KOV Round 4: Longshot VS. Portrait

The glare of the light blinded him, he couldn't see. The incessant ringing in his ears made him deaf, he couldn't hear. The throbbing aches and slow streams of blood flowing from him made his every muscle numb, he couldn't feel. Such effort, such sacrifice put into his superhuman senses, his most uncanny, and yet subtle change, and they were now rendered useless. He was paralyzed by pain and exhaustion. Eclipse, his most recent opponent in the tournament, had taken all that was left of his strength. Longshot wasn't aware of what kind of state his opponent might be in, but it was most likely that he had been victorious, even if only by the skin of his teeth. Longshot's heart felt as though it was hemorrhaging from his chest and his stomach twisted and moaned inside him. When was the last time he'd eaten? It may have been days, or even weeks since he stepped into that portal and joined the tournament. He'd once been trapped beneath an avalanche and went without food for a week and a half until he tunneled his way out, but he'd never been hungry like this. His breathing slowed and he tried to get his wits back, but he didn't have any energy left. This was the end. Whether or not he'd beaten Eclipse, he couldn't advance to the next round, he couldn't even stand. But Longshot was unaware that it was not his choice to make.   
 
His vision began to return to him, slowly at first, as a dark fog crept into the corner of his eye. There was a hiss, not like gas escaping from a canister, rather like the slow, whispering lament of a woman crying alone in the darkness. That fog, that unnatural, ungodly fog. Longshot had seen it before, when he was in the church, wounded and bleeding and it had come to him. He fell from the church rafters and vanished upon striking the ground, arriving at the next battleground partially healed. But for all the benefit it had, it was a horrifying experience, it was like drowning. Clawing and gasping and trying to keep your head up even as it envelops you and pulls you down, it was a terrible experience. Still, he was weak and broken and to attempt to thrash or resist wasn't even an option. He said there, a faint whimper escaping his lips as the black  fog embraced him, its brisk touch against his skin. Paxton clamped his eyes shut and held his breath and he was gone. 
 
It was dark. Oh, it was dark like no darkness on earth. There was no feeling of anything beneath him, no ground or bed or anything. Before, he had simply been taken by the fog and immediately awoke on the battlefield. This time, he lingered in a void, drifting endlessly, hardly able to determine dream from reality. He thrashed suddenly and  tried to find a way out of this darkness, but there was nothing. He twisted the lens of his eyepiece, setting it to night vision, nothing. There was a tingling like static and suddenly, a feeling of relief washed over him. He could feel his arms and make them move, even though they were still extremely soar. He ran his fingers over a cut given to him by Eclipse and felt only the bumpiness of his own disfigured skin. His wounds had been mended. 
 
Time passed without marking as Longshot drifted through the void, falling in and out of consciousness. He couldn't tell how long he'd stayed inside, maybe only seconds, but it had felt like days. His stomach was settled and the hunger was gone. His mind was at ease and his muscles began to unwind, although he hadn't come close to fully recovering. It was an unparalleled feeling, comfort, and one that Longshot wasn't accustomed to, but it was amazing. Time continued to pass casually by until he was finally jerked from his slumber. The void cracked open beneath him and light poured in. Suddenly, black fog dissolved into the air around him and he dropped down like a lead weight. He caught a peak at the ground beneath him only to realize that there was no ground, only an endless blanket of clouds spread across the sky almost a mile below him. "This is gonna SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" he shouted over the intense wind as he toppled to his inevitable death. He was tossed by the wind like a ragdoll as he continued to fall, accelerating as he went. He knew there was nothing to stop his descent. If he fired his graple onto anything, not only would it be too close to stop him before he hit the ground, the speed would tear his arm clean off. That wasn't something he wanted to experience, even if it was only a split second before he died. Of all his contingency plans and strategies he'd scrutinized in order to prepare for every situation, he wasn't prepared for this. He came to terms with the fact that he was going to die. 
 
