Chapter 11: First Aid

 

      The fight between Spike and Gore continued. As minutes passed, Spike felt himself becoming exhausted. His breathing was reduced to quick pants while Gore looked completely fine aside from the blood that continued to ooze out of his wounds. During the fight, Spike had managed to land a few more slashes with his swords, but so far he was unsuccessful in delivering any fatal blows.

      Gore rushed forward and tried to slash at Spike with his katana. Spike blocked and dodged as it was swung before jumping back a few feet several seconds later. He stood there, panting heavily as he looked towards the enemy. Spike wasn't really sure on how much longer he would be able to keep this up.

      “Well, this has been fun and all, but I think I've had enough of this,” Gore stated. “Let's go ahead and end this, shall we?”

      More blood exited the wounds and all the blood that was outside of Gore's body rose into the air as it started to take the shape of needles. The red liquid hardened and the blood needles went straight for Spike. The brilliant warrior moved accordingly to avoid getting hit. However, when all of them missed, they liquefied and fell towards him. It wrapped around him and hardened right before it closed in on him. Spike tried to break free, but to no prevail. Unfortunately, the smell of the blood was too nauseating for Spike to concentrate hard enough to use a spell.

      “Well, it looks like this is the end for you,” Gore said as he stepped closer to the trapped boy. “I got an idea though. How about we give you a slow and painful death? That sounds like fun, doesn't it?”

      Some of the blood chipped away. The only bit that was left was the dried blood around his arms and legs so that the boy would be immobilized. Gore slowly slashed at Spike, who gave grunts and sometimes small yells of pain as the blade cut through him. The gashes were deep, but not enough to give the dark-haired youth an instant death. After several minutes of this, Spike ended up passing out due to blood loss.

      Skylar continued to run through the forest, trying to hurry back to Spike so he could help him fight Gore if he wasn't finished yet already. Unfortunately, he had a lot of trouble finding them. Half of the time Skylar found himself becoming completely lost whenever he thought he was going the right way.

      Soon enough though, he found the clearing the two combatants were in. When he reached it, he looked to see Gore about to deliver a fatal stab to the unconscious boy. Skylar rushed forward before impaling the enemy in the side. Gore grunted in pain, the point of his sword just inches away from Spike's chest. Right afterwards, Skylar kicked Blade's subordinate in the side, knocking him a small distance away from Spike.

      “So you were able to beat Thorne after all huh?” Gore questioned as he slowly rose to his feet. “I guess it isn't that surprising. She was never really that strong anyway. But you made a bad choice coming back here kid. You should've ran away when you had the chance.”

      “I'll never abandon an ally,” Skylar replied. “I'm not a sick b*****d like you are.”

      “All right, but don't blame me if you lose your life here,” Gore said with a smirk.

      Right afterwards, he advanced towards Skylar, who also charged. Their blades clashed together and they remained in a stalemate for a few seconds. During this time, Gore gathered the blood that had left his wounds and shot them towards Skylar in the form of needles. Skylar took the hit as he used Angel Feathers. When the feathers hit the ground, somewhat large bursts of golden energy came forth. They hit Gore and sent him flying to the side before crashing into a tree.

      By the time Gore stood up, he had to quickly step to the side to avoid getting stabbed in the chest by the blond warrior. Gore quickly tried to slash at the boy, who jumped to the side. However, he still got cut a small bit by the katana. Skylar simply ignored this though as he watched Gore charge towards him. When Gore reached him, Skylar quickly dropped to the ground and tried to take out one of Gore's legs. However, Blade's follower was quick enough on his feet and leaped above the sword to avoid it. As he did so, he kicked the boy right in the face, knocking him back a few feet from the force of it.

      Skylar slowly got back on his feet. He was already worn out enough as it was after fighting Thorne. Gore was probably right about leaving when he had the chance, but Skylar considered himself to be much better than that. He would never leave Spike behind to die. There was no way he could live with himself if he did something like that.

      Gore rushed towards Skylar once again. He tried to slash at the boy a few times, who was barely able to dodge them. Afterwards, Gore threw a kick to Skylar's side. The blond was hit by this and was sent flying out of the clearing and into some bushes.

      Blade's follower slowly walked over to where his prey went. However, when he reached the bushes, he saw that the boy wasn't there. Rather disappointed by this, Gore walked around in search of Skylar. The blond warrior sat behind a large tree with his back pressed up against the rough bark. He waited patiently for the enemy to show himself, planning for a surprise attack. Sure enough Gore soon stepped into view and right then Skylar lunged forward and swung his sword at the man, trying to hit him in some kind of way. Blade's disciple expected an attack such as this, but he was unable to react in time. A grunt of pain escaped his mouth as the blade cut through his leg. Gore jumped backwards and landed on his knees. A long, deep gash was on his leg, which had been rendered useless.

