“I am now going to put the barriers in place,” Luna told the two contestants. Silver light bounced from her hands to both of them. Thana could feel it pushing through her. Like how tiny particles of dust tumble through the air and eventually settle on surfaces, the silver energy eventually formed protective layers around her vital organs and areas.
If she wanted, she could have tried to resist, and a big part of her wanted to. The memory of having foreign magic in her body was still fresh - would most likely never leave her. With clenched teeth, she just accepted the barrier reinforcing the inner side of her skull. Not like she needed any of this. ‘They are supposed to only become active once they are needed,’ she thought, ‘I don’t need them ever… guess I will see how that fuckery works in conjunction in a few moments.’
“I must say, I expected Lydia to fight me,” the tone of a bastard sure of his victory, “but this is better.”
Thana looked at her hands and testily clenched them into fists. The energy that was supposed to shield her felt very… dangerous. Not in the sense that it was going to harm her, more that it was broken into a purpose less sinister than the original. Like energy from a coal plant used to run an electric car, advertised as environmentally friendly.
“Last time you humiliated me in front of the court, this time I will show you just how strong I am through the use of my-“
“Dude, just shut the fuck up.” Thana looked up from her hands. She had that tingly feeling that John described as anticipation. She hadn’t felt like that ever since… waiting to fight him. A jolt of guilt went up her spine. “No one is listening.”
“But they should listen, for when I display my superior skill with the sword, they will learn to fear me again,” Mario said, his stupidly handsome, sun-kissed face smiling brightly.
“Oh yeah, I believe that your sword skills are really good,” Thana drawled and giggled, making a jerking motion with her left hand. “One-hand, two-hand, I instantly believe you are a master of all the techniques.”
“…It is such a shame that your mouth knows no manners while you are this cute,” Mario said.
“Personally, I think my curses make me that much more adorable. But, hey, you are entitled to being totally fucking wrong,” she gave him a deadpan stare. “Don’t expect me to not rip off your arm and degrade you into the piece of cat litter that you are though, you dumbass brown noser.”
“Ehem,” Jeff above cleared his throat, Luna had long since left the field. “If you are done with the trash talk, let me remind you the only items you are allowed to carry with you into this battle are the ones currently on your body. If you want to get something out of your personal dimensional pockets or anything, now is the last chance.”
“Let me get rid of this, then,” Mario said and opened the collar of the cloak that had hidden away his armour, tossing it into his dimension pocket. What had been a metal-reinforced leather armour when they first met, was now just leather. The only reinforced parts of it were the armguards, keeping up the illusion that it was meant to bait Lydia.
Thana breathed in. Not deeply, just a normal, calm breath that was interrupted halfway by an outburst of laughter. “Ghahahahaha, HAHAAHAAHAaaaaaaaa,” she let it out with a long exhale at the end. Iron. They had used just normal iron for the armguards. Lydia could have taken control of it, but what good would iron do against a leather armour that was from the skin of some fantastical beast?
Mario shifted slightly, and his many weapons rattled. Thana dissected the noises with care. She heard the broadsword and twin-daggers on his hips, the claymore on his back, the 12 throwing knives on his belt, and the miniature stilettos worked into his boots. A wide arrangement of bladed weaponry, aside from the stilettos, which were primarily stabbing weapons. There was something else in his belt as well. Two vials with a liquid inside. Some kind of potion?
The crystallized blood that was her fingernails liquified as she felt a slight light-headedness that always accompanied the soft buzzing spreading from her eyes. It wasn’t unpleasant, it felt natural, made her wide awake, powerful. Ready to kill something. Ready to kill everything. Ready to drive the entire species to extinction. ‘Try not to rip the shit-eating grin out of his face,’ she warned herself, ‘at least not literally.’
“Well then, the contestants are set,” Dra said. “Now, we move on to the biome wheel, where will this fight happen?” The wheel of fortune on the screens above, that had been set into motion a while ago, now came to a halt, displaying an icon of the arena they were in. A disappointed outcry went through the crowd. “I am sorry, but it seems like this fight will be set in the standard arena setting,” Dra apologized to the audience. “Without further ado. Let us begin.”
“YES! FOLKS AT HOME! IN THE ARENA! COUNT DOWN WITH ME! THREE!” The crowd went wild. “TWO!” Thana opened her arms wide, a completely open stance. Mario drew his daggers and assumed a stance, one of the silver blades pointed at her heart. “ONE!” Thana’s heart was pumping like crazy, far beyond human capability. The blood of her fingernails reformed into liquid claws. “GO!”
Mario stormed right at her. The three metres between them was easily crossed with a lunge at his level, bridged in but a moment. The daggers aimed for her shoulders, a crippling strike meant to end the fight before it began. For most people in the arena, he was moving too fast to follow.
For Thana, he seemed to walk through water. Her grin turned upside down until she frowned in disappointment. ‘Fucking hell, he is as weak as before,’ she thought.
“Have you seen Eliza?” a soothing voice suddenly asked.
Thana looked at her feet. Back stared the face of a woman, clearly defined. She looked a lot like herself. “I want to apologize,” the face said.
Thana stepped on her without a second thought, ‘Annoying fucking things.’
