Poison and Angel. (Bolded for Poison and unbolded for Angel)

Flow is an interesting concept. It's supposed to come when you're so comfortable with the task at hand you become one with it. You forget everything else around you, the room, the time, your own body. All you feel is a sort of flow of work leaving you. Nothing else exists. And at first, that's how the fight with Luce goes for me. 

Sure, I don't like him. Sure, I disowned him and he's violent and I never expected his backlash, but the movements come fluidly from me. My breathing is regular, like I'm sleeping instead of fighting. I feel nothing and take in nothing. Not a flit of emotion or pain for each blow he deals. I don't even recognize the room's stench, though under other circumstances it would send me to my knees in a puddle of my own sick. 

When Luce catches me by the neck, I hit the ground under him, the breath knocked out of me. I'm about to flip him, give myself the advantage, but he springs to his feet, waiting for me to stand. Of course. He won't fight on the ground. I bring myself to a full stance and we dance.

And by dance, I mean fight. The wolf project slinks a few feet away, wraps its tail around its paws and tucks its snout under its big claws. It even whimpers.

Angel kicks. I duck and swing. He blocks. We fight in circles. It feels like a dance, at least. He tips his head to the side, sweat-tangled strands of hair stuck to his eyepatch. I lean forward to fake him out and he flinches. I have the advantage. I usually do. 

It's almost laughable. He's the strong one. The Frankenstein of a super stitched together of all the most powerful pieces. And yet he can't use his powers; he won't.

Brother. The word is a whisper in the back of my mind as I size him up. I feel a slight tug in a place I haven't felt in a while. My heart. He isn't my brother. It was funny to prod him with our 'brotherhood' at first, but the thought of us being connected like that now is something I can't take. Don't want to. Parrying my opponent's blows, I search for flow. I empty my mind, trying to be one with my defense, with my offense. But it's harder now.

Angel—Luce, I mean—scowls, his brow furrowed, mouth drawn in a tight line. He's younger than me, I think almost out of nowhere, by a year or two. He banks his knee and throws a kick that connects squarely with my side and almost splits my ribcage. I gasp, the pain snapping through my bones in waves that wash through my entire body. 

A ghost of a grin appears on his face.

First hit.

It'll be his last.

My thoughts splinter off and race in hundreds of different directions through my maze of a brain, snarls and spirals that lead from one place to another to another. White. My brother. Violet. My aura. Blue. My friends. Red.

My fight.

Poison punches. I swipe back. I'm a clumsy person, but I'm finding my grace. Few words flit to the front of my mind while I stumble. Hands up. Don't stop moving. Two feet on the floor, except for kicks. I can't wrestle well, so I keep the fight standing, even if that means sacrificing the immediate advantage. That's why when I knock Poison over, I let him up. I don't run when he's down. I don't run when he rises. Those times have passed. He stands, and I attack. He defends, eyeing me up and down with a suspicious gleam in his eye. Eyes. He has two that work. It isn't fair, I think, him having two eyes, but then again, what is? He's supposed to win. He's trained and ruthless and a villain.

My heart slams against the inside of my chest, over and over, like a prisoner throwing himself against the door of his cell. I land a kick. Just one. My blood sings with adrenaline. The heat is crawling. I force my breath to ease up because I can't let out that aura. I don't want to accidentally kill all of these poor creatures trapped here. I need to keep up some self-control. 

Poison spits blood. Barely misses my shoe. We fight in heavy silence, but then he smiles, and the smile is cool and coy and a shiver races up my back. I'm sick of being scared, but Poison is unpredictable and I'm half-blind. Though I want to stay cautious, to shrink back and stay on my guard, I mostly want to beat the crap out of him. Violence isn't supposed to be the answer, but I don't care, I just want to give this jerkwad his comeuppance.

Even if he's my brother.

He whistles long and low, gasping, grinning. He circles, eyes me for an opening, slipping out of the way when I lunge. My lungs burn, the air so sour I half gag. "Look at you," he says, "so riled up. What did it?"

I swing for the side of his face. He holds out his forearm and stops the blow. He continues with a smirk, blowing a wisp of hair out of his face. "Is it what I said about you being an experiment?"

Keep him occupied. Keep his mind churning. Slow him down.

I'm seething. He knows I'm seething, doesn't he? I can't tell. He's a confusing guy. Everyone I have to fight seems to be. I aim for his chest. He swings. His knuckles meet the side of my face and my head snaps to the side. I stumble t avoid a hit to the floor. My cheek throbs, wet with blood. Jerk. I struggle to stay footed, just to avoid a volley of punches on my blind side. My vision is already blotchy and I grit my teeth, blocking. I try to remember the Muay Thai kicks I learned, any sort of technique at all. I jump back, ducking another blow. I have to dodge and weave and dodging and weaving is pretty hard when you're a half-blind guy my size.

