Poppy thrusted her spear forward, clanking loudly against the thick armor of The Iron Thorn, but he only laughed, as his mace had already began to descend towards Poppy.
She quickly summoned her helmet back on, just as the mace crashed into it.
Poppy felt her skull trembled under the force, and a jagged piece of metal broke straight through the side of her cheek, as blood immediately filled her mouth.
Her vision went black for what could have been minutes, hours, or even days.
When she came back to her senses, she was laying against a destroyed rack of armor.
Her ears rang, and her entire face was numb, as blood leaked out of her mouth and into the bottom of her helmet.
She reached up to pull the weapon out of her helmet, but when her hand met the side of her helmet, her body went cold.
There was nothing there, in fact the helmet had been dented in by the man's strength.
Poppy froze, and tried her best to overcome the dizziness, shaking her head violently to get her eyes to clear up.
But it was no use, the strength of the man should have killed her, and would have entirely caved her skull in had she not summoned the helmet.
She could hardly tell what was going on, but she knew that it was bad.
Loud crashes filled the room, and Poppy struggled as she tried to pull her helmet off.
The entire piece that was meant to protect the left side of her face, had caved so far in and with so much force, that it had shattered and pierced straight through her cheek.
She could taste metal inside of her mouth, as he tongue had little room to move.
She tried her hardest not to panic, but remembering that Neo had been struck in the bare face with no protection, only caused her to tear up further.
When the blurriness of her eyes finally went away, she saw Luke fighting one on one with The Iron Thorn, both exchanging mighty blows as Luke could only try his best to avoid the strongest of the attacks.
She tried to breathe, to do anything really, but none of it was of any use.
When she tried to stand, she only fell back over like an idiot.
She cursed herself.
Although Luke now had quite the resistant armor because of a master blacksmith, he still only wore fabrics and cloths, with the least bit of plating being in front of his chest.
Yet he still hadn't been struck bad enough to actually be severely injured somehow.
Poppy's mind was vibrating, as if she still hadn't recovered from the powerful force of the monster Luke was fighting to a standstill.
The dizziness was truly terrible, but she couldn't tell if that was the reason why she couldn't see the movements of the enemy, or if his chains just moved so fast that a novice such as Poppy couldn't even see them.
'If I were as strong as my sister- No! Stop that!'
She smacked herself in the right side of the helmet and pressed her hands against the ground, trying to push herself up once more.
Luke, The Crimson Bandit...
Luke ducked underneath of the next soaring mace, then he sidestepped the following chain, then he rolled out of the way of a powerful downward strike that shattered the very floor below them.
Luke almost lost balance, but he rolled out of the way once more, trying his hardest not to be struck with such a fatal weapon.
The amount of times his life had flashed before him in such a short span would have made him laugh, if only he wasn't doomed to die in such a moment.
Perhaps if Poppy and Neo were not here, and maybe the students outside had somewhere to run and hide, then maybe he would have given up his life by now.
'For the sake of the gods! I am The Crimson Bandit! Knock it off me!'
He cursed, strafing the next attack, and immediately dashing backwards.
The Iron Thorn hollered with laughter.
"STOP PLAYING LIKE A COWARD!"
Luke shot both of his crossbows at the man, then as they racketed off of the man's armor, Luke realized that he was not going to win like this.
Perhaps this was when Luke realized why he was still fighting as hard as he was.
Why he was not giving up.
Luke smiled underneath the bandana as he remembered his first time meeting the lunar goddess.
"You seem to think you are a selfish person... Like you have just assumed it from the beginning, I would like to think otherwise, but there is not point in arguing with a wall, it will take time but eventually something will break that wall of yours down, and you will have to try to figure out how to rebuild the pieces from scratch, and that is when you will learn who you truly are..."
It was like her words were echoing through his brain.
He threw the crossbows at the man, and dashed forward.
Reaching upward mid stride, he pulled his hat off.
Squeezing it by the crown, he felt the cloud of dust enter through every pore of his body, engulfing him in a plethora of unbelievable vigor.
Luke clenched his metal fist, bringing it upwards, and clashing against the helmet of The Iron Thorn.
Then the chains came down as the man finally came back to his senses.
Luke side stepped around the man, and brought his fist down once more, meeting the back end of the man's helmet.
Smiling softly behind the bandana, Luke began to pick the pieces up...
Luke began to rebuild as the fight continued onward, as the two danced around each other.
Chains soaring throughout the air, crashing through anything that collided with them.
On the other hand, Luke was moving like he had lost all limits, he danced around the relentless attacks, dodging out of the way when he got too close.
Yet his attacks didn't falter either, he struck when the time was right.
And that day, the ranged bandit who had lived his life attacking other bandits in the outskirts of The Dark Forest, picking up the pieces of all of the things he had broken in life.
The times when he had hurt the people who had cared about him, thinking that pushing away those people who save them from himself.
Luke felt pure euphoria...
It was like he was limping forward on that ancient path, trying his best to hold his wounds together.
"Stand straight up if you are going to walk such a crooked path..."
An old man had said from behind him.
Luke turned, reaching for his crossbow.
Upon spinning and immediately aiming the loaded weapon at the skull of the elderly man, Luke tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow.
The man only smiled softly, which was followed by a short and jolly chuckle.
Luke wondered why the man seemed to have been closing his eye, he wondered if maybe the strangely familiar figure had just simply injured his eye.
But then as Luke's finger hesitated on the trigger, his eyes widened.
"Have you ever thought about teaching at an academy for the gifted, young man?"