She looked up again to find Mario’s daggers close. Very close indeed, they were about to connect. Rolling her two-ringed eyes, Thana decided to do something about that. There was a slight problem though. She wasn’t actually much faster than him, she just had completely over the top senses. ‘Well, I can catch one of these at least,’ she opened her mouth and snapped at the dagger aiming for her right shoulder.
A crunching noise and a sharp pain followed. Splinters filled her mouth as the dagger shattered between her perfect teeth. Glass was immediately ejected from her flesh and bloodstream, leaving only the pain where the second dagger had dug into her unguarded left shoulder.
Mario had a victorious expression until Thana opened her mouth and his dagger fell apart. He wanted to jump back, assess the situation, but Thana grabbed his right hand, the one holding the dagger that had landed the hit.
The feeling of having a mouthful of loose shards was anything but pleasant, but Thana was used to worse. Between getting squashed, cut open, having her organs rearranged, trying to breathe without lungs, having several thousand volts running through her, and being put on ice with nails that made every living second hell on earth, it barely registered on the pain scale.
Thana spat out the shards of glass in a wave of blood that rinsed out even the tiniest remains. One of the larger shards, she caught in her hand and held it against the sun. Under the painted surface, the material was entirely clear. “Glass, I fucking knew it,” she declared and tossed it over her shoulder; “Going the extra mile to paint it, you really must have wanted to trick Lydia, you harmless fucking coward.”
That insult evidently worked on Mario, “What would someone like you know of honour?”
She shrugged, driving the dagger deeper into her shoulder, “Ah, this or that, or nothing, I don’t really care. A tip for the future though.”
The blood mage picked up the sound of cloth being cut. The swordmaster held onto his dagger, his free hand ready to draw his broadsword the moment he thought it would give him an opportunity to strike.
“Two tips, actually,” Thana corrected herself. “First, fuck you for destroying my favourite robe, you jackass. Fixing that hole won’t be cheap.”
“…That is not a tip,” Mario pointed out.
“No, but I wanted to say it anyway, second…” Thana moved Mario’s arm, against his physical protest. His eyebrows furrowed first from the strain, then from the confusion. The dagger once again pointed at her heart. “Aim for somewhere that actually makes a difference,” she cackled, stepping into the blade before he could try to stab her again.
“Unbelievable!” Jeff shouted from above; “It seems that contestant Thana just lost the… wait, the alarms are not going off… WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!”
“IT MEANS BE QUIET, YOU WANKER!” Thana screamed up at him and let go of Mario’s hand. The sword master, to his credit, reacted swiftly, letting go of the dagger and moving to take a new stance. Before he could do more than let go of his weapon, though, Thana kicked him in the side and sent him flying. His body skipped over the ground several times.
‘The best part about getting this body control shit in order is that I can decide to NOT instantly super murder him,’ she thought as the knight of Rome came to a halt a mere ten metres away. He quickly regained his standing, just in time to see Thana draw the dagger from her heart and toss it aside without a care. Stunned, he, and the audience, watched as the wound simply closed. Whatever blood she had lost up until this point gathered in a small orb behind her back, the default position where it naturally went when she wasn’t paying attention.
She yawned for all the world to see. Long and bored, the sound stretched, accompanied by a gesture that looked like she had just woken up a few seconds ago. The violet flesh of her gums, her sharp teeth, all of it was on open display. She brushed her white hair behind her pale ear and looked at Mario, who had drawn his broadsword.
“Well, at least you got some balls,” she admitted. “Not a single fucking braincell though. Guess I will have to scratch my earlier insult and replace ‘coward’ with ‘idiot’.”
“That would make me a harmless idiot in your eyes,” Mario pointed out, his broadsword in a parrying position.
“I mean… yeah,” Thana giggled.
She launched herself at him. Mario had only waited for that to happen. He feigned a parry but at the last moment went to dodge instead, sidestepping the vertical slash of Thana’s claws and instead aiming to ram his sword into her guts.
Thana caught the tip of the sword between two fingers. Mario’s eyes widened. He had underestimated just how big the gap between them was. Thana grabbed his left arm. “Excuse me, did I say harmless?” she apologized in an overly cutesy voice. “I meant to say armless.” The parallel bones of the lower arm snapped like dry twigs. The iron protection around them was shattered, the leather proven useless. All of those sensations vibrated in her palm.
Did she enjoy that? To a degree. It wasn’t exactly the violence itself that made her ecstatic though. It was the rush of complete and utter supremacy and seeing this smug ‘knight’ in front of her rattle in anguish. She tossed him upwards, holding his broadsword in place. He was down another weapon.
When he landed, painfully on his sheathed claymore, Thana yawned again. This time it was out of honest boredom. “I mean, can you get me to go serious or do I need to handicap myself more?” Thana wanted to know, then snapped her fingers, “I KNOW! I won’t use my hands! That’s a standard thing the bad guys do, right?”
“Calling yourself the bad guy?” Mario wanted to know as he fought to get back on his feet.
“Isn’t that the question all bitches ask themselves? Do I want to be an annoying cunt and get called a bad girl and bend over or do I get headpats and called a good girl?”
