Inner turmoil

This battle may have looked comical from a distance. The childish Machia faced off and wrestled against the three remaining fouls. But the reality was not so sweet. The fight was bloody, vile and desperate. 

Sharp teeth, smitten with spittle, gleamed from behind as it jumped. Whilst the other two had distracted him, the fiend had circled around, leaping, then ripping into his shoulder, tearing a chunk out. These were not idle, stupid animals but a collective of predators, and it showed.

The crazed foul was mounted on his back, grasping tightly onto Machia's flesh as he attempted to shake it off him desperately. But the bastard was not easily perturbed. With a mouthful of his flesh, it bared its bloodied razor canines at him in defiance. 

Machia finally reached the creature with a stubby arm and yanked it off. It took another chunk of muscle and flesh with it, causing him to yell. Rather than release it amid the pain, he slammed it into the ground and pounced on it. Pinning it down with his weight, the mule snapped at his hands, its snout filled with rows of jagged, bloodied teeth, and spittle dripped across his fingers. Taking advantage of this, Machia pried its mouth open and pulled. 

The remaining two foals leapt at him, but he ignored their feeble assault gleefully as he pried the pinned target's snout wider. Tugging harder and harder, an inevitable wretched screech erupted as the beast's jaw gave way. It snapped open, splitting its snout gruesomely. 

It was dead.

Without their violent counterpart, the rest would be easy.

The smallest two foals cautiously bounded away from Machia once he turned his back. Taking turns, they surrounded and lunged at him, but it was only a matter of time before one got caught. Machia grabbed its head arrogantly. He wasted no time crushing it into the ground with repeated slams. With its skull fractured, it soon vanished into thin air as if it had never existed. 

The final mule stared despondently at Machia and its fallen comrades. He felt the strange sensation that this one, was different. In all likelihood, it was the leader. Upon closer inspection, it appeared also to be the weakest and smallest. Machia wasted no time in dragging his worn-out state towards it, but the creature did not flee. 

With an emotionless gaze, it watched Machia approach unmoving. Taking a moment to marvel at the creature's appearance, Machia halted. Towering over the creature, layered with dreadful wounds, he grinned. As if spurred on by his grin, the small figure relaxed. In an expression of submission, it fell to the floor, its small legs sprawled to its side helplessly. 

Machia reached out with a curious, wretched smirk and demeaningly patted its head. The shadow then melted, and it became his own.

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"Now I remember, I was always sceptical of you lot. Remember what happened last time? If I beat you again, I bet I'll get something good. Won't I?"

It was crowded. The throne room was filled with the daunting size of four enormous, daunting black stallions. Their soulless white gaze was concentrated on only one person as they stood around, surrounding him. With teeth jagged and sharp, unsuitable for any herbivore, they awaited patiently as their cunning pale eyes closed in. 

'Our strength mirrors yours, and so we have grown too. You can't win this time, injured as you are.'

Brief emotionless words curiously entered Machia's mind. The smallest of the creatures, the one in control, approached and towered over Machia. Rather than bear rows of jagged malicious fangs like its allies, it approached and leered with great intrigue. 

"So you really can talk? Inside my head at that. Well, now that you've finally started talking after all this time, would you care to explain how all this works? Is it just me who has to deal with this sort of thing? What about the other Blessed?

"They are not our concern, only you. Submit, to my control, host."

Lowering its head towards Machia, it demeaningly looked down on him from its overwhelming stature. In those pale eyes devoid of feeling, a glimmer of something set them apart from the others. Arrogance. An overbearing grudge, one a decade old, lit the smallest of fires deep in those pale void pupils. 

Noticing this, Machia rose to his feet from his throne.

'I'm saved'

With that look of challenge shoved towards his face, he could forget everything that had happened. What might happen to the kingdom or to Amelia? The opportunity to increase his power, to put his shadows back under his authority, back in their place. It filled him with ecstatic desire. Finally, he felt in control. 

