Lance bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain. The coldness of the night seemed piercing as he held the bursting hurt rush through his chest, getting even more intense at his right leg. He bit harder and harder, his winced eyes shaking in restraint. He began to bite his bottom lip so hard, that blood began to leak out like a teardrop down his chin. That moment right after, he couldn't hold it back any longer and coughed out a splotch of blood violently. It made a fearful redness on the floor, spikes of blood around the circle, as if it wanted to creep more outward, dominating everything. Lance began to take deep breaths as he found it harder and harder to do so. The pain had almost completely left him, and a cool, hardness seemed to wrap around his leg. He picked his head up a little, his silver eyes meeting with Otoshiana's red, demonic ones.
"Biting your lip?" Otoshiana noticed. "Have you become so desperate that you caused pain for your own self?" he smirked in his electronic, surreal voice. It seemed to pierce the night.
Breath still heavy and legs still struggling to stand up, Lance took a moment longer to catch his breath. He brought a weak arm to his face and brushed the line of blood away from his mouth. "It's the only cure I've found for pain from someone else. Hurting myself, that is, if it makes sense," Lance piqued. He brought his back straight up again and felt the sweat begin to leak out of his body, the temperature rising around him. He peered down to find a devilish, metallic snake wrapped around his right foreleg, injecting a metal syringe into the armored skin. Its body crawled back into underground, immediately indicating where it had come from so suddenly.
As Lance continued to feel the dreadful liquid fill his leg and swim into his blood stream, he felt his breath pick up and his energy run loose. Moments later, the snake pulled back, ripping out the syringe horrifyingly and falling limp to the floor, leftover purple liquid pooling around its head. It gave a blank, widened stare as it lost the will to live, fulfilling its purpose. Its eyes seemed to gaze accusingly at Lance, ironically.
Lance tried to move. His legs began to shake, but his feet felt like tons, as if they were trapped inside large cinderblocks. I can't move, Lance realized, gritting his teeth in resistance. Damn it! I can't breathe too well, either. What the hell did he do to me?
"Looks like the poison's taking affect all ready," Otoshiana spoke loudly, his voice booming off the dead forest grounds. Nothing but dirt seemed to surround the scene. "Good," Otoshiana mumbled. "There wouldn't be a point to it if it didn't start working right away."
"What…" Lance began, his voice weakening just like the rest of his body. "What'd you do to me?"
"I filled your leg with a poison that, as you've taken notice all ready, weakens your lungs and clouds your mind. It also freezes your nerve system, and if you keep going at this rate, you should die by morning, which is only a few hours away," Otoshiana answered robotically. He turned for his gaze to fall upon the unmoving Lightning Minor. His eyes were wide with blankness, like an open door to his blank mind. He seemed as if he were in a trance. Otoshiana's piercing red eyes seemed to shoot through Rick, killing his spirit instantly. "I told you," Otoshiana spoke monotonously. "You're the last one to die after all."
Rick stared blankly, as if his eyes resisted blinking. He turned mindlessly towards Marissa, who wasn't too far away from him. She was still imprisoned tightly against the bark of a tree, her eyes closed in a faraway trance unreachable, even for Rick. The Lightning Minor then turned his head to find the struggling Lance, his limbs shaking violently, yet failing to move even an inch. He's right… Rick admitted to himself, getting a thought out after some time.
Back at the empty space and padded dirt, Lance began to give up. I can feel the poison taking over my body, he thought. I'm weakening, and… He tried to make balled up aluminum foil from his hands to test his powers. It wouldn't seem to work. The poison's affecting my powers, too, Lance realized, not believing his luck. If I can't move, and can't use my Half-Spirit, I'm going to die even before Otoshiana said I would. Shit! Lance complained in anger in his head. I can't let it end like this! I can't be the first one to die! Lance's silver eyes peered up to find the confident look of Otoshiana. He felt all the energy in his body drain away from him, and the metal armor began to sink away, revealing the tanned skin of the distressed Minor.
The weight of the arsenal of snakes began to sink on Otoshiana's body. It's stressful to work these things, but in the end, they're perfect, Otoshiana thought. Something you promised me a long time ago, the blue robotic person thought as he peered up to the sky blankly, finding the glimmering stars shower their light on the scene. However, being the person you were, you'd be very much glad to hear that I followed your ways, wouldn't you? As expected, he received no reply. Well, at least after I finish these kids off you will. I promise.