Mario ignored her intellectual musings and took one of the vials from his belt and pulled the lid off with his teeth before gulping it down.
“Oh?” Thana raised an eyebrow as she let it happen. “Some kind of healing potion? I guess that’s kind of smart.”
“Wouldn’t work against people that take me seriously,” Mario growled as his arm slowly snapped back into place.
It seemed that the knight had finally accepted his underdog position here. He was no longer looking at Thana like he could defeat her, instead he was looking for a way to exploit her arrogance and whittle her down. “You are a proud sack of incompetent shit-headery, aren’t you?” Thana sneered.
“I am a knight of Rome,” Mario told her. “I have been climbing since I was born, always striving to reach a new height, always abiding to the protocol of our proud nation. People like you, who are unable to follow simple protocols… I must admit that I hate you.”
“Good fucking job, at trying to win the crowd over,” Thana shrugged, “but if you have that big a stick up your ass, you would have gotten along with Lyly way better.” Mario tested his healed hand. It seemed to move just fine, so he went for his Claymore. “You fucking moron, wait a bit longer,” Thana told him. “There is a bone shard in your wrist that’s still getting back into place.”
“How would you know?” Mario asked but froze.
“I can hear the cartilage in your wrist rolling, I hear your blood pumping, I can smell the amount of water in your breath,” Thana laughed. “How the fuck do you think I knew about the glass?! I heard it yesterday!” She picked up the sound of Lydia sighing between the mumbles of the crowd. ‘Shouldn’t I have said that…? Ah, right the whole fucking information warfare. Ah, the hell do I care, it’s her problem, I am just going to beat this shithead up.’
“The princess knows court behaviour, I’ll give her that,” Mario stated, “but I am fighting for the Sons of Rome. A secessionist like Lydia is not worthy of support from me!” He spun around himself, and then there were a handful of knives flying towards her. Thana, devout in her promise to not use her arms, dodged four of them, but the fifth actually managed to hit her in the leg. A second wave was already flying at her.
Mario now knew that the only area he could have hoped to match her in was speed. Straining his body to the absolute, as Thana was momentarily occupied with dodging, he grasped his claymore and executed a vertical strike.
Too bad he had, once again, vastly underestimated the gap in power. Maybe he simply hadn’t believed Thana when she told him she could hear his blood pumping or maybe he had to believe it was a lie in order to have the slightest bit of hope left. Either way, even while dodging all of the second wave successfully, Thana had heard his footsteps closing in.
And so, the strike of the two-handed sword sunk uselessly into the ground. Before Mario could whirl around, his last major weapon was pinned to the ground by Thana’s bare foot. The double-edged sword didn’t even cut through her sole.
“You are way too easy to bait in,” she opened up and pulled the one dagger that had hit from her leg. Then she pressed her foot down. Her blood crystallized directly underneath her skin and made it impossible for the blade to do any damage. Then it broke under her heel.
Mario stumbled backwards. He gritted his teeth.
‘Ah, the frustration of the high and mighty,’ Thana thought with satisfaction. ‘I fucking love it.’
“End it,” he demanded.
She clicked her tongue. “Already? You might as well give up if you know it’s not going to work out for you.”
“I can do no such thing; my honour wouldn’t allow it.”
“Honour,” Thana spat out. “Honour is nothing but an illusion that you fucking soldiers tell yourself around the campfire to give your command structure any sense. Honour is what the generals fuck into your skull through your ears so you won’t desert. Honour is the dumbass reason people need to keep promises. Honour is a concept for jackasses and LARPers. Try honesty instead, how about that?!”
“You know nothing of men,” Mario taunted her.
“But I have seen enough of the shit that humankind can pull to tell you.” She stared up at the annoying, tall man’s face. “Honour doesn’t save lives.”
“You are wrong,” the swordmaster told her.
“What a resounding argument, you should try becoming a politician with that completely waterproof fucking logic,” Thana growled. “Tell me, how much stronger would you be with a proper sword, not these glass dildos.”
Mario narrowed his eyes, “I would destroy you.”
Thana smirked, “Now THAT sounds like a fucking idea.” She turned away from the knight and looked towards Romulus. “Let’s skip the fucking rules, give this asshole a sword that’s actually useful!”
All eyes in the arena wandered to Romulus. “Can she demand that?” Jeff asked his co-host.
“Well, the rules don’t state anything about such a case,” Dra said. “Such a merciless beat down as we are witnessing today is… well, it’s not a first, but usually it's just a beatdown.”
“Can a girl get a quick answer around here, you blabbering cock munchers?!” Thana screamed at the commentators.
The camera showed the emperor on his throne, his eyes closed, fingers dancing over the golden armrest as both Luna and Sol spoke silent words. “If both contestants are fine with this, I will allow it,” Romulus finally announced.
“Bitchin’,” Thana giggled and turned to Mario.
“Take this!” Maximillian shouted and tossed a sword into the ring. It was a longsword; the one Mario had been wearing on the day of his appointment. Seemingly weightless, it travelled most of the distance and only slowly descended as it gradually left Maximillian’s zone of influence over gravity. It was flying long enough for Mario to catch it in his raised hand. A heroic pose, a perfect prelude to despair.
