User blog:MockingJester/Golden Gauntlet

A shine in the sky. Golden light up high.

The first flash of his current life. A sight never to forget. watching his old hero of the arena. Yearning to be as strong as he was. Yearning to be as potent in his fighting.

He was enthralled, enchanted by its vibrant colors dressed as armor on the man and sought to mimic him, long after his retirement...and disappearance.

The sight of his hero's gauntlet flashed in his mind every day he trained. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually. In the most isolated settlements, alone with himself.

Or, amidst other fighters looking to the flame of fame, adulation, and riches. Be it in barracks, sparring or otherwise, his hand, his mind, both clashed with many adversaries.

In the brightest of days, he would fight.

In the darkest of night, it was to the forge. Techniques borrowed from the book of his hero, purchased in his childhood. His admiration only grew with make-belief steps to making a gauntlet carried throughout battles.

A make-belief laced in hidden truths. Bits and pieces he saw more clearly over the years of continuous training and honing. Battles and improvement Toning his body. Sharpening his senses. Honing his mana. Faster, stronger, sharper. ---

-And once again, the Golden Hand walks out undefeated!!- A man hitched up in a station broadcasts his voice to a pair of magic-attuned acoustic megaphones to the rousing roar of the crowd. Surrounding by their elevated seats, sand, weapons, and broken pieces.

A man armored in the mantle of a rhinoceros lays on his hands and knees. His breath is short and brash, with each inhalation a challenge in itself. His limbs burn with lactic acid, burden by the torn armor that once shined unfettered, crippling his ability to stand.

The pieces not littering the floor are embraced by some remnant of magic coursing through, the aftereffect of a spell or a magical offense.

-How amazing that the champion has used the Iron Mongrel's own momentum against him! But, I do not proclaim surprise for his Modus Operandi!- The announcer yells out Reese's boundless willingness to take to his adversary's own tactic against them, so often caught unprepared by their supposed strategies. Battlemages, warriors, archers, and mages, all fell to the returned might of his golden gauntlet.

One he clenches at face height, his signature pose, rousing the crowd to a greater cheering. Confetti falls all over the arena as Reese finally takes to the barracks, the drowning noise of cheers falling distant with his pace. --- "Another spectacular performance, Reese!" Barracks, a place usually lively with countless others breathing belligerent life in its halls. The best around. Some, surrounded by fans, mostly women looking to get a signature from their favorite fighter. Others, venting much of their remaining adrenaline on dummies, often breaking them halfway through. Others still, feasting on their fight pay, eating entire tables of nourishment.

Reese does as he always does, sitting on a humble chair, a quiet celebration alongside his agent and friend, Barry. The latter anticipated an easy victory for his client. A table was prepared with little more than a glass of water and a loaf of bread. A smaller plate is garnished with small fruits and a dessert. A reflection of Reese's life as a child, a contrast to the gilded gauntlet he fashions to reality in battle.

"Still, I expected the Iron Mongrel to bring a glimmer of a challenge to you".

"I think the crowd expected that as well. The new trick he came up with was rather ingenious". Reese removes his helmet, leaving his face unbarred by metal. An average appearance of a man in his mid-twenties, a caucasian pigmentation against brown hair in tiny spikes. A sordid contrast to his magic drawn forth from a gilded gauntlet, one sure made an irony to his admirers.

His hand comes plucking a piece of bread alongside a slash of cheese washed over its surface, eating in the instance of Barry commenting further "Heated blades acting on behalf of his bodily heat. The more he moves, the more it heats, the deeper it cuts. It's a shame he wasn't able to land a hit on you with that, though, the damage would have been somewhat grave".

"He thought the same, honestly. Flurries of hatchet swings, hoping to catch me off guard with one solid blow. His aim became off".

"Hmm. I'm surprised you didn't think of batting him down" Barry reminds himself of the battle strung about. How easily Reese had exploited his easily tiring motion behind all those swings to a jab from his gauntlet. His own morning star, a defensive outlet as opposed to a fierce counter. A slow but definitive strip of pieces of his heavy armor by the mere collapse of his fists.

"He wasn't braced for any serious blows with all those tired muscles. I might have seriously hurt him with one true hit". Reese takes another bite of bread laced in cream cheese.

"True. Oh, by the way, do you remember the War King? The champion of the barracks".

"Oh, him? Yea, hard not to know a guy 7 feet tall dressed in heavy armor with a pointy crown at the top. For maximum intimidation".

"Yes. I was told he was anticipating your rise as a challenger to him. Said something about 'Waiting to break the gauntlet', so to say".

"Really?" Reese takes a gulp of water, intrigued by the excitement of a famous figure looking to meet him in the arena. At the same time, he was looking forward to it as well. Someone that may shatter his mimicking stance, perhaps.

Such things were not to be, however "Well, he won't be making it".

Reese stops dead in his track slamming his glass of water on the table, cracking it despite his weakest momentum "...what?"

"The War King. He won't be waiting in the arena. In fact, he's no longer a champion".

"Wait, what? How?" Reese takes a serious glance at Barry, the latter's hand rummaging in his coat, pulling out a letter.

"Well, according to the word, another challenger came by. A woman painted in green wielding a rather large club made of metal with spikes on it. Comparable to his war mace. Only...it kind of shattered in exchanges of blows..."

"No".

"Yep!" Barry continues on, equally as surprised "She then, she apparently punched his armor clean, starting with the crown".

"Really?"

"Indeed. But, the most interesting part about this, well...she claimed him. Laid in a foreign arena, unable to move with all the exhausted muscles, she...well, claimed him. In front of everyone. Dislodged her own armor and laid on him. After that...he retired, never to walk in an arena again".

Reese nods, unsure whether to feel unsurprised or more unsurprised "Yea, not surprised here, at least. I don't see him try anything public stunt after that".

"For what it's worth, he's apparently been fondly welcomed by those that snatched him. In their lands, I mean" Barry places the letter on the table, anticipating the curiosity of Reese.

"A letter?" His hand reaches out, plucking it by the edge.

"Yes. By those that 'invited' the War King. Like so many others with the same letter. The Branded Swath. Luminescent Arrow. The Jaguar Man. Even the Iron Mongrel I've heard has just received one".

