The sun had just set, and the audience was eerily quiet as the two gladiators stepped into the main arena. Retvik’s footsteps were almost silent compared to the heavy crunches of Telumeus and his mechanical suit, but both of them were wrapped up in heavy armour, both of them were armed and ready for the fight of their lives.
A voice echoed around the arena. For a spectacle as large as this, the Raptor herself was commentating on the fight, making all the announcements. But as Retvik surveyed the crowds, he noticed an odd glimmer, up in the expensive boxes. He wasn’t just being watched by normal people, perhaps the gods themselves were looking on. Good. Retvik liked that. And he was pretty sure his opponent didn’t.
“Today’s match is an Extreme Rules battle, where anything goes. External weapons and gear are allowed, and both opponents are given their maximum possible values. Whoever’s health meter hits zero first and is teleported out of the arena loses, granting the other fighter victory! This match is also a Settlement Battle, to settle a conflict between the Torr Government and the Rethan Stratos. The winner of this match will end the dispute in favour of the party they are representing!”
The crowd remained somewhat quiet, but there were a few shouts at the mention of the Torr Government. Outside of their own territories, they weren’t particularly popular. And since this arena was somewhat small, with no real cover or anything, Telumeus could see the looks on some of the closer crowd’s faces.
“Now, introducing our two gladiators! First off, representing the Torr Government, please welcome the challenger, Telumeus Perfectus, Universal Torrian Champion and Gladiator of the Torr!”
There were definitely some cheers, but not as many as Telumeus would have liked. Oddly, the live audience was bereft of both Torr and Rethan crowds, a bid to be more balanced. Not that it really mattered, considering who Telumeus was up against.
“Secondly, representing the Rethan Stratos, please welcome the defender, Captain Retvik Rethianos of the 1000th Legion, the Tank of Xeno Dessaron One, better known to you all as the Lightbearer!”
Immediately, the crowd went wild, but only for a moment. Telumeus and Retvik used this opportunity to size each other up. They were both the same size, but Telumeus’s suit gave him quite a lot of extra height and bulk. His mech suit was well-known and immensely powerful, but also incredibly reliable. Meanwhile, Retvik was relying on nothing more than his own brains and brawn.
“Gladiators, at the sound of the bell, fight!”
Everyone and everything fell silent as a ringing sound echoed through the arena. Neither gladiator hesitated as they both opened fire, Retvik using a traditional Rethan gun-staff, while Telumeus had a mounted minigun on his shoulder, specially modified for both arena standards and to be light weight. In fact, it seemed that Telumeus drew first blood, as Retvik’s shield, Lightedge, could only do so much to protect him. Not that it mattered much, it was such a small graze, and Retvik quickly followed through with a burst of shots, one of which clipped Telumeus’s shoulder.
“Is that all you got, you gender-fluid bitch?”
“Hah!” Retvik laughed. “We have just started! Also, your insults lack any real punch.”
Retvik tried to close the gap, but Telumeus backed off, continuing his spray-and-pray tactics. He wanted to whittle down Retvik’s health before heading into his main plan. That was difficult to do though, since that massive shield was doing a lot of work. The only areas Telumeus had managed to hit were Retvik’s tail and maybe his leg, but how much of that was armour, Telumeus didn’t know.
“Whatever, Lamebearer. I’m gonna ruin your damn streak. Gonna ruin your reputation. Just gonna ruin you in general.”
“You are not doing a great job so far!”
Suddenly, Retvik rested his gun-staff to one side and lobbed something over his shield, in Telumeus’s direction. All of a sudden, Telumeus’s minigun stopped firing. A small, black dagger had wedged itself in the spinning motor of the gun, essentially disabling it.
This genuinely pissed Telumeus off. That gun was expensive. Sure, he had a backup assault rifle, which he had already grabbed and started using, but the lack of the minigun was bad news, it meant less chip damage against the heavily armoured Rethan.
That being said, as Retvik yet again tried to close the gap, both Torr and Rethan managed to land some very, very good hits on each other. Yes, Telumeus had taken a shot to the shoulder, but he was certain he’d managed to hit Retvik right in the chest.
“You missed!” Retvik taunted. “My heart is on my left, silly!”
Telumeus snarled and fired some more shots, but Retvik deflected them with his shield. Utterly sick of this messing around, Telumeus decided to give up on the chip-damage tactic and instead went for his main plan.
Making as much space for himself as possible, Telumeus pulled put a new weapon, one filled with syringes. Telumeus had done his homework. He’d been studying the Lightbearer, and, since this was an extreme rules match, there was nothing Retvik could do against his next move.
“Doesn’t matter where your stupid, oversized heart is, I’m going to make it stop!” Telumeus declared as he emptied an entire clip in Retvik’s direction and, thankfully, managed to hit flesh. Actual flesh. Right in the neck.
Retvik immediately staggered, realizing what had just happened. He backed away as fast as he could, but he could already feel… things going on.
