Micheal looked down at the fighting pair with disappointment.

He and Samantha had taken to spectating the matches of the other lost and chosen at the training hall with some regularity. From the lowest of the lost to the highest of the bone rankers, and even some earth rankers, they had seen some impressive feats of both skill and power.

There had been one bone ranker that even Micheal doubted he could have beaten. Though, he doubted anyone of his rank would have been able to beat some chosen of the lesser God of death.

Another thing Micheal had learned was just how small chosen had become to him.

Every single bone ranker used to represent the wall that he would never overcome. No matter how hard he trained, how greatly he struggled, how strong he became, he would always be less than them. It was an immutable truth of the world that lost were less than each and every chosen that they would ever come across, and that was something that Micheal had never been an exception to.

Between strength that could overcome the trees and dragons themselves, to speed that could make the lightning weep, there was never a competition. It wasn't a matter of training harder or getting faster, he was simply never going to be a match to any of them.

And then there was apostles. The so called 'gifts' of the Gods. Tools meant to make their chosen mortal satisfy their sadistic need for entertainment and joy. Tools that could skin a man from one hundred span away and then fold that skin into a blanket. Power unrivaled. True divine strength.

No matter what weapon Micheal could have forged or bought, would ever have been the equal of the chosen. There was no craftsmen alive that could produce a weapon as astute as those made of the very Gods themselves. It was hopeless.

And then Micheal was found, and the world opened up like never before.

His prayer became his power, and his dedication was the fuel with which he grew. for the first time in his life, the world grew brighter. Tainted with the shadow of the Gods though he was, it was not the end for him. He had finally been given a path toward his goal.

But as he grew he began to notice that other chosen didn't have his dedication. He figured he might be more dedicated than some - it was his life's purpose to kill the Gods, after all. But he continued to notice it in everyone. Almost every other chosen within the bone rank seemed to have little determination to move beyond where they already were.

The monoliths that tortured him his whole life. The ones that had given him scars uncountable and memories unthinkable. They were weak.

Looking down at the two bone rank combatants fighting it out was nothing but a sad reminder of what he used to be. Movements that used to be too quick to even see for his lost eyes became slow. As if moving through a thick swamp they attacked each other, bleeding and cutting their enemy for life or death. And Micheal looked on, wondering how he had ever seen them as giants.

They were children, playing with toys they were too young and weak to ever understand. The only difference with Micheal was that he had been given a weapon, not a toy. And he would use it to its best.

“I think this might be the worst match so far, Mike,” Samantha said from his side. “I think you're right,” he replied.

The two in the arena moved without any hint of skill or finesse, using the blunt instrument of their apostle like cavemen mercilessly beating on one another. Just like cavemen, they were bloody and beaten but were too prideful to give up. They certainly hadn't been stupid enough to end up in a deathmatch, so it could only have been pride that kept the fight going.

“Do you think they'll go all the way?” Samantha asked.

“I think so. Unless the older one gives up. He looks like the type,” he said.

Samantha looked to focus on the older of the two fighters, who was struggling against the younger in a grapple. The man's face was awash with fear, and he looked ready to give in at any moment, but Micheal knew better than to bet against the Lost's will to live. It had gone poorly for others too many times for him to make the same mistake.

Eventually, with a loud snapping sound, the neck of the older man was snapped, sending a hush out to the audience.

Another needless death added to the growing pile.

“Looks like he was tougher than he looked,” Samantha said sadly.

Micheal looked down at that. The idea that him being tougher was a good thing when it gave him only his death was laughable. What good was courage if all it got you was dead? What use was his pride when he met his ancestors? He wasn't 'tough'. He was an idiot.

“looks like it,” was all that he said.

Samantha turned to face him, getting ready to leave if Micheal placed his guess right. They had watched a few fights already, so it was about the time for them to leave. With a cold detachment they both turned away from the dead man and his opponent.

“You know, animals aren't really allowed around here,” a cruel voice called out.

The sound grated on Micheal's ears, but it wasn't as if he and Sam were the only ones with black eyes in the training hall. They continued walking away. He knew that they would be leaving some poor lost to a fate that they might have avoided, but it didn't really matter. The dead didn't care much for grudges.

“I said!" The voice shouted. "Animals aren't allowed around here!” The voice returned louder, causing Micheal to finally turn around to find its source.

A smiling man, no older than his early twenties, greeted his sight. Like a child who'd finally gotten the attention of his mother, he beamed an arrogant smile right at him, as if he'd caught him in the act of something he shouldn't have. Eyeing Micheal like a piece of meat he stepped forward, evaluating his fresh catch to see its worth. Micheal looked at the man with clear disdain, eliciting an even deeper grin from him

.

“My, my. The animal thinks its people,” he said. “Looking at me like that, you might make me cry, you know?” Laughing he continued to step forward, coming right up to Micheal and Samantha's faces.

He was tall - even when compared to someone like Dawn. With a close-shaven beard and finely cut clothes, he was the very image of a middle-classmen out on the town. With a warm smile and a handsome face, he looked every inch the image of a friendly neighbor.

