PAINT MY GOODBYE RED
Chapter 28: Reflection

"Axl. We meet again."

It was the first words I heard from Gungaroo after some time. I cough-snorted when I heard it, because he tried to lower his voice to sound like typical action movie antagonists with deep voices.

"Shut up." I replied, giggling afterwards. "It doesn't work."
"You shut up." Gungaroo cackled. "I tried."

X and Zero sat on one of the taller crates, watching our exchange in Gungaroo's "arena". As we have agreed, they're not going to interfere unless I get too injured to continue. In the arena, there were three ride armours: One of them was a red, spider-like ride armour with two arms—one normal arm and one drill arm, called Raiden II. Another was a blue, more humanoid one with two shoulder cannons, one gun-arm and one normal arm, called Gouden. The third one was Gungaroo's pink custom ride armour with two normal punching arms, modelled after a mother kangaroo.

"Anyways, doesn't matter. This'll be the last one, won't it?" Gungaroo remarked, a sad smile on his face. "And we're pressed for time, too…"
"I'm sorry this had to happen to you…all of us." I replied, frowning.
"The worst part is that we couldn't do anything about it from the get-go…but let's not bawl over it. There's no point to it." Gungaroo chuckled. "Let's just get it over with?"
"Don't say it like that." I lightly scolded him when he referred to starting our promised duel as "getting it over with".
"Yeah, right…sorry." Gungaroo apologized, with a small smile on his face. "I've waited for too long."
"Same to me." I replied.

We said nothing as we walked over to our ride armours. Gungaroo got into his pink ride armour, and I chose the blue Gouden.

"A gunner is a gunner is a gunner, eh?" Gungaroo quipped.
"Not always." I countered.

In fact, it was him who enabled me to answer "not always", in a way. After what had happened before that, it was very kind of him. The one who taught me to kick? It was him.

He threw the first ride-armour punch, and I dodged to the side, shooting his ride armour as I did. After the first few shots hit, Gungaroo had his ride armour jump around, making it hard for me to hit it. Because I would be vulnerable to a sudden punch otherwise, I moved around as well, and kept shooting while I did.

I was rewarded with a horrible heart attack when Gungaroo decided to punch the gun-arm of the Gouden. Because I had been shooting, hence extending that arm, it was an easy target for him. One punch broke the barrel.

I tensed. It's just like last time, but it was without ride armours back then. We had a duel before we promised to have another one. He beat me senseless. He was a small target—always is, so he dodged my shots easily. Even when I transformed it into the G-Launcher using his DNA data, he could still dodge some of them. It was when he got close to me that everything was pretty much over. I was a pulp afterwards. But I think I deserved it.

"Nostalgia?" Gungaroo joked when he saw me staring at the broken gun.
"I don't intend on losing twice to you, the same way." I chuckled bitterly.
"It's always your weakness, Axl, like I have mine." Gungaroo responded.

I just smiled. He wasn't the only one who decided to enrich me after that first duel. I did the same. With Anteator's help, I installed some sort of mini-gun on his tail, and then after that, I taught him how to aim. He was always most vulnerable to snipers and shooters. He may be a small target, but a target is a target is a target.

I dashed away and fired the shoulder cannons, and one of the rockets hit Gungaroo's ride armour on the head.

"Ohhh, fruitcakes!" he grumbled.
"I think you mean fu—" I teased, but he cut it off.
"No, no cussing!" he scolded me. "Not for me."
I just laughed.
"I think I jinxed it, but I don't care. Auto-aim's gone now that the head's busted, but I can still punch!" Gungaroo announced.
"Then bring it on!"

Gungaroo struggled to land a hit on me, and it's the same way with me. It's a bit harder with the shoulder cannons because it's not as straightforward as aiming with the arm, but, well, I can still shoot.

Our first duel wasn't as friendly. It didn't start off "friendly". I started the whole root of it by being a jerk to him. On my first days in Red Alert, Gungaroo was one of the people friendliest to me. He told me he was happy to have a fellow "kid" in the base. I didn't understand what it meant until some of the Red Alert members, especially Warfly, started teasing the both of us.

