1 A Scuffle is a Scuffle

October 17th...

I somehow find myself surprised that I decided to write about such a thing at such a time. I can't quite finagle what drove me at this current moment, indeed. Maybe it's a bit of pent-up frustration or reflection. Possibly I just have an urge to release my demons on a fresh sheet of waxed paper. Whatever the case, I'll write it and I'll write well. For posterity's sake, if nothing else.

A Few Years Back...

It'd been a long, long while since our last big conflict. The Mushroom Kingdom and the Plumber himself had grown far more relaxed in this time, almost forgetting my Kingdom entirely as a perennial threat to them. While they flourished, I started to wallow in my own envy and drive to always get back at...

him.

No, this wasn't about the Kingdom anymore, not at all. It was about that red-clad man with an unending will to support his own interests. And, of course, these interests happened to clash with my own, our passions neck and neck, trying to tear each other down. It was as much a psychological battle as it was a physical struggle. However, maybe it was an endeavor too grand and bulky to accomplish, at least for now. I needed something more secretive, a personal yet palpable encounter that didn't comprise of ideology and kidnappings but rather primal hatred grinded out between two foes.

If I could just have one small victory, a toothpick among trees, a pebble covered by boulders, then all that irritation and grievance and failure could be mitigated permanently. I believed that I was able to, essentially, break the man using his own selflessness. Disconnect him from his friends, his Princess, his world, and inject him into an arena where the only goal was to pick your opponent apart. Then, and only then, would he crumble.

There it was. A concrete, simple plan that would bring my psyche to heights it'd never tasted before. To see my own reviled rival beaten down by way of claw and bloodthirst? I salivated in captivation, and went off on my own terms painstakingly amassing a masterpiece of a letter that would fuel as much a fire in him as had been lit in me for nearly my entire life.

"Come to me by the sewer depths"

it wrote,

"and prove your worth to the Mushroom Kingdom."

By the time I came to the rough patch of rusted piping and running water hundreds of feet below, my intrigue in this brawl was too much for me to care about mere presentation anymore. So what if it smells of Dry Bones with blobs of flesh still aimlessly attached, or the fact that the lighting was close to nonexistent? These environmental qualities supplemented the purity of the arena we were to fight in, per se. The lights were the last remnants of civilization down here; the final barrier before barbarism took hold of us both. As they flickered and blinked, they could only give little tactical advantage to each of us. Add a pinch of strategy to the overall mix of chaos, it would.

I must've lingered there for hours, twiddling my thumbs, exercising my last organized thoughts before indulging in the anarchy of combat. I had to get it out of my system lest they creep up on me at the most inopportune time. A few minutes in a little part of me speculated that he wouldn't spring up at all...

And then he came. That eternal 'M' of his barely visible in the dim luminosity. His red-blue complexion was predominantly molded into a blotch of dark hues, but still being entirely recognizable. Even through this sheen of twilight his appearance pursued. It fanned the flames.

Five more minutes elapsed and not a word had been said. We just glanced longingly at our sub-silhouettes with determination, my opposite dropping his hammer from waistpoint onto the muck-ridden floor. I hadn't fully realized yet how he was as unhesitant and resolute in the situation as I.

"Three..."

he babbled.

"Two..."

I groaned.

"One."

We hoarsely eeked out.

Ten more seconds passed. We went for broke.

It began by me scratching at his scarcely-discernible face, trying to lacerate those soft, bulging cheeks of his. He punched at the chin and underbelly, presumably as an attempt to stun me. These attacks proved to be a volatile combination, not being nearly enough to send us flying as it progressed but allowing for a slow, meticulous strain and decay on our bodies, from scar tissue being ever-so conspicuous to individual tooth and nail launching away in a quick, chalky sound. Our movement was so fast that even when significant glimmer shone on our eroding characters it was all in a blur, punches here and there, clawings at the same time, headbutts and kicks along the way. Someway, it was more riotous than I could ever imagine.

This couldn't stay for long. Soon, we entered a new phase of slower strife: our arms tangled on specific body parts as we fiercely tried to force our strength on each other and propel the other into the walls of piping. At a glimpse, I'd have the advantage. I was significantly heavier and bigger than that maleficent lout. Yet, he didn't waver. No matter how much I put on him, I could only move him back a few feet at most. His force of will was turning his scrawnier physique into that of my equal. There was no budge.

For either of us. We kept tugging and tugging on the leg, the knee, the shoulder. Every bone that cracked and skin that pinched only drove us beyond savagery. Every buckle counteracted the opposing buckle. Now, it was a war of attrition, one which we were too deranged at the time to focus on, figuring that it was only a short while before we'd come out on top...

Twenty minutes worth of sand sunk in the hourglass. We felt nothing. The nerve endings were frail and numbness took over. I sat in a pit of liquids against a pipe edge, my eyes whistling, meandering around the landscape not capable of making out anything.

I didn't hear another plunge into sweat and blood. What I did listen to was a sequence of echoing footsteps getting fainter and fainter, irregularly long gaps of time in between each step. A short grin emerged on my face. Then, that grin evaporated into neutrality as jagged colors devolved to blackness.

I awoke in my throne, dazed and in the tatters of obliviousness. I didn't care to even take a gander at my body. There was just a shred of question that emerged from the crevices of my mind that caused further thought to materialize.

"...Was it Really Worth it?"