As he stood and looked down on Micheal, ready to tear apart his arms like an errant fly, that assessment only felt more at home. It was his normalcy that was the only scary thing about him.

“I know, right?” Samantha said from Micheal's side. “Its walking on two legs and talking. It doesn't even know that its a sea cucumber,” she said, smiling in her most demeaning look to date. “And yet here it is, talking to humans that it doesn't know, and causing a scene. Maybe it should go somewhere that it won't bother anyone. Maybe a cesspit?”

Samantha's sickly sweet tone sharpened her words, seeming each one to cut at the man in front of them. With a nearly wild grin he turned to face her, then spitting out the words.

“What did you just say you cunt? You think you can speak to me like that? You briny lost thing, talking to me like I'm less than you?” With a forced calm the man looked at Samantha, disbelieving that he had been spoken back to by a lost so vehemently.

“You're less than the dirt on the ground, you nert bastard,” Micheal interjected.

With wide eyes the man turned to him, building a rebuke.

“What was that, you little shit?” The man asked, growing a crazed look in his eyes. “What did you just fucking say to me?” He asked.

“I said that you aren't worth the air you breath, you briny waste of space. Why don't you do the rest of us a favor and deprive us of your company, eh?” Speaking as if to a stupid child Micheal interrupted him, causing the enraged man to split his mouth in a disgusting grin, and finally bark out a laugh.

Harsh and too loud the man laughed into the expanse of the training hall, attracting the attention of the watching lost and chosen alike in a spectacle show. The bystanders wouldn't want to miss out on a show like this. It was always fun seeing a smart-mouth lost being put in their place. Especially if that place was the hall of their wretched ancestors.

“Hahahaha, you kids are funny,” he wheezed between bouts of manic laughter. “You're real fucking funny. Talking to me like that. Insulting me, as if you aren't the mistakes of the world. You know, its so funny that I think I might keep you around. Maybe I'll keep you alive to see what I do to your lady-friend, huh, big man,” throwing a disgusting look at Samantha, the man turned from her to Micheal, facing him.

“How does that sound, tough guy? Maybe I'll just leave your head, though. That way you might hear what I do to her in the after life,” laughing like a screeching laugh, and Micheal finally grew angry enough to take the man seriously.

His brow creased, and a heat filled his chest at the sight of the wretched thing in front of him. He had the audacity to call Micheal an animal when he spoke of that?

The watching bystanders, alternatively laughing and jeering at the comments, seemed to find it funny enough. The thought of the two of them being torn apart by the man providing some entertainment. Clearly they delivered enough in the entertainment department to have been worth watching. Maybe they'd even get to keep one of their arms if they were quick enough.

With a grating laugh, Samantha made herself known from beside him, meeting the gaze of the man with a demeaning grin. The man smiled back, thinking she must have been mad with fear. Everyone present knew that he hadn't been joking with what he had spoken of. Half of the watching chosen probably felt like participating. Micheal even managed to notice a few of the women giving him appraising looks, as well as a good deal of the men.

It seemed Samantha wouldn't be the only one on the minds of the people tonight.

“You seem awfully confident in yourself, sir,” Micheal said. The calmness in his voice was a lie that nearly sent him careening into anger. It grated him even more than the use of sir. Sir had been the polite lie of conformity that he'd practiced long and hard at in his life, but calmness? Calmness went well against his better nature. Every one of his instincts screamed at him to tear the man apart right then and there for daring to talk to either of them like that.

It was only the clear dismissing smile on Samantha's face that stopped him. Micheal knew for a fact that Samantha wasn't afraid or intimidated by the man's words, and if the bulging vein in his forehead was any indicator, so did the man himself. So Micheal contained himself into the claustrophobic confines of calmness.

“Confident? Against a pair of animals? Of course I am. You and your bitch should be begging by now, not stating obvious facts,” the man said with a showman's grin, playing to the debauchery of the watching crowd. Deciding he could use that, Micheal turned away from the thing in front of him and faced the hungry eyes of the watching monsters.

“If that's the case, then sure you should have no problem having a friendly spar to settle things? To the death of course. My corpse wouldn't be able to enjoy the sight of my, lady friend, was it? Being at your mercy,” Micheal said with a wide and confident smile. Internally he felt sick having to play to the emotions of the sick humans in front of him. There were even a few pairs of black eyes that stared out at him from the crowd, adding to the disgust of the sight.

Micheal vowed that he would remember them for another day.

“That's no fun,” the thing said. With a chuckle, he continued, “Death isn't all there is, you know. How about we have a duel to servitude instead?” The man seemed to brighten as he said the words. Lost may have been fairly common, but lost slaves were still a little on the pricey side for the average person.

The much cheaper alternative was to make the lost your slave on your own. All you needed was their agreement, after all, and a duel was a legal means of attaining it. Not even the first king was able to do anything about a contract sealed and agreed through the use of a duel. His protections ended well before any such legal means would be put into place.

Micheal decided to send back a savage smile of his own, and even Samantha turned a greedy look to the man. A slave would be good for them, and if he didn't work out? They could always order him to kill himself. As a found, Micheal had the same rights as a chosen, and the right to kill his slaves was among them.

