Reggie gave Elena a look that told her he was quite done entertaining her. His head cocked to the side, and she could see the frustration in his eyes. It must have been a long time since anyone had told him no, and probably even longer since a girl had done so. 'I mean, come on,' John thought to himself. 'He wants me to show him a good time? A girl's gotta have some standa-Wait, what am I thinking?' Elena realized she had just thought of herself as a girl.
Reggie held out his hand, and in it, a tube of some sort appeared. It was about a foot long and appeared to be made of a silvery metal. A moment later, a three-foot-long blade made of plasma, looking like a laser, shot out from it. Elena could see the warbling of energy as it struggled to maintain form.
"You know," she called out to him, pointing to the blade, "some companies might sue you for copyright infringement with that." The all-too-familiar thrumming hum of the blade cut through the sounds of screams and pleas for help. He spun it in his hands, and Elena heard the energetic vrrrr-mmmm as it crackled with energy.
He looked confused. He glanced down at his weapon, and as he did, Elena used Piercing Blood.
Piercing Blood Description: Manipulate the blood of yourself or others into razor-sharp projectiles. Deadliness of the weapon will increase with access to more blood. If no blood is available, a small wound will open up near the location the projectile will form, and once formed, it will seal back up.
Reggie's face shot up just in time to see spears of razor-sharp blood come sailing towards him. He was quick, and with a violent upward parry, her spears of blood splashed on him. They did nothing.
Scratch that. It looked cool as hell, but that's about it. And he now looked like he had been splattered with the gore of several enemies. Elena smirked and mentally congratulated herself. 'Alright John, Step one of my master plan "Humiliate Reggie" is complete. Now onto step two: Wound him. What was step three? I know step four was: profit... but step three. Eh, I'll figure it out later.'
Reggie made a retching sound as he wiped the blood from his face and then stomped towards Elena. She could see from his bloody facade and the bloodshot eyes that he wasn't happy with her. So she did what anyone would do when a person with murderous intent and a freaking plasma sword comes after you.
She ran. She ran... so fast.
The streets of the place were set up like any other small to medium-sized city. The tallest buildings were no more than about 10 stories, and fairly tightly packed together. She ran into the first building she could, assuming that there was a backdoor like any other shop on Earth. Luckily, they kept up to Earth fire codes. She kept running through the ruins of a kitchen and went to body check the door. She expected that when she impacted it, the door would slam open, and she would keep running. What she wasn't expecting was for the door to shatter as if she hit it with a small explosion. She barely had a moment to contemplate this before she slammed into a brick building on the other side of the alley, the door not offering any resistance in the slightest.
Her body bounced off, and for the briefest of moments, she was airborne. A moment that brought Reggie a few steps closer. She heard a few words behind her that sounded vaguely like Reggie calling out for an earthquake when the world around her started violently shaking. Great, Reggie was an earth guy. Or whatever this planet called a quake.
She felt her feet grow unsteady as she tried her best not to fall over. Helpfully, a debuff appeared in her vision, and without even clicking on it, she could tell it was trying to tell her she was unsteady. "Not the time!" she yelled out while her hands were stuck out, trying to help balance her. Even her tail was joining in on the fun as it was also moving and undulating with the localized earthquake.
Elena vaguely heard words behind her and felt something wrap around her as she was viciously yanked backwards. Reggie must have used a third power because one moment she was standing on the shaking ground, and the next minute she was in the air flying backwards. She felt her shoulder clip the building, and if she didn't know better, she'd say it was almost dislocated. She felt a tingle like she had tweaked a nerve but down her entire arm, and a numb feeling spread from her shoulder.
Reggie wasn't holding back. She landed on her back in front of him, his sword raised in the air. Attempting to finish the fight quickly, he brought it down on her face.
For the third time, she felt her adrenaline pump in her chest, and time once again seemed to slow down for her. She took the moment to hold her hand up and close her eyes. Blood poured out of her and formed a suit of armor that surrounded her torso. The sword impacted her chest a moment later, and from the pain, she thought she hadn't protected herself in time. It felt like she was just hit by a baseball bat swung by a major league hitter. She instinctively curled around her stomach and felt the breath forced out of her lungs. Reggie brought the sword up again. Reggie seemed to be under the impression that if the first hit didn't work, he could beat on her until it did. And lying here was a great way to show him he was right.
