Mun-gi and I separated in the air as we dropped into the Macedonian army formation. Fighting here was going to be a challenge, but it wasn’t in his favor as much as it might seem. Even if these soldiers were his allies, men this weak would just get in his way.
There were a few rows of men between me and my opponent, so I took the opportunity to transform once more. A few soldiers stopped yelling and screaming long enough to attack me, but I ignored them. At first, my exoskeleton was a metallic green and I had a few spikes here and there. Then I transformed into my scary face.
My exoskeleton turned an evil black color. The shininess had a moist, almost slimy quality that I’d spent months perfecting and practicing. I warped the surface to fill it with lines and odd curves that had an alien, bones-and-organs look to it. The spikes were given a curved but slightly crooked shape, and I added a lot more of them. A few horn-like protrusions pushed out of my back, giving me a hunched malevolence. Sawtoothed ridges on my legs and sides completed the organic, living weapon look.
I wasn’t even halfway finished before the soldiers around me screamed in horror. The smokey insect repellant drifting about barely obscured anyone’s vision, but it did enhance the atmosphere of malevolence my new body gave off. A few of the braver ones did slash at me, but it didn’t do anything. Their mundane steel blades could barely leave a mark on my exoskeleton. The sight of the attacks doing nothing to me made them panic even more. They didn’t even try to target my joints.
My apparent invincibility and evil appearance scared the troops into wetting themselves and scattering like scared rabbits. I’d worked hard on my scary face, and it worked beautifully. Even Mun-gi hesitated; his jaw dropped as he stared at my absolutely malicious new form.
I’d modeled 'scary face' after xenomorphs. My former life brought a lot of advantageous knowledge and this was a product of that. This homage to a classic horror movie proved much more useful than I’d thought. Smart men had spent a great deal of time making a horrifying and unnerving monstrosity, and plagiarizing their efforts let me use psychological warfare’s equivalent to a cruise missile.
I suddenly had a lot of space to maneuver in. Mun-gi and I stared at each other. After a moment of horror he spoke quietly and carefully. I barely heard it above the screaming.
“W-what are you?”
I gave him a friendly laugh.
“Aww c’mon. Don’t tell me a little shapeshifting is enough to scare you, mister Mun-gi? I need to do something to make sure we don’t have anyone interfere with our fight. Or were you planning on relying on outside help?”
A number of expressions flashed across his face. He looked scared, angry, and offended, but eventually he settled on a sort of amused embarrassment. He bent forward and raised the tips of his kukris at mirrored angles. The posture looked almost like a bull prepared to charge, with the blades forming the horns. Despite the restrained power in his stance he let out a chuckling sigh.
“To think that something so simple would put me off my game. You have my admiration; that is by far the most frightening and unnatural appearance I have ever seen. However, I’m offended you think I brought you here so the small fry would help me. Does their presence make you nervous? We can move back to the trees if you want.”
I looked at one of the soldiers and made an aborted lunging motion. The poor sap’s response was to fall on his rear and make a girly scream as he crawled backwards. After watching him for half a second I turned back to Mun-gi.
“I think I’ll be fine.”
Mun-gi chuckled slightly and charged.
I was definitely the scariest looking thing in the forest, but Mun-gi definitely was intimidating himself. Aside from his large dark eyes, his overly wide, manic looking grin had the atmosphere of a predator. He relished the challenge I posed, and the scarier and stronger I got, the more excited he became.
That charge turned into an incredibly low dive. He was so low to the ground that for a second I thought he was slithering on his stomach like a snake. I stabbed downwards like my claws were twin pickaxes, but he passed between them by twisting to the side at the last moment. He shot between my legs, turning that twist into a spin he used to slash at my undercarriage.
I managed a clumsy jump, barely in time to avoid taking lethal damage. Whipping my legs and claws while arching my back let me turn the jump into a flip in midair. It was my first time trying it, but I managed to imitate Mun-gi’s crazy acrobatics, even if it was still pretty rough.
Mun-gi stayed close to the ground. He actually used his kukris as another set of legs, making it look like he was moving like a quadruped at times. It was freaky looking, but it reminded me of a tiger in a subtle sort of way.
His new stance let him zigzag about the battlefield, changing directions and coming at me from odd directions. He shot out of the heavy smoke flowing along the ground, pouncing at me abruptly. As he descended towards me he slashed downwards, building up speed with a terrifyingly fast forward spin. For a fraction of a second he looked like a shining, metal wheel. Then the kukris slammed into my upraised claws.
The sheer, unrelenting force of the blow shook me to the core. My feet actually sank a half inch in the ground, making a quartet of small cracked craters. Those greenish silver kukris bit deeply into my claws. It was painful, but Mun-gi hadn’t quite managed to chop off the ends of my scythes. We paused for a thousandth of a second, then he made a whipping motion with his whole body. He tried to build up force to continue the cut. A rolling motion seemed to move up his body, starting at his toes and shooting towards the kukris in his outstretched hands.