"Really..." Reese slides a finger through the envelope, ripping the top off. An invitation meets his gaze. A forceful one "Monsters, huh? That means that the one who went against the War King was an Ogre".

"Very likely. Well, anyway..." Barry taps on a pair of cases. Clothes, tools, equipment, everything he thinks his friend and client would need for traveling to the east "...I've already had your stuff prepared. We can catch the closest train to get out here long before--

"Nah". Reese rips the letter in half to Barry's surprised shock.

"What?"

"I think I'll just simmer here".

"But...the letter--"

"I know. But I didn't get here by being coerced with petty threats". Reese continues his humble feasting, all in his agent's dismay.

"But, Reese--"

"If they come, they come. Then we'll talk. Until then, I'm not moving". And he didn't, again, to the increasing worry of his agent. Other fighters that responded similarly were visited. Dragged to the arena far from here. Barry was worried, yet he remained with his friend. Perhaps, once they come... --- 9:00 am Reese settled on his chair, patient amidst the rabble of others. Juniors and veterans comparing arms, comparing techniques, hitting on dummies.

Barry was by the side, anxiously looking to his watch every minute as sweat poured from his forehead. An excretion further exacerbated with the arrival of two figures shrouded in cloaks. Slow to look at their surroundings and the people that populate it. Fighters, servants, fans.

"Ohh...they're really here..." Barry immediately rises "They're really--

"Barry, relax. They won't do anything, don't worry". Reese stands still, still on his seat with a piece of bread between his thumb and index.

"Oh dear, they're, they're walking this way".

"I know".

"They're, they're looking right at us!"

"Yep".

"They're--

"Yea, yea, they're here". The two figures had looked at every individual present...and found them wanting. People to ignore, no longer spared a glance. All until Reese, to which they paced closer, near him and his agent.

Two Minotaurs revealing their monstrous features as they finally stop, mere meters from the disinterested Reese and panicking Barry throwing glances at his client.

Massive horns protruding from both sides of their heads, an unnatural bronze pigment painting their corporeal forms from head to toe. Moving the cloak from their bodies, Reese's first interest was their feet. Hooves replacing toes and feet, all reinforced in fur.

"Monsters, definitively". Reese still remains sitting, unimpressed by the voluptuous chests they present in loose-fitting armors. A stark contrast to his agent sweating bullet sweat at the mere sight of these Aphrodite bodies displayed to all.

"Yes, and I see you're not at all ready to move, are you?" One of them speaks, lifting her massive claymore from the back. Rushing it upward in a lazy motion, only to have it crack the floor as she 'accidentally' drops the edge to the floor, sending a quake through the arena.

The countless people occupying the place reverberate, some even fall on their rumps, with all looking back to the duo of monstrous women. A mix of fear and awe dress their eyes, with some growing fond of what they see.

"Indeed, you look like you've just got up for breakfast. Perhaps you need motivation?" The second one leans not to Reese, but his agent, the latter, reasonably worried of catching the eye of a large woman "This one smells unspoiled. And as I remember, he was supposed to get you on the train. It seems fitting to punish him for that, don't you say?"

"I'd say so" The former Minotaur persists in her gaze to Reese, a hand trying to push him back under with strenuous effort on her end "Ohh, no, no, you do not get to say anything to weasel out!"

As she says that, her compatriot takes to Barry's collar, lifting the reasonably worried agent to meet her hungry gaze. A whimper on his side, with no more than an increasingly enticed lass to reflect it "Ohh, this one squirms like a virgin as well. What a treat! Ohh, the things I could do with you--

"I wouldn't do that if I were you". A brief glimmer crosses his eye. His hand had risen in the split-second of his flash. Briefly coated in his golden gauntlet. Enough for the second one to feel the rush of mana painting his entire body.

"What the?" Before long, blades. Hundreds of ethereal blades, all protruded from the floor, phased through as if it never existed. Strange writing deck the dull sides, a language even they hadn't seen before "What the?!"

"I told my agent he wouldn't be harmed in this vain attempt at blackmail. I'd prefer not to turn the lot of you to porcupines..." Reese remains calm, poised, waiting on their movement, knowing how little they held in this intimidation game. As evidence of the former one quick to sheath her blade back to her back.

"Now, hold on..." Her hands spread forward, a concession of peace "We only sought to bring you in, not to start hostilities!"

"She's right!" The second one, so enthusiastic at the prospect of fun with an unclaimed man, had lost her hungry demeanor at the sight of one blade dangerously close to her throat "We--we weren't serious! I didn't really think of...hum" Her hand still holds the man by the collar. The luminescent glare of the Golden Hand is tethered on her, prompting the lustrous Minotaur to properly put him back on his feet, wiping proverbial dust on his coat with a nervous chuckle.

"Ok...ok" Reese gets up, the blades, gone, as they never were present "I'm in". Complete shock in their faces.

"What?"

"What?!"

"What!!"

Barry was surprised at his easily convinced march, joining in the 'what' uttering.

"What? As I said to my agent over here, I didn't get to where I am by moving over petty threats. That said, I'm interested in fighting people who managed to bring down the War King". He marches away, taking in his briefcases as he does so, still to the surprise of the trio.

They stand frozen in place, only for Barry to remember " Hold on, hold on! Let me carry those!"

"Nah, you need a minute to relax a bit, get less shaken" Reese subtly slows his pace, allowing his agent a closer march, still to the bewildered gaze of the duo, uncertain of this...shift. A shift so easily made. So easily...seated in. --- "Man, what beautiful sights". Barry takes to the window, seated in a comfortable first-class seat of a ten thousand-ton train gliding on arcane rails. In a trek of half a day riding across and around cities, there were many to see. Things neither had seen.

Unending scores of wilderness tailored by trees, slowly but surely in the process of shifting to a brighter shade of pink under bulks of gray and blue. Fruits of oceanic flesh, just pulping into ripeness hanging from their branch, goading Barry for a grab.

"You know there is a window between you and the branches, right?" Reese looks up from his age-old book, blemished by usage and time, yet promising more to come. The tome of the Halcyon Idol. The very thing scripted into both his language and that of a make-belief. The only piece of the past he holds on, an insight into his hero's details.

