Pip was very accustomed to the feeling of anger. That rage that burned in the depths of her chest with each and every snide remark of the other new Gods. The hatred she felt for the older and even greater Gods for letting it happen. Hatred was as familiar to Pip as an old friend. It kept her warm on empty nights outside of her home as she looked for her way in the world. The warmth of anger a blanket against the cold of the world.

Most of all she was angry at herself. Ashamed. Ashamed that, of all the new Gods, she was the youngest. The least of the lesser Gods, unfit even to be called lesser. Without a binding. Doomed to be without chosen. Most recently, she was stupid as well.

Ferros smiled at her outside of the arena, and Pip struggled not to break into a frown at the sight. She did not convey her emotions on her face, as that was a thing not of the Gods, so the older Gods had admonished her. She was the Lesser Goddess of shadow; not one to let her thoughts be seen on the surface.

So her new-found hatred of the young noble girl would be a simmer inside, warming her as with the million other tiny hatreds had.

Across from her was an opponent, as Ferros had promised there would be. He was a sly thing. Both small in stature and weight, he was the ideal opponent for the Lesser Goddess of shadow. Speed was a thing not adept at hiding from the shadow. Even light, fastest of all things, could not escape the darkness.

She was speed's antithesis. The boy seemed to be fine with this arrangement. Sitting idly in his corner of the arena without care or even notice of Pip to begin with. He was confident in his attributes at the end of bone rank, possibly even the very earliest reaches of earth. It was difficult to tell without having seen the boy in action, but his easy confidence spoke to either great arrogance or skill, and Pip would not stake her life on the arrogance of another.

A bell rang, much like the one that had rung in the fight where the bulky boy had died not two hours ago. The boy, contrary to what Pip had assumed, did not come streaking across the arena in a suicidal charge against her. In fact, he had remained nearly motionless in his pursuit. The only movement was the raising of his arm and the growing smile on his face.

Judging a chosen by their looks alone is ill advised. The reason why is obvious to almost anyone, but especially to Pip. Being one of the lesser Gods and having been privy to more than one secret meetings and discussions around the look of a Gods chosen, she knew exactly how little bearing the apostle of a given chosen had on their abilities. Her bright white hair and lavender skin was something of an exception to this rule, but was more a result of her being a Goddess than any hard and fast rule.

It was for that reason that Pip cursed her obvious mistake.

With the weight of a boulder and the speed of lightning the arm of the boy shot in an arc and released a small projectile.

The small and scrawny form of the boy at the opposite side of the arena had immediately told the story of a speed apostle, and Pip had simply ignored the alternatives. So, when the boy swung his arm in an arc at her, she simply used her shadows to try and mislead the boy with a feint.

Being in an open square did make using her shadows somewhat difficult, especially in the brightly lit arena that had become their battleground. Still, it was a weakness so obvious that Pip had developed countermeasures against it almost as soon as she had begun learning to fight.

Manipulating her own shadow to move one way while jumping another in a slightly staggered manner was enough to trick almost anyone unfamiliar with fighting, including those without the proper training to spot a feint. So when the iron shot straight in the direction of her shadow Pip was fairly relieved.

He had come closer to running her through with an iron rod than the Lesser God would have thought going into the battle, but she had made it past the first exchange.

That brought good news and bad both. She had survived, which was never truly in question, but she had also remained uninjured to continue to fight, which was less set in stone. Additionally, she had also handed the momentum to the boy at the opposite corner who clearly thought himself her superior. The way he stood with an arrogant smile drove her already building anger into a frenzy, despite the truth behind his sentiment. She was at the beginning of bone rank in terms of pure strength. Having no binding and more than unwilling to gain chosen the old way, she had no way of growing her power, and that left her attributes just barely above what a girl her age would be able to achieve as only a mortal.

The boy, by contrast, had the strength and speed of one at the very latest stage of bone or even the earliest stage of earth. He really was her superior, and that knowledge made Pip furious. The reminder at her own weakness drove the already budding anger in her chest into a torrent as she stared at the boy from her dodging position.

He was already raising his other hand to deliver a better aimed shot at her with what she now knew to be the lesser apostle of the God of iron. She should have known better after seeing his gaunt figure. It was a body sacrificed of its iron to the Gods, giving them the ability of all other iron in their surroundings as well as the strength and durability of the substance. It was amongst the greatest apostles of the lesser Gods, or at least it would have been without the obvious draw backs in both speed and bodily health.

She didn't even consider moving out of the way in the same method that she had used before, knowing that the boy would be expecting it, and instead sent a tendril of shadow at the boy in an instant. The arc of the boy's arm was no match to the darkness that approached him - like the insidious and ever marching darkness it charged him down, causing him to abandon his attack and nearly fall over himself to dodge.

Of course, dodging was more than pointless.

Her shadows, while powerful, were not harmful on their own. What she had wanted, and what she had succeeded in getting, was the boy's own shadow.

The tendril she had sent out from her own shadow returned like the snapping of an elastic band, now fattened with the shadow of her opponent. He looked on confusedly for a moment, before standing to fight from his crouched dodging position.

Immediately he fell over, crashing head-first into the ground, as Pip had hoped he would. She had stolen his shadow and had become weak, as all that walked without a shadow would become.

The shadow one cast was the proof of their existence, their very substance. It was nothing so poetic as a soul or the very being of a person, but their imprint upon the world. And Pip had taken his away.

Her own shadow bolstered, Pip rose to the occasion. The boy was lying weakly on the ground, his already frail constitution failing to hold him upwards despite Pip's slow and deliberate approach. Pip could move like the light itself if she had wanted. She was the enemy of light, after all, but she instead chose a slow and composed gait. Each step was one of complete purpose as she approached the downed boy, like the march unto death she moved with impunity, unable to be halted by anything.