I barely escaped in time. I shapeshifted the wounds wider for a second to free the kukris wedged inside and pulled away as fast as I could. Not a moment too soon, since the rolling motion reached his arms and he slammed his kukris downwards like a snapping whip. The blades hit the middle of the road and sunk deeply in.
Despite missing an opportunity, he didn’t stop moving. Mun-gi used the force of his head and arms shooting down to spin his legs up in another flip. He let go and his legs swung overhead toward my face. The heels of his slammed into my eyes. I reeled back, instinctively covering my face with my claws.
Mun-gi dropped to the ground. He grabbed his weapons and tugged them free. It took a second for him to yank his kukris out of the spot he'd buried them. That turned out to be more of an opportunity for me to recover than for me to attack. I couldn’t heal or shapeshift proper repairs. The best I managed before he rose to attack was making simple welds on my claws and pushing out the dents in my multifaceted eyes.
He’d done a number on me, no mistake.
I couldn’t see very well at certain points, and my claws couldn’t handle another hit like that anymore. His freaky movements had let him come close to crippling me. The fight wasn’t over yet though.
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Someone was shouting in the distance. Neither of us listened, but the troops closed in around us. I would try to use my shiny evil looks to scare them more, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Mun-gi right now. He was coming at me again.
He had abandoned the low stance for now. I was trapped in his circling attack from the start of the fight once more. I was more prepared for it this time.
The soldiers around us wanted to close in, presumably to help, but they weren’t able to move past the ring that Mun-gi’s dancing steps traced. They settled for standing with weapons ready just outside while Mun-gi circled me like a shark. The insect repellant smoke turned the air hazy, making it feel like we were mired in some ancient, hellish battlefield.
These soldiers were more of a environmental hazard than actual opponents. I could make use of them as well. At the right moment I tensed my four legs and jumped to the side, smashing into the soldier’s formation.
They were so light to me that as long as I braced my feet properly I could bowl them aside like they were made of styrofoam. Every movement I made smacked them aside and slammed them into their fellows. I literally trampled through them as I circled through and charged out at Mun-gi. I burst out of the crowd like a tiger shooting out of tall grass.
A single claw shot out like a lance and stabbed into Mun-gi’s stomach. Before it could sink any deeper a kukri swung around and knocked it away. He sucked in his stomach so the belated parry didn’t make my claw gouge out more of his flesh. It was too late though, I had returned the attack from earlier.
Mun-gi stepped away and shifted, trying to confirm the extent of the damage. Apparently it wasn’t as bad as I hoped, since he moved to attack me once more.
Both of us ignored the empty space the troops had left for us. We freely dove into the army’s ranks and attacked each other from within the crowd. Neither of us particularly cared about the wellbeing of the soldiers around us. That was natural for someone in my position but surprising for Mun-gi. Although, if half the rumors about the Macedonian government and their army are true then I could understand him not caring particularly about whether they live or die.
The way we moved was drastically different. I was so heavy and strong that I could just bulldoze through them. Thanks to my armored body I didn’t have to worry about their weapons either, in fact they ended up injuring or killing themselves when I tackled them. Mun-gi was a lot more graceful though.
Several times throughout this fight I’ve caught myself wondering whether or not this guy has any bones. The way he moved through this crowd made me wonder that once more. The way he weaved and sidestepped between the milling soldiers with their swords and spears out reminded me of a snake slithering through grass. He was slipping through the shouting troops like a liquid.
Attacking each other was hard with the soldiers obscuring our vision and getting in the way. Dodging was even harder. Mun-gi seemed to come out of nowhere, his kukri zigzagging out from behind a man’s shoulder and stabbing at my arm. It dug in just enough to do a bit of damage and before I could counter attack. The kukri and arm holding it retracted into the crowd.
I was still able to hold my own though. Mun-gi was pretty distinctive, and he wasn’t able to completely hide in the crowd. It was hard to block or dodge when I couldn’t see the start of his attack, but he couldn’t swing his blades around willy nilly either. He must have thought I’d be the same, but I think he was underestimating just how strong I actually was.
When he came up for another attack I took a wide, sweeping slash with one of my claws. There were three soldiers that were trying to escape, and he was trying to use them as a shield. I completely ignored them as I attacked Mun-gi. The three soldiers in their leather and metal armor were partially bisected as my claw swept into them. The force of my hit sent them tumbling through the air like ragdolls.
Mun-gi barely managed to get his kukris up to guard but he wasn’t able to divert it like he usually did. He was knocked backwards into a soldier. It was odd, but the moment he slammed into the man he suddenly stopped and the man went flying like all the momentum was transferred somehow. I suppose I still haven’t managed to force him to use all of his tricks.
We exchanged a few more blows, but we still weren’t making much progress one way or the other. When he attacked I would kick a soldier at him or drag one in front of me to mess up his attack. When I would take a swing soldiers would be sent flying, but he would either shift my hits off course, or do that weird momentum transferring thing…
That wasn’t to say we weren’t injuring each other, but none of it was dangerous. My exoskeleton meant that only Mun-gi’s best attacks would do real damage. Mun-gi was skilled enough that my own attack rarely hit anywhere important either. He would twist or shift his body just enough to keep me from cutting a tendon or an artery.
