A Rumble of Frost chapter 8

February 12th 2001, Midtown Landfill, 8:00 PM EDT

We  spent the rest of the day just hanging out as we got ready for our  sparring match. I was having a hard time calming down honestly. I used  to spare often with some of the other mutants at the Academy, but since  I'd gotten here the best I could manage was bashing open a wall and  robbing some drug dealers. Based on what he'd said though, Peter was a  total beast in combat, and I was looking forward to really cutting  loose. Apart from the wide radius stuff that might do serious damage to  the local environment (like sink an island or something) I was free to  really go off for the first time in ages.

Luckily, Peter  knew a great place to train, and was happy to lead me to the huge flat  clearing in the middle of the Midtown Landfill where he practiced his  powers. When he mentioned it, my immediate response was disgust, but he  just laughed. "Yeah, I know. It's gross. But it's one of the only places  where you can avoid any bystanders at almost all times of the day and  night. As for the smell, I bring a backpack with clothes in a sealed  plastic bay, a bar of soap, shampoo, and a bottle of water. After a  workout I just strip down, wash up, and change once I'm clear of the  smell."

"I guess." I said skeptically as we rode the bus  through the New York evening with two of the bags he'd just described.  "It still seems kind of gross, but to be fair it's also February. As  long as we don't smash up any trash piles we should be safe enough from  the smell for that to work. Bet the showering part is going to be cold  as fuck though." I shivered involuntarily at the idea of dousing myself  with water when it was probably fifteen degrees outside right now, but I  was made of tougher stuff than most.

Peter clearly was  too, because he just shrugged as the bus came to a stop and we  dismounted in front of the Landfill. "It's not fun, but it beats being  known as the dumpster diver at school. My social life is bad enough  thanks. Anyway, come on, the entrance I use is this way." Shouldering  his backpack he set off in a random seeming direction, circling around  the fence and away from the entrance.

With a shrug, I  trailed after him. It wasn't like I'd been here before, so I didn't much  care where we entered, I was just having trouble controlling my  excitement to finally cut loose again. Flashes of white energy rippled  along my fingers as I rolled them at my sides, condensing and releasing  small hypocenters around my fingertips to limber up my abilities a bit. I  found it often helped to get the energy flowing before a fight. I had  full access to the depths of my powers at all times, but my power draw  speed could be a bit slower when starting out if I didn't warm up.

As  we came around the side of the fence, we eventually stopped at some  sort of corrugated steel shack butting up against the chain link.  "Alright." Peter said, coming to a stop. "This is one of the sorting  stations, but they closed it down because of a biohazard spill. Nothing  crazy, just some lead dust or something, but they don't have the money  to clear it out so they just abandoned the place. It's the easiest way  past the fence I've found. There's a dead spot in the perimeter cameras  here."

Grabbing the fence, he gave a quick jerk and  practically hurled himself up the ten or so feet to the roof of the  shack, easily catching the edge and pulling himself into handstand  before bending his back to plant his feet and stand up. With a brief  smirk at me, he turned around and stepped off the roof, dropping down on  the other side of the shack and out of sight without a word.

Smirking  a bit at the showing off, I considered trying something equally flashy,  but decided it wasn't worth it. I just grabbed the fence and climbed  up, easily hoisting myself onto the roof with my much longer arms, and  avoiding the curlicue of barbed wire spiraling along the top. I wasn't  sure why the hell anyone would set up security wire to keep someone out  of a dump, but because of the shack it was simple enough to avoid so I  guessed it didn't matter.

I dropped to the ground with a  dull thump, bending my knees to absorb the impact even if I probably  didn't need to, and looked up to see Peter walking off into the  Landfill. I followed, and we walked for about ten minutes, avoiding  piles of trash by sticking to a relatively clear path. The area he had  brought us too was mostly clear dirt surrounded by frozen mounds of  trash, with the occasional puddle frozen on the ground. It was  definitely open enough for our purposes.

