The Grounds Keeper

Chapter 14 Indomitable Spirit

Theo let go at once as he jumped backward in time to avoid a monstrous shadowy arm lash out in an uppercut from where his own shadow had been moments before. Another hand of shadow was wrapped protectively around the little girl's body. and a third pulled the man from the floor onto unsteady feet "never lay a hand on my kids" these words were spoken clearly but a thick stream of blood and teeth oozed from the man's mouth as he spoke them

A series of wrap like shadows animated themselves around his jaw reconnecting the shattered bones back and holding them together. This guy isn't human Thought Theo as laughed more in shock than joy and flicked the timer back on, he placed a hand over the damaged area of his midsection and with a wince, froze it to numb the searing pain in his rib cage. "let's fight with everything we have Groundskeeper. My ice, your shadows. My spirit vs yours" Theos blood had begun to boil again, this was exciting.

Eathon dropped his shadows and released Sophia, he ruffled her hair affectionately and nodded smiling with his eyes, he looked out the door to see the other children extending their arms at him with determined smiles as Dinko shouted "take our powers uncle, take all our magic and kick his butt!" he waved back and raised a fist making a show of not being hurt. Both of the fighters waited for the little girl to walk to safety before turning to face one another again. Eathon had only this rounds left on the timer before it was too late.

Both men visibly winced and were unsteady as they shuffled forward into each other's range. Neither could afford to take any more damage to their bodies. This match was going to be decided by who could land the cleanest hit in the next 60 seconds, the entire nature of their battle to this point had to shift from dealing damage to avoiding it at all costs. The unknown variable of magic was now in play, and so Eathon had to find a way to adapt his abilities to true close quarters combat for the first time, this was a terrible way to learn.

Theo shot forward at a low angle that shouldn't have been humanly possible, and Eathon had to use an arm of shadow that he manipulated off of a nearby wall to physically shift him from the path of attack, he saw then that Theo had frozen the floor beneath them like an ice skating rink and slid forward into an attack, but now Eathon had the advantage and he shot a full force barrage of fists, his own and 6 others that he summoned from behind his back, the ice on the floor shattered into a shower of shards, but Theo wasn't even there, Eathon felt his body slip as something grabbed his leg and pulled, Theo had somehow sunk into the ice he had created and materialised his arm out of the frosted floor just beneath Eathon, this was nuts, the man could appear from anywhere he had frozen using his power.

Eathon used one of his new arms to push himself up off of the floor to prevent falling prone and crawling forward with two others began to smash all the ice he could find with rapid swings of his shadowy fists, I need to predict his next attack, I can do that by destroying all his available hiding spots till he has no choice but to emerge from the spot I leave untouched in an instant there was only a single square of ice on the floor In front of him, and he tensed as he waited, he had to appear from here, and when he did Eathon had to hit him as hard as he could manage, his heart beat fast as he tensed in preparation, he felt time slow as Theo burst from the floor shooting an uppercut with his arm engulfed in a thick glove of ice, Eathon leaned back allowing the ice to graze past his chin and shot out a flurry of blows with his fists, the form of Theo shattered like glass and from the shards he emerged slamming a fist into Eathon's damaged face, blood erupted through the bandaged jaw and he howled in pain as he grasped his collapsing jaw with both hands. Eathon realised his mistake then, it wasn't a glove made of ice, he had sent up an entire statue of himself, the man had created a literal clone of ice, the fist protruded out first to block Eathon's vision giving the illusion that only his hand was covered but it was a decoy, the entire body was simply a distraction for him to emerge safely and attack from the cover.