the name on it, nor recall the voice, but he could see the mouth voicing something just for him. Danger, Tiger.
 
Keith couldn’t feel his knees anymore. He knew he should have called off. He didn’t. The neons ripped the ceiling. Keith couldn’t help but blink at them. Sweat dripped down on his chest, but it was not his own.
 
The image of a drooling lion over a defeated prey.
 
“Heh. ‘see we’re bendy ?” Keith wrinkled his nose at the scent escaping the giant’s gob when he talked. Smirking, he retreated his ankle lower. There was still an option he had yet to try.
 
Done for done, better go for it. Keith gathered the liquids in his mouth, whether they’d be saliva or not, and spat directly in Rider’s face. The ground rumbled.
 
“More than you think.” Screw keeping the blood in.
 
And Keith stopped resisting. He let his foot drop, let the gravity take its rights back. The giant followed him in his descent. Irresistible strength had met immovable force. It was the fall of its beloved old King and the jungle, hidden in it green density, screeched, screamed, howled and the sound fueled Keith, fueled him the fire and the rage he needed to burn everything to ashes.
 
Under green light, red blood looked black. Gasoline.
 
Danger, Tiger.
 
There was no more pain in his body and adrenaline spread in his veins like a rampant fire, setting everything to flames.

By the time Bull’s chin hit the ground, Keith was above it, towering the beast.
 
There was no need for a punchline, Keith used his feet to fight. His sole slammed down once, twice, and again, and again. The public shouted the rhythm with the number decreasing from ten to nine, to eight, unchained, and the fire ravaged the forest.
 
Blood stained an area too big for it to be healthy.
 
It was in his chest and it was in the air. It was the smell of something that had just exploded and it was the sound of something about to crack, about to burst. It was the electricity right before the storm. His hair rose on his neck.
 
Keith kicked, and kicked again. Keith didn’t know the technical words for that. Didn’t need to.

He was the danger. Danger Tiger. No matter how lame that sounded.

One last smash with the bright green zero zooming on the giant screen and it was over.
 
Silence froze in the air. The jungle had fallen quiet for the last second of the old reign. Only a flapping sound pierced its guts, to remind the world it was still turning. It was a bird escaping, it was a 10’s bill falling on the concrete.
 
Keith stared at the crowd and the crowd stared back.

Your old god is dead, behold the new king. What can a bull do against a tiger ?

And thunder roared out of his throat.
 
The jungle exploded under the storm and the green caught fire. The Jade Dragon was going to need a new sign and a rebranding. Keith didn’t stop howling until the light faded and the first hands grabbed him out of the ring.
 
---
 
“If you want to live, run !”
 
That’s the first thing Lance had found to shout into Tiger’s ear. Pidge had dropped from Hunk’s shoulder at zero minus ten, reached him at minus eight, said four words and Lance’s mood had dropped lower than his grades in economy class.

“The match was rigged.”

Danger Tiger was supposed to lose. Danger Tiger was supposed to be wiped out, to be erased under the hooves of the Bull. Danger Tiger had set fire to something, and in the meantime had provoked a terrible chain of events.
 
And Lance was, of course, right in the middle of the turmoil. So the first thing he did, of course, was to jump between the ropes and reach for the guy’s hand, clasp it with his own and scream at him to run for his life. Of course.
 
Luckily, Tiger offered no resistance. Lance had an idea as of to why, though.
 
The crowd was hurrying itself through the stairs, a pack of wildebeests blinded by the anger of losing a bet. Pidge stood above all, sat on the safety of Hunk’s shoulders. Lance aimed for them and cleared himself a path with the help of a few well placed elbows.
 
Pidge was vibrating at a frequency high enough to shatter glass.
 
“You actually won, you little son of a gun.” She was talking to Tiger, but Lance still took pride in it. After all, he kind of was the one that made it all possible, wasn’t he?
 
“Can we go now ? Like, can we actually go ? All these people running wild make me nervous.” Hunk was contorting his wrists.
 
Lance briefly shot a look at the side of him that held the boxer. If Lance had believed him to be an alive version of a Greek’s champion statue, from up close, the guy just looked like he’d gotten through hell, came back and went again, just to be sure.
 
“Work your magic, big guy.”
 
Hunk didn’t need to be told twice. He separated the human river like a rock breaches the continuity of a waterfall, and Lance followed in his wake. Pidge, atop of him, used her arms to shake whomever’s head had the misery to fall within easy reach.
 
“A one on ten !! A one on ten !” She repeated the words like a mantra.
 
A human body, on average, is held up by muscles of the legs, pushing the back upwards and helping it to stand. Danger Tiger had about five points of strength left, and he used them to breath, harshly. Lance, despite all his training sessions at the pool, had trouble lifting the boy up the stairs.
 
The closer they were, the more he noticed the skam that really was the hand-to-hand combat. Poor dude was in luck his face wasn’t complete jelly by now. The marble skin of before was covered in red and blue marks alike. Lance suspected, by the winces received every time he hoisted the guy up, that a broken rib was a salty addition to the list. He hoped that was the only one.
 
“We’re nearly up there, come on. You can do this.”
 
Tiger mouthed something. Even if Lance had the scene on tape, a year of free time and a Rosetta stone, he would not decipher the words.
 
“Of course, sure. Whenever.” Lance huffed. “Hunk, status update ?”
 
“We’re close. Pidge is gone looking for her bet money, I think.” He turned his head away, pushing up on his feet to look above the mass of heads sticking up. “The bar is crowded like a mall on black fridays, it’s going to take time before we reach the entrance.”
 
Lance stifled a groan.
 
“Ah, she does

not

look happy. I bet they refused to pay her.” Hunk voiced, more to himself than to Lance.
 
He had other problems anyways.
 
“Hey, man, hey. Come on, wake up, wake up, please, wake the fuck up.” He slapped gently Tiger’s face. The guy batted an eye. “Good, good, stay with me, okay. Talk to me, talk to me.”
 
Mumbled words. At least he listened.
 
“Hunk, I’m going to need a hand with this one.”
 
Said Hunk looked back at his friend holding what took more of a corpse than an actual living body. He pointed an index.
 
“You wanna keep that ?”
 
“He’s gonna get killed if we don’t help.”
 
