Tromos had expected this match to be not so difficult, but Retvik was kicking the crap out of him. Sure, Tromos didn’t think his chances of winning were amazing (bookies were saying a 40% chance), but as Retvik picked Tromos up by the neck and threw him across the arena, a quick glance at Tromos’s health meter said he was nearly done. 20% left, and he’d barely made a dent in Retvik’s health meter.
Clambering back to his feet, Tromos tried to keep his distance and work out what was going on. This was a small arena, basically a wrestling match. While Retvik was a really, really good gladiator (he had the Triumphant Crown), Retvik did have two noticeable weak spots, and it turned out, thanks to training with his Dessaron team, Retvik was slowly overcoming both his weakness to shadowjumps and his lack of technique when wrestling smaller beings. Maybe, in hindsight, Tromos should have gone for a more generic Rethan weakness, water, but according to Valorier, the top Vrekan gladiator, Retvik was getting better at that too.
Today though, Retvik seemed angry. Aggressive. Tromos knew that Rethans did get angry at times, but normally they’d hide their anger, believing that aggression got in the way of their protective duties. This was also why there weren’t that many Rethan gladiators overall, pretty much all the Rethans that worked as gladiators had either gone through training to allow them to be aggressive, or they were a bit weird. Retvik had always fallen into both categories.
Tromos managed to dodge a heavy punch, but Retvik had twisted around and caught Tromos with his tail. While Tromos did manage to swiftly roll back onto his feet, he wasn’t fast enough to stop Retvik from tackling him and throwing him to the ground. Pinning Tromos down, Retvik proceeded to repeatedly punch Tromos, up until he heard a familiar beeping sound, the sound of Tromos’s health meter hitting zero.
With a grunt, Retvik immediately stopped and got up, then lifted Tromos back to his feet and bowed.
“Good fight…” Retvik muttered.
“Yeah, good fight. You kicked my tail…” Tromos tutted as he bowed back. The audience wasn’t that impressed, but both Retvik and Tromos had realized that Retvik had reached the point of being “too good”, and since his 300th win, people seemed to care less. The two of them waved to the crowds, then headed out of the arena.
As they walked, Tromos inspected Retvik some more.
“Is something wrong, Retvik?” Tromos eventually asked. “You seem really angry today.”
Retvik frowned. “I feel weirdly heavy and overprotective. But it feels different from my normal overprotective-ness, and I do not know why.”
“Is it because your General is on Thresisa, close to where all the nastiness is going on?”
“Maybe. It is worse because I know Relkir is there with them. But this is not the same feeling…” Retvik sighed. “I apologise for taking my anger out on you.”
“It’s fine. Let’s go and see how your team mates are doing.”
Tromos headed off, towards the House Fighters Canteen, which overlooked the second main arena. Below, Kayel was busy fighting Terrik the Terrible, a Temthan gladiator covered in spiky black armour. Terrik had been a gladiator for ages, but somehow he’d never fought a Skyavok before, and Kayel, being a house fighter, was a good target. Unfortunately, Terrik had completely underestimated just how disorientating shadowjumping was, and, after throwing up violently (and marking the third time Kayel had been vomited on as a gladiator), the Temthan veteran was ready to throw in the towel.
Hitting the forfeit button on his health meter, Terrik wiped the sick from his mouth, then turned to congratulate Kayel. However, both Kayel and the rest of the arena had fallen silent. The silence turned into panicked screams as something black and inky landed in the front row seats and swiftly began to expand, consuming anything it came into contact with. The arena thankfully wasn’t too packed, but immediately everyone began to flee the arena.
“What the fuck is that?” Terrik gasped.
Kayel didn’t answer at first. Instead, he took one of Terrik’s daggers, ran it across the back of his hand to coat the dagger in his blood, then headed closer and lobbed the dagger at the swiftly growing black mass. Where the dagger connected with the goop, the mass seemed to recoil in pain and shrink back.