He looks up to his agent's unending attempt to pluck a fruit to close, only to feel the reverberation of the glass slapping his hand away by its mere presence. An unending stream of disenchanted grunt pours from his expression "I can't help it! They're just begging for a g--uuuhhhhh!"

A tray of food is fixated on their side, Barry's plates, empty. Reese, however, seemed to lack the hunger to satiate himself, preferring to stick to what they brought. A piece of bread and a glass of water. And the occasional juice.

"Not going to eat that?" Barry finally gives up with the end of the forest draft in sight, replaced by another half hour tunnel of darkness where the train's outer lights lit in the shape of magical flames.

"Nah, not feeling it". He lightly pushes his part to Barry fondling his hands in anticipation. Plates of food they had never seen before. A wary sight to Reese after that little confrontation with the duo gorging themselves a few seats ahead of them. Barry had come under the nourishment's charms as well, stuffing himself in their food. Their drink. And anything in between, uncaring of their impendent arrival. --- The carriage's traveling to the arena was a mundane one. Carriage after carriage filled with individual fighters from the human elements. All of them welcomed to a city of colors, sights they never saw, sounds they never heard "Hey Reese! Those buildings, they're carrying literal flaming sigils! How do they even do that?!"

Many of them were entertained with the street of ornamental citizens. An occidental land with occidental cultures. A place seeming to welcome them with open arms as well as the few women bearing fur or extra appendages welcoming them in their literal arms. Something the agent couldn't ignore so easily "And talk about the diversity in here! I think I just saw one of those foxes I've heard about in tales of legends..."

A peculiar route for Reese, noting the polarity of women showing their alluring assets and those spending no more than a glance in the throes of men's arms. Barry himself was answering to the city's lifeblood, making sure not to miss the variety of ladies "Reese...I think some are looking at you".

Reese takes a gander, instantly welcomed to a plateau of waving people greeting the foreign fighter in their everlasting manners. A soft waver, an alluring wink, a seductive kiss blow. All things prone to disenchant him, prompting him back to his book behind an uncharismatic tone "Oh yea...look at them flashing themselves to a stranger, how riveting..."

Barry continues to look on, waving back as much as he can, not knowing how close to the arena they were. Aside from the shaky introduction by the twin escorts, Barry had no sense of wariness to display, as demonstrated by his enthusiastic demeanor. --- The raucous cheers of the crowd perturbed the air around the arena. The Iron Mongrel. The Luminescent Arrow. The Jaguar man. The Golden Hand. And many, many others. Fighters of the highest calibers present in their panoply of war are sung at by the foreign spectators. Men lined in purple gazes. Women dressed in fiendish arrays of appendages.

It was a strange crowd to fight under for them, the lot standing at the entrance of a gate. Their eyes line up to the opposite gate opening, glares peering from the shadows. Dozens of them approaching the light of the morning radiance. Monsters dressed in their own panoplies.

Immediately, the human fighters' eyes line up against the monsters of the other side, sensing a challenging glare. All except Reese, who hadn't even bothered to spring his golden gauntlet. He was reading still to his idol's book.

"Well, well, well, boys, it looks like we have ourselves the people looking for a beating..." The heavily armored Iron Mongrel takes a step forward, axes clanked against their chains, dropped to the sand with a hefty ruckus "...fine by me. I can use the target practice for a warm-up. A warm-up towards the real deal!" His chains literally burn the sands bearing them to glass, his look diverged to Reese still about his tome.

"Oh, oh, oh, this one!" From the opposite, a bronze-skinned woman approaches, a hog helm borne down on her white hair. Leather afflicts her body, only scarcely covering her spots. She clamps a silver mace and sword together in a display of sparks burning the sand "I want this one. He's got a lot of spunk! Delicious~

"Well..." The Iron Mongrel drags his twin axes through the sand, upping on her showmanship "You're free to try, lass! I'm all here!"

"Well, don't mind me if I do, handsome. Can't wait to see that juicy bode of yours in action~ She approaches further, taking to not relent on his gesture of domination by the reflection of his march, up until the two meets in the middle of the arena, to the crowd's hushed whispers. Strange whispers around Reese's ears, prompting him to briefly turn his gaze from the tome.

He saw the others riled up, each of his fellows called out singularly by an opponent. A Showmanship of riled pride and boosted egos, something that didn't quite call to him in spite of the crowd clearly looking forward to it.

His eyes move away from the rest boasting and bragging to the other side, looking more like impendent couples than anything. However, trailing his sight off from them, and his hearing from the crowd, he catches a glimpse of someone. Someone leering from behind the monster fighters. A woman as normal as a human one. The only betrayal of her species pokes out of her head in knife ears. A caucasian blend to her skin.

Further rising an eyebrow is her expression. Largely indiscernible by the blindfold in black mapping her eyes. Surrounded by her blond hair, her nose, and crimson lips, with neither conveying anything.

Dressed in attire contrary to her compatriots, the elven woman remains fixated idly, a large wooden staff held on to by pair of gauntlet shining in silver under the sun. A reflection that would surely compare with his golden gauntlet, had he pulled it outward. Her head slumped downward, she seems to notice Reese's side glance, rising her blindsight for a split-second cross of their gazes.

He can feel her stare from the silk, knowing this perceived blindness to be false. A fleeting interest courses his mind before she finally turns around, walking away as the bragging session falls to a lull, each side retreating to their barracks. --- "Ok then, didn't expect that I'd be last..." Reese takes a seat in a lounge made exclusively for people like him, watching the figures dance in the arena. Barry sighs in relief as he takes a seat beside him. A quarter among many others.

"You were supposed to go up against the War King. It's only natural that someone of that profile is saved for last".

"I guess. Still, I wonder what's up with those weapons they gave the others. Exact replicas, I don't know why".

"Well, we're in a place where folklore is literally walking in common sight. I'm sure it's a thing for them".

Reese goes quiet, watching of the less known fighters brought here. Rising stars, they were said to be. Their movements, their strategies, their power, all were impressive enough for him to be invested, to feel some pride toward his fellow.

Yet, it all ended the same. The same once, then never again. From the newest on the radar to the Iron Mongrel, all fell to his eyes. His fall, the very same.

