My body is in pain from the impact, slowly I got up off of the wooden floor. There were many questions that I wanted to ask him. But now is not the time, I knew he would attack again, soon.

I snap sending an arc of flame in Joseph’s direction, he rolls away and in mid-air sends a wave of telekinetic energy in my direction. The wave hits me, and I am launched into a bookshelf along the left wall of the library. Pain overwhelms me. I fall and hit the floor, hard. Books fall onto me.

Ignoring the pain I spring to my feet and pick up a large tomb that weighed at least fifteen pounds, and had over two-thousand pages. I throw it at Joseph, while it is in mid-air I set it on fire. The book hits Joseph square in the chest, he falls over from the impact. He pushes the flaming book off of his chest and puts out the flames by smacking them with his hands. He gets up, blowing on his blistered hands.

While his guard is down I send an arc of flame in his direction. In the split second before he is set ablaze he sees the flame and ducks underneath it. He rolled across the mahogany floors. I shot more flames at him, he rolled away from them as the fire hits the shelves. He kept dodging until he was backed into a corner, he had nowhere to run, he was right where I wanted him.

I picked up a chair and threw it at him. He braced himself with arms in front of him. The chair collides with his body, it shatters on impact he is knocked over into the corner.

Joseph got up from the amass of broken wood and he was in a daze. I was prone to snap with both hands but was stopped by a buzzing pain in my left side, it spread quickly throughout my body. My body shook rapidly, uncontrollably,  couldn’t stop it, I’d been tazed. Three other men in Special Forces uniforms ran into the library. Two of them had fire extinguishers and were putting out the flaming shelves. The other tazed Joseph. The two men who tazed us put PlastiCuffs on our wrists. They walked us over to the  elevator.

“Why, Joseph?” I ask him as we walk past the tables I grab my Domo-kun jacket.

“They said they’d pay me,” he replies. The Special Forces take us into the elevator. The one behind Joseph presses the button marked “7”.

“You should have known better,” I say, “not only is the government untrustworthy but they’re caniving  too, they probably want ratings, and nothing more. This sort of thing makes for good T.V.”

“You’re probably right,” Joseph says admitingly, “what the hell would I have done with the money anyways.”

The elevator “ding”s and the men in uniform walk us down a straight hall with gray stone walls and steel doors that are painted white.

“Tomorrow our fight will get an ending,” I say sadly. In these last few minutes I had grown to like Joseph for his relent and strength.

“Yeah,” he replies distantly, “I don’t really wanna fight you though, Rasputin. If these guys hadn’t come you would’ve killed me.”

The Special Forces signal us to stop. Joseph’s room and my room are across from each other. Joseph and I open our doors almost simultaneously. Before we head in for the night he turns around and says: “G’night, Rasputin.”

Without turning around I say back: “See you on the chopping block.”