Once the ruminant stopped ruminating on the dark essence, it lifted Despair's hook in its mouth and let out a muffled baa. Jaxx laughed and put up his dukes. Gezora gives the signal. Jaxx, Sheep, time to Fite Yer' Mate.
The sheep stops its charge. Maybe it realized it couldn't close the distance, maybe it was beginning to think of a new strategy, but how would we know? It's just a sheep. Just a normal, everyday shee...
Is it melting? I think its melting...
The sheep turns into a strange slurry of unidentifiable liquid as and oozes towards Jaxx at alarming rate.
"I am not drunk enough to deal with this."
Jaxx leaps up into the air and gets stuck there, but not because he is so fat like yo momma, but because of his powers. The Sheep liquid reforms back into the Sheep after it reached the point directly below Jaxx. Jaxx smirks and slams down to the sheep, kicking into its back and causing the ungulate to perform a four legged version of the splits. The sheep doesn't seem bothered by this though, and pops back up with so much speed that it launches Jaxx back up into the air. The Sentinel takes a moment to right himself in the air before he charges towards the sheep, trying to grab it, but his arms swipe directly through the wool. It was almost like there wasn't a body beneath that wool...
There totally is though, because Jaxx does another swipe and manages to grab it this time. He wonders what could have gone wrong the first swipe. The two float upwards and then come slamming down, but the Sheep slips out of Jaxx's grasp before he slams his own body against the arena ground. A massive crater is formed, but Jaxx is unscathed. He brushes the dust and dirt of his clothing as he launches upwards to catch the sheep during its fall.
But the sheep seems to disappear before he can reach it. Jaxx flies back to the ground and inspects the arena as quickly as he could. The sheep didn't seem to be anywhere...
And then it was directly in front of him.
The sheep lodged Despair's hook directly into Jaxx's eye, giving it a direct path to spread its misery into Jaxx's mind. Jaxx freezes in place as his mind is bombarded by the influence of the weapon's effect.
Despair first tried to ply some of Jaxx's old regrets up and use them against the Sentinel, but he had spent millions of years learning how to deal with all kinds of emotions. Despair would bring up old loves only to see Jaxx mentally destroy the illusion effortlessly. Despair brought up old friends and horrors he had seen, but Jaxx again had no problem dispatching the phony projections of his past. Despair was getting frustrated. Usually when its hook was placed in someone, it could pry out their fears or regrets and torment them, but this man had grown immune to torment.
So Despair just wiped the slate clean.
Jaxx's mind disappeared, all of his memories and thoughts erased and replaced. In his mind, he was no longer a Sentinel who has lived for millions of years. He was a young boy, no older than six years old. A young paranoid boy, with a personality completely manufacted by the embodiment of despair.
Jaxx's body still remained motionless as his mind was erased and replaced, but the sheep was busy trying to do some damage to the still, standing body. It kicked with its hooves, but it found that a quadruped can't kick to well with just one leg at a time. It began to butt its head against Jaxx's legs, managing to bruise a shin, but it also gave itself a headache. It was also pretty hungry...
The Sheep propped up on its back hooves and pressed against Jaxx with it front legs, knocking him on his back. The sheep stood on top of Jaxx and began to nibble on the rigid Sentinel's hair.
Back in Jaxx's mind, the young child version of Jaxx found himself alone in a dark, rainy field. He couldn't find his parents, parents who only existed in his false memories. He couldn't find his friends, phonies manufactured in the false personality's backstory. The boy shivered, and looked around for cover. There were some trees in the distance, and he began to run towards them, but the more he walked towards them, the further away they appeared. His eyes began to tear, and he was going to begin to sob, but something frightened him.
A sound.
The boy jumped and turned around...
The crowd is getting a bit antsy. They came to see a fite, not a sheep nibble on a guy's hair. They couldn't see the mental struggle, so they had no idea how bad things were getting in Jaxx's mind.
The massive weresheep loomed over the tiny Jaxx and bleated another terrifying bleat. Jaxx screamed and began to run, but he found the ground muddy and slippery. He fell into the mud over and over, The weresheep moving slowly and dangerously towards the child. Jaxx screamed for help, but he found his mouth full of mud. The mud was pulling him in and filling his stomach. He gasped for air but only found more mud. Soon, all but his eyes were completely submerged in the thick wet dirt. The weresheep roared in his face before rearing one of its massive hooves back and slamming Jaxx deep into the ground.
Jaxx sunk.
And sunk.
And sunk.
Soon, he popped out of the mud, landing in a cave with absolutely no light. It was pitch black. He could feel something moving around him. Some of it began to crawl on him. He swatted at them, shrieking from the feel of having multiple unknown things crawl on him. He stumbled about in the dark, trying to escape the crawly things. He saw a light ahead. He ran towards it.
When he reached it, he found the Weresheep, its body aflame. It reached out and pulled young Jaxx in towards its flaming body. It unleashed another terrifying bleat as the fire began to burn the young version of Jaxx.
Back in the arena, the sheep has tired of hair, and began to bounce up and down on Jaxx's body, having fun just messing with the body. Unfortunately for the ungulate, his silly bouncing knocked the hook to the side a bit.
Suddenly, inside his mind, Jaxx's vision of despair trembled. The weresheep looks around a bit, wondering what happened, but turned back to its prey to finish the job.
But that's when it saw Jaxx was back to his normal, millenia old self.
Jaxx rammed a fist into the weresheep's stomach, causing it to let go of him. He grabbed both of its arms and ripped them out of socket, flinging them back into the dark cave full of creepy crawlies.
"Despair ain't got nothin' on me."
He delivers a quick axe kick to the weresheep, splitting the body directly down the middle. Jaxx reached down into the ground and literally pulled the world out from beneath him, balling it up in his fist and crushing it. Despair felt... well, Despair felt despair as it was purged from Jaxx's restored mind.
The hook shatters and frightens the bouncing sheep back in the real world. The sheep hops off of Jaxx's body as he stands back up, fully conscious and fully pissed.
The Sheep scrambles about as it tries to think of what to do now that Despair's hook has failed. A mist begins to fill the arena. The sheep can't see a thing. A silhouette appears behind the Sheep in the mist...
Baa, baa, strange sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master,
One for the crowd,
And one for the cuttlefish
Who watches us all
As the mist clears, members of the audience find their laps occupied by cooked mutton and woolen clothing. Back in the arena, Jaxx's figure appears from the mist.
"A bit itchy, but still comfortable."
When the mist clears, he does not see what he was expecting.
The sheep's bare skeleton stood there, moving like the sheep did when it still had flesh.
"Son of a..."
The sheep is on him in seconds. It's skeletal hooves smash into him wildly, pushing the demigod of a man back against the arena walls. Jaxx tries to fight back, but every shattered sheep bone is instantly repaired. The wool jacket begins to twitch, and suddenly Jaxx is pinned against the wall. He can do nothing as the Sheep delivers blow after blow into his body, inflicting a pain he hadn't felt in a long while.
And then...
it stops.
The sheep stands back, the wool jacket weakens its grasp on his body.
Jaxx falls to the arena ground. He had been in pain, but there was not a single mark on his body. The sheep walks toward Jaxx, Jaxx swings out with his fist, but the sheep just reassembles. The sheep leans in towards Jaxx.
He screams curses in frustration at his futile blow as the sheep's skull lightly touches against his forehead.
In his mind, he heard a faint voice.
"Good match, Jaxx."
The skeleton of the sheep falls to the ground, the force holding it together lessens, leaving it still in the general shape, but no longer able to move.
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