Her tail came up with a brilliant idea. Wrapping around Reggie's leg, it violently pulled while his sword was at its apex and his balance was off. He fell backwards, the full weight of his body mixed with gravity to slam into the counter of the store they were in, and it broke. She heard the sound of bone cracking, and in that moment, Elena knew she had to do something. She quickly climbed on him and started swinging down on his face.
She formed the blood on her body into something that would hurt but not kill. Blood Gauntlets flowed and undulated as she moved her arms. And with that, she went about trying to rearrange his face. She threw out a few choice words every time her fist impacted with his head.
"Still wanna show me a good time?" Thud Thud
As Elena's fist connected with Reggie's face for the third time, she felt the sickening crunch of cartilage giving way beneath her knuckles. The sensation sent a shiver down her spine, a mix of revulsion and dark satisfaction. 'Is this what power feels like?' she thought, her mind reeling.
The blood gauntlets on her hands pulsed with each impact, almost as if they were alive and feeding off the violence. Her eyes widened as she watched Reggie's face distort under her assault. 'I'm reshaping his skull with my bare hands,' she realized, a wave of nausea washing over her. 'As much as I hate this, if this is what it takes, I'm willing to pay the price'
"How you gonna protect me when you can't protect yourself?" Thud.
"I swear to God, if you ever look at me like a piece of meat again, I will fucking end you." Thud Thud.
"This is for every time you made someone feel helpless, you twisted fuck" Thud.
"I swear to god Veronica, if you grab my tail again..." Thud Thud.
Elena realized after she spoke that Reggie wasn't Veronica, but maybe she could hear Elena anyway. If not, maybe jackass here could pass a message along.
Each impact on his face was brutal. She could feel his cheekbone fracture and eventually shatter. Each subsequent punch came down and caused enough damage that a normal person would be hospitalized or killed. It felt like she could put a dent in a steel beam. The first two punches had easily broken his nose. The third gave his forehead a slightly concave shape. The fourth through eighth violently impacted the side of his head, snapping it back and forth. At some point, he let go of his sword, and it rolled away from him. She could see her fists causing his face to compress and contort. His face surrounding his eyes was starting to grow swollen, and the flesh around it was probably limiting his ability to see. Much more of this, and she was expecting him to need hospitalization.
And that's when she noticed his smile. He was missing a few teeth, but that creepy, hungry smile just looked up at her. It was the smile of a person who knows something dangerous that you don't. The smile of someone who is about to get sweet revenge. The smile of someone who is about to do something terrible. She knew she shouldn't stop, but she wanted to hear him give up, to throw in the towel. So she decided to help him along and slammed her face into his jaw a few more times. Thud Thud.
He spat out blood and a couple of teeth. His twisted grin spread across his face as he leaned in closer. He said something so softly that Elena leaned in slightly to hear him better.
His melodic voice hadn't changed. He nearly purred the words into her ears. "I do hope you'll maintain this charming disposition when I have you collared. And when I claim you night after night, I will enjoy choking you into submission until your loins clamp on mine. And I will savor every moment of your helplessness," he whispered, his breath hot on her neck.
Elena spasmed involuntarily as a chill ran up and down her spine. Her skin prickled as goosebumps covered her entire body. She leaned back and every inch of her screamed in warning. Something was wrong. Dangerously wrong. Her brain and mouth both reacted the same way. "What the fuck dude?"
Even though she straddled him, she had the sickening suspicion she wasn't in control. Her eyes widened and she brought her fist up to punch in more of his teeth.
And then he winked. She was taken aback for the briefest of moments, but that was all he needed. His plasma sword turned back on, and worse than that, it was pointed directly at her belly.