I start to suppress my chuckle, but then I shrug and let it come out. Luce makes a strangled sound and glares, hopping back. Fuel the fire. The problem with heroes is that, though they can usually fight okay, they don't know how to keep up on the mental front. To be a good villain, you have to be well versed in both the physical and mental realms of fighting. Luce isn't versed in either. I stand on my toes. Luce ducks back. And then he surprises me.

I lunge. Poison has me bested both standing and wrestling, so I have to take a chance. I have to take him to the ground while I can still catch him off guard. His expression betrays shock, if only for a second. A white face, a second of bug-eyes, a flare of his nostrils. I throw him down hard, adrenaline and white hot hissing through my body. My ragged breathing sounds out between my ears. I slam my fist into the side of his face. Repeatedly. A staccato of blows that almost flow out of me, like movements of a machine. Poisons swears and claws at my wrists and arms. Sloppy fighting. Unexpected from him. 

So this guy is an actual moron, huh?  My back hits the floor, another wash of pain crashing through my neck and head. I can feel the blood drip from the edges of my mouth. First Ceres, now Luce. My fists clench. I'm always prepared for a fight, but as Luce tries his hand at pummeling my face in, it's the anger I feel, the sheer hate that propels me forward. It's not Luce who ends up the riled one; it's me. I'm the trained one, the villain, the proper son. The real son. He isn't. He shouldn't even be alive. And he shouldn't be such a fly in the ointment either. He's just an experiment. A plaything. A project. Why won't he act like one?

Poison grabs my face. Slashes it. I recoil for a second, glance down at my trembling hands, my fists gleaming with blood. Gleaming with blood. I feel a squeak draw up in the back of my throat, vomit rising from the very bottom of my stomach. I glance back. Poison's hair is red and his face is, well, it's red too and his nose is pushed up at a very wrong angle. I feel a stab twising in my chest. My aura isn't out. I have no excuse. I'm supposed to be a good guy. Why won't I act like one? "I didn't mean—"

"Save it," I say, the pain setting in from my broken face. It'll fix itself. Eventually. I grab him by his collar and push him off me. He's not as heavy as he looks. He hasn't been eating enough to sustain all that muscle and bone weight he took on during the transformation. The pain sinks under my muscle and nerve, clouding the edges of my eyes. But cages gleam in my peripherals, lines and lines of them. As he stares at me for that horrified second, I fling Luce back, against the cage the wolf was in. Crash! The sound is as jarring to my ears as it to his. He looks at me, black eye wet and bloodshot. Suddenly, he is silent, his nose and eye scrunched up, his skin oddly pale. His wings slip through the bars, feathers fluttering through the stuffy air, shining with sweat. The pain that pulses through all the crushed little veins and feathers shows clear on his face. When my wings came in, they were equally delicate for a good few months. I want to crush his. A stab of indignation rises through me. Only my family is supposed to have wings, and he isn't part of my family.

"Look, Poison." I hold up my hands, some sort of mercy mechanism kicking in. He beat me up, but I'm no barbarian. His blood coats my knuckles, and enough is enough. I lift my head slowly. The pain has made my mind a syrupy fog and I try not to slur. "Let's pull a draw. Just let me go and I'll—"

I fling myself at him in his moment of altruistic stupidity. He'd make a great superhero. That's all they deal in when not punishing people according to their own idea of how the law should work, altruistic stupidity. The cage slides and slams into another. A raccoon chitters in annoyance. Luce yelps, cornered, my hand on his throat, his wings crumpled in a trembling black feathered mass. His own hands are still, but his wings betray his fear. Like how a cat will sit perfectly still but her tail will whip back and forth to show her agitation, it's his wings that show how he really feels. And this kid is scared—what is it he would say?— 'spitless.' "You aren't going anywhere, project." I keep my voice level, deepen it, force back the giddiness that threatens to creep in. Maybe I will tell Dad I caught Luce. After I drain Luce of his powers, that is. Maybe Dad will finally respect me and treat me like a real heir if I can bring back this experiment and it just stays put like it's supposed to. Take its powers away. Break its legs. Clip its wings. It all can be done, and Luce wouldn't be useful to Owl then, not a bit.

"Okay, jeez, fine, whatever you say. But leggo, huh?" Crap. Crap. Crap. I hold my head up—though it's hard with Poison's hand clamped around my throat, squeezing slowly, draining my thoughts away, my blood away, my very energy to fight away. I almost consider summoning up my aura, but I still don't know how to do that and bashing Poison's head in, though he's choking me and threatening me and smirking at me, just won't do. Kepler the wolf snuffles forward, poking her nose at the Coke bottle the man gave me earlier. I motion with two fingers for her to help me, hoping even if she just takes a little nip at Poison, then maybe he'll be distracted enough for me to turn the tide. He outright grins at me now. It's ugly in the bloody meat-pie of his face, a crescent of perfect white teeth. The wolf only noses the bottle again.

"I'm just waiting for you to black out," I say with a polite shrug. Color leaves his face the longer I hold him, his good eye rolling back until I barely see the black of it. His chest heaves, his breath leaving him in shallow, wheezing gasps. I shake his shoulders and slam him back another time for good measure. As long as he's conscious, he's a nuisance. An escape attempt waiting to happen. But he's kind of hard to knock out, especially when he's struggling.

