My breathing became increasingly heavy as I watched Susan approach. Each step she took towards me made my heart beat faster, although I struggled to maintain my composure. It was a desperate battle, where surviving one more minute could be considered a victory in itself.

"Yes, I'm going to die."

A bitter smile formed on my lips as I watched her approach with that feline caution that characterized her. Fear tormented me, but I couldn't let her notice it.

—If you don't get serious, I'll tear you to pieces, Susan! Enough with the games!

I roared with all the strength of my lungs, showing my teeth in a desperate attempt to hide the terror consuming me inside.

—Sounds good to me.

She responded with that blood-chilling voice.

I saw how a red aura began to roar around her body, a physical manifestation of her power that made me shudder. There was no time to doubt.

I slightly bent my knees and launched myself at her with all the strength I could gather. I felt how the ground beneath my feet crumbled, fragmenting into countless pieces that formed a giant spider web, raising a dense cloud of dust around us.

In less than a blink, my right fist, wrapped in golden lightning, headed towards her. Susan received it with her left palm, generating shock waves so powerful that the air itself seemed to vibrate. In that instant, we both disappeared simultaneously.

I sensed her presence behind me and, acting on instinct, launched a kick with my left leg. Susan appeared beneath my leg, with her torso bent at an impossible angle. I raised my arm just in time to block her right fist with the palm of my hand, before we vanished into the air again.

We moved like lightning throughout the space, our bodies reduced to mere lines that collided with each other at dizzying speeds. The impacts of our blows resonated across the battlefield like thunder, destroying rock formations and raising dust clouds that darkened the environment.

I saw her perform a flip in the air while directing her right fist towards my face. I tilted my neck to dodge her powerful blows, which passed so close that I could feel the air displaced by them. In an instant, I had to duck to avoid a kick that would have been lethal.

Taking advantage of an opening, I moved my right arm and hit her bony face with all my strength. My golden lightning enveloped the impact, making her neck tilt backward. But she immediately counterattacked, her left fist crashed against my face with a brutal force that forced me to lean back.

We exchanged dozens of thunderous blows that resonated in the atmosphere before finally separating. My breathing was irregular and heavy, my chest rising and falling as I struggled to catch my breath.

—You've started to run out of breath, but I admire you because you haven't died yet.

Her indifferent voice made me frown.

A part of me wanted to give up. It was an impossible battle to win, one that had crossed the line between bravery and recklessness long ago. But still...

Our gazes met for a brief instant before we disappeared simultaneously again, transforming into beams of light that collided with a deafening explosion. Our fists collided with a roar that shook the cave to its foundations. We both threw another blow with our left hand almost at the same time.

BOOM!

The shock waves exploded while the thunder emerged from my fists and accumulated in my arms in a desperate attempt to knock her down.

"I have to find an opening," I thought desperately.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Suddenly, her foot crashed against my chest. I raised my leg and counterattacked by kicking her calf. We both maintained our position in the air while shock waves expanded through the area like circles in water.

We separated immediately. I watched as she stepped back, but that moment of distraction cost me dearly. Susan launched herself at me like a rocket, leaving residual images behind her that seemed like ghosts of her movement.

BOOM!

We became faint shadows that continuously collided and separated, creating thunderous echoes that reverberated in every corner of the underground cave. The earth itself split and collapsed under the force of our confrontation. I managed to connect a high kick to her chin, making her torso lean back in the air, but her right fist found my face with equal force, tilting my body backward.

A thunderous blow resonated when her fist impacted my right cheek at the same time my left arm, wrapped in lightning, found her left cheek. Our legs collided in the air simultaneously in a high kick while the energies dispersed among themselves like deadly fireworks.

I tried to hit her again, but she disappeared for an instant and counterattacked with a high kick that sent me flying like a cannonball. The pain I felt was indescribable, but Susan didn't give me even a moment to recover. She appeared above me and hit my stomach with her two hands together, with the force of a siege ram.

Before my body could touch the arid earth, her knee crashed against my back with demolishing force. A scream of pain escaped from my throat, a sound that I didn't even recognize as my own.

Suspended in the air, Susan kicked my body towards the ground as if I were a broken toy. My vision spun wildly as I flew through the air, my body making creaking sounds like tree branches broken by a storm.

I fell hard against the ground and rolled several times, like a piece of trash dragged by the wind. Pain ran through every inch of my being, but I refused to give up. Ignoring the agony that pierced me with each breath, I stood up and searched for her position with my gaze.

—What's wrong? We're just getting started.

Her icy voice came from behind me, making my body shudder and my eyes snap open.

In a movement that defied my comprehension, Susan grabbed me by the face while still in the air and slammed me against the ground with apocalyptic force.

The impact was devastating. I felt as if I was being crushed by countless iron hammers. The earth cracked like glass under my body, forming a huge crater that expanded like a spider web. A cloud of dust rose, momentarily hiding the scene of my defeat.

"...Damn it, this hurts..."

The words left my mouth like a broken whisper, hollow and empty. The agony pierced my body once again, tearing a moan of pain from me as desperation invaded me.

Was this the final meaning of my life?

Were these the consequences of my decisions?

Was I really that weak?

Arrogance had been my downfall. I thought I was strong, strong enough to decide how I would die. But I had been terribly wrong. I was weak, and in the end, this was all my life had meant. I wanted to run, I wanted to flee... but I had no strength left. The pain was so intense it clouded my thoughts.

There are moments in life when one doesn't want to face reality, but circumstances force us to do so. This was one of those moments. I tried to seal that horrible feeling deep in my chest, but I couldn't help laughing bitterly at my own situation.

And then, like a sweet hallucination, I heard Cassie's soft and melodious laughter.

Thinking about her made my body shudder with the burning pains of that incurable disease known as maternal love. Once a person realizes it, they lose all will to fight against the disease. I was no exception. After all...

No matter how much it hurt me, no matter the pain I endured, no matter how much I tasted desperation, it was all to save Cassie.

I saw her in my mind, on my back, holding onto my ears with that radiant smile that compensated for any suffering. I remembered her first time in the bathtub, when she ran away from the water between laughs. I saw her crying in my arms while apologizing for breaking that vase that was so special to me. I saw her pouting when Arceus ate one of her favorite snacks. I saw her laughing with happiness while I told her a bedtime story.

That was all I needed for my walls to crumble. They collapsed, fell, and were all destroyed at once. All the intense emotions I had tried to keep locked up hadn't disappeared in the slightest and now came rushing out.

It was difficult. It was really hard. I was terrified. I was so sad that I felt I was going to die right there. The pain was unbearable...

I had tried. I had really tried with all my might. I had done everything in my power. I had desperately tried to do everything right...!

But I could no longer control my emotions.

The initial explosion had burst the dam wide open, releasing a flood of tears that wrinkled the indifferent mask I had maintained over my cowardly face.

The tears wouldn't stop, my nose was congested, and my mouth was filling with a strange liquid while my sobs became increasingly difficult to contain.

I didn't want to die, I didn't want to, I really didn't want to. The sobs sprang uncontrollably from my throat, warm tears overflowed from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

I was going to die here. There was no doubt I would die. And the worst of all was that I would die without being able to see the one I loved most in this world.

***

End of volume 1 - Dreams and Nightmares.