Not compared to Pootang, but yeah, that's probably still somewhat true, Underseen.
Chapter Fifty-four
The five battling RAFians paused in their efforts against Pootang, as they saw a new figure slowly emerging over the horizon. Pootang, saw the figure, too. He seemed to deflate slightly for a moment, some of his fury burning itself out, as he witnessed something that struck fear deep within his animal heart. After that momentary pause, though, he seemed to swallow the fear, and angrily roared a challenge to the new intruder.
"They did it!" Phoenix shouted triumphantly, pumping a fist into the air, as he realized what the giant figure must be. The Champion! The one thing who could destroy Pootang. RAF's last hope.
That last thought quelled Phoenix's enthusiasm somewhat, as he realized that this battle, win or lose, would determine the ultimate fate of RAF itself.
The RAFians used the distraction provided by the Champion to move quickly out of Pootang's range. There, on the sidelines, some of the other RAFians who had stayed out of the battle to write the Champion, had already gathered. Phoenix gave a sigh of relief when he spotted Seal bounding along towards the back of the crowd.
Blue, meanwhile, tilted his head incredulously at someone else in the group. Was that Underseen, with a box of
popcorn? Blue shook his head and laughed, deciding that he wasn't really surprised. He quickly flew over and said hello, hoping Underseen would share.
As the Champion and Pootang closed the distance between one another, a few RAFians thought they could hear a steady rhythmic background beat, like an electric guitar. It was quiet, hardly there if you weren't paying attention to it, but, yes, now the first beat was joined by a second electric guitar, playing staccato chords over the first.
Bear laughed out loud as he realized what was going on. "Is that Eye of the Tiger?" he said wonderingly. "Richard, are you
seriously playing Eye of the Tiger on your computer right now?"
Richard gave Bear a brief, coy smile, but didn't give any answer beyond that, all of his focus now on the Champion and the looming battle.
With a resounding roar, the two titans clashed. Though the two combatants towered over the RAFians, something about the way they attacked one another didn't
feel huge. Huge things, creatures or objects or machines, were supposed to be ponderous and slow. But these two beings, they moved the way something a hundredth their size should move. Within a flash, a fraction of an instant, they were upon each other.
Pootang struck first, eagerly and frantically clawing and biting into the first prey that wasn't running away from him. His anger, finally having a definite target, was breathtaking in its raw fury. But where he bit and clawed, the Champion seemed to reflect the green color of Parker's armor, and he simply shrugged off the hits.
Then, in an action that was delayed but not slow, the Champion struck. He punched Pootang, Chuck Norris's fist and Super Rachel's claws and the knight-like entity's blade seeming to merge into one, bludgeoning and slicing and stabbing all at once. A spray of crimson and yellow-green erupted from the wound, like a mist, as Pootang screamed in pain and white-hot rage. The wound was already sealing itself, almost as soon as it had formed.
The Champion had tried to back off, to try to shield himself, but Pootang's acid blood had left the Champion damaged, too. Tiny holes had been eaten through the armor, which leaked blood. But the armor soon began to repair itself, like a living thing.
Realizing the true strength of his foe, Pootang's mouth began to glow red, as the monster charged his most formidable weapon. After a moment's hesitation, the Champion delivered a second punch, this one to Pootang's mouth. The laser started to disperse, but not before Pootang bit down on the Champion's hand, burning quickly through the Spartan armor with the intensity of the laser concentrated within that enclosed space. When the Champion withdrew, he no longer had a right hand at all.
The Champion raised his other hand, and from it issued a greenish glow. The Champion's own laser, though weaker than Pootang's, didn't need to charge. The smell of burning fur and flesh permeated the forum, the sizzling scar encircling Pootang's shoulder.
Promisingly, the health bar above Pootang's head was no longer all green. It showed a blurred divide rather than a clear line between green and red, as though each of Pootang's forms now held onto a different level of health. But the average seemed to be hovering at about three-quarters now. The green was already rising again, as the burns seemed to shrink, leaving behind healthy fur where they receded.
The Champion couldn't afford to wait for Pootang to recover. He spun, throwing all his weight into a powerful roundhouse kick, which seemed to create a shock-wave like an earthquake that knocked Pootang off-balance. The beast roared in fury. But, if you were looking carefully, which several RAFians were, you could see that one of his less-threatening forms had just blinked out of existence.
It was working! The RAFians who had seen it, high-fived one another as they whooped with joy. The creature, although powerful, was
not unkillable.
All of the battle thus far had happened within the space of a few short seconds. Richard couldn't even afford the time to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He just kept typing, as droplets of perspiration dripped onto the keyboard.
He was reading and writing as fast as he knew how. He had about five or six windows open, spaced out across the screen, so he could see Pootang's reactions as well as the RAFians' thoughts. Punching the mouth, that had been Parker's idea, which Richard had quickly relayed to the Champion. He had decided that typing was faster than copying and pasting if he could type fast enough. The roundhouse kick, that was Bear.
Richard barely heard the individual strokes of keys as he tapped away at the keyboard, his movements blurring together into almost a continuous hum. It was all he could do to keep up, when every stroke of his keyboard was effortlessly matched by Pootang. It was an unmatched fight, in that sense. Pootang had only to act out the same actions that Richard had to describe.
But Pootang was designed without a purpose. No purpose except raw unbridled chaos and fear. The Champion's purpose, on the other hand, had been carefully honed by every thought that went into him. That was the edge.
Pootang swiped its razor-sharp claws at the Champion, who responded by striking with his Andalite blade. But the Champion wasn't fast enough, and Pootang had already struck, the claws screeching across the metal like nails on a chalkboard, but leaving little more than superficial damage. Pootang's momentum brought him out of the way of the blade, and the Champion missed.
Pootang took the opportunity to bite the Champion's right shoulder from behind. His teeth found purchase within a tiny chink in the armor. Although his fangs still didn't quite penetrate, he was able to grip, and didn't let go. He ground his teeth against the armor, sawing back and forth like he was trying to gnaw through the shield, as the Champion helplessly fought against his bulldog grip.
There was a reddish glow as Pootang charged his laser, at point-blank range. There was nothing the Champion could do to stop him. He tried to reach behind himself, but Pootang was much too quick for that.
The explosion threw both of them backward, and the Champion's arm went flying, detached from the shoulder. Pootang had also taken damage, the laser having reflected back at him and burned away the left half of his face, burns so bad you could see white bone through the charred-black skin.
One of the Champion's forms, the iron-forged robotic creature, flickered and went out. But another of Pootang's forms had done the same.
At some point Richard had stopped seeing words on a screen, and began to see action and reaction as actual images in his mind. Almost as though he was actually seeing the battle itself. He knew that was impossible, but that was what it felt like. Like the tenuous connection he held with his forum was strengthening, allowing him to transcend the mere written words. Words that were windows into a whole new reality.
But would it be enough? Was it enough to see a world with his mind, that he would never be able to see with his eyes?
Pootang, furious, as though the damage done by his own laser had somehow been the Champion's fault, suddenly ran at his opponent, like a charging rhinoceros. There was no time to dodge out of the way.
With an impact that sent tremors through nearby buildings, the two titans collided. The Champion was sent sprawling by the sheer reckless force of the collision. He found himself on his back, looking up at a bright red light that seemed to fill his entire field of vision.
