"In time you will see the beauty of my shikigami," Stitch says, cold and sterilized. His hand rubbed across his body. "The outcome will be painless."
Cerebella starts moving, its movement janky, and unnatural. Pointing it's decaying finger directly at the plague doctor. A thin black barbed substance shoots out its decaying fingernail, piercing through Azrael's arm. Turning his head, the slimy substance dissipates into the air.
Suddenly Azrael's arm squirms and convulses as if something is developing, growing, and moving. Sharp stabbing pain shoots out inside of the arm tissue, and an itchy sensation quickly envelops the plague doctor.
"Ahh!" Azrael screams, clenching his arm.
"There's no escape from the design that I've wrought for you," Stitch taunts, rushing forward. He holds the scalpel like an ice pick, he brings it down with exact, surgical precision. Azrael attempts to lift his daggers, but an unpleasant sensation grips his arm.
Stitch laughs, his crescent blade carving through the air, slicing through Azrael's body. Blood sprays out like a birthday surprise. Stumbling back, Azrael looks on as Stitch builds on the pressure. Spinning in a slicing arc, scalpel flashing in the light, he slashes the plague doctor like a turkey.
Fighting through the pain, Azrael swings his dagger but Cerebella's rotten hand protects Stitch.
What did he do? Azrael questions, blocking the scalpel with his dagger. Where have I learned of such similar symptoms?
The glass lenses glare into the mad surgeon's pupils.
*Botflies. They lay their eggs using blood-sucking insects like mosquitoes or leeches. As the carrier bites into their host, it transmits the egg. Stimulated by the body heat, the eggs will hatch and burrow deep into the skin.*
Azrael's dagger caught the attack, with bursts of sparks. Steel dances around the candle-light room. With his eyes narrowing with focus, Stitch feinted left then struck true to the right. Azrael blocks.
The surgeon extends his leg, side-stepping around his opponent.
A cigar-shaped invader latches into the muscles of the plague doctor's forearm, slowly feeding on the living tissue. Azrael grits, momentarily distracted.
"I assure you that pain is purely mental," Stitch assures, jabbing the blade into Azrael's body. "That doesn't mean it's not real though."
Azrael steadies himself, looking at his arm. He couldn't tell if what he was feeling were real or not.
"Formication," Stitch explains, studying the reflection of his scalpel. "Do you feel it? Crawling? Botfly larvae. Eating. Makes doctors lose sleep. Horrible parasite."
Azrael gaze drops, noticing he's subconsciously scratching his forearm. The nail digging deeper than the last.
"Parasites–imagined ones–can drive people to obsession, self-harm, psychosis," Stitch describes in explicit detail. Cerebella's arms slowly caressing his messy black hair. "Not even the most trained insect manipulators would train these bugs."
Tiny insects dart in and out of Azrael's vision, and the faint sound of a fly trapped in his head rings with a soft buzz. Skin tightened. Something felt like something was going to burst. From underneath.
Gripping his daggers, Azrael charges forward, slashing low and quick. Cerebella's rotten fingers protect Stitch. Her finger twisted, turning defense into offense. Flicking her finger, Azrael's body launches into the air, a figure flipping over itself.
Spinning his dagger, it turns into a fiery wheel of light. Extending his arm forward, Azrael fires an arrow of pure flames at the mad surgeon. It carves through the air, piercing through and slicing Cerebella's arm clean off.
Stitch felt his arm crack, matching where Cerebella lost her appendage. Her arm writhes, trying to crawl back to her master.
Landing hard on the floor, Azrael leaps into the distance, blade extended. Grasping his scalpel, Stitch's arm whips through the air, too fast to follow.
Sliding his arm underneath Stitch's, Azrael pushes it to the side, pulling the surgeon off balance. With a swift step, he drove his blade forward. Skin cramps. A grunt escapes the beaked mask.
Stumbling to his feet, he narrowly misses Stitch's head–slicing his cheek. Pulling out his sutures, Stitch repairs the wound at blinding speeds, healing with a bright golden light. Clenching his weapon tighter, he eviscerates Azrael's arm–cutting the tendons and nerves.
