Fight With Zen

 

“Zen!” Flarth holds his fists in front of him. “Trying to hurt Travallian, I see.”

“Hmm. I missed!” Zen turns his head to Flarth. “I’ll get you later, Flarthenter,” he puts another arrow on his bow and aims it at me.

“A bow and arrow?” Flarth smirks. “Don’t you think that that’s a tad weak?”

“Shut up!” Zen’s bow and arrow becomes engulfed with fire. “It’s not an ordinary bow, you fool!”

I step in front of Flarth and start to glare at Zen angrily, “Zenith! Why are you doing this?”

He says nothing and just gives me a glare just as angrily as I did and fires the arrow at me. My emerald starts to glow a bright green, I start to glow as well. I grab the arrow right when it touches my cloak. I hold the arrow with both my hands. The arrow’s fire fade into my hands and my green glow grows brighter.  

“Heh. Nice try,” I say with a smirk. I break the arrow with one hand and toss it to the side.

Zen drops his bow behind him, “Stupid thing. Hmm… You seem to have developed some courage through all these years,” he starts to glow red, “Good. I was wrong to think that I was going to fight a coward,” he lets out a startling laugh. 

“Fighting me is what you want?” I scowl at him, “What is the purpose? Is this fight going to prove to you that you’re stronger than I?” I hold my emerald sword, still glowing brightly, with my left hand; “This is going to be a disappointment to you, then.”

“Whatever. If you win, I’ll join you,” Zen’s red glow ignites fiercely, “If I win, you give me your magic,” he puts his palms in front of him, “Got that, little brother?”

“Enough talk,” I raise me sword, “Fight me now if that is what you want.”

I know that this is wrong, but I must fight him to get him to join us, I thought to myself.

“Hmm. Very well then,” he laughs through the smirk that was forming on his face, “ Prepare to be defeated!”  He forms electricity in his palms, takes a small leap, and flies at me with his hands in front of him.

As he flies at me, I raise my sword high and swing it down on to his right shoulder right when he hits me in the chest. We both fall back from the impact. I land with a loud clashing sound.

“Err… I am too slow with this form,” I say while pushing myself to my feet. I shake my head and turn to look at Zen, who was slowing getting up. “Hmm, hedgehog form’s too weak. Paratroopa form will do.”

I drive my sword into the soft earth in font of me; blue smoke appears from the ground. The smoke swirls around me quickly and fades to reveal that I have returned to my Paratroopa self.

Finally, Zen hops to his feet, holds his bleeding shoulder, and just gives me an intimidating glare. I sheath my sword with a mischievous grin. Without warning, he teleports behind me, grabs me by my neck with his left hand, and lifts me into the air. I start to panic and kick in the air.

“Grrr… Little runt. You really annoy me with your transforming tricks,” he tightens his grip on my neck.

I start to gasp for air and feel lightheaded. I continue to kick in the air and manage to kick him in the knee.

“Argh!” Zen throws me to the side and holds his knee. “Little brat!”

I got up slowly and clutched my throat. I looked up at Zen and saw that he was forming some kind of energy ball in front of me. I didn’t want to wait to see what kind of black magic he was going to use, I looked around, saw a large boulder behind Zen that was close enough for me to tackle him into. I looked back at Zen, noticing that he was focused more on his black magic than me. I took a deep breath and stepped a few steps away from Zen. When I was far enough, I flew towards him and tackled him into the boulder.

The boulder shatters into many shards and a loud cracking sound was heard when Zen’s back hit the boulder. I shield my face with my arms as the rock shards fly everywhere, few shards piercing through my cloak and scratching my arms and legs. I lowered my arms to see Zen laying there, his red glow faded, shell cracked, back bleeding, and struggling to get up.

“Urgh, d-don’t think that you have won, Travallian,” he says, looking up at me with his teeth gritted.

I stop my green glow. I rub my sleeve on to my arms and rub my pants legs on to my legs to wipe the blood slowly seeping out of my arms and legs. I shook my head with a disappointed expression.

“You think it’s not over?” I asked him while walking towards him. “Just simply look at yourself. You are an utter wreck.”

“You don’t think I know that already?” He rests his head on the ground, “You must think I am a fool. I am older than you, but I can’t even last long enough to even make you seriously hurt.”