The confidence in the boy's eyes gave way to rage, and eventually fear, as her gentle approach continued unbidden. In that fear Pip saw the boy as he was, too young to even be considered a man, fearfully awaiting an execution that came from the very hands of the darkness itself.

Many welcomed the hands of the darkness, but this boy was no soldier, happy to meet the reaper when his time was due. He was a boy, scared and afraid. Pip tore out his throat with coalesced shadow on her four fingers.

He slumped over, a look of shock on his face, as he rapidly bled out. Pip had barely managed to cut deep enough even into the defenseless opponent, such was the difference in their strength. So, looking at the light leave his eyes, turing from shock to the calmness of death, Pip felt even angrier.

She didn't direct her anger at the boy even knowing he would have done the same to her. She directed all to the shocked girl sitting at the front of the viewing platform with a wide-eyed stare on her face. Pip had never known hatred so deep for a mortal, but at that moment she would have given nearly anything in her power to kill that girl. The girl that had made her kill a human for the first time in a duel to the death she had never wanted.

So that was what a noble was, was it? She reminded Pip somewhat of the elder Gods. Not evil, but simply apathetic. Completely unaware and uninterested in the plight or suffering their actions or those of others brought upon those less than them. She wondered how one could be so horrid, as she walked off of the elevated arena platform to seek out some water.

Her fingers were now covered in the viscous arterial blood of a boy no older than herself.

_________________________________

Pip hadn't looked back to meet the eyes of the noble girl sitting atop the platform, watching her match to the death. She had simply washed her hands and left to find Catherine's match.

Her partner was against someone even stronger than Pip's opponent - a boy who was in the earliest reaches of the earth rank. She knew now that her opponent could only have been bone, given his level of skill with his apostle, and she was thankful for that. She would have been crushed by anyone with a decent understanding of their apostle instead of the surface level understanding the boy had exhibited in their very short match together.

She had not given him much of a chance to show off his skills to her, she admitted, but it had been her only real choice. Any long conflict would have favored the boy and his superior attributes. He was without question the stronger of the two of them, and they had both known it from her very first dodge. Her only option had been completely blindsiding him and taking the cheap and easy victory.

She had still been his direct counter, only in a way that neither of them had ever expected.

She pushed that thought out of her mind as she made her way to Catherine's 'spar'.

Her arena was in another block of the training hall, one reserved for earth rankers and above, so the trip was a little longer than she would have liked. The walk to that section of the training hall had taken longer than Pip's entire match against the boy she had fought, making her wonder is she would even be there in time to see exactly who it was that catherine would be facing.

She needn't have worried, apparently. He was incredibly hard to miss. He was actually impossible to miss for almost anyone.

After all, the smell of iron was everywhere in the massive hall. The sound of squelching as everyone absently milled about was obvious as well. The rasping coughs of Catherine were louder than the entirety of the completely silent room. And, most obvious of all, the blood and organs that painted every single surface of the training hall were hard to ignore.

Walking absently through the arched doorways, taking care to step over what she figured was a liver, Pip waded her way to her friend, who's opponent was suspiciously absent. Absent in any form they might recognise, that is. The blood and guts were all the answer that was needed for that one.

Catherine was on stage, looking at a lump of flesh in front of her slightly larger than any of the other lumps. She was crying a little, at least that was what Pip thought. She had something on her face. She hoped it was only a tear.

No one spoke as Pip climbed onto the elevated arena and approached Catherine, taking her hand. It was warm. Sticky with blood.

Catherine panted from exertion as she moved her off the stage by holding her hand. No one spoke out against it or stopped her, simply watching the pair as they made their way down the arena and out of the room altogether. The silence was left behind, and the noise of the training hall's many other room replaced it. At the entrance she was asked to pay a twelve copper cleaning fee.

She ignored the request.

___________________________________________

Ferros Smith stared blankly at the stage the stunning purple girl had left behind. She had been captivated by her ethereal beauty since first catching sight of the girl, and had even worked up the nerve to speak to her, a commoner, out of the way of her usual chaperone. She knew she was going to be in huge trouble for that, and it had made it all the more exciting for her.

She had found someone so beautiful she boggled her mind, and not only that, she had listened to her request! She was so amazing it made her heart sing. The way she responded to each of her words with earnest and straight-forward responses, as if there hadn't been a single reason that a noble watching a random commoner spar was out of the ordinary or weird was simply amazing.

This girl, a random commoner more beautiful than any other she had seen, had struck her with such beauty and peculiarity that she couldn't wait to speak to her again, and had made the excuse of finding her an opponent just for that. She couldn't even contain herself as she thought of speaking to her about how the sparring match had gone, and even thought about letting them visit her own private training hall.

She had been sure the girl would have been taken with it.

It had made the useless trip to watch the commoners training more than worth it. She would have begged on her knees if she had known a girl like Pip was going to be present. Maybe she could even convince her parents to allow her to visit again? She was sure that she would be able to convince Pip and Catherine to come back so that they could enjoy some more time together.

At least, that was the case moments ago.

Those thoughts were ripped out with a sudden ferocity she had never known when Pip had torn out the throat of the boy she had been sparring against. Pip had spared Ferros a single look as she left the arena. A look filled with such scorn that she still stood in shock at the thought of it.

Pip had killed the boy. A boy their own age, dead. Just like that. And it had been Ferros that had put them together.

It made her feel sick. Her stomach cramped briefly, and she felt the heat of bile rising up to her throat. Suppressing the urge to hurl, as her etiquette instructors had taught her, she stepped away from the railed edge of the observation platform.

She had brought them together, and that boy was now dead. Why had Pip done that? Why had she killed the boy?

Why hadn't anyone stopped her?

Why had Ferros killed him?