Sauron II

I ran deeper into the halls of the coliseum before skidding to a halt, my insect legs scratching at the concrete. Sauron landed at the same time, looking down at me with a smirk.

"Attempting to limit my mobility by forcing me to follow here?" he asked, looking around.

"Nah," I spat out another ball of plasma, hopping onto it. "I just like privacy when I invite a guy to dance with me."

"How charming of you!" Sauron crowed. Then he was in front of me, claws slashing down. I rolled aside to let his claws slash through the stones, leaving five long lines in the gray floor. I tossed the ball I'd made into his face, blowing it up and sending us both back from the explosion. He skidded on his heels, clawing up the floor with his talons, while I bounced and rolled to come to my feet again. Without missing a beat, Sauron let loose with the flames again. I tossed another ball, only to be surprised when the plasma absorbed the flames, growing in size.

"Hooooo?" Sauron hummed, slipping around the plasma to let it detonate on the wall behind him. "It can absorb my flames? And even leaves a mint scent when it explodes?" he noted the hole left by my explosive orb before looking at me. "The outside world has truly changed if beings like you are coming from there."

"Bruh, you have no idea. There's a whole world of weirdness out there," I spat a line of green plasma, and lashed out with it like a whip. He ducked underneath it, spinning aside when I brought the whip back around to snap at his leg. He brought his arms behind him and began dancing between each whip strike.

I somehow controlled the ten-foot-long whip of plasma-like Wonder Woman bringing the heat, spinning, snapping, and slicing the air, as Sauron continued to dodge with the casual cool of a martial arts master fighting against a novice.

"A whole world," Sauron mused to himself, hopping over a spinning plasma whip. "I dismissed the outside world when I came here. But I suppose I was a bit hasty. Perhaps I should-"

He was cut off when the whiplashed around his ankle. He had enough time to blink before I pulled him off his feet with surprising strength, following with letting go of the whip. The plasma pulled in around him melding into a ball that surrounded him from neck to ankle.

"Explode!" I shouted. The ball blew outwards, sending Sauron ricocheting off a wall. I didn't let up, tossing another pair at him, but he didn't let something like getting literally blown up stop him from spinning to his feet and rushing me. I tossed a plasma at him, but he leaped up, gliding forward and wrapping his talons around my body. Screeching like a falcon, he lifted me up in mid-flight and bashed me into a wall, my tough exoskeleton breaking the stones to free us from the arena and enter the streets. With a mighty beat of his wings that sent the dust from our exit flying, he burst up into the night sky, still carrying me in his claws.

"You fight well!" he crowed. I twisted to look down at the ground below, getting further and further away. "But I think I'd like a taste of that power of yours!"

I felt it then. His talons wrapped tight around me, began to absorb my energy. It felt horrible. Like something clawing at my insides, pulling pieces of me out. I screamed, a grating insect sound, and instinctively lashed out a plasma whip, lashing it around his jaw and pulling hard. He let out a muffled shout as his mouth was forced closed, spinning in the air and letting me go in shock. I let go as well, letting the whip wrap around his long jaw entirely before blowing up in a green ball of smoke with incredible force as I fell towards the ground, spinning around and around.

"EXHILARATING!" Sauron shouted above me. "This is what I've longed for! What is the point of having the power of gods if you can't unleash it, test it's limits, to create storms!"

He had a point. Our fight was getting a little insane. The cracks of explosions were erupting everywhere, the sky alight in green, silver, and red as he and I traded blasts blow for blow.

I spat out another ball of plasma, catching it before it could fly out of my reach, then spat out as many as I could up toward Sauron. He ducked and dodged in the air, the sky getting lit up by green explosions as each ball blew up around him.

"Hellzone Grenade!" I shouted, stealing my favorite Namekian's move as I unleashed a final barrage of plasma.

"Not enough!" Sauron crowed. His hands glowed a bright silver that flickered with all the colors of the rainbow before he brought both up over his back then swung them down. Pulsing beams of energy flew from his hands, aiming for me. As planned, I raised the single plasma ball I'd prepared.

I was surprised when, rather than coming for me, the twin beams of energy shot around me. "What the-"

"You were planning to absorb the energy," Sauron said with a smirk. "But how do you deal with this!"

The twin energy beams met just behind me, blowing up in an explosion of silver that sent me flying upwards. I shouted in surprise as I twisted in the air, narrowing my eyes to hold back the pain.

At the same time, Sauron found himself surrounded by a field of plasma balls. He watched them all with amusement, looking down at me as we both fell. "Heh. I think if you had lips you'd be smiling, wouldn't you child?"

"...Fuck yeah," I said.

Then dozens of plasma balls exploded with a thunderous sound that cracked the night sky above the city.

I fell down fast and hard, propelled by the explosion. Below me, a building made of stone came up to meet me. I spun as best as I could to face my back downwards, making it just before I hit the roof.

The roof cratered under me, then crumbled. I fell through it to land on the floor below in a shower of dust. I bounced upwards, then got hit by a falling piece of rock, before I finally lay on my back, looking up at the night sky full of green explosions.

"...ow."

I took in the pain with a weird sort of happiness, if I'm being honest. I'm not a masochist or anything. It's just… I'd been worried I'd never get to fight an alien form again. This. Fighting against a superhuman opponent on equal ground, coming up with creative ways to use some crazy new powers. I loved it. It was good to have the Omnitrix back, for all that I felt fulfilled knowing that I could take on challenges at my weakest.

I lay there watching as the explosions faded through the five-foot wide hole made in the roof by my impact. A shadow swept down from them, streaming smoke. He finally landed at the edge of the hole, looking down at me. "That was-" he cut himself off, coughing. "Ah. That was a big explosion. Are you going to lay there all night, child?"