Mario grasped the grip of black leather and pulled off the black sheath. The only way to describe the blade that came into view was flawless. A white with only the slightest tinge of grey, almost shining in the sun, double edged with a broad, slightly curved guard. Simple, elegant – flawless.
Mario held it like an old friend with both hands and slowly lowered it. “Know that you could have won this day,” Mario said with renewed certainty, “if it weren’t for your arrogance.”
“You know, you keep underestimating me.” Thana rolled her neck. “Come at me, bro.”
Mario charged at her. He feigned an attack from above only to change course halfway through the attack. Now it came from the side, a fact that Thana had easily anticipated. ‘Still not using my hand,’ she thought and did the good old thing that always solved her problems: biting. Her jaw opened, the blade cut into her cheek, then she chomped down.
CRUNCH! The momentum of the blade stopped, the sword vibrating under the force. But this time, it wasn’t the blade that had shattered. Pain shot through her jaw, down to the root of her teeth. Stumbling backwards, Thana held her mouth as shards of her pearly whites dropped from her moving lips. “Cockshucking shon of aa fahshing whohre,” she cursed. “Shithing queen of dickheadsh.” One by one her destroyed teeth fell out, pushed away by a new set. “Tremendous cock of ball dropping fuckery, I swear to myself, you twat-ignoring super-cunt, fucking tarnation of global warming… SOMETHING, SHIT I AM OUT OF CURSES, I AM SO MAD I MIGHT SCREAM GOD’S FUCKING NAME!”
Mario set after her with a series of swift strikes as she let out that tirade of curses. Each of the attacks missed. Thana did give the weapon its due. The teeth, or to be exact, the enamel that covered the teeth, were the hardest part of the human body. Even for Thana, this was not an exception, meaning that, if that blade was hard enough to withstand a bite, it would be sharp enough to cut through her bones.
“Scared?” Mario, now once more triumphant in tone, asked. “This blade is made from a 35% Mithril alloy. It is indestructible!”
‘Fucking idiot,’ Thana thought. ‘As if they would give an actually indestructible blade to him.’
She bent backwards to dodge another horizontal strike. Mana pumped through her body, all flowing towards her jaws. If her old teeth hadn’t been hard enough to break that thing, she would simply have to get some that were sturdier, it was that simple. She jumped far backwards, and they both ceased to move for a moment. The crowd cheered Mario’s name, and he, sure of himself, waved at them.
Thana spat out another set of teeth. ‘They sure love the underdog,’ she thought as she heard them cheer. She imagined them chanting her name instead. ‘Thana! Thana! Thana!’, she could imagine their voices. The idea gave her a headache. All of these voices, screaming that name. A pain in her head, like something was scratching against the inside of her skull. It pounded and pounded.
“Now, I will end this!” Mario announced and got into position. He was completely taken aback when he found Thana actually charging at him instead. She jumped, not at him but at his sword. The shifting of his posture told her which path the blade would travel. When he realized her head was on a collision course with his blade, Mario only put more force behind the attack.
Then she felt her teeth collide with the incredibly hard material. One terrible moment she imagined feeling that crunch again, then her jaw closed. Her momentum carried her further, Mario’s attack was neutralized, his arm was ripped backwards, but he held on. The blade left Thana’s jaws. She landed behind him and looked over her shoulder. Mario raised the blade, smiling, then froze halfway through the motion.
He stared at the bite-sized half circle that was missing near the tip of the blade. Thana grinned and spat out the mithril alloy. “Indesstructible my assh,” she laughed with a numb jaw and lost another set of teeth. They hadn’t shattered but the surfaces were covered in networks of cracks. She would have to repeat that process a few more times before she got a proper set that lasted. “Fun fact, I have unlimited fucking teeth,” she mused, “but you only have that one blade.”
“You bitch!” Mario said, inspecting the damage more closely.
“Awww? What, was that blade important to you?” Thana taunted him. “Don’t bind your fucking emotions to a weapon. They are tools that are going to break eventually, your mind must be about as bright as the depths of your boyfriend’s ass.”
“Aaaaaaah!” the swordmaster charged at her with the damaged blade.
The attack was so desperate, so pathetic, that Thana could not help but suddenly feel tired. “Okay, I’ve had it with this. Bloodburn.” The crimson wings appeared behind her. Fire without heat, blood without a solid state of matter, raw power as mist and crystal. Her faux pas at the airport meant that there had been rumours around these at the very least.
Mario didn’t care, he continued his charge. The moment he attempted to bring his hand down, Thana jumped up and rammed her forehead against his nose. The force made him lose balance and fall over backwards. “You know, I was at half-power this entire fucking time,” Thana couldn’t help herself but be an ass about this. ‘Okay, maybe I am a bit of a fucking sociopath,’ Thana thought and kicked the blade away from Mario’s hand.
“I changed my mind, you aren’t cute at all,” Mario groaned, holding the bleeding mess that was his nose.
“Bitch, I am adorable, and I’ve kept my promise, I did not use my hands,” she giggled. She kicked him in the stomach. Executed at full strength, the kick would have done something unspeakable to his organs, had he not disappeared. The Fateweaving kicked in whisking him away.
Violence remained the best problem solver.