Hunk seemed to consider the option, judging by the annoyed eyebrow that lowered on his left eye. Lance had made a convincing impression, because no longer than a second later, the fighter was lifted off his arms.
 
“Let’s roll, tiger.”
 
Lance rushed past him, already freying a passage through the density of the bar. “Very funny.” His head was doing two way trips from the bar to the back, trying to find a goblin shaped human in the mass.
 
Pidge appeared where he less suspected her to do so. From above.
 
“Pidge, we’re going, you gotta-” Lance never finished his sentence. After jumping from the railings, Pidge had decided to kick her way to the door. Multiple ‘fuck, my shins!’ screams were heard, and Lance guided himself with sound.
 
He passed the door under the judgmental eyes of the sculpted jade dragon.
 
Outside, the apocalypse. A bunch of bins had caught fire, and handouts were flying in the orange clouds of dust and smoke. The thunder was growling, but the sky was still dry as sand, and the air was scorching. Lance scoffed in his hands.
 
“What is going on ?” He yelled, but no one answered. From the corner of his eyes, he saw a guy with a bottle run towards the Dragon. When a lighter appeared in a flash in the guy’s hand, Lance knew it was time to leave the party. “Hunk, we run !”
 
“Didn’t need you to tell me that !”
 
The echoes of metals and humans screamings filled the air, and the sky was so teinted Lance believed they’d exited directly into hell. Every breath was a torture, smoke stinging in his lungs, the heat of the air drying his throat and his eyes. He had trouble focusing on the map displayed at the corner of his vision.
 
“There !”
 
Pidge on his heels, and Hunk right behind her, they bursted into the adjacent avenue. The chaos was decent there. Only a few guys were fighting, and Lance counted a car on fire. That didn’t stop him from running and running, until the familiar Ramen red neon sign came to view.
 
“Pidge !”
 
“On it !” She passed by him and slammed her hands on the door.
 
Hunk chucked himself behind her, the unconscious body of Tiger in his arms. Lance checked the streets twice for anomalies, and deciding the level of madness was acceptable in that part of town, entered too, closing tightly behind himself.
 
From Pidge’s windows, Lance watched the skies turn from orange to black. Lightning teared the night apart, and waterfalls poured from the heavens. One by one, he witnessed the orange glows disappear. When he turned around, Pidge was sleeping, Hunk snoring next to her.
 
Lance tiptoed to the couch. Laid there, lit only by the green diodes of Pidge’s equipments, Tiger breathed. Alive, but at what cost ?
 
----
 
Keith woke up in a church, soaked in colorful lights dawning from the stained glass windows. Lying on the couch, an angel. Eyelashes for days, fluttering in the mist of dawn. His skin glowed under the orange light of the morning.
 
So he did die after the match. Good.
 
Keith tried to set a foot to the ground. His muscles reacted violently, engaging a painful chain of reaction in his body, causing him to whine acidly. His tongue was sandpaper in his mouth, and now that he tried, he couldn’t open his left hand.
 
If his body was that sore, then it could only mean Keith was, well… Still alive. Great.
 
The angel on the couch moved. Keith felt mortified for having woken him up. They exchanged equally tired looks, and for a moment Keith wondered if time had stopped. The sound of the street had quieted down, the town still sleepy at this unholy hour of the morning.
 
“Hey-”
 
“Where… Sorry.”
 
Angel chuckled and ran a hand through hair. Okay, Keith was definitely not dead but this had to stop or his heart wouldn’t be able to survive the ephemeral vision.
 
“You first. I owe you a few answers, I guess.” Angel could speak.
 
Keith nodded carefully. Yup, every single one of his muscles hurt. Awesome. “I just want to know where I am. I won’t bother you much.”
 
While saying this, he’d tried to stand up. Keyword, tried. His back was just one big bruise.
 
Angel waltzed up to him. “Dude, really, stop. It’s been hard enough to get you to breathe correctly, don’t ruin it.”
 
Keith stared at his fingers brushing hair out of his own face, so close, so close it warmed his cheeks. He tried to say something, but the sound died in his throat before he could do anything about it.
 
“I’d ask you if you prefer coffee or powerade, but you’re on strict water regime, Hunk’s orders.”
 
Keith had no idea who Hunk could be or if he was a competent doctor, but anything said by that guy was God’s word today. He wasn’t lying to himself ; without that guy right there, and supposedly his friend, Keith’s body would be floating in a sewer right now.
 
“Here.” Angel pushed a glass at his face. Keith gulped down everything, thirsty and keen to appear as nice as possible. “So, hum…”
 
Keith raised an eyebrow. “Yeah ?”
 
“About yesterday, I, hum. I don’t know what got to me, but I…”
 
“Hey. T’s fine. Thanks. I’d be dead by now if you hadn’t.” Keith connected the dots. The only possibility was that Angel right here happened to be the same miracle of the match. The seventh round miracle.
 
Heaven’s free trial.
 
Angel hummed pensively. Red and blue neons painted strange shadows on his face. The city was waking up, the humidity and heat rising already. Keith stared at the walls, covered in poster, pictures, notes, plans and a dozen of items, cups and electronic stuff. The floor was just like the rest, a cluttered mess. Angel walked soft like a feather over it.
 
He stopped at the door and turned to Keith.
 
“I’m going to run a few errands. It shouldn’t take more than the morning. If you need anything, help yourself. Don’t go out, Hunk strongly advised you against doing that, but you were sleeping so... l pass you the message. Also you’re not allowed to touch Pidge’s stuff. See you later !”
 
An holographic key click. Angel pushed the door.
 
And just like a mirage vanishing with the sunrise, he was gone. Keith palpated his sides. He muffled a raw scream. There was no way he could move without crying. His heart was beating in his chest like a trapped animal.
 
He rolled off the bed with a growl, falling on all four. Saliva dripped on the floor, escaping his mouth running open for air. It took him a minute to regain control over his arm.
 
Keith crawled to the windows, enveloped in the morning fog. He passed a hand over it, shooing the mist to get a look outside. Unmistakable in the street with his green jacket, Angel was escaping on what looked like a neon powered bike. An old Genesis, running on magnetic suspensions, but virtually indestructible. Good choice.
 
