Season 1, Episode 2 - The Sewer IV - "Reed vs Panama"

"Quiet, quiet. Let me focus."

Reed closed her eyes, focusing on...something.

Isaac and Audrey watched her stand in place.

"It's the infiltrator," Reed explained. "Coming this way. He knows we're here, and he doesn't care."

"You can tell all that by closing your eyes?" Audrey asked.

"You can feel him in the Rddhi," Reed answered. "The Rddhi is an energy field. If you listen closely, you can feel it, how the Rddhi bends and reflects around a user."

"How do I feel it?" Isaac asked.

"You just do. Just focus."

Isaac closed his eyes, trying to feel for...something. Water droplets falling from a rusty pipe. Moss growing down a wall. Subterranean lights flickering.

Isaac opened his eyes and shook his head. "I can feel some things. Just not a person."

"Ah, well, you'll get there."

Reed began walking forward.

"Where are you going?" Audrey asked.

"The quicker we beat this guy, the quicker we can go home."

"Shouldn't we have a plan?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah, we could ambush him right here," Audrey added. "I could set up some vines like tripwires, Isaac could hide out of a sight and then send out a clone, you could set up in the back, sending long-range sound wave attacks."

Reed thought about it for a moment.

"No, we'll go with my idea."

"And what's your idea?" There was an annoyed edge to Isaac's voice.

Reed looked back at them.

"Stay out of my way."

With that, Reed kept moving forward, down the sewer tunnel.

Isaac and Audrey looked at each other; Audrey shrugged sympathetically, while Isaac just shook his head. The two followed after her.

After walking down a few different corridors, they arrived in a somewhat well-lit section of sewer. The walkway looked wide enough for two people to stand next to each other; to their left was a sewer canal filled with slow-moving, dark water. On the other side of that was an identical concrete walkway, with a lonely light fixture flickering on the wall.

Reed stopped, raising her hand. Behind her, Isaac and Audrey (after bumping into Isaac again) stopped as well, Isaac looking intently ahead, hoping to see anything in the darkness in front of them.

From the shadows ahead of them, a man emerged, almost lazily. He looked tanned with a small afro, wearing a white shirt below an unbuttoned red dress shirt, brown khakis and black shoes. But the way he carried himself...tall but relaxed, hands in his pockets, approaching them casually. It's easy to hear an order to defeat a man, to talk all that talk about protecting the nation and people, but now that the enemy stared him in the face, Isaac began to realize what combat actually entailed.

Putting a man down. Making sure someone, a complete stranger, someone completely independent of your life, with his own thoughts and dreams and daily routines and memories, didn't get back up again.

"You don't wake up in the morning thinking this is your last day on earth," Audrey mumbled, not realizing she spoke aloud. But from the fear in her eyes, her thoughts seemed to agree with Isaac's.

"Life comes at you fast," Reed answered. "Now get back. I need room."

Isaac and Audrey looked at each other. It felt shameful, to leave a friend there, but they slowly walked backwards, about ten feet away down the walkway, back to the edge of the corridor.

The man from New York watched them settle their affairs. He and Reed stood alone, illuminated by the orange light fixture on the other side of the sewer canal.

"Panama," he said, relaxed and friendly.

"Panama?" Reed repeated.

"That's my name."

"Your name is Panama?"

"I always give my name to the people I kill," Panama explained matter-of-factly. "Only cowards do their killing anonymously. I do mine up-close and personal, so people will at least know the name and face of their killer. I feel as though that gives them peace in the next world."

"My name's Reed. Hopefully that'll give you peace wherever you end up after this."

Panama laughed. "I've been killing New Englanders for four years now. Soldiers, guards, farmers, engineers...and Rddhi users. What makes you think you're any different?"

"You're gonna kill all of us, right?"

Panama nodded, still smiling.

Reed shook her head. "Not a chance those two in the back are dying. That's why you're not getting past me."

Panama smiled wider. "I like you, Reed. I have a lot of respect for a man stepping up to defend his woman."

Reed almost looked deflated. "What?"

"I said I have a lot of respect for you, a fellow man who knows the importance of defending his loved ones."

Reed looked back at her friends. They tried to shrug sympathetically and laugh it off, but Reed saw the anxiety and tension in their eyes, in their shaking hands.

Reed stepped forward, reaching behind her back for her sword as she did.

"If you really do have respect for me, then you understand why I have to kill you," she simply said, facing Panama.

Panama grinned. "Glad we can fight one on one, man to man."