Stripping off his  bag, he tossed it to one side onto a sideways refrigerator. "Alright.  This is the place. Based on what you said you can do a ton of damage,  but this should be empty enough that it won't matter. Just don't drop  any attacks that can level a city block or cause an earthquake loud  enough to alert anyone farther away then the edges of the Landfill and  we should be fine. Any rules you want to impose?"

Cracking  my neck, I dropped my own bag on a car hood and started to stretch.  "Not really. Just common sense stuff. Stop when someone gives up, try  not to do too much damage, not head shots. You're plenty smart enough to  know what to avoid. How about you? Any special provisions for the  fight?" I grinned maliciously. "I'm not one for bullying little guys, so  I'm willing to give you an advantage if you need one."

The  middle finger I got in response made me laugh as we took up positions. I  let my hands fall to my sides, relaxing my muscles in preparation to  react before giving Peter the signal to start. I kept myself relaxed  after I gave him the go ahead, despite desperately want to flinch or  tense. Only rookies tensed up before impact. People could react more  quickly from a relaxed stance, and took less damage when there wasn't so  much tension in their muscles.

Peter wasn't a complete  novice though. Rather than blitz me like I expected, he crouched low to  the ground and began to circle slowly. I kept my eyes pinned to him,  adjusting my stance as he did. Suddenly, so fast that even watching I  almost missed it, he blurred forward, shoving off the ground on a  collision course for my upper body, twisting midair to lash out with  several kicks.

I rolled my power over my arms from the  elbow down as I held them up to block. Not enough for a hypocenter to  form, but enough to clothe me in some vibrations that negated some of  the impact force. It was an old trick I picked up sparring with my  Grandpa. The old man could supercharge his strength as well as vent  kinetic energy through blows, so taking an undeflected punch was a bad  idea.

Still, even with the energy coating me, I felt the  blunt impact of the kicks on my arms like baseball bats. Rather than try  to lash out at him or grab him, I condensed a hypocenter and cracked  the air between us with a short, sharp punch. His next attack hit  fractured space and stopped, only for him to be blown backwards by the  vented energy from the break.

Peter flipped end over end,  catching himself and landing seamlessly. I shook my hands out, that had  really sucked. "Not bad." I said loudly enough to be heard. "That was  pretty damn fast. Don't think it'll work again though. I've got your  number now. If you close in ag-" I didn't get to finish shit talking,  Peter had begun to circle again, and come to a spot in the Landfill  where a second fridge had been.

I expected him to duck  behind it to break line of sight or something, but the crazy fucker  planted his palms flat on the side and did a sort of shifting flip  motion, catapulting the fridge over his shoulder and hurling it straight  at me like a shotgun slug. With a curse, I lashed out with a fist,  condensing a hypocenter the size of a head of lettuce around it as I  made contact. Space shattered, as did the fridge, and exploded pieces of  the thing flew through the air at Peter, who...was gone. Fuck.

Looking  around quickly, I tried to find the bastard before he jumped me, but he  was nowhere to be seen. My kneejerk reaction was to tense up and  prepare for an ambush, but I forced myself to calm down. Slow, even  breaths so I could hear what was going on around me. I heard a slight  crunch behind me and hurled myself to the opposite side of where noise  had come from, just in time to see Peter sail through the air where my  head had been.

Unwilling to lose  the opening, I condensed a hypocenter, lashing out hard enough to make a  beach ball sized fracture in the space. Peter, who was still midair,  was smashed by a wave of force and sent flying, despite somehow sensing  it coming and trying to flail away from the attack. Popping to my feet I  bolted after him, unwilling to let the springy bastard get back to his  feet where he could come at me again. The kid was fast as greased  lightning, and based on the damage from those kicks, he could hit like a  mac truck.