Judging by the size and decrepit state of the buildings, he couldn’t have gone far from the Jade Dragon. He needed to go back there.
 
Not that he wanted to, but they had something that belonged to him.
 
-
 
Busy street, Downtown. Large, crowded, smelt like burnt vinegar, rotting garbage mixed up with spices, all the while gently soaking in dust and smoke. Lance paced through the neons signs and the food carts, decided to make it to Pidge’s lair as fast as possible. Chinese takeouts, once again, balanced in the plastic bag hanging from the handlebars of his bike.
 
His hands were sweaty, and if he didn’t stop chewing his lips right now, he would need more than chapstick to cover the damages.
 
Danger Tiger was the latest public enemy. His face was displayed here and there, and some even offered credits to whomever had intel about the guy’s whereabouts. Lance had no idea who wanted him so bad, but they seemed too decided for it to be reassuring at all.
 
Under the graffitis covering the bottom half of the jumbotrons, Tiger’s photograph continuously played, accompanying Lance in his run. Footages of the match had leaked on the infraNet. People were already exchanging theories about the match.
 
The current favorite featured pills, the mafia and a billion of stolen credits. Lance hated to smell lingerings of truth in the idea. He was involved, after all.
 
He shoved the motorcycle in its hangar and ran upstairs, slamming his shoulder on the door to open it. The scan made an indignated noise and Lance bursted into the apartment. Short was his breath, low were his hopes.
 
“Hey, someone there ?”
 
Sometimes silence in itself was an answer. The place was empty.
 
“Crap. Should have guessed !” Lance tossed the food on the table.
 
He’d been out for only an hour and a half, and the guy was already gone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The world tilted around. The horizon was playing dangerous games with gravity and nothing was moving how it should. Keith pushed the walls of the city to move instead of using his own legs. His nails were already black from soot and grease.
 
People looked at him the same way they looked at the nearest stray dog. Gaunt, groggy and severely bruised, nothing really distinguished them anyways. Both could bite.
 
The neighbourhood -let’s call the handful of grey buildings that- revolved around a singular main street. Once he crossed it, Keith knew he couldn’t be so far away from the Jade Dragon. Posters of his victory and others champions rubbed shoulders with bounties on his head. That was no surprise, but it would have been nice to just blend in without having to hide.
 
Leaving Angel, and whomever were his friends, was the best idea he had taken of all week. If he’d stayed, who knows what kind of city scumbag would have showed up to their door, looking for easy money?
 
Better save them the trouble.
 
Keith progressed slowly, but his broken ribs weren’t the only thing stopping him. With every step he took, the crowd grew denser, and he was walking against the wind, ramping up the streets.
 
A kid ran past him. And then a pack of rats, for some reason, that wiggled around his ankles. Something was happening up north, and it was dangerous enough to frighten the trash belongers. He felt cold sweat pearl on his skin. No good.
 
The passing streets, perpendiculars to the main ones, linked all the arteries of the Downtown, veins of a systems oxygenating the bigger areas and providing them all the flesh they needed to keep burning, like a gigantic fire.
 
Keith engulfed himself in another of those, even smaller and unbreathable. The passersby suffocated him, half of them running in random directions, fleeing a danger Keith was limping towards at a desperately slow pace.
 
His arm reached out. He grabbed the first thing that had the bad luck to enter his range, an elbow. A middle aged guy yelled something at him. Keith hoisted himself up against the wall and glared at a pair of startled eyes, red around the edges.
 
“What is going on out there ?!” Keith realised he hadn’t spoke in a while at the precise moment his vocal cords ripped out of his throat just to get these words out. Despite his croaking more than asking, he got a reaction.
 
“The Galrans ! They started sacking !”
 
The man yanked his arm away from Keith and disappeared into the street, ashe getting back into the turmoil of the smoke.
 
Keith couldn’t care less about him. His words, however, had hit the bull’s eye in the boy’s mind.
 
He slammed his chest against the wall, his tee-shirt helpless to protect him from the grease of the concrete. Strands of hair covered his eyes, imprisoning him deeper into his thoughts.
 
Galrans.
 
The time seems appropriate to recall about the city’s functioning.
 
Divided into half a dozen of parts, the city was its own living being. The downtown was the arts and crafts zone, manufactures and productions all grouped in the same belt of factories and malls.
 
A net of black macadam threaded all this together, up to the upper city, the bright lava at the top of a concrete volcano, grease and smoke melting over each centimeter to cover of their darkness anything left.
 
Money was little thing compared to what technology could offer. The highest building was a company’s research laboratory, and most of the central high was scientifical eminency and research oriented. Universities flourished all around, and from here, the rest of the world.
 
Technological advances sprung from the very highest point of the city to rain down, thus explaining half of the dividing of the population. Then came the police, and the gangs.
 
On the docks, near the coast. All over what kids called the “underworld”, the five levels system of underground parkings, to free the surface from them. Across the Red Lights quarter, no explanation needed here. Spread over the outside reprocessing factories. Gangs of different types, organisations, codes, had seen the day, and for five of them, persevered.
 
That, and on the other side, the governmentally installed drones, everywhere. The regular police, too, although it could have its place the ‘gang’ category, given its influence and restricted zone of activity.
 
Lastly, an astonishing number of free spirits of all kind, bounty hunters, night owls with bullets to spare, vigilantes and their curious views of honor, local groups of armed teenagers. These had no say in the matter of territories, but no one dared to dismiss their presence, because they still counted as a shifting force, an uncontrollable fire that could warm or burn everything, depending on its mood.
 
This pyramid, a social food chain, ranked the basic civilian at its bottom, and the supreme mafia leader at its top, with the elitist class of scientist a bit out of this milling, too busy exploring the limits of its ultrafast computers. In between, free spirits, hunters, policemen and rich people shared the other rungs.
 
Keith had grown up downtown. A kid working with his hands, he’d learned to deal with his own abilities at a young age, and started with that, and that only. The orange lights of the factories district had never disturbed him, no more than the ashes and the mud on his feet.
 
However, the chemically clean streets, lit by their blue-green responsible neon lumens, up there in science-town… Never been a fan of it.
 
He avoided the pretty streets like some avoid the plague.
 