“It’s really fucking bad…” Kayel growled. “Terrik, I need you to do something for me. Get the rest of Xeno Dessaron One, tell them we need to use our blood, get as many vok to coat their weapons in our blood and get them all to come back here. Because we can’t let this corruption take root.”
“Uh… sure… But what are you going to do?”
“I need to go and grab some special weapons of mine…”
Kayel darted off, disappearing through a shadow. Terrik shuddered, then did as he was told.
Luckily, the arenas were designed so that people could easily leave, and, already, the local Rethan security legion, as well as some Banikan guards, were getting people out of the arena and evacuating the entire premises, but none of them were willing to risk getting too close to the lump of darkness, and the lump was definitely spreading, mostly downwards into the arena, following the path of least resistance.
It seemed that Kayel’s messages had been received, as Nyssi and Retvik had both swiftly arrived, with Tenuk arriving a little later, shapeshifted into a Banikan and carrying as many weapons as he could. Not being too bothered about blood, Nyssi immediately pulled her tail round and cut deeply into it, letting her blood pour into a bucket.
“Nyssi!” Tenuk frowned. “We don’t even-”
“Kayel tested it, it worked. Retvik, get some bullets, load up one of those arena pistols and start firing away.”
Retvik did as he was told, emptying several magazines into the bucket, then reloading them as fast as he could. Admittedly, Retvik’s fingers were rather clumsy. Tenuk however was concerned.
“All the news says to use fire to push it back.”
“Well, set it on fire then, mister fluffy shapeshifting asshole!” Nyssi hissed, annoyed that she needed to keep on re-opening the wound to get more blood.
Tenuk frowned some more, dropped all his weapons then turned himself into a Thraki. Technically, a Banikan form was more useful, but it was easier for Tenuk to mimic the chemical-based fire-breathing of a Thraki over the almost magic powers of a Banikan. Steadying himself and taking a deep breath, Tenuk exhaled flames, causing the lump to screech.
The flames did cause the mass to retreat briefly, but they also somewhat set fire to some of the nearby seats. However, the black lump recoiled in horror and shrank down into nearly nothing as Retvik fired an entire clip of blood-covered bullets into the hideous mass.
“Told you it works!” Nyssi tutted. “This one’s nearly dead. Set it on fire and-”
Everyone paused and looked up. The sky briefly went dark, and some more drops fell, landing across the arena and elsewhere. One landed not too far from where the first glob had landed, and immediately started growing. Before they could react, Kayel had returned, and was carrying four familiar daggers. He’d also brought Talok, Timik, Ct’Era and many of the other house fighters, as well as anyone else willing to help. And more buckets. Nyssi smiled, ever so slightly, then took the lead.
“Everyone!” Nyssi shouted. “Grab a gun, grab some bullets, dunk them in a bucket of our blood and start firing away! Those of you who can breathe fire, hold back the larger masses until someone can fire at them with blood bullets! If you can’t get hold of our blood, make a fire or something! If you are worried about getting hurt, help with evacuations, fetch extra bullets and guns or start gathering alcohol, bottles and cloth so we can make molotov cocktails. Now get going!”
Nyssi pushed her bucket of blood towards Timik, then started filling up a new bucket. Retvik and Tenuk both did the same, but Kayel seemed hesitant.
“Nyssi, I can’t stay. I’m a shadowjumper, I’m being called to help with evacuations.”
“Yes, you can!” Psiksi butted in, halfway through loading a pistol. “You’ve got funny Sini-blessed blood. The Allbirther blessed you, you need to do this piss. There’s me and 17 other shadowjumpers here, we got evacuations.”
Nyssi nodded in agreement. “Psiksi’s right, you’re more useful here, Kayel. But Psiksi, mate, take Talok with you. Her telepathy will help calm people down so you can move them faster.”
Psiksi glanced downwards, to where Talok had already grabbed Psiksi’s hand.
“Yes yes! I help! Take me away, mister Psiksi!”
Kayel and Psiksi both snorted. With a salute, Psiksi dragged Talok off, disappearing into a nearby shadow.
“Alright…” Kayel grunted as he grabbed a bucket. “Let’s get to work…”