A dance of them against their respective monster just as he exchanged axes and blunt and sword with his enemy, feeling the reverberations in his arms. The familiar metals clash and reject one another, imbued with the user's spirits.

"Damn, she wasn't just boasting!" The encased maniac of hatchets spouts about, his breathing harrowing itself through his teeth.

"What's wrong, cutie? You did say you were going to make this hard for me, hmm?~ The elevated orc continuously deflects his blows, her silver-encased weapons shining with a brief burst of purple, not quite dominating the Iron Mongrel's downward chops. Boastful as she was, it was obvious to the crowd how into this momentum she was.

Sweat poured heavily across her chin and forehead, flaring up her scent as she goes. Her voice breathes happiness, easily forgetting her previous tone ~Ahaha! Your hits are as sharp as they are heavy!~

"Quit trying to lure me in a false sense of confidence!" He backs away, sending forth one of his axes striking the sand, spilling out the stuff as molten ire. A motion she splatters around with a peerless spinning of her arms. The heat burns densely around her, around him, his molten ire still teeming.

~Ohh, I am totally sincere. But, you have yet to be convinced~ Iron Mongrel's fight was like the rest of those before him. A battle of minds as it was a battle of prowess, constantly winked at, tested ~I understand, you want me to show you~

The span of these words would somehow invigorate her, accelerating her flurry of hits and the density of their blows behind furious determination on her eye, flaring something.

Overwhelming to the Iron Mongrel. His axes? Chipped on the sand by every blow delivered. Planted in pieces.

His armor? Punctured, shattered by the blunt of her blade or her mace. Hits to the head sending him glancing, only to be cut at a vulnerable spot, dripping a piece of metal from his body with the revelation of the mails that hold the plates together.

His stamina? Devoid of his arms, his footstep became his shield. But his shield failed, punished by the strength-eroding blows to his head, to his torso, to his hands, to his kneecaps. More pieces sent flying, more exhaustion creeping to the Iron Mongrel.

Exhaustion accumulating, becoming too much for even a seasoned warrior to endure. His entire weight collapses downward, driving his knees to the sand, burying themselves deep. Every broken act of this surrender sees more of his battered attire crack and buck, splintering to smaller pieces.

From his head, failing to keep the helmet idolizing a rhino, to his waist, now sporting a broken sigil of the same animal, his armor no longer looked like one. He no longer looked like a warrior.

Nothing more than a defeated creature at the mercy of the crowd. At the mercy of his exhausted body. At the mercy of the swine woman circling him, placing herself in front of him, a triumphant grin on her ebony visage.

Here, to Reese, their words drowned under the crowd. As it always did for the rest. Whispers or exchanges of glance before the monster suddenly lunged at the defeated, claiming him as their boy toy in his sight, a clamor of the mass sending their thumbs hanging down, yelling the same words over...and over...and over again "Take him! Take him! Take him! Take him!"

The terms of this place's dueling process were quite different than that of home. He was sure to remember that as the final man fell as a slave, as nothing more than a worthless mongrel to his captor... --- Long docked from his station to the elevating platform Reese awaited. Sitting in the darkness of the glow increasing in its territory, he idles in the scorching heat of the sun, once more brought to this arena, but no longer as a spectator.

As his platform rises, so does fall another. A staging ground for an announcer.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" A feminine voice pours from seemingly everywhere, booming as an echo "We are finally at our last hurdle! We are finally withing our last foreign fighter! And this one is quite the special one among the talented individuals going home with a sweetheart in their arms!"

The platform finally reaches its surface limit, broadcasting Reese sitting amidst the sand, indifferent to the rambunctious cheering of the spectators.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Standing before you, the honed star of the oriental stadiums! The man with the golden touch! The only challenger to the previous champion! I give you!" The announcer broadcasts her hands both sides, sending forth illuminating torches of marvelous lights, worthy of divas.

"The one, and only Golden Hand!" They halt close to his body, projecting their shimmering lights over him, the atmosphere now shining in stars under an increased cheering.

All this time, Reese had his eyes deep in the lines of his Tome, only now noticing the light surrounding him. He gets himself up, still distant from the people calling his name in scarce knowledge. Reese was somewhat of a mystery to the people present. Be it by the lack of his arsenal, or his complete indifference, a behavior lampshaded by the announcer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, is it me, or does it look like our newest champion is giving the stadium a cold shoulder?"

The mass screams an array of 'yes', looking somewhat peeved by the Golden Hand's lack of showmanship. His absent stare breathing through the seats, expecting a similarly boastful man dubbed the Golden Hand.

"Well, let us, so to say, break his arm in, shall we?" The woman, perched high in the air hurls a broom out, only to jump at it. The seemingly fragile thing is quite adept at taking in her accelerated weight, cushion under her voluptuous molds.

"As you all know, with the champion of the orient standing among us, quite a few ladies are waiting to try and bring this man back home.  With that said, our own champion has graciously accepted our humble request of letting in a few of her comrades ahead of her".

The woman under the elongated hat turns her sight to the only individual in the arena "What say you, Golden Hand? Are you willing to 'entertain' a few runner-ups with the possibility of making you theirs?~

Reese crosses his arms after sliding the face-concealing helmet that once dangled on his hips. His demeanor breathes no answer, not even so much as an acknowledgment. "Oh my, our guest really is devoted to shun our hospitality, is he?~

As the dark dressed woman speaks, a gate opens, seeping out a challenger. Another fighter armored in a scantily wear. A singular horn gives out her, were it not for the claymore hanging on her shoulder.

"So, this is my future houseman, huh?" Her massive serrated blade falls over forward, pointed solely at Reese "You will refer me as Risa, man. Your imminent mistress and upcoming mother of our children".

Behind the metal of his mask, Risa feels irritated by the lack of reaction from the Golden Hand. An amazon gifted even among her peers, such that meek men had no hope of becoming hers presenting her intention to one worthy of being so "That little attitude of yours..."

"Oh my~ The dark magician perched on her broom sees the accelerated warrior woman pressing the charge over to Reese, her claymore diving downward.

