"Come, sit down." He said, now sitting on the floor.
"We have so very much to talk about." He continued.
I responded with a roundhouse kick to his head. I'll end its games here and now. Upon my impact his body shot further to the floor, with his head hitting the ground.
He re-adjusted his monocle and sat back up and started to speak, "Oh, what I'd do for an intellectual conservation. Really? Violence? You underestimate the ascension rituals if you thought such an easy solution would be allowe-"
I responded with another roundhouse kick, this time 5 times over.
"I really can't find any justification for your train of thought, this is beyond mere retardation. I've given it some deep contemplation and I have a question for you, are you sure we speak the same lanuag-"
I delivered an axe kick to crush his skull, yet sadly my dreams were unfulfilled as no real damage was done.
Upon observing my fruitless actions I quickly pilfered his monocle.
"Now that's some thinking!" He exclaimed. "Yet, sadly another misinterpretation. You may have thought that if you removed my monocle that I could no longer mirror you so in turn I could not exist and if I didn't exist this ritual would have no objective to complete, a state that matches objective completion, therefore causing you to succeed in your ascension by default. But that won't work because even without your monocle you are still you, so vanitas without a monocle is still me."
He raised his hand to materialize another monocle and pinched it in his left eye socket. I then quickly looked at my hand to see his stolen monocle vanish along with my memory of the sensations of holding it, like I never held it in the first place.
I was getting done with his cryptic nonsense so I decided to cut to the chase, "What do you want. You know what I want monster, to ascend. But what do you want, what do you just want to do? Kill me? Stop me? Send me back? Steal my soul? Or nothing at all, are you just that shallow? Did the ascension ritual just design you that hollow?"
He looked slightly astonished at my proclamation then smiled far too deeply, "What do I want, foretell? I want to see you die."
My expression faltered, I was nearly agape trying to regain my composure. Although I asked if he wanted to kill me, I didn't actually think he did. I always knew that the ascension ritual was dangerous, but I feel that his words caused my heart to beat faster then any dragon could make it. A realization washed over me, this was not a battle, this is a dual.
A dragon is a beast, hunters hunt beasts. A human adversary is a monster, monsters hunt normalcy and hang morality outside their front door.
Yet the scariest part of this is that while a beast wishes to kill you for survival, a monster wishes you dead for reasons not understood even in death, in that comparison there is a difference in means.
He continued, "I want to see you corrupted in the abyss you stand in. Distorted into a monster identical to me. Deprived of all good. Slaughtered of all decency."
"Yet it seems that we both cannot get what we want, a misfortunate yet foregone conclusion." He said
He continued, "So let's play a game."
There it fucking is. The hook. He's been leading me to this. A game he'll most likely rig in his favor. A game in where my loss may equate my death. This game is dangerous territory, especially in a place as abstract as this. I shouldn't say anything without thinking, I shouldn't even ask him about the game since that can be attributed to wanting to play.
"…" I stayed silent
He began to laugh, "You know silence in itself is also an answer." He said with a malicious smile.
My eyes shot open at his remark and his smile somehow twisted deeper. He drew three small diagonal lines in the abyss and then crossed them with 2 horizontal lines in a grid pattern.
"I'm X's and you're O's." He said
He continued, "The rules are simple, even a child can follow along. We take turns placing our respective X's and O's in this grid until one of us makes three in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally or we fill all the spaces. The person who gets the three-in-a-row wins and it draws if we use up all the spaces. Oh, and X's go first."
Three-in-a-row huh, this game is extremely simple and very dictatable. It's simple math applied in 2-dimensional space. It seems that there's only a few ways you can win and all of them require the incompetence of the other party. Looking at it from this perspective going first which seems to be a huge advantage only actually has an advantage if your opponent ignores said advantage. No matter if you go first or second and no matter where your opponent goes you can always draw if you make the correct moves.
I don't like it. I feel like I'm missing something. I don't want to play this game, but do I have a choice?
In order to ascend, I have to beat this doppelganger and I can't do it physically so I have to do it mentally. He knows this too, it's why he suggested the game. In order to beat me he also has to do it mentally. There's a chance he just underestimates me and believes I won't understand this game's trick, but I think there's a higher likelihood that he just wants a draw.
He drew an X in the corner, "Your turn." He spoke
What! when did I agree? Fuck, what was it! I already established that he did all this walking exposition shit because he needed me to agree in some sense to play the game. So what was it? What was the condition? Shit, I don't know when I agreed!
I sat down and since I played due to my pre-planned strategies I drew the game.
"It looks like it's a draw." He said with an exaggerated smile.
"So let's play something that can't draw." He finalized
This is what I feared, here it comes.
"It's simple yet a tad bit more complicated then the three-in-a-row we played previously. It's a game about words and definitions. I say a word or short phrase and you have to say a word or short phrase that beats my word or short phrase and then we argue about which one is superior. First to ten wins."
Oh my god, there are so many loopholes. He's probably going to say a super long undefeatable phrase and say that it's short when compared to the universe or something. Plus neither of us wants to lose so we can just argue forever.
He elaborated, "Don't worry, the term short phrases is related to only 8 words or less and both of us are relegated to only use words we both know. Moreover, when we argue about the superiority of our words it comes the voice of the heart. In other words, if we truly believe that the other one has a point over us they will automatically win that round, there will be no denial of truth."
It seems that he's actually not going for a loophole win. He actually intends to outsmart me and out debate me. It doesn't seem like I'll get anywhere by not playing, I have to beat him eventually and it's best to do it when he still underestimates me like this.
"Good, I'll go first." He mindread me again
This is the bullshit I'm worried about
"First phrase, Black Hole."
Above me a singular dark point got a lot darker, black to the point I wasn't sure if it could be considered a color. It warped the surrounding void, beseeching nothingness and only growing bigger, larger and more distorted.
Okay, what the actual fuck.
I facepalmed, I'm a fucking moron. He said that he'd only use words I knew yet he said nothing about phrases.
I don't know what this is.
Black. Hole. Hole, that it something things fall into and the word black, black is not only a color but also a theme, darkness or black magic. The unexplained. So a black hole is a mysterious hole that seemingly sucks things in and gets bigger as it does so.
So in accordance what can beat that? I can't utilize any material phrases since they'll just get devoured. I'm thinking 'the death of a black hole.' but if the concept of death is meaningless to black holes I'll lose. No, it won't work, he can just argue that black holes aren't alive and therefore cannot die. The concept of death only applies to things with and alive and dead possible states and black holes from my limited observations don't seem to possess them. Therefore I must think of something else, a phrase with a real chance of success. No, a phrase that will win.
I'd never truly be sure, since I know nothing about black holes I can never be certain on my phrases' ability to win. So my best bet is to use opposites here.
"First Phrase, White hole." I spoke