When Reggie's plasma sword pierced her abdomen, the world seemed to slow to a crawl. The searing pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced, and as she looked down at the wound, she could see her own flesh bubbling and charring around the energy blade. The smell of her own burning meat instantly filled her nostrils, and she had to fight the urge to vomit. 'This can't be happening,' her mind screamed. 'I can't die here, not like this. OH GOD IT BURNS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
Where it came from, she didn't know. And honestly, right then she didn't care. Searing pain shot through her, and as she twisted away from the pain, she ended up making the wound far worse. What should have been a simple in-and-out hole soon turned into a wound that bisected her a third of the way open. Her insides felt like they were being boiled, and she knew she was being cooked alive. She could smell the burning meat that was her stomach. She rolled off of him and every moment was excruciating.
She screamed. Oh god, the scream that came out of her quickly started as a high alto, and she couldn't tell if the scream got higher in pitch or if she just ran out of air to continue to give the scream life.
Reginald got up, yet she could barely see through the pain. She was vaguely aware of his sword in hand and noted she couldn't see it on the floor anymore. Sweat and any blood she had formed poured off of her. Her mind was screaming in pain so loudly, the magic could maintain its form anymore.
Lying on her back and curled around the wound, she instinctively held her hand out to defend herself, and his sword gently touched her arm to push it out of the way gently. The searing pain in her abs was joined by a brand new searing pain in her arm. Her world became... pain. In a fevered dash until she lost consciousness, her brain tried anything and everything to escape the pain. She vaguely remembered one of the students saying he was the strongest in class. Another saying she was excited to see what Reginald could do to a demon.
That simple attack made Elena see why he was feared and revered. She tried to move her torso and noticed that her body moved oddly, her top half not fully connected to her bottom, and when she looked down, she could see her legs were twisted at an odd angle. Her brain started singing songs from the internet in an attempt to escape from what it was going through. As as much as she hoped that the end would come, her body stubbornly refused to let it happen.
She slowly crawled away on her good arm as her bad arm tried to keep her insides, inside. On more than one occasion, she had to push back something inside her. Reginald just slowly walked after her, waiting for her to admit defeat. He knew he had dealt what would be a fatal blow, and it was just a matter of time. He stood on top of her and put one foot on her still attached side and pushed down. She vaguely felt her hips and legs twist to the right, but her top twisted to the left. He was literally spreading her apart with his feet. She could feel herself go into shock as her body grew cold. The little ripping and tearing sounds she heard were coming from her.
At that moment, she didn't even know if she could even muster enough coherent thought to scream "I quit" or beg for mercy. Her brain felt like it was sweating, working overtime to keep her alive. She felt woozy, and part of her wanted to stop her screaming to beg for mercy.
He stopped pressing as he flipped her over onto her back. She didn't know what eldritch abomination heard her pleas, but it was a welcome reprieve. She looked up at him, her eyes almost closing on their own. And then she noticed the base of her tail pointing towards the ceiling, unmoving. Horror dawned on her as she realized that he had only stopped pressing when her bottom half and top half had done a 180.
A blinking warning debuff flashed in her vision, that was just an X, and a box accompanied it.
You have sustained fatal damage. Arena Designation XR-17 is attempting to authorize knockout protocol to prevent further harm. Action Required: A warning box has appeared: "Accept Temporary Debuff: Unconsciousness?" Yes: (Combatant Elena Vale will be knocked unconscious and teleported to the healers) No: (Warning: Declining may result in irreversible psychological damage and could potentially result in death)
Elena's eyes locked onto the warning box, her pulse pounding in her ears. The arena was asking for her to accept defeat. To give up. To be willing to accept the grim knowledge of what could come later that night. Reginald, with his sickening smirk and twisted intentions, loomed over her both in the arena and in the back of her mind. Accepting this would be accepting the violation of her very being.
No.
She couldn’t let herself be so easily taken, so easily used. She clenched her fists, her resolve hardening. There had to be another way, a chance to find get up, to fight through this. To win. She wasn’t giving up, not to the arena and certainly not to Reginald.