"I will snap it out of you!!" Dust erupts under the sheer pressure of her blade before it even contacts its prey. A contact that would never be.

"Huh?" Risa the amazon turns from the split sand of her blow, unprepared for the reeling stroke plunged on her fair face. A golden gauntlet snuffing the crowd's encouraging cheer toward the woman, silent as they hear her body decking the rounded edge of the arena.

Faltering under her powerful body, the debris of the wall crack and breaks down, leaving the amazon, now devoid of consciousness, to fall among the rubble.

"Oh, dear...our champion has quite literally rejected his adversary" The announcer's voice trembles slightly, not expecting a one-hit K.O.

As well as the people, now silent, some, whispering. The dust clears, bringing witnesses to Reese's arcane gauntlet, born from his mind, smithed to reality. Perfectly honed, perfectly built, a perfect fit to his hand along with the peerless diamonds donned on its surface. A large one on the largest surface, five more on each finger both them and the gold radiate gently.

The next events are played on repeat. Dozens more seeping out of the gate, hoping to catch a spark of reaction from the Golden Hand. Perhaps a connection. Well, they do feel one.

The reverberation of his gauntlet sending them tumbling against the wall. Or the pillars bursting out the sand.

They feel the absence of anything he was made from the orient. The showmanship. The consideration. Anything depicting what the Golden Hand was.

"Ladies and gentlemen" The announcer idles still, perched on her broom. The rumors seemed not to match what she saw, expecting the much-sought mirror match the Golden Hand was prone to manifest in a gesture of respect "It would seem our friend down here has been resistant to the idea of showing an iota of interest to his opponents".

A chorus of disapproval streaks down the arena to a disinterested Reese, his body collapsed in a sitting motion. His tome welcomes the warm sand surrounding it, infiltrating some of its pages' gaps. Hearing them does nothing to spurn him.

"Well, our contestants tried. Pouring their hearts out to someone who couldn't bring an iota of regard back." The announcer speaks still, her eyes darted to a platform elevating "And it sounds like our current champion has had enough of that callous disregard as well!"

Magic dust strings from the back of her broom, propelling her directly over the decreasingly dark elevator where a lone figure stands. A blond braid knots her hair together, shining dimly under the passage of the sun's rays.

Reese can hear the elevation. Part of him had an interesting curiosity. Somewhat of a tiny ember lit in his mind, whispering its prospect of seeing the champion he was to duel against. The woman he briefly exchanged gazes with...assuming she was actually staring back behind that blindfold.

This tiny, quivering ember is snuffed out by the indifference of similarity. She was their champion looking to fight him. Probably in an attempt to make a worthless slave out of him. A toy to humiliate. Just like the rest.

He flips a page as the platform had ceased, broadcasting the woman he thought to be within it. Pointy ears, a black outfit suited for battle, a blindfold int he same shade. It was her. He didn't care. Not anymore.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Standing a distance away from our unwelcoming foreigner is the gilded elven from an exotic land! A place ripe with reptilian flavors, not unseen on our beloved heroine, her aura spreading outward in a shining roar of the majesty that is the wyrms! I give you--"

Looking sideways for a moment, the elven woman finally takes a regent stance, an elongated staff held closely by one hand. The hand's arm is cloaked in gold, paws of a dragon rummaging through it. The same color gleams from her edges, be it her elbows, shoulders, knees or greaves.

"Goldwing! Goldwing! Goldwing! Goldwing!" The crowd shouts her name. The undefeated Goldwing among her peers, not unlike Reese's mantle.

The shouts drown out the stadium, still to his indifference gleaming through his tome. Though, it does prompt him a standing presence at the very least. His book now tethered on his back, his golden hand imbued crossed with the other, waiting idly even as her bow is made obvious tot he crowd...and Reese.

"This gauntlet you bear..." The elven woman takes her staff and points at it from their distance "...it's not entirely solid, is it?"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't..." Reese lifts his head in a nonchalant manner, not intended on saying anymore.

"Hmpf...I expected a little more from someone I've heard of. None of the attributes you bore are present". Her staff comes back to her side, followed still by a voice breathing disappointment "I was under the impression the Golden Hand had a knack to mirror his opponent's style".

Reese rolls his eyes, unwilling to play in her game. Such an attitude brings forth a smile on her crimson lips, however "Ahh, you believe me no different to the rest. Of course, you do. It seems I have to demonstrate myself, then."

Once again, Reese can feel her acceleration. The movement through the sand, her flawless pace coursing, the shine of her staff peeling off its wooden label, revealing the deception of a spear and its sharp edge in emerald.

Reese move as he did with the rest, clenching his fist amidst the smoke of the erupting sand, only to see the frightful light of a shine peering through the choking dust "?!"

His gilded palm clenches the tip of the blade, its reach, inches from his eye socket, a knee on the falling sand.

"Ohh, what do we have here?" The announcer peers within the cloak of the arena, witnessing every act done under "Looks like our champion has made an undeniable presence to the Golden Hand~

"..." Reese keeps his gauntlet clenched on the blade, shaking with the unmistakable strength driving the whole shaft. Unlike the majority of the rest, he could feel plenty of it.

"You still think of me as unworthy of your time with ill thoughts behind your mind" She speaks softly, effortlessly holding her reach "Otherwise, you would have greeted me with a mirror".

"I'm not really interested in dancing to you nor the people here". Reese's voice breathes hostility.

"Dancing? No, I wish to duel with the man standing before me. But, I have to coerce him to step alongside me first". Her words bring greater strength behind her emerald spear, shaking more ferociously.

His fingers, clad as they are, begin to falter. Any more and they'll--

Reese ducks his head, the momentum propelling in a spin a second before the spear finally goes through the gap in his fingers.

Her body advances in this unexpected empty thrust...as well as her foot looking to make the most of this moment to cut any rest he might have had.

Her boot sweeps the air with great prowess, connecting against Reese's rebuttal coming forth as a fist. A shockwave reverberates through the area, conflicting the power put on both sides, pushing the spectators backward in their seats.

As well as the elven, his punch proving to be the heavier side. Sliding over the restless sand, this spark of power sent her way wasn't enough for her, judging by her spear onslaught. Thrusts by the hundred, all seeking his vital organs in the press.

