2017

Outside the windows, the city burned.

Orton closed the door behind him as he entered -- he didn't need to be quiet now, but habit made him shut it gently instead of slamming it. Gentry's back was to him, but they both knew the other was there. Nobody was surprising anyone at this point.

"You had no trouble getting here, I trust?" Gentry asked him, mockingly. This was the fortieth floor of a highly secure corporate office building, and Chemimax had dozens of guards on every one of them. Orton had managed to avoid all but nine of them, but they hadn't made much of a difference.

Orton stepped up cautiously, his hands in his pockets. "Is there anything I can say that you might listen to?"

Gentry pondered for a long moment, then shook his head. Orton wasn't surprised. The opening moves of this contest had played out in many other arenas -- ideological, social, and financial, to name a few -- long before things had deteriorated to this point. This was the endgame, the final engagement, and only one of them would leave this room alive.

Gentry turned, finally, facing Orton. His immaculate banker's suit, complete with gold chain, had been perfectly tailored to fit him and enhance his physique, and he projected a powerful aura of authority and certainty -- especially in contrast to Orton's shabby trenchcoat and scuffed boots. The two of them faced each other, silently, for a long handful of seconds.

Outside the window, a few gunshots rang out, as a sniper shot another sniper and a third sniper missed due to his scope having been sabotaged the evening before. A few bombs silently failed to explode, having been disarmed at various times. Gentry loosened his tie, and Orton took his hands out of his pockets and balled them into fists.

Then, the universe fractured.

Jagged lines of black light shattered the space around the two of them, dividing reality into chaotic timelike spaces where each possible series of events played out. In many of them, the two men engaged in physical combat, diving towards each other with a flurry of punches and kicks; in others, they exchanged gunfire or hurled knives and shuriken at each other. Other eventualities were even stranger -- bolts of fire hurled against shields of darkness, glowing swords clashing against beams of solid light. One by one, each of the spaces revealed a victor -- Orton in some, Gentry in others. But the numbers were far from equal, and as each acknowledged a failing option, it disappeared; Orton saw his death countless times as each possibility was systematically eliminated, and the battlespace began to retract as fewer and fewer options remained to him. When there were only five remaining, he struck.

The possibilities in which he won mostly seemed to be magical contests, so he led with a surge of emerald radiation -- high-energy particles that would shred his opponent's synapses and slow his reflexes. Gentry countered with a crystalline shield conjured from thin air; Orton sundered it with a cleaving plane of force and leapt into grappling range.

Gentry's form flashed white, and a burst of super-cold air erupted from him, flowing outwards in every direction; crystals of ice formed on the room's opulent carpets and furniture as the surge of frigidity cascaded over them. Orton's body shone with a prismatic array of colors as he turned his physical substance into pure light for the barest instant, coalescing back into physical form after the wave passed and unleashing his most powerful attack.

His right hand, formed into a rigid pose with index and middle fingers extended, struck a chakra point just over Gentry's heart, and a sound like breaking glass came from within his opponent's chest as the warmth flooded back into the room. Gentry staggered, shuddered, and disintegrated into ash.

Orton gasped in a huge breath of air, trying to cough the chill out of his lungs. He staggered over to the windows, looking down upon the devastation raging outside. The streets were in flames, and not the scattered fires of unrest or warfare; every square inch of exposed asphalt burned with a glowing fire. The death toll would be catastrophic.

It was almost a relief when the shot rang out, taking him through the back. He jerked upright involuntarily, his heaving breaths choked off, and regarded the cracked and spiderwebbing glass in front of him where the bullet had passed through with resignation. Slowly, sadly, he fell.

Gentry stepped up behind him, holding the smoking pistol in his hand. Orton struggled for breath -- the shot had pierced his left lung. "A... doppelganger?"

Gentry shook his head. "Time duplicate. Doppelgangers don't have chakras." He shot Orton another two times in the head, but Orton's neural functions were currently in the rough vicinity of his liver. He was going to be a long time dying.

He closed his eyes anyway and fell back, too weak to fight any longer. Gentry put the gun away and picked him up by the lapels, then walked back to the window, where he regarded his handiwork below. He wasn't sure if Orton was really dead, but at this point, it didn't matter; the battlespace had collapsed. There were no more ways out. With a grunt of effort, he heaved the body through the broken pane of glass into the air beyond.

Orton fell rapidly, the air whistling around him; shards of broken glass twinkled and reflected the firelight of the conflagration below. No matter what tricks he had left, the impact would certainly kill him -- even an attempt at a mid-air rescue would be pointless. There was only one option left, and Orton took it. Wearily organizing his thoughts, he visualized a very particular symbol in exacting, intricate detail. As the waves of heat from the impending pavement raced up towards him, he closed his eyes and muttered an arcane word with the last of his strength.

Twenty years earlier, in a dirty cot in Baton Rouge, an eighteen-year old boy awoke for the fourth time and let out a grunt of frustration. Next time, he'd win for sure.