Instinctively, she used her magic and started healing the wound as her flesh knitted itself back together. But it would take time, and time was working against her. Reggie just stepped back and waited for her to give up. She spun her legs back around as he pointed his sword towards her again. Whatever god heard her pleas from earlier didn't feel the need to dull her pain, and she realized that her body was still overcooked to the point of being burnt. She was finally able to get herself enough coherent thought to yield when she looked up at Reggie standing. His face was a ruined mess. You couldn't tell where the bruises ended and where her blood splash on him earlier began. He stood, this blade held out towards her body.
"So, still think I can't protect myself?" he said, his voice still so arrogant, with good reason.
Elena held her hand up in preparation for the next attack. The pain she was in dulled her perception to the point of barely seeing. And then she felt her body start to slowly knit itself back together. Each nerve ending sent waves of fresh agony through her body. She realized to her horror that her magical healing was keeping her body from going into shock. Every wound was felt in excruciating detail in reverse. She gently touched her insides with her wounded arm and felt her intestines un-cauterize.
He looked at her for what seemed like a year and tapped his chin as he faked being deep in thought. Then he snapped his fingers as if a brilliant thought came to mind. "On second thought, why should I spend effort on protecting someone as weak as you? I doubt you'll advance past where you are now, and I don't need to waste time with the rabble. Sure, the occasional lonely night is fine, but beyond that? Tell me, demon spawn. Any reason why you shouldn't just be a toy to be used and then discarded when I grow tired? I remember reading that peasant women, in particular, are valued only for what they can offer in fleeting moments of indulgence. Beyond that, they are forgotten, discarded like a trinket that has lost its shine. You may protest or pretend to resist, but eventually, you'll understand your place: to be used, admired for a time, and then cast aside when something new catches my eye."
When he stopped and looked at her, she cursed to herself. The few seconds he spoke was enough to heal herself partially, and to her magic's credit, she had made significant headway, but she realized that she was still in no shape to fight and every second made her feel weaker and weaker.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
She started to open her mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, but the building did that for her. Well, the building and the monster that rampaged through. One moment Reggie was there, sword in hand, the next moment he was splattered between the forehead of some monster that looked like a mix of a monkey and a rhinoceros and the wall. Then through the wall, then through another building. She heard more crashes, but she couldn't tell how many. Hopefully, Reggie was somewhere in the middle of next week. Elena lay in the empty room and said to the spot he was in, "Fuck... You". Her head fell back and hit the floor again as she panted heavily.
She heard what sounded like seven other walls getting smashed before the monster yelled out again, and she knew it was now or never. If she didn't get up and finish the fight, she was going to lose, and then apparently be shown a "memorable night". Reggie might be a prick, who deserved to have his prick removed. But right now, he was her prick to deal with.
Elena pointed at the blood from where she was beaten just moments earlier and used Hemokinesis on it to make it come to her. She noticed that the addition of Reggie's blood with her powers made the healing of her wounds better and quicker. She took a quick glance at her health and mana just to see if she was even capable of fighting some more. With her health sitting at 23 and her mana sitting at 241, she knew she could last a few more moments. She saw the light from his sword come through the hole and
She saw Reggie come towards her through the holes of two other buildings, and she held out her hand to stabilize herself on the wall. Her other hand still held her sides, hoping that she could keep her organs where they should be. Her blood magic still moved the blood to heal her, and while it was coming along, it wasn't done yet.
Elena realized that what she was doing now wasn't working. She needed to do something about that sword, and she frantically searched through all of her abilities. And that's when she saw it.
Mana Bleed Description: Allows the user to manipulate the raw energies of mana within themselves and others. Can be used to draw out or redirect the ambient magical energy within living beings as well as ley lines. Warning: Redirecting sources of magic of a higher tier can have detrimental effects. Mana Cost: Moderate
She internally berated herself for not thinking of this earlier and spoke a few words that felt right. "Let your Mana feed me." The words came out surprisingly smoothly even though she was breathing raggedly through the pain. She felt a link form between the two of them. A connection to not only her own pool of mana but his as well. His was not as vast as hers, but she could tell to some extent it was deeper. She willed some of his mana to flow from his pool into hers and... nothing. She knew she was doing what she needed to do, and yet nothing happened.
