"Master?" Tridius said quietly, feeling a bit fearful as he observed the lifeless man on the ground.
Chase tucked the gun into his waistband and glanced at Tridius.
"Are you alright?" Tridius asked.
"Yeah." He replied. "You can sit this one out, I will deal with him myself."
"Will you be fine? " Tridius said, "I mean it's-"
"I'll be fine." Chase interrupted. "Don't concern yourself." Tridius nodded and shrunk back down into a pet and stood a couple of feet away from his master.
'Now then..." Chase thought, 'How can I deal with this?" The solution struck him and he acted. He quickly appeared in the air right above the monster before preparing to attack but, the monster had a longer reach and grabbed him by the face before slamming him into the ground, the force exerted shattering the ground beneath him into pieces.
The monster let go of him and Chase performed a couple of backflips to distance himself from the monster but, something glinted and Chase barely dodged it, leaving a thin red line of blood on his cheek. The spear had reappeared back into the monster's hand and it was ready to use it again. Chase stretched his hand, summoning a rain of massive ice shards targeting the monster however, the monster demonstrated great physical prowess, breaking every single shard thrown at him with ease.
At one point it disappeared and suddenly appeared in front of Chase, giving him a blow to the stomach, quickly followed by a blow to the head with the non-pointy end of the spear before a swift kick to the rib sent him flying sideways. Chase tasted blood as he crashed unto the floor.
He didn't believe it but he knew that the monster was stronger than him, way stronger even. What could he do? Let the monster dominate and eat him? No way! He didn't like it one bit and found it pretty disgusting. Ask for Tridius' help? No, he couldn't rely on him forever.
His train of thought was interrupted when he felt his face get palmed again but this time, instead of slamming him into the ground, he was getting dragged along the walls. He got dragged along half way across the room and by the time they stopped, Chase's face was even bloodier than before and his clothes were slowly ripping apart.
The monster threw him to the other end of the room and whilst Chase was still in the air, it could have easily pierced him with the spear but it quickly appeared above him, stepped on him and slammed him into the ground with his whole weight before doing 3 mid air backflips and posing like a ballerina as it landed. Chase was tired. He tried standing up but to no avail and he collapsed back into the ground. Tridius was not going to help him, not after he was to not intervene.
"Do you desire power?" A voice asked. Chase painfully turned around but saw nothing, just the monster casually making his way towards him...
Suddenly time seemed to have stopped and Chase got engulfed into a dark blue space.
"Tridius?" He called out as he felt his pain subside. No response. There was probably going to be no response if he called again so he decided to look around. The room had disappeared and there was no one in sight, no monster, no Tridius and no bodies. He guessed that this place was imaginary but he wasn't so sure.
"Do you desire power?" It said again, from behind him. He turned around to see a pretty, young woman: She had long blackish-blue hair along with a strand falling over her left eye. She had light blue eyes, a golden earring dangling from her left and right ear and she carried a spear that had two sharp silver points on each end.
"Who are you?"
"That's not important right now." She said. "Do you need power?" She asked again.
"I'm fine." He replied, but his expression said otherwise.
"You're not in the best of positions and, in the next two or so minutes, you might die." She informed him. "So, take my power." She said as she stretched forth her hand.
"What do you gain out of this?" He asked as he approached her.
"Your security." She said as Chase stopped in front of her.
"You don't even know me and you want to help?". She nodded. "No thank you, I don't need it."
He turned his back away from her and started walking towards a portal that had opened.
"If you don't take it, you're going to die!" She shouted behind him.
"It's my battle and if I die, it is what it is," He started before glaring at her and his right eye started changing to red, "stay out of it."
"But what about Tridius?" She asked. "What about the promise you made him?"
"How do you...?" Chase turned quickly around but decided to stop himself from speaking since it was going to be a waste of time and kept on walking towards the portal. "It's none of your business!"
She said something that Chase had clearly heard and looked shocked for a moment. He kept what she had told him in his mind and left that realm back into the real world.
