Stumbling through the low purple grass, Marco grit his teeth against the howling throbs of pain in his side that seemed to intensify with every step. 'Just a few more miles until that village I passed,' he thought, using all of his willpower to force one leg in front of another. He had to stay on his feet, had to push himself past the breaking point. He knew that Reikus had a fully stocked apothecary that he would be willing to dip into in order to lend him aid in , the man owed Marco for driving away that pack of ember cats that had threatened their livestock all spring.
It had been four days since he'd cornered his three hundredth Hekapoo clone in that dry creek bed, and he remembered bitterly the events of that encounter. The woman had finally stopped running after a chase through the forest, deciding that it was better to turn and fight. It was exactly what Marco had been hoping for and he smiled through the haze of pain, remembering their short fight. A quick feint on his part had drawn a sharp thrust from her halberd which had allowed him to get inside its deadly reach before a powerful roundhouse had knocked her to the dusty ground.
He hadn't even taken the time to gloat, rather he'd just bent over her still form and blew out the flame in a short puff of air and smoke. The first fifty or so battles with Hekapoo's clones had been bitter, desperate affairs that had taxed both his physical abilities and tactical mind to their absolute limits, before he somehow managed to emerge victorious. Now though, they seemed rather pedestrianas he had honed his skills to a razor's edge over the past five years. Dusting off his hands, he crossed off the three hundredth flame icon in his notebook, feeling a growing weariness at the seemingly unending task of tracking, stalking, and finally defeating each clone in battle.
It was then, that the Neverzone had seen fit to remind him that complacency meant death. Lost in his thoughts as he'd scratched one more target off his list, he hadn't heard the ember cat sneaking up on him from the other side of the creek bed. But he was violently made aware of its presence when it pounced on him, knocking El Choppo out of his hands and dragging him to the dirt. The predator had been a flurry of sharp claws and teeth, biting and scratching at him, its hot fiery breath singeing and scorching his already tattered hoodie. Rolling over, he'd managed to slip an arm around its neck, and was trying his best to choke it unconscious when it had twisted awkwardly and sank two long pink-stained fangs into his right side, just below his ribs.
Grunting from the sharp pain of the bite, he'd reached down and had barely been able to pull his boot knife out just as the big cat breathed a plume of hot flame against his wound, causing him to seize up and scream in agony. Once, twice, three times he'd plunged the jagged iron dagger into its throat, a ferocious snarl pulling his lips back as he pushed the dead beast off him, to pant on the red stained dirt. Pulling the knife free, he tossed the dagger away, its long blade melted beyond recognition.
"Fuck…" he grunted, before a low chuckle escaped his lips. He couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation. 'A safe kid from Echo Creek California that used to be worried about everything…and here I am fighting wild ember cats to the death with just a dagger…' Sitting up, he checked the wound that was already staining his filthy hoodie a darker red. He spent the next several minutes washing the wound with fresh water from his canteen before chewing the last of his eeperite berries, using the chewed pulp to pack the deep, twin puncture wounds in his side. Stowing his gear, he blew out a pained breath of air, and turned to begin the long journey back to the nearest village.
It wasn't until two days later, on his return journey to the village, that he knew something was seriously wrong. The pain in his side had been steadily increasing over the past two days despite his best efforts to keep it clean. He may be stuck in the Neverzone on a fool's errand of a quest, but he remembered his first aid courses with crystal clarity and all the signs pointed towards only one thing: he had an infection. Greenish-yellow pus mixed with dark blood was oozing from underneath the packed, dried eeperite pulp, and he could feel a fever beginning to spike as chills raced up and down his spine.
The next two days had gone from bad to worse as the infection continued to run though his body, slowing Marco and drawing what should have been only a one day journey into more than two. Now, as he staggered unevenly though the waist high Krepka grass, only a few miles left to travel before making it to the village, he gingerly felt the wound under his blood stained and stiff hoodie. The skin felt hot to the touch; 'a bad sign,' he remembered. Each step was a struggle, the pain radiating out as if a white hot lance had pierced his side, making his legs wobble and threatening to topple him into a fall he wasn't sure he had the strength to pick himself up from.
*GRRAAUGHHH*, he let out a surprised cry of pain as his foot sank to the ankle in a hidden burrow in the grass, causing him to pitch over and fall. A strangled cry tore from his lips as the impact jarred his infected wound, and he felt his grip on consciousness slip away as the pain overwhelmed him. Marco didn't know how long he was unconscious, but when he woke up he felt his head swimming with fever. His ankle throbbed, likely broken from the fall, and the torturous lances of agony shooting from hip to shoulder told him that the infection was close to running its deadly course.
Attempting to stand, he found he didn't have the strength. It was if an invisible elephant was sitting on his back and preventing him from getting his legs under him. 'So this is where it ends then…' he thought, strangely feeling no anger, just a quiet acceptance of his fate. He'd spent the last five years chasing Hekapoo across the Neverzone in a bid to earn back Star's lost pair of dimensional scissors. It had taught him many harsh lessons. Lessons on who to trust, and who not to. Lessons on how to fight, lessons on how to survive and sometimes even thrive in such a cruel place. And lessons that at just 19, made Marco feel far older than his young age would suggest. He knew he wasn't even close to halfway there, probably not even a quarter if he was honest with himself, but still he'd had to try.
Weakly, he slipped his arm down and into his tattered jeans, pulling out his prussian blue privacy wallet. Stained and frayed, it still dutifully kept his secrets and money safe from the many sticky fingers of pickpockets and he couldn't help but smile at the memory of how he'd gotten it. A soft *click* later, and he'd pulled what he was seeking out from its safe wrapping. It was his most prized possession, something he valued far beyond coins or gems. Just a simple piece of folded paper that when opened up revealed itself to be a weathered picture of two happy teens smiling for the camera, one with her arm around the other, flashing a peace sign.
One of them was himself, albeit much shorter and skinnier. The other was Her. He smiled as he looked for probably the thousandth time at her smile, at those captivating sky blue eyes that always drew his own gaze even in a photograph, and at her long golden hair that smelled of 'strawberries…' he thought with a happy sigh. Feeling frustrated tears well up as he continued to look at the photo, he gripped the picture of himself and his best friend Star as if it were his only lifeline in a storm tossed sea. He'd failed her. He'd pushed past every limit he thought he'd had in his quest to find all of Hekapoo's clones and still, he'd failed her. And now, he was destined to die alone in this godforsaken hellhole of a dimension.
"No." he said aloud, staring hard at the picture. She may have been the reason he was out here. The reason he was pursuing the Forgemaster to earn back the scissors he'd lost, but he would not die in the dirt like a mewling coward. He would fight until his last breath. Fight until he blew out that final flame on that stupid demon's head. Fight until he saw her again...
Carefully, lovingly, he folded the picture up and placed it back in his wallet. Stashing it in its usual spot, he took a deep breath and forced himself to his knees, the pain in his side fighting him for every inch and making him shake from the effort. Jaw clenched, he pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the dull ache in his ankle. "I will not die in this shithole!" he bellowed, "I swear I will live to get back to her! So bring it on Neverzone! Marco Diaz is not giving up!"
And with those words, he took his first step back towards the light, back towards…Her.