The slab of concrete killed the light above, smashing its presence under the height of the item, basking them into the decrepit darkness. A shoulder rocketed against the pillar as it was lifted high, lobbing the concrete to steal Kage's life once and for all. Like a frantic bug, he would be smashed beneath its great weight unable to move, thus allowing Gan to end the miserable existence it possessed.
With the slab coming ever closer, and with nowhere to run, Kage reached out his right hand, stretched toward the oncoming wall. Instantly the glove which protected the hand unwound itself into strings of leather. Not much further the strings pranced about the palm of his hand before evaporating into balls of white sparks. These sparks encircled his body then were consumed as they phased through the threads of his flesh into the soul carried within.
Touching the concrete surface, it too exploded into a cloudy haze of white orbs. Pure light infested the world around the battling foes, illuminating their expressions of questioning bewilderment and worried fear. His hand passed onward from the slab as it disintegrated to the disjointed surprise of Gan.
Yet, the bespectacled beast still was not finished.
Amidst the amassing cloud, Kage heard the shuffle of earth too slowly before the monster was on top of him. It exploded out from the smoke glaring with feverish contempt. Kage attempted to dodge the strike but slid on his feet giving credence for a fist to rupture a series of ribs protecting his organs. Flung to a support beam of the warehouse, he dashed a few feet from the pillar yet Gan was there once more to end the retreating figure. A simple swing from the giant's mit forced the spindly boy back from whence he came.
Back against the steel of the beam as well as caught in the clutches of Gan's form, Kage could only manage a loosely deterred guard. The monster bypassed the defense by slipping under it then landing a series of adjacent blows to his left side where the lame limb dragged. Breath streaked away from his lungs as the bunched fist collapsed against his body, clotting the ground in its leaking fluid. It was akin to a steel mallet smashing against a pumpkin with the same outcome.
Kage attempted to push off from a rocketing blow at his right but was calmly thrusted into the beam by the left. The momentum was no longer lost from the monster as its body sought to break the crumbling figure of its opponent.
'SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!'
Ribs split into pieces as they jaggedly cut into the vital organs beyond their protection. In the thick of the gratifying blows, Kage managed to peer into the area above, noticing a rattling of metal to the roof accompanied by the shake of the beam he was placed on. It was only on the fourth strike, which sundered the entirety of Kage's lower ribcage, did he fall to the floor, out of reach from the onslaught. Despite him laying low away from the berating fists, Gan's cognition did not comprehend this event leaving his body continuously motioned to keep barraging the steel beam. Caught in a fever of bloodlust it was only after another three hits was he sent to realize his mistake. The last punch on the steel snapped it, harshly, signaled by the splitting of two of Gan's knuckles, misplacing their angles.
Sighting the occurrence beforehand, Kage managed to roll away before the oncoming fire could assault their attacker. Above, steel sheets broke from the ceiling, making their way into the toughness of the standing foe's shoulder. Warmly awakened juice slipped from the wound as the metal stuck from between the monster's shoulder blades. "SON OF A WHORE!" Gan stumbled a foot to his hind as he paid no attention to the deadly slice placed on him. The squirrely bastard once again evaded complete destruction.
Upon the blood muddied floor, Kage spat strings of darkening spittle, crawling for the leg of his combatant. Although torn apart by the vicious beating, the boy clambered to Gan's kneecap sending his elbow with a growling draw of energy.
'POP!'
The joint bent to the opposite side piercing through the fleshy protection, rendering the position of balance off from its purpose. A harrowing yelp followed the injury, bringing Gan to bash his skull onto the ground placing him at the same height as Kage.
Eye-to-eye in their raging fury.
Holding the upper hand, Kage pounced onto the figure thrusting his elbow into the kidney which threw open a thunderous exclamation. Satisfied by the noise, he continued sending his parceled right fist into the location seeking the burst of blood more than anything. Then when the pain wasn't growing at a desired pace, Kage opened his fist from its solid structure into a cupped style. Throwing the hand, his fingers tore into the flesh scraping through the muscle. Once making entry, he unwound the nature of his hand further until it was straight, thus allowing the digits to discover their wanton prize. They snaked through the bone almost inches from the source of their endeavor.
Suddenly, a crack of Gan's back rendered Kage to a solemn conclusion. His ability had strengthened to an unprecedented state. Muscles within the body moved on their own expanding around Kage's hand, stuffing him into the mess of the guts inside.