Gungaroo shrugged it off and told me that they don't mean any harm, even though he was a bit hurt by Warfly's hostility towards me. But I was way more of a kid than he was at the time. I was sensitive. And at the time, I was also determined to prove myself to be useful. So even though Gungaroo was right that they were just teasing harmlessly, I didn't listen.
We started fighting. I told him he didn't understand what I felt, even though, in fact, he did…a long time ago. He was teased the same way, and he had to bear it alone. But I was a stupid kid who understood jack shit. And so I left him.

Seeing that both of our ride armours had gotten too damaged for us to continue the ride armour duel, we decided to leave our ride armours.
"I suppose this is a draw." Gungaroo said. "You've gotten stronger."
"People grow stronger. I'm sure you have, too." I replied, trying to encourage him a bit more.
"Then let's see who's stronger." Gungaroo taunted, with a smirk on his face.
"No matter what happens after this, you'll always be my friend." I gently stated.
"Shut up." Gungaroo chuckled, his voice a bit hushed. "One of us isn't coming out of here alive."
"I'll make sure you stay." I said, drawing one of my guns, indicating that I'll be getting his DNA data at the end. "But it's for later." I continued, de-manifesting it.
"So, no guns?" Gungaroo questioned, wanting to be sure if it's the rule for the second phase.
"Nope." I replied as I readied my fighting stance. "Hands and feet, and that's it."
"You're a dum-dum, but I'm not complaining." Gungaroo teased as he readied his own fighting stance.

Maybe some things never change. Even after 10 years of life experience, I do stupid shit sometimes, too. Although I can guarantee that leaving Gungaroo was one of the dumbest shit I've ever done. Fortunately, Tonion was there to mediate us. I told him all about it after I got promoted before Gungaroo did, when I was declared head of Red Alert's assassins. Not a General, but equal.
Gungaroo was still upset over what I had done to him. Even though I had apologized and decided to reform our friendship, he was still angry over the years we spent as enemies. And because he wanted to beat me up after the bullshit I put him through, we had that duel. One rule we had in place: No dirty-fighting.
And then we all know how it turned out. His victory over me was what got him promoted to General. I didn't get demoted—my abilities are my abilities are my abilities, and they were already recognized. But when he defeated me, his was recognized.

After that first duel, Gungaroo was kind enough to offer me a rematch "someday", and we started helping each other out in areas we lack. He helped me with melee combat, and I helped him with guns. We put off the duel for about 4 years because we were too busy fighting with each other as organization-mates rather than thinking about fighting against each other. And here we are now.

Again, Gungaroo threw the first punch, and I dodged it by rolling to his direction. I immediately followed it by a handstand-spinning kick, and it hit his head, breaking one of his ears off.
"Slippery fish." Gungaroo hissed at me, half-teasing.
"Don't call me a fish." I chuckled low.
"FISH!" Gungaroo yelled as he turned around, about to karate-chop my head. I decided to dodge it by backflipping, hoping to hit his hand or something.

…

…

…

Oh. My. God. That fucking hurt.
Somebody landed a hit. It was Gungaroo. His karate chop landed on my crotch, and my crotch armour cracked. I guess he did hit my head…my other head.

"AAAAAARGH, FUUUCK!" I shrieked after I fell on my back in the middle of my backflipping. "My masculinity!"

As I convulsed in the fetal position clutching my crotch and squeezing my eyes shut, I could hear Zero howling in laughter, and X snorting, holding in his own. Much closer to me, I could hear Gungaroo laughing like "Ooooh hooh hooh, oh my god."