"Senchi!" Otoshiana returned to the present, calling upon his millions of snakes at his arsenal. The snakes picked up their heads in reaction. "Go! Finish him," Otoshiana commanded. This time, Otoshiana thought as the snakes began churning, making tension-rising motion. This time, I'll make you happy… and proud.
The snakes slithered in the air violently as they took one last second to hiss at the weakened Minor in front of them. They zoomed through the air with blinding speed, their beady metal eyes gleaming with the faint moonlight and confidence. As they crept closer and closer to Lance, the tension seemed to break off the charts.
Damn it… Lance thought as the serpents inched closer to him. He bowed his head down and waited. The clattering of metal shafts against each other filled his head, and the imprisoning coldness was like a pep beat for the spreading poison. Then, finally, a louder clang of metal was heard, and Lance was left completely safe.
"What?!" Otoshiana demanded loudly, his robotic voice revealing all his rising anger. "This doesn't make sense!"
"Of course it does," Lance spoke weakly, not even sure if Otoshiana had heard him. From far away, Rick watched with awe. Lance's breathing was thinning, and the Minor knew he was running out of time. A few feet away from Lance was a titanic metal barrier in the shape of a net, as if a strainer for the millions of snakes. They were scrambled inside the wrapping metallic net, and their poison leaked out, ineffective against the metal net. The hissing of hot acid from the snakes' mouths swam up to the night sky above.
Otoshiana stared from far away as the metallic shafts connected the two destinies, one of them in total shock and the other one feeling at least a little ounce of security. "N-No way!" Otoshiana claimed. His reddened eyes were bold with a demonic light, and finally, they weathered down to their normal state in realization. "I see," he said. "I understand completely now. It's not that the metal protecting you now was made recently," Otoshiana began, his voice calmer. "It's the metal from before all this started."
"Yeah, looks like you got it," Lance said, smiling a resistant curve. That was the thing about Lance. No matter what conditions he was put through, he would always flash a smile, and somehow, it would make things a little simpler.
On cue, both the opposing forces remembered back then, when Otoshiana had just risen from the ground, and team two was still running through the wet forest tiredly. With the image still weary, Otoshiana had raised from the dirt paved path, the brown mush sticking to his full body armor. Only a while later did the tiny, shuffling metallic balls that Lance had put into the forest as a trap wrap around Otoshiana and cause such a high rate of friction, that there was a loud, blasting explosion.
Returning from the sudden flashback, Otoshiana took notice. "That metal was never left there, was it?" Otoshiana interrogated.
Lance scoffed. "I don't believe in wasting very much, unless it's absolutely necessary," the Metal Minor spoke, his jaw weak, yet the tone in his voice pitched to such a level that it made him look completely normal.
"I see," Otoshiana said deeply. His voice was all serious, and sometimes even hid his anger. The anger he didn't even realize he had deep inside him, just lying there like a lump in his stomach, a monument of a memory wanted to be forgotten.
"Now!" Lance cried out in the navy blue darkness. His voice was surprisingly strong, as if he had begun recovering, but it wasn't true. The poisonous pain still lingered around every inch of his body, inside and out. The sudden cry widened Otoshiana's red, brilliant, gleaming eyes.
All of a sudden, metallic strings seemed to spring from the tree canopies behind Otoshiana, wrapping around him like a weak cage that was barely visible in the blank night. Otoshiana felt each one zoom from different directions and soon, the metal wires overtook him, and all his limbs were unavailable to use. All the while, he remained completely calm, as if nothing were happening. "What?" Otoshiana spoke calmly and robotically. "A trap of your own?" he said as he jerked his head up to find a set of thin, glimmering needles placed above his head by many feet.
"You really thought you were the only one with traps?" Lance said with a weak smirk. Damn it, he thought, his mind completely ironic to the way he spoke. It's even hard to smile, Lance took notice.
With a declaration from the mind, the metal needles began to release their suspense in the sky, coming down with a sharp, thin cry like a million insects swarming together. Their thin bodies shimmered in the glowing moonlight as they sliced the air in their way. They inched closer and closer to Otoshiana, as if a revenge attack for the millions of snakes sent after Lance.
Keeping his eyes glaring straight up mindlessly, Otoshiana reacted seconds before the needles came in contact with him, and a metal, spinning blade released from the back of his shoulders and cut the wires expertly and quickly, wasting no time and energy at all. Then, as if a joke, an old style, metallic umbrella sprung from Otoshiana's shoulders, and soon, the sound of needles against metal was heard. They would fall from the roof of the umbrella and down to the floor, still glimmering after they failed their purpose.
