10 Moving Forward (2/2)

The veins on his arm bulged as he furiously drew out every last ounce of strength he possessed. A loud crack echoed across the mountaintop; Reed had forcibly torn the android's arm right out of its socket in his mad desperation. Reed hastily broke out of the android's weakened hold and retreated as quickly as he could.

He checked his injury; his right arm had been badly hurt during the struggle. It looked purple and slightly swollen. He felt that it was painful even raising his arm above his shoulder, but chalked it up a better hand than what the android was dealt with.

Blue sparks rattled off of the exposed joint where the android's arm had once been. It picked up its broken arm and stared at it for a moment before it threw it out of the ring.

The android stared at him indifferently, but he noticed something had changed. It finally assumed a proper stance and did something Reed had never seen it do.

It extended its palm out and jerked its fingers up; it beckoned him to come. It was challenging him.

A red light began shimmering around the android's body as Reed felt a chill run down his spine. He knew what that light was, it was Anima. He guessed that he finally forced it to use all of its abilities.

It would likely not spare anything in this attack, so Reed assumed it was on its last legs. The bastard wanted to end the fight before he could close the distance again and deliver a finishing blow.

”So be it. I've come this far,” Reed thought. He'd accept the machine's challenge, come hell or high water. The muscles on his legs contracted as he prepared himself for their final bout.

Reed clenched his left fist hard enough that it cracked under the force. He felt his heart thumping wildly as a mysterious warmth washed over him; that warmth made him feel like he was being comforted by something that he couldn't describe.

It was as if that warmth had given him the last push he needed to move forward. He closed his eyes and basked in that feeling for a moment, and then he ran.

The scene of the boy and the machine resembled something out of an ancient fable. They looked like two jousting knights as they charged at one another, paying no heed to what would come after.

The boy and the android were solely focused on one another.

And then, it happened. The last thing Reed saw before the world turned dark was the scarlet glow that shimmered off of the android's fist.

Silence reigned on the mountaintop; only the gentle sound of the wind could be heard.

The three moons in the sky had seen the boy's fight, but they had not been the only ones to have witnessed it by the end.

Everyone had been drawn to the fight when the explosive sound of the ring shattering resounded across the mountaintop. The students that crowded around the shattered ring dumbly stood in silence as they tried their best to process what had happened.

Inside the ring, a group of familiar faces crowded around the unconscious boy; they had mixed expressions as they reflected.

Astor and Horatio stoically gazed at the broken ring and the boy as they kept their guard up.

Astrid, Ophelia, and Sebastian looked at the boy's crumpled body and waited quietly. They dared not touch the severely injured boy and waited for 'him' to act.

Axtorius suddenly appeared, picked up Reed's body and said, ”That's the end of it. Everyone head back to your quarters and get some sleep.” He left as quickly as he came and took Reed with him into the void...