"Talk about karma, huh, Axl?" Zero hollered from above.
"Shut the fuck up!" I yelled, my yelling muffled because of my position.
"Holy mackerel, you actually hit friggin' Zero over THERE?" Gungaroo questioned.
"Oh, shit." Zero cursed lowly, because he let the cat out of the bag.
X shrieked laughing when Gungaroo figured it out, for a few seconds, before declaring. "Yes, he did!"
X continued to shriek laughing as Zero teasingly shoved him away as "punishment" for letting it out. Gungaroo just struggled to keep his mouth shut and his laughter in, as I got up while giggling lowly.

"I hope you get a girlfriend. A very good girlfriend." Gungaroo wished.
"Thanks, Gungaroo, but first, I'll have to get my dick fixed." I replied.

We backed away, and Gungaroo bounced off the arena's barrier and executed his Triangle Kick—a flying kick that comes after bouncing off a wall-like surface. It came quick, but I barely dodged it. Just as he landed, I decided to punch him on the side of his head. It hit, cracking the side of his helmet and damaging his eye. He tried to punch back, but I side-stepped, dodging it successfully. I followed it with a roundhouse kick, which he dodged by ducking. He was about to punch my crotch again, with a shit-eating grin on his face, but I kicked him with my other leg, and it hit his chin, launching him upwards, and his back hit the arena barrier.

Gungaroo coughed. "I can only bust a man's balls once, eh?"
Oh, you. I just chuckled. For some reason, what he said was pretty cute.
"Fish." Gungaroo teasingly remarked again.
"Fish don't have legs." I countered.
"You don't watch enough documentaries." he argued back.
"But walking fish have fins, not actual legs." I teased back. Well, it's true. There are walking fish. They just don't have legs.
"Doesn't matter. Fish." Gungaroo insisted, chuckling.
"If you like fish so much, you should've married Warfly." I wanted to have the last word, so I teased again.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! GROSS!" Gungaroo screamed.

Gungaroo dashed towards me to punch the living shit out of me, and I dodged again by somersaulting, landing behind him. He may be smaller than me, but I'm the more agile one, since I'm more used to performing all sorts of acrobatics to dodge and attack. It helps, because I was always more flexible.
Afterwards, I interlaced my fingers tightly, and slammed both of my hands down his head like a hammer. It cracked his head badly, and he screamed before falling to the ground.

"I can't feel my legs anymore…" he said as he coughed. "I guess you win this time."
I struggled to smile, biting my lip to prevent myself from crying in front of him. It hurts to see him like that, and it hurts even more to know that I was the one who caused it, even though both of us know that he's going to have to die anyways, because of the Professor's virus.
"It doesn't feel good, though." I replied. Even though, in normal circumstances, I would have been more satisfied and I would have said something to express it, this isn't the least bit satisfying.
"I don't feel good either." Gungaroo chuckled. "Neither of us wanted a duel to the death, but hey, sometimes we can't have what we want."
"So this is it?" I questioned.
"Yeah, this is it. But it's alright for me. It ended well enough." Gungaroo answered as he got up, propping himself on his hands. "I chose this. Kind of, but you get what I mean, don't you?"
"Yeah." I replied, taking out my gun and setting it to load the Copy Shot.
"We'll always be together that way, right?" Gungaroo questioned, looking at the gun I pointed at his head, his gaze unfocused. My blow must have affected his ability to see.
"Yeah."

After I said that, I fired. As if feeling his ghost fill my DNA library, I felt his DNA data being transferred to my library via the Copy Shot, as Gungaroo's body fell to the ground. But this time, he's not getting up again.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: A lot has happened to me since I posted the last chapter. First one I'm telling you is, I think I'm stopping the 7k views celebration here. One person participated and I'm thankful for that, but I've asked her to take it down, and thankfully, she did. I think if I'm to engage the FFN community, I shouldn't have used this way.
Anyways, second thing is that...well, how can I say it? It's mostly a chain of things related to job-searching. I've been hit with stress over that these days, so I have been writing stories I only show to certain people. But now I've got to stop moping around. Also because writing is supposed to be stress relief, not another stressor. That's why I decided to stop thinking that "PMGR is heavy" and continue it.