The Undoing Of Villains | ✓

twenty four

a/n: hi sweets, forgot to mention the goal for this chapter's 45 votes ;) happy reading!

twenty four

IT WAS THE GODDAMN SUSHI-BOY AGAIN. At this point, I should've seen it coming a mile away. However, I didn't - proving I'd let my guard down. At this point, it didn't matter - I was going to win this fight, despite what the fish boy thought. I had already made up my mind - and it was cemented by the way my fists lit up with red light, casting it through the water. I was being dragged toward the bottom, without a doubt, and I set in for a disgusting landing once we reached it. 

We were in the sedimentation pool after all, and if fish-boy wanted to  drag me through the mud and dirt coating its bottom until I died, I'd see to it that his scales moved for one final time before that. This was the last fight with him I was going to have. 

Clamping my mouth shut, determined not to let panic loosen my lips and spill the precious oxygen I had left, I focused on keeping my body lax. Completely still. 

He had one grip across my throat, the other arm clamped across my waist. The pool was deceptively deep, I realized, as we sunk further and further down. The pressure increased around me ears, my brain aching as it increased, going higher and higher - 

It was then I moved, unwilling to subject myself to further torture. I knew the way he was swimming now, how he was trapping me to his body and dragging me further into the dark - I wriggled violently, then flailed with my leg, until I felt his grip lose its power just a little. Just enough for me to rear back with my elbow. 

The move was made slow and sluggish by the water, but it had the desired effect - connecting with the humanoid's noise, I saw an explosion of red taint the water around us, coating it in red as it dissipated. I didn't dwell on it, instead twisting and pushing my knee against his ribcage, forcing him away from me. I floated backwards, head throbbing, but forced my eyes completely open - there were no chemicals in this pool, so no chlorine stung my eyes, but my vision was unreliable at best. 

Our frantic movements had kicked up dirt from the bottom of the pool, making it even harder to see through the hazy depths, and since fish-boy was paler than a vampire living in Siberia, I was having trouble spotting him. 

Time to make this pool red, then. And I didn't mean blood - not yet. Instead, I channeled my powers, focusing them on making the red glow enveloping me glow brighter - spearing through the water, the red light overpowered the emergency lanterns, coating the entire pool in a light shade of red, as if there was blood mixed in the water, soaking the entire pool. 

Fish-boy's skin stood out remarkably well against the now red surroundings, so I saw him coming from my right - he was barreling straight towards me, like a tornado slicing through water, but I managed to dodge him by swimming up, letting him shoot past beneath me. 

I could feel pressure mounting in my lungs, so I glanced up - the surface was a long, long way off. 

It doesn't matter. You need to get there. 

That, I did. I kicked up and up, frantic for air, feeling a darkness growing in the edge of my vision. If I was going to fight this nemesis of mine, it would have to be closer to the surface. Preferably above it, if I could manage to drag him out of the pool. 

Then I felt a grip clamp around my ankle, and my eyes widened - heart beating even faster, as if that was possible. Cardiac arrest would be the end of me if this moving piece of sushi didn't get me first. 

And he sure as hell won't. My eyes narrowed, conviction overriding my panic, and with glowing hands i glared downward, at the watery, pale figure attempting to pull me further down. Instead, I raised my palm, summoning my energy and forcing to it to grow smaller, smaller and smaller, until my palm was throbbing with energy, awaiting its release. And so I did.