It was so fast.
Benji roared in agony, staggering backward over his feet, landing flat on his back. He was practically having a seizure of his own.
Danilo only barely saw how Sanjay had, once his jaw was free, got a hold of Benji’s glove with his teeth, and with a jerk of his head, exposed a section of skin and jammed his head onto it.
That was all it took.
Sanjay’s veins pulsed a meaty red where they ground against Benji’s skin. Blinded, shrieking, the younger man, barely out of boyhood, stumbled backward, breaking contact. If he had been manic before, Sanjay, finally having got a taste, was in a full-blown frenzy now. He was heaving himself madly, his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, the msucles popping. Danilo, kept his hold iron fast and was sorely tempted to use his own powers on Sanjsy—which would probably result in snapping the man’s head right off. The problem with a full nelson hold: you can’t move easily from it into a reliable submission hold.
So Danilo improvised: By jerking Sanjay fully around and ramming his head into the wall.
Sanjay went down quietly.
“Asshole. I hope I gave you a concussion.”
The reply was a roar devoid of any human element. And a foot slammed into Danilo’s balls.
Bellowing, the Brazilian fell to his knees, his head flopping forward and exposing the back of his neck. Sanjay looked positively beatific, and as he—
“Oh, fuck this,” Danilo, heard Benji snarl, and only barely saw the man take off his glove.
“OH, SHI—“ was all Danilo managed to get out before he slammed himself into the floor. The beam of pure black shot over him, hit Sanjay square in the chest, sent him flying. The yelp from the first impact was cut sickeningly short by the second as the man smashed into the wall, landing in a crumpled mass on the floor. He did not move.
For one impossibly long second, the two other men did not move, either. Benji was still holding himself up on one arm, the other held out and aloft, the dark energy of redirected gravity gone as quickly as it had appeared. Danilo was still in a ball on the floor.
Time had simply stopped.
And with a shriek, jerked forward.
“My God, Benji!” Danilo was crawling--scrammbling--away, hauling himself up, but Benji wasn’t paying the slightest attention to him. “You nearly took my head off! Fucking Christ!”
But he wasn't looking at Benji. He was looking at Tug-of-War, the man that could absorb gravity itself and redirect it to devastating effect. Danilo himself, he knew, was now Dandelion, wielding the power of monstrous strength and iron-hard invulnerability. Tug-of-War's voice was low, steady, and unassailable: “You were thinking it, too.”
“Thinking what? Killing him?” Dandelion was not giving this up. "That's Sanjay, you stupid fuck!"
“You were thinking of using your powers on him. I was just faster than you.” Benji, still shaking from Paine’s agony, rose very unsteadily to his feet. “And he’s not dead.” It was as if he were commanding Fate. “Now sit him up, get that shake in him, then come upstairs. I’m fucking done.”
Dandelion stared after the man, then at Paine (who was breathing, thank God), and then after Tug-of-War again.
“Jesus.”
END PART 1
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