His homezone was controlled by a gang of bikers and knife throwers, as strange as the combination could seem, and they called themselves Marmora, the blades of. Just like everyone else, he knew the borders, repressed his needs to spat at government officers, and tried not to mess with any member of a different gang.
 
But this was the old, unspoken Law of the unsaid Zones. Drones ruled in the centers, police licked their mechanic feet all around the central quarters, and the rest was divided into territories. A law that even the mayor had stopped to fight against.
 
Alas, the Galrans hadn’t.
 
Spurging from the depths of who knows which building of the center, they’d taken over the border of the Purple town -short long story, mercury decays in purple hues, losing its clear blue over time. Guess what they installed all over the oil refineries- and clawed their way inside the city, roaming the streets on their amped up engines, sparkles shooting from the electric motors.
 
Their rampant corruption had tilted the barriers, and suddenly, the fragile balance maintained for so long had been smashed to pieces, just like the territories.
 
And since then, it was street war.
 
Caught in the middle of this, a kid from Purple town, looking for his belongings. Keith drew in a breath and clicked his tongue to avoid screaming at the feeling of his ribs floating freely in his body.

They’re looking for me ? No. Can’t be.

The sky was on fire when he hurtled on the main street, the Jade Dragon in flames across the road. The eyes of the plastic beast towering the entrance had melted, and its mouth spat out fire over the door. Keith refrained himself from smashing his fist into the nearest wall.
 
Shit !
 
There’s no way he could find anything in this mess. Hell was taking over the city.
 
He looked both ways before crossing the street, acutely aware that if a homemade tank crafted by a random vigilante met his path, it wouldn’t be slowing down. Yeah, there was probably even a chance it would accelerate.
 
Keith was holding himself up. His arms held in place what was left of his ribcage. The rumble of the fire, added to the acid, dry smoke that burned his eyes and throat, the turmoil of ashes and dust keeping him in a constant black fog, the screams erupting in every direction, the great apocalypse was playing all around.
 
He focused on walking. One foot, and the other, and then again. The Dragon was only a couple of meters away.
 
The fire poked its tongue at the walls. Like a lizard, flames crawled all over the structure, engulfing the building in their orange mouth. Air was rarefying, the greed of the blaze engulfing every single molecule of oxygen in its destructive rage.
 
Scoffing was a brutal pain, shaking inside and outside. Keith cried, a hand over his nose. The other was pressed on his chest, keeping track of his heartbeat. So far ? Bad. And things were not about to get any better. At all.
 
Hungry, the flames licked the pipe alimenting the whole structure in gas and electricity. Keith saw sparkles explode in the smoke. For a brief, but intense second, everything remained exactly the same. Then an invisible giant grabbed his body and sent it flying across the road. The force of the impact blew him away and emptied his lungs, the shock proceeding to rattle his bones.
 
Would he have had any air to do so, Keith would have howled to death. But he remained silent, catatonic, spread in the middle of the cracked concrete, darker under his hair.
 
Unable to move a finger, he looked around. The grey dust was darkening, tainted by something Keith hoped wasn’t

his

blood.
 
Too bad.
 
Strangely, the fire had shushed down, the growl of the flames now reduced to a whisper. A second of reflexion, and Keith deduced that the blood was in fact his blood, and that it was escaping from his ears, and that if he didn’t move soon, his eardrums wouldn’t be the only damaged thing.
 
Above all, he needed to breath. Being knocked on the ground had its advantages ; fresh air move close to the ground too. He mentally did the math.
 
At this speed, the fire would engulf the nearest buildings in about three minutes, killing anything breathing in the nearest area in about two minutes only. Keith was absolutely decked, his chest hurt without even moving, he was half blind and totally deaf, and hadn’t even found what he came for. Way to go, champ.
 
His head hit back the concrete when he stopped trying to look at the flames. One way or another, he had to move. Or he died asphyxiated like a rat.

Move.

Keith had seen Kill Bill only once, but the vision of Uma Thurman urging her toes to move was something he’d never quite forget, contrary to the gruesome fights, way more common after all in slasher movies.
 
Right now, Keith was Uma. Struggling to move the littlest muscle.

Move.

Despite the ringing -when did it even began ?- in his ears, Keith heard very closely the crash of the upper stories of the Dragon. Another warm, dehydrating wave of smoke washed over him.

MOVE.

His hands obeyed, and so did his legs, globally less damaged than the rest of his body. But his back formally refused to leave the ground.
 
The temperature was approaching the intolerable. His skin was melting. His hair smelt more like burnt plastic than shampoo.
 
MOVE.
 
And Keith moved. Teared away from the road, his body landed behind another, on an unstable structure. Reflexes and survival above all else, he glued himself to that, biting his lips to the blood when his nerves caught up and reminded him that, no, he wasn't healed. He wasn’t even healing.
 
Screw that. He was actively dying, and the vibrations of his seat weren’t helping !
 
Keith looked at his feet, squeezing blue metallic footrests. The ground was spinning under neon lit wheels.

The Genesis ?

Keith blinked. Angel. A valiant knight on his white stallion, excepted he was covered in dust and sweat and his stallion was a ten years old magnetic bike, but Keith didn’t ask for anything else.
 
His hands gripped a little tighter in front of him, while he turned carefully to watch behind. The bike had left a trail on the concrete, and lighted the smoke with its blue halo. Lost in the dust and the flames, the silhouette of the bar. Keith watched without a blink as it disappeared, consumed by the fire. And suddenly, as if the Earth itself had decided to open, a loud cracking sound that reverberated itself in the metal and the bones, and the structure imploded. His eyes watched a cloud darker than black elevate itself from the wreck, ghost of all the sins finally free from its cage.
 
Then Angel turned and pushed up the speed, and Keith forgot to think about the Jade Dragon.
 
---
 
“What on Earth were you thinking about ?!”
 
Lance slammed his fist down, splashing droplets of water all over the counter.
 
In front of him, sat on a chair Lance could give up to ever wash off of all the dust, grease and ashes, Tiger raised his eyes, like two dark holes in the middle of an even darker figure. He looked like a literal shadow, his skin yesterday so pale and green under the neons now completely covered by a solid layer of black, model I-went-into-a-fire-and-barely-made-it-out-alive.
 
