Our very first battle, hehe. And I'll admit, action isn't exactly my forte; I'm kinda better at writing lemons and segs. Still, I gave it my all, and solo fights are usually smoother since they're easier to manage.
And about the title... well, it is Cedric's 'first time' fighting something soooo, 'Defloration' feels pretty fitting, doesn't it?
And I'll also remind everyone about Rhythm Sense in case you guys forgot.
[Description: The universe moves to a hidden beat, and now, you can hear it.]
[Perfect Sync:] Actions performed in synchronization with the rhythm (breathing, moving, attacking) have their Effectiveness increased by 30% and Stamina consumption reduced by 50%.
[Beat Drop:] Allows the user to instinctively sense the "downbeat" of an incoming attack or event, granting a split-second premonition to dodge or parry.
[Harmony:] Being near the user accelerates the growth/recovery of Pokémon and allies.
Alright. Bon Appétit!
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The milk hit his system like liquid lightning, but the relief was deceptive.
It was a temporary patch over a dam that was rapidly cracking under unimaginable pressure.
Most of Cedric's superficial physical wounds had already begun to heal, knitting together with an unnatural, itchy heat.
The sharp, grinding pain in his ribs had dulled into a heavy, persistent ache, a stark reminder of the brute force he had already endured.
His body was no longer on the absolute verge of collapse, but the exhaustion ran bone-deep, settling into his marrow.
Worse still, the cold, creeping shock of severe stamina drain and extreme cardiovascular strain continued crawling slowly into his veins like invisible frost.
It numbed his extremities, making his fingers tingle, and threatened to pull him into a dark, heavy unconsciousness.
Ten monsters surrounded him in the ruined, cavernous remnants of what used to be a subway terminal.
The ceiling high above was cracked, revealing swirling, corrupted purple clouds.
The flickering remnants of neon station signs cast long, distorted shadows across the rubble-strewn platform.
Five Alpeca prowled the perimeter.
They were lean, digitigrade beasts, moving with a hunched, predatory grace on sharp feet.
Their smooth, dark-grey lower bodies contrasted sharply with their upper backs, which were encased in thick, bone-white ether plating lined with jagged black spikes down their spines.
They had no real heads—only massive, jagged formations of glowing neon-green crystal, centered around a pitch-black, circular core that seemed to swallow the light.
Five grotesque Fauns stood among them.
These were colossal, hulking creatures, far more muscular and formidable than the Alpeca.
Their entire bodies were composed of heavy, blocky, solidified dark grey ether, sculpted into titanic, rippling muscle forms.
Pulsating veins of neon-green energy raced across their massive chests and thick arms.
Their heads were massive, flared formations of the same glowing neon-green crystal, housing a central black sphere—the core of their existence.
Fused into their shoulders were remnants of the old world: traffic lights with flickering red and green lenses, and yellow industrial warning boxes.
They carried no cables or tar. Instead, they gripped rusted steel poles with warped, faded traffic signs still bolted to the ends—'STOP', 'YIELD', and 'ONE WAY'.
They formed a perfect, suffocating circle around him.
Their featureless, crystalline "faces" turned toward him, locking onto his presence.
The glowing green crystal heads of both the Alpecas and the Fauns pulsed in sickening unison, a visual heartbeat of the Hollow.
The air between them was incredibly dense. It was thick with the scent of ozone, rotting copper, and heavy concrete dust.
Every muscle on the Alpecas' dark lower bodies tensed as they prowled through the wreckage.
Their spiked shoulders shifted with a natural, lethal grace that Cedric knew he could not match.
'Ten against one. No backup.' Cedric thought.
His deep purple eyes darted frantically between the beasts, scanning the debris. His breathing was shallow but controlled.
'Never fought a day in my life. Can't use [Aqua Jet] at full power. My current body isn't built for it. Pressure will shatter my bones. Use the environment. Just... adapt.'
The first Faun lunged without hesitation, shattering the tense standoff.
Its colossal, muscle-bound body charged forward with terrifying, ground-shaking momentum, kicking up clouds of dust.
