54***Crazy Thoughts

"Where... the heck... am I?" I asked myself out loud as I looked around my surroundings wide eyed, as if I've never been here this whole time!

'Wait, hold up! That was a dumb question. I already know where I am. I'm still in that secret room fighting Sher.' I corrected in my head, the question feeling wrong now that I said it out loud.

'Then, who...? No not that. When...? No, not that either. Why...? Still doesn't feel right." I felt like my mind was somewhere else and I was finally called back, but I just couldn't put a finger on why?

"Do not listen to Sher, man of the Shield." The voice that was coaxing me came back, just as soft, just as sweet, just as friendly. Only difference was, this time I could hear it... like actually hear it!

Before, it felt more like a lullaby, floating in and out of my head in a warm embrace. But now, I can hear each decibel, feel each syllable, almost pronounce the accent the voice was using, but most importantly I could feel it wrapping around me, embracing me more like a seductive mistress. It felt so real, that if my eyes were closed, I would've thought that real hands were wrapped around me!!! And there was one thing I could tell distinctly...

...they were cold.

*Ping*

*Boom!!!*

I ducked without even thinking, an Explosion setting off over my head to shoot it down faster!!!

'What the... oh right, I forgot about that.' I thought to myself as I remembered all to late that I was still in a fight.

"Oh? So you still had this much in you foul blood? I see that she hasn't overtaken your mind yet." Sher cracked in as my pulse settled from from the adrenaline and I saw his tail buried cleanly in the wall I was in!!! In flew through so cleanly, there wasn't even a crack in the surrounding area!!!! I could have sworn I saw smoke come off of it for a second!!!!!!

"You see? This one is powerful. You will need your true power to stop her! Now come!!! Embrace your true si.."

"Listen Lady." I started, cutting her off. "That sounds like a tempting proposal, but I've seen enough anime to know when not to mess with crazy." I stood up on wobbly feet, my stats showing I got hit with Recoil and Confusion. My luck setting of a bomb at my head!

"And besides," I continued, grabbing on the still out-stretched tail, "you're scary. So if you'll excuse me, I'll take my chances with the TUUUURRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTLLLLLLLLLLEEEE..." I was promptly whipped strait off my feet and into the air as Sher retracted his tail at bullet speeds!!!!

I could only flail for a bit as I was shot at near sound speed into the nearest wall!!!

"You'll regret not taking my offer." The voice stated more than said. "You walk The Way of the Shield with only Unarmed Arts on your side. You won't make it far." It continued.

"... True..." I said with a bit of of a pause, "Eh, I'll figure something out." I decided, checking my inventory and equipping my last shield, a Stone Shield.

"I mean after all,"

*Ping*

*Boom*

*Dodge*

"I never planned on getting strong to begin with."

I swung around and started using Rocket to blast around.... and dodge more incoming fire!!!!

'That being said, how am I supposed to beat this thing?' I thought to myself before having to blast up and around a speedy Tail Whip.

'Alright, think! You can do this!!! All those hours of playing games and analyzing the juice out of them couldn't be for nothing!!!' I shouted to my mind while I fed some Improv. essence into my head and started sorting.

*Whip*

*Ping*

"Wow!!!! I shouted in surprise as I made a hard left to the walls do dodge an incoming attack and started running a circle around him!

'He's fast! Stupid fast!!!' I thought to myself as I ran some Body Reinforcement essence to all the other parts of my body except for my arms, tanking my essence to a third and keeping it their as the intake fought with the Paladin Poppies in a serious tug-of-war over my stores!

Sher seemed to be getting impatient with me now that I'm taking too long to kill, and amped up the rate of fire from 3 strikes a second to 10, keeping me occupied just staying alive!

'Killing him isn't an option. He's way to high leveled for that!' I thought to myself, remembering how even when I was all up in his face with all I got, I could only get it down by 1%!!!

'And I don't have much in the way of items.' I continued, thinking back to when I looked at my inventory and found it half-full, but with nothing that I can use within a split of a split second!

'The only way I can think off is knocking him over! But he's way to heavy for me to do that!!!!' I thought to myself in frustration as I twisted ducked and dodged with all my might, the few that grazed me dragging my life into the mud before the Glowstalk healed me right back up.

The Glowstalk was also taking care of the my Stamina as well, so I'm good for now, but my Fatigue is still building up!!! It won't be long before I get paralyzed, so I have to make this quick!!!

'But how?!' I thought in destress, rattling my brain for one small piece of hope! Then something hit me!

"Wait a minute!" I said to myself as I remembered an anime I watched as a kid. In it, they were trying to defeat this guy's fighting bot, but it was way to heavy to get knocked over normally. The MC had to move a lot faster (about 4x faster if I remember correctly) before they could finally do it!

'But I'm moving at top speed and and I still can't do anything more than annoy him!!! How am I supposed to...'

"ACK!!!!" I cried out as I felt my right leg go flying!!! I tripped and tumbled within the amount of time it took Sher to retract and shoot his Tail Whip at me again!!!

*Ping*

'S***... I'm going to die...' Was the only thing that was in my mind as I closed my eyes to reside to my fate...

Then I saw Angus looking at me! And she looked pissed.

"AHH!!!" I shouted in surprise and terror as I reflexively sent too Explosions from my palm and spun out of the way!

'I... I'm alive?!! How the..."

*Ping*

This time I didn't close my eyes, worried about seeing Angus' scary angry face behind my eyelids again!

My leg grew back by now and I used both Rocket and Jet Booster and rolled out of his line of fire!

'HOW THE HECK AM I DODGING THIS!!!!' I shouted in my mind, my body barreling along like a log on a sugar rush!!!

'Rolling like a log. Kinda reminds me of that one physics question on a rolling log.' For some reason, this situation had me remembering school! If my last moments are like this, then I have lived a very sad life!!!

'Now that I think about it, I did learn something about acceleration increasing by spinning in Physics class didn't I?' And that's when I got the craziest idea of all time!!!

'Welp, it's do or die by now, so why not!' I just decided to say heck and be done with it!

I jumped to my feet, started twirling around with my initial momentum, and then stretched my right arm out.

'Here's to hoping this works!' I gave one final prayer before pulling the trigger!