The rain immediately began the second my sentence was completed, a large lightning strike and thunder clap happening in very quick intervals from one another, and a larger wind blast shooting across the plains. As if that wasn't enough to startle me, the creature's face in front of me unleashed a loud, deep, and blood-curdling shriek-like roar, extending and flashing all of its sharp fangs at once. My pupils dilated. I felt myself stiffen in shock, just stuck staring straight at the event in front of me and around me, before my eyes scanned below at a fast moving motion towards me. Using a fast enough reflex, I quickly jumped back and scooted myself away, inspecting the large paw that was swiped at me to attempt the first blow. The rain was soon a consistent light rain once again, and the clouds had dissipated to remove the lightning and thunder effect, now showing just grey clouds with a little more light from the intense sun shading. My eyes were fixed on him now entirely, my body naturally placed in a cautious stance. He softly returned back to his normal position as he spoke with a head lowered low. "You are very foolish to attempt to hold me back again, you know that? Such a shame that I'll have to show you again that you'll be easily defeated. Each day you get weaker, and every battle is harder. Just give up, you'll lose eventually." His head peered as he smiled wickedly. "Perhaps even today."
My voice soon shouted as I felt a small bubble of rage pop. "Over my dead body!"
His head raised a bit as he chuckled, an obviously deathly plan now shaped in his mind. "Exactly." Then, sudden lightning flash. My vision was blinded with a bright sheet of white before dying out quickly, his body now right in front of mine once again, a paw swung at me in slow motion, but his words spoken normally.
"Let's get to it then, shall we…?"
With the swing of the paw now at normal speed, it proved to be a pretty lethal blow straight into my cheek, smashing me to the side and sending me into a flurry of tumbles and twists. All I saw was a blurry spin, and all I felt were constant intense pressures and sudden body slams everywhere along my body. Eventually I stopped, and the pain suddenly hit me all at once, leaving me in a piled huffing heap, blood smeared and dripping down my cheek from the scratch wound. I inhaled deeply and jumped to my feet, staring at deep attention. No more goofing around. Time to get serious. My wings were extended out, flapped once for balance and readjustment to its power. With my eyes now locked on, my markings all flashed brightly once in unison, and my chest tightened to release a loud battle roar out towards him. Knowing that didn't shake him one bit, it was more used for me to pump myself up, which I would need at this point. This fight was going to get messy.
With a quick kick start, it began, and I was sent rocking towards my doppelganger at a heavy speed. With the practical weight of a semi-truck, but the speed of a rocket heading around Mach 1, it was pretty hard to avoid, at least in my perspective. To him, however, it would seem I wasn't going fast enough, as he was able to swiftly jump over me and land with his maw now facing the direction I was darting away from. With the loud sound of rushing wind, my ear flicked as I quickly dived, dodging a large glowing light of purple as a plasma bolt dashed over my head. A quick spiral twist of my body as I dived downward and a fast straightening with the ground had me level and resume dashing towards him. However, instead of allowing myself to continue, I extended my legs out now, charging out to air pounce against his body. When I noticed his body crouched for another jump, I smirked with my opportunity, and pulled up quickly with his leap, now crashing straight into him and sending us both upwards into the air.
From there, it was nothing but flurry swings, punches, and claws. Each and every blow that was attempted was blocked by the other in seemingly perfect sync, or somehow deflected by another counter attack. It raged on until clouds evaporated from around us, and a quick surprise blow knocked me off balance with his tail swiping at me. Spinning now in a light daze, it was just enough for a controlling strike along my neck with another claw, sending me plummeting straight down for the ground, a small trickle of blood following close behind. My head pounded along with each blow done to me from then on during the descent, and my skin ached with the pain of feeling swipes and claws. As I attempted to block and deflect, his maw was sprung open and soon clamped against my neck with a death grip, his fangs dug deep within my skin. My eyes widened out as I roared in pain, blood now spurting at a faster rate. My muscles quivered as my vision grew blurry from the aching. It didn't feel like I was just getting hurt from the pain. It felt, different. He wasn't just wounding me. It felt as if I was… growing weaker. Upon a quick inspection, the glow from my markings was beginning to happen against my own will, and was slowly fading. My eyes widened as much as they could.
He was sucking the life out of me!
