Prompt: Character that hits rock bottom

Comet sits at the bottom of the crater, broken, bloody, heaving. He looks up, fighting off the nausea and ringing in his ears, fighting to bring the black figure standing on the rim into focus.

“I told you,” the figure says. Nemesis. His nemesis. The villain. They’re supposed to lose, supposed to be wrong, supposed to—Comet doesn’t know anymore. “This was always your end. Always the way you were going to end. I just had not imagined that it would be via my hand.”

Comet shakes his head, angry. Angrier than he imagined he could be. “You lie,” he cries, but something inside of him is now whispering that his nemesis is right, and that hurts more than his broken body.

“Maybe now,” the figure continues—he’s climbed downward from a particularly stable looking part of the lip, and is gingerly stepping from rock to rock, “you will stop coming after me and start pointing that overwhelming power in your hands in the right direction.”

Comet tries to spring up, but a scream of pain wraps around his left leg. Something is definitely broken, probably many things. Plus, he doesn’t need to, because Nemesis is coming to him. Maybe if Comet is smart, maybe if he conserves his energy just so, he will be able to throw a final punch, snap a final kick—something to make that smile on Nemesis’s face vanish.

“Stop thinking of ways to hurt me,” Nemesis sighs—almost as if they can read Comet’s mind. Then they’re face-to-face with him, kneeling down. Comet has to satisfy himself with spitting a mouthful of blood in Nemesis’s face, which only draws a sigh from his enemy. “I suppose this is a lot for you. I can’t imagine this is easy, but—“ Closer, closer. “You wanted to lose this fight. Today. I could see it in your eyes.” Nemesis is so close now that Comet can see the warm brown of their eyes, the color of his mother’s old mahogany dresser. “Your moves were lackluster, not from lack of talent but from lack of will. Do you know why?”

“You’re going to tell me,” Comet grits through his teeth. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes I am!” Nemesis beams, then they pull something white—a handkerchief—from their pocket and begin to dab the blood spatter from their face. Comet almost gifts them another blood-filled loogie, but stops himself. Nemesis… with the gentleness of a bird, dabs Comet’s face, a caress that is all care and no malice. “You were set up because you’re starting to ask the right questions. And the people who made you, who control you, who want you to bludgeon their enemies without thinking about what you are bludgeoning have decided your time’s up.” Nemesis then feathers a gentle finger across Comet’s forehead. “You want to fight for the little guy. The downtrodden. And you were realizing that you’re not. So… it’s time to make the choice. Will you work with me to bring them down?”

Comet heaves. It’s not a heave of frustration, or maybe it is. It’s a heave of defeat, of understanding, of a fog clearing from his mind and telling him that Nemesis is right. That the petty criminals he’s been chopping in two for stealing loaves of bread or shouting about injustice were never the enemy.

Comet sits up, and Nemesis reaches out a hand.

Comet takes it.