Time seemed to have moved again. The monster did not know what had happened but it was feeling uncertain. The boy he was battering looked different all of a sudden: His right eye glowed red and a part of his hair had changed: His once downed hair had risen and turned spiky, with small bangs accompanying his head.. He looked different but not only did it frighten the monster, Tridius was also shocked.
Chase wasted no time and moved with extreme speed. The monster had not anticipated it and found himself looking at his own purple blood dripping on the floor and the boy menacingly standing behind him.
The pain finally kicked in and it crumbled on the ground clutching his right eye, dropping the spear at the same time.
'So in that second, he flew through the air and stabbed it with an ice spear, interesting!' Tridius thought as a smile spread across his face. "Let's see what else you can do."
Chase's red eye had disappeared but his spiky hair had remained and it showed no sign of reverting back to normal. He plunged the spear into the monster's left shoulder, causing it to reel in pain but that didn't last long as the monster furiously turned around and elbowed Chase in the face causing him to jump back in pain, it then proceeded to swat him out of the sky before stepping on him and bringing him down violently on the ground.
It plucked its spear out of its shoulder which gave Chase an opportunity to act. Chase electrocuted the monster's leg that was currently on him, causing it to leap back in pain as visible traces of burns could be seen.
He tried shaking it off but didn't have time as a knee connected with its face, causing it to fall backwards creating a loud noise when it dropped. Chase then proceeded to grab its non-burnt leg and started to swing the monster around from side to side before throwing it at the wall. He raised his hand and a black thunder spear was formed, which he then threw at it. The spear connected and a light flashed, swiftly followed by a brown smoke screen.
The monster was not going to let itself be defeated so easily. He recovered quickly from the attack and ran towards Chase. Chase tried to stop him from advancing by using the ice element that he had learnt from Tridius to push it backwards but it was resilient and kept on advancing. At one point, Chase tried to pierce it with ice spears but its skin was too durable and only the monster's own spear could damage it.
The monster finally reached him and they started exchanging blows. They were tired but no one wanted to give up even though the winner was clear. Chase had sustained more damage than the monster even though it was missing an eye but the strength was still there. Chase had to win, but how? He had assessed his opponent's abilities but he knew that the elemental attacks would not bring it down.
'Sorry Tridius,' he thought as an energy ball formed in his hand. 'I have to use this.'
He threw the energy ball and an explosion occurred. The monster managed to block with its left arm, but the limb appeared bruised and it moved with difficulty. The monster was shocked but didn't have time to be worried about its left arm as Chase followed up with another energy blast but this time, it dodged it. Whilst the fight was going on, Tridius felt himself smiling as his master launched another energy blast out of his hand.
'You should have done this from the start.'
Chase threw a punch, hitting the monster straight in the jaw causing it to stumble a bit. He rained down ice spears which were quickly followed by another dark energy blast.
Tridius telepathically communicated with Chase as he continued engaging in the fight, 'Even though I told at the beginning that you should only use your elemental skills, you refused to listen.'
'Where's this going?' Chase asked as he blocked the monster's fist and countered with his own fist to the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of his opponent, making it gasp for breath.
'You going against my orders means that you have grown, ' Tridius communicated. 'All your life you've been listening to everything that you have been told to do, and where did you find yourself? Getting constantly bullied and rejected by everyone. You might have wanted to appeal to everyone or were you simply scared or even both, who knows?' The fight was coming to an end and Tridius smiled again. 'But now, you can think for yourself and not let anyone dominate your life, this new found independence is true growth.'
Chase and the monster stopped exchanging blows and jumped away from each other. Both of them knew what was going to happen now.
The monster retrieved its spear and lights started forming around it. It was putting all his power inside the spear to end it all. Similarly, Chase had gathered dark energy into his hands and it was growing. The monster's spear was infused with power and the spear vibrated with the colours of the rainbow.
Meanwhile, Chase's attack had reached its peak and seemed ready to burst as he slowly brought his hands to his side and focused.