The Fool's Knight

Minute by minute my platform was lowering towards the ground, on the grassy ground was a Spawn the size of a small bear circling the pillar awaiting me to get into range. I can feel its excitement towards having a meal waved above it. I began to realize just what this test really was. They must want me to defeat it, but how? Awaken my power, that’s the only way. On TV I’d seen Spawn that can shoot needles and fluids as range attacks, but this one below me hadn’t, perhaps this one was chosen due to being weaker and therefore safe to use for testing? Would someone burst into the room if this thing began trying to use what it had left to rip my apart and eat me? Hopefully there was some sort of fail safe if I fail. Right now I just need to focus on activating something from inside me to get this thing before the platform is low enough for it to get me.
The platform is currently about six times its height, even if I imagine it can leap the distance of its own height that still leaves me plenty of time. I lean over the platform and begin trying whatever comes to mind. I hold a hand out and mouth “fire” to see if anything shoots out, but nothing happens. Okay, then how about this, I try stomping imagining shock waves coming from my foot, again nothing happens. I must look pretty silly right now to the observers.
Five times its height now, gotta figure this out sooner than later! I try to think about the Magical Girl’s I know and their powers. What powers does the Elemental Guardian Vontavia have? Guardian Black has some shadow attack, I don’t know how to test that. Guardian Splash has some water ability, there’s no water in this room so how would I try and test that? Guardian Pebble, she has something to do with turning her body to stone? Uh, let’s try that? I think about my fist becoming rock hard, but no dice still just tasty flesh for the Spawn to eat.
Three and a half times its height now, if it has a good running start it might just be able to reach me. I need to figure this out quick! It’s a test, you’re supposed to be able to pass tests, so what am I missing? They can’t possibly mean for me to awaken it through the stress of a life or death battle, can they? My gut sinks considering just how much I might believe that. I might need to rethink my strategy here, I’ll just go in assuming I won’t be able to awaken an ability, so how am I still winning this?
Two and a half times its height now, this fight is minutes away. I scan the ground as the Swarm is leaping on its hind legs trying to get at me. I spot a nicely sized rock I could swing with both hands if I can get to it, but I’d need to leap off the platform and then bolt for it slightly. Plus then turn back to face the surely quickly approaching Spawn. I don’t see many other weapons, a nice branch is against the far wall, but I don’t think I could make it that far before the Spawn was on top of me.
Twice its height now, it leaps and it barely falls short. I’ll go for the rock, besides that it’s all going to come down to kicks and punches unless I awaken something. In my previous life I never practiced any sort of martial arts, if I’d known I’d ever be face to face with a Spawn and expected to fight I might have actually tried to learn one. The moment is here, I steady myself to leap off the platform and try to roll once I hit the ground. Then I’ll sprint for the rock and go from there. One. Two. Three! I take off running and leap off the platform, I’ve got good form at least, I should nearly reach it. My motion is suddenly thrust into a downward spin, sharp pain shoots up from my right leg, looking down I can see the Spawn is latched into my leg with its fangs. I waited too long.
We hit the ground with a thud, my face smashing against the grass covered hard ground. It spins its body around dragging me into a spin as well, it feels like it's trying to twist my leg right off. I swing my other leg and slam it against its head, it doesn’t budge from the leg it has in its jaw, focused on tearing the leg off. I want to lean towards it to use my arms, but the spinning is keeping me from being able to do anything. Have I already lost!?
I don’t wanna die. My mind is racing as I try to figure out what I can do against this. My lipstick is smeared and my dress is tearing with each spin against the rocky ground, I must look like such a failure right now. Why didn’t Doctor Mac even try to give me a weapon of some kind to bring with me!? I can’t give up yet, I have to prove myself, I didn’t go through all of this to die a nobody! 
As I’m spun I bring my arms upward in front of my chest, my palms outward touching the ground as we spin. I find the timing on its spin, feeling the next rotation starting as I prepare myself. As I am spun onto my stomach against my arms I push off with all my energy, launching me slightly upward as the Spawn is flung off course by its own spin. With my other leg I kick with all my remaining strength connecting with the Spawns stomach and launching its energy off its spin axel putting it now below me in the air. As I fall back towards the ground I push all my weight into my foot in its mouth, I can feel its teeth tearing the skin in the leg as my leg goes deeper into its mouth. My leg painfully slides until hitting the back of its throat, causing the Spawn to begin choking on me. My leg’s blood spurs down its throat making air harder to breathe as blood is sucked into the lungs with oxygen pooling in the lungs. It can’t handle it and begins heaving and vomits releasing its bite on my leg allowing me to launch backward from it.
