Fanfiction-teaser

“Come now. Surely you can do better.”
Blizzard sent out another blast of ice from his outstretched hand. But the figure had already gone, leaving the ice to crackle against some unseen wall in the darkness.
An impact from behind knocked him forward, leaving him to connect badly with the floor.
“You’re holding back,” the mocking voice said. “Not committing yourself,” Blizzard struggled to get to his feet, pain and exhaustion taking its toll on his body. He steadied himself against a half-seen wall, illuminated, albeit barely, by the flickering glow of torches. “You shouldn’t.”
His neck aching, Blizzard turned to where he had heard the voice.
It took a while for his eyes to adjust, but eventually he could make out a half-visible figure standing there, the darkness hanging about him like a cloak. One red baleful eye could be made out in the silhouette, staring at him with malicious cruelty.
“Everyone has a darker side. An evil streak. A…shadow of the soul, if you will,” there was humour evident in the figure’s voice. “It exists in us all. But what really matters is how you use it.”
There was a blinding flash, and Blizzard found himself flying through the air. He slammed into another wall, feeling his ribs crack under the impact, and he slid gently to the floor, gasping for breath. The edges of his cloak and scarf were smouldering.
Blinking tears from his eyes, he looked up to see his assailant moving towards him. One fist was wrapped in sorcerous, crimson flame, the same colour as his eye, backlighting his face with an eerie light. He stopped a few paces away from Blizzard.
“People like you,” he continued. “People like you, and the quickster, and the others in that motley group of yours. You’re all afraid of the Darkness. To you, it’s “evil”. Its “immoral”. It’s something which you deny and abandon to the very end. You fight against it, no matter what, simply because you think it’s the right thing to do. But you’re wrong. So very wrong.”
He lunged forward, gripping Blizzard’s throat with his flaming hand.
Blizzard could feel his lungs slowly shrinking in on themselves, as the figure’s grip crushed the air from his windpipe. He gasped wordlessly as he felt agony sear through his body, the red flames setting his nerves alight with pain.
Slowly, by his neck, he was lifted up off the floor.
Blizzard tried in vain to use his ice-based powers, but it wasn’t enough-all that came from his outstretched hand was a puff of ice, quickly evaporating into steam in the heat of his assailants flame.
He was exhausted. He had no idea how long this battle had gone on for, but it seemed like hours. Dozens of cuts and gashes adorned his fur like some twisted jigsaw, marking his grey fur with trails of crimson.  
Hours.
Hours of being assaulted by a shadowy predator, in a shadowy place…
And where was he?
He couldn’t remember getting here. He and a small band of freedom fighters were on a mission…
Yes. Yes, that was right. They had almost reached the rendezvous point. But something had gone wrong…
It was a blur. He could remember smoke and gunfire.
Somebody had screamed his name.
There was a flash, and he had seen blood on his hands.
Was it his?
Then everything had gone white.
Then everything had gone black.
And he woken up, bleeding and groaning, here,
He snapped back to reality as his shadowy combatant spoke once more.
“Do you feel that? Do you feel the pain, the agony? Your lungs beginning to collapse, devoid of air? Your fractured ribs cracking further? Your insignificant life beginning to ebb away?”
Blizzard was beginning to fall unconscious. The edges of his vision were blurring, going dark. Stars danced across his eyes.
“This is the power of the Darkness. It’s everywhere, inescapable. Trying to avoid the Darkness is like trying to avoid the coming of night. It’s inevitable.
Suddenly, with horrifying force, Blizzard was hurled through the air, his assailant throwing him as if he weighed almost nothing.
He slammed into a pillar, soft fur and brittle Mobian bones impacting against cold, hard, unyielding stone.
Blizzard felt his bones break,
He fell to the floor, a bloody broken heap, face-down.
His left arm hung limply by his side, useless, twisted at an obscene angle.
His legs were dead, lifeless. He couldn’t feel them.
His breathing came in shallow ragged gasps, blood dribbling lazily from his mouth and nose.
Get up! He thought, willing his body to move. Get up, quickly! Or he’ll finish you off!
He tried vainly to open his eyes. Only one opened, the other gummed shut with blood. The last thing he saw, looking up, was the baleful grin of his captor, a gleaming yellow against the darkness around him.
Then unconsciousness beckoned, and he could not resist its call.