Try as he might, Kage couldn't displace his hand from the muscle as it surrounded him in their blazing embrace suffocating him in an inferno. Checking the crossed eyes of Gan's face, a chilly sight graced him. Once more the slick smile telling of a joy untold plagued the person's would be grimace. It unsettled Kage immensely, flooding him in a tide of goosebumps.
Unable to foresee a different avenue of success, Kage struck his arm level to the floor then bent upward in a fastidious fashion, breaking the bones in his fingers. Before the muscle grew too dense, he slipped the limp digits from their prison then bounded from his location, barely missing Gan's other grizzly mit.
Tending to his digits' condition, Kage suffused himself in a terrible pain as the image of his mangled hand paid more worries than he needed. That coupled with the excruciating hate that bubbled out from his chest, the boy could thrive on adrenaline alone to keep him lucid.
'Only got the legs left… FINE! FUCKING FINE!'
He let the left arm stay at its frazzled pace dragging his frame from its ideal speed. Meanwhile, the right still rose if only to aid in balancing his hunched figure. All this time Gan clambered to a foot, resting his back on one of few yet toppled shelving units. Tiredness also wavered in the pupils he possessed. Indicators of swirling vapors of steam wafted from the wounds on his body melting the concrete where his body stayed. They were at the very end of their reserves and the one to expend theirs first would suffer death.
Stuffing an arm through the shelf, Gan hoisted himself farther to his full height, now rapidly descending to just six feet. "You rea-lly gonna 'ill me, Kagth?" Black beads were the response owed to the monster as he ensured nothing else remained. "Well… guesth thasth that… aw-right."
'CREAAAK!' Gan's palm twisted the steel of the shelving unit in its grasp. Heaving it above his right shoulder, he tossed the item at Kage, or where he once stood as it crashed without making a mark on its target. Believing that to be his true aim, Kage dashed away but was greeted by Gan appearing from overhead. As soon as the shelving unit was thrown, the beast predicted the direction Kage would flee to. From there, he ballooned out the muscles of his functioning leg to capture Kage in a single hop.
Raising his left foot, Kage missed the extent of Gan's jaw, instead kicking away the flap of his ear. The foe bent below the strike, sticking his maintained leg into the ground. Up, from the depths of Hell, he raised himself, catching the foot held aloft. Gan's mouth snapped shut as the few teeth within clamped onto Kage's ankle lapping the fallen fluid that graced his tongue.
Finally, he captured his own salvation.
Biting ever further into the bone of the foot, Gan relished the despair heard in Kage's drawing howl. "AUGHHHH!" He screamed. The sound widened Gan's smile even more than before. It was the image once more that inspired him, he loved it, he needed it. A figure desperately crying in search of a savior untold, never to arrive. The look in their eyes when all hope would be snuffed away for further thought to reminisce. Similar to that of the Villain he slayed without any guilt thereafter.
Killing made a warm shiver roll along his body. The mere talk of the action turned Gan remiss to see a day go by without the death of a corpse once livened with a soul. Although the corpse was his great brother, Kage, he discovered his purpose at that moment. He enjoyed the act of killing as well as the lack of guilt which came with it. Despite the immense pain he would suffer from his brother's cold figure, still there was a happy memory to be garnered from it. Afterall, Kage had taught him one final lesson, even in the end.
Scrunching his face with abject agony, Kage twisted himself at the hip, speeding his other calcaneus into the back of Gan's skull, shaking his senses. Dazed, he absently dropped the ragged doll due to the astonishment bestowed to his brain.
An ounce of hope prospered within the moment. Kage thought he was nearly out of the thick of it, at least, that was until he returned to gaze upon the lunging tips of Gan's fingers.
Hope was thus squeezed within the monster's grasp. Throttled the concept was, as it reached to do the same to its foe. Its prey snapped to the forefront of its oozing vision, chock full of viscous vapors and green paint. Although the world twisted, turning on an axis unable to cease its spinning, Gan persisted despite the troubles faltering him.
The kick allowed a momentary respite that gave credence to some form of survival, yet, it was now that Kage had truly ran out of options. No movement could dodge this choking hold which would befall his throat. No indomitable will could sustain his life to slip from the icy aura of death. There he felt stuck into a cinder block without a source of escape.
His mind froze at this recognition.
Death finally arrived.
Kage thought he ought to remember the flashes of life he experienced. The torturous rapture birthing him, then the preceding such that accompanied his days as a sickly patient, onto one in a ward. A glimpsing passage on Lisa's past grin, wide smile and all that softened his burning desire. Lisa's expressions which grew stilled into a blob without emotion, until it was gone altogether in the heat of a flame.