One hand, even his, wouldn't be enough. A glow shimmers on his other arm, a more fleeting mimic of armor. It interjects itself in her spear fall, as does his gauntlet, blocking every press she hurls forth.

His body slowly moves backward, spewing even more sand under the defensive. The air feels her cuts. His hands feel her blows.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our champion truly is focused!" The announcer looks on, her hat still in the process of being adjusted "Those perfect strikes, only bearly blocked or deflected by our reluctant foreigner! Each one of them creeping closer to his defense unless he brings something to the table...~

She wasn't wrong. Being the back foot this deep was a new one for Reese, unable to stave off her increasing momentum "Is this all the Golden Hand to do? I am impressed by the improvised slug you threw against my boot, but I do hope you have more to offer me".

"Tsh..." Fine. She is this adamant at seeing what they revere him for? So be it. His eyes gain a blue hue, looking between her thrusts, her movement. Between the elegant hair gliding behind her features in a braid unity.

A snap sees her spear stop cold in its advance, her own expression that of mild surprise at her own instinctual evasion under an ephemeral tip centimeters from her flawless cheek. It presses her steps backward with its now spinning onslaught. One to the left, one to the right, both touched by the back, seeking to avoid the spinning object.

"Oh my...~ The announcer takes a more interested lean on her broom, ever slightly lowered to the rabble of the smoke, pulled outward by her magic winds, her surprise doubling at the sight.

Golden at the shaft, transparently blue by the triad edges. Held by both hands, pointed at the sand, rested on his back, a singular spear made solely from the Golden Hand's will made a reality.

"Our champion has finally been able to put a crack on the reluctant Golden Hand, forcing his hand on a more invested mindset. Now, the fun can truly begin~ She speaks, to the rambunctious cheers of the crowd, awaiting a mirror match of two individuals bearing similar shades. One of gold and black, one of gold and blue. Two crossing paths, almost by the admission of fate.

"At last..." The elven swings her spear back to readiness, a pose close to that of Reese. Her facial features sport a mix of gratitude and sturdy stoicism "...now, I can see how far my mannerisms can bring me against this formidable adversary of mine". Her spear's bottom plants itself on the coursing sand with force, seeping out a flight of magical particles of invigoration. A shout drowns out the stadium, a challenge to the one standing before her "Ready yourself, golden foe, for this time, I no longer aim with warning shots!"

Her shout proves true, the strength of their clashing spears bringing a greater weight against Reese. Gold clashes against blue, sending them both a few feet back.

And thus, it began. Running to the middle to meet the other in full force, Goldwing's winged spear meets Golden Hand's triad again at the tip, converged on one another. Sparks fly in profusion, to the stunned silence of the crowd, filled with monsters and incubi. Creatures far stronger than the baseline humans, barely able to keep the track of the gold variants' pounce of weapons.

Swings and thrusts, punctures and slams, only gaining the barest of glancing blows on each other. Reese' helmet taking a score of burning scratches and Goldwing's cheek taking a singular shallow cut, long healed by the potency of her will.

Strategies, deceptions, false blows and momentums. None of them gain any significant advantage for one or the other. Nothing more than glancing wounds burning on their armor, silk, and skin, promptly healed, a split-second lapse.

A final clash sees them dispersed once again, pushed from the midst by their conflicting blow. Tireless champions facing the other, once again plying their respecting glittering weapons in a face-off currently in the middle of catching a lull in their strife.

"A formidable opponent you are, Golden Hand". The elven woman raises a hand toward her face, crossed at her cheek wound long gone "To think I would be feeling a sharp cut on my soft visage in decades. It is...intoxicating".

Reese keeps himself silent, the sly burn of her mana reminding him of his own shallow wounds across unarmored spots. His hands shake subtly as they hold the ephemeral weapon in his hand. A mastered arm in his own right, yet uncomfortably distant from his true call. Something the elf seemed to witness in his silence "You are an astute reflection of my weaponry. But it is not your real potential, is it?"

"..."

"Still sporting no word to meet mine? But your heart whispers it to me. Surely you can feel the fervent beat in mine as well. You longed for someone such as I to cross you just as I did. I shall reveal the depth of my strength...and coerce you further to yours". Her lips part in inhalation before expelling her breath outward with steams of magic coursing out, filling the whole of the arena with a fervency of gilded atmosphere.

"Ohh? Ladies and gentlemen, our champion has decided to ramp things up with her halcyon garden~ The dark mage gliding atop her broom spectacles the field growing spurs of golden air and shimmering grass.   "The Golden Hand better be careful, for her will now literally breathes through the arena~.

"Ok, that, that is..." Reese lowers his spear, holding it by one hand as he takes turns looking around him. A miasma of gold, unshakably belonging to his adversary "...new".

"You better not lose your sight in the gold of my lungs, Golden Hand. It will be the death of you!"

"Wha--" Sparks fly atop his helmet, his spear now struggling to keep her from simply shattering its incorporeal form "The hell?! Where did this boost..."

The gold swirls around the elf, seemingly bolstering her might. One making his mana spear shatter, forcing an accelerated back step from her reach. One bringing a smirk to her crimson lips, the cause of said expression immediate.

Strings of gold mana join together, shaped as astral projectiles screeching straight at Reese "!!"

His steps take on a running pace, darting and serpenting under the buckle of detonating burst of mana nearby. Clenching his gauntlet, he springs forth a shield devised as a mean for the collateral damage occurring, overwhelming as it is.

Goldwing ever points toward the streaming Reese, bringing more astral projectiles to her fold, only to launch themselves at an unimaginable speed at him.

The arena spurs in battle damage, seeing pillars falter and crumble. Walls brittle and collapse. The very air becomes part of Goldwing's control, spurning evermore projectiles, this time, attacking in coordinated fashions.

Cornering Reese and his faltering personal shield of energy, the elven woman takes a stance of both hands holding the hundreds of projectiles at her whim, her spear back to her back. The announcer is silent, taken back by this increasing shaping of power in the elf's hand with more and more air becoming laced in the miasma.

The crowd as well, having never thought to see their champion so enthralled in this combat as to expend more of her long-hidden mastery.