“I am now going to put the barriers in place,” Luna told the two contestants. Silver light bounced from her hands to both of them. Thana could feel it pushing through her. Like how tiny particles of dust tumble through the air and eventually settle on surfaces, the silver energy eventually formed protective layers around her vital organs and areas.
If she wanted, she could have tried to resist, and a big part of her wanted to. The memory of having foreign magic in her body was still fresh - would most likely never leave her. With clenched teeth, she just accepted the barrier reinforcing the inner side of her skull. Not like she needed any of this. ‘They are supposed to only become active once they are needed,’ she thought, ‘I don’t need them ever… guess I will see how that fuckery works in conjunction in a few moments.’
“I must say, I expected Lydia to fight me,” the tone of a bastard sure of his victory, “but this is better.”
Thana looked at her hands and testily clenched them into fists. The energy that was supposed to shield her felt very… dangerous. Not in the sense that it was going to harm her, more that it was broken into a purpose less sinister than the original. Like energy from a coal plant used to run an electric car, advertised as environmentally friendly.
“Last time you humiliated me in front of the court, this time I will show you just how strong I am through the use of my-“
“Dude, just shut the fuck up.” Thana looked up from her hands. She had that tingly feeling that John described as anticipation. She hadn’t felt like that ever since… waiting to fight him. A jolt of guilt went up her spine. “No one is listening.”
“But they should listen, for when I display my superior skill with the sword, they will learn to fear me again,” Mario said, his stupidly handsome, sun-kissed face smiling brightly.
“Oh yeah, I believe that your sword skills are really good,” Thana drawled and giggled, making a jerking motion with her left hand. “One-hand, two-hand, I instantly believe you are a master of all the techniques.”
“…It is such a shame that your mouth knows no manners while you are this cute,” Mario said.
“Personally, I think my curses make me that much more adorable. But, hey, you are entitled to being totally fucking wrong,” she gave him a deadpan stare. “Don’t expect me to not rip off your arm and degrade you into the piece of cat litter that you are though, you dumbass brown noser.”
“Ehem,” Jeff above cleared his throat, Luna had long since left the field. “If you are done with the trash talk, let me remind you the only items you are allowed to carry with you into this battle are the ones currently on your body. If you want to get something out of your personal dimensional pockets or anything, now is the last chance.”
“Let me get rid of this, then,” Mario said and opened the collar of the cloak that had hidden away his armour, tossing it into his dimension pocket. What had been a metal-reinforced leather armour when they first met, was now just leather. The only reinforced parts of it were the armguards, keeping up the illusion that it was meant to bait Lydia.
Thana breathed in. Not deeply, just a normal, calm breath that was interrupted halfway by an outburst of laughter. “Ghahahahaha, HAHAAHAAHAaaaaaaaa,” she let it out with a long exhale at the end. Iron. They had used just normal iron for the armguards. Lydia could have taken control of it, but what good would iron do against a leather armour that was from the skin of some fantastical beast?
Mario shifted slightly, and his many weapons rattled. Thana dissected the noises with care. She heard the broadsword and twin-daggers on his hips, the claymore on his back, the 12 throwing knives on his belt, and the miniature stilettos worked into his boots. A wide arrangement of bladed weaponry, aside from the stilettos, which were primarily stabbing weapons. There was something else in his belt as well. Two vials with a liquid inside. Some kind of potion?
The crystallized blood that was her fingernails liquified as she felt a slight light-headedness that always accompanied the soft buzzing spreading from her eyes. It wasn’t unpleasant, it felt natural, made her wide awake, powerful. Ready to kill something. Ready to kill everything. Ready to drive the entire species to extinction. ‘Try not to rip the shit-eating grin out of his face,’ she warned herself, ‘at least not literally.’
“Well then, the contestants are set,” Dra said. “Now, we move on to the biome wheel, where will this fight happen?” The wheel of fortune on the screens above, that had been set into motion a while ago, now came to a halt, displaying an icon of the arena they were in. A disappointed outcry went through the crowd. “I am sorry, but it seems like this fight will be set in the standard arena setting,” Dra apologized to the audience. “Without further ado. Let us begin.”
“YES! FOLKS AT HOME! IN THE ARENA! COUNT DOWN WITH ME! THREE!” The crowd went wild. “TWO!” Thana opened her arms wide, a completely open stance. Mario drew his daggers and assumed a stance, one of the silver blades pointed at her heart. “ONE!” Thana’s heart was pumping like crazy, far beyond human capability. The blood of her fingernails reformed into liquid claws. “GO!”
Mario stormed right at her. The three metres between them was easily crossed with a lunge at his level, bridged in but a moment. The daggers aimed for her shoulders, a crippling strike meant to end the fight before it began. For most people in the arena, he was moving too fast to follow.
For Thana, he seemed to walk through water. Her grin turned upside down until she frowned in disappointment. ‘Fucking hell, he is as weak as before,’ she thought.
“Have you seen Eliza?” a soothing voice suddenly asked.
Thana looked at her feet. Back stared the face of a woman, clearly defined. She looked a lot like herself. “I want to apologize,” the face said.
Thana stepped on her without a second thought, ‘Annoying fucking things.’