As Otoshiana felt the freedom to move return to his body, the umbrella closed back to its thin state and sunk back inside his shoulder. The trap was all over now, and had completely failed. Lance grits his teeth, the only thing he could control at this point. The Senchi returning to be used again at his arsenal, Otoshiana gave the same blank stare that revealed no emotion whatsoever. "That's the difference between you and me," he began to tell Lance, who had no choice but to listen to his monotonous, booming voice. "My traps are affective because I use them for a reason. Yours aren't because you use them just to get out of situations that leave you clueless."
"Oh?" Lance mocked. "And what might that reason be, if not to get out of situations like the one I put you in?"
"That reason is something completely off topic from what you have to think about," Otoshiana refused to speak about the reason. "You should stay with what you should be dealing with instead of looking for simple stories to amuse you, should you not?"
Lance decided to hold back his words. Anything he would say would just make him more annoyed at how Otoshiana spoke to him, and more tired by thinning his breath with every word he spoke. "That's something you're going to have to learn," Otoshiana said finally, as if concluding the fight. "Senchi, go!" he commanded the millions of snakes. His arsenal reacted immediately, zooming through the air once more and crashing into the metal barrier again, the loud booming of the millions of serpents spreading through the barren field they fought in. As they did that, the other half spread to the back of Otoshiana, and began melting the forest with their deadly poison, crashing into the ground and trees that hissed the steamy gas into the sky above.
What's he attacking the forest behind him for? Lance thought, trying to figure out Otoshiana's strategy as the metal barrier defended him from the other half of the army sent against him. Somehow, the night began to warm up. My senses are acting up, Lance realized. The poison's really getting to me quickly.
"Just so you won't make any more of those annoying traps again," Otoshiana answered Lance's thoughts, as if reading his mind. "The other half of my snakes serve a purpose as well."
Lance took a sharp, painful gasp as he struggled to look up and find the metal barrier hissing wildly, chunks of it beginning to melt. "What…?" Lance's voice came out in a whisper. The metal barrier was failing.
"I knew that the regular poison I used wasn't enough to get rid of your metal," Otoshiana began, reading Lance's mind yet again. "So I switched it while you were setting up your trap with my highest level of poison, A1," Otoshiana explained. "Your metal will soon fall apart completely."
He was right. Lance watched in resistance as his metal barrier fell to the floor bit by bit and chunk by chunk in a sloppy blob of melting silver. This isn't good, Lance thought as he felt his anger rise. How am I going to defend myself from future attacks now? The hissing poison smoked the air with a white haze as the snakes began to pull back.
"Now," Otoshiana declared the final attack. "You should die completely under any circumstances after this attack from the Senchi," Otoshiana noted. "I'll use the extended poison horn with A1 poison." As his words came out, the metallic snakes began to drag out elongated forms of their regular point for poison, making the poison leak out and glisten in the growing moonlight.
Along with the readying final attack, Lance's temples began to pulse, the sound overtaking the inside of his ears. He felt as if his head were about to burst any second, and his efforts to breathe failed, the intakes of air not even as thin anymore. Damn it… he thought weakly. "Go!" Otoshiana declared.
The metal snakes rushed across the air with the glistening poison, their mouths wide open in an inhuman hunger. They inched closer and closer as Lance wished he could move, but his legs failed any purpose to inch away. It was like his body had become a comrade to Otoshiana.
As Lance kept his eyes wide open and aware, keeping some hope up, his wishes were granted as the snakes were stopped short once again. This time, the first poison point was a centimeter away from Lance as it was caught by something so powerful and strong; it even held back the purple liquid that leaked out in a threat. Lance's eyes began to shake and kept on the snake and its glistening dagger so close to him, his teeth chattering at some point. His expression was locked in a blank stare of fear.
"Magunechikku Hara –Magnetic Field!-" came a familiar voice from far away.
"No way!" Lance cried out in a whisper, his eyes peering to the side, careful with the frozen snake in front of him, just half a centimeter away from his nose. His thoughts were correct. In the distance by the melted forest stood the one and only Lightning Minor, Rick, his eyes wide open in confidence and his hands put out in the air, glowing with an ominous yellow glow that seemed to illuminate the darkest depths of the night. His blonde hair quivered lightly in the wind and his teeth were gritted in a tight lock of confidence.
"There's no way you can kill my friends without killing me first," Rick told Otoshiana as the red piercing eyes of the robotic being peered at him blankly. "No matter how close they are," Rick said through gritted teeth. And as the snakes weakened and the tension began to rise, Lance knew that the battle would turn out to be something totally different than what he had first expected it to be.