“Seriously make me hurt? Heh,” I scratch the back of my head. “Don’t say that, Zenith. You just focus too much on your magic. That’s what makes you slow. That is what I think, at least,” I lower my hand to him. “Man! Get up. You are sort of making me sorry for what I did to you.”

“Ha… ha… You’re lying,” he slowly grabs my arm and gets up with a moan, “Everyone loves to beat me up to show how weak I really am.”

“Not I, Zen,” I pull my arm away from him and cross my arms. “I fought you because you wanted me to and because I wanted to knock some sense into you.”

Zen gives me an awkward look, turns away from me, and starts to talk to himself.

“Hey!” Flarth shouts as he run up to us. He stops between us to catch his breath; he glances over at Zen then at me. “Did you win, Trav?”

“Grr… You could say that,” Zen grumbles out. “At least you didn’t say ‘Did you lose, Zen?’ ”

“Man, Zen! Don’t be so touché, man!” Says Flarth with a little frown while slowly backing away.

Zen says nothing to Flarth.

“Err, yeah. Why don’t we get back to Silest’s home and get some rest,” I look at Zen,  “Looks like you are going need a lot of it, Zenith.”

Suddenly, Zen falls to his knees. He puts his hands on his head.

“N-no! What’s going on?” He lets out an earsplitting shout.

“Mwahahahaha! You’re gonna be the one who would need the rest when I’m done with you,” he turns to face me.

I notice that his voice had changed and his eyes have changed from green to red. The voice sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember.

“Trav! I think I know whose voice that may be!” Flarth glares at him. “I think it is Mega Flare! Flare’s eyes are red as well!”

“Quite clever you are, Flarth. Heh heh heh!” Flare talks through Zen. “And now, since Travallian has his emerald back, I can now take control of his body and make it my own!”

“W-what?” I am very confused to hear what he said. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

“I had a fight with your father and acquired a few of his powers. I have the power to copy a certain technique from a person I fight,” he gives me a smirk. “Ahahahaha! I wish that I had acquired this power before! Now I can steal magic and control a magic user’s body!”

I start to back away. Flarth grabs my arm and starts running to the direction where Silest’s home is.

“Ow. Hey! Watch it, Flarth!” I say loudly. “My arm’s still bleeding there!”

“Come on! I don’t want Mega Flare to get you!”

“Too bad for you then,” Mega Flare says, in his normal form, holding Zen in one hand, in front of us. He drops him in front of us and starts to laugh. “Thanks to Zen’s time magic, I stopped time and caught up to you without you two knowing.”

Flarth quickly stops and lets go of me. I land in front of Flare.

“S-sorry, my brothers,” Zen says weakly. “I f-fought you with my own will, Trav. I didn’t know th-that Flare was possessing me at the time.”

“It’s okay, Zen,” I reply to him.

“Ahahahaha! Enough talk from you now!” Flare kicks Zen on the chest, “You’ve helped me far enough,” he starts forming a dark beam at Zen.

“No!” Flarth grabs Zen’s arm, runs over to me, grabs my arm, and puts us behind him. “I’m not letting you kill Zen! I am not letting you get to Trav, either!” He starts a teleportation spell.

“Don’t think that you can get away that easily!” Flare as he turns to face Flarth and starts to form a red beam at us.

Flarth quickly teleports away, he then teleports Zen. The red beam hits me before Flarth could teleport me back to Silest’s home.

A loud howl of pain is the only thing heard from me when the beam hit me.

                            *       *      *

Both Flarth and Zen teleport right in front of Silest.

“Ah! Don’t startle me like that!” Silest shouts when she sees them both. “What happened to Zen? Did Trava beat him in a fight?” She looks around, “Where is Trav?”

“Travallian is still with Mega Flare,” Zen says with a cough. “Who knows? Travallian might already be under Flare’s control.”

“What?” Silest asks.

“Never!” Flarth exclaims. “Trav’s stronger than that!”

“You sure, Flarthenter?” Zen asks him. “Mega Flare is strong as well. What if he manages to get Trav?” He looks at Flarth. “What’s going to happen to us? Hmm?”

“Um… I-I don’t know,” Flarth sighs.

                             *       *       *

 “Now, Travallian,” Flare lifts up my now limp body into the air by my neck. “Both your powers and you body, I will make my own.”

“I doubt that… you will succeed… in doing so,” I say painfully and weakly, “I… won’t… allow you… to take… my body.”

