Goliath

"Goliath" is the ninth chapter of Converge.

For the last fifteen minutes, Mountain had looked out of his window to see the streets had turned into a war zone. The police were fighting people in red and purple, and they were losing. Mountain turned on his TV to see what was happening, but all the news channels were down. A few minutes later, there was an emergency broadcast.

"Good," Mountain thought, "hopefully the situation is under control."

However, he person who appeared on the screen was not the president. It was a blonde man wearing red and yellow.

"Hello, citizens of Azla." He said, "My name is Peter Cach, and I am the leader of Diverge. We are fighting to free you from Tyranny."

"He looks vaguely familiar." Mountain thought.

Peter continued, "Four years ago, Azla was nearly taken over by Communist rebels. We, as a country, banded together to put a stop to that. However, in the years that followed, it has become obvious that our new government is no better than the Zels. It is controlling, limiting, and it's only a matter of time before it goes full socialist. Well, Diverge is here to stop that. We are fighting to destroy the government, and bring true freedom to the people of this country. There are thousands of us, and we will stop at nothing. However, we cannot risk failure. We ask that all civilians cooperate and stay out of our way. If you attempt to interfere in any way, we will have no choice but to kill you."

The broadcast stopped. Mountain was shocked by the turn of events.

"Anarchists attack during the few days I'm in the country? How unlucky can you get?" He thought.

He looked outside to see several dozen Diverge members heading into the hotel building.
Mountain ran out of his room and saw that there were already a lot of staff and guests in the hallway. They heard the sound of crashing and some gunshots from the bottom floor.

"We need to get to the roof." One of the staff said.

"Why?" Mountain asked.

"There's an apartment building next door. We can jump to that roof and exit through the building."

Everyone began running up the staircase, nearly trampling each other on the way. Each time they would reach a new floor, several of them would call for the people there to go to the roof. When they reached the top, there were several dozen people running. They all moved between the rooftops, but the rebels weren't far behind. The began running down the stairs of the apartment building. They reached the second floor, and ran through the narrow hall. The stairs to the first floor were just around the corner. But as the last of them turned the corner, the wall exploded. Mountain was caught in the explosion. He quickly got to his feet and saw that the rebels were close. They had thrown a grenade. The group continued to run down the staircase, but the rebels were closing in. Mountain knew that if the people were caught, they would be killed. He took cover behind a piece of the destroyed wall. When the group of rebels got close, Mountain leaped out and attacked. There was a huge man in front, but Mountain swept his leg and he fell to the ground. He punched one in the face, instantly breaking his nose and knocking him out. He grabbed another rebel and threw him against two others, knocking them down. One diverge member raised his gun, but Mountain slammed into him. His ribs cracked and his body flew through a dry wall. The rebels on the ground began to get up, but Mountain quickly grabbed a brick off the ground and threw it at one, killing him. He then ran toward the other two. He hit one across the face, knocking him out, or worse. He grabbed the other by the head and kneed him in the face. There was only one rebel left standing, the huge man that was at the front. He had gotten up and grabbed a gun, but as he was raising it, Mountain ran towards him at top speed, and tackled him. Both men crashed in the wall behind them, then fell to the side and tumbled down the stairs. As they both got up, Mountain looked at his face clearly for the first time. It was Travis the Titan, and he was wearing the distinct Diverge uniform.

"Travis you're a member of Diverge?!" Mountain was shocked.

"Yes, you see my brothers own a business that was hit hard by new government taxes. They're barely getting by now. And a lot of the new laws in this country are obviously unjust. When Diverge offered me the chance to destroy this awful government, I jumped at the opportunity."

"And now your killing innocent people." Mountain said.

"The ends justify the means." Travis looked kind of sad, "You know, I respected you. You're a good fighter. You shouldn't have interfered with the revolution."

Travis then ran at Mountain and hit him right in the chest. Mountain stumbled backwards, but recovered. Travis laid down a barrage of punches. Mountain blocked most of them and hit Travis with a jab to the chest. He was barely phased. Travis seemed even stronger than he was during their earlier fight. They exchanged strikes for several more minutes, but Mountain was clearly hurting more. Travis faked him out then sucker punched him. Mountain fell to the ground. He then noticed a metal pipe on the ground. It must have been in the wall that was destroyed by the grenade. Mountain quickly moved toward it, but Travis was faster. He grabbed the pipe off the ground and struck Mountain across the face, causing him to collapse again. He spit out some blood.

"You really should have minded your own business." Travis said, raising the pipe over his head.

Suddenly, Mountain heard a loud bang and blood burst from Travis's chest. There was a bullet hole straight through it. Travis fell to the ground, dead. Mountain saw that there were two women behind were Travis was standing, one of them holding a handgun. Mountain recognized her.

"Aren't you President Martin?" He said, "Thanks, you have good timing."

She helped him to his feet, "Call me Samantha."
The other woman spoke, "I recognize you. You're Mountain, that boxer from Scotland."

"My real name's Malcolm MacNeal."

"I'm Catherine Jive."

Malcolm then heard footsteps running down the stairs of the building.

"There must be more Diverge members coming." Samantha said, "We have to move, now!"
"Wait, what about my family?" Catherine said.

"This building looked abandoned to me." Malcolm said, "I think everyone already evacuated."
"We have to go." Samantha said, and the three ran out of the apartment building.