Longshot tossed and turned in the sky, still drawing closer to the clouds beneath him, he twisted in the air until he had his back to the ground, his limbs flapping carelessly in the wind. His plane grey mask gave a serene and peaceful appearance, but lying just beneath was Paxton's true expression, holding back the fear and keeping back the screams. Even if no one could hear or see him, he would not die without dignity or honor. The high whistling of the wind began to grow quiet. Perhaps he had breached the clouds and was within view of the ground. He opened his eyes to see no clouds above him, only the same unmarked, vibrant orange sky of the late afternoon. His legs rested beneath him and his arms fell at his side without the wind fighting them and throwing them upward. What was happening?  
 
The archer rolled on his side and saw that he was lying upon the wafting comfort of a cloud. "What the hell?" he asked himself, rising to his feet slowly, unsure of the stability of the cloud. As he looked to his surroundings, he saw an endless landscape of clouds. The sky, although only a minute ago orange, was now the shade of midnight and blazing along the clouds and reaching to the sky like endless pillars of light were constant rows of blue energy that moved gracefully like the Arora Borealias. He realized that the cloud beneath him was moving across this breathtaking world and drawing closer to what could be considered ground. His thought had called the cloud up to stop his fall. The sensation of walking on cloud was something to be experienced. There was no weight on his feet and no feeling of ground beneath them. It was almost like flying and there was much less effort in walking, which made the tightened muscles in his legs relax. Longshot couldn't keep his eyes away long and looked back out to the horizon, the trails of light all converging at the end of his sight. The awe-inspiring nature of this heavenly place made Paxton want to drop to his knees and cry tears of infinite joy. But alas, he could not for he knew what was bound to happen here. In this wonderful place, he was to meet his next opponent and fight. 
 
There was little time to prepare and even less to prepare with. He'd left his bow and most of his arrows in the cage with Eclipse. Suddenly, another platform of cloud came down to him and was presented before him like an offering. There, sitting upon the cloud, was his bow and all his missing arrows. He gathered them up and slid them back into his quiver, taking up his bow. There was virtually no wind, which was mystifying in and of itself. Longshot thought for a moment. If the clouds had been summoned to stop his fall and gather his weapons as he thought it, what else could it do? He drew an arrow and took aim at the horizon. A moment passed and, suddenly, a rectangular slit arose from the surface and formed a wall approximately two hundred yards away. He let his arrow fly and it shot straight into the center of the structure, slowing down and coming to a stop as it passed through. This was impossible, absolutely impossible, but ideas already swelled within Paxton's mind. This changed everything, he'd gone from no strategy to a perfect strategy in this remarkable realm of existence. He took another arrow and put the knock to the string. The ground beneath his feet suddenly shot up into the air and formed an immense tower, only a few feet wide but a hundred tall. He had a bow, he had arrows and he had a perch. All he needed now was a target.

Longshot shut his left eye and scanned the endless landscape of  cloud through his eyepiece, looking around with a mild red tint. Standing there, with her back turned, was a woman who he assumed to be his opponent. She looked slightly familiar, but he couldn't recognize her. He drew an arrow and narrowed his eye, taking aim at her very carefully. Before he fired, he lowered his bow. He wouldn't attack an opponent with her back turned, it just wasn't right. He watched her attentively as she turned around, her dark hair flustering in the breeze. She'd spotted him. "Come on..." he whispered. The peculiar woman reached down at her feet and picked up... "A book?" Longshot was a bit confused. She had throwing knives around her belt, and yet she was reaching for a book. He kept observing his target as she reached into the book... and pulled out a... "Ah hell." 
 
The memories came rushing back to him and with them came the bitter sting of her blades sinking into his flesh. He'd fought her when they were on that world shrouded in an endless storm, chained to Eclipse. She was fast, she was clever, and she always had a trick up her sleeve or rather, between her pages. Racing and leaping across the clouds, she came closer and Longshot wasn't going to risk letting her get too close. He took aim, but not before she hurled a star his way. He quickly switched his aim to the projectile coming his way and fired. The arrow hit the star in mid flight, but the thing simply splintered the arrow and kept right on its path, and if Longshot wasn't mistaken, it was growing larger as it went. It was a split second from impact when Longshot dove from his perch, letting the star pass by beneath him. As he fell, he heard the star burst, fanning shrapnel in all directions. As he fell, Longshot called up another tower formed of cloud and landed softly as it shot up from the ground to meet him. He got back onto his feet and looked around. "Where are you?" he muttered to himself. "Hrmm..." With a reluctant gesture, he held out his hand and suddenly, the ground all around him rose up in a wave starting from the center, like a stone striking the water and became a long plain of even-roofed towers.  
 