The thin thread pierces through the plague doctor's arm, wrapping around the areas that were sliced altogether. Pulling the thread, Azrael's arm is sent crashing to the unforgiving floor. The needle passes through the skin, and cement, knots positioned away from the wound's edges.
In a blinding light, the procedure has finished.
Turning his head, Azrael sees his arm now melded and stitched to the floor below. No more how hard he tried to rip his arm off the floor, it wouldn't budge. He truly has become a pinned insect. A boot whips from behind, cracking the plague doctor's neck.
"Where is the Covenant?" Stitch barks, whipping his foot back and forth. "For a useless mass of flesh, you know where he is."
"Why would I ever?" Azrael cuts back. A boot roared in his ear, shattering the still air, an explosion of rage and raw momentum.
"YOU DISGUST ME!" Stitch screams, looming over his opponent. He bends down on his knees, repeatedly pressing his finger alongside his temple. "Maybe I should bash. Bash. Bash your brains out for a full lobotomy to get an answer."
"Not much of a surgeon, are you?" Azrael cheekily taunts, subtly picking up a rock.
"Never completed med school," Stitch replies, playing along with Azrael's game.
"So you are not even a surgeon?" Azrael's glass lens stared directly at his opponent. "Kind of pathetic if you ask me. Also very illegal."
Stitch's eyes twitch. For a heartbeat, everything goes silent.
"I audited for one year!" he screeches, flailing his arms around. "They really said 'I lacked bedside manners!'"
"But you do," Azrael calmly states.
The surgeon screams again–less of rage, more like a toddler having a tantrum in the cookie aisle. Swiping his arm, Azrael points his left arm towards Stitch. A flaming arrowhead engulfed his fingertip.
It doesn't scream.
It hisses.
In a split second–it flew like a whispering curse, unseen until it landed.
Taking out a piece of Stitch's side, he collapses onto the cold floor below. The shikigami reacted violently, phasing in and out of existence. Its body shudders and nearly collapses in on itself.
Swinging in a wide arc, Azrael severs his tether to the floor–his arm. The appendage regenerates itself, bone spirals inward, muscle knitting like a serpent, skin rewrapping like a cloak.
"That solves the parasite problem," Azrael mutters, looking over his new arm. He slowly taps his old arm with his foot, the arm barely moving. "Hmm, it's stuck very well."
With a violent twist, Cerebella's fingers whirled, launching a surprise sneak attack. A sudden unnatural coil that snaps reality back together. It sprays sharp piercing rods towards the plague doctor.
Azrael dove forward, body twisting mid-air, sliding off the floor. The rods zip past his ribs, close enough to pierce him. His boots skidded off the smooth surface. The room stretched as far as the eye could see as if an open wound appeared in a fortress.
Stitch clenches his cauterized open side, gritting his teeth. One arm of Cerebella protects the surgeon like an unbreakable wall of meat and steel while the other shoots the barbed rods in rapid succession. A compressed air bullet cuts through the air, exploding over Cerebella's grotesque face.
Stumbling back, Stitch holds his eye–matching Cerebella's.
"The problem with big shikigami like yours is that they're very easy targets," Azrael explains, fingertips compressing air. "Alchemists like myself get creative with their environment."
"Why you!" Stitch lashes out.
A sudden crack splits the air.
A jolt sends the construct back. Stitch reeled. The overhead lights flicker.
"You have to control the battle," Azrael coldly utters, stepping forward. "You do that by controlling the outcome."
He slightly winced as another compressed air bullet tore through the space between them. It slammed into Stitch with the force of a cannonball. Cerebella form shifts from physical to translucent.
"You serve zero purpose. Absolutely none," Stitch slowly rises off the floor, panting like a stray dog. "Your life is as valuable as your appendix. Worthless. You should end yourself right—"
Azrael flicks his finger. A chunk of Stitch's shoulder bursts, making him to fall to the ground. The silence breaks the tension, freezing everything in place.