A broken traffic light was fused into its thick ether shoulder, with red and green lenses flickering weakly.
It gripped a long, rusted pole bearing a mangled 'DO NOT ENTER' sign and dragged it along the floor with a slow, rhythmic, agonizing scrape… scrape… scrape… that echoed through the ruined site.
Cedric activated [Rhythm Sense] instantly.
The universe slowed to a crawl.
The oppressive, chaotic roar of the station faded into a muffled, rhythmic baseline.
The world bled of its vibrant colors, leaving only the stark contrasts of kinetic energy and threat zones.
He could hear the hidden beat of the battlefield — the low thud… thud… thud of the Faun's heavy footsteps, the sharp skritch-skritch of Alpeca hooves shifting in anticipation.
[Listen to it, Cedric,] the System spoke, its voice a calm anchor in the storm of his mind.
[Breathe with the beat. In for four counts… hold for two… out for four. Let your footsteps fall naturally with that rhythm. When you move and attack in sync with it, Perfect Sync will activate.]
Cedric matched his breathing to the rhythm. In… hold… out.
[Perfect Sync] activated.
Because his breathing, movement, and timing were now synchronized with the environmental rhythm, the oppressive weight on his body lessened.
But he was still an untrained civilian; he had to rely on the skill to bridge the massive gap in physical ability.
Suddenly, the silent metronome in his mind skipped.
A sharp, heavy drop in the rhythm echoed in his skull—a syncopated plunge that sent a chill down his spine.
Even before the Faun swung, Cedric instinctively felt that jarring "downbeat."
He knew exactly where the heavy metal sign was going to be.
"Move!" Cedric hissed to himself.
He triggered [Aqua Jet] at its lowest possible output.
A thin, turbulent layer of pressurized water washed over his sneakers, acting as a frictionless lubricant.
He dashed inward, dropping low.
His wet sneakers slipped wildly on the uneven concrete—a rookie miscalculation of friction. He nearly face-planted.
But that sudden, plunging premonition in the tempo gave him the fraction of a second needed to shift his weight back.
He dropped into a clumsy slide.
The rusted metal and the reflective red sign sheared the air millimeters above his head, displacing a violent gust of wind that ruffled his hair.
Using his sliding momentum, Cedric snatched a jagged piece of rebar from the rubble.
He didn't try a complex martial arts strike.
He forcefully jammed the iron spike directly into the solid grey ether joint of the Faun's supporting leg.
The joint cracked and splintered. Its massive momentum was betrayed.
As the Faun began to crash heavily toward the ground, Cedric saw an opening. He didn't retreat.
He forced his shaking legs to push off the ground.
He stepped directly onto the falling monster's broad, ether-hardened back, using it as a ramp.
He aimed his palms downward and fired a short, sharp burst of water.
The recoil popped him upward into the air just as the Faun slammed into the asphalt.
While airborne, Cedric grabbed a heavy, cinderblock-sized piece of debris from an overhead girder.
Relying on gravity and the beast's own stunned state, he drove the concrete block straight down into the center of the Faun's glowing green head-core.
The black sphere shattered.
Instantly, the massive ether body froze.
Its physical form violently tore apart into jagged blocks of multi-colored static, like a corrupted broadcast on a broken television.
The digital distortion buzzed loudly, sputtering and hissing as it slowly, agonizingly dissolved into raw Ether over several long seconds.
Cedric hit the ground, rolling clumsily to his feet. He gasped, adrenaline flooding his veins.
'System... what was that?' he thought frantically. 'The rhythm skipped. I felt the attack before it moved.'
[That is Beat Drop, Cedric,]
System replied, its voice clear and rapid.
[A passive aspect of Rhythm Sense. Every action in this space generates kinetic frequency. When lethal intent is directed at you, it disrupts the ambient tempo. You perceive this anomaly as a sudden, plunging downbeat. Do not second-guess it. Trust the drop.]
'Trust the drop. Got it.' Cedric gritted his teeth.
Two of the remaining Fauns charged simultaneously.