Reginald crossed the threshold of the building on the other side of the one touching hers, and he looked pissed. He had been gored in addition to being smashed and yet was still coming. This was obviously not how he envisioned his day going. He probably woke up, thought to himself how much better he was than anyone else, and then a half-demon showed up and fucked his shit up. And when he finally taught her what her place in the pecking order was, she stood there and held her intestines inside herself, not giving up.
Elena started to worry that maybe she had done something wrong with her powers. She thought maybe she had used her power incorrectly. Maybe she needed to do some hand gesture. But as he closed the gap between them step by step, nothing happened.
He knew she was done for. He probably saw it in her eyes, the panic, pain, and fear. He smiled. It was creepy on him. "Maybe when I'm done, I'll pass you along to my friend. Maybe we'll join in together. Between your tail and horns, we've got plenty of places to hold you down, and we both like it when you fight back."
Elena knew that in this world, power meant you could do whatever you wanted to those under you. If she couldn't beat him here, she wouldn't be able to ever resist him. She would figuratively and likely literally be under him, and as much as she didn't want to be there, she wouldn't be able to stop him. Fear started edging out everything else for her top emotion. Her thoughts started to turn frantic. 'God, I can't lose. Please don't let me lose.' Fear gripped her within an ironclad grasp and left her wanting to run and scream.
Reginald nearly purred the next words, anticipation of the long nights he would have filling him with lust for the power he’d hold over another. “I’ll tie you up, and do what I will with you. And I’ll keep doing what I will until you beg for it. And then-”
And with one final step, the fight changed.
As Reginald finally got within 10 meters of Elena, her Mana Bleed ability finally activated. She felt an indescribable sensation coursing through her body. It was as if she could feel every drop of his magical energy flowing into her, filling her with a power that was both intoxicating and terrifying. 'This is what it feels like to drain someone's mana?' she thought, her mind swimming with the influx of energy. It was like taking a cold drink after walking a dozen miles in the dry heat of a desert.
A trickle at first, but after a second, it was a rivulet. A second later, it was a small stream. A second later, the floodgates opened. And just a moment later, he was empty. The sheer energy pouring into her wasn’t enough to fill up her own pool, but having so much flow into her at once made her feel giddy. Happy. As if she could take on the world and win.
And yet while the mana she had pulled wasn’t enough to fill her completely, it left him with dregs that wouldn’t fill. His saber pulsed one last time and winked out, the magical energy that kept it lit no longer there to be used. With his mana in her, she felt like the fight just turned in her favor.
She stopped concentrating on the power that had just drained him but to her surprise, and unlike the other powers she possessed, she still felt his mana trickling into her. She put it to the back of her mind, but try as she might to ignore it, she felt the connection between them. Part of her worried it would distract her. So she mentally turned off the tap and the connection went away.
The instant he was dry, Reggie felt it. In a moment, they went from him being the cat to being the mouse. He knew Elena had done something to him, and it was bad for his long-term survival. He realized that in a battle of Arcanists, being empty was a great way to end up losing. So he took a play out of her playbook and ran. And like he had done earlier, she chased after him. Albeit much slower as her torso still wasn't fully healed.
Both of their bodies were at the initiate tier, and the differences between them on paper were likely negligible. He had a few deciding factors in his favor, though, like the fact that he was better trained than she was, and he was more accustomed to moving his body like an adventurer. Even though she was the one with powers, powers weren't everything.
At one point in a straightaway, she used piercing blood. It formed from her own blood into the shape of a bullet. With a flick of the wrist, she saw the projectile hit him. He stumbled for a moment as she formed more blood bullets. He started dodging after that. At first, Elena hit him with all the bullets. Then after the fifth impact, he started dodging. At first one, and then two, and by the 40th bullet, she barely connected with him.
He tried in vain to do something, do anything, but there was nothing for him to give to fuel his powers. Sure, if it got to a hand-to-hand fight with powers, she had no doubt that she'd lose. But at that moment, she doubted that he had the mental acuity to think. Because a blue blur of hate and superpowers was chasing after him.
