As the fist whips by, the lessons pour in. A bite slams down and the fist recoils as purplish blood pours out. My heart speeds up, faster, faster! Harder! The words bubble up through the haze of my spirit.
“I will not lose to you! I will not lose here!”
My blows lash out, slamming into flesh over and over again. The toad slides back as I push forward, to the future, to victory. His eyes widen, panic taking them, as he leaps into the air. My eyes travel, only to see him flip around and-
My laughter rings out as he kicks against the ceiling.
Like an arrow he shoots towards me, fist extended. My smile threatens to break my face as I do the only thing I can do. No, the only thing I want to do! I lean back, fist primed, before launching it right at his!
Our fists connect-
Agony lights up in my mind, but I push through. My hand is breaking, my bones breaking, the muscles tearing. The blood roars, the pounding flow of it screaming in my head as chains scrape and wail with the roar of alligators in the background. I stare into the toad man’s eyes, his focus entirely consumed with me. No longer are those the eyes of arrogance or anger. I only see a warrior's spirit but one far too weak!
“AHHHHH!”
Toady eyes widen as my fist pushes through and breaks our stalemate, slamming into his head. He is pushed back, jumping back to get some distance. He bends, legs scrunching up, before he leaps back, leg extended to slam into me.
My eyes blaze as I copy him. Dashing forward, feeling the weight of my limbs and the blood pouring down and the bruises forming. The pain of my broken teeth, the labored breathing of my nose, all scream at me as the toad’s eyes shine with shock as I do something he could never see coming.
I leap over his leg, my own extended. A perfect mirror of his move, before slamming it into him. My leg in that moment seems to evolve beyond a mere limb and into a weapon all its own. Like a whip unleashed, it cracks into his side, sending him back for a change.
Laughter echoes around us as I follow up. No time to breathe, no time to move! I’ll break you down until you’re crying on the floor!
Fists come but they come slower! Legs kick but knees are rammed into them. My bones creak, the blows hit like cannonballs, but I’m not done yet! The toad seems born for the battle. The way it moves, the way it fights. I’m pushed back despite the second wind.
A fist slams into my nose, too slow to dodge, and I feel it break all over again as breathing suddenly becomes a nightmare. Blood pours down, air gets harder to breathe. Sweat pushes off my form. My entire body seems to pulse with my heartbeat. Exhaustion begins to take hold and yet the fists keep hammering into me, breaking me, legs snapping into my sides rapidly any chance they can get.
I’m beaten, bloody, and bruised. In what seems like a split second the fight begins to turn and the toad unleashes a hailstorm of seismic attacks. I smell fire and smoke now, my eyes water, my ears ring, my mouth is full of blood, something cracks in my chest. My eyes shake as every punch feels like being hit by a tree. One arm goes up to defend, burnt black and fractured. Hot agony explodes as it breaks, as the bone pushes through the skin, and more blows hammer on it. I nearly collapse but-
I laugh.
I weather the blow. I tank the attacks. I feel them all and take them all!
I stare into the toad man, no, the Battle Toad’s face. Exhaustion, respect, fear, worry, determination, duty. I can see them all clear as day. I know this toad almost better than I know myself. In this fight, I can almost see his life story through his eyes.
A guard. A protector. A family man. I know it as sure as I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He’s protecting his home and his family from me. The threat of the sewers. Since when had anything in it ever been kind? Anything but hostile? Anything but a monster?
Never.
This is all he knows. And he worries, for this new monster has nearly won. He can feel it, see it, sense it. He’s losing the battle. My smile softens, my grin becomes pure, but none of the adrenaline leaves me.
Nor any of the plan.
My left arm, this whole time, has been cocked back. Focused. Waiting. Master’s words echo in my ears as a horrible sensation from the past fills me. Harder. Faster. The feeling of my face shattering against the wet ground. The feeling of my body feeling stunned and locked down. But mostly, the feeling of a punch unlike any other slamming into my gut and breaking my mind.
Through a bloody nose and a broken mouth, I say the words.
“Harder.”
He hits harder.
“Faster.”
He hits faster.
“Punch it.”
My left arm rockets forward and I stare into the Battle Toad’s face as his pupils shake. All my strength! Take it! All of it right into your stomach you bastard!
“AHHHHHH!”
A gasping toad croak is all that’s said… before he crashes to the ground.
I heave, sounds and smells and feelings and pain and more and so much more all overwhelming me. Everything is too much, everything is raw, everything is all and happening and, and, and…
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I won.
It hits like warm water on a cold day, splashing into my brain. My eyes roam down. The toad, lost. I won. I punched him so hard, he collapsed.
I won.
Those words nearly kill me as I stumble, feeling drunk. I cry out as I nearly collapse to the ground right with him. The world, it shakes and jumps and jumbles. I don’t know what’s happening. A quick look around-
Alligators the size of school buses are fighting chain wraiths. Chains wrap around them, pulling tighter, constant fire rippling along them. Whatever explosions would have happened from that, have happened, the alligators burnt black in places. They eat them, their teeth grinding the metal, as rats bigger than any I’d ever seen join in. That’s by far, not the worst part though. That would be…
[??]