Tiger didn’t say anything and voraciously drank his 33cl in a single sitting.
 
Lance folded his arms over his chest. He was patient, more than one could think. Uncle’s obligations.
 
They rested in his own house. Despite spending a whole chunk of his time on the road, and a third of the rest at Pidge’s lair, Lance technically lived with his parents on the south side of the coastline. A gentle twenty minutes drive away from the burning hell of the Downtown.
 
A refill and a silence later, and Tiger finally opened his mouth.
 
“Sorry.”
 
“Yeah, no joking.” Lance blared. He waited for a while for the other to pursue, but lack of answers oblige, he kept going. “You could have died, for what ? The third time these days ? That’s completely nuts. Why would you even go back there, after yesterday ? They nearly got you beaten to death and the first thing you do is to go back. For what ? A barbecue that went horribly wrong ? ”
 
Lance leaned forward. Tiger shyed his eyes away.
 
“Seriously, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you, do you have a death wish or something ?”
 
Surprisingly enough, that was Lance’s only question to get an answer. “No.” Yeah, didn’t say it was the best.
 
Lance sighed. Dried blood mixed with… whatever, was coating his hair on his neck. The feeling was displeasing. He tapped on the counter twice, softly. “Whatever. Let’s go take a shower. You can’t keep looking like this or my mom is going to kill me.”
 
“Your mom ?”
 
“Yeah, why ?” Lance turned on his heels. He didn’t got the time to notice yet, but in fact, Tiger wasn’t

so

short. They were approximately the same height. That was probably their only common point. The guy was cheap on words, and only shrugged back.
 
Lance exited the kitchen-living-dining-room through the bay windows and started walking barefoot in the sand covering their concrete built-in yard. Joys of living on floor level ? You get to have five square meters of grey cement just for you !
 
And you can even call it a garden if you’re oblivious enough.
 
His parents had bought, in their early marriage days, one of these apartments near the sea inside those family complexes called ‘Blokos’. Same designs, only one set of colors, repetitive patterns, everything was the same for kilometers. Blocs of cements divided into five habitations, with everything necessary included inside. Copy and paste.
 
The city and the people in general had applauded the concept in its first years. Equality for all, economy of space and resources, better living conditions for all of the coastline.
 
Now the buildings were twenty years old, and depressing as prison cells. Lance had no memories of the place ever being an ‘accessible paradise’ like the ads used to promote it, but that’s where he grew up. Grey walls, green pipes, beige walls. Nothing new to the west.
 
However, half of the inhabitants had taken it on them to repaint everything into bright colors, in a collective effort to find back some of that forgotten joy. Lance had only seen photographs of what Cuba and Mexico used to look like, but maybe his parents would find a bit of it in the orange and blue freshly splattered all over the neighbourhood walls.
 
Lance stepped up to the sunlit wall of concrete yard. The walls exuded warmth. Sun was vomiting all of its brightness inside the place, and Lance smiled at it, a hand over the eyes.
 
“I thought we were taking a shower ?” Tiger remarked. He poked at the sand. Perks of living next to the sea, you get free sand-scrub directly at home.
 
“Oh, we are. I’m not letting you touch anything else inside, that’s all.” Lance explained while pumping for the outdoors sink to fill in with… pebble-clear water. “Here. I’m going to look for a clean shirt.”
 
Tiger removed his own and plunged his hands into the sink. The water turned muddier than it was.
 
Lance stopped, halfway inside his house, and turned his head back to Tiger. He shot the boy a smile. Sunlight was washing over him as surely as the water that dripped down his arms was black.
 
“And if you even try to leave my yard, I swear I-”
 
“Don’t worry about that.” Tiger cut short. He sounded so tired Lance’s brain forgot to find something snarky to retort.
 
Yeah, BRB then. Lance tiptoed his way back to his room. It was around twelve, on a saturday… Yeah, he had all of his chances to get busted. He was lucky enough to not be seen arriving with what looked more like a burnt corpse than a teenager.
 
The first tee-shirt that came within arms length was tagged ‘SharkBoy’ and was lowkey a favorite. Lance digged deeper into his pile of half-clean shirts.
 
A rag, three years old and completely washed away by afternoons spent running in it. His old club tee. No tag, no nothing besides the logo of his old swim team. Lance didn’t hate it, but he could suffer the loss. “Ah. Perfect.”
 
“Perfect for what, young boy ?”
 
Yeah, as much as Lance had no problem speeding up twenty miles above the limit in burning streets, facing his mother still had him shivering a bit. Especially when he knew she was not gonna like his answer.
 
So. Lance lied. A little.
 
“It’s for a friend. He needs a shirt.”
 
In fact it wasn’t a lie. Well, Tiger wasn’t his friend per say, but he did need a shirt. Yeah, that wasn’t a lie. He just hadn’t told the whole story... but no one needed the full story, right ?
 
“Well, sure. What happened to him ? Do you want me to find one of your brother’s ? Is it Hunk ? Your shirts would never fit Hunk, so if you want I can go find a bigger one.”
 
Lance avoided swiftly the gentle hands that almost landed on his shoulders and nodded. “Naah, mam’, it’s all good, all fine. You don’t know him, he’s huh… He’s new.”
 
“New ?”
 
Lance was progressively walking backwards in the corridor, the light of the living room reaching his feet.
 
“Yeah, we met at a huh… Sports competition.” Again, not technically a lie. Lance was really good at this.
 
“Well, if he wants to stay over for the lunch…”
 
The very idea of having to seat next to Tiger to share a meal, in family, made Lance weirdly spasm. “Huh, no, thanks Ma’ but that’s not… Yeah, no, it’s fine.” The window bay was just behind. Lance prayed all the gods he had ever studied Tiger had at least washed his face by now.
 
“Alright, good, because I need to go see your sister and we’re going soon. Can I count on you or are you… Busy with that friend of yours ?”
 
Lance knew a tone when he heard one. “Mam’ ! That’s not…! Oh, whatever, you know, just go see Veronica at her thing, you’ll send me the videos.”
 
“Who said I was gonna film it ?”
 
“Mama. You always film.”
 
With a chuckle, his mother disappeared back into the house and Lance stepped in the concrete yard. He’d been in luck. Any other day and she would have put her nose in his business, but Veronica was keeping her busy. Thank gods for sisters.
 
