Douglas closed his eyes, "Please." He held out his hand, feeling his focus sharpen. When he felt its familiar weight he let out a breath of relief. "Just another illusion." A moment later the darkness split apart like loose silk curtains on the wind. As the illusion fell away and he saw the empty halls of CPD headquarters he sighed. "Yet ANOTHER illusion. But my spirit is not so easily fooled." He held out his wakizashi again, and another slice rent the world asunder. As it fell away, he was in a familiar forest and before him stood a figure wearing his uniform. "Are you the one behind this or another illusion?" He held out his blade again, but when he went to strike this time, it was blocked by his new foe.
"A man who refuses all falsehood. True to a fault. You learned well from your master." The figure laughed and shrugged, "I mean, not that you treat him like one. A decade of learning everything you can from him, and you still act like a child." Douglas' eyebrow twitched in indignation. "And there it is again. Remember when we used to respect the man?" The figure drew their own blade in a relaxed stance, "You can refine your spirit and hone your truth. You will still always be a product of him."
He took another swing at the figure at imperceptible speed which it deflected likewise. "Not illusion nor mastermind."
"I am the shadow of your heart. And this isn't simply some trick. And I'm only telling you because you refuse to admit it to yourself." Another swing and another deflection. "And complain all you wish about me telling you things you already know, but I wouldn't have to if you would just accept it." Douglas looked around in surprise as a series of small monkey like creatures started to crawl out of the shadows of this city. "Your anger. Your fury. Your fear. Where is your martial spirit? Your dedication and meditation? Conquer yourself and be conquered."
Douglas growled, "This is just like that cave all over again, but a thousand times more frustrating."
"Only because you refuse to clear the skies and erase the shadows. I can tell you EXACTLY who you are, where you are, and you will defy it. I suppose you never truly changed. I thought we had cleared this up back then."
"I don't need to prove anything to you." As the monkey creatures leapt through the air and while he cleaved many of them, some still managed to latch onto him. As they punched and pulled and bit, he felt all his anger beginning to boil over. As it began to peak and his vision was beginning to turn red, he felt the creatures consuming him. He watched the figure approach and reach for his blade. "First slice. Shatterstone." The figure pulled back its hand as the air around him became a blender. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. When more of the creatures attempted to latch onto him, he began to weave between them, ignoring them as if they weren't there. "Let no anger shackle your vision. Stoke it's flames with your lungs as bellows for the power to shatter the stony heart of man."
"You truly are remarkable. You cannot cleave me so you believe repeating these tired lessons will-" The figure vanished for a moment as the air it was once standing in became filled with many strikes from Douglas.
"It is easy to follow you when you talk like that." He opened his eyes and the creatures he had passed faded. "So, stop wasting my time and face me." As he tried to approach the figure, a series of smaller flying creatures, almost like giant wasps, began to strike him quickly and relentlessly, forcing him to take a few steps back. As he did, an odd arrowlike projectile struck him hard, followed by a few more.
He walked the surface of the asteroid in his combat suit, looking at his regulator. He was still out here. The Dragon Gem was trying to keep him alive, but he was stuck. He could see countless stars around him but no planet within comms distance and his power too low to signal for ships any longer. As he stared into the inky black, he began to wonder if this was how it would always be.
"Second Slice, Tidal Upheaval." The roofs of the nearby buildings fell to the ground, leaving rubble and the faceless archers buried under it. When another arrow came, he used his blade to redirect it towards his opponent who blocked it. "When in the sea of fear, one must shift the tides themselves. It is your will alone that carries you to shore. Overturn fear and chart your own course." He approached the figure again, trying to dodge the relentless strikes of his current monsters. "You know, buddy. You may be trying to help but you remind me of someone in how you go about it."
The figure laughed, "Well, again, you learned more from him than anyone. His failures. His successes. You learned all the things he never did from those things. Still, you run away into your-" Another series of parried slices.
"You are losing your grip on me because you know that isn't why I do this." Trying to get ahead of these new beasts, he tried to center his heart in the rhythm of the battle, "Weakness exists in our spirit, not our body. We purify our spirit through action. We take action both through and against our body." As he began to weave through the wasps and ignoring his foe, he continued, "Our blade is the extension of our body. The weak of spirit focus on the blade and forget our true mission." Eventually the wasps faded, "The goal is never the Seven Strikes. Each one is a strike against ourselves. Pressing our body into the blade of our mind."
The figure closed in on him in a blink and yet to him it was like a childhood sparring match. He smiled as he dodged the powerful strike, dancing around the figure that moved with mechanical fury. The figure taunted, "And yet time and again, you fail to guide your blade! That is why you cannot escape him or your fate to die in this life!"