There, not far from him, was his enemy. "Hey there." he said, "Nice to see you again." With that, the towers began to fluctuate up and down at an uneven pace. Longshot jumped from one to the next as the seemingly endless maze of moving clouds. As he moved back, he took a tazer cartridge and attached it to his arrowhead, firing without a moment's hesitation. He had no idea how many people or how many rounds there were in this tournament, but he'd come this far and hurt a good friend, so he would be damned if he was going to lose to someone he'd already beaten. This was his stand and he wouldn't back down for her, for Darkchild, for anyone.

Longshot kept running, throwing himself to the roof of a pillar far below, letting it take him higher into the sky, clinging to the next and waiting for it to come down to him. It was invigorating, the adrenaline washed away the pain, his aching joints moved with the same grace they always had. It felt like years had passed now since he entered the tournament and this felt like his old body was returning to its prime and he was returned to his glory days. He ran and he ran, glancing over his shoulder occasionally to see if his opponent was making her next move. Knowing her, even the most innocent things in her hands could be the beginnings of devastation. He wanted to slow down, turn around and attack, but he was too energetic to bring himself to a stop yet. He leaped into the air, repelling off the side of a cloud tower and flying across the gap towards the next. Before he could reach the top, he saw that furniture was springing out of the ground randomly across the sensational dreamscape, IKEA catalog furniture. The last time they met, she pulled futuristic weapons, flying monkeys and a miniature sun out of her books. This time, IKEA catalog furniture. Odd. 
 
But whether it be Swedish made furniture or an atomic bomb, she was dangerous with those books. Longshot planned to take a long loop around, disappearing in the ever-shifting forest of cloud columns, and flank her, get those books out of her hands and take her down. He dug his fingers into the soft, gently shaped cloud and flung himself backwards, landing feet first on the top of the tower. The archer kept running, slowly curving around to go after her, but after only a few bounding strides, he was struck in the back of the head, hard. Whatever had hit him, it was metal and it had an edge. It bounced off his head and tripped him up enough to send him falling face first, about twelve feet, slamming into the edge of a mahogany coffee table. When he'd been airdropped into a magnificent dream world of living clouds and brilliant streams of light running from horizon line to horizon line, the last thing he expected was to have his ribcage crash into a coffee table. 
 
He fell to the side, grasping his chest. He couldn't breath and he felt like something was piercing into his lung. There was a sudden sharp spike in the pain as he ran his hand along a certain spot on his chest. It was fairly obvious that one of his ribs was broken. Longshot rolled over a bit, unaware that he was sitting right on the edge. Before he could stop himself, he slipped over the edge and was plummeting down into the dark abyss, the decrepit place that laid between the clouds. He fell and he fell, for an immeasurable amount of time, he fell. All he could see was seemingly endless trails of cloud whisking by. The archer dug his hands into the cloud, feeling nothing pass through his fingers, but he could somehow sense the clouds becoming more and more dense as he went, slowing him down. "Please work..." he muttered to himself, "Pleaseworkpleaseworkpleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework!" 
 
For a moment, all was still above. The towers continued to move up and down at random, but nothing else, not even the slow turning of the wind. Then, there was a faint rumbling, an electric tinge in the air that left anyone uneasy. All the cloud pillars descended back to ground level aside from five which remained clustered together and several hundred feet high. Without any warning, the clouds burst out of their form and leaked higher into the sky, converging in a single globe and there, in the center of it, was Longshot, holding out his hands and trying with all his might to move the clouds. His thoughts finally pulled through and the ball took a new form, a strange humanoid form with no head and long, thick arms. The construct had no legs and simply drifted along the ground with a single shape resembling a long flowing robe. The creature had no head and in its place, Longshot stood atop its shoulders. He stared down Portrait and sent his cloud construct forward, firing two normal arrows with an explosive arrow between them. While the arrows were still in mid flight, the massive wave of sentient cloud swung its fists at her, the unstoppable wave of it coming to wash her away. Longshot had gotten this far against gods, beings of unbelievable power, with nothing but a bow and arrow. Now, he was returning fire on the same level. This battlefield had given him an opportunity and he wouldn't dare waste it. Portrait would have to try a lot harder to keep up with him now.