She looked up again to find Mario’s daggers close. Very close indeed, they were about to connect. Rolling her two-ringed eyes, Thana decided to do something about that. There was a slight problem though. She wasn’t actually much faster than him, she just had completely over the top senses. ‘Well, I can catch one of these at least,’ she opened her mouth and snapped at the dagger aiming for her right shoulder.
A crunching noise and a sharp pain followed. Splinters filled her mouth as the dagger shattered between her perfect teeth. Glass was immediately ejected from her flesh and bloodstream, leaving only the pain where the second dagger had dug into her unguarded left shoulder.
Mario had a victorious expression until Thana opened her mouth and his dagger fell apart. He wanted to jump back, assess the situation, but Thana grabbed his right hand, the one holding the dagger that had landed the hit.
The feeling of having a mouthful of loose shards was anything but pleasant, but Thana was used to worse. Between getting squashed, cut open, having her organs rearranged, trying to breathe without lungs, having several thousand volts running through her, and being put on ice with nails that made every living second hell on earth, it barely registered on the pain scale.
Thana spat out the shards of glass in a wave of blood that rinsed out even the tiniest remains. One of the larger shards, she caught in her hand and held it against the sun. Under the painted surface, the material was entirely clear. “Glass, I fucking knew it,” she declared and tossed it over her shoulder; “Going the extra mile to paint it, you really must have wanted to trick Lydia, you harmless fucking coward.”
That insult evidently worked on Mario, “What would someone like you know of honour?”
She shrugged, driving the dagger deeper into her shoulder, “Ah, this or that, or nothing, I don’t really care. A tip for the future though.”
The blood mage picked up the sound of cloth being cut. The swordmaster held onto his dagger, his free hand ready to draw his broadsword the moment he thought it would give him an opportunity to strike.
“Two tips, actually,” Thana corrected herself. “First, fuck you for destroying my favourite robe, you jackass. Fixing that hole won’t be cheap.”
“…That is not a tip,” Mario pointed out.
“No, but I wanted to say it anyway, second…” Thana moved Mario’s arm, against his physical protest. His eyebrows furrowed first from the strain, then from the confusion. The dagger once again pointed at her heart. “Aim for somewhere that actually makes a difference,” she cackled, stepping into the blade before he could try to stab her again.
“Unbelievable!” Jeff shouted from above; “It seems that contestant Thana just lost the… wait, the alarms are not going off… WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!”
“IT MEANS BE QUIET, YOU WANKER!” Thana screamed up at him and let go of Mario’s hand. The sword master, to his credit, reacted swiftly, letting go of the dagger and moving to take a new stance. Before he could do more than let go of his weapon, though, Thana kicked him in the side and sent him flying. His body skipped over the ground several times.
‘The best part about getting this body control shit in order is that I can decide to NOT instantly super murder him,’ she thought as the knight of Rome came to a halt a mere ten metres away. He quickly regained his standing, just in time to see Thana draw the dagger from her heart and toss it aside without a care. Stunned, he, and the audience, watched as the wound simply closed. Whatever blood she had lost up until this point gathered in a small orb behind her back, the default position where it naturally went when she wasn’t paying attention.
She yawned for all the world to see. Long and bored, the sound stretched, accompanied by a gesture that looked like she had just woken up a few seconds ago. The violet flesh of her gums, her sharp teeth, all of it was on open display. She brushed her white hair behind her pale ear and looked at Mario, who had drawn his broadsword.
“Well, at least you got some balls,” she admitted. “Not a single fucking braincell though. Guess I will have to scratch my earlier insult and replace ‘coward’ with ‘idiot’.”
“That would make me a harmless idiot in your eyes,” Mario pointed out, his broadsword in a parrying position.
“I mean… yeah,” Thana giggled.
She launched herself at him. Mario had only waited for that to happen. He feigned a parry but at the last moment went to dodge instead, sidestepping the vertical slash of Thana’s claws and instead aiming to ram his sword into her guts.
Thana caught the tip of the sword between two fingers. Mario’s eyes widened. He had underestimated just how big the gap between them was. Thana grabbed his left arm. “Excuse me, did I say harmless?” she apologized in an overly cutesy voice. “I meant to say armless.” The parallel bones of the lower arm snapped like dry twigs. The iron protection around them was shattered, the leather proven useless. All of those sensations vibrated in her palm.
Did she enjoy that? To a degree. It wasn’t exactly the violence itself that made her ecstatic though. It was the rush of complete and utter supremacy and seeing this smug ‘knight’ in front of her rattle in anguish. She tossed him upwards, holding his broadsword in place. He was down another weapon.
When he landed, painfully on his sheathed claymore, Thana yawned again. This time it was out of honest boredom. “I mean, can you get me to go serious or do I need to handicap myself more?” Thana wanted to know, then snapped her fingers, “I KNOW! I won’t use my hands! That’s a standard thing the bad guys do, right?”
“Calling yourself the bad guy?” Mario wanted to know as he fought to get back on his feet.
“Isn’t that the question all bitches ask themselves? Do I want to be an annoying cunt and get called a bad girl and bend over or do I get headpats and called a good girl?”
