Sebastian (SJCRPV) - Demon powers used to enhance physical abilities
Bodacious (cowboy bodacious) - Cowboy with a strong connection with animals, blessed lasso that moves with his thoughts, colt .45 peace maker and a blessed hat that can block many things.
Here's my version
Spoiler (Click to Show)
A shiver went down my spine just thinking about it.
Ah! Even with my gloves on my hands are freezing! – I complained as I tried my very best to keep them warm while avoiding those thoughts.
Come on, don’t be a wuss! It’s not that cold.
How can you tell Daicilus? You’re not even a living being. You can’t feel anything.
The place seemed really quiet, something I liked. The sounds from the city didn’t really reach this place. All you could hear was the sound of the cold wind as it slowly blew around the pine trees a few meters to my right and the water of the nearly frozen lake just to my left. I smiled, thinking I could come here when I wanted some peace and quiet; though I slowed down when I saw someone in the distance.
The person seemed to be fishing in the lake. All I could tell was that he was wearing a dark coat and a cowboy hat. After a few seconds I realized it was Bodacious and went to greet him:
- Hey! How’s it going Bodacious? What are you doing out here in this cold?
The cowboy looked back and smiled upon seeing a known face. We shook hands.
- Just fine, and as you can see, I’m fishing, or at least trying; damn lake doesn’t seem to have anything to catch. The same could be asked to you though.
- I was told to meet someone in here today for a wRHG battle. Did you see anyone around?
Bodacious pondered for a few moments before he replied:
- Well, the only person around here seems to be me.
- So, maybe he hasn’t show up yet… or you’re the one I have to fight…
Bodacious raised a thumb into the air without diverting his attention from the river:
- Bingo! But there’s no rush, we still have the entire afternoon, so grab a chair.
A bit confused by the fact that he didn’t seem to want to fight me right away, I did as he asked and grabbed a chair that was next to his stuff, sitting next to him. Daicilus didn’t seem pleased at all:
- So, I heard that a demon decided to crash at your soul when you were born? – Bodacious questioned
- Y-yes. That’s true, the same happens with the eldest child of every 2 generations in The 12 Cursed Noble Families. – The friendliness of his tone made me a bit uneasy.
Why the familiarity? Maybe he just wants to find out if I have something he can easily exploit. What do you think? – I asked Daicilus
As much as I find it hard to believe, I think he really just wants to chat. I’m getting nauseated just by looking at his soul. It simply is too sweet.
- Seems harsh, let’s change the subject then. Besides fishing, I enjoy training horses. What do you like doing?
Everyone has a bit of evil inside of them; he can’t possibly be that nice of a guy, Daicilus.
- I rode a horse once; it was at a party from a friend of mine when I was 11. The instructor said I was complete natural at it.
And there is, but it seems to be like your soul just before you killed your f-
I GET IT! Great…! Now I’m having flashbacks…
The memory of that party, 6 years ago, was something that came to me with a lot of guilt strapped alongside it. With the images of me riding that horse; the games of tag, hide and seek, football and all the other things you do in a party with your friends, came the memory of seeing those same children killed by my hands. Arms ripped off, broken chests, eyes taken from their faces, heads smashed… all of that reminded me of what I had allowed to happen… of what I became just a few months after…
On the outside, my face got gloomier by the second.
Bodacious noticed this:
- Oh, sorry. Did I make you remember something unpleasant?
I snapped out of my trance:
- What? No, it’s nothing! Just… something from my past I’m not proud of…
By the way, how long is this conversation going to take? – Daicilus asked.
I grunted on the inside showing him that now was not the time to ask that.
- Care to share it? I’m a good listener.
My expression changed from the smile I was putting to give the idea that everything was ok, to an entirely serious one in an instant:
- Sorry, but my past is something I’m not willing to share with anyone.
- Keeping it to yourself will only hurt you in the long run. – He insisted.
- It’s not up for discussion.
I stood up, while looking away, attempting to avoid eye contact:
- Let’s just get this fight over with Bodacious; you don’t seem to be catching anything anyway.