“What you speak of is nonsense!” Flare lets out a menacing laugh, “You’re too weak to even stand up,” he tightens his grip on my neck.

Not this again! I can breathe, but I won’t give up, I thought hard. Suddenly, my sword starts to glow again. M-my emerald? What’s going on? D-do I have to use it on Mega Flare? I ask myself. I slowly raise my hand and unsheathe my sword weakly. The hold of my emerald sword strengthened me a little. With all the strength I had left, I slashed Flare on the stomach before he knew what I was doing and could stop me.

Flare roars painfully and harshly tightens his grip on my neck even more. I swung my sword again and manage to hit his face.

He loudly roared in pain, a roar so horrifying that I almost dropped my sword to put my hands on the sides of my head.

“I have wasted enough time!” He says with blood running down his face. “Say goodbye! I’m never going to leave your body at this rate now!” 

“I don’t think so!” A voice was heard behind me, “Travallian! Try to get away from him so I can shoot him!”

Easy for you to say, I thought. I can no longer breathe because of Mega Flare. I was losing the ability to speak and think. I started to panic, so I hit Flare once again on the stomach, but this time, with the flat part of my sword as hard as I could.

Flare finally lets go of my neck and I fall on my back. I start coughing out blood.

“Travallian! Come over here!” The voice behind me commands.

I scamper to my feet and turn to see that it was Trans. He shoots his rifle at Mega Flare. Flare turns to mist and dodges Trans’ shot.

Trans walks over to me. “Trav! You okay there?” He asks me.

“No. Not necessarily,” I reply, “But I will be okay.”

“Not if I get to you,” Flare’s voice is heard from all directions.

“Who is that?!” Asks Trans rudely, “He looked like that dragon I saw a long time ago, leaping over boulders and skipping rocks on the water below the cliff of where my hideout is located. I saw him take a few old useless magic orbs, I threw out, with him when he left.”

“My, my. Good memory, young Trans.” Flare’s voice passes behind Trans, “Too bad for you. Those orbs were quite useful to me. You need to learn how to use magic, kid.” 

“W-what?” Asks Trans, a little startled. “How come ye know meh name?”

“Oh? You don’t know? That is too bad,” says Flare as he reappears in front of me. “I am truly growing tired of this.”

 He slowly becomes shadow-like before me. I step a few step back as I look to my sides.

“Argh. It’s almost sunrise,” say Trans weakly.

“Sunrise?” I quickly think, “That is just what I need!”

Flare wouldn’t go after me if I was a vampire! I thought.

I quickly transform into my vampire Yoshi form. I start running; I leap into the air and start to fly toward the direction where Silest’s home is. “Trans! Come on!”

“Travallian? What are ye doing?” He starts to run after me and starts flying in the air as well as I was.

I look over at him as I fly and see him struggling to keep up. He seemed to grow weaker and weaker as the night started to turn into day. I started to feel weak too, but not enough to slow me down.

“Trans…need some help?” I asked him. He shook his head with pride. A smirk appeared on my face. “We are almost at my sister’s home, we shall rest when we get there.”

He nods slightly. “Thank you, Trav.” I hear a harsh roar from a far distance to my left as Trans talked. I knew who it was. It was Mega Flare.

Must keep going. I’ll deal with him when I know that I’m ready to. He won’t possess me! I thought with confidence. My thoughts soon focused on my hunger. I haven’t eaten for such a long time. Something suddenly hit me. I never transformed into a vampire Yoshi without eating something first. I didn’t notice it at first, but I soon I remembered something. I have never drunken blood before. Even though I was a vampire just because of a magic spell, I still felt like one who had been turned into a vampire by being drained from all my blood, or life, you could say.

I looked down at the ground as I flew. I started to tremble. Trans could clearly see what was wrong with me. He flew slightly faster towards me and puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Calm down and don’t think about it,” He said with a concerned, yet sheepish smirk.

I kept silent and looked up. Silest’s house was finally in site, I forced myself to fly faster. I slowly stopped and landed in front of the door. I looked at the sky and saw the light of morning almost to it’s fullest.

I opened to door, and right away, Trans runs in past me. I scratched the back of my head then frowned.

As I was going inside, I hear someone talk behind me.

“That sword… Travallian? Is that you, my son?” He said with concern in his voice.