After chasing him for a good fifty city blocks, she noticed a pattern in his movement. She saw that every time he launched himself off of a piece of debris, he mainly favored his right arm. Every time he used his left arm, his motions were a little less smooth. She realized if she timed her attack right, she stood a chance to slow him down enough to catch up. Elena didn't know how long the mana drain that started this chase was going to keep him weak, but she figured it wasn't going to last that much longer.
She was starting to run low on mana herself and knew she'd have a rough time if her mana gave out before his body did. So when she saw him approach a broken piece of building, line up his body for the leap, and reach for the concrete, she threw another piercing blood.
The past four dozen or so times Elena tried to get him, she used small fast-moving bullets of blood. Her thinking was that if something small moving very quickly hit him, it might throw him off. And to some extent, they did. He was still a little slow to use his left arm where her first few bullets hit. After that, he became much more difficult to hit.
But the blood bullets' strength was also their weakness. While they moved fast, they didn't have enough force to stop him, and they barely slowed him down. Plus, small objects are easier to dodge if you can dodge them. So she changed her tactics. Instead of a bullet like the last fifty times, Elena shot off a razor-thin blade of blood. It was about 20 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters deep, and she could tell from looking at it that this was sharp as hell.
Her flying blade of blood connected with his arm 8 centimeters above his wrist. It hit him, and even from this distance, she could tell it was a bad wound. It couldn't have happened to a better guy.
Elena saw the whole thing in a sickening slow motion. She would swear she saw the blade enter his skin. Each instant that passed, it parted flesh and bone the same. After a split second, it continued past him. Instead of using his powerful arms to give him a thrust and a boost, he yowled in pain and twisted as he fell on the other side of the rubble. And as she realized what happened, his hand fell down to the ground. Still on her side of the rubble.
A couple of seconds later, she caught up to him, his one good hand clenching onto his arm just below where it was severed. He was leaning on the wall, probably in shock. "Oh you're in shock?" she said as she approached, no longer running. "Pain does that to a person."
His arm shook as he held the stump towards her. Elena couldn't tell if he thought he still had his weapon or what, but that stump wasn't doing anything dangerous. She stuck her fingers in the bone and pressed hard enough to hollow out room in them for her thumb. She ran her claws down his arm and attempted to flay him. The cross-section of his wrist looked odd. Sure, there was bone and blood and meat, but there were also black specks of dirt, and white strands of sinew.
She descended upon him like an angel of blood and death. She had no idea what she looked like, but she knew it wasn't pretty from the reactions he gave her. He no longer looked at her like she was his to use, like she was a toy to fuck and toss in the garbage. She was demon sent in revenge for something terrible he did, and she was here to collect his dues. The only emotion in him right now was fear. Fear that forced you to piss your pants and beg to whatever god would listen to save you. Fear like she felt when he stood over her.
She knew that if she lived to be a thousand, she would never regret what she did next. Kneeling down, she grabbed Reggie's shirt and hauled him up, then drove her fist into his face with all her strength. She felt the satisfying crunch of his teeth breaking beneath her knuckles, and when she pulled her fist back, a sticky trail of blood connected them. Without hesitation, she swung again, this time aiming for his groin. Then his stomach. Then his face again. And back to the groin. She kept repeating the cycle—groin, stomach, face—over and over, her fury fueling every blow. She let go, and he fell to the floor. She straddled his legs again and this time wouldn't give him a chance to say something as she resumed pummeling him.
At one point, she leaned in close to his ear, her voice low and venomous, a cold, quiet hiss, “You still want me every night, Reggie? Well, you can have me. I’ll be there, lurking in the dark, in your every nightmare. No matter where you hide, I’ll find you. And when I do, I won’t stop until you’re begging for the end that will never come. This doesn’t end here—not tonight, not ever.” Her words dripped with quiet, simmering hatred, a promise of eternal torment, before she pulled back and resumed her relentless assault.