"I was just taking in the view," I replied casually. "You know, for someone who literally enslaved people and forced them to fight in death battles, you're a real friendly guy."

Sauron smiled down at me, not moving as I rolled over to my stomach, spitting out a ball to hop onto. "I am finding myself in a bit of a good mood. Still, I do think manners are important."

"You should teach Stend that, then. Because he's an asshole… You know. I think he was planning to dethrone you."

I'd figured that out a while ago. Stend's obsession with obtaining knowledge, the fact he was equipping his own men with Damascus steel while no other guards had it, the dissatisfaction he showed with how much Sauron hadn't shared about the outside world. Stend hated Sauron. He wanted him out of the way, wanted to replace him and steal more knowledge, to rise up.

"He does, doesn't he?" Sauron sighed. "But that is simply the way with the truly ambitious. You try to feed their greed, but it's never enough. I was hoping he'd try his revolt later in the year. It would be a good test for my Saur-Lord's, fighting a civil war! After all, it is a testament to a father when his children show the will to surpass him!" he said in that hammy as hell voice of his.

I stared up at him. "You'd just… let a civil war happen?"

"Yes and no. I would try to stop it beforehand, first through peace, then through violence. But if it happens, it would be a learning opportunity. I want my city to grow, to become a civilization of its own, fighting the battles both literal and philosophical that all other societies must," Sauron looked around the city. "But that has nothing to do with our battle. Now, Dial. Shall we continue?"

"...Yeah."

I fired immediately upwards, the roof exploding under him. He somersaulted back, dodging my next blasts, then firing silver beams of energy at the roof, trying to force the whole thing to fall on top of me. I spun in a circle on the ball I was standing on, spitting out plasma as I pivoted in place, the plasma orbs rolling outward and picking up debris as it fell to the ground. I exploded the orb under me, letting it propel me out of the hole. The orbs I'd unleashed blew apart as well, turning the top floor of the building we'd been fighting on to nothingness. That's the nice thing about Ball Weevil orbs. They don't leave rubble but instead clean it up.

I landed on another rooftop and kicked more orbs at Sauron, who dodged the three I launched before he was on top of me. He blasted me with a single energy beam before I could block it with a plasma orb. I took the painful hit to my stomach, launching an orb out that hit him in the chest as well.

We both went flying back, landing on opposite buildings and facing each other. I was breathing hard, trying to keep my eyes on him. We were both covered in scorch marks and bruises. While I didn't have bones in my form, I was pretty sure every muscle inside me was a little tense.

"...You're hard to kill," Sauron mused, chuckling just a bit. "This form you have taken is quite the tough one!"

I thought of Diamondhead, Four Arms, Rath, all of my tougher aliens. "You have no idea."

"I suppose I don't," Sauron cocked his head to the side. "I must ask, child. Are you like me? A human forced by circumstance in a powerful form? Or are you… No, if you were a muta&*#$!-"

The rest of what he said was a blinding screech of noise as my head exploded. I screamed in pain, shocked at the suddenness. What the fuck!? Is this what his brainwashing felt like? I'd made sure not to really look him in the eyes, why was this happening!?

I shook my head, struggling to keep my eyes open. But when I looked back at Sauron, he seemed as surprised as I was.

Then his face cleared with realization. "Ah, my old friend… even now, you…"

"W-What did you do to me?" I struggled to say.

Sauron shook his head. "I did nothing. It isn't my secret to tell. But tell me, how do you know my human name?"

"...I read it on the internet," I forced out as the headache suddenly disappeared. For a moment, I felt guilty horror in my mind, but that faded as well, which surprised the hell out of me.

"Hm," Sauron cocked his head to the side. "The internet? I suppose it became pretty big while I was here. I'll have to visit the mainland when I'm finished here."

"You won't be able to do that without being in a cell," I growled, annoyed at the pain in my head.

"Oh?" Sauron chuckled. "I suppose we're both being overconfident, aren't we!"

"Overconfidence is just confidence after you win," I returned. As I spoke, a purple light in the sky behind Sauron flashed. "Besides. I know two things you don't."

Sauron, still chuckling, kept trying to meet my eyes, which I kept dodging. "I suppose that statement is the beginning of a very surprising development in this fight of ours? Very well!" he tapped his chest with his fist. "Show me those two things!"

"I think I'll let them speak for themselves," I spat.

From out of the sky, a silver streak fell. Sauron, reacting faster than I could believe, desperately leaped to his right. A fist of vibranium hit the roof where he'd been standing, shattering the roof with ease. Without stopping, the silver figure spun around to punch at him again, Sauron flipped back before the roof fell under him from the first blow. Then his eyes widened when a purple beam of energy came down, the Pterosaur-man countering it with his own silver beams of energy to explode just in front of him. He flew up and hovered in the air to dodge the plasma balls I launched at him, the green orbs finishing off the section of roof he'd been standing on.

I landed at the same time as my friends did.

Creel, standing in his full vibranium form, ripped his shirt off, glaring at Sauron. "Huh. I know X said this guy would look like a dinosaur-man, but he really does look weird," he clenched his fist with a metal on metal squeal accompanying it.

Fantasma floated down to my right, landing on her high heels with elegance and grace. "Not necessarily strange, Mr. Creel. We have seen many wondrous things. This man is simply yet one more."

"That's the nice thing about being an Avenger," I snarled as much as my adorable bug from could. "You see a lot of cool shit."

If this were an anime, there would be three panels showing Creel, myself, and Fantasma in a close-up of our faces.

Sauron quirked an eyebrow. "Well! It seems things have gotten dangerous for me!"

"Fuck yeah," Creel sped forward, followed by myself on a green plasma orb and Fantasma, who twirled up into the sky.

"Good to have you guys back!" I said before we all unleashed hell once more, Sauron letting loose as well.