Reed narrowed her eyes.

"I'm a woman," she corrected, removing her sword slowly from its scabbard.

Isaac had never seen her sword before. He wasn't sure what he expected. The sword was blacker than the night sky, punctuated with random lines of greens and purples and reds and blues, all crackling with energy. Reed spun the sword in her hand, the colorful pulses growing stronger the harder she gripped the sword, the colors trailing behind the sword in the stale air of the sewer.

"That's the Domino Sword," Audrey explained to Isaac. "Created by Derek Domino, one of the old Rddhi greats. He retired, but I heard Reed trained under him and inherited his sword."

Energy pulsated around the sword, their lines and fractals stemming from Reed's hand.

"Reed got recruited by the Academy. She didn't apply like you or me."

Reed tensed herself. Panama did the same.

"She came into the Academy already a Class 3 out of 5."

Despite the gap in space between her and Panama, Reed slashed the sword downward, trails of energy following the sword's arc. Despite being in the other direction of the slash, Isaac could feel Rddhi move through him, like ripples traveling through water from where a stone struck it. And the sound...he didn't hear the sound, he felt it, right throughout his body, a low, elongated sound that enveloped and filled him. Like a drooping guitar right to the soul.

Blood immediately sprayed out of Panama's right ear. He collapsed to one knee, grasping his ear, grimacing.

"What the-"

Reed slashed again. His other ear burst into blood.

Reed watched as the man struggled. "The Domino Sword allows me to manipulate energy waves," Reed explained bluntly with just an added edge of smugness that made her the Reed we all know and love.

Panama felt blood trickle between his fingers out of his ear. He let the other one bleed unattended, observing droplets hit the floor. He took a deep breath and tried to think.

Energy waves...energy waves to the ear...ear drums burst. Sound! Sound was the key, sound was the kind of wave.

"You're increasing the frequency of the vibrations, raising the pressure of the sound waves, blowing out my ear drums," Panama accused. "Is that right?"

Reed shrugged, letting the crackling energy speak for her.

Panama narrowed his eyes. One strike to one ear drum, the other strike the other...

He smiled in spite of the situation.

"I admit, I'm impressed," Panama said. "You targeted my ear drums, to make me think the sound could only hurt my sense of hearing. But sound vibrations aren't limited to that, aren't they? I bet you could blow out my heart, make blood burst from the veins, throw off my sense of balance and focus when the sound waves hit me, right?"

"You want to try it out?" Reed's words were flat and dull, yet energy flared from the edges of the sword.

Panama smiled. "In fact, I do."

Reed slashed the sword downward again. But Panama was ready this time. He sidestepped towards the wall as close as he could, kicking up water from a puddle as he moved. The sound wave went right through the water, impacting his right arm. Blood sprayed out of the new gash on his upper arm.

Panama smiled wide though. "I see. The sound wave has the same area as your sword, moving as a thin slash. It's not like a shotgun; it shoots straight, just the slash."

"What makes you think that?"

"The water. The slash went right through the middle of the water. The water in the middle exploded from the sound itself, while the rest of the water only moved as collateral. You're limited, half-man. This fight is just a question of dodging now."

"I'm a woman," Reed corrected again. "And good luck with dodging. We're in a sewer, not a lot of open space."

Panama gave a wide slasher smile. "Oh, we'll see about that."

Reed slashed with her sword, but Panama immediately moved out of the way. Isaac couldn't believe it, Panama had jumped in the water. But going in the water should restrict his movements-

Panama stood effortlessly on top of the water, his arms crossed, as if bored. "I can increase viscosity of a liquid, you see?" He pointed down at the water below him, which had blackened into a nearly-solid ooze. "Perfect for sewers, don't you think?"

"You must be fun at parties," Reed muttered, sending another sound wave at him.

Panama kicked up water, which coalesced into ooze right as the sound wave hit. The four in the sewer heard the muffled sound of vibrations losing their strength.

"Looks like my viscosity is stronger than your sound," Panama observed.

Reed sighed in annoyance. It was going to be one of those days.

Panama wound up and kicked downward, right onto the water he had coalesced into ooze, but the ooze had collapsed back into water, enabling Panama to send a blast of water toward Reed shotgun-style. Thousands of small water droplets coalesced into hardened slime once more in the air, turning them into pellets with the strength of bullets.

Reed slid to her left, most of the pellets impacting the wall behind her, the amount of force behind them sending concrete shrapnel into the air. Some of the pellets from the first blast did manage to strike her; Isaac saw her clothes become teared and fresh, angry red cuts on her exposed skin.