She lost track of where she needed to hit him next. And despite the pain in her hands, Reggie still hadn’t given up. So she started over with the groin and continued the cycle. She wasn't even using blood magic at this point. Just pulling her hand back and then rapidly smashing him. She didn’t hear no bell, so until he tapped out she’d keep going. His body eventually went limp, his feeble attempts to push her away ceasing, but she didn't stop. Not until the instructor's voice thundered, "The fight is concluded. Reginald has been defeated."
She saw the icons of twelve different buffs Debuffs but ignored them. Reggie was finally down like he deserved to be, and she’d be free of the arena. That and they were hard to mentally click on. Every time she focused on it, it grew a little more blurry.
As She stood up and towered over Reggie's broken body, she caught a glimpse of a beast in a shard of broken glass. The face that stared back at her was barely recognizable as human– Blue skin, glowing eyes wild with rage, features contorted into a mask of fury, blood splattered on the beast’s skin. An eye was even impaled on one of its horns. ‘Shit,’ she thought to herself in a bit of a daze. ‘I’d hate to fight that thing’. She turned away hoping to not have to go another round with it. The monster must have felt the same way as it also looked away.
She walked around the rubble to grab Reggie's hand and toss it on him. She was woozy, and her vision was a bit blurry. But when she reached for it, she couldn't grasp it. She looked to see what was wrong, and her hands looked weirdly misshapen. She moved her fingers and saw them twitch. But when she tried to grab it, nothing happened. She stood there and looked stupefied. They looked a bit out of place, but they didn't feel broken. So why were they not responding properly? She realized her mouth was full of blood and spat it out. It splattered on the floor. She felt woozy and tried to grab it again with her other hand. Once again, she failed to, but this time her hand looked like she might need a sink as her hand looked like she still had bits of Reginald stuck to her. She tried to wipe it off, but it was stubborn. Her tail knew what she wanted though, and it reached for his hand and grabbed it.
She took another moment to look down on him. His face continued to be a bloody mess. Occasionally he would twitch, and more blood would spurt out. The whole thing was partially concave and partially missing. One of his eye sockets was empty. She thought she saw a small rod sticking out of it. It looked almost like a finger. His nose was a hole, and his jaw was hanging on by a hinge. His clothes were all shredded.
The buildings quickly faded away. She noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye and saw six people in white running towards her. Her brain slowly swirled a few thoughts her way. 'Dammit, I don't want to fight anymore. Hadn't I fought enough? Didn't I do a good enough job?' Her body felt woozy, and her vision twisted like she was in one of those spinning tunnels at an amusement park or haunted house.
The men and women running had bags of equipment on them, and if Reggie was able to get his posse to help out, she was going to be a sex toy for sure. But she wasn't going down without a fight. She'd rip their n-
Reggie's posse mostly ran past her to go to him, but one of them, a red-skinned woman, wanted to fight her. She came out and held out her hands towards Elena. Elena called upon her blood magic to help her, but nothing happened.
She was empty.
She had no magic left to give.
But she still had her fists and her feet and her tail, and she would be damned if she was going to let this woman take her down so her friends could have their way with her. She gave this girl her most intimidating look, and from the look in the woman's eyes, it must have worked. She tried to yell something and hold up her hands in an "I surrender" motion, but her voice sounded far away. Still, she was showing herself to be weak and meek. 'Damn straight,' Elena thought to herself. 'At least she's got some common sense.'
The woman made a few motions to Elena, and after a second of her pantomiming a man coming back from the dead, Elena finally realized they were the healers. She waved the woman on to tell her she was fine. She must have stepped on the blood because she felt a sharp pain that very quickly dulled to nothing. They both looked down. Elena lifted her hoof off the floor and looked. She had stepped into something bloody, and her foot looked like a mangled mess tilted off to the side.The world just felt rather dreamlike as part of her told her that should hurt.
She looked over her shoulders at the five desperately working on Reggie. She turned back to see the healer within arms reach and it startled her. 'She must be powerful,' Elena thought to herself. 'I hadn't even heard her. Man, I wish this annoying ringing in my ear would just shut up. It's giving me a headache.' The healer slowly reached for Elena's face and took out some crystal thing. It shone a light in her eyes. Elena thought the healer in front of her might be a bit drunk because the healer couldn't stand still. The healer said something to her that sounded like it was being said underwater and from far away. The healer held her hand out. Elena instantly felt a pain in her hands and hoof, and her head grew clearer. Also, Elena could start to hear the sounds of people casting magic behind her. She looked for the sounds and saw 5 healers casting various spells at Reggie.