I can only imagine what our fight must look like to outsiders. A horrible, alien monster smashing through a crowd of soldiers in a smoke filled forest. People, and pieces of people, flying through the air with every swing of the monster’s claws. And through it all, a man swinging around a pair of glittering blades moved like a ghost through the panicking troops as he fought the monster.
As miniscule as the damage we both were taking was, we couldn’t go on like this forever. I was losing stamina ‘wading’ through the troops and Mun-gi was forced to move in weird ways that sapped his endurance just as much. We both could run for days without a break, but our energy was used up much quicker pushing ourselves like this. The mental strain of a fight this frantic was no joke either.
We’d definitely made a mess of the army as well. I hadn’t paid much attention to how many I’d killed, but the way the soldiers were scattering was a good sign. The more they spread out the easier they would be to stop. Eventually Mun-gi and I were going to run out of human shields though.
With the crowd thinning Mun-gi and I sped up. We charged about the battlefield, still making use of the fleeing Macedonian soldiers when we could. Mun-gi was able to move more freely now, and I was able to keep better track of him. I’m not sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, since seeing him and seeing his attacks coming are two different things.
It didn’t take long before there were no soldiers in easy reach. I was curious about the state of the army but Mun-gi was too fast; I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I’m pretty sure the army split into two groups, but I could only guess from what I saw out of the corner of my eye.
Mun-gi was doing that strange, four-legged run again. The way his chin nearly scraped the ground as he gouged out divots of earth with his kukri ‘legs’ was strange to watch. He moved oddly fast like that and could turn on a dime. The predatory way he shifted about the battlefield took away any humor that could be gained from how unorthodox his movement was.
I jerked a foot out of reach just in time. A flash of metal zipped by where it had been a fraction of a second ago. Mun-gi skimmed by like a flash of lightning. He slammed a kukri into the ground and his body snapped into an almost 180 degree turn in an instant. I was forced to jump to avoid him chopping off my back feet.
Before I hit the ground he had zigzagged around and shot up to meet me. He went from practically clinging to the ground to a spinning wheel of death flying towards my stomach. I tried to flip around to meet him, but he was just too fast.
*Snikt*
One of Mun-gi’s kukris sheared straight through my front left leg. The exoskeleton and flesh gave almost no resistance. I lost everything below the knee in a fraction of a second. Mun-gi spun past me as I dropped back to earth. I landed on my three remaining feet and turned to see him abort his spin and land as gracefully as a cat. We stopped and looked at each other through the dispersing smoke.
I looked down at the stump of my leg and wiggled it a bit before looking at Mun-gi. It hurt like crazy but I still felt my mouthparts twisting into an odd sort of grin.
“I know you humans are fine with two legs, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are...”
He chuckled in response and flicked his wrists to spin his blades around a few times. His reply had a good natured but slightly mocking tone.
“Come now, would you rather I took your head? At least now you only have one left foot, by your logic that should make you a better dancer.”
“Maybe I’ll take up ballet. At the very least I won’t have to worry about some fight happy dude trying to chop me to pieces.”
That got him laughing. He had a very genuine laugh, the kind that made you want to keep telling jokes. The eager bloodthirst in his large, black eyes was still there though. The hunger for battle remained even after the humor left his eyes. It made the regret in his next words sound vaguely insincere.
“Unfortunately I’m going to have to finish this fight now. After the mess we just made I’m afraid I’ll need your head to appease my employers. I hadn’t realized fighting a beast like yourself would make quite this much impact on their army.”
“Did I mess up your chances of getting paid? Actually, wait: this was your idea in the first place, I shouldn’t feel guilty.”
He chuckled again, shaking his head.
“As long as I kill a VIP I’m entitled to my money. Whether or not these fools win their little battle doesn’t have any bearing on my pay. If they skip out on my bill I imagine there are plenty of people who would be happy to fund a bit of revenge. These Macedonians seem the type to make enemies rather easily.”
Mun-gi paused for a moment and looked quite sheepish as he scratched his head with the pommel of one of his kukris.
“...I may have pushed it a bit though; I hadn’t expected to make quite this much of an impact on the battle like this.”
I took the chance to look around. Dead and unconscious soldier were scattered around the area. It looked like a bomb went off here. The only uninjured soldiers nearby were running like the devil was nipping at their heels. I looked at my terrifyingly alien body and gave Mun-gi a look.
“I doubt they’ll think it was your idea...”
Mun-gi shrugged at that. He seemed to be getting in the mood to continuing our fight. I forced a spike of exoskeleton out of the stump of my leg and stabbed it into the ground. A tiny hint of jealousy squirmed across his face for a second, but soon he seemed to get excited again. He wanted me as strong as possible, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth fighting me. His grin returned in all its bloodthirsty brilliance.
The fight was going to end soon, we both knew it. My eyes were dented, my claws were injured, and one of my feet was missing. If I didn’t pull out some trump card then Mun-gi was going to kill me.