Looking over the unavoidable slew of objects waiting to puncture him over and over, Reese takes a deep sight, his personal protection faltering. Lost, by his will, re-absorbed by his golden gauntlet.

One he clenches again, a shimmering of mana dancing around his body, strong enough to cut a swath of her gold garden away with his presence. Her arms hesitate for a moment, seeing the effervescence of his aura speaking his words. Speaking to her thoughts as hers did to his. The miasma of entertained punctured only by the excitement of seeing his latent powers flourish.

Looking to see dormant light shine, the elven woman finally swipes her arms downward, sending forth her legion of astral projectiles.

They fly in their own air shrieks, uninterrupted by the dead silence of the crowd. Some, enthusiastic in their munching. Others, whispering to friends among the halls. All quiet by the astral lights flowing through a field of gold.

The silence turns to gasps as they are put to a hard stop, shattering back to particles splattering against ethereal shards. Ths shape of blades common on swords, the size twice a man. Its blunt face is showcased to his attacker, shimmering in a pure blue, mist-like. Ancient sigils are inscribed on it, fluorescent, almost floating on the hardened surface. Yet, she can see it embedded in the hard mana.

Shocked as she was to see it suddenly manifest, her senses hadn't the time to feel it. The others, however, they dredge the ground like blossoming seeds. left to nurture. Already stashed in in the collateral damage of her gilded atmosphere, the sand and walls suffer further from their rumble as Reese now brought his own flavor of re-decoration in the shape of ethereal blades sprouting upward by the dozens.

Dozens shaking up the stage, humming in surging potency, prompting a glare in their direction by the now surrounded elven. A hundred waiting, idling, humming.

"You know, you're not wrong..." Steps marching from the first blade. Reese walks from it, his aura now tranquil, embedded in his body. Lines and scans across his body, fluorescent like water shined on by the sun.

"It's been forever...since I've had the occasion of using something like that" His pace brings him so early to one of his ethereal blades standing as a sizable pillar. Touching it, the construct glows softly, eerily.

"To see the full extent of my training, my workout, my...his edicts" The shimmering glow perfumed on his corporeal form begins to take form, inhabiting a solid mass. Gilded bits manifesting armor on his head, on his body, on his limbs, on his everything.

A titan, grown twice his size. No semblance of humanity behind the constructed array of gold fluorescent, isolating the man within from the world.

"And, well, since you've been so insistent to see it..." Reese finally stops. His voice now distorts with the unrestrained power literally flowing through him. A second, he glances back at the elf, stunned by his sudden but gradual change, unsure of how to react to this complete takeover. The next...

"...well, I don't work well with threats. Least of all, from this place".

"Wha--" Her immaculate visage is struck with the unseen plow by his gauntlet, sent crashing with greater force on the arena's wall, not cracking it but utterly destroying it.

Not content with a simple hook, Reese hums at his gauntlet, the diamonds embedded within, now illuminated. They resonate with the spires of ether, one of them plucked from the ground, a shape of a shard currently creeping toward Reese. Quickly, it molds itself a weapon of reverence, a marriage of gold and mana, gently landing in one of his hands. An ax of a single head, large enough for two hands, trimmed in gold, blade in mana.

The rest disintegrate, re-shaped as a halo his size. A halo of five rings, all of them inscribed in the ancient text, not unlike the ones in his tome. Gold brands feeding a pulsing aura in their inner circles. Four small rings circling a singular larger one. All of them, now adorning Reese's back like wings of an angel.

His attention turns to the debris where the elf crashed into, shaking itself from the middle where her hand plucks back to the surface, followed by her entire body, gasping. His halos disappear as his free hand rises, prompting some of his constructs to do the same. Their scriptures burn brightly with his mana, focusing the pure power to their tips "You've had a lot of fun railing me with those halcyon spears of yours. That's cool, but now, it's my turn".

His hand crosses to a fist, glowing. It spurs the levitating constructs to burn at the front, forcing the light at their edges. They burst to solid beams, directed solely at the recovering Goldwing, only able to raise a hand their way before her entire body was snuffed by the blinding azure light splashing all over her grounds.

"L-l-ladies and gentlemen..." The announcer takes to the words, snapped out of this continual trance by the sheer hazard to her eyes "The Golden Hand has finally revealed the depth of his potential and seemingly is in the process of glassing our champion".

The beams gain in power and size, humming the droning burn of their energetic discharges. A burn acting against the increasing rush of her halcyon garden to her side, making an increased projection of a bubble around her, shimmering in a clash with the azure, growing unstable, erratic.

This instability erupts over as a shock, interrupting the channeling of the constructs, almost sapping their levitation whilst it travels the entire arena, testing the resilience of the rest of the spires.

"I'm sorry you see it this way, oh dear adversary of mine..." Her voice trembles with deep power, similar to Reese, but wholly unique to her.

"Aggravating you was not my edict..." The aftermath sees an elven pace through the debris of the still-burning land, the sand turned to searing glass. Her hand swaths away the dust and smoke, noticeably more golden than ever, wreathed in her own aura.

"I only sought to bring out this change you walk in. Now I see it..." The elf takes a glove off, revealing a gasp of the crowd. A hand, hidden in elven skin, now shows scales deep in emerald shades shimmering evermore in a translucid web of gold. A hand quite easily snapping one of Reese's spires in pieces with a single blow as he sent it hurling toward her.

"My, oh my..." A female spectator whispers.

"I know. Scales. But...elves are supposed to be resistant, no?" Another one speaks next to her.

Whispers of similar tendencies cross the spectator scene as Goldwing continues on.

"The strange magic you carry yourself in. The rumors that whisper behind you, I see it all". And another spire comes crashing to pieces as she takes off her other glove, revealing a scaly hand, used to smash the incoming projectile.

"And I must say, I never thought another human would be so adept at carrying something so potent as the gild".

"The gild?" Reese takes the last three spires at his side and hurls them

"Yes. But, that is for another time. I more tranquil time. For now, you have earned my true self..." Her greaves stomp twice on the ground, opening the armored boots. Her feet step out, shining more scales, more fluorescent gold dancing around them.

The gold strung around by her breath collides at her side, solidifying to an ethereal state. All while her scaly hands take to her face, her blindfold "I have not been entirely truthful to you, nor to those who have watched me for the years..."