Isaac stepped forward, golden energy flaring, but Reed raised a hand, her inhales and exhales at measured intervals.

"I'm finishing this, Isaac."

"Let us help, Reed! He's tough!"

"You'll get in the way."

Reed slid out of the way again when another blast of water came at her. One pellet struck the temple of her head, sending blood streaming down the side of her face, mixing with her damp, faded brown hair. Reed sent back a sound wave of her own, but Panama stomped on his water, kicking up a wall of water that hardened into his shield. After the sound wave was absorbed, the wall instantly dematerialized into individual water droplets, which Panama side-kicked toward Reed.

Panama smirked. She's out of room. I've send this blast in the widest arc possible, covering the whole of the concrete wall. Nowhere to go.

Thousands of pellets struck the concrete wall in an unrelenting torrent that made Audrey shield her eyes. And Reed was standing right in the middle of the assault!

C'mon, Reed. Isaac watched with angry anxiety. He sort of understood what Hanai meant about bringing someone back to life to kill them again if they died on you. Isaac would do the same with Reed.

The blast was so strong, and with all the water droplets and dust kicked up, nobody could see for a moment. When the vapor settled, the smirk on Panama's face made a slight retreat.

Reed, though struggling, stood tall. She had bruises and marks and cuts all over, and half of her face was covered in rust-colored blood, but she still stood.

"That should have killed you," Panama exclaimed.

"By increasing the viscosity, making it more solid, that also means it'll be more affected by the sound waves I send out." Reed breathed calmly, with focus, ignoring the stinging pains and blood on her. "Once I found the resonant frequency of your water pellets, I can send out the correct pitch and make them shatter."

Panama narrowed his eyes and kicked over a quick blast of water. Red energy exploded out of Reed's sword as she slashed it in front of her. The sword sent out a thin arc, but it was enough; most of the pellets heading toward her shattered into water droplets, raining on her harmlessly, while those hardened pellets that hit her only slashed her shoulders, extremities, nothing vital. It would be enough.

Panama didn't say anything for a moment, watching this bloodstained girl stand there defiantly.

"You're just like Myra," Panama said aloud before he realized it.

"Myra?"

"A woman...a woman I loved."

"Okay."

"We lived in Fort Edward, four years ago," Panama recalled, eyes downcast. "It was tough, we were poor, but we got by."

"Fort Edward?" Audrey asked Isaac.

"It was an international incident," Isaac explained. "There was rioting in upstate New York that spilled over the border, but we sent an army division in to restore order."

"That's not true, and you know it!" Red energy flowed out of Panama's ankles, sending angry currents across the sewer water. "You came in because you can't just leave any fucking country alone! You think regular people genuinely care about who owns what? We don't! We just wanted to live our lives in peace!"

Isaac didn't know this.

"New England agents were the ones who started the rioting around Fort Edward, you know that?" Panama claimed. "Fort Edward's on a strategic position right on the border. If New England took Fort Edward, it would help them in the next war, a war that only they want!"

"That's not true!" Isaac realized the weakness of his argument the moment he said it.

"Your New England countrymen came in, to 'restore peace', by killing anyone who stood in their way."

"Only...only five civilians died...and they were all terrorists..."

"Five?! More like five fucking thousand. All good people, all innocent, and New England came and slaughtered them because they wanted to make themselves a little bigger on the maps. But out of those five thousand, only one death truly matters to me."

"Myra?" Reed supposed.

"We were around your age," Panama explained. "On that day, we were supposed to meet up in the afternoon. In the morning I went up the local mountain like I usual do, clear my head. From the summit I could see the whole Fort Edward valley burning. By the time I got back down, New England soldiers were crawling everywhere I looked. I had to hide myself for four days."

Panama clenched his fist. "But I'd do anything for that girl. I wanted to find her and get her out of there. Me? If I die, I die. But she deserved better."

"What happened?" Isaac asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

"They rounded the people of Edward up. Claimed they were enemies of the state, the state being New England, which was a foreign power."

Panama struggled to continue. "I saw the New Englanders make them dig a mass grave. Then, they lined all the people around it, and..."

Panama wiped his face. "Down she went. I could see it all, the look on her face. I thought she'd be heartbroken that I failed her that day. But no! She was angry! Inspired! Determined! As if she knew someone would correct these wrongs, even if meant her dying."