Sadly,  even propelling myself forward with small hypocenters under my feet to  more faster, I couldn't reach him before he landed. As I got in close, I  condensed a few small hypocenters on my knuckles, not enough to kill or  main but enough to amplify the shit out of my punches, and then let  loose with a blistering combination of punches at Peters arms and  shoulders.

Before  I could land the blows though, he slipped aside, avoiding each punch as  it came close to him like he knew where it would come from. Remembering  his midair dodge attempt I waited until the next blow, when he dodged  again, then overloaded the hypocenters on my knuckles, causing them to  pop with a crackle of breaking space. Not enough to do serious damage,  but enough for the force to send Peter stumbling so I could follow up.

As  I dove in to land a series of body blows, Peter sprang up from the  ground, right up through my arms, and reached out to plant a hand on my  shoulder, swinging himself up and over me. I grunted, reaching for him,  but he slipped aside, that same sticky thing he'd done to throw the  fridge letting him climb along my back to avoid my grip. Hurling myself  backwards, I tried to smash him with my body weight, but he slipped free  before I landed.

I  bounced back up to my feet in a kip up and tensed all my muscles at  once, venting energy from my whole body in a burst that threw anything  nearby away, but seriously drained my reserves. I was panting and  sweating like a dog. This fight was way more tiring than I was used to.  While I could do crazy city block levels of damage, I usually had to  take quite a bit of time to charge that up, and I was always exhausted  after.

This  hadn't been nearly as much energy at once, but I'd been using highly  delicate and tiring moves since we started, and I'd used a lot of them.  To my satisfaction though, Peter didn't look much better. Some of those  force blasts had caught him at least a bit, and he was holding himself  stiffly, not to mention breathing heavily from avoiding my punch rush. I  was strong, which meant my punches were fast.

He  flashed forward at me, and I put my arms up, coating them in energy  again as he kicked out at my head. As I blocked though, he landed  lightly, fists driving into my ribs with enough force to crack concrete.  I grunted, sinking down into my stance so my elbows would shield my  ribs from damage. I wanted to counter, but that annoying prediction  thing and his crazy agility made it impossible to lay a hand on him  directly.

Except  his prediction was pretty general from what I could tell. It told him  what direction things were coming from, maybe the source, though that  was supposition since this was a one on one. plus he had to be capable  of reacting, which was why the midair attack had worked. Letting my  hands open, I smashed them together in a quick clap, small hypocenters  on each palm exploding. Peter was sent stumbling, but being much heavier  I stayed upright.

With  the breathing room I stomped down, creating a decent sized hypocenter  on my foot and fracturing the space and the ground in one blow, shaking  Peter even further. Then I dove forward, swinging both hands down on him  overhand, a small hypocenter flickering enough to show I'd condensed it  but not enough to hurt him as I bopped him on the head. "That's my  win." I gasped, holding up both hands for him to stop.

Peter,  who was fixing his sweat soaked hair, groaned. "Fuck. You're right. If  you'd put more into that blow it would have shattered my skull. Those  area attacks are a bitch. Even if I feel them coming there's only so  much I can do to avoid." He held out a hand to shake. "Good fight.  You're definitely strong enough for me to team up with. I still have to  see you in action in the field, but in terms of raw power you're a  beast. I don't think I could have beat you if you weren't holding back  so much, I know you can put out a lot more power."

Releasing  his grip, I shook my head. "Nah. You're too fast. It takes a while for  me to manage strong bursts. I had to keep the attacks tiny to keep up.  The lettuce sized hypocenter is pretty much the quickest I could manage,  and that was with a BIG warmup. I really need to work on my draw  speed." I wiped my face off with a sleeve. "Anyway, this place reeks  like day old roadkill, let's bounce. We can wash up and maybe stop for  something to eat on the way home." I stuck out my tongue at him. "Loser  pays." Peter rolled his eyes with a laugh, but we hurried out of there.  We'd been pretty loud, and someone might have noticed. Plus, I was  starving. I always liked to eat after a workout.