The massive tidal wave of the cloud creature got in the path of the arrow before it could hit home and absorbed the explosion. It immediately thereafter swept up Portrait and sent her hurtling over the edge. Sure, there was only another layer of cloud below, but that was beside the point. She had a habit for making a show of things. Why just make a harpoon gun when you can make a miniature sun? Instead of just calling up the clouds or summoning a lasso from one of her books, she pulled out a beam of wrought iron. No, wait, there was more. The metal kept running from the page until Longshot realized that she was bringing to life the Eiffel Tower. "I can handle enraged supermen." he muttered to himself, "I can handle psycho women with knives and madmen with automatic rocket launchers. But you give me the one person on earth who will throw the EIFFEL TOWER at me?!"  He assumed the worst had arrived, but then, like some sort of tentacled beast, the tower sprawled its support beams across the ground, scaling the cliff and headed fast towards Longshot. Portrait was clinging to the side like a pirate on the mast, ready to board another ship and slit the captain's throat with a laugh. She cried out to him, "My name is Persephone Gray…you didn't kill my father…PREPARE TO DIE!"  With only the warning of the sharp moan of moving metal, one of the tower's arms swung towards Longshot. It was a wide swing from a big object, which made it look slow, but the tons upon tons of iron and steel were moving fast.  
 
Longshot crouched down, winding up to leap into the air. He felt the pressure on his lungs and winced as the sharp end of his broken rib jabbed him. Breathing was getting harder and more painful. She'd attacked him with monsters and weapons the likes of which should not rightfully exist on this earth, but it was a piece of furniture that did him in. He desperately gasped for air as another pulsation of sharp pain ran through his chest. Forcing the air down his throat and into his lungs, he glanced up and saw the arm only seconds from impact. Without a moment to waste, he dove backwards through the air. It looked as though the massive bludgeon of twisted metal was going to sweep clear beneath him and he would escape unharmed, but he hadn't jumped quite high enough to overshoot the massive arm and was swiped across the upper leg, sending him spiraling in the opposite direction of the arm, falling towards the ground.  
 
There was already bruising in his leg. It didn't feel broken, but it certainly hurt like hell. The arm was on its ark back towards its body and he immediately fired a grapple between the bars, swinging along with it. "Persephone Gray!" he called out to his opponent. He retracted the cable and swung into the side of the tower, hard. He looked up, seeing Portrait there and drew the string, taking aim at her. "You caught me on a really bad day."

Portrait was trying desperately to keep her grasp as she took the sudden, sharp pain of the arrow piercing her side. She struggled for a moment, fighting with the instinctive constriction in her throat to force the words out, "L-lucky shot."  Longshot had impaired her breathing and given her a debilitating injury in her chest. They were on an even playing field now. All he had to do was keep fighting, keep fighting, keep... 
 
