The shards of breaking glass pinged against the hard concrete as they fell to the ground. The larger pieces shattered in to even smaller pieces, and each piece reflected the light, causing a shimmering display to fill the air. It could almost be described a pretty, if it weren't for the fact that it was caused by a massive explosion.
I coughed..."*Cough* *Cough*" The dust in the air was disrupting my powers. I looked up, catching my rival's eye, but she glanced away before I could work my magic, literally. "Hahahaha!" she jested, "You think me a fool ferret boy? I know all about your special power. The ability to cause illusions just by looking a person in the eye. You can't very well look me in the eye with all this smoke, can you?!"
Then she laughed a severely maniacal, yet slightly sexy, laugh. You know, the kind of laugh that evil supervillanesses are wont to possess. Then, she vanished in a puff of black smoke. "What happened to you Minisoda? You used to be my friend!"
"Shut up!" She cowled. "You have no right to call me that! I'm Instaransmit Lady now."
I opened my left eye, which glowed with a deep purple shine, "You know I can see you right? Even in all this smoke. It only prevents me from looking directly into your eyes." She reappeared above me, unleashing a quick flurry of swipes. Small, sharp blades mounted on her fingers that looked like deadly claws attacked me from every angle, incorporating her teleportation abilities into her combat. "We'll find out how well you can see me!" she taunted as she continued to attack. It was a very effective combat style that would have been deadly to any other person, a trick she had learned from me.
Thankfully, my eye allowed me to seamlessly dodge each and every blow. "You can't keep dodging forever!" She cried out. She teleported back, far out of reach, and then took a stance that was very familiar to me, a stance that I had helped her develop. "You've finally perfected it then?" I asked, genuinely curious
"Don't patronize me! I'll show you how much I've perfected it!"
I frowned and shook my head, "You know you'll never be able to perform that technique with your mind so clouded by anger..." I opened my eye and glared at her, but her eyes were closed in meditation. Even so, I could see everything about her, I could see her rage like a red mist all around her, her muscles were tense all over her body, I could count the exact number of sweat drops that had formed. And then, with the slightest twitch of her muscles, imperceivable to eyes other than mine, I knew she was ready.
She dashed forward, gaining momentum, then broke into a quick series of linear teleports, each one adding to her speed as she traveled toward me with ever increasing velocity. Just as it appeared like we would have crashed, she broke into an even faster series, teleporting at a speed of 127 times in a second.
The speed of her attack was so quick, that not even she herself could see them. That was the purpose of the meditation before. She was remembering, memorizing. She would make each of the 127 strikes from memory. In one instant, the air around me was dense with the black fog of her repeated teleports. The changes in air pressure alone were enough to knock a large man over, but each teleport carried a deadly messenger.
Every one of her attacks was aimed at a vital nerve, or blood vessel. Each time she moved, was a death sentence. Her ultimate attack, the one I myself had taught her, was one that would kill me one hundred and twenty seven times over.
Unfortunately for her, I saw each one of them an instant before they were made. Naturally, it would be impossible to dodge all of the strikes. Dodging most of them, however, was another story. When the smoke cleared, and she stood panting, recovering from the barrage she just inflicted, my silhouette was clearly visible in the smog. She turned around, expecting me to be dead, but she couldn't believe I was standing before her, "No..."
"Pretty good," I coughed some blood before smiling at her, "but about 46 of them were off center, and 67 of them were too slow. You got in about 14 good hits though."
"H--how did you--?"
"But it looks like I win this match," I said, looking into her desparated eyes. "Good night..." I whispered, "Dream."
Upon looking into my eyes, she collapsed into darkness. I had intended to give her benevolent visions, where he was still alive. A fantasy world where she could be with him, smile with him, and laugh with him, if only for a few hours. But I decided not to. It could only make waking up all the more difficult. To be thrust back into reality from a season of bliss, being forced to admit that she lived in a world where the person she loved was dead, that I killed him, would have been too much to bear. I didn't want to see her hurt any further.
So instead I gave her a cold, dreamless sleep. Full of nothing, only darkness. There was no happiness there for her, but there was no sadness. It was my gift to someone who had used to be a good friend. She didn't know it, but her actions were killing her. The people she chose to associate with, the actions she chose to take, they were killing her. She made those choices because of me, and she will continue to make them because of me, and so I am killing her.
She didn't know it, of course, but I could see the poison slowly accumulating in her blood. I could literally see her dying in front of me. I had already killed one of my friends, and I was killing another.
I coughed again, "*Cough*...ugh..." This time, copious blood was splattered over the ground in front of me. I coughed some more and limped off to the door. One of my legs and both arms were seriously injured. I couldn't move any of them without intense pain. After much struggle, I hunched over, unable to move further. I heard a voice that granted me much relief, my last real friend.
"You really pissed her off this time, didn't you?" a wispy voice teased. I looked up at the shade, a thin black mist constantly poured out from him. He was one of the few people who had magic like I did, which lent largely to our friendship. He saw all shadows, everywhere, and he saw them as an entire unit. A medium that could be manipulated, and, more importantly, traveled through.
"Very funny Shadowfox. Why don't you help me out here?"
"Not even gonna say hello? I'm hurt~" he mocked, pounding his sternum with one hand and lifting the back of his other wrist to his forehead.
"I'm Hurt!" I shouted, immediately regretting it, and wincing at the sharp pain in my lungs. He sighed, "Never gonna learn how to play nice, will you? Come on, let's go home." Then he enshrouded me up in a cloud of darkness, and carried me to the place where we lived. The space in between two worlds.
Inside Instaransmit Lady's mind, she suffered and toiled from the emptiness. This kind of hollow dream was very unnatural, so it was easy for another, with similar abilities, to insert his own dream into her mind. A dream so contrived and warped, it would have been difficult to activate if she were in direct sunlight. The dream consisted only of a simple message, but Oh! how it conflicted her heart.
Deep in the recesses of her mind echoed two words. "Kill Rain."