He stood up as well:
- Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? – I didn’t answer. – Fine, let’s make a deal then: You like chocolate right? – I looked back at him, showing that I was listening. – If you win, assuming you won’t kill me, I’ll buy you a chocolate bar everyday for a month; - Having a bar of those masterpieces of confectionery everyday for a month would be… amazing - but if you lose, assuming I don’t have to kill you, you will have to tell me about your past.
That was the deal breaker. I wasn’t going to gamble with what happened before I came here:
- As tempting as that is, and believe me, it is quite tempting, I will have to refuse. I’m not willing to take any chances. So, if you don’t have anything else to add, let’s just start the fight.
Without using any demonic energy, I punched him in the face, followed by another one to the gut and a hook to the face once again, ending with a kick to the stomach just to push him away. After wiping the blood from his nose, Bodacious dashed towards me, preparing a punch while smiling at the same; but not the smile of someone who enjoys hurting other people; the smile of someone who likes to fight; the smile of someone who won’t hurt you more than he has to, and that bothered me more than if I were to fight Daicilus himself in person.
The punch was predictable and I easily dodged it, getting behind him. From there I concentrated a bit of energy and hit him in the kidneys; prolonging the step just a tad more, in order to get into a better position, without my powers, I hit him in the carotid with my right elbow, followed by my left one, of which I took advantage of its position and grabbed his head so I could knee him in the face. I tried to pull him, but he didn’t budge. He just smiled, grabbed me, and threw me against the pine trees a few meters away.
The impact made a few of the tree’s evergreen leaves fall and I was surprised to see one of them, which was flying just in front of me, suddenly get a bullet hole. The bullet itself landed just a centimeter to the side of me.
- Don’t you move now – asked Bodacious as he removed a rope from under his coat, still pointing the gun at me – I really don’t want any accidents to happen.
In just a few moments the lasso started floating and quickly darted towards me.
Common sense and natural instinct made it clear that wasn’t something good so I rolled around the tree, feeling a bullet graze my right arm before I got out of his sight. A small puddle of blood quickly formed on the ground just below my arm.
Nice aim… - I thought, containing any groans of pain that I wanted to voice out – but he doesn’t seem to be attempting to kill.
The rope, however, was already above me and I barely dodged as I jumped to a nearby branch, quickly skipping between trees.
I smiled as I saw the rope giving up, returning to its owner.
I could ambush him…
I started to imagine several outcomes of what would happen if I were to do so, but it ended up being useless as I heard him whistle and a dog came to his aid.
Confused at first, I quickly understood why he called him the moment I glanced at my bleeding arm.
If I could get him to look to the other way, I could attack him from the opposite side. – I thought.
And in order to do so, I quickly grabbed about 8 pine-cones and threw them in the straightest line possible to another tree, using a bit of energy to give them the speed to make it look like something heavy just changed positions.
Both Bodacious and his brown furred companion took the bait and I, dashing as fast as I could, charged against the cowboy.
Without even having the time to turn his head I concentrated a big amount of energy in my palm and hit Bodacious in the chest, forcing him to fly a few meters back as his hat flew away with the wind.
I was about to go after him for the knock out when the dog suddenly jumped at me, certainly trying to protect his friend, making me lose my balance. I barely avoided him biting me by grabbing his neck with both hands, but didn’t manage to avoid his saliva falling against my face and his claws ripping my jacket. Brutal images on how to kill the poor canine went through my head, but in the end, I opted for pressed his head with my powers until I felt his cranium’s fragments pierce his brain and the dog fall on top of me.
With my eyes wide open, I chuckled as I got back up, looking at the now dead canine and telling Bodacious, who was just doing the same.
- Sorry about the puppy… What he did was just so rude.
I then shook my head; for a moment there, Daicilus had the upper hand; I was still in control of what I did, but I was under heavy influence from the demon. A bit more and I would’ve lost myself.
Bodacious didn’t seem pleased at all with what I had done, and honestly, I was regretting it. I killed the dog because it just felt the correct move at the time.
Thanks to you, now he’s mad – I complained to Daicilus
So? That’ll probably make the battle more entertaining.
The cowboy ran towards me and I did the same. As we got close, I tried to punch him with my left fist; Bodacious rolled around me while grabbing my wrist, slamming me to the ground. Pulling back his hand, he tried to punch me. I managed to stop it, but he seemed to be holding back, like he wasn’t using his entire strength to beat me. I tried to push him away and he used just a bit more to put my hand back to where it was. Eventually, I used energy to try and break free, even if I could feel Daicilus slowly eating away what was left of my sanity.