"Keep fighting, Paxton!" Sting shouted just before driving his steel-toed boot straight into the young boy's ribs. He fell to the ground, coughing as a gob of blood forced its way out between his teeth. His face was young, unmarred and clean. His dark golden hair gleamed in the fluorescent light of the dojo. He was twelve and had just been started on his treatment, three of those bright yellow pills a day, pills so big they stuck in his throat if he wasn't careful. The first few days, he noticed he was getting faster, he completed the gymnastics course in forty-five seconds flat and he could hear the helicopter taking off even from five floors underground. He felt incredible. It only took someone like sting to cut him down to size. Sting was  five years older then him and he fought faster and more efficiently then anyone in the compound. He always had six moves planned by the time he landed the first punch. Paxton lay face down on the floor, wincing from the pain and constriction in his chest. His eye was beginning to swell shut and his lip was split. "You're weak, Pax! And you always will be! You know what happens to weaklings here, don't you?" Paxton knew all too well what happened to the weak in Horizon. When they were young and early in training, they weeded out the weakest. They fought tooth and nail and the loser always left the dojo the same way, dead. Before he was even eight years old, Paxton beat a boy to death. He was pulled back from the brink of unconsciousness when Sting grabbed a clump of hair at the back of his head and yanked him up so they looked eye to eye. With a sneer of utter contempt, Sting whispered one word, "Loser." and slammed Paxton's face hard into the mat. He stood back up and began to laugh. Paxton propped himself up on a trembling arm and wiped the blood from his mouth, staring with hate filled eyes at his sparring partner. "RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Paxton roared, springing to his feet and racing at Sting in an explosion of rage. He tackled his opponent, pinning him to the mat and let loose a flurry of punches until the face beneath his knuckles began to feel like a soft pile of pulverized meat. He grabbed a clump of Sting's dark hair and looked down into his eyes and said this, each word accentuated by a punch and a momentary pause, "I... have had enough... of... YOU!" 
 
The young Paxton arose from the mat and walked out of the dojo, wiping the blood from his knuckles. He spent the entire night sitting up in his bed, looking down at the ground. He could have easily lost any of those fights when he was young. He could have been one of the dozens of kids taken out in body bags, but he wasn't. He had made it this far. All he had to do was keep fighting. 
 
Persephone Gray, as she had identified herself, had fixed her eyes back on Longshot and, although her expression was still fatigued by pain, there was an underlying determination and rage in her eyes that told Paxton this battle was just beginning. There was a faint murmur wandering from her lips, but her injury prevented anything coherent from coming of it. She reached for one of her books, which always meant trouble and pulled out a clock, but it wasn't rigid like a clock should be, its form was constantly bending and melting like hot rubber. It was then that Paxton glared carefully at the cover of her book and realized it was a book of surrealist and abstract paintings. "Clever girl." He whispered. The small change in his breathing pattern had pressed his lungs just a little too hard against his compromised ribcage and he recoiled from the pain, covering his stomach and folding inward, keeping a firm hold on the metallic framing of the tower.  
 
Before he could re-secure his footing, one of his feet slipped from its hold and, while momentarily exposed, was struck by the falling clock and swung against the side of the tower, forming a tight seal around his foot. He reached down with his other foot, trying to scrape the oozing metal off, but it was only pulled in and stuck ankle deep as well. "Dammit!" he growled. Suddenly, he heard something coming closer, the sound of something sliding on metal, something coming from above and closing in fast. Longshot quickly looked up to see Portrait coming down on him with great speed, aiming to kick him. The momentum and weight of her body along with the force of the initial kick focused directly on his forehead would snap his neck. With just a split second before contact, he put up his right arm, her kick striking the hard metal gauntlet covering his forearm that housed his grappling hook. Even with her attack deflected, it was still a tremendous amount of kinetic energy and it sent Longshot hurtling backwards, now held upside down by the melting clock around his ankles. But with all his weight beneath the thing, it was beginning to stretch out and lose its grip on him. He drew an arrow from his quiver and reached up, fighting the ever-growing pain in his chest and sawed away at the metallic slime with the arrowhead, slowly coming free and slipped out, falling from the tower down to the harmless clouds below.  
 
Pulling his face from the wafting clouds, he looked up and saw that he'd forgotten to dissolve his creature and, with a quick thought, called the leviathan of living mist to dive from the cliff and tackle into the Eiffel Tower replica, hopefully toppling it and Portrait as well. With those books and her relentless personality, Portrait would never stop unless someone made her stop, and it was beginning to look like that someone would have to be him.

