He was getting faster by the moment and each blow seemed aimed for calculated cruelty. Not enough to kill. Not even close. But enough to hurt. Enough to spread agony every time it made impact. Vicious but precise. Even when he was in this much pain, Shawn was always too soft for his own good. That did little to remove the dread she was feeling right now. She could feel it in the erratic movements and feral nature of his current state that Shawn wasn’t behind the wheel. Remembering what it was like… remembering Sasori… she didn’t waste her words… As he came to grab her head once more, she bent backwards and drove her heel into his chin before quickly curling and rolling between his legs and trying to hit him with a mule kick only to hit open air, just barely moving out of the way before a powerful axe kick crashed down onto the oddly solid darkness that had become their arena.
She rolled to her feet and leapt over a wild haymaker with a backflip, grabbing his off arm and locking in a triangle choke. She growled, “Sloppy! Now get a hold of yourself.” She knew he was durable, using all the force in her body to cinch the hold down and keep it locked in. Every blow was scattering this grief to the four winds and she was done with trying to beat it out of him. She was going to force him to calm down and think. If that meant an impromptu nap time, she knew he wouldn’t mind. Still, the way he thrashed against her made maintaining her hold difficult. Like a fish ripped from the water, the grief that had claimed Shawn’s form mindlessly resisted the restraint, wild and without purpose or restraint. As she pulled her legs tighter around his throat, she waited. Waited and endured… and when the struggling slowed, she watched as the layer of shadows began to bleed away like smoke. As it did, she saw the orange light from the crystal wash over his form. She released the hold, but didn’t drop her guard. The shadows hadn’t receded, the world still pitch as black around them.
As the light solidified into the all too familiar guise of the Cosmic Phoenix. The long flowing orange jacket and white gloves drawing the eye, but nowhere near as much as the shining golden helm holding the visage of a phoenix. It was then that she heard Shawn’s voice speak out. “Well… that was unpleasant…” He rubbed his head and spoke groggily, “Still, I’ve had headaches for stupider reasons.”
Anisa asked cautiously, “Is it really you?”
The figure laughed casually, “Do you really think I would play stupid games at a time like this?” She relaxed her shoulders and approached him slowly. He leaned back confidently and threw his hands open wide as if expecting a welcoming hug. A heartwarming reunion.
When she grabbed his arm and pulled him into a knee to the gut, the moment was tainted some, her voice a low growl, “I told you not to use his face when you talk to me.”
As the Cosmic Phoenix tried to lash out with one of Shawn’s reflexive punches, Anisa bended away from the blow and used a back hand spring to get some distance between them. Much to her surprise, she didn’t have to move far when a single thread of white light lashed out and wrapped around his arm. It was here that Anisa saw a face she remembered. The purple light faded from around her and formed into a shinobi outfit with a cosmic patrol badge proudly displayed on her chest. Sienna had aged much since Anisa had seen her and the once lively light of the spirited doctor had settled into a warm and motherly wisdom. Sienna let out a low laugh, “And here I was thinking that I was wasting time by playing possum. But as always, I need to cut away your cancerous excuses.”
The Cosmic Phoenix turned in surprise only for his helm to be rocked by a missile dropkick from Anisa. As the figure tried to recover, he found himself being pulled out of proper fighting form by the thread that Sienna had bound him with, a golden suture needle hooked into the meat of his arm that she was guiding as she saw fit. Realizing his act wasn’t working, the figure tried to plead with them. “Please, stop making this harder than it has to be. We can still finish the mission.”
Anisa ignored him, taking advantage of the interference from Sienna’s bindings to sweep his leg and bring him to the ground. As she got ready to start beating the figure around the helm until she could break through, he kicked her in the back of the head hard enough to dismount her before standing back up smoothly with a rotation of his hips. Anisa asked, “Why were you wearing all that extra armor?”
Stolen story; please report.
Sienna laughed softly as she vanished in a flash of purple to avoid the strike the Cosmic Phoenix aimed at her, only to appear behind him and loop the thread around the figure’s neck, “Power compression. Forms a protective armor and more precision when using your powers. Good for weathering Dark Planets or in this case a Dark System. Shawn invented it.” She struck the back of the figure hard with the green gem that Anisa knew all too well. As Cyrus’ crystal entered the construct, she saw the orange hue of the outfit shift a bit closer to green.
Anisa was nearly caught off by the double round house kick attempts by the crystal, even as this struggle wound it more in the thread that Sienna had formed. Avoiding them with a cartwheel she asked, “Are you telling me that Cyrus got out alive?”
Sienna laughed as she leapt between blows and bound more of the Cosmic Phoenix’s limbs, “Of course. Shawn hates cheap copies, but he respects real heroes. And I was watching. Cyrus is more than just a shadow of the Cosmos greatest champion.” Sienna was trying to play it cool, but it was obvious to Anisa that not only was Sienna not built for combat but the despair saturating the air around them was taking its toll on her. Still, Sienna’s expression didn’t shift. She stayed smiling and confident. As she pulled hard to continue to try and restrain the powerful figure shaped to be the ultimate weapon against evil, she said, “I meant what I said Shawn. No matter how often you fall apart, I will always stitch you back together. If I have to make that promise a threat, then so be it.” She laughed in a way that Anisa couldn’t help but echo. Whatever the young doctor must have once been, that tone and reframing of a promise was clearly some of Shawn’s nature having rubbed off on the woman.
As the figure fought against the threads to little to no effect it growled, “You don’t understand! Shawn has burned himself to ashes for you. There is nothing left to burn.” Anisa ran up to him and kicked him in the gut, but it stopped all pretense of being human at this point. No loss of air in the lungs or reacting at all to the strike. Instead it said again, “I have to… finish the mission… We fought for so long and the mission is almost done… I will keep his embers safe… but-”
Anisa growled and grabbed his neck, “You don’t get it. It was never about your stupid mission! Shawn isn’t some soldier for you to command to his death!” As she looked into the visor and saw a faint golden light in the black space of the helm she said in a mourning tone, “He was just a guy who didn’t want anyone to be forgotten. A man who couldn’t help but build everyone up even while he was rotting away inside. And a sucker for a romantic tale of heroes beating villians.”
She thought once more of the hill they used to sit on to watch their childhood heroes from afar, each of them wishing to one day be as impressive and inspiring as them… and now here they were… Almost there. As she said that, she felt her hand brush the thread and felt a pulse behind her eyes. She couldn’t define it beyond a flash of pure white light behind her eyes. Sienna chuckled weakly, the strain getting the better of her for a moment, “I call it Goddess Thread. Like the cross resonant Goddess Elevator but focused and narrowed.” When there was a flicker of green behind the visor, the thread shifted briefly in response to a green hue before it shifted back to pure white. She laughed, “And there he is… Unfortunately, I’m barely hanging in there.”
Anisa paused for a moment as the figure said again, this time with a hint of remorse and mourning, “There… is nothing… left to burn… All stars… burn out… eventually…”
She shook her head and said firmly, “Yeah, but this isn’t the final chapter of his story. I won’t let him close the book until he gets the ending he deserves.” She didn’t know what drove her to it. Desperation? Instinct? Confidence? Or maybe just her promise to an old friend. Either way, she gripped the thread with all her might and let go. As her transformation reverted itself, she felt herself pulled along the flow of the thread with hopes that it would guide her to the man who had penned this sorry tale.