As the arrogant, glowering beast opened its mouth to speak once more, Machia's single blood-ridden hand shot out. With this tiny appendage, he grasped the creature's snout and slammed it into the ground. As the creature's head struck the ground, stunned, Machia looked down on it with an eager grimace. It stared back at him with shock but, most of all, hatred. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

Two gigantic snouts snapped at him from behind, eager to tear him apart. Machia jumped forward, avoiding the barrage of enormous snapping teeth. From his side a third steed desperately scrambled across the floor towards him, knocking over its ally as it crushed the ground below it. The corpses, the concrete ground, all became a churned, trampled mess.

The beast's rampage reached Machia before he could land, dodging, was impossible. He didn't have the strength to grapple with only a single hand either, so instead, he punched the nose protruding from its muzzle. 

The creature was knocked back into the stage, foam dripped from its maw as it reeled from the blow. In a frenzy, it righted itself onto its hind legs. With vengeful pale eyes, it rabidly sprinted back towards Machia. He just had the chance to notice the smallest of the assembled creatures begin circling around him, leering. 

His access to his abilities had been stripped from him. This proved it, these things. They were the source of his strength. Reliant on his physical might alone, Machia acknowledged he'd have to give it his all. So he did his best and pretended.

'And with only one arm, talk about a handicap. Well, I better make the most of it.'

Again, he turned his back to the small circling steed and raised a defiant hand. The most feverish of the creatures dove at Machia. Foam and spittle erupted from the creature's jaw more than ever as it aimed for him. Machia jumped in the air and kicked it. The foot that struck it radiated with unimaginable strength. It was sent sprawling into its allies, who carelessly knocked their unruly brother out of their way as they rushed towards Machia. 

The largest of the steeds reared its front legs, kicking at Machia with shocking speed as it dragged and ripped open the castle ceiling with its head. Machia cautiously bobbed his head, then turned his body sideways, dodging the thick black hooves elegantly. Taking advantage of his small size, he was able to comfortably avoid the blows... until he didn't. 

The second shadow had followed closely behind in its sibling's wake and struck with its rear legs. Machia noticed it but did not dodge, choosing instead to raise his hand, blocking the blow with his palm. He may have been stronger, but even his might paled in comparison to the incredible difference in size and mass between them. A terrible imprint now crudely marked his wounded hand as he was launched backwards. 

There, waiting in the darkest corner of the room, was the leader. Rearing its head out of the darkness, it opened its jaw wide. Though it had hidden its deadly teeth, well, it was now clear that, like the others, it was armed with dagger-like canines it had concealed. It's awaiting maw, prepared to crush Machia with its greatest weapon in an instant. 

Machia flew back into its mouth, and the instant it did so, the creature's jaw slammed tightly shut, sealing his fate. Or so it thought. Rather than be crushed, Machia held its mouth open with a single hand. In an awkward squat, he raised the creature's jaw as a single tooth penetrated his one good hand. Terrified by the dangerous man in its maw, the creature shook its head around and yelped as the others watched on helplessly.

All of a sudden, unprepared, Machia released his hold. Before it's mouth could crush him, a hand pierced straight through the creature's snout. 

It crumpled to the ground with a whimper. Defeated, shadows circled inside the creature's jaw, hidden from view. Machia stepped out of the beast's mouth with a renewed grin. Indifferent to their leader's demise, the creatures quickly lunged at Machia as his one good hand hung loosely at his side. 

"You said your strength mirrors mine. Well, it seems my theory was correct. Not anymore, it doesn't."

Completely unfazed by their charge, Machia snickered. Ducking under the snout of the rabid shadow, a black sword stabbed into the creature's muzzle from below. Its rabid pale eyes widened and then slowly closed. Its frenzy-fevered state ended abruptly, and it collapsed, as a tranquil, still corpse beneath Machia's feet. 

His powers had returned.