They swung their makeshift weapons—a 'STOP' sign and a twisted speed limit marker—in a crude, overlapping pincer movement.
Once again, the hidden rhythm stuttered.
A heavy, plunging beat dropped sharply in his left ear—half a second faster than the rest of the melody.
Cedric spun, ducking under the first swing.
He tried to pivot away from the second, but a piece of jagged debris caught the edge of his sneaker.
He stumbled badly.
"Guh!"
Unable to fully evade, he raised his arms defensively.
The heavy metal pole of the speed limit sign grazed his side, tearing his shirt and bruising his ribs forcefully.
He coughed, the wind knocked out of him.
Wincing through the pain, Cedric forcefully kicked a massive pile of corrosive concrete dust and shattered glass straight up into the glowing head-core of the second Faun.
The debris flooded its core, violently disrupting its sensory feedback.
As the blinded Faun stumbled into the path of the first, Cedric planted his foot firmly on a warped metal pipe and launched himself upward in a desperate arc.
The pipe snapped prematurely under his weight. He twisted mid-air, his trajectory clumsy, his arms flailing slightly.
Two Alpeca leaped down from the rusted overhead girders, intercepting his jump.
In mid-air, the ambient rhythm plunged like a lead weight in his mind.
He felt the sudden, crushing downbeat of an aerial ambush converging from both sides.
He had no foothold, no debris. He had to improvise.
"Get... over here!" Cedric yelled, reaching out with both hands as the Alpecas closed in.
He reached out with both hands as the Alpecas closed in.
His fingers dug into the thick, spiky bone plating on their backs.
He overcharged [Aqua Jet] from the soles of his sneakers, but angled the thrust slightly forward.
The violent, high-power burst didn't just push him down; it acted as a terrifying pivot point.
Using the massive recoil that nearly tore his shoulders out of their sockets, Cedric forcefully yanked the two airborne Alpecas downward and inward, right into each other's path.
He let go at the last possible millisecond and dropped like a stone.
Directly above him, the two Alpeca collided with the force of a head-on car crash.
Their white ether plating shattered violently with a sickening crunch.
Their heavy green crystalline heads exploded, sending a brilliant, cinematic shower of green shards and cracking ether raining down around Cedric.
Their black cores ruptured from the impact.
The two solid ether bodies broke down into a violent storm of digital static.
The pixelated chunks of their forms hit the ground with a heavy, unnatural thud and lingered there, glitching and fragmenting in neon colors, slowly erasing themselves pixel by pixel over several seconds.
Cedric crashed toward the ground.
He remembered to drop the water pressure at the last second, executing a rough, jarring shoulder roll across the ruined concrete.
It wasn't graceful. He scraped his elbows raw and bruised his hip, but he survived the fall.
Another Faun slammed its heavy 'YIELD' sign directly into the floor. A powerful, jagged shockwave rippled outward, tearing up the tiles.
[The shockwave is coming,] the System warned.
Cedric didn't just hear the warning; the sudden, plunging silence in the rhythm let him feel the exact fraction of a second the shockwave would reach his feet.
"Up!"
He used [Aqua Jet] to leap precisely on that silent downbeat. The concussive wave passed harmlessly beneath his sneakers.
Landing directly behind the stunned Faun, an insane idea crossed his mind, and he didn't overthink it.
He planted his bleeding hands against the monster's solid grey ether back, his sneakers finding purchase on its muscular ridges.
He activated [Aqua Jet] at full power from his back and sneakers simultaneously.
"Coming through!" Cedric screamed over the roar of the water.
A roaring vortex of water enveloped him. He didn't just push the monster; he rode it.
The sheer thrust of the water pressure turned the multi-ton construct into a heavy-duty battering ram.
The Faun's feet dragged helplessly across the concrete, leaving deep gouges as Cedric steered it violently forward.
They crashed straight into a disoriented Alpeca. The collision was spectacular.
The Alpeca was crushed between the Faun and a concrete pillar.
The beast's green crystal head shattered, the bone-white plating cracked, and both of their cores shattered simultaneously from the crushing force.
