Nevermore

Pain scorched the entirety of Raven’s body as he awoke. Covered in leaves and debris, it was still right in front of him- the Sarcophagus.

With all the strength he had left the rogue dragged himself slowly towards it, reaching out to the package-

Only for a battered Converse shoe to come crashing down right on his hand.

“Still kicking… you really must have something special in you after all.”

Fox looked down on the boy, clearly no patience left for him. The soldiers, stripped of their armor and weapons, met eyes one more time before the fight began.

Raven didn’t hesitate. Seizing his only now-working legs around Fox’s own he brought him swiftly to the ground, forcing himself on top of the man before he even had time to fall the whole way through. As a matter of course, his devastating right shot straight to his target’s face, only stopped when the defender caught the angry fist in his own. Raven’s tenacity getting the better of him when his follow-up left punch was caught just the same, seized by the wrist before he could notice the foot headed straight for his head.

With Raven kicked right off of Fox, but back up standing in a second nevertheless, the men came to a fleeting standstill. Arching low to the ground in front of each other, searching for the smallest movement, the smallest opening, both fighter’s eyes soon drew to the orphaned Sarcophagus nearby.

Raven reached for his objective again but this time Fox kicked it far out of reach. By the time he turned back to his adversary, Raven’s face met with the hardest right hook he’d ever felt as Fox stood right back up. Recoiling, trying not to collapse as red began to ooze from between his lips, it was all he could do to catch his bearings, spitting out the blood filling his mouth. But Raven’s recovery was slow. Without warning the taller boy whipped his entire leg upward into his chin, smacking his teeth into each other as he could only half-watch the pursuer step right up to him and grab him by his wet curly hair.

One. Two. Three. FOUR. Fox’s fist forced itself across his cheeks and eyes and lips and teeth so many times that he couldn’t even feel it happening until the afterburn that stung seconds after the hit had long passed. Just before the fifth blow could come, however, in a desperate attempt to protect himself, Raven launched into his partner, grabbing onto his torso with the intent to bring him back onto the brown forest ground. A firm kneee to his stomach ensured that would not happen. It practically sent the boy flying off him, but it was just the spark Raven needed to get his head back in the game. Taking his Muay Thai stance in preparation for his opponent’s next attack, once again the enemies bore into each other’s eyes.

Fox’s weren’t pure- not certain, far from unclouded- but there was still that same conviction in them that forced Raven to accept diplomacy was not an option. Like how it would be on any mission, Fox was now just a target that needed to be neutralized.

They poked at each other’s psyches with little moments and nods, trying to bait out an opening- Raven, of course, was the first to take it, allowing Fox to block and grab hold of a half-hearted kick before he sent a far more vicious punch straight into the agent’s face. Fox didn’t wait to retaliate- the bird was quick, but the canine’s strength still outweighed his. Unlike the comparative flinch he earned from his own assault, Fox’s unstoppable hit pushed him falling hopelessly back into the defensive, perfectly open for the coming onslaught.

Fox almost couldn’t look, but used everything he could to make it so Raven would never run from him again. The kick that nudged its way into the boy’s left side was only the start of his chain when he then cracked a single punch, followed by a second kick, into the child’s right leg, watching him helplessly stumble as his weakening stance did little to protect him. Still, he grabbed at his opponent’s defensive arms, and, Raven clinging on to him just the same in an intense standing wrestle, started to wring the strength out of him.

Their heads literally butt together in an intense struggle of competing muscle and wit, Raven checking his partner’s focus with a series of knees towards his face that forced him to occupy one of his hands just pushing them away again and again. It wouldn’t be enough. As soon as Fox realized the instability of the struggle he ducked out from it, simply shooting yet another well-aimed knuckle across Raven’s face, then a solid, rib-cracking kick to his stomach, before he advanced even further on the hardly-breathing rogue, forcing him up against a tree.

It was all Raven could do to barely resist against Fox’s relentless attacks, his numbing arms still burning as each got a firm slam before Fox caught them both in a hit directed towards the stomach. Only then, with both Raven’s hands away, did he think he could land his finishing blow- but as he propelled the left hook heading straight for the boy’s skull, the rogue was just a bit faster, just a moment quicker- still feeling the full impact of the punch as he just managed to put his open palm between it and his right cheek.

More blood spurted out of his mouth but it didn’t matter. Completely unexpectedly overpowering Fox he immediately got a crushing punch in, then another, refusing to back down for even a second as he tackled his larger opponent back on the ground where he belonged and raised the final devastating fist into the air where it would soon fall down like a meteor into Fox’s forehead, winning the battle.

Yet just as he put his everything into that destructive punch, his fist only met ground when the agent crooked his head desperately to the side and tossed Raven all the way into the shallow water of the lake nearby.

Right when Raven began his hurried struggle to get up, the soldier’s palm grasped firmly onto his mouth, covering it as the boy’s weak, damaged body writhed inside the water, forced to stare up at Fox, who watched safely from the shore, pushing him under over and over again in an attempt to drown or at least break him.

But even though his arms were useless and he couldn’t move, even though his lungs were pushing back on the solid wall of flesh hiding them from the air, Raven refused to go without a fight. Scooping his legs out of the water and once again firmly sealing them around Fox, tightening the grip of his talon’s around the boy’s left shoulder, he didn’t ask for mercy as he just kept tightening that awful grip as far as it would go.

“Rrrgh—-!”

Fox tried to push him down further but as the boy growled the burning on his upper arm soon turned to the shocking sensation of loosening internal connections. He shivered, teeth grit, trying to fight back against the waterbound soldier, who, squirming madly in the lake, broke his own limits in a last-ditch attempt to defeat his former comrade- an attempt that would inevitably show results.

One last pained grunt could be heard before the gut-churning pop of bone and the wailing, howling scream of a boy who wouldn’t be able to move his arm again for quite some time.