My body was growing limp, but not weak enough to keep me from tucking my paws from underneath his body and giving a violent kick forward, the blow being successful in throwing the leeching parasite off of me, the harsh grip he had tugging my skin at me before being forced out, leaving a good sized bite wound, a fairly large chunk of skin now being pulled out and even slightly removed. Ow. That hurt. Needless to say it was helpful. Ignoring the staggering amount of pain that was filling up from my insides during the fall, the kick was powerful enough to send me down a few metres lower than him during the descent, giving me just enough time to fire a regular sized plasma blast at his torso. With him unable to calculate the area, it was a direct hit, but was barely anything better than just spinning him off balance for a few moments. As he was distracted in an attempt to gain his balance, I focused my energy to blast with a large ice shard, but was barely stable at all once my eyes were closed and inspected my levels. My brainwaves were sporadic and hectic. All over the place, and were barely able to sit still for a single second, let alone for enough time to accumulate and form a blast. To make matters worse, until there was enough that reappeared after his first leeching, no power would prove to be a help by any means except for draining me too much to even move.
Stuck in this undeceiving moment, I had no choice but to defend myself once his uncontrolled motions were recalibrated, his wings flapped once in a harsh push to swing himself back down to me, resuming the flurry of swings as he screamed out his dialogue during the fall. "Do you really believe it was the smartest idea to do such a thing?! Don't you know you're putting at risk here with your foolish choices?!"
My brain was fighting back the ultimate decision of either shutting down entirely or pushing forward until the very end, but there was enough of a gasp of air during the onslaught of attacks to respond to him correctly. "I'll never give up to the likes of you!"
"So be it!" He snarled with a slitting of his pupils and a large snarl, now front flipping his body in a vertical loop, resulting his tail smashing straight down against my head, sending me in a back-to-back front flip during our never-ending fall back for the ground below. Once again, that vision of blurring and nothing but motion blur. I was starting to get sick of this. Eventually I held out my wings for a quick moment to stabilise myself, now staring straight at the air where he was. Or, wait. Once was?! My eyes scanned immediately, and all I could spot were the red spots of red sprinkling blood that was falling in front of my eyes from the known wound to my neck. No body. Where did he—
Silence. Focus. I gently closed my eyes and tried to ignore all the other factors that were forcing their way into the front of my subconscious. Neck. Falling. Pain. Blood. Him. Where. Sounds? Movement? Wind. There was no use. My brain was moving too quickly to focus anything. I could barely calm myself down at this point. Straining to force my eyes open, I was soon greeted with the unfortunately truth. He was behind me. A sharp immediate pain in my back followed by my entire body forced into a tight arch were the only two signs needed to explain the situation. He had spun from behind me and slammed his body straight into my own. To make it worse, it wasn't just his body or head, even. It was his claws. His talon-like fingers were slashed and punctured deep into my back, and with a brighter pain, his paws were clenched, locking himself inside of my skin and pulling the meat from my body in a death lock. My vision grew black for a split second. The pain surged and spiked to a dangerous high. All nerves in my body went numb. My breath was stolen. My body went limp. Yet, my brain was still active, and I could feel and understood everything what was happening. I was too weak to continue, and I was only at the mercy of whatever would happen to me next, which I met very soon after. With an increase in speed and a few suddenly flips, it was clear to now state that we were closer to the ground than I thought, as my entire figure was soon dive bombed and smashed into the floor with a loud explosion-like boom of my body making contact from the velocity, his body weight was used to add an even more powerful strike. It was at that point, I had lost all physical consciousness, but was still intact to experience it all happening. What I had suffered through was worse than death itself.
My entire body first went entirely numb, as if all of the nerves within me exploded all at once, and replaced every sensor with excruciating pain. All the blood from within my body seemed to rush and slam into my skin and hide, but was unable to break through the barrier of my epidermis, thus filling my body with nothing but an entirely wet and cold feeling. My bones and joints ached and quaked, feeling as if they were all bent back and tied together twice, and then lit on fire to be melted and mixed. The wound from my neck spurted out blood at the impact. My vision blacked out that soon faded into a very blurry image, probably going to remain like that until the pain ceased. And the worse part of all of this? My voice. The shrill of undying agony rushed throughout the cosmos for as many as it could reach, which from the looks of it was only us, but it was a lot to say for a world that seemed to stretch on forever. It continued for longer that I was anticipating, just nothing but one long never-ending roar of pleads to make the hurt ceased, to attempt to make it die out before I did. As I soon ran out of my breath, my entire body followed within its action, and my head violently fell against the ground. Silent.
I felt as if I was barely clinging to life, but was still breathing faintly. So tired. So exhausted from the abuse my body was receiving. The only thing I pleaded for at this point, mixing my very faint paints with even more faint whimpers, was for it to end. But, it looked as if he had another plan. Still on top of me, with a jaw and fangs covered in my blood and claws still implanted within my back, his lips forming a despicable grin as he searched his prey. My eyes were lightly opened, but my presence was definitely there. He moved his head down slightly near mine, the blurry focus able to pick him out more. His eyes were still slits from the looks of it, and his maw was nearby my ear as he began to speak, the voice sounding echoic and clogged. "Still feeling brave, retard?"