Both monsters instantly tore apart into a massive, overlapping wave of corrupted, chromatic static.
The chaotic digital noise buzzed harshly, their broken forms slowly dragging down the pillar as they degraded, taking their sweet time to slowly fade out of reality entirely.
But Cedric paid the price for his reckless stunt.
The kinetic rebound threw him backward like a ragdoll. He slammed into a concrete wall, the air exploding from his lungs.
"Cough... hah..."
'Focus,' he wheezed, tasting copper blood as he forced himself upright. His vision swam.
Suddenly, the unstable terminal floor gave way with a deafening groan.
The ground beneath him violently collapsed into a churning sinkhole of thick mud, pulverized concrete, and freezing water from a ruptured underground main.
Cedric triggered a continuous flow of water around his sneakers to hydroplane. It was incredibly difficult to balance.
His injured legs trembled wildly as he surfed the turbulent mud, his arms out wide like a surfer caught in a hurricane.
He locked onto a bundle of thick, high-voltage electrical wires hanging precariously from a leaning pillar.
He carved a wide, messy arc, limping heavily on the water's surface, luring three Alpeca toward the center of the sinkhole.
They followed blindly, driven by their feral aggression. But their biology was their downfall.
Their sharp feet and heavy, armor-plated upper bodies were completely unsuited for the shifting terrain.
As they lunged onto the mud, their hooves pierced straight through the surface, plunging deep into the thick, quicksand-like sludge.
The submerged, twisted rebar entangled their digitigrade legs.
The harder they struggled, the deeper their heavy torsos dragged them down into the freezing muck.
But Cedric wasn't unscathed.
His wet sneaker slipped violently on a hidden chunk of slick debris. He lost his balance, tumbling painfully into the freezing mud.
One of the trapped Alpeca thrashed nearby, its jagged green crystal head swinging wildly in a desperate frenzy.
The sharp crystal edge raked brutally across Cedric's thigh, tearing through his pants and slicing deep into his flesh.
"Urgh!"
He cried out, choking on dirty water as he scrambled backward.
Another trapped Alpeca, thrashing in the muck, hurled a heavy chunk of broken asphalt in its frenzy.
It smashed directly into Cedric's ribs.
Crack.
"AGH!"
A sickening crack echoed in his ears. He gasped, spitting out a mouthful of muddy, bloody saliva, his vision darkening.
But he couldn't stand still, because he was sinking too.
Crawling on his hands and knees through the freezing muck, he reached the leaning pillar.
"Just... a little... further...!"
He didn't have the leverage to kick the wires. He had to grab them.
Ignoring the frantic pounding of his heart, he grabbed the thick rubber coating of the sparking electrical bundle and forcefully yanked it down into the churning pool.
A stray spark jumped, searing the flesh of his palm.
"Hnnngh!"
He hissed in pain, releasing the wires just as they hit the water.
He unleashed an unfocused splash of water from his sneakers to ensure the connection.
The trap snapped shut.
High-voltage electricity surged.
The three Alpeca, firmly rooted and entangled in the muddy quicksand, took the full force of the current.
The electricity arced brilliantly across the mud, turning the sinkhole into a web of blinding blue light.
Their lean, dark bodies vibrated violently. The massive green crystal formations that served as their heads flared blindingly bright, overloading.
With a series of sharp, loud cracks, their spinal plating shattered outward. Their dark cores, superheated by the voltage, simply crumbled.
The massive constructs destabilized. They glitched out violently, their forms fracturing into rapidly shifting pixels of blinding, multi-colored static.
The electricity danced through their slowly degrading, corrupted signals. It took several agonizing seconds for the blinding static to fully fade, leaving behind only the bubbling mud.
The concussive shockwave from the electrical blast sent Cedric sliding rapidly backward, straight into a shimmering, prismatic distortion—a zero-g fracture.
Gravity vanished instantly.
Cedric felt intensely nauseous, his untrained body disoriented by the sudden weightlessness. Floating debris drifted lazily around him.
The rhythmic hum of the void suddenly flatlined, dropping into a sharp, jarring beat behind him.