No one moved.
"Cerebella!" Stitch screams. The shikigami's arm retracted back before unleashing with full force. Azrael does not react.
"Concrete is technically not flammable," he says, placing his hand on the floor. "However the cracks can contain fuel."
His palm glows softly.
The temperature spikes.
Air ripples.
Stitch looks down at the floor below him, it starts to hiss, rising like steam. A snap ignites the sparks. Protecting himself with spiritual energy, the surgeon is engulfed in a spiral vortex of flames. Dust and cinders whirl together.
In a second, a roaring tornado consumes him, snaking and constricting his movements. Cerebella collapses onto the ground, her body dissipating into pure spiritual energy. Whispers of shards fall onto the ground like falling stars.
Snapping his fingers, Azrael extinguishes the tornado.
"Protecting yourself with spiritual energy was a smart tactic," he compliments. "However it does not protect you from the heat fire exudes. 1200 c—1500 c, enough to break down most defenses"
The lights flicker.
Azrael turns his head, noticing the effect.
Stitch slowly rises off the floor, burns and scorch marks clear on his body. His legs wobble and buckle underneath the pain.
"Why can't you just stay dead?" Azrael shrugs his shoulders. "You realistically should have died." The lights flicker, in and out of darkness.
"I'm a top assassin. This can't be happening to me," Stitch exhales, lazily raising his scalpel.
"But it is happening to you," Azrael cuts back. "I just beat you."
"You must," Stitch yells, desperately regaining control of the situation.
"Aren't mutts technically mixed—breed dogs," Azrael places his finger beneath his beaked mask. "Shouldn't dogs be mixed–breed though."
The lights dim to almost pure darkness. The yellowish tones shift to a sickly cold blues. Shadows stretch and twist.
A faint electrical buzz follow the flickering lights.
Silence.
Suddenly, the lights abruptly went out.
When the lights returned to normal, a man who wasn't there appeared where Azrael and Stitch were fighting. His face is hidden by the dilapidated lights. His shadow stretches unnaturally, appearing to where no one stood.
Azrael lowers his gaze, instinctively bowing his head to the figure. Stitch exhales.
"Welcome master," Azrael says softly.
Stitch grins forgetting about his previous injuries. His target–has arrived.
"Oh, you…must be the Covenant," Stitch mockingly sneers, pointing the tip of his scalpel at the man's neck. "You're a lot different from what—"
"Kneel," the Covenant commands, his voice mechanical and devoid of life.
A keening, reality-warping wail claws at the edge of Stitch's perception. Neither animal nor mechanical, piecing the assassin's mind.
Beginning as a distant noise, it rose in a multi-layered shriek in impossible registers as if time had reversed.
Blood drips slowly down Stitch's mouth and nose. Every time the sound pulses, the walls breathe, something ancient stirs inside the man. As if something unknown was controlling him, his legs gave up on him, and the feeling of circulation was cut off.
Kneeling to the ground, he stares up at the Covenant himself, bathed in the dilapidated golden lights above.
Concrete pulses as if it were breathing.
Stitch watches helplessly as he sees the Covenant walk ever so closer to him, his figure hidden under the dimly lit dilapidated lights. No matter how hard Stitch wanted to run away–something didn't allow his body to move.
The darkness of the world enveloped me.
The whispers grew louder and more violent.
"What are you?" Stitch whispers.
"Call me Merrick," the shadowy figure utters. "Merrick Wellz."
Stitch's jaw twitches uncontrollably, seeing the blade directly under his throat. His pupils dilate. He tried to move–but his body couldn't respond.
"Your choice is simple," Merrick explains, voice unreadable and flat. "Scream or don't."
Stitch's throat felt trapped, constricted by something not out of this world.
In a quick painless motion, his head falls to the ground. Crimson rain sprayed onto the floor. Merrick looks over the body–expressionless. Unmoved.
"Clean up the body. His blood is touching my shoes," He politely commands Azrael, quietly leaving the scene.
"As you wish master," Azrael responds, lowering his head without hesitation.