Tiger was clean as can be. His skin was still dark in places, but it must have been the bruises of his fight. His hair still looked gross, though.
 
Lance tossed his shirt at the guy, who caught it mid flight.
 
“Thanks.”
 
“Feels good to be clean, right ?”
 
“Can’t argue against that.” Tiger admitted. The shirt was a tad too tight, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he poked the logo with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that ?”
 
“Sports Team logo. I was a highschool champion.” Lance explained, pride tainting the edges of the words. “You like it ?”
 
“It fits.”
 
A silence settled. Lance sat on the concrete, sand entering his shoes by the holes in them. Tiger joined, on the other side of the yard. His arms were cut and burnt in so many places that from afar, it looked like a weird, beige galaxy. Lance counted the seconds. When it became too many, he stopped trying to wall himself in silence. Unable to do so, to be honest.
 
“So. Really. Why did you get back ?”
 
Tiger averted his gaze. The midday sun was pouring on him, drying him effectively. “I was looking for something.”
 
“No shit.”
 
Tiger fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. Lance caught a glimpse of the dark skin underneath, red and purple. It didn’t look pretty, at all. That guy was mad crazy to even move with such injuries.
 
“It’s important to me.” Tiger drove a hand over his mouth. “My mom gave it to me, when I was a child. I don’t really remember but…”
 
“No, I get it.” Lance wasn’t lying.
 
Tiger nodded. “I know it might seem reckless, but…”
 
“Might ? Are you kidding me ? Dude, that

is

the most stupidest reckless thing I’ve ever heard of.”
 
Tiger frowned. “And what would you have done, genius ?”
 
“Huh ? I don’t know, wait a bit for everything in me to go back to where it’s supposed to be, sleep, get back on track ? Rest, you know ?” Lance’s eyebrows skyrocketed.
 
Tiger’s head gently tapped on the wall. “Yeah. Well I don’t have time for this.”
 
“You’re literally falling into pieces. Don’t give me the tough guy speech. If it wasn’t for Hunk and me, you’d be dead. Twice.”
 
Tiger furrowed his brows even more, and Lance learned that it was indeed possible to have muscles in that place of the face. “How come you knew where to find me ?”
 
“I don’t know, I saw a light.” Lance joked. Tiger’s eyelids covered half of his pupils in an annoyed gaze. “No, seriously,” Lance defended himself, “I followed the biggest disaster. A huge fire in central Downtown.”
 
“And you just figured I would be around the worst thing going on?” Tiger remarked.
 
“You say that like I was wrong.”
 
Lance smirked when Tiger realised he… actually was always around the worst thing going on. The guy folded his arms over his chest, stretching the sport logo over his chest. Yeah, maybe the tee-shirt was a little tight.
 
The sun gleamed over them, now, hung high up in the skies. It was going to be a warm, hot, torrid summer. Lance could feel it in the way the light flowed on his skin, leaking sun under his closed eyelids. Across the yard, Tiger shifted.
 
“You’re welcome, by the way.” Lance added. He wasn’t very needy, but a little recognition would be nice.
 
Tiger whispered something. Lance was about to ask for a clarification when he noticed.
 
“Dude. You’re sleeping.” He said softly. To himself.
 
Good.
 
--
 
Keith woke up in a walled concrete yard, situated, judging by the lights -well maintained orange lampposts- and the air -fresh and salty- near the coast, probably in one of those neighbourhoods that used to be fancy in the 80’s. His hair smelled weird, but his skin was strangely smoother than it had been in the last week. When he rubbed his side, an electric shock exploded in through his nerves.
 
Same old shit as always.
 
The moon lit the night sky just as well as a white, cold, frozen sun.
 
Keith realized something was moving by his side. Warm. It made his hair move but it wasn’t the wind.
 
An angel slept next to him.
 
Keith choked at the sight of the galaxy of freckles spread on a nose breathing in his air. His first reflex ? He jumped over the wall and ran into the night. Again.
 
If this was a romantic comedy, you would sure get the award of incorrigible bastard, son.
 
But it wasn’t a romantic comedy, and he didn’t make it as far as the end of the street that a hand landed on his shoulder and yanked him backwards so brutally that he lost his balance and smacked his head against something hard. But not too hard, not concrete. Bones, probably.
 
“You never learn, do you ?” A smirk Keith couldn’t see, but he heard it in the voice.
 
“Leave me alone.” Keith groaned. Angel was gripping hard on his arm. “Why does it matter so much to you anyways ?”
 
“Why what ?”
 
Keith stepped back, vainly trying to escape. “That I live. What’s the difference for you, if I make it or not ?”
 
Angel’s hand froze. Keith seized the occasion to step back and back again. The moon stared at them with her icy look. A shiver ran up his spine. A miracle he hadn’t broken it yet, reflexion done.
 
“Why… Are you asking me why do I care if you live or die ?”
 
“Pretty much.” Keith admitted.
 
“Whoaw… You’re ! You’re incredible, you know that ?” Angel ran a febril hand through his hair. “Hey, you know what ? Spoilers alert, I do not ! Go get your ass killed in the nearest gang fight, I don’t give a damn rat’s tail.”
 
Keith watched the guy close the distance between them in two furious step, his finger jabbing directly under his chin, one of the rare parts of his body that didn’t hurt like hell. Good aim, Angel. Good aim.
 
“I just thought, I don’t know. You’d took care of your chance, as a repay, or something ?”
 
Keith scowled. “So what, you save people so that they owe you shit ?”
 
“What ? No ! I just… Hey, you know what ? I don’t care.”
 
“You already said that. Twice, if I recall-”
 
“Don’t play smartass with me !” Angel yelled. His eyes reflected nothing but the cold moon, and yet Keith knew he was burning inside. He had no idea why, though, and that much was true.
 
Why would that guy care for him ?
 
They didn’t know each other, at least not that he recalled. He didn’t owe him anything, he’d never seen him -he would remember that, oh well… So what was the big deal ?
 
Keith was not in the mood for a fight. The night had liquefied his anger and the pain had numbed his nervous system. Right now, Keith felt as cold and desert and empty as the surface of the Moon.
 