An Alpeca was propelling itself off a floating slab, sailing through the void like a dark torpedo, aiming right for his blind spot.
Guided by that alarming shift in tempo, Cedric fired a panicked burst from his sneakers. He spun a fraction of a second too late.
The Alpeca's heavy crystalline head smashed a glancing blow against his injured thigh, sending a flare of blinding white pain through his leg.
Spinning out of control, Cedric desperately grabbed a jagged length of steel scaffolding pipe.
Relying on Rhythm Sense rather than his spinning vision, he waited for the next heavy beat to strike.
"STAY DOWN!"
He blindly swung the heavy steel pipe on the downbeat. It slammed directly into the Alpeca's trajectory, violently hurling it into an incoming Faun.
They crashed together and tumbled out of the fracture's boundary into normal gravity, shattering on the ground below into slow-fading static.
He grabbed a heavy, floating "DEAD END" sign. It was thick steel, heavy and cumbersome.
He fired water from his sneakers to spin, utilizing raw centrifugal force. His form was sloppy, his ribs screaming in agony, but his timing with the baseline was perfect.
"Eat this!"
He let go.
The heavy steel sign didn't just wobble; it caught the momentum perfectly.
It spun like a deadly, oversized frisbee, shedding a spiral of water droplets as it carved through the zero-g void.
And struck the remaining Faun dead center in its yellow funnel.
The glowing "head" was cleanly sliced in half, the black core exploding outward.
Its bulky ether-body immediately glitched into a heavy distortion of chaotic static. The pixelated fragments sputtered like a dying transmission, drifting slowly in the zero-g void as they gradually vanished piece by piece.
Exhausted and battered, Cedric propelled himself out of the zero-g pocket.
He landed hard, his sneakers hitting the uneven ground. His injured leg gave out entirely, and he collapsed into the dirt, gasping for air.
Only the largest, alpha Alpeca and the heavily scarred Faun leader remained.
'Two left.'
The Alpha Alpeca didn't just move; it blurred out of existence.
The metronome in Cedric's mind didn't just skip—it erupted into a frantic, overlapping cacophony of shrieking downbeats.
"Too fast...!"
Cedric didn't try to dodge. He threw himself backward, firing a sustained, desperate blast of [Aqua Jet] from his sneakers to rocket his body across the cracked asphalt.
The Alpha Alpeca tore through the space he had just occupied, its heavy green crystalline head obliterating a solid concrete pillar into dust.
It didn't pause. It pivoted with unnatural agility, its hooves sparking against the ground as it launched itself at Cedric's retreating form.
Cedric slid through the debris, his back scraping against the ground. He was cornered against the rusted husk of a derailed subway car.
'I can't outrun it.'
As the massive beast lunged, its jagged green face glowing with lethal intent, Cedric didn't brace for impact.
He slapped both hands onto a massive, jagged sheet of torn metal plating hanging off the wrecked train.
And he triggered an explosive burst of [Aqua Jet], but not at the beast. He blasted the pressurized water directly into the narrow gap behind the metal sheet.
The sheer hydraulic force ripped the massive steel plate free, sending it spinning outward like a colossal, rusted guillotine blade.
The Alpha Alpeca, committed to its mid-air lunge, slammed chest-first into the spinning metal.
The impact was deafening. The rusted steel sheared through the beast's bone-white ether plating with a sickening crunch, but it didn't reach the head-core.
The Alpha shrieked, a sound like grinding glass, swiping the metal away with a force that sent it whistling into the darkness.
It pinned Cedric's good leg to the train car with it's leg, the pressure threatening to snap his femur.
"Arrrgh!!!"
Cedric screamed, his vision swimming.
He grabbed a jagged piece of the broken plating nearby and drove it upward—not at the body, but straight into the center of the glowing green head-core.
The shard pierced the outer crystal and slammed into the pitch-black circular core.
The Alpha shrieked one last time, its entire body violently tearing into a burst of chromatic digital noise.
The heavy static crackled, dissolving into raw Ether, leaving an afterimage that hung in the air for several seconds.
