ORIGIN

When he looked back, he could see that his spear lay abandoned on the ground--it hadn't hit its mark, then. Unsurprising. But there was Draconua: looming over the pit, her massive maw opening, erupting first in words: "OUTRUN THIS!"--and then, in fire.

Black fire plumed out, igniting the oil-soaked sands, leaping with flashing embers of violet shadow from stained patch to stained patch. They swept toward Nemesis--and the Sentinel felt the briefest twinge of guilt as they reached her, as she reached the door, as she slammed trapped against the wall with the fire close behind her.

There wasn't time to feel more, to assess it, to wonder why he felt at all: the shadowflame was flaring toward him, too, rapidly engulfing the arena and leaving very little open space to run to.

Blue gaze sought, desperately, any patch of earth untainted by Corruption, and he spotted the nearest--it is far--too far?--and ran for it.

First, however, he had to survive Nemesis's wounds. All this time, though she had been bleeding, so was he: and so he had two dangers to outrun. So to speak. The first... was his weakening body, his narrowing vision, the gray threatening to encroach around the world and narrow it to pinpoint, dying sight.

Only second would come the fire.

He stayed upright--somehow, barely--though on all fours; spined arms dragged him along, legs scrabbling at the sand. He could feel the strange and bitter cold of Draconua's fire snapping toward him from behind. Could hear it hissing, snapping, crackling like snakes. Before him, black ash was beginning to scatter, a promise of what would happen to him if he did not get out of the way fast enough.

The crowd was roaring. His Master, he knew, was watching. Undoubtedly so were a hundred other pairs of eyes: judging, bloodthirsty, hopeful of his death. Of both their deaths. But those considerations were distant, right now--unimportant. They were nothing compared to the icy fire consuming the arena behind him.

A dodge, leaping to one side--as black fire twisted past him. Another--a crooked leap, the motion of a crippled animal--that threw him to the other, as another arc of flame hurtled past in a bitterly cold roar.

He moved with singleminded focus--the crowd, Vargas, Nemesis, even Draconua herself all forgotten--throwing himself bloodied and desperate between the few patches of open, clear sand. Dark fire engulfed the world around him, snarling between each puddle, sweeping past, filling the world with pitch-dark, choking smoke-...

...but when it cleared, he remained--on his knees, coughing, but otherwise miraculously untouched--in the arena's center.

His eyes cut to Nemesis; sought her out through the smoke, her form burning, wounded-... Will it survive? he wondered.

He hoped, vaguely--past the exhaustion and the pain--that she would.

He pushed up, wheezing, half-hunched and with one arm clutching his chest. Black blood still spilled, dripping, from the gored gashes across chest and abdomen; other than that, he was... unharmed. If he hadn't been-?

His gaze drifted to the forming lump of blazing Wulfenite in the far corner. If she had impacted him again--she could have crushed his bones, ripped limbs from body, torn his head clean off.

The Sentinel began to worry what else might lie ahead. And to really, really wish he'd gotten ahold of some armor sooner. He staggered fully upright, and began the slow limp to his discarded halberd--his eyes flicking from it (vision wavering) to Nemesis's fallen form.

Vaguely, he wondered what a "cockroach" was.

The trek across the arena was brutal. Now that the adrenaline was leaking away, he felt exhausted, and the pain was truly kicking in. Some spark of residual chaos threatened to break through his stoic resolve--some desire to lash out, to inflict damage, to engulf Nemesis's chrysalis in black flames. Black flames he didn't have, know, or control. He didn't possess such magic.

Teeth grinded together, and he at last reached his halberd: clawed hands--trembling--closed over black metal. His gaze lifted to the Wulfenite, and he murmured to it, a hollow rasp. "The Tonka Truck... fought well," he assured the insensate rock.

A single glance up to Vargas, and he hoped he had earned some form of approval; the Leviathan had leapt down, to help Vakornol in dragging out the enormous gemstone before it settled. The Sentinel lifted the halberd, leaned on it, and began the hobble back.

A win, for now--and past the empty blur of pain, he felt that seething Corruption reaching for his heart. Brutish triumph, savage fury--win, overcome, destroy, thudding in his mind.

Shimmering blue erupted from his back, flared and faded, flared again; he didn't explode into action, but he did gently lift off the ground and--magic wings flapping--hover across the arena floor, and out the door at the other side, halberd still in hand. That same fury pulsed in his chest, triumphant, and he struggled to tamp it down.