I’m free, but still bleeding and unable to run now. The Spawn won’t take long to collect itself, just needing to cough up all the blood from its lungs before it's ready to go again. I’m going to die, it’s going to finish its bites next time. It is going to eat me bite by bite unless these stupid powers activate already! Focus, focus! I need to get that rock. I begin crawling towards the rock, it's not far now and I actually make it to the rock before the Spawn is down vomiting up blood.
I cling to the rock, hugging it to my chest as I breathe heavily. I could have died and they didn’t stop it, so this really is a life or death battle. This is my sink or swim moment, and I’m not sinking! I steady my hands from shaking as I clench the rock ready to slam it the best I can. The Spawn is now ready for round two, it locates me and begins charging in my direction. I get ready to swing as it approaches. It’s on top of me as I cast my swing and slam the rock against its face. It makes a pained noise but doesn’t stop, it bites down past the rock onto my hand. I release my grip on the rock, losing it to the Spawns mouth as I am able to pull my fingers loose somehow. It swallows the stone with an audible gulp, I’m officially out of weapons.
Its faceless head clicks as it slowly approaches me, it knows it has won. I look around me but I’ve got nothing left to use as a weapon. It tanked a stone to the head, I don't think my punches can do much of anything. I close my eyes shut as I wait for the searing pain of being eaten to fall upon me.
“Call upon me.”
I open my eyes as the Spawn is circling me preparing to leap. I want to call out “who said that” but I of course can not. I don’t know where the voice came from, I keep looking around but I don’t see anyone else here. The Spawn leaps into the air at me.
“Call upo-”
“END THIS” I shout in my mind as loud as I can. I have nothing to lose in these final moments as the Spawn shoots down at me, its toothy mouth wide open and ready to bite. Right before it lands on me a black fist connects with the side of its head knocking it back. I look up to see a black figure towering just above me. The Spawn spins around as it lands and launches right back at us, the black figure charges forward pulling back a fist before launching it straight into the Spawn’s chest knocking its attack back once again.
I’m left stunned as I watch my savior swing punch after punch. Adorn in a black suit of armor, he must be a knight! I don’t understand where he came from, but I’m so glad he arrived. I tear up, I must have been more afraid than I thought to start crying the moment I feel safe again. My whole body feels sore now that my adrenaline is dying down, that must be why.
The black knight makes a roaring noise as it smashes its helmet face right into the Spawn’s head. The Spawn swings its head back in pain before the knight slams its armor gloved fingers into the sides of its mouth pulling at them. The Spawn tries to close its jaw, but the knight thrusts a knee straight to the top of its mouth, breaking some of its teeth. The knight lets out another almost monstrous sounding scream as he begins pulling the Spawn’s mouth apart, tearing at the jaw until it snaps loose.
I stare in horror as the Knight slams punch after punch down the throat of the Spawn as it tries to escape. The Spawn’s face begins to cave in as punches break down the distance between the Knight’s fist and the large stone inside the stomach. The Spawn eventually ceases to move, its limbs going limp. The knight stands up, I figure he is done before he swiftly slams a foot down on the Spawn now stomping it.
Eventually the knight’s foot did not raise again. It looks up for a few moments before stepping out of the mess of what is left of the Spawn. They walked calmly over to me, I stood up ready for whatever it might do. What I hadn’t expected was for them to take a knee in front of me. They kneeled on one leg before me in silence as if waiting for something. I wanted to thank them, tell them how much I appreciated their help, but I was unable to make a sound nor finger spell out a thank you. The helmeted face looks up to me, and in that moment I feel as if we are physically connected, I call out to them in my mind. “Thank you my brave knight, I owe you for this.”
The armored figure rumbles before me, the metal of the armor clambering, “Please get your hands looked at as soon as possible my king.”
“What do you mean?” I call out in my mind.
The knight stands up again, and steps towards me. No, they step towards me and then pass right through me. I spin around to look behind me but there is no one there now. Where had he gone? Was this…my power? Can I create a super cool knight to do my bidding? I suppose I’ve heard of Magical Girls with familiars before, I just didn’t realize they came in anything other than non-human shapes.