The tower was dissolving before his eyes as his noble beast tackled it. Its viscous form splattered across the soft surface of the clouds. Longshot had caught an odd scent when he was around Portrait's creations, but he couldn't place his finger on it until now. It was acrylic paint. By some otherworldly force, she could force paint into a rigid form and control the shape with her mind. It was brilliant, really, but in the hands of one of the worst candidates possible. The archer focused his eyes on Persephone and was stricken as he spotted her riding atop the cloud beast, flowing, malevolent tendrils of darkened swirls of paint flowing from her back. It was as if the unseen hand of an artist was painting them onto reality itself. With a thrash of her newly formed tendrils, Portrait pierced the clouds, sending a blackness seeping over their surface until all the wondrous frontier was covered in a soulless black veneer. Veins of glowing red ran across the clouds, like magma beginning to harden on the ground and suddenly, the gentle weightlessness turned to solid, uneven earth. One by one, lights were plucked from the sky and the vibrant bluish-green lights streaking to the horizon were pulled down to earth and glowed the same menacing hue of red as the veins running along the hard, oily ground. This was it, the end of all things, the stars were going out, enchantment was replaced with agony and paradise replaced with hell. Longshot fell to his knees, sliding across the oily surface a bit. He had no feeling in his heart left but defeat. That was what it all came down to, in the end. He covered it up and distracted himself, but in the end, all he felt was an unavoidable anguish of defeat. Portrait had gotten what she desired, to turn beauty into pain and make every soul on earth as miserable as herself. What existence was that? What life was that to live? Longshot bowed his head, for he already knew the answer. It was the life he once lived. 
  
There was the ringing of infernal trumpets echoing in the distance and the open sky, now filled with dead stars, served almost as a silhouette against which marionette players danced, only there was no dancing, there was writhing and moaning and screaming. The transformation was complete and Persephone had won. "Welcome to Nightmare." she whispered, as if into his ear, although standing so far off, "It's time for you to suffer my pain."   Longshot groaned and fell face down on the ground, giving out under the unfathomable pain of it all. He wrapped his arms around his head, trying to shake the images out. They clouded his vision, these horrendous images of the dead, of broken families and maggots feasting on carrion flesh. There was the tormenting sound of sorrow, heartbreak and agony. Blood choked cries and the never ending screams. He writhed and sobbed quietly as she tortured his mind. Finally, he curled up, alone and frightened. "Mother!" he cried in his mind, only faint tear-choked whispers in reality, "Please! I'm having a nightmare and I can't wake up! Mother! MOTHER! Wake me up! Wake me up and tell me it's just a dream! Mother! Where are you, Mother?! I'm scared and I can't wake up! I need you to help me Mother, please! Please!" He clawed at the sides of his head, taking deep, sobbing breaths as he whispered over and over again, "Mother..." Suddenly, he unfurled from his position and pulled himself back up on his hands and knees. Longshot gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look on at his victorious opponent, standing triumphantly as an exalted goddess of misery and mayhem. With a heavy, lamented breath, he said to her, "I know pain." With that, he hastily pulled out a cloth from his belt, the lace of one of his boots and an arrow, tying the cloth tightly around the arrow. With the cloth around the arrow, leaving the tip exposed, he rolled it through the thick, black paint covering the ground. 
 
Careful of his footing on the slippery surface, Longshot raced at Portrait, leaping from one boulder to the next. As he ran, he reached out to a wall that stretched alongside him and plunged the arrow into one of the fiery veins, igniting the paint drenched arrow. The slimy paint dripping down the wall was also ignited and Longshot kept running, taking out his bow and putting the arrow to the string. He swiftly repelled himself off one of the corrupted clouds and declared to Persephone as he took aim, "Oil based paint. It's flammable." He let slip his flaming arrow and, in a blur of red light, it shot towards Portrait. One of the greatest benefits of the flaming arrow was that, in the dark, it was not only a distraction to look at, but it was hard for the target to gauge its speed, which made it significantly harder to dodge. Longshot landed on the ground as gently as he could with his injuries, the ground still slippery beneath his feet. Portrait had called up tornadoes of things most foul and sent them down on the archer. With an instinctive speed, he pointed down at the ground right beneath him and fired a cable into it, letting the line go taught so that it would anchor him to his place as the cyclones passed by.