“The Temthans of Anarchy had the right idea!” Telumeus laughed as he switched back to his assault rifle and opened fire again, forcing Retvik to hide behind his shield. “You can’t fight me if you’re sedated and too brain-fogged to move! I had my assistants get some samples, and now you get to experience them!”
While Retvik’s thoughts were clouding up, Retvik found himself unexpectedly laughing. That laugh was brief though as he felt a familiar bubbling sensation in the back of his mind. He fumbled around with a pouch on his belt and pulled out a syringe of his own.
“I am not sure what you have, uh, stabbed me with… but, luckily, I came prepared.”
Still smiling, even though he had no right to be smiling, Retvik awkwardly opened up the syringe and injected the entire dose straight into a gap in the plating on his arm. He knew that Nyssi’s anti-venom needed at least two minutes to kick in, and, in the mean time, he needed to move slowly, as to not increase his heart rate. Then again, he’d been hit in the neck, that was already way too close to his heart, whatever venom he had been hit with was already coursing through his body.
Retvik didn’t really have time to think further though as Telumeus charged at him and whacked Retvik across the face with a spiked gauntlet, knocking him to the ground and definitely drawing blood. Blood which Telumeus licked off his armoured fist.
“Face it, you ugly son of a bitch, you’ve lost.”
The Lightbearer struggled to his feet, then blinked. He seemed confused more than anything else.
“Lost what?”
“This battle!” Telumeus snarled as he kicked Retvik over. “You don’t even know where you are, those toxins are fucking you up!”
Again, Retvik staggered back to his feet. He looked at Telumeus, blinked, then snarled back. “You would be right. Those toxins are fucking me up. Also, you hit like a weakling.”
“Wait, what?”
“I barely felt that.”
Telumeus rolled his eyes at the mediocre insult, then extended a blade in his mechanically augmented arm. He charged forward in a bid to impale Retvik on that blade, but Retvik dodged out of the way and grabbed onto Telumeus’s arm. To counteract this, Telumeus activated a special circuit that should have electrocuted Retvik, but, weirdly, Retvik didn’t seem to be letting go. Or flinching. Or even reacting in pain.
“Get the fuck off me!” the Torrian Champion roared as he swung wildly, only for Retvik to tighten his grip. “You should be FILLED with Temthan poisons! WHY AREN’T YOU SEDATED?”
“I do not know, but you somehow stopped me from feeling pain and I am pretty sure you have triggered me!” Retvik snapped back. He pulled a small, blue dagger out from underneath his gauntlet, then stabbed the blade repeatedly into the mechanical parts of Telumeus’s suit.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU STUPID UNGENDERED WHORE?” Telumeus began to panic as all the electrics in his arm and shoulder stopped functioning.
“TEARING YOU APART, YOU DISHONOURABLE COWARD!” Retvik howled as he plunged the dagger into something that looked important on Telumeus’s back. “I WILL NOT LET YOU TAKE THIS FROM ME!”
Retvik’s words dissolved into growls. Telumeus tried to desperately extend the blade in his other arm and try and get Retvik off him, and while he did manage to nail Retvik in the leg, slicing off his armour, it was too late, Retvik managed to wrap his jaws around Telumeus’s arm and snap not just the mech suit but his humerous as well.
Telumeus’s scream of pain though made things worse. It drove Retvik into a frenzy. The venoms Telumeus had injected into Retvik were a combination of sedatives that had nearly taken Retvik out in his Dessaron battles, in which he’d been saved by his team mates. He should have been unable to stand, let alone fight. Instead, it was almost as if Retvik had gone Defensive Stance without having anything to protect.
With a hiss, Retvik kicked Telumeus to the ground. There was a terrifying, almost blank look in Retvik’s eyes as he drew a new dagger, a dull, black, serrated dagger.
“What… what are you… what are you doing?” Telumeus stuttered as he very urgently tried to restart his mech suit, in a bid to escape. However, Retvik didn’t let him. He used his heavy Rethan form to pin Telumeus down. Retvik’s armoured claw wrapped around Telumeus’s throat, and he ripped off the Torr’s chest plating with his teeth, before pressing the dagger to Telumeus’s chest.
“And to think…” Retvik was struggling with his words, each one coming out with a hiss and a lot of saliva. “To think… you would have had… a better chance, had you played cleanly…”
Telumeus’s eyes widened in agony as Retvik dragged the dagger across his chest, ripping through Telumeus’s flesh, down to his rib cage.
Something flashed. Telumeus’s suit managed to restart, and he found enough strength to break free of Retvik’s grip, knock Retvik off his feet and roll over, dragging himself away to relative safety. It didn’t matter though, it was too late. Telumeus’s health meter hit zero, and he was teleported out of the arena and into the nearest medical bay, before he could bleed out.
The crowd erupted into cheers, but Retvik remained where he was, lying on his back, unmoving and staring into the dark sky above him.
“Huh…” Retvik muttered to himself as his consciousness drifted away. “Those Temthan toxins really did fuck me up…”