She felt the woman's hands on her face pulling her attention back to the healer. The two made eye contact again. "Miss, can you hear me?"
Elena nodded and noticed the ringing had started to go away. "Are you ok to walk?" the healer asked slowly. Elena nodded again. The healer pointed in the direction of the doors and quickly ran to Reginald.
They all cast some spells at him, but try as they might, Reggie was down for the count. Elena spat the blood still in her mouth on the floor in his direction. A fingernail came out with the blood. Her foot really hurt, and she looked down to see it quickly reset.
Walking out of the arena and back into the stands, Elena noticed an unsettling silence had settled over the crowd. Conversations had stopped, and people were no longer just watching—they were staring at her, but no one dared to meet her eyes. As she moved closer, students shifted uneasily on the benches, scooting away as if her very presence was a threat. Some looked pale, visibly sickened by what they had just witnessed. A few students had even recently thrown up, the acrid smell of vomit lingering in the air. Their eyes darted nervously between her and the arena where Reggie lay, wounded and defeated. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of fear in their expressions, followed by quick, worried glances back at Reggie, then back at her. She tried to spot her class among the sea of faces, but it was nearly impossible to find forty people in a crowd of three hundred when everyone seemed intent on avoiding her gaze.
As she moved through the stands, the space around her seemed to widen with every step—students edged away from her, some practically climbing over one another to create more distance. A few covered their mouths, looking like they were trying to hold back the urge to be sick again. Their faces reflected a mixture of horror and disbelief, as if they were witnessing something they couldn’t quite comprehend. No one met her eyes. She continued to scan the crowd until she heard Adrian call out her name, his voice cutting through the uneasy silence. It was only then that she saw him waving at her, drawing her attention. But just as her eyes found him, she also noticed Reggie’s posse huddled together, watching her with trepidation.
Without hesitation, she marched over to them, her footsteps slow heavy and deliberate. As she approached, the boys recoiled, trying to shrink away. But she wasn’t going to let them off that easily. With a swift motion, her tail pressed Reggie's still dripping hand into one of their chests. The boy fell back into his seat, eyes wide with terror, but her tail didn’t relent. It pressed harder and harder against his sternum as his friends scattered in panic, abandoning him. The boy’s breath hitched painfully, his face turning crimson as a strained, creaking sound escaped his throat.
Through the silence, Elena looked at the boy, fixing him with her most intimidating glare. She wanted to yell, to unleash the fury she still felt at Reggie that was still simmering inside her, but exhaustion weighed her down. Yelling took too much energy, and besides, the eerie quiet of the arena meant she didn't need to raise her voice. She locked eyes with him, making sure she had his full attention, and spoke in a calm, level tone.
"You're his friend, right?" The boy nodded quickly, too quickly. "Tell him if his friends are horny and he wants to pass anything along, he should offer you a hand himself." The boy's head bobbed again, his fear palpable. He stuttered, trying to form a response. "Y...y...yes m..m..miss. I...I...I promise I'll tell him."
Elena's eyes narrowed as she leaned in slightly. She put her hoof on the bench next to him and leaned in so close he felt her breath on his face. "And if he EVER looks at me like a piece of meat again, I will personally make the Geneva Convention a to-do list and braid his veins and nervous system together. Do you understand me?" The boy's nodding became frantic, more out of terror than comprehension. Elena's voice hardened as she raised it just a notch. "You will tell me you understand me, or I will demonstrate what I mean. Right. Now."
His face crumpled, and a snot bubble burst as he cried out, "YES! I UNDERSTAND!"
"Good boy," she muttered, her voice dripping with disdain.
Without another glance, Elena turned and left the arena. The thrill of the fight had long since drained away, leaving only a hollow exhaustion in its wake. She didn’t have a taste for fights anymore.