Mario ignored her intellectual musings and took one of the vials from his belt and pulled the lid off with his teeth before gulping it down.
“Oh?” Thana raised an eyebrow as she let it happen. “Some kind of healing potion? I guess that’s kind of smart.”
“Wouldn’t work against people that take me seriously,” Mario growled as his arm slowly snapped back into place.
It seemed that the knight had finally accepted his underdog position here. He was no longer looking at Thana like he could defeat her, instead he was looking for a way to exploit her arrogance and whittle her down. “You are a proud sack of incompetent shit-headery, aren’t you?” Thana sneered.
“I am a knight of Rome,” Mario told her. “I have been climbing since I was born, always striving to reach a new height, always abiding to the protocol of our proud nation. People like you, who are unable to follow simple protocols… I must admit that I hate you.”
“Good fucking job, at trying to win the crowd over,” Thana shrugged, “but if you have that big a stick up your ass, you would have gotten along with Lyly way better.” Mario tested his healed hand. It seemed to move just fine, so he went for his Claymore. “You fucking moron, wait a bit longer,” Thana told him. “There is a bone shard in your wrist that’s still getting back into place.”
“How would you know?” Mario asked but froze.
“I can hear the cartilage in your wrist rolling, I hear your blood pumping, I can smell the amount of water in your breath,” Thana laughed. “How the fuck do you think I knew about the glass?! I heard it yesterday!” She picked up the sound of Lydia sighing between the mumbles of the crowd. ‘Shouldn’t I have said that…? Ah, right the whole fucking information warfare. Ah, the hell do I care, it’s her problem, I am just going to beat this shithead up.’
“The princess knows court behaviour, I’ll give her that,” Mario stated, “but I am fighting for the Sons of Rome. A secessionist like Lydia is not worthy of support from me!” He spun around himself, and then there were a handful of knives flying towards her. Thana, devout in her promise to not use her arms, dodged four of them, but the fifth actually managed to hit her in the leg. A second wave was already flying at her.
Mario now knew that the only area he could have hoped to match her in was speed. Straining his body to the absolute, as Thana was momentarily occupied with dodging, he grasped his claymore and executed a vertical strike.
Too bad he had, once again, vastly underestimated the gap in power. Maybe he simply hadn’t believed Thana when she told him she could hear his blood pumping or maybe he had to believe it was a lie in order to have the slightest bit of hope left. Either way, even while dodging all of the second wave successfully, Thana had heard his footsteps closing in.
And so, the strike of the two-handed sword sunk uselessly into the ground. Before Mario could whirl around, his last major weapon was pinned to the ground by Thana’s bare foot. The double-edged sword didn’t even cut through her sole.
“You are way too easy to bait in,” she opened up and pulled the one dagger that had hit from her leg. Then she pressed her foot down. Her blood crystallized directly underneath her skin and made it impossible for the blade to do any damage. Then it broke under her heel.
Mario stumbled backwards. He gritted his teeth.
‘Ah, the frustration of the high and mighty,’ Thana thought with satisfaction. ‘I fucking love it.’
“End it,” he demanded.
She clicked her tongue. “Already? You might as well give up if you know it’s not going to work out for you.”
“I can do no such thing; my honour wouldn’t allow it.”
“Honour,” Thana spat out. “Honour is nothing but an illusion that you fucking soldiers tell yourself around the campfire to give your command structure any sense. Honour is what the generals fuck into your skull through your ears so you won’t desert. Honour is the dumbass reason people need to keep promises. Honour is a concept for jackasses and LARPers. Try honesty instead, how about that?!”
“You know nothing of men,” Mario taunted her.
“But I have seen enough of the shit that humankind can pull to tell you.” She stared up at the annoying, tall man’s face. “Honour doesn’t save lives.”
“You are wrong,” the swordmaster told her.
“What a resounding argument, you should try becoming a politician with that completely waterproof fucking logic,” Thana growled. “Tell me, how much stronger would you be with a proper sword, not these glass dildos.”
Mario narrowed his eyes, “I would destroy you.”
Thana smirked, “Now THAT sounds like a fucking idea.” She turned away from the knight and looked towards Romulus. “Let’s skip the fucking rules, give this asshole a sword that’s actually useful!”
All eyes in the arena wandered to Romulus. “Can she demand that?” Jeff asked his co-host.
“Well, the rules don’t state anything about such a case,” Dra said. “Such a merciless beat down as we are witnessing today is… well, it’s not a first, but usually it's just a beatdown.”
“Can a girl get a quick answer around here, you blabbering cock munchers?!” Thana screamed at the commentators.
The camera showed the emperor on his throne, his eyes closed, fingers dancing over the golden armrest as both Luna and Sol spoke silent words. “If both contestants are fine with this, I will allow it,” Romulus finally announced.
“Bitchin’,” Thana giggled and turned to Mario.
“Take this!” Maximillian shouted and tossed a sword into the ring. It was a longsword; the one Mario had been wearing on the day of his appointment. Seemingly weightless, it travelled most of the distance and only slowly descended as it gradually left Maximillian’s zone of influence over gravity. It was flying long enough for Mario to catch it in his raised hand. A heroic pose, a perfect prelude to despair.
