The three of us pushed inside. The sounds of war faded as we paced along the narrow blue carpet, only to jump when the huge metal doors closed behind us with a thunderous BOOM. The air of Rachini's temple fell over us with a profound silence, thick as velvet.

[The doors to the Arena are temporarily locked. You have five minutes to cross the threshold of the circle and challenge the Daeva, or retreat.]

Ahead of us stretched an airy, short vestibule. All surfaces were gilt black and gold marble, lit by glimmering blue lamps. To either side of us stood mirrored effigies of what I assumed was Rachini. The ones on our left were of a beautiful, heavily armored woman with a kabuto helmet that left the lower part of her face exposed. She wielded twin scimitars, crossed, the blades held flat against her shoulders. On our right, statues of a thin insectoid horror. A demonic praying mantis. Its long hook claws also crossed, the points held down toward the floor. Keeping half an eye on the statues, I dropped my head and sniffed one of the lamps - then recoiled when I realized it was full of glowing, electrified insects. The light was generated by their abdomens.

Angel slipped off my back to the ground, her higher quality rifle in one hand. "Nice, cosy little place she has. It's, umm... airy."

My shoulders hunched as I padded past the mantis statues. I swore their eyes followed me into the main chamber, which revealed the temple was nothing but one big square black hall with a fifty foot dome ceiling. A huge inlaid circle of golden metal took up most of the floor. At the center of the circle was a round altar and another of the lamps, this one floating over a pair of sword hilts. No blades. Just hilts.

"Hang on a minute. Something about this place has my hackles up. Not just the bugs… the layout." I came to a stop outside the golden circle, scenting the air. It smelled like... insects. The skin-ruffling, pungent odor of crickets. A rumble escaped my throat, and Lulu squeezed around my torso reassuringly.

"It really sucks that one of the bosses is bug-themed." Angel half turned to me, signaling for concern. "Are you going to be okay?"

I huffed a blast of air through my nostril vents. “Yeah.”

“Just… you know. I can feel how you feel about-”

“Maximum Testosterone Noodles, remember? I’m FINE.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about the testosterone poisoning.” Angel paused signing to point up behind my head. "So anyway, what do you make of THAT?"

Angel was pointing at one of three empty wall niches above us, each between ten and twenty feet off the ground. All three were about ten by five feet, big enough for me or Lulu. But each had a different position. The highest one was easily accessible via a flight of exposed, railless stairs that lay just outside the perimeter of the circle. The lowest was ten feet off the ground, straight up a smooth marble wall. Most Brutes could jump it. A human could reach it with a ladder. The third was about fifteen feet up, and set deeper into the wall than the others. All around it, I could see small holes. They reminded me of the spear traps we'd seen in Karkinos' place, the ones that had nailed Lulu.

"Could be locations to avoid AoEs. Or inactive arena weapons we have to disarm or dodge," I thought back. "Or anchors."

"Anchors?"

"Yeah... like, some kind of phylactery appears in those niches, and she becomes invulnerable to damage while they're intact. They feel like stations of some kind or another, something we either have to avoid or use. Like the stone platforms in the Karkinos fight, or the pillars in Vanara's temple."

Angel nodded slowly. "Yeah. I don't like how high up they are, but fortunately you have a pro sport shooter as your official Greater Legion."

"Angel! I choose you!" I mimed throwing a ball into the arena. "Angel uses GUN! It's super-effective!"

"Hah hah. Don't get used to it. The collar comes off as soon as we're done here." She scowled, but was also trying not to laugh. Lulu giggled.

I flashed her a fanged grin. "Alright. We ready to buff?"

Angel fed me and Lulu two potions each: one that increased our max stamina by 20%, and one that bumped our HP by 150. There weren't many buffs available to us in Malae, and none of the patron loot boxes contained anything from higher realms. Everything that we'd been gifted was theoretically possible to discover here, even the Vickers guns, because we weren't Society-sponsored cheaters like Kaban. Angel took a couple of stims, and together, we crossed the golden line.

[A challenge has been issued. The door to the arena has been sealed.]

[You have discovered the Temple of the Sun: Lair of Rachini, the Swarm Queen.]

I tensed, expecting chords of music to burst from nowhere like they had the other two times, but there was nothing. No sounds in the room other than our footsteps and the harsh rasp of our breath.

Angel strode for the center of the room, the pair of us flanking her to either side. As we drew within range of the altar, the pale blue sphere crackled. It was also made up of glowing electric bugs, each no bigger than a sandfly. They surrounded the sword hilts and expanded outward to a sphere about twice the size of a basketball. Plasma crackled between the buzzing particles and over the worn, leather-wrapped hilts.

[One may wonder: What ARE the Daeva?]

[The word 'daeva' originates from Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran. There the Daeva were demonic figures, 'The False Gods Who Must Be Overcome'. Here, they are custodians. Wardens. They test and try gladiators to judge their worthiness to ascend.]

Stolen story; please report.

[You have defeated two of these proud, arrogant jailors. Merely facing them required immense sacrifice. Savage Vanara, the Daeva of Earth-in-Earth, extracted his toll in the blood and suffering of your rival gladiators. Patient Karkinos, the Daeva of Fire-in-Earth, demanded your time, your energy, and your mental and physical fortitude via the hostile confines of his labyrinth.]

[Rachini, the Daeva of Air-in-Earth, requires the most personal of sacrifices. Yourself. To face her, gladiator, you give up all but one of your lives.]

[Are you ready?]

I snorted in surprise. "Woah. Hang on a second. We lose our respawns?"

[Correct. If you fall in battle, you will not revive within the arena. This fight concludes when either Rachini is killed, or you are.]