[??]
[??]
Not a single one’s power level can be seen. Either the weaker ones have already died or they aren’t here to deal with this kind of battle. The chain wraiths float in the air, while the alligators snap out at them. The rats the size of cars seem to dart through, attacking either side. I have no idea why any of this is happening but it’s a worrying thing for sure. If the chain wraiths win…
A cold shiver goes up my nearly depleted body. I have to get out of here, right now.
I turn and-
Oh.
[???]
A being like a flood approaches from the water rooms. If not for its shape, I would just assume it was pure water. But pure water doesn’t take the shape of a giant humanoid with a hundred watery tentacles.
What is with these sewers?!
That thing! That thing must be over level a hundred!
My fighting spirit suddenly has somewhere else to be because the urge to run for my life is all that remains. It’s coalescing still, the thin water pulling together more and more. I feel like answers to questions I may have had are right there somewhere but idle curiosity can wait a lifetime if need be. I needed to leave right now.
I take a step… and freeze.
The Battle Toad.
I glance back at it, passed out. Knocked out by my punch. Indecision wars at me for only a second. I rush to it.
“Get up! You have to get up! Or you’re going to die! Come on!” I shake it, kick it even, anything to make it get up.
Nothing. That punch had every ounce of my being, all of my strength in it. Even now, despite my right arm being broken, it’s my left arm that feels weakest.
“Fuck!”
The Water Elemental is coalescing faster. Even the thin water from over here is starting to pour into it. Bad, very very bad. Time is running out.
I grab it. With both arms. One is broken, acting more like a broken lever than any kind of arm. The other is so weak that the muscles have been torn to pieces. His body is dragged across the ground, but it’s too slow. Far too slow.
“Fuck, come on! Come on, come on, come on! You can fight me that hard but can’t wake the hell up?! I barely even hit you! What about your family toad? I know you have one, I saw that look in your eyes! You aren’t going to die here like this, you bastard! How dare you make me do all this work huh?!”
My arms nearly give out, the adrenaline is pouring out of me. My arms are like lead balloons filled with broken meat with no strength in them. All seems lost. The toad will die. If I stay here, so will I. There’s no way that thing will simply let us be when it becomes whole and can focus on us. Nothing here has been that kind of kind.
I could leave him. I need to leave him. He nearly killed me, tried to kill me, would have gladly killed me. He’s an enemy. Letting enemies live is the luxury of the strong. I’m not this strong yet. I can’t afford this luxury. He isn’t worth my life.
That’s all of what my brain says. It’s right, as brains so often are.
But my spirit roars and screams and bellows. I am the decider of things, not logic, not my brain, not anything else!
I do what I want!
And I don’t want my first good sparring partner to die!
“Get up you fucking bastard!”
I scream, pulling with all my might. He’s dragged faster, my limbs barely responding but responding all the same. We have seconds at best and-
A kick. I nearly stumble with the force but barely, just barely, the toad kicked.
“Yes!”
Faster, faster, we head for the tunnel, the toad blearily coming to awareness. Wet stone goes to hard rock and-
Water slams into me, a tsunami, flooding me and the Battle Toad down it at rapid speeds. I fear for the worst. Had that thing really decided to kill us?! The flood takes us deep, water all around us, far more than the thing was made of, and all sparklingly clean. Finally, it seems to be over as we slam into the hard ground and the water continues on.
I went down a water slide once, my haggard brain tells me.
That was nothing like that.
I glance down the tunnel, now too far away to make anything out. More water is rocketed down, slamming into both of us, but not enough to send us flying away. I gape as I realize it. That wasn’t an attack, that was the back blow. The same way a punch moves air, that thing made water just by moving too hard.
Any sounds of fighting, explosions, wailing spirits, angry alligators, or clanking chains, all die immediately.
When water doesn’t immediately surge down the tunnel and annihilate me, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Too close. Too dangerous.
My body collapses, broken and bruised, damaged and hurt. I slide down, my back against the wall. I look over to the toad.
Only to see him standing. And looking at me.
Ah. Right. Oh shit.
It stares me down, clearly in far better shape than I am. I may have won but only by the slimmiest of margins. I took far, far more damage than it did. In a way… I kinda sucker punched it really hard while it was tired, while it had beaten me to near death. Well, more like halfway there. I knew what being beaten to death felt like, after all. I still had a long ways to go for that.
A fact that was only getting more worrying as it continued to stare at me, fists clenched.
It approached and I resolved to at least meet death with my eyes wide open. I grinned, trying to get up, only to immediately fail. Ah, damn it. I figured that would happen. I was so tired. The Battle Toad stands above me now, glaring down at me. I simply smiled.
It thrust a hand forward and-
I blinked in surprise and then laughed.
Not a fist. A hand. Reaching down.
I took it and he pulled me up. He croaked out something, no doubt in a language I couldn’t understand, and began walking down the tunnel.
I followed, broken and bruised, but with a grin that would’ve had my mother slapping it off of me.
It was finally time to go down the tunnel and with any luck?
Out of this damn sewer.
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