If the man didn't know that then all the better. It would be an excellent surprise for them both.

“A duel to servitude against one of the lost? You really are a sick briny fuck, you know that, don't you?” He asked the man.

“Don't accuse me of being sick, you fucking thing. You're sicker than I'll ever be. Not even the Gods could put up with you,” he spat.

Micheal sent a wry grin in way of a response, expecting Samantha to respond in his place. Instead, she seemed to grow quiet for a moment, looking to him. Micheal looked confused, before he realized that the words had actually resonated with her, which was enough.

With a deranged smile of his own, Micheal shouted the words that everyone watching wanted to hear.

“I challenge you, two against one, to a duel of servitude, on my Name as Micheal The Nameless. Do you accept?” His voice boomed with a sound of official challenge. There was no more official a method of dueling than one reinforced by the greater God of Challenge. He was, in Saxlaw, the highest dueling authority, and duels invoking his name were binding.

Micheal grated to hear his own voice call the intent of the Gods, but it was worth it. Even the man, so confident in his inherent superiority over them, finally hesitated,

The watching crowd ooed and ahhed at their hearts content, amazed that a mere lost would dare call down the judgement of a greater God. The fact that Micheal had done it against someone with the full intention of gutting, raping and killing the both of them? Madness.

Micheal looked out amongst that crowd, and feeling the satisfaction of madness creeping over him, laughed at the awed look of the sick fuckers. He must have seemed a mad man, screaming at the world in the face of his inevitable death. Only Samantha seemed to agree, and sent her own laugh in turn.

The man, amused at and stunned at the sight, laughed his own cackling joy away.

“I, on my name as Alric Van Malther, Accept this challenge and its terms. Being the challenged, I demand we fight in this arena, the moment the bodies are cleaned from the floor. Is this acceptable, trash?”

“It is,” Micheal replied in maddened calm.

He had been willing to fake civility when Samantha had been nothing but amused. Even in the face of threats and insults he had been willing to maintain the mask of the moral highroad. The moment that had not been the case all of those scruples had been melted away. He would let the anger join him. Perhaps it might teach those watching a few lessons about how to address both him and his friend.

It would also be nice to tear the arms from his torso and beat him with it. Samantha would probably want a go at him as well. She was probably boiling with a hot rage as they spoke. He only hoped she didn't do anything too crazy. it wouldn't be any good if she were to feed him his own manhood in front of everyone. Not that he didn't deserve it.

He just didn't want the reputation of man-eater to be forever attached to him. She could save those kind of things for her own personal duels.

“I, on my name as Samantha Cald, accept these terms for the side of the challenger,” she said with a gleeful anger. It was just like her to have already turned to joy in her anger at the man. It was that look in her eyes more than her brutality that had won her the title of top challenger to his title in the lower hall. She had earned her reputation alright.

“So its name is Samantha? I think I'll change it to something better once you're mine. How about Whore. That way it can be your new job title and your name! Isn't that great?!” He shouted with a laugh to the crowd.

Eager to join in the crowd began its chants of whore, all the while facing Samantha, who seethed with each and every call. He would definitely need to let her have a turn at him then.

Though with his own white hot anger niggling at him that might prove rather difficult. It was all he could do to wait in eager anticipation for them to remove the corpse on the training square. The urge to send hardened crystal into his brain was tantalizing to the absurd, Seeing him scream in agony was going to be a highlight for years to come.

The man approached the two of them even closer. Close enough that Micheal could smell the tell-tale smell of bread on the man. He probably ran a bakery. It would explain the look of wealth to him. Even modest wealth stood out to both of the orphans.

“Good luck, you two,” he said with sour breath the tickled the back of Micheal's throat. Reaching for the top of Samantha's head in an attempt to pat it, he opened his mouth to speak. “And you especially my little pet. I'll be sure to get good use out of you,”

As his hand reached for Samantha Micheal shot out to grab it, ripping it out of the air in an iron grip. He kept it soft enough that he wouldn't notice that he wasn't still lost, but hard enough to make him think he was giving his utmost effort. even here the man seemed surprised to be stymied, even more so at the strength of the grip. Micheal figured he must have been in the lower point of bone, while he had recently moved into the upper-middle for pure power. Even this small amount was enough to scare him. It boded very well for their upcoming match.

“Get your filthy hand off of me you animal!” He shouted at Micheal.

“No unauthorized touching until the match has begun, Alric. We wouldn't want a God stepping down here, would we?” Micheal asked. It was against the rules to touch a dueling opponent outside of a duel without their consent. It was one of the few rules that the God of Challenge enforced even for lost. Micheal was barely avoiding the punishment by touching the man's arm in self defence.

“Fine!” He spat, tearing his arm with a great effort from Micheal's grip. “I'll be waiting on the B side of the arena. You and the bitch better be there. I don't feel like having my way with the corpse that the Gods leave behind,” he said harshly.

Micheal smiled and gave a lazy wave, heading down with Samantha to the A side stairs. The body wouldn't take too much longer to remove.

The jeering crowd, still chanting whore as the two of them made their way, parted with smiles and laughs as they pushed through.