What worried me though was that he didn’t seem to give up. He was still capable of matching me in strength. If I released his fist I would get knocked out, and if I kept going, Daicilus would most likely find a way of taking control.
Hell, if this keeps up, he’ll take over anyway so I might as well make sure he at least has some space to flee. – I thought
- I advise you to run Bodacious, I don’t know what will happen…
As a last resort I concentrated an enormous amount of energy around me, and slammed my free elbow on the ground. The sudden increase in strength didn’t allow Bodacious to adapt to it and I managed to free myself as I rolled away. I yelled with the pain I felt right after; the human body wasn’t supposed to have this much power flowing through it.
I got up, but not as myself anymore, as Daicilus. The demon dashed at Bodacious at an incredible speed, punching him the gut with my right hand, followed by a kick in the back of the cowboy’s knee with my left leg to shaken his balance and, all the same time, a leg sweep with my other lower member, a neck grab with my right hand, and a wrist grab with the other hand, throwing him to the ground. Giving my face his usual psychotic look, he twisted Bodacious’ arm and stomped it twice, breaking it in different places both of the times. The cowboy screamed in pain as his right arm became useless.
Stop it Daicilus, that’s going too far!
In a slow, monotonous and eerie tone the demon only asked:
Why?
I was doing my best to retake control of my mind, but the progress was slow.
Daicilus threw him against a tree while laughing but, as Bodacious was about to receive a punch meant to crush his head, the cowboy put all his strength in his left hand and blocked the demon’s fist. Astonished by his strength, Daicilus didn’t have time to react against Bodacious’ powerful head butt which knocked him back bleeding out of his forehead. He seemed dizzy and the vision got blurry, so, I took that chance to rebuild some of my sanity.
Just a while longer Sebastian… this guy’s getting desperate. Those are my favourite type of opponents… The ones that will do anything to survive! – He then proceeded to maniacally laugh as he fell to the ground.
I didn’t answer him; he knew what I thought about murdering your opponents.
Then, the laugh got progressively got quieter; I was getting my mind back, but not entirely. I still couldn’t use my powers and paralyzing him still seemed “fun”, if this was me of about 3 years ago, I wouldn’t have realized that this was still the demon’s influence, so, a constant “don’t kill him”; “don’t paralyze him” and “just knock him out” had to run through my mind at all times to keep me in check.
As my vision returned to normal I saw Bodacious right in front of me, with his lasso floating next to him. It tried to tie me up but I managed to grab its tips; it lifted me up and slammed me against the earth and against the trees numerous times before I managed to hold myself on the ground. I think some of my ribs got broken.
I wasn’t naturally strong enough to hold against the rope and the pain I was feeling wasn’t helping, so I was slowly sliding around the place. I then noticed that Bodacious was just standing there looking at us, which made me understand that the rope didn’t move on its own but rather through his thoughts, giving me an idea.
Don’t kill him… I can use the strength me and his lasso are creating to send me flying against him… don’t paralyze him… and hopefully crush his skull… No! No! Just knock him out… But first, I need to get a better position… Just knock him out… Don’t kill him…
In my struggle against his rope, I managed to place myself with my back turned against Bodacious, the position that I wanted. This was kind of crazy, I wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot me; if he did, it probably wouldn’t be somewhere lethal, but a bullet in my leg was certainly a possibility…
As I got closer to Bodacious I got ready to try my idea out:
Three, don’t kill him… Two, don’t paralyze him… One, just knock him out… Go!
I suddenly jumped backwards, using all the force that was being created to fly against Bodacious. Catching him by surprise, I turned around, managed to grab his face with my left hand and slammed it to the ground, knocking him out. Still, I think I overdid it. I get the feeling I cracked his skull. I hope he’s alright…
I visited him in the hospital the next morning where I had also spent the night and confirmed that he hadn't suffered any unrecoverable injuries, which was a relief, still, I kept feeling uneasy about his friendliness and how quickly he forgave me about killing the dog. Also, since the day he got out, even though I had politely refused since we hadn’t sealed the deal, I have been receiving a cho