"That won't happen," I say smugly, furiously motioning for Kepler's help. She just keeps looking at the Coke bottle. The Coke bottle...

"Then I'll just wait 'til you die." Which is fine by my book, if he dies. He's looking to the side, at that dumb wolf. It can help him, it's strong enough, big enough, powerful enough, but it won't. It would never lash out, not unless provoked. That's how it's bred and built to be. The metaphors, man, they just write themselves.

My hand reaches out. I need that bottle. It's just a few inches out of reach. My fingers stretch, trembling. No luck. Why'd I have to put it down so far? Why can't I just do something logical for once? I flash Poison a nervous smile, trying not to look at his puffed-up nose. Suffice to say, it isn't a beauty to look at, even if it's healing. And I caused it. "Or you-you could just loosen your grip and maybe we can talk about what you said earlier, something about you forgetting my escape if I don't kick up a f-fight." I force my voice to crack and he raises an amused eyebrow.  I used to sound like this all the time. I'm just trying to stall him, play it dumb and hope he falls for the act. Give me enough time to get that bottle. I don't want him to take me back to my dad. I'm scared of my dad.

I roll my eyes. I see him reaching for that mutt. He's not very discreet. "That animal isn't going to help you, Luce."

"Yeah?" Please don't see the bottle. Please don't see the bottle. "Um." What do I say? "Prove it."

And some part of me, some small part of me, knows he's trying to trick me about something and make me do something I'll regret, but I'm more curious than wary. He's tricky kid, that Luce,  but pretty helpless. So I pull him off the bars and slam him back down on the concrete, hard. Hs body buckles. I watch impassively. He doesn't make a sound. He just lies there in a red shadow that spreads around him in a way that looks like a giant, liquid wax seal from this angle. His wings twitch. The wolf sits there, statue-still. Her yellow eyes flash, kneading the floor with her paws like a cat. I glance back down. Luce looks broken, sprawled out like that, wings twitching. Blood knots his hair, stains his trembling fingers, colorless and cold. And it's this moment that, for a fraction of a second, sends me spiraling out of control. It's just a flash of insight, seeing him fighting and bleeding and suffering like a person and not a weapon or plaything. For just one second, the words come to me, so fast and so violently they feel like a slash of claws across my conscience ready to tear me in two. Little brother.

And my hand finds the cool glass of the bottle, the pain of my tender muscles threatening to swallow me up. It's almost funny. I used to dream big and all, but now, I just dream of living an existence where I don't get crushed by my own brother. I grab the bottle's neck and raise it with a quick jerk of my shoulder. A shock of pain raises from my arm to my toes. The top flips off, spewing a spray of something too sweet-smelling to be pure Coke in my face. A wave of nausea hits my stomach. Spiked. 

The moment passes. He snatches a glass bottle I hadn't noticed before and I grab for it. Damn him. Of course, he'd hide some trick up his sleeve. That's just how he fights. Dirty. I shake out my throbbing face and he swings.

It's alI I can do. I close my eyes and pray it hits. My stomach jelly, my lungs heaving, my throat tight. I have to get this right. 

The glass shatters into pieces on the floor, but I don't process it, not at first. The substance has a sweet smell that muddies up my thoughts. But it doesn't dizzy me up enough. A shock races through my neck, down my spine. A bruise wells up under my skin. I can't help it, my body crumples underneath me and I fold up like something wilted, gasping, struggling to stand. The darkness comes quick, billows of smoke that twist through my mind and cling to my blurred thoughts. That same smoke weighs on my eyelids. 

He drops off.

The bottle meets where his neck and jaw connect and he hits the ground. Helpless. It takes a second for the thought to materialize in my foggy brain. I won. The fight is over and I won. 

What?

No. No way. It's a trick, a trap. I kneel down and poke him. He stays perfectly still. The relief that wells up inside, it's, well, it's more physical than a thought. My knees go weak, the adrenaline leaving me in a nervous thrum. I won. I won. My chest could burst from just the thought. Me, not dead. Me, winning a fight. Kepler woofs. The sweetness intensifies, coating my lungs in a flowery sickness. The substance drips down my face, runs down my skin. I draw in a long breath, but I can feel it, suffocating me. It's all I can smell. My mind spins faster and faster until I can barely grasp anything. Me, the room, Poison. It all feels like a nightmare I can't quite remember all the threads from. "Kepler," I say, and my voice is croaky. She approaches, sniffing the air uncertainly. The world is lopsided. I think of my teachers, talking about how alcohol doesn't have to be digested to make you drunk. It seeps through your tongue and mouth. Like this stuff. 

The sugary sweet rises behind my face and eyes. I see colors. Pastels. Pinks, blues, and violets. My wings wilt. The fear is tangible, like sludge in my gut. But I don't feel it for long, because I'm falling, falling, falling...

Until I hit the ground in a wreath of flowers and smoke.