Yet, through the memories which found him remarking upon Isaiah, Jacob, William, Lisa, Bentley, Father, Other-Mother, and even Gan; another amorphous idea laid in wait for his touch to open its trunk. Idea bred by ideas that perforated his sinful soul.
This amorphous soul beckoned him further onward to its bosom, to her eyes his own followed. Eyes which dotted his world in their grand circumference. A known reality stole the facts from him each time he dared to stare into them. What she told was true, what she dictated became fact as that was how the world ought to be. By her side, he would fear nothing then know nothing. Paradise wouldn't be needed so long he stayed near. Fear, pain, even sadness would be a distant nightmare without ever foreseen again.
Before his touch grazed the amorphous girl's hand, he ceased himself. All it took was closing his eyes for the mirage to fade away, its sole reminder the splotch of black upon his ungloved hands. Sin bred sin, allowing him to evade the spiral within the girl. Yet, the mirage transformed to the figure of another, one who cruelly ripped his heart to shreds as she cried a harrowing tale.
Her right eye was gone of all its essence; a hand raised to cover the socket so that more discharge wouldn't be excavated from the socket. Then the other remained with a blurry quality to the lens. Blindness prevailed among all else.
Not even a second could pass before Kage knew the girl. It was of course Claire.
Claire…
'What is she to me? I wish for it to be more.'
Just as the wonderment drew from his mind it was dashed to pieces as the cry finally registered through him. Instantly, it washed over him, seeping through every hole then wound. Spurting strings of blood from his form, the wave soon managed off him turning its bluntness onto the fiend.
Gan experienced the smack concaving his chest with a gnarly hiss thrown up from his lungs. Suffering a several severe fractures to his skeleton, due to the attack's air pressure, he was sent flying across the room spread out onto the grime of the floor. Now, mere feet from the hole which had kept Daniel in its clasp.
Coughing forth even more bloody horror onto the smooth surface, Gan wrenched himself to his full height without worry. It was a powerful blow that provoked an almost calming suffering, however, compared to Claire's original scream, this one was without concern.
Gan staggered forward only to dismiss the idea as his vision worsened to where even a foot in front of his face was unclear. Slipping, the monster barely caught his own mistake as he saved himself from tumbling into the darkening pit. He checked over his shoulder the depth that belonged to the location. Far it went without a hint of an end that he could make out from his limited sight. The darkness seemed to call for him, its stringy hands praying for him to join them, bathing in their innards.
'Spooky.'
The boy's hair was swept from his forehead as he forced his own stare far from the pit squinting to see where Kage, as well as Claire, had gone. The two still sat without the ability to hide nor run. At last, they were easy pickings for him to take care of.
He hadn't even taken a step closer, when Gan encountered an obstacle blocking his advance. The obstacle remained tall over him as it always had, Gan's height now back to its modest stature, aviators smudged with a glowering contempt.
"Tha fuck you wan', Jac-ob?" Spewing a clot of ripped tongue onto the speckled uniform Jacob still wore from classes the day prior, Gan held a hand high into the sky. The pollicis as well as the lumbricals manus muscles burgeoned from their captivity. Readied they were for a meteoric rush into the top of Jacob's skull, smashing it to a delightful feast. "Wan' anotha beatin'?"
Despite the threat of the club, fear did not overcome Jacob nor worry as he stared down the child. Long had he thought of how to overcome the monster within their group. He worried himself to near death thinking of the horribly gruesome sights he would bear witness to when he arrived at the warehouse. Desperately, he forced himself to plot some path toward defeating Gan, so sure he was of Kage's quick defeat.
In the end, it was as simple as a moderate shove that ended the deviled creature.
Placing either palm on his taut chest, Jacob merely exerted a minute effort of force into a push. Gan's mind was no longer functioning properly as the muscles he drew to center around his fist were taken from the rest of his body which had all but returned to its skeletal origin. Therefore, making him virtually weightless.
The shove sent Gan flying into the opposite end of the pit, crashing his spine into its iliun plates. Down he slid along its side until his body crumpled at the flooring below, unconscious and with no way to escape.
Jacob shot one last look at the boy he considered a friend. No longer did the crooked smile painted across the boy, exhibit comfortable emotions. Only contempt remained for the beast that rested within its crippled form.
He spat his own spittle into the pit, watching it hit the beast on the way down.
'Monster.'