[Fight Club] Old School (Pop/Para)

While pounding Deith's face to the pavement, the shitbag bit into his arm. Ardos screamed and rolled out of the way, giving Deith his opportunity to escape.

There was some distance between the two of them again. He noticed the illusion broke and the pain on his shoulder went back to being tolerable. Ardos removed the fountain pain from his flesh, threw it aside and checked his arm. Shit, he was bleeding at an alarming rate. He took off the bandages around his neck (the slice there was almost healed, anyway) and wrapped them around the wound to stop the bleeding. That should be a good... temporary solution.

Deith looked worse than him. He noticed he was beginning to slow down.

He had this fight in the bag.

Ardos took these few seconds as a breather. Despite the ringing pain in his arm and his shoulder, the adrenaline kept him going. This was good. This was great, actually. He missed the blood rush. He missed good fights. It was almost a turn on. He chuckled at Deith's comment.

"Cigarettes, heavily seasoned rats, and McDonald's," he said. It was gross, especially that last one. But it was pretty much he could afford with their money. He spat on the side. He picked up his sword and charged at Deith again, only this time, he stopped a few meters in front of him before swinging his sword to hit him on the shoulder.

"Ngh. I could treat you to some good pastries next time." It came out a mumble from Deith's mouth. He was moving slower, yes, but only because his face was so painful at the moment and his brain felt like it was squished somehow. He was able to dodge this last swing, fortunately, but only by a split second. He still got a cut on the back of his hand. He didn't know how the sword hit him but it happened.

"Tao, you better let me feed on you later! I'm gonna kick your ass, I'm tellin' ya!" he shouted to the kid's direction. He didn't make a counter attack for Ardos this time, he had to recover a little first at least. So he stood there, his eyes fixed on his opponent.

Again, his blade sunk deep into the pavement. It hit harder and burrowed deeper than earlier because he really was aiming downwards this time. Ardos had to give considerable effort uprooting the thing but no, it was a goner, it was nothing but shitty street art now.

He couldn't afford to keep trying to remove his sword like this. Besides, he was so much faster unencumbered. He jumped at Deith again, aiming to connect his fist to his guts in a swifter and surer movement than his heavier sword swings.

Deith almost couldn't dodge that, and his only choice was to step back the fastest way he can. He could tell, that punch would have hit his organs out of him if it hit him. He didn't want to experience that again; he remembered all too well how painful it was when Tao hit him in the guts with his elbow the first time they met.

Right after dodging, he made a swift turn with his left foot raised, aiming to hit Ardos on his jaw or cheek. He wanted him on the ground as soon as possible.

The punch connected to Ardos' jaw. He reeled back, but it didn't matter. It only succeeded in making his head rattle for a second.

Deith was in close proximity, though, which gave Ardos an opening to sneakily kick Deith's nearest heel with his foot and send him toppling to the ground.

And he was successful on that. Deith fell to the ground, back first, with a loud thud and a pained groan. It hurt his back, but it didn't stop him from moving, and he quickly rolled out of reach.

He made another groan as he quickly picked himself up, not wasting even a single second to move. He was growing impatient. He knew Ardos was strong, but he knew the only reason he couldn't defeat him was that he made one wrong turn.

He wanted to fight Tao soon. And for that, he wasn't going to lose to Ardos.

He was able to pick up his fountain pen that was lying on the ground. He wished it were his miraculous pocket knife, but it would do.

Deith might've been moving pretty quickly, but he was weak and still doing a lot of things at a time. Ardos was unencumbered by his sword. He was more or less undamaged, at least in ways that could hinder his fighting abilities. Any way you look at it, Ardos was winning at a landslide.

Ardos followed where Deith was going easily. He wasn't going to give up on him when he had the advantage. Ardos himself didn't have any personal vendetta against Tao, but he didn't like losing in the only thing he was good at — fighting.

As Deith was picking up his fountain pen, Ardos didn't even give him a second to breathe as he throw a couple of punches at his direction, one aimed at his gut and a faster one aimed at the nose.

"Ah... Fuck!"

Deith was on the ground, one hand on his nose while the one that held the pen clutched on his stomach. The air was punched out of him. He couldn't breathe. But he tried to move as much as possible, rolling again while he was gathering strength to stand up, and then quickly stood up once he could.

He was breathing heavily, trying to get back that of which Ardos knocked out of him. He was becoming much slower by the minute, but he didn't want Ardos to gain on him just because of that.

Time for another wave of illusions.

This time, he set it up as fast as he could. Purple smoke surrounded the fighting area and quickly gathered around Ardos. He'd breathe them in, and they would enter his system through his pores and eyes and mouth. Deith would attack from the inside, by cheating his senses.

For the first second, Ardos would instantly see three more exact copies of Deith. It wouldn't matter that he knew they were illusions, because they looked and they would feel real, and the real Deith was the fourth of them, blended in.

And then two would attack him. Both were illusions but that wouldn't matter. With Ardos' senses disoriented, his body would feel real attacks if ever he fails to dodge one. They were both attacking with fists and the pen, and if they do get him stabbed, even though it wasn't real, the pain would be.

Meanwhile, the real Deith was in his original spot, trying to gain back energy while Ardos was occupied.

And since his attacks were from inside the drow's system, their audience wouldn't see a thing of what's happening.

Ardos looked at the multiple copies of Deith with an expression that could only be described as pure hatred.

"Fuck you with a rake, Deith! Fight me like a man!"

A punch. A parry. A kick. A jump. A stab here. A yelp there. Ardos had his hands full at all sides. The plus side was that the fake illusions didn't draw blood when they stabbed him, so as much as his skin ached and screamed bloody reprieve, he was undamaged on the whole. He held his own against the illusions, but he knew he was wasting time and energy here.

He allowed the illusions to attack him, but not hold him down. Despite the numerous attacks, Ardos forced himself to scour the fighting arena for Deith, grabbing and punching and kicking the air. He got to the edge of the circle and accidentally grabbed one of the audience members.

"ARGH! THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Ardos screamed as he threw the man outside and ran around the area headfirst like a frustrated bull.

"Fuck you with a rake, Deith! Fight me like a man!"

Deith's illusions attacked at the same time, one of them coming close enough to tap his shoulder, giving him a teasing wink even. "I'd rather have your d*ck, Ardos." And then the fight would begin with the illusions constantly teasing him.

Deith actually laughed at him from one spot near the audience. He also hid himself from him, and he'd stand there, gaining back his energy as Ardos wasted his. He knew that the drow knew they were illusions, but still, the latter looked so pathetic with his senses cheated.

When Ardos just... ran around like a bull, Deith's first instinctive action was to take out his wings and jump up, and then stay in the air waiting for the right moment to come back down. This fight was old school, it wasn't against the rules, right?

Ardos was funny when pissed off. While he ran around like that, Deith dived to his back and pinned him down, straddling his waist. He bent down and whispered, "So, when do we do it?" and laughed as he straightened up his own back and held up the fountain pen and stabbed Ardos near his shoulder blades, once, twice, thrice, four times, five, six, seven...