"Way to go... you seem…" The knight tilted her head with her voice sounding so slow and gruff under her helm. "Confident."
"Well, I was waiting to get interrupted, but I guess you pussied out," Mary replied with a smile beneath her mask. She stepped to her side with her hand touching the concrete wall at her back.
"I get it… I get it… you're buying time… so I'll take it. It's not like it would make a difference, I just like it when my meal talks," the knight replied with a chuckle, hiding the irritated tone that colored her voice as she took her first step towards Mary, who hugged the wall before her. "But I am quite curious... you didn't flinch."
Mary's lips trembled, she looked around there was nothing else in the roof that she could use to her advantage. "Flinch at what, your gorgeous sexy body?"
"Woah there..." The knight laughed. "Flattery… girl… flattery will get you nowhere, but where did that come from?"
"You don't have to know,��� Mary replied, again with her panicking words coming out of her mischievous smile. She could not help but glance at her thick piece of armor over her chest and check out the black mail that covered her waist.
"Oh my, do you, perhaps, have an x-ray vision?" The knight chuckled once more as she gathered the fingers on her left hand to make a ball of a fist.
"I might… or I might not have it…" Mary tilted her head to match her stance as she wrapped her hand on the handle of her knife. "But then again, I might have some… extremely sharp pair of eyes—"
The knight disappeared from her view. With a sudden jolt of energy coursing through her body, she decreased her own weight and found herself falling into the ground even before a second could pass as though she was a piece of paper. She blinked once, finally noticing the knight who had half of her arm buried into the thick concrete wall in front of her and as a response, she restored her weight and pulled herself back. Now with this sudden change in her body that made the side of her head throb, she gritted her teeth and stepped in to grab her armor but then, she only managed to graze her right shoulder with her middle finger before she disappeared once more.
The knight reappeared a moment later, catching her breath while resting her back on a cracked wall. "I'm starting to doubt that eyes of yours," she chuckled as she shifted her body to her left, noticing a slight change as though someone placed a firm hand on her right shoulder.
"I was planning to grab something and stab you in the neck, but oh well… you pussied out, again, before I could do it, shame." Mary smiled as she retreated to rest her back on the wall as well.
The knight let out an awkward laugh as she watched her until she took a heavy breath as though she ran out of air. "Man, I must be getting rusty, I can't believe there's someone who could dodge that attack…"
"I could think of two or three people on top of my head that could dodge that shitty attack of yours, with or without a wall, of course," Mary replied almost immediately before shaking her head to taunt her. "and yeah, two of those three would straight up kill you after."
"Excuse me?" The knight gave her a high pitched scream.
Mary smiled beneath her mask and gave her a slow nod. "One would drown you in strings, one could probably melt you, and one would get tired of hitting you and use you as a mallet until you, or another challenger, might be a wall or a street, breaks…"
The knight tilted her body to the side to let her arms dangle and sway as though it carried no weight. "What?"
"While fuckin' screaming…"
"Wha—"
"Eeeeeeiighhhhhlkkkk, or something, I don't understand that guy," Mary continued without minding what the knight just said. She could feel a pulse of pain hitting and reverberating over her chest and at the side of her head, and she did her best to not let it show. Her desire to use her body as a bait to take a single devastating blow so she could oppress her enemy began to overflow and all she could do at the moment was hold herself back as her legs begged her to run forth.
"What the fuck did you just say to me?" The knight enunciated as she dragged herself forward with her legs and arms moving with an erratic flow.
"Eeeeeeiighk?" Mary did her best not to break into a laugh while using her elbow to confirm that there was indeed a thick wall behind her. "I don't know, I might just be rambling…"
"Step up…" The knight began to stagger as if one of her legs went soft. She was able to keep herself from falling down as her armor clanked at her sudden movement. Then, with her voice that suddenly turned deep along with the sound like she was drowning in a bucket of water, she continued, "Fight me… fairly… you're cheating… cheating… cheating… cheating..."
"Oh god, you broke…" Mary couldn't keep her lips from twisting into a grin. "You're the one who had the speed and you're asking me to fight fairly?" She chuckled as she pressed her back into the wall, making the knight groan in front of her. "This wall is my life," she said slowly. "You cannot break our bond, but I'd like to see you try."
The knight continued to stagger forth as Mary kept her eyes glued to her but then, she got shocked as her enemy shattered her own helm with her hand. She opened her mouth wide and gasped for air, revealing her short brown hair and her blackened dreaded face sitting inside it. She fell silent as her body moved back and forth and after a second, she grunted and said to herself, "No… I'm better… than this… I can't… I can't"
Mary leaned forward and was about to reply but the helmless knight disappeared out of her view once more. She raised both her arms to block, remembering that the last thing she saw was the knight's blade resting under her armpit, and her attack came in just as she expected. Backing up to the wall and increasing her weight to brace herself for impact, the knight���s sweeping blade came ripping through the air to deliver a crushing blow that made both of her arms crack.
"Die!" The knight shrieked and bore her fangs at her.
Mary gritted her teeth, doing her best not to cry out in panic. Seeing that beaten blade made her forget about the pain that wrecked her arms and just freeze in place, but she got her blood boiling back once she saw the knight bring down her weapon's edge as though she was aiming for her neck. She took another deep breath and widened her eyes. Mary raised her other arm to stop the knight's weapon in its tracks before stepping into her space, forcing her enemy to take a test of wills as she pulled out her knife and aimed it towards her throat.
Time appeared to have moved so slow but even before their weapons got a taste of blood, the knight pulled herself back once again. She reappeared on the other side of the roof, on the ground with her hand resting on the side of her neck while her face crumpling in fear. The knight looked like she was running out of breath as her legs trembled. Mary tried to clench her fists without letting the pain that she's feeling show, but when she took a step towards her to finish things off, her legs felt numb and she got this sudden wave of fear that forced her to stop and gaze at the buildings around her.
Mary's heart wanted her to move and so was her body, but her mind told her no and flashed her back a memory that made her feel like she's being greedy. She remembered that time when she took that leap of faith that broke her body so she could just watch her friend die and to that, she gazed at that knight and gritted her teeth with a dreaded smile.
"This is not me… I'm better than this… she's just cheating, I'm not angry… everything is fair in a fight… everything is fair in a fight…" The knight repeated again and again as she kept her eyes glued to the floor. Soon, the blackness that covered half of her face retreated back to her neck and as though she could realize it herself, she let out a victorious laugh as she pressed her palm on her cheek.
"Well… everyone who wins is a cheater except you, huh?" Mary said with a whimsical tone as she walked towards the wall. "Well, that sucks… It does make me feel like shit but I won so…" Mary took off her mask and flashed her a smile. "I'm gonna go."
"You… don't fuck with me! This is not done yet, get back—" That same feeling of dread that ate her heart came back to her and turned half of her face black once more. Her chest got heavier, and it got worse when Mary saluted her before she jumped over the ledge and disappeared from her view.