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Animagician looks at Frost, really looks at him, maybe for the first time. His face is hard but somehow horrified.
Animagician shakes his head. "I won't do this," he says, with a sense of finality. Anger wells up in Frost's throat and he tastes bile.
"What, are you too --" his angry retort is cut off by his own gagging and he vomits blood onto the earth of the Oasis, his home, beneath him. (The home that failed, that no one took seriously. The home he failed, because he failed Crusty and Dan. Or maybe, the earth itself was never really the home at all.)
"Look at you," Animagician snaps. "I can't kill you when you're like this. How are we going to have the dramatic conclusion of our rivalry when you're spitting up blood?"
Frost looks at his hands, instead of Animagician's too-honest face. They're blue and rotting, the ends of bones beginning to be exposed from flesh flayed by teeth. Flecks of blood, more black than red, are splattered across his ruined palms. He coughs, and heaves up more blood. Animagician dances back a few steps, trying to avoid being caught in the splash zone.
"That is disgusting, Frostbyte Freeman," Animagician tells him frankly. Frost can't quite help himself - he laughs at that, as much as it hurts.
"I can always trust you to tell it to me straight, huh," Frost muses. Animagician only hums at that. "Are you sure you don't want to do this? I'm dying. This might be your only chance to take me out, finally. I'm on my way out, anyway. You'd be doing everyone a service. End this once and for all." Frost can't bring himself to look at his mortal enemy, only keeps his eyes trained on the distant horizon - the one he and his boys came from, and where half of them had returned to.
Animagican is silent for a moment, then says, "No." Frost finally makes eye contact at that.
"Frostbyte Freeman, you are a stupid bitch who acts like he is so much better than everyone else for knowing so many big words. I hate you and your stupid face and your esoteric so much, and everyone knows that I am the best and coolest and so much better than you. But I think I would die hating myself if I killed you now."
A feeling in the back of Frost's throat swells and he tells himself it's more blood. "Why?"
"Because none of this was worth it if it's not a fair fight," Animagician tells him. "Goodbye, Frost. I hope we meet again someday."
Frost croaks out a "goodbye" but can hardly find it in him to say much more than that. He watches Animagician depart, stares at the portal until his silhouette is more than gone. He sits in a stunned silence, feels raw and bare and seen in a way he never remembers being, and it's such a joyous pain that it makes him angry and despite himself, Frost bursts into tears.
He sits there in the light of the setting sun on the ground of the Oasis, the home he failed, his insides coming out, and Frostbyte Freeman waits to die with the bitter knowledge that the only man who ever truly respected him was Animagician.