For the second time since I'd woken in Malae, two buttons appeared before me. Well, us. Angel's eyes shifted to look at the same spot in the air. One read 'Commence', the other 'Forfeit'.

Angel growled. "Forfeit? What do you mean, forfeit?"

[Once you passed the threshold of the summoning circle, you issued your challenge to Rachini.]

[The board is set. You may battle her, triumph, and regain your lives. Or you may forfeit your sacrifice and retreat. But by crossing the threshold of the challenge circle, you have already made your sacrifice.]

A feeling of wordless dread washed over me. I turned my foreclaws over, and saw eight strike marks blazing underneath a numeral 1. Angel squawked with dismay when she did the same thing. I hadn't felt anything when we'd crossed the circle. No pain. No sense of loss.

"You sneaky, conniving son of a bitch," I thought.

[You WERE warned at the entry, darling. We - Chorus - are merely the referee. We do not create the rules.]

"Sure, and the sky is red and full of flying pigs." Angel's jaws clenched as she signed to me with furious rapidity. "But the worst has happened already. Let's get this over with, before our buffs wear off."

"Ooh..." Lulu sounded muted. She shivered around me. Through the collar link, I could feel her terror. But underneath the fear? Determination.

"You got it." I jabbed at the Commence button.

The button crackled with electricity, then it and the Forfeit button both vanished. As did my saddle and the contents of my Inventory.

[You have temporarily lost access to your Inventory and Items.]

Angel squawked with dismay as her rifle vanished from her hand. "Hey!"

"Eeeeee...." Lulu's fear reached a fever pitch as a hideous rustling filled the air, rising and falling. And THEN the theme music started: a dark, frantic shamisen overlaid by the slithering of countless unseen insects. There was a CRUNCH overhead. As one, we looked up to see the dome of the temple split down the middle and begin sink to either side to reveal a circle of sky that mirrored the ring on the floor. It had been clear and cold when we'd entered Fortuna. Not so much now. A hammer-shaped cloudhead formed above the temple as we watched. White, then silver, then a dark, brooding grey. The wind moaned.

[The Swarm Queen comes.]

"What the hell am I supposed to do without weapons!?" Angel was even paler than usual. All the gear we'd carefully selected for this fight - guns and turrets and the ammo for them - were gone.

I eyed the sword hilts on the altar. The sphere of electrified flies was now gathered on one of them, leaving the other for the taking. "... Know how to use a sword?"

"No? I mean, kind of?" Thunder drowned out the music as the skies opened, warm tropical rain pouring down into the temple. Around us, the golden circle in the floor lit up with runes and began to wind back counter-clockwise. Beneath my feet, I could hear something that sounded like a huge spring wind taut. A cone of whirling insects that size of locusts began to form above the arena.

[A challenger has approached the First Daeva in her Temple. This is a World Event.]

[The timer has been set. You have ten minutes until the swarm arrives. Defeat the Queen's first phase in time, and you unleash the swarm on the island. Lose to her, and suffer its wrath yourself.]

"Bugs. Of course the grand apocalypse has to be bugs." I backed up, holding my tentacles up warily as lightning flashed through the clouds overhead.

Before she could second guess herself, Angel darted forward. She snatched up the empty hilt, but as she reached for the other, it crackled and spat with electricity. She jerked her fingers back with a hiss.

"This is a setup for a duel. Has to be. Rachini is a Spirit, Blood and Air Daeva. Air is weak against Poison, Blood against Psionic... so we have type advantage," I said. The whirling cloud of bugs began to tighten toward the center of the altar, which smoothly and seamlessly withdrew into the floor. "Lulu! Poison element Omnishell to null your weakness to Air, now! Angel, get ready!"

Neither of them argued. Lulu's body swam with sickly violet streaks as she absorbed my Poison polarity and adjusted herself. Angel, panting with anxiety, fell in beside me. Her fingers were white-knuckled around the bladeless hilt in her hand.

"You can do this. You've got the best hand-eye coordination of anyone I've ever met," I urged her, trying to shore her up. Her terror was more powerful than Lulu's for maybe the first time since I'd met her, bordering on flat panic. Angel liked order. She liked predictability. The sudden, unexpected loss of her weapons and her other lives had rattled her. And in a duel, she was at more than one kind of disadvantage. "Actually... now I think about it. Lulu, have you ever seen an exoskeleton? Like the kind dockworkers use to lift shipping containers and shit?"

Lulu stiffened at the 'aha!' moment. She flowed off from around my body and bounded over to Angel. "Oohoo! Skoolutoo!"

"What are you-?" Confused, Angel didn't resist as the Limne swarmed up around her limbs, reinforcing them. And she knew exactly how to do it, too - because, well. Lulu had been a nurse.

"Moogoozoord! Assuumboo!" Lulu trilled as she boosted Angel's feet up a couple inches off the ground, providing a Poison elemental buffer against the floor - in the second before the locusts condensed into a funnel and lightning clapped, sending a pulse of electricity into the altar. "Eeek!"

The incandescent bugs merged into a dense blur, and out of the mass stepped an unearthly beautiful woman. She was imperiously tall, nearly ten feet from her lily-white feet to the crown of jet-black hair that poured to the backs of her knees. Rachini had the regal beauty of a lioness - but her eyes were those of a mantis, faceted blue-white pools with a tiny dot of a pupil at the center. There was no humanity in them. Nothing in them but hunger and alien contempt.

"You have only one choice left to make, gladiators." Rachini's words were a mirror of the ones Chorus recited to me on my first day. She stared down at us as a layer of black chitin armor manifested from the whirling air around her, rising from her ankles to form a weave of interlocking plates up to her chin. "Survive... or die."