      Skylar didn't ease up on the attack. Seeing that Gore was unable to move easily now, Skylar quickly tried for a stab to the chest. However, right before the thrust could hit, Gore disappeared in a cloud of darkness. The sword stabbed into earth instead and Skylar yelled out a couple curse words at this. A sigh escaped his mouth afterwards before he turned around and made his way back to Spike.

      When he got there, he looked towards the still unconscious boy. Skylar never took the time to see how badly injured Spike was. After seeing all the blood that the black-haired male had lost, Skylar rushed forward. He broke Spike free of the dried blood before gently setting him down on the ground. The blond released his sword before holding his hands over the other male's torso. A few seconds later, they started to emit a light green glow.

      As minutes passed, the wounds slowly started to close up. This drained Skylar's energy rather quickly, but he wasn't going to stop until Spike's wounds were completely healed. He wanted to make sure Spike wouldn't die from blood loss. The boy's breathing was already faint and unfortunately Skylar had no way of speeding up the healing process.

      A couple hours passed and Skylar continued to keep at it. It was dark out by now; the only light that Skylar had was that given off by the stars and moon above. After a while longer, the wounds were finally healed. Right afterwards though, he fell unconscious due to lack of energy.

 

      Spike awoke about midmorning the following day. His eye's slowly opened up to see a clear blue sky overhead. He looked down towards Skylar, whose head was resting on the older male's chest like it was when he passed out. Spike then looked around the clearing, not seeing a single sign of Gore. He wasn't quite sure about what happened last night after he lost consciousness, but he was quite certain that Skylar fought him off.

      The dark-haired youth looked back at the sleeping boy to see all the cuts he had on his body before noticing that his own wounds from the previous night were no longer there. It seemed Spike was a little wrong about thinking Skylar would be too bothersome on this journey. If it wasn't for him, he probably would've been dead by now.

      After about another half hour or so, Skylar groaned a little as he began to awaken. He felt himself moving, but his head was resting on something. His eyes slowly opened to see that he was being given a piggy back ride by Spike. The blond's cheeks instantly reddened as he gave a small yell of surprise.

      “Put me down!” shouted Skylar.

      “Do you really have to yell in my ear?” Spike asked dully.

      “Just put me down!” cried the younger male.

      “Fine,” replied the dark-haired boy before dropping Skylar to the ground.

      “Ow, I didn't mean like that!”

      Spike didn't bother responding, but instead cracked a smile—the first one in a long while. It surprised Spike a little too. The apathetic look quickly took over though when Skylar came to walk beside him, not wanting to let the boy know about it.

      “By the way,” Spike began a few seconds later, “what happened last night?”

      “Well, after I defeated Thorne I went to go help you,” started Skylar. “When I got there, Gore was about to kill you. I stopped him and started fighting him. Before I could kill him though, he disappeared.”

      Spike mentally cursed after hearing this. It would probably only be a matter of time before they would encounter Gore again. They would just have to make sure that they were ready for that time.

      “And afterwards I went back to go heal you,” continued the shorter male. “You better be glad too 'cause you would be dead if I didn't come in time.”

      “Thanks,” Spike said.

      Skylar was actually a little surprised to hear it. After the way Spike had been treating him during this entire expedition, the boy didn't expect to hear the word. It made him a little happy though. Maybe now he was starting to prove to Spike that he wasn't as weak as what he thought he was.

      The two continued onwards towards their destination. After a little while longer, they finally came to the exit of the forest and came to another large field. They walked through it for the rest of the day and came to stop in the middle of it when the sun started setting in the horizon. Spike and Skylar sat a little lazily around the small campfire that they made. Skylar stared up at the sky for a moment before looking towards the other male.

      “By the way, I was wondering about something,” Skylar began. “How's come you got so mad back there at the inn when I told you – well, you know.”

      Spike looked towards the younger boy for a moment before sighing while looking towards the ground. He told about how he looked up to Blade and how upset it made him when Blade betrayed Wildtree Village.

      “Oh, I see,” Skylar said a few seconds later as he looked towards the ground a little. “I guess after experiencing something like that you would have views like that.”

      “Yeah, and I guess I just don't want to see you feeling betrayed like that,” said Spike.

      “I don't think I have to worry about that,” Skylar replied with a small smile as he looked back at the black-haired boy. “You're not like Blade. I know you won't ever do something like he did.”

      Spike couldn't help but to crack another smile. Skylar was right, and he was going to make sure that the blond didn't have to experience something like he did. He doesn't want Skylar to feel the pain he suffered when his parents were killed and the village was betrayed.

      “Come on, we should probably train a little more,” said Spike as he stood up. “Shouldn't be slacking off now.”

      Skylar smiled a little more and nodded. He rose to his feet and the two walked a little ways away from the fire to train. After an hour or two of that, they stopped for the night and went to sleep.

Author's Note

I know the title for the chapter is kind of sucky, but I couldn't really think of anything good. If you have any better ideas of what it could be called, feel free to share 'em.

Reviews

[Mimi]

This story is really addicting. From chapter one I couldn't stop reading.
It also has an interesting plot line. Fantastic job. ^_^