Panama raised his fist, red energy exploding out of it. "After that day, I trained every waking hour, to ready myself for my holy war. There's only one thing on my mind: revenge. On every last New Englander. That's why I'm here, in your shitty sewers. Because you made me. And now you'll all pay."

Isaac really didn't know what to say to that. It was an awful lot to process. He noticed Audrey wiping her eyes next to him, and wondered about Esther. If I hadn't saved Esther that day...if a Yorkist had killed her, just like that...Isaac looked out at Panama and wondered.

That's why Isaac couldn't say anything. He couldn't. Deep down, Panama had a point, and what could Isaac say to that?

"Ah, fuck off."

Isaac blinked. Even Audrey blinked.

Reed stood there, looking a little stronger, her eyes brimming with focus and clarity.

"I'm sorry for your loss, but are you really ruining my Saturday for a stupid reason like that? Do you really think Myra wants you to do the same thing the army did to her? Or are you just projecting your own wishes onto her, destroying her memory in the process-"

"Don't talk about her like you know anything about it!"

"Don't you see? By hating all New Englanders, don't you see you've become the same as the people you swore to destroy?" Reed gestured to Audrey and Isaac. "You think they had anything to do with killing Myra?"

"You're part of the war machine and part of the problem!"

"We haven't done anything yet. We're just getting started. What makes you think we're not gonna change things for the better?"

"Are you?"

"Well...me personally, no. I don't really care or have the energy. But him-" Reed pointed dramatically at Isaac with the widest grin on her face Isaac had ever seen. "That kid is gonna change the world some day, mark my words. Kill me all you want. I probably deserve it. But nobody's killing Isaac when I'm around. Oh, and Audrey, too."

Panama didn't say anything for a moment. Calm currents flowed through the water, emanating from his feet.

"I like you, Reed," Panama admitted. "If you weren't born a New Englander, I wouldn't need to kill you."

Reed readied herself. "If you moved on, I wouldn't need to kill you either."

Panama laughed. "Then let's finish this, yes?"

In less than a second, Reed felt her left arm explode. Hot, violent pain surged up her arm with each break in every bone. Reed fell to her knee, right into a puddle-

Reed jumped away, right as the puddle coalesced with such force that it would have crushed her knee like a hydraulic press. Reed then felt more searing hot pain as hardening water droplets sent her ankle the wrong way. When she landed, she cursed under her breath, black spots appearing in her eyes. She stumbled and felt her back hit the concrete wall.

"You didn't think my ability was just limited to water I could touch, right?" Panama asked.

Reed didn't answer, her teeth gritted. The pain was almost overwhelming. It wasn't just stings and flashes of pain, it was waves, remorseless waves that covered her whole body.

"I can manipulate all the water down here," Panama declared. "I can increase its viscosity with such speed that as it hardens, it can crush bones. Whenever normal droplets of water hit you, you must have thought they were harmless, but in reality, you were setting up your own death!"

Reed realized there was water droplets on her stomach, but it was too late – they hardened in an instant, breaking the ribs below them. Reed cough violently, blood coming out of her mouth, down her chin, streaking down her uniform.

"Now you die!" Panama raised his leg for a final kick-

"Reed!" Isaac jumped up, energy exploding around him, but he would be too late-

Ignoring the black spots, Reed did the mental math in her head.

He got the wrong arm.

With her sword arm still working, Reed sent out two slashes with the last of her strength.

Panama quickly stomped down, creating the hardened wall. The sound wave of the first slash struck it harmlessly. The second slash wasn't even close; the sound wave sailed just as harmlessly below him, under the wall, into the sewer water.

Defiant to the end, Panama supposed. Back in New York, I'll sing songs of your memory-

The sound wave came back out of the water, behind Panama.

What the-

The sound wave seemed to be moving even faster than when it left Reed's sword.

It accelerated! Of course! Sound moves faster in water than in air. It bounced off the bottom of the sewer canal and came back out. But no matter, it completely missed me-

The sound wave hit its target: the light fixture with its bulb on the far side of the sewer tunnel, fastened to the concrete wall. As soon as the wave struck it, the glass of the bulb shattered, sending fragments every which way, including a particularly large piece headed right for-

Panama realized what had happened. He quickly stomped down again, but the glass was already on him.

I can't get the wall up in time!

A red streak of blood sprayed from Panama's throat.

He looked at Reed for a moment, a single moment, his eyes not saying anything in particular, just wondering about it all.

Then Panama fell face forward and slowly began floating away.