“Fine.”
 
“And you don’t get to- wait, what ?” Angel stopped frowning so suddenly Keith would have checked for an on/off button behind his head.
 
“I’m gonna rest. For the night. And be careful. From now on.” Keith stammered the sentences like they costed him much, and in a way, they kind of… did.
 
“I always get them to listen to me !” Angel showed off, a smug smile plastered across his face. “Always. Wait, hey, where are you going ?”
 
Keith had started walking away. His flat was a rented creepy local he paid a couple of dollars a day in the Red Lights zone. That was at least an hour away, on foot, and Keith wasn’t in the best of shapes. Better get going.
 
Angel waltzed behind him. “You’re not trying to distance me right now, are you ? Because huh, you might be wearing my swim team shirt, but I was first man in track running too, and there’s no way you’d outrun me.” He slapped his thigh to prove his point.
 
Keith shook his head. “I’m going… back to my place.” He didn’t have the courage nor wanted to call that hovel a home. But his place, yeah. That fit.
 
“Where’s that again ?”
 
Keith risked a look at Angel. His name really fit, even though it probably… Was not his name. But it could be. Angel. With his bright eyes and wondering smile. Keith was not a liar, and even if he was, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to

that

face.
 
“Red Lights.”
 
“Oh.” Polite, discreet answer. But Keith knew very well what was turning now under the other boy’s skull.
 
Luxurious images of the hottest district of town, quite literally. A microclimate of overheated private rooms and hotels with mirrors on the ceiling. The luscious paradise hidden in the heart of the city. Most teenage boys usually dreamt more than they walked in any of the Red district’s rooms. Keith wasn’t really fazed by his reaction, but local mama’s boy was gonna be disappointed.
 
Besides the heady vapors and intoxicating smells that escaped through the dozens of lined up vents in the sideways streets, warmer by ten degrees than the rest, nothing distinguished the grey buildings of the zone from the others elsewhere.
 
Loyal to its name, the neighbourhood had put up lanterns all above the streets, permanently bathing the place in a red hue. To be true, after years of good behavior, the district was more of a mix between Chinatown and Amsterdam than anything. But who was Keith to judge.
 
He lived there, after all.
 
Angel followed on his tracks for a moment, before stopping short, leaning on an ice cream truck. The car was silent for the night. Keith had never heard the music in real life, but he’d seen the thing in movies ; a melody bringing together all the children in a fifty meters range. Angel shook his head, catching Keith’s attention.
 
“Wait, wait. Light up my lantern here.”
 
“Ha, very funny.” Keith deadpanned.
 
Angel winked. “Sorry, bad habit from a friend.” He waved in dismissal. “So, hum, yeah, why are we walking ?”
 
Keith was obliged to stop if he wanted to keep talking. Given his state, he would rather not, but Angel insisted on staying stuck to his truck.
 
“Huh, because I want to go home ?”
 
“Yeah. I know, duh.” Angel tapped a finger on his temple. “But why are we going on foot ?”
 
Keith breathed in. “What, you got a better idea ?” As soon as his words left his mouth, he knew he was fucked. Angel, despite his surname, had a devilish smile and a little flame in his eyes Keith couldn’t ignore. The Moon herself couldn’t cool that boy down.
 
“Actually. I do.” Keith watched him jump on his feet and run back to where they came from. “Wait for me here ! Don’t move.”
 
His silhouette disappeared at the corner of the street. Keith obeyed, out of curiosity and because he wasn’t going to go far anyways.
 
Blue neons reflected in the humid air, followed by the mixed up shutter and quiet rumbling of the Genesis. A light and sound show, Angel on his bike once again. Keith hadn’t quite got a good look the first time. This guy rode his engine like some rode their childhood bicycle. With ease, fun, and not a single sign of care for any single law on the road.
 
The Genesis stopped in front of the ice-cream truck, its magnetic suspensions whispering in the night. The cold blue of the moonlight was erased by the neon of the wheels, powered by the speed of the engine. Keith eyed Angel, his hair free in the wind. The boy nodded at the backseat.
 
“Hop on, come on !”
 
Keith executed, meeting the leather seat once again. Familiar but not really yet. “Aren’t you supposed to wear a helmet ?”
 
“And ruin my hairstyle ? Please.”
 
Keith was joking, Angel was joking, but both knew very well how dangerous it was to be that carefree on a motorcycle, especially a rigged one -because Keith had no doubt about the state of the motor. No. Doubt.
 
A single error and Game Over.
 
“Where to, Princess ?” Keith smacked his knee in the back of Angel’s thigh. He yelped, strangling a laugh. “Alright, alright ! Sorry. Where to, Master ?”
 
“That’s not better !”
 
Without even waiting for his answer, Angel pushed the gas, laughing out loud in the cold night.
 
Angel wasn’t a careful driver. When the first traffic lights colored the night air, Keith looked at the moon. Her eyes stared back.
 
---
 
Lance loved going out. He loved the night. And he loved his bike. Magnetically powered, the engine only needed gas to start, and the circular energy of the momentum did the rest. Thanks to the almost absence of friction on the wheels, he could ride up to 210 kilometers per hours without even killing the disks.
 
That being said, the absence of contact between him and the wheels took slowing down a whole new level. He basically had… No brakes. If Lance wanted to stop, he literally had to wait for his speed to diminish.
 
So instead, he’d learn to avoid vehicules and drift.
 
“You’re supposed to wait for your turn !”
 
Desperately commenting Lance’s driving behind him, Tiger, holding onto his body like his life depended on it. Which was the case. Lance had learned to drive to go

fast

, not to go well. And judging by the raspy screams exploding in his ears, Tiger wasn’t a Fast and Furious fan. Well, he was furious.
 
Lance was the fast one.
 
“Yeah, well, tell that to my carburetor !” He yelled back to Tiger over the sound of traffic all around them.
 
The Genesis had engaged on the road at a stop sign without waiting, and the whole street had bursted on the macadam behind them. Not gonna lie, his bike was powered by oil just as Lance was powered by adrenaline.
 
Tiger didn’t seem to enjoy the ride. Cleary, that guy had never seen a bike.
 
“You are…”
 
Lance took a square angle at full speed. The road tilted on its axis when he leaned on his side to drift.
 