Douglas let out another breath and caught the blade, "And I wouldn't want to. Escape is the path of fear. It is paved by doubt." Turning his body to free the blade from his powered form, and tossing it into the rubble, he kicked his false self in the gut. Remaining on the balls of his feet he continued to breathe deep, "I am not a master of myself yet. But I will never stop walking this road. The road I found while walking alongside him. He may be lost, but I know he is going the right direction." The figure charged him again, unleashing a flurry of powerful strikes that caused him to wince, but did not stop him, "When he strays, I will help him find his road. He is old and blind, but he is a good man. I hope one day to be half as good a person as him." Diving around one of the punches, he stepped behind one of the figure's legs before punching it hard in the chest. The backwards propulsion caused the figure to tumble as it went flying, "That is why I will continue to strike myself with blows like a hammer until my mind and body are one, unified and completely under my control." The figure was about to stand when he was suddenly in front of the figure. Offering it a hand he smiled. It took the hand only for his grip to become vicelike. He unleashed a flurry of kicks on the figure. His foe, unable to escape the strikes because of his grip, was pummeled so powerfully that there was nothing that could be said. Eventually his foe vanished as if they were made of smoke and he let out his breath again, looking up to the clear sky above, "Alright. So, I don't know the way out yet, but we have to stay focused. No doubts, fears, or lies will stand in our way. Right, Shawn?"
Douglas focused on the Phoenixian Crystal’s energy, hoping he could find it in this maze of a place. No matter how many deceptions he cleaved through, he just kept finding himself at the same empty city on the water. Perhaps that was the true form of this place. Still, he would find Shawn again. He had to.
Stepping around a corner, he found himself at a rock quarry he had never seen before. “Okay, it isn’t fair if you bring me to places I can’t even orient by I mean-“ he sensed danger and took and immediate leap backwards only to see Shawn whiff a flying kick and land next to where he was. As the man turned to look at Douglas, the laughter and smile tipped him in. “Phoenix King.”
The figure laughed again, “How could you tell, Dragon?”
“The old man hasn’t smiled in years. How did you-“ he stopped himself as he saw the irritation on the villain’s face and it came to him. Douglas nodded, “Yep, dumb question, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know how you came here, Dragon, but if you are seeking your master he has already gone.” The villain seemed ready to brawl, but Douglas shook his head, “Afraid of me, Dragon?”
“Buddy, fighting here isn’t going to do either of us any good. I’m not even sure we CAN kill each other here.” Douglas sat down on some of the quarry equipment and motioned the villain to join, but he didn’t. “Okay, fair enough. But where are we.”
“This is where I got Shawn to kill the one he loves.”
Douglas looked at him confused, “No you didn’t. I’ve met her. She is a wonderful lady. I think they even had a kid that they thought they could keep secret from me.”
“I was referring Anisa.”
Douglas shook his head, “I thought you knew everything about Shawn. He doesn’t love her. It is just a really weird and probably unhealthy loyalty they have for each other.” Douglas wondered if she was currently trying to find Shawn just like him.
The Phoenix King growled, “That isn’t a thing! Who spends a decade trying to save someone’s life when they killed so many more people.”
“Shawn. In case you haven’t heard, he has ISSUES.” As if finally dropping the mask, the villain sat down next to Douglas. “You may be on some twisted revenge kick against him, but he is just damaged beyond belief. It happens in a job like ours. You helped us for a week and killed how many people with sympathetic motivations to prove you were him?”
“He showed me himself that even the worst people have sympathetic motivations until they snap.”
Douglas nodded, “But that’s why I made sure we instituted death alternatives at the Cosmic Patrol. Because not everyone deserved death just for trying to kill us or a world. Batta is the best example.”
The Phoenix King turned quickly and shouted, “That thing isn’t sympathetic. It is an indestructible child destroying what it mistakes for toys!”
“Exactly. A giant child, like Shawn.” The villain sighed. “Look, you are a bad guy through and through. You’ve killed entire planets, you have tortured and murdered for fun… and then Shawn came into your life. And then you started helping the galaxy. I mean you still tortured and murdered but you started doing good things for people so they would trust you and you never undid all of that good. Twisted as it is, you seem redeemable to me. Prison sentence will last whatever your lifespan is, but you would make a great patroller if you could stop the murder.”
The villain laughed, “I would absolutely use that trust to crash a space station into a planet to punish your naivety.”
Doug sighed and shook his head, “But you wouldn’t have to. You saw an injustice in the world and felt motivated to change it. Why continue to spread injustice?” The villain sat there quietly. “If you want peace of mind, seek me out, okay? I’ll teach you the Seven Slices. It might help you cut away the excess and free you from… whatever you have going on.”
The villain stood quickly and unexpectedly kicked the equipment into the walls of the quarry. Douglas managed to avoid the worst of it by flipping off and rolling on landing, but he was kicked again. The monkey creatures began to crawl from the shadows of the rock and steel, all gathering on the Phoenix King. “You dare look down on me? I am stronger than you. Older than you! More experienced and competent than you will ever be.”
Douglas, as if testing his theory, put his sword down someplace safe and knelt in the gravel. In moments, the creatures had consumed the Phoenix King, turning him into a massive mound of muscles and hate. In a flash, the beast was on Douglas and struck him so hard that it crated a crater in the quarry wall. Douglas spat blood and seemed to black out, but his body was still here. The beast was on him again, throwing him into another wall. And again the beast grabbed him and started to pummel him into the ground. The beast roared and with each strike Douglas felt the anger. Everything and everyone who had ever pained him or escaped justice.
With every thought, he took a deep breath before another blow would land on him. It felt like an eternity as this rage beast beat on him, but eventually the beast began to tire. When it was done, Douglas stood up, grabbed his sword, and went to leave. “When you shatter the stone prison around your heart, you can begin to free yourself from this burden. Until then, your anger will define your fate. Just like Shawn.”
With that, the baffled rage monster roared after the warrior as he left the quarry.