Semper Fi VS Сергійко-месник

Vengeance Across the Ashen Square

The smoke from Semper Fi's cigar coiled upward like a serpent of grey judgment as he strolled across the shattered plaza, his boots crunching glass and spent brass beneath a sky the color of old iron. The USMC camo clung to his round golden form like a second skin, and the desperate, wolfish grin never left his face — a grin that said *last time was a lesson, and I am a swift learner.*

Somewhere beyond the toppled statues and the hollowed husks of burned-out trams, Сергійко-месник moved like a ghost of the resistance, red hood flickering between concrete pillars, the monstrous green launcher cradled against his shoulder. The memory of their last exchange hung between them like a scar: the baited arrogance, the hidden secondary trigger, the armor-piercing rod that had punched through the "invincible." Semper Fi had not forgotten the taste of that defeat — and in his world, memory was the most dangerous ammunition of all.

"You think I walk straight into your alley of fire again, little man?" Semper Fi's voice rolled low and gravelly through the plaza, smoke trailing from his words. "That trick worked once. Now I know your gun has a second mouth."

Сергійко did not answer with words. He answered with the earth itself.

The green launcher roared, and the shell did not fly toward the sphere — it buried itself in the flagstones twenty feet ahead. The detonation clawed the plaza apart, hurling cobbles and twisted rebar into a wall of shrapnel that screamed outward. Semper Fi's grin flickered as the shockwave lifted his boots from the ground, the geometry of the battlefield violently rewritten beneath him. *Калибрування Простору.* The boy had learned to aim at the floor, to control the arena rather than the target.

Semper Fi rode the blast, rolling across the rubble with a thunder of camo fabric, his cigar somehow still clenched between his teeth. He came up behind a shattered trolley, and already Сергійко was relocating — red flash between two pillars, a hundred meters east, then a rooftop, then a parked truck. The distance between them stretched and snapped like a whip. The boy did not stand and trade. He threaded the square with the discipline of a guerrilla who knew that the monster could close any gap — so he made every gap count.

"Smart," Semper Fi rumbled, watching the red figure scrabbling up a fire escape. "Moving ground. Changing angles. You learned from last time."

He raised his arm, and the startling truth of his arsenal revealed itself: from the ammunition pouches along his sleeve, he plucked a fragmentation grenade, and with casual, unhurried violence he lobbed it in a high arc. It did not chase the red hood. It arced over the square, over the rooftops, and dropped precisely onto the ladder Сергійко had just abandoned, detonating as the young man's boots cleared the top.

The ladder came down in a scream of twisted metal. Сергійко staggered on the rooftop edge, one glove gripping the parapet, the launcher swinging. He answered with three rapid shells — high explosive, phosphorous, and a white-hot rod — carving troughs across the square, each one forcing Semper Fi to abandon his cover, to roll, to leap, to *move*. The space opened. The distance yawned.

And that was precisely when Semper Fi's grin widened — because the boy had spent his rhythm, and now he was reloading on an exposed rooftop.

The sphere's feet left the ground. Not a leap — a *launch*, a cannonball of golden fury tearing across the plaza, trailing cigar smoke and shattered asphalt in his wake. He struck the building's face like a siege engine, and the masonry cratered beneath his grip. Hand over hand he scaled it, each motion final, inevitable, the pressure of an unstoppable tide.

Сергійко slammed the last magazine home and spun, bringing the launcher level. Their eyes met across fifteen feet of rooftop — one set hidden behind deep dark lenses, the other burning with cold, delighted cruelty.

"You had your moment, boy," Semper Fi growled, rising to his full height on the parapet, the city sprawled behind him like a conquered kingdom. "That was your shot to change the world. It didn't take."

Сергійко's finger tightened on the trigger, the launcher's second mouth already primed beneath the primary barrel — the same hidden trigger that had undone the invincible sphere before. He had one round, one angle.

Semper Fi saw it. He had *always* seen it. Last time, his pride had refused to believe the boy would truly fire. This time, pride had been traded for certainty.

The sphere lunged as the rod left the barrel — but not toward the man. Semper Fi's fist smashed into the rooftop's edge, shearing a slab of concrete the size of a shield, and he brought it across his body like a buckler. The armor-piercing rod struck the slab dead center, spent its fury punching stone instead of gold, and shrieked away into the empty sky.

The launcher was empty. The secondary was spent. And Semper Fi was suddenly, terribly close.

"Lesson two," the sphere breathed, smoke curling from his smile, "is that a miracle only works once."

His fist came down like a falling star. Сергійко threw up his gloves, tried to pivot, to gain distance — but there was no distance left. The rooftop was the whole world now, and Semper Fi owned it. The blow caught the launcher, splitting its green frame from barrel to stock in a burst of sparks and broken hydraulics. A second strike, palm open, caught Сергійко square in the chest and hurled him across the rooftop, where he crashed against the parapet and slid down, gasping, the wreckage of his weapon clattering beside him.

Semper Fi stood over him, the smoke of his cigar mingling with the dust of the shattered square. He did not strike again. He simply looked down, and in that look was the whole weight of the lesson: the arena was controlled, the angle was closed, and the "invincible" had learned to watch the second trigger.

"Get up, kid," Semper Fi said, offering a hand — not in mercy, but in the brutal courtesy of a fighter who respected a worthy lesson. "You earned the right to try a third time."

Сергійко, chest heaving, looked at the offered glove, then at the wreck of his launcher, then up at the golden monster who had finally — *finally* — taken him seriously. He took the hand. He always would. But today, the square belonged to the sphere.