“The worst…”
 
Tiger’s nails were white. A truck honked.
 
“Pilot…”
 
There ! The first lanterns hanging in the winds, right next to the red light Lance passed without even paying attention.
 
“Ever !”
 
Tiger was out of breath when Lance finally slowed down. His first profound inhale after the madness of the outer highways smelled like smoke and fried rice.
 
Above them, the sky was covered by a swarm of red lanterns balancing idly in the wind. The atmosphere was a good tenth degrees warmer. Even for a summer night, it was horribly hot. Music was coming out of multiple streets and the air was beating repetitively along the infrabass of techno sounds echoing out of the underground clubs.
 
Lance mistook that pounding with the one of his heart, accelerated by the bike race.
 
The Red Lights district. The legend in front of his very eyes.
 
A bunch of really lightly dressed girls exited from one of the staircase on his right. The lanterns made their skin glow red. Their eyes were on fire. Lance’s throat dried up.
 
“I live at the end of that street. I can walk from here if you want.”
 
Lance had completely forgotten about Tiger, mesmerized by the flock of bodies moving around them. The road here was only large enough for a single car, making the district essentially pedestrian.
 
A giant door, emblematic of the Chinatown essence of the neighbourhood, towered the entrance of the nearest street. Lance turned, his bike slowing down more and more. He shifted in manual mode, hyper aware of his surroundings.
 
Another couple of groups of girls. Magenta and orange neons, music, fires burning in cages, costumed waitress offering samples in the streets. Everywhere, the constant buzz of air conditioning. Men twice his age drinking at the terraces. Girls, girls. And boys, too… Lance looked both ways before crossing the street…
 
Tiger tapped his shoulder and dragged him back to reality. Well… The Red Light was very real, but Lance was back from this weird out-of-body experience. Kinda.
 
“It’s here.”
 
The Genesis stopped. Manual mode had brakes, yeah.
 
The journey ended sooner than anticipated. Somehow, a voice in him wished it hadn’t. The day had passed like a daze, and Lance hadn’t realized. His brain was stuck on events melting in each other, as if everything was solely one long, twisted fever dream. The temperature was high enough to get delirious, after all.
 
Lance listened with a deaf ear Tiger groan as he stumbled down the bike. The complex tangling of balconies and buildings, pipes and cables, all over the streets, formed another kind of pattern, different from the spider webs of Downtown.
 
In Red Light, Lance couldn’t help but think of lace. Black, thick lace, enveloping the district like a plastic corset.
 
Somewhere, caught in between all the limbs and the doors and the wires, Tiger had a bed and a fridge and… What could a guy like that store in his room ? Lance’s eyes drifted back to the guy in question, currently leaning on the back of the Genesis.
 
“Dude, you okay ?”
 
Tiger glared at him between his bangs. “Yeah, I am. Now.” Resent was dripping out of his mouth.
 
“I’m an excellent driver.” Lance commented. “If I wasn’t, you and I would both be dead.”
 
“Doing the bare minimum doesn’t make you excel at something, you know that right ?” Tiger retorted as he stepped to his door. Lance missed the first number the other boy typed, but the door clicked open.
 
A swarm of young adults passed between them, bottles and cigarettes in every available hand.
 
“So…” Lance started.
 
“Yeah.” A silence. Tiger still held his door in his hand. Lance risked a glance up. Which of these balconies was his ? The cramped one, covered in plants ? Unlikely. One was circled by chicken wire. No, the guy didn’t look that paranoid. Probably more of the type to own a completely empty place.
 
A concert of applause erupted in the nearest staircase. Lance looked at the dozen of neons above the entrance. Five bars, two dance clubs, one… private club. Three restaurant, and between all of these nightly enjoyments, a grocery store.
 
Red Lights hid a gargantuesque number of stores and clubs under  the floor level, up to twenty stories down. Like a giant ice cube floating in a Bloody Mary, bigger under the surface.
 
Maybe Tiger didn’t have a balcony, and lived underground. Maybe under some box club… Yeah, that kind of felt right.
 
Another row of applause. A bar was hosting a birthday party, judging by the echoes. Lance snapped back to reality.
 
“See you around, I guess ?”
 
“For you, I hope not.” Tiger awkwardly answered.
 
Lance clicked his tongue. “Ha, yeah, ‘always at the worst thing going on’ thingie…”
 
“That…”
 
And another silence. Lance found that even weirder, with all the noise and agitation going on around them. It made it even deadly uncomfortable. They weren’t friends, but somehow one of them owed the other life.
 
Weird.
 
“So, huh, thanks. I’m gonna… Bye.”
 
Lance waved his hand. Behind Tiger, the door clicked again, magnetically closed.
 
For a moment, the Genesis and her owner didn’t made a move. Waiting for something ? Someone ? Lance was not sure, but it took him a group of girls laughing really loud and the wind of a passing car to finally get a grip back.
 
When he engaged himself on the outer roads to drive back home, it hit him in the face like a truck.
 
Lance was waiting for a name.
 
---

I can’t believe I forgot to ask him his name.

Keith plastered his forehead on the tiled wall of his bathroom.
 
In his apartment, five floors up, the noise of the streets was completely canceled. After the pandemonium, the monastery. Nothing but complete dead silence, except maybe the buzz of the air conditioners outside.

The first thing in his mind was showering. Keith had never been a clean freak, far from that, but something was stuck on him, a smell, and he wanted it gone as soon as possible. That’s about three minutes in, covered in cheap shower gel, that Keith’s epiphany hit him.
 
He had forgotten to ask for a name. Anything to remember Angel by besides his own invention.
 
Keith turned off the faucet and dripped his way to the kitchenette. The warm air was already drying him up. He opened his cupboard, his mind absent.
 
He’d turned away with a thanks and a thanks only. He would forever call him Angel in his mind, then. A boy with a Genesis. And the worst, best, worst driver he’d ever been given to bike on with.
 
Dried up pineapple. Keith laid on his bed, munching on it, naked. His hair had stopped smelling smoke. He was already dry. The lanterns projected red shadows on the ceiling.
 
The night was silent, hot as hell and lonely as the moon.
 
Angel.

Who calls their savior like that?

Sinners ?