Blood Band Arena (06)

"Well, wasssn't that interesting?" The lamia from earlier had a satisfied expression on her light blue face as her dulcet voice warbled along. Her long forked tongue occasionally flicked out of her black mouth, while her straight white hair seemed to wiggle a bit. If you looked closely, you would be able to see small serpentine eyes that seemed to blend in to the hair itself, almost as if they were part of it.

"Ho, Damaris, I thought you wanted to see one more monster fight?" Yamel curiously inquired as she folded her duck wings against her back. She fiddled with her neck that was grey with a single black stripe circled around it and picked at her pale peachy face. Getting bored with that pretty quickly, she fixed her billed cap enough to let two pink wisps of hair fall down the sides of her visage.

"When did I ssssay I didn't? In fact, I wantsss you to let that beautiful savage fight a hundred monssstersss" Damaris cooed, her tone laced with faint giggles. Her snake-like lower body soon became a pair of shapely legs, fully accentuating her comely body. She approached Gethu, very aware of his awkward tendencies around women.

"Hmph, why should I? I pay you, not the other way around." Damaris slithered over, flicking her tongue close enough to Gethu's ears for him to feel the heat that emanated from her mouth.

"Sssdo it. Sssend the ordersss."

"Okay!" Gethu's face was red as he sent down his orders.

—-

The announcer who was actually an invisible monster received a prompt on the paper before him. The previously blank note now had black scrawls that read, "send in the next." The announcer thought that what had happened would have been the best closer in the Blood Band Arena's existence, but couldn't refuse their orders. They cleared their throat and announced the final event for the night.

"How was that folks? I told you, it'd be riveting! But how would you feel if I let you know that this isn't even the final event? We have something even bigger in store for you!

But first, an explanation. We can all see that those gheckla weren't very difficult, the only prolonged battle was that blondie getting shred through, right?"

Loud affirmations vocalized themselves as grunts, snorts, and jeers. Now that the announcer had snapped them out of their stupor, they no longer thought about what they had just viewed as impossible. That took away from the impact of the event, but the notion was executed in quite a new way. Seeing that the announcer was saying that there were even better things to come, they got excited once again to see the next battle.

"Good, good! So what if I told you that you'll be watching 100 trained monsters beat on a single one? You think it'll be the same, right? Wrong! This monster harmed one of the illustrious Camra's commanders, going so far as to scorch her face. Don't believe me? I've got pictures!"

A huge screen that shimmered and emanated magical energy flickered into the sky, showing just the sight the announcer had described. The more skeptical monsters were instantly placated, placing all their doubts aside and looking forward to the next occurrence with gleaming eyes. The monsters that didn't even doubt the announcer in the first place had a triumphant look of superiority on their visage, looking down at the monsters that all of a sudden became enthused.

"Excited now? Good! In ten minutes, the finale will make itself known into each and every one of your minds!"

The announcer did not know how right they were.

—-

Lat felt broken, his spirits reaching an all time low. As he appeared back in the cell with the still snoring Teta and the salivating Alban, he quietly cried. Neither Teta nor Alban had their eyes open, so they wouldn't know how Lat was currently feeling even if they listened intently.

Lat felt as if everything he had done was a cruel joke, utterly worthless. He had taken his second life to search for a way to end the suffering of his people, only to be one of the people responsible for doing them in in the first place. He couldn't come to grips with his actions, repeatedly picturing Krista's smiling face. He huddled into his corner and decided to sleep for a long time.

Meanwhile, Alban was drawn out of his suppressive bout of meditation when the much awaited announcer's voice entered his psyche. "Would the most feral monster in the place enter the arena? You'll be taking your shackles with you."

Alban was a bit confused on what that was supposed to mean, until the chains that bound him to the wall wrapped around both of his hands and became manacles. He shrugged at this, paying no heed to the paltry entrapment that was obviously designed to make whoever he was fighting beat him to a pulp. Alban only cared about fighting and getting something to eat at this moment, refusing to stop to even observe the darkened corridor.

He arrived right at the center of the stage, crouching down to the ground and balefully gazing at the audience of the arena, pivoting his head every which way as if to take stock of food in a cupboard. As he took in every sight that he could get his eyes on, his flowing cocoa colored hair wildly swinging in the air.

"Uh...and here he is! Drop dead gorgeous, isn't he? I wonder if our Prince Charming over here will be the one dead on the floor or...will these one hundred monsters be the one to bite the dust?!"

As the announcer spoke exactly one hundred monsters in all shapes and sizes filled the stadium, some humanoid and some completely animalistic. Alban's quaking stomach thrashed violently against his abdomen, and his face became increasingly feral. The wild aura that became more and more natural to Alban's mind, body, and soul emanated from him, a faint red the shade of merlot only slightly noticeable to the viewing monsters. What *was* entirely evident was the profuse shaking some of the monsters in the arena were performing.

Alban had no idea how that title could activate as it was a passive effect, but he didn't complain about the sudden power that suffused itself into his frame. Still crouched, he fixed that by standing and tested how far he could move his impeded arms. Judging by the fact that he could still bend his elbows, he regarded the manacles as a pair of weapons instead of limiters.

Noticing that no one had made a move in the time he was getting ready, he determined that he should grab their attention lest he be thrown back in the cell. Although he didn't like yelling very much, the adrenaline coursing through his veins coupled with the churning in his gut told him that it was something he had to do. He opened his mouth and let out a huge roar!

"Ah, right! Why haven't you monsters started yet? Go! Fight and die in the Blood. Band. Arrrrrena!"

And so began the first step that Alban would take that would significantly change his life.