Chapter 2002: The Scale of a Foe - Part 7
To defeat the likes of the Emersons, when it was impossible for Oliver, he had needed to confront it – but that creature was always stronger than Oliver. He was never its equal. He was always beneath it, and would never be able to make it beyond it.
It was a great deceiver. It knew every thought that went on in Oliver’s head, all his motivations. And so, to trick it, Oliver had needed to trick himself. That strange dance had done, confusing all his men, when he declared his lack of intentions, and befuddled his enemy. It was never the outside world that he was dealing with, but the great Hydra that had grown up inside Oliver’s heart.
Now, it had changed. That creature was no longer possible to ignore. Ever since Tiberius, that creature poured into every waking moment of Oliver’s day. It was that great anxiety and fear of the future that interrupted him in every moment of weakness and guided all his decisions. It was the cause behind his corruption, for indeed, he wasn’t wrong. The creature’s hand was in all things, it stained and poisoned all that Oliver did. For now it had been allowed free.
Somehow... Somehow... some part of Oliver did not think that was a bad thing.
Fire came rocketing past Oliver’s shoulder, as he dived out of the way, his delight growing. The Hydra head clomped its mouth closed, and gnashed its teeth, drawing a long snake-like tongue across its lips, as if the taste of the flame it had spat had been that delicious.
It grew more ridiculous to face, that Hydra. Oliver sprang to the left, as another head opened wide, and it sent a great globule of acid pouring down upon him like rain. If even a single drop touched him, it would have melted his skin, as it now melted the ground – and indeed, though none could see exactly why it was, that ground around Oliver, where he fought that invisible foe was well and truly melted. Only upon the most rigorous of investigations would they have found the true monster that had panickedly let that shot off, doing that acidic damage to rock and snow, before scurrying away.
Faster, and faster the two went at it. Oliver skirted forward, slashing like a whirlwind. Two heads in one chop, he launched himself up high, as if he was flying, rather than just jumping, and brought two heads the size of boulders collapsing to the ground with him.
The creature had stopped its pretending. It was rarer now that it tried to camouflage itself as something that it was not. It seemed to realize that Oliver could see through it now. Only when there was a shift in Oliver’s heart, away from the battle in front of him, did the creature try it with a smile, and almost trick him.
Each time, however, Oliver would quickly catch on, feeling the weakness grow in himself, and he’d flash the creature an accusing smile. "I know what you’re up to, you menace. You will not trick me with this forever."
A constant thought in his head, that perhaps he had lost his mind, and the creature enjoyed playing on that thought most of all. It warped the world around Oliver, turning trees to giant mushrooms – that which no other observer could see – and made the snow run like a giant green river. An illusion, Oliver knew it to be, yet for a few moments, he would find himself tricked.
He could allow no other thought in his head when fighting it, for the terror would grow, quicker than weeds in spring. If there were any thought at all, especially of the future, he would find himself on the back foot.
The more he did battle with it, the more those thoughts faded, and the only thing Oliver saw in front of him was the creature itself. And when he did that, he was walking a beautiful tightrope. He knew one slight misstep would mean his life, and somehow, he delighted in that.
The feeling of the sword in his hand, the might of a foe that knew him better than anyone else – delight welled up in him.
Naturally, he hated the creature that was in front of him. For it was the very manifestation of all the suffering he had endured in the years. And it attempted to corrupt all that he did, even now. But the battle that the two of them fought together, that was a different thing. He could not hate that. Nor did he exactly wish for it to end.
"I’m stronger than you now," he realized, the more he fought it, the more he held the upper hand. "Ever since the battle with the Emersons, I’ve been stronger than you."
The Hydra roared its rage at that, and bathed the ground where Oliver stood in flame, from three different heads, but Oliver’s fleeting laughter was all that it caught, as he pounced away, rushing through the trees, towards its leg, slicing away at it, and then leaping to cut off another head.
Immense freedom in that. No, beyond freedom, beyond purity, beyond progress – it was magic. That was what the blood of that creature was. Every time Oliver wounded it, what spilled out was that which was beyond his expectation. That which was beyond everything that he longed for.
Finally, did he feel himself hit upon the truth of it. The dread he felt, the weakness, the corruption, the fear. He felt a lesser man that he ever had, but it mattered not. They too were illusions that he continually needed to keep on top of. For the Hydra was angry. Oliver had slipped past it, crossing a Boundary within himself that no Fragment could claim possession of, and the creature, in seeing it, could not let it go. For Oliver’s existence was a torture to it. He that had survived, and made his way past it – it was an insult to all that suffering that he had enjoyed. It willed him towards corruption.
At the same time, however, did it offer Oliver unbelievable strength. A double edged sword. A Hydra whose heads always grew back, whose wounds always healed. Oliver was ever so slightly stronger than it, he knew, but he also did not find that he could defeat it in a single night.