Howling winds with gusts powerful enough to uproot massive trees swept the landscape, sending splashes of rainfall in pelting fury across the field. Grusha rustled and awoke from her rejuvenating slumber, alert eyes immediately scanned all around in anticipation of a fight but was greeted with nothing more than just the tempest overhead.

The battered body Static laid still across Grusha, she knew he still lived from the raspy sparking breath of his that puffed black smoke in the air. However, the fight was long gone out of his system, having been utterly and thoroughly defeated far past any reasonable sense. For Grusha, the battle barely began.

Rolling onto her side, she keeled over and balanced herself to stand straight up. Limping her way to the beaten man, she slumped onto abdomen. She stared into the two points of blue light that served as his eyes, there was a lackluster glow to them that left Grusha wondering if he truly could be said to be alive at this point. He blinked slowly and winced from Grusha’s weight pressed against his injuries, a body riddled with unsightly holes that occasionally gave mild sparks like an exposed power outlet.

Grusha shook her hair out of her face, that repeatedly plastered her face from the winds and rain. Letting it sail long in the gale storm, her hair stretched far across to her side. Human complexions of her fair pale and smooth skin lightened, the danger was far gone. Her eyes, however, narrowed with the same beastly intent.

Static’s wide jaws clenched tightly, they cracked under the pressure, perhaps tenderized from the earlier beating that Grusha had scarred him with. Despite all the disgust she reviled of the repugnant and cowardly man, she still admired his stubborn determination as he struggled to raise just a finger.

Pressing her forehead against that of her opponent’s, she growled loudly over the wind. “Yield.” She ordered.

He held his breath momentarily, exhaling and limping back into the soft, cold soil, he reluctantly accepted defeat.

“A world rid of social hierarchy, a place where your strength above others is what mattered most, that is all I wanted.”

Grusha glared intently at him, unflinching at anything he had to say.

Sighing in frustration, he demanded a response from her. “Why do you fight? You wanted the same as I, a world freed of demis and humans alike. We could have been unstoppable forces of nature with our combined strengths.”

Lifting her chin high to the sky, the rainfall spattered all over her face.

“A man elevated himself above everyone of his peers, making himself my equal. But not that of strength, nor was it out of foolish pride like mines, it was all to treat me as an equal.”

The man’s brows scrunched angrily. “You forlong all that you worked for- for a man? Is this childish love that you wish you could experience? O’how high a pedestal you were placed on and o’how you’ve fallen, Wildebeest.” He gave a painful chuckle that only he found humor in.

Lowering her chin, having Static in between her gazes again. She narrowed her eyes.

“I fight for not domination of those beneath me, I fight to protect those beneath me. Even if it means I must do it alone. Besides, there is something you have mixed up all along, I never needed the aid of others to be an unstoppable force. It has always been from the very start for the natural world to bless and curse me as one of its natural orders.”

“Domination? Protection? The hell to those shortsighted and close minded ideologies, I was to be the Apex, king of the demi and human world alike. A king neither needs to dominate or protect those beneath him, those underneath are the ones who must protect the king. They must simply submit or cast aside as mere refuse, a king has no need to quabble with the weak.”

Grusha growled under her breath. “And that is why you’ll never be anymore than just some over glorified Alpha, your strength alone is not enough to intimidate the truly intimidating. Constantly dependent on the strengths of those around you, you’re nothing more than freeloader of the abilities of such as I and that girl Enigma.”

“You find fault in that? Of all the ones to repudiate my deeds, you? As if you are any different, you depend on the strengths of others to develop your own abilities. How do you explain that?”

“Easy.” She grinned. “The proud need to be taught where they stand on the predatory chain, namely beneath me.”

Static scowled sourly at her. “Go to hell, Grusha.”

“We’re already there.”

Standing tall, she limped away from the ragdolled Static. The man could think of nothing better to do than swearing in the high winds and barking for her to turn around, promising that he would be back and for to constantly look over her shoulders.

You should’ve ended his misery. Remarked the sinister Wildebeest.

Grusha shook her head in disagreement. He’s not worth it.

Making a snide response. Are you sure it is not for the man, Aput, that you spare his worthless hunk of a body?

Turning around, she took a final glance of her previous master, one who had nothing but her respect which he commanded like a drunken monster.

“Perhaps.” She said.

From here she could still hear him loud and clear despite him being a speck in the distance and voice drowned in the rain, relentless in his verbal tirade against Grusha even though she was far out of his field of vision.

“May we never cross paths again, Static. Perhaps you’d find something worth protecting too, something other than your wretched pride.”

With a final huff, she disappeared in the night's rainy sky.