I feel so tired suddenly, once the knight took over the fight all I did was watch, so why do I feel so worn out? Maybe it's being in a girl’s body now, perhaps I don’t know my own limits anymore. I drop down to the ground kneeling then lying on my back. I try to control my breathing as pain sets in across my body. I hold my hands out towards the artificial sky stretching, blood practically pours down on my eyes from my hands.
I wipe my eyes with the corner of my blouse, rolling onto my side to keep more blood from getting in my eyes as I stare at my hands. They’re completely bloody and bruised, torn up and covered in open bite marks. I don’t remember getting so injured during my part of the fight?
I heard the sound of a door open somewhere behind me. In a moment Doctor Mac’s voice is calling out to me. “Sophia! Sophia, can you hear me!? Sweetie please be okay, we’re going to patch you up right now!”
Doctor Mac picks my damaged body up and cradles me, lifting me up and carrying me out of the testing room and onto a stretcher. Another two people in doctor coats join her side, they’re all talking at such fast speeds about things I don’t understand. The stretcher is rolled down a long haul as they continue discussing things I can’t follow. “Sophia?” I hear my name called. I look up and meet Doctor Mac’s face, she smiles at me when our eyes meet. “I knew you would pass, you did so good!”
I try to make a hand motion for “I don’t know” since I didn’t do it alone without whatever the knight was. She seemed to get at least that I was uncertain about how well I did. “Sophia your power was splendid, I won’t ever wager on someone’s ranking but I’m sure you’re going to fall somewhere around A at least!” She smiled again, clenching my hand as the stretcher continued moving down the hall. “Your power is the type that’s gonna need a bit of research watching the replay from the test, but whatever that ghostly armor was that appeared around you surely is an A rank ability.”I didn’t understand what she meant, the knight never seemed ghostly to me at all. On the contrary he seemed quite sturdy as if made of steel. I was brought into a medical room where the other two doctors from before began cleaning my wounds and stitching me up. Doctor Mac left after we made it to the room leaving my bag behind on a counter. As the other doctors began sewing me up I got to experience a sharp pain everytime the needle passed through my tender skin. I wish they could have given me pain killers first. As he was sewing, the male doctor began speaking to me, “You are going to need to be more careful going forward. It doesn’t seem like you feel any pain when you’re the knight, but look at you now that the fight is over! You won’t last long missy if you don’t remember to watch out for yourself!”
I looked down at my broken fingers covered in bite marks. It seems like I was really punching something far too hard, almost like I was doing what the knight was doing. Was I…not really just watching?
“I’ve ordered them to create you some special armored gloves for you to wear when you fight, along with requesting some light armor to fit the costume they’re whipping up for you. Does all of that sound good, missy?”
I nod. He finishes sewing my left hand up and moves over to the right. With my left I get the other doctor’s attention who’s just finished bandaging my shoulder. I point towards my notebook which Dr.Mac had brought for me. The doctor grabs it for me and gives it to me. I write as best I can with my left hand a request. “CAN YOU SHOW ME VIDEO OF MY TEST?” I hold it up to her, she smiles and agrees. She walks over to a counter and rolls over a small cabinet screen, after fidgeting with it she gets the video started.
It is just how I remember it. I can feel my heart beginning to speed up just watching myself get spun around by that thing. I make it to the part where the rock gets swallowed and the knight should show up. And as I had begun to suspect, no one showed up. Quite the opposite, I had suddenly gotten up on my bleeding leg and leapt at the Spawn. Just as Dr. Mac had mentioned, a ghostly black suit of armor appeared around my body.
My power as it would turn out was not to summon a knight. No, it was to embody a knight personality which felt no pain and focused only on doing what I had asked of it. Once I was done getting stitches and cleaned up I would hear a lot more from the doctors about their findings.
During the time the knight was active my durability and stamina increased as well as my combat prowess. The knight personality does not feel any pain when active, which is part of what allows it to be so strong and fight like its invincible, but also its biggest weakness since I’m not actually invincible. 
As the knight I must always try to enforce care towards my body, if I forget or run wild I might very well tear my body so apart I’ll die. But there’s also my desire as the king, when I summon it I must be careful just what I ask it to do. The royal decree is like a loud pounding will upon the knight, I can’t overdo it or I’ll be sending myself to death.
A power that actively forgets to protect me when asked to protect me. A power that could kill me by being too focused on winning an unwinnable fight. Once the royal decree leaves my mind I might not be able to undo it.
It’s a strange power indeed, The Fool’s Knight.