Cedric fell to his knees, his leg a mask of pain.
He didn't have a second to breathe.
A shadow eclipsed the dim station light. The leader Faun, towering and gargantuan, was already mid-swing.
It carried the heaviest weapon of all—a crude, massive hammer. The handle was a thick steel pipe, and the head was a devastating, heavy block of jagged concrete fused with crumpled, overlapping traffic signs.
The rhythm in Cedric's head dropped to a thundering, agonizing crawl.
[Beat Drop].
The massive concrete hammer was descending from above in a lethal, sweeping arc that blotted out the ceiling.
If he tried to scramble backward, the sheer shockwave of the weapon would crush his skull. He was completely trapped against the train.
"Not... yet...!"
He had to make a choice.
With one last brutal, suicidal motion, Cedric intentionally stepped forward, diving directly inside the arc of the heavy hammer, using the syncopated premonition to angle his body.
He offered his left arm as a shield.
The thick steel handle slammed brutally into his shoulder.
The bone fractured with a sickening, loud snap that echoed over the roar of the Hollow.
"URGHH!"
Cedric screamed, his vision going entirely white with blinding agony, but his head was spared the concrete blow.
The force drove him to his knees, but he didn't fall.
Using his uninjured, bleeding right hand, he triggered [Aqua Jet] from his palms to launch himself upward, practically climbing the Faun's muscular ether chest.
He latched onto the monster's "neck," his fingers digging into the solidified ether.
The Faun thrashed, grabbing Cedric with its free hand and squeezing.
"Gack... hah... is that... all...?"
His cracked ribs groaned, threatening to pierce his lungs.
Cedric pressed his right palm directly against the Faun's head—the glowing green crystalline formation protecting the black core.
He triggered [Aqua Jet] at absolute maximum output, focused into a singular, drilling point.
"DRINK UP!" Cedric roared, a silent scream of pure willpower finally breaking through his lips.
He didn't just fire water; he pulsed it in sync with the dying, frantic rhythm of his heart.
Crack.
The drill of water pierced the green crystal and struck the pitch-black sphere dead center.
The core shattered.
The Faun froze.
A deafening, reality-warping digital shriek filled the terminal.
The monster's head erupted into a massive, shrieking storm of neon static.
Cedric was launched backward as the creature's entire form buckled, erasing itself piece by pixel in a blinding flash of corrupted data.
Silence, absolute and profound, finally fell over the ruined terminal.
Cedric lay among the shattered glass, wet concrete dust, and twisted metal debris.
Every single bone in his body screamed in agony.
"Hah... hah..."
He painfully rolled onto his back, his breath coming in ragged, bloody wheezes.
His legs trembled violently.
'I barely survived.'
He looked down at his trembling hands.
The skin was deathly pale, covered in his own blood, dirt, and water.
Faint, dark, pulsing veins stood out starkly against his pale skin—the mark of severe ether erosion.
'Howl... Wise. They made it. I have no regrets.'
[…Cedric? Can you still hear me?]
The System's voice flickered into his mind, incredibly weak, laced with genuine fear.
[Your vitals are critical. Multiple fractures, severe lacerations, internal hemorrhaging, and ether erosion... we need to leave this sector. Now. Please… don't give up.]
Cedric didn't answer immediately. He couldn't find the breath to speak.
He simply stared blankly at the dark, cracked ceiling of the terminal, his purple eyes glassy and unfocused, his uninjured hand pressed tightly against his agonizing chest.
"I'm... still... here..." he whispered, the sound barely a rasp.
Around him, the Hollow seemed to groan and growl in frustration.
In the dark distance, new, jagged spatial fractures began to flicker open, neon light spilling into the oppressive gloom.
The realm was already preparing its next wave.
Cedric closed his eyes and took a slow, agonizingly painful breath.
In... hold... out.
He forced his violently shaking, bleeding arm to push himself off the cold ground.
He forced his spine to straighten, tears leaking from his eyes as his fractured ribs and broken shoulder screamed in protest.
"I won't... die here..."