The Kiss of Immortal Love

~ X ~

Arm and Will and Loss

Spike was nothing beneath his rage, encasing his scales, purple sludge thick like lava, the burn of its sting barely a sensation. It occurred in the space around him. Never did it prick his being. It was like a jacket worn.

He walked across the monolithic landscape as the stone of the bridge loomed ahead, vast enough to sprawl beyond the sides of his vision, the dragon laid limp upon it. Where in the fight were they? It didn't matter as his rage sizzled away.

Intense anger reduced to hollowing sadness.

It wasn't him that was walking. It was the force pushing on his legs, casting them into a stride, one that he limped within. Sword in one claw, the phantom laid aflame, fire sweeping in currents beneath his feet—its spread, reduced, after each step.

Beast versus beast.

Monster versus monster.

Intent and the past not reflective on his burning hide.

No previous smiles to diminish the fear of blank eyes set ablaze.

The structure of Red slowly clattered onto its knees, a splash of blood from the hole in his stomach, pressed over by a wrist missing a claw. The towering beast waved in place, back and forth, panting, coughing blood.

Spike limped the same, pelts of fire from his eye, dropping like rain onto the ground, splashing up in tiny bursts. The crackling of his arm was the only sound remaining, still intense in its shape, condensed, but the fires no longer in a frenzy during their rises.

An arm of flames, without any tips, no active activity.

Dragon and demon staring each other down in their moments of death.

A powerful husk that lost its embers.

Great dragon losing its life.

Red rolled its head without rage, summoning and compounding its flame, glowing spread of red over its chest. The beam of light glinted at the back of its throat, brightening, until the spilling of fires came from within.

Spike fell to a knee—the downward thrust of his blade into stone granting him hold—as his arm grew at his side. Infusing with enough power from his torment to do what must be done. Nothing excessive nor personal.

Despite being the strength from which the fires drew upon.

The wave of red flames washed toward Spike.

The phantom claw blasted forward, like a river, curving, and it's surface rippling. It sliced in and out of the red flames, like a stream entering and leaving, manipulating the force pushing the attack. The sea of red cut into a pond washing over the kneeling demon.

Not rising during the cleanse.

But the neon river broke into the dragon, curving in and out, across its frame, every scale catching in flame. Its eyes widened from surprise, then utterly in horror, something not before felt. Worsened by the haze, that dreamy-state, an other-worldly sense we leave life in.

A dragon... lit on fire.

Spike still knees before his sword, having dropped to both knees, its blade entering deeper into the ground from the weight placed upon it. In his weakest moment beneath the pressure of immense strength, his blade, duty and work, could barely support him.

But it struggled to still do so, the one consistent friend, always, in his life.

He gazed over the hilt to watch Red rising onto both legs, stomping around, beating the flames spreading across his frame. The stumps of his wrist did nothing to pat out the fires as they grew. Scales burnt through like the curling of paper set aflame.

It screamed and roared, but not the kind, Spike heard before, that came from the blazing heat.

“...c...o...l...d...”

Droplets of flames dripped from Spike's eyes. He watched the beast walk toward, in stumbles, limping, like he'd done before. Drained of power and rage and will, the demon kept at bay, watching, prepared for the end if it was to be that way.

The beast tripped then tripped forward, the colossal spread of its body arching through the air, reaching closer with its shadow to him. Spike didn't bother to back a step, seeing the head descend above him, the chin, smacking, into the ground before him.

It bounced on the stone once, the raw impact discharging the gained momentum and, once the dragon laid still—it did not move again. The crackles of fires kept across its body. Flames gained and rose across its frame. Red burned from the scales, revealing the brown beneath.

Spike didn't have anything to do before the unconscious monster, except to inhale and exhale, the threat finally gone. But there was still a pulse. Heartbeat great enough to vibrate into the stone. What had to be done, was not yet so, and it was his duty to make it complete.

The miniature dragon rose to a backward stumble, none there to hold or catch or help, forcing the last of his fainted strength to move his legs forward. Soreness and aches came with flushing pains across his frame. Purple sludge dimmed into purple scales as the demon began its retreat.

Upon liming around the sword, the knight took its hilt with the phantom digits, stalking it across the ground, dragging a foot behind. Travelling across the jaw of the foe, the head rising like a cliff, Spike paused before the exposed neck—finality visible through the base of the flames.

Spike exhale. One foot in front of the other. Both claws on lifting the handle of the blade, it increasing dramatically in size, arm shrinking and sword glowing, big enough to sever through the tunnel of a neck.

Preparing himself for the execution, as he'd done countless times before, sword points to the sky, its tip reaching higher than the pillars before... coldness washed over him. That nothingness that froze the inner-walls of his husk. Losing the fire within allowed the cold to come in.

The flames travelled from the sword and surged and expanded back within the arm and, in a swing, the sword lodged itself into space beneath the phantom arm. Holding its sharpness against the flames, an arm, lost, given back from rage born of his will.

And that will, burning to freezing, cut it off again.