Free Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight by Pab Sungenis Page B

learned to disarm and disable a lunatic with a blade, spun through my head and out to my arms. But each and every motion seemed prepared for. The guy was a better swordsman than I’d ever hoped to be, and I was beginning to see how he could have taken down Uncle Jack.
    The more I fought him, the more my mind flashed back to the one key thing in this confrontation: this was the guy who had killed my Uncle Jack. This man had taken the most important person in my life, and I was going to make sure he paid for it with his life, even if I ended up dying in the process.
    Out of sheer rage, I pulled a berserker move. I pulled back and charged headlong, thrusting forward with the sword, as I was about to ram into him. I hoped to catch him by surprise with a stupid move no sword fighter would use nowadays but found myself thrown off balance when he stepped aside at the last second, sending me sprawling toward the window.
    I tossed the sword in the air, then tucked and rolled, managing to come back to my feet just in time to catch the hilt as the sword came back down. Another stupid move, but I was desperate. I’d done that trick plenty of times with my staff, but a staff won’t slice your hand off if it spins around in the air. Still, I managed to recover quickly enough to deny the jackass the pleasure of watching me go face-first through plate glass.
    For what seemed like an hour, we led each other on a merry dance, attacking and parrying, neither of us gaining much of an advantage. He bounced around like a drop of water on a pancake griddle, hissing about as loud as one too, as swipe after swipe of our swords missed their marks. No matter what I did, I couldn’t lay a single blow, and I considered myself damn lucky he hadn’t managed to, either.
    I switched tactics again. Uncle Jack and the rest of the Justice Federation had taught me the elegant art of hand-to-hand combat, but now it was time to go back to techniques my pop had showed me. He’d started teaching me to box when I was five, right after we lost my mom, and a couple of years later he’d taught me the correct way to fight: dirty. Feinting with the sword in my right hand, I swung my left hand up, hoping to connect with the creep’s nose and throw him off-balance. A similar move from a sixth-grade bully had given my nose its current interesting shape, and now I was eager to show that I’d learned from the experience and return the favor. Unfortunately, the creep managed to move his face out of the way just enough. I missed and nearly lost my balance in the process. I stumbled slightly before resuming a proper stance.
    Fatigue set in, more mental than physical, and I was really getting sloppy when I finally saw my chance. Outside, sirens wailed as what must have been every cop in Harbor City converged on the block. The sound distracted Blackie, who must not have planned on staying long enough for the police to get there. He made the mistake of turning his head to look out what was left of the door, and I hauled off and hit him over the back of his head. I didn’t knock him out, but I threw him off-balance enough to trip him. He stumbled, dropped Uncle Jack’s sword, and wound up sprawled across the floor.
    I knelt on top of him, pinning his arms down, and stared at the faceless freak. A strange warmth rose from my stomach straight to my head. It felt like laser beams would shoot out of my eyes and flames would rocket out my ears. My body was overtaken by pure rage, something I’d only felt a few times before, but never quite like this.
    I had him at my mercy. Oh, the things I could do to him. I was prepared to make him suffer like he’d made me suffer. Not just for what he’d done to Uncle Jack, but what he’d done to me by taking Jack out of my life. My hero training screamed from the back of my sub-conscious, yelling at me to just hand him over to the cops.
    And if I did that? He might go down for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, a couple of other