His paws suddenly clenched, and my eyes were shot open as my entire being was soon thrown straight into a panic, back into the clear and crystal clean reality, but not in a good way. My body raised as the entire sequence happened once again, but now to the intensity of his grip. I screamed out in a large cry for help, doing nothing but just trying to fight off the pain that he was implanting. With some act of mercy, or maybe just to torment me, he released his grip, and I was returned back to my real state of mind. My vision was once again, blurry. I tried to get a grip on myself, tried to focus. Have to... Focus…
He smirked with nothing but the thoughts of death within his conscious, nudged underneath my chin at the large wound he had left within my neck, now covering the side and the underside of me in a puddle of red. With a sharp appearing forked tongue, he eagerly lapped it up twice before moving his maw back to my ear, whispering out the words to only mock his state of being. "You seem weak… Maybe you should take a nap… Hm?"
Taunting me, right in front of me while I was conscious. That sick bastard—
A sharp tightening in my back. A loud and more submissive cry of pain. Thrown back into the sequence. Relief ten seconds in. Back to my state. He was toying with me, like a crazed killer does with his victims. I couldn't take much more of this abuse. I could feel myself growing weaker from the lack of blood and the constant surges of pain. This had to stop, or else it would end automatically. An ending I did not want to witness. His eyes were scanning and watching me squirm under his will, chuckling with a low tone at my body being at his mercy. "It doesn't even seem as if you put up much of a fight. Are you sure you want to keep trying? You're humiliating yourself…"
Oh, how I wanted to growl. How I wanted to speak back and defend myself, but I could tell there was no energy to make that sort of decision. I was only focusing on one thing. Living. Catch my breath, try to relax. Try to ignore. C-calm down. Don't give in… Oh, how it was hard. Sleep sounded so nice. To rest forever. To be in peace… No, I can't. I wouldn't let it ever influence me to do something as ridiculous as that. How could I even consider that thought? Because I was tired… Because I could feel my body shutting itself down on its own, so it would be much better to just put myself out of my misery and do the work he was doing for me. N-no… I can't… Have to keep doing… Don't give in to those fake lies!
"Are you having fun?" His voice caught my attention, just slightly more clear than usual from the break that I was given. "It seems to me you're having more of a fun time fighting within your own mind than you are fighting with me. Of course, I'm not sure if you would have a better chance there than you did with me, so I am not one to judge about anything, heh." His neck lowered to look more at my panting and pitiful state before he continued. "However, I could just leave you guys alone, if you considered."
My eyes closed once, just thinking everything through the best I could through this entire situation. He, was me. But he wasn't me. So that meant he wasn't a part of me? No, he was, but wasn't. So he was in me, but not me. Yet, he was me. Quick headache flashed in. No, think wisely. He was in me, and he was a part of me, because… Because he pushed himself in. Y-yes. That made more sense. It was by force. So therefore, he was in me because he made himself. I was already having a battle, but… It couldn't have been a real one. This can't be real. But it feels so real. How could that be? It… wasn't real. It couldn't be. This is… All in my head. That was the only thing left. It had to be within my own head. So, this battle was… In my head? So, how was I here seeing this all? There was no real time to explain about this. I only needed some knowledge of this situation at current hand. This was all not real, it was fake. So, if I died, I wouldn't die in real life, would I? No… No, I would. Not physically, but definitely mentally. I would lose myself. I would lose my control. So what would I gain by defeating him? Control of my body? Yes. Forever? Maybe. Maybe not. He seemed to be a foe that wouldn't back down of a challenge, and being firmly implanted in this prison he might have just that to be able to do for access. He would attempt at any cost.
So, what was the objective of this entire situation, then? Stay alive? Yes, for sure. But, at least fight him off long enough to maybe even defeat him, not with power, but with time. It was worth a shot to try, for my body was pretty much in a bloody heap on the floor and his weight was keeping me still. My eyes scrolled up once and glared deep into his eyes, with of look of determination through the extremely prominent expression of exhaustion. I was surprised I could even get an entire word out, let alone a few phrases. "I… Will never… give… into you…"
His eyes went bold as he began to actually change his own expression. Now shocked slightly that I was remaining so tough, his grin had reversed into a slight frown, his eyebrows arched upwards between his nose and his claws loosened up from my back ever so tiny. It had only lasted for a moment before he regained himself, looking down at me with a glare just as evil. "I wouldn't think that way. We don't want you becoming too disappointed once you're unable to hold your words true… We don't want you becoming a liar, do we…?"