Mario grasped the grip of black leather and pulled off the black sheath. The only way to describe the blade that came into view was flawless. A white with only the slightest tinge of grey, almost shining in the sun, double edged with a broad, slightly curved guard. Simple, elegant – flawless.
Mario held it like an old friend with both hands and slowly lowered it. “Know that you could have won this day,” Mario said with renewed certainty, “if it weren’t for your arrogance.”
“You know, you keep underestimating me.” Thana rolled her neck. “Come at me, bro.”
Mario charged at her. He feigned an attack from above only to change course halfway through the attack. Now it came from the side, a fact that Thana had easily anticipated. ‘Still not using my hand,’ she thought and did the good old thing that always solved her problems: biting. Her jaw opened, the blade cut into her cheek, then she chomped down.
CRUNCH! The momentum of the blade stopped, the sword vibrating under the force. But this time, it wasn’t the blade that had shattered. Pain shot through her jaw, down to the root of her teeth. Stumbling backwards, Thana held her mouth as shards of her pearly whites dropped from her moving lips. “Cockshucking shon of aa fahshing whohre,” she cursed. “Shithing queen of dickheadsh.” One by one her destroyed teeth fell out, pushed away by a new set. “Tremendous cock of ball dropping fuckery, I swear to myself, you twat-ignoring super-cunt, fucking tarnation of global warming… SOMETHING, SHIT I AM OUT OF CURSES, I AM SO MAD I MIGHT SCREAM GOD’S FUCKING NAME!”
Mario set after her with a series of swift strikes as she let out that tirade of curses. Each of the attacks missed. Thana did give the weapon its due. The teeth, or to be exact, the enamel that covered the teeth, were the hardest part of the human body. Even for Thana, this was not an exception, meaning that, if that blade was hard enough to withstand a bite, it would be sharp enough to cut through her bones.
“Scared?” Mario, now once more triumphant in tone, asked. “This blade is made from a 35% Mithril alloy. It is indestructible!”
‘Fucking idiot,’ Thana thought. ‘As if they would give an actually indestructible blade to him.’
She bent backwards to dodge another horizontal strike. Mana pumped through her body, all flowing towards her jaws. If her old teeth hadn’t been hard enough to break that thing, she would simply have to get some that were sturdier, it was that simple. She jumped far backwards, and they both ceased to move for a moment. The crowd cheered Mario’s name, and he, sure of himself, waved at them.
Thana spat out another set of teeth. ‘They sure love the underdog,’ she thought as she heard them cheer. She imagined them chanting her name instead. ‘Thana! Thana! Thana!’, she could imagine their voices. The idea gave her a headache. All of these voices, screaming that name. A pain in her head, like something was scratching against the inside of her skull. It pounded and pounded.
“Now, I will end this!” Mario announced and got into position. He was completely taken aback when he found Thana actually charging at him instead. She jumped, not at him but at his sword. The shifting of his posture told her which path the blade would travel. When he realized her head was on a collision course with his blade, Mario only put more force behind the attack.
Then she felt her teeth collide with the incredibly hard material. One terrible moment she imagined feeling that crunch again, then her jaw closed. Her momentum carried her further, Mario’s attack was neutralized, his arm was ripped backwards, but he held on. The blade left Thana’s jaws. She landed behind him and looked over her shoulder. Mario raised the blade, smiling, then froze halfway through the motion.
He stared at the bite-sized half circle that was missing near the tip of the blade. Thana grinned and spat out the mithril alloy. “Indesstructible my assh,” she laughed with a numb jaw and lost another set of teeth. They hadn’t shattered but the surfaces were covered in networks of cracks. She would have to repeat that process a few more times before she got a proper set that lasted. “Fun fact, I have unlimited fucking teeth,” she mused, “but you only have that one blade.”
“You bitch!” Mario said, inspecting the damage more closely.
“Awww? What, was that blade important to you?” Thana taunted him. “Don’t bind your fucking emotions to a weapon. They are tools that are going to break eventually, your mind must be about as bright as the depths of your boyfriend’s ass.”
“Aaaaaaah!” the swordmaster charged at her with the damaged blade.
The attack was so desperate, so pathetic, that Thana could not help but suddenly feel tired. “Okay, I’ve had it with this. Bloodburn.” The crimson wings appeared behind her. Fire without heat, blood without a solid state of matter, raw power as mist and crystal. Her faux pas at the airport meant that there had been rumours around these at the very least.
Mario didn’t care, he continued his charge. The moment he attempted to bring his hand down, Thana jumped up and rammed her forehead against his nose. The force made him lose balance and fall over backwards. “You know, I was at half-power this entire fucking time,” Thana couldn’t help herself but be an ass about this. ‘Okay, maybe I am a bit of a fucking sociopath,’ Thana thought and kicked the blade away from Mario’s hand.
“I changed my mind, you aren’t cute at all,” Mario groaned, holding the bleeding mess that was his nose.
“Bitch, I am adorable, and I’ve kept my promise, I did not use my hands,” she giggled. She kicked him in the stomach. Executed at full strength, the kick would have done something unspeakable to his organs, had he not disappeared. The Fateweaving kicked in whisking him away.
Violence remained the best problem solver.