I gasped for a pocket of air through my very badly wounded neck, the pain there now beginning to take a toll on my lungs and my breathing, but I was surprising even myself more and more with the actions I was now incorporating into my words, a very slight shake of my head to signify 'no'. "I… Am not lying…"
"So you say now…" He finally removed a paw from my back, cutting the pain down to at least half. I inhaled out once in a sharp manner, relieved to have a break in the matter. From there, his blood covered claws were glided down my neck in the same manner as before as he stared up at me. "You know, I still commend you for your strength in, at least, the bravery department. You sure are willing to die. Not many would ever think that way. Maybe you're smart. Maybe stupid. We never know. Could very easily be one of the two."
"Let's just… Go with the… Smart one…" I expressed my opinion through heavy pants, the energy slowly but very surely beginning to refill my body.
He grinned slightly, only showing more of an evil side. "Fine. I never give pity, but I suppose it is right for this situation." With that being said, he tugged out his other paw that was much deeper than the first, having it removed with a small blood puddle forming from where the holes were from his claws.
Another heavy inhale from me. How it pained me so much to have it removed, but was a sudden relief to feel it gone.
With a small step to the side, his two covered hind paws were placed near my head as he circled around to the front of my face, lowering himself slightly to speak. "Well, then why don't you prove it right now?" As his head was lifted, his body was moved backwards a few steps to his original position such as before, only now much more visible from the natural effects from the very beginning no longer being present. Unfortunately, the small fading and reappearing effect was still present, only now more violent from my condition. "Go on. Stand up. Prove yourself strong, just as you say. We don't want you lying, do we?"
I remained against the ground, covered in blood from snout to tail tip, just a bloody heap of breathing skin and wounds. It appeared as if I was murdered and left for dead. That was exactly how things were played out, however. Though, most out of a merciful retrial than a victory. My tail flicked twice to the side very slightly as I felt myself finally rid of him around me, and was beginning to focus on my breathing more from the small safety of the moment. However, his words never seemed to stop. Instead, they were going darker and deeper by the moment, even beginning to fade and mingle with a higher voice, both spoken at the same time. The result was frightening.
"Come on, come on. Stand up. You say it as if it's so easy, so prove to me it's easy!"
My eyes closed for a moment, taking a deep inhale to fight back the pain as much as I could before I exhaled and reopened my eyes. With a very slight movement of hesitation, I began to very slowly arch my body and move my arms back into position, somehow stumbling and wobbling my way back onto my feet. He only watched with a pitiful smile until I finally stood to my feet, back facing him, and head lowered. I could sense he was staring right at me with that same stupid smile, and I was too weak to catch him with a sudden spin of 'See? I told you so!' But, just being able to stand up was an accomplishment to me. As I was very slowly turning my body, I heard his voice without having to even lift my head, or even my ears to focus. It was as if he was speaking right through my head. In a way, he was. "Aah, there we go. The brave knight of peace wasn't lying. Surprising! Alright then, go on. Prove it more."
My head was lifted slightly to inspect what he meant by those words before suddenly seeing him charged right for me, his paw already in motion. With a quick swipe upwards, I felt my entire body and feet lift off of the ground in a long half circle up through the air, flying backwards, and eventually meeting the ground with a heavy grunt in the same slamming fashion as before, not as strong but definitely as painful due to the other abuse I had fought through. Blood formed within my maw slightly as I gasped for air from the reapplied pain. He only chuckled.
"I thought you were being serious when you told me you were able to continue!"
In a quick boost of energy, I spun myself onto my side and blinked my eyes twice slightly, attempting to refocus from the sudden blow, but was reintroduced to how powerful his tail's swing could be, feeling it smashed against my side and sending me skidding back against the dead grass. After a stop, I was facing away from him once more, on my back, arms and legs sprawled out lifelessly, just gasping once more. At this point, he was only laughing at me and my worthlessness to the situation, and I could that was exactly what he was thinking of. I felt weak, like I was being thrown around like a ball. I had no motivation, Nothing. I felt dead. I was going to die. I couldn't even stand without being blasted back down. It was worthless.
As I was lying there, all hope lost, my ears picked up the faint sounds of footsteps walking towards me. Oh, no. Here he comes. His paws stopped at my snout and his maw opened up over mine. Throughout my very slightly opened eyes, I could see a hue of purple beginning to form, and the familiar sound of death becoming audible. I could sense exactly what was beginning now. I was trapped. I was in trouble. My eyes gently closed for its final time, just listening to the sounds and preparing for the final blow to be executed to me. I had no more strength. It was all over for me…