"Right" Reese takes an idle stance, swinging his ax in place before slanting it on his shoulder, waiting "Well, go ahead. Might as well see what's on the end".

"I surmised you would allow me to do so..." The elven's face is unveiled, the cloth inhibiting her eyes slowly falling. The crimson, as red on her pristine, glossy lips, now reflected on her slit eyes, as sharp as that of a dragon.

As the cloth falters from reality, bound to its mistress to dissipate until she wills it back by a trail of gold mist, another apparition begins to manifest, devouring the halcyon garden she breathed to the arena.

"Well...that's fun.." Reese takes a step forward. Then another, pushing his walking drive in his panoply of gild, his halo of five rings re-appearing.

"I am an elf, but not from the known plains..." She does the same, the apparition boasting a frightening visage of a gigantic reptile scaled in complete gold. The more steps she takes, the more apparent it becomes, with its wings encompassing the entire arena, allowing some of the high-perched spectators to feel its touch...were they not weary of the beast.

Her own attire becomes illuminate, mostly by her emerald scales as one of her arms takes the spear on her back to present it at her side, meeting her adversary in the middle "It is a distant place populated with the dominance of reptiles".

"I see. Well, give me your title card, then" Reese's ax begins to shine, readying itself on the awareness of its user whilst the ethereal dragon flares its throat in emerald flames between its maw.

"Then, hear me! My name is Galeria! I am no elf, but a Wyvarian bestowed with the magic of the Goldwing! My title, bestowed by this apparition you see by my side. A celestial dragon that is the representation of my fighting spirit. Long have I longed to see it spread its wings to someone worthy of seeing it!"

Her spear rises in unsurmountable speed pointed at Reese, who in response, had instinctually risen his ax to meet her edge. The contact of their blades spews out sparks of mana, all too thick to be mere sparks, instead, falling over as liquid amalgam of mixtures.

Her soft visage frowns, her eyes slit further, a challenge to the man before her, so close to striking distance "Once more, I challenge you into the fray, to see which of our golden mantles will surpass the other! Whatever prize they may bestow matters little to me than to see the only individual standing before me!"

Reese's hand presses his immense strength in the blade of the ax, forcing Galeria's spear off the clash. The spectral wyrm rouses and bellows at the man, the latter, shoving his shaft at the middle, sparkling more sparks under Galeria's returned blade hit. Her fierce glare can note the grin he makes behind his helmet "Sure. I've been looking for someone like you as well, see where my ongoing training could get me".

"Well then..." Galeria's foot comes sweeping underneath his leg, only to be intercepted by the same one lodged on her knee, pushing her away with a downward chop advance griding against the pole of her spear, a final glancing blow as the eye of the storm was moving away, promising a higher degree of combat... --- Barry remained sheltered in the same room both he and Reese were in the midst of their spectating, now alone. To state that he was shocked by his client's display of unrestrained power was an understatement "Jeez Louise...!"

His mouth is gaped open, unable to chew, let alone, savor the bundle of grapes he had grasped by the branch "Seriously! I did not think you'd be that over the top!"

"Tell me about it!" Another voice comes near, one he heard before. Turning with a large hint of wariness, he sees her move her hands in armistice "Hey, hey...I'm not here for further hostility".

"Huh-uh!" Barry takes a step backward between her flopping ears "Think I'll stand over here".

"Look..." The Minotaur lowers her hands, again, as slowly as she can "...I'm sorry. I just thought that...I didn't really think at all in that bit. I just wanted your friend in. Acting on my threat wasn't in the plan".

"Sure...though it'll be a bit before I can get comfortable around you".

"Ok...I can wait for that. In the meanwhile, here" Barry's hand acts in instinct as something comes landing in his palm "I saw you try to take them over and over even with the window around".

"Ohh? Ohh!" Looking down at his catch, Barry discovers the blue apple adorning it, shiny and fully ripe to be eaten "Wow..." His teeth take a bite off, instantly sending rainbows to his eyes "Wow!"

"Hehe, I've got quite a few for us to share..." The Minotaur looks around, somewhat shyly "...I mean, if you want..."

"Sure, take a chair!" Barry continually bites down on his current apple with the sight of dozens creeping down on the brass woman's battle skirt, one of them plucked under her own teeth.

"So, anyway..." The silence of the crowd could be heard all the way to the exclusive rooms. Barry, like others, feel it, a calm before the storm, but otherwise, he was busy eating his host's harvest as she speaks "I never thought that our Goldwing would pull all the stops for this one guy of your!"

"I didn't think Reese would be so invested in this little brawl of yours either!"

"Right, he didn't look all that enthusiastic at the beginning".

"Well, you should have looked at how the rest of the matches ended. I know my friend. Things like this are prone to make him uninterested--"

"Ohh, so he's not aware". The Minotaur cuts away with a biting crunch.

"Not...aware? Not aware of what--I'm barely aware of anything going here".

"Right, well...come here and I'll tell you".

"Hum..." Barry becomes somewhat wary, to the teasing scoff of the escort.

"Oh come now...I won't bite~ She approaches with a sultry walk, a knee on the tile floor, her caramel lips moving silently next to his ear.

"Wait, so--so it isn't just an arena thing--really? They've really screened for--Uh-huh--ok...ok".

She moves only inches away, feeling a small throb toward the man yet to decipher her nascent feelings, his question snapping her out of it "But why? Why all of this exactly?"

"Well--oh sh--!" The Minotaur quickly takes to pull his arm in, bracing him in her abs-coated body. Barry's face is pelted with the incomprehensible softness of her large mammaries, largely blotting out the rumble shaking the arena reaching even the secluded rooms "Well, shucks! Looks like the last two soon-to-be love birds are finally starting!" --- "The clash of blades has truly started for our conflicting champions, ladies, and gentlemen! I can barely see the two moving!" The announcer had arisen to a higher height, hoping to catch more than mere blurs. It worked, to a degree.

The only indication of any true clash was to be the constant drip of raw mana. Goldwing. Golden Hand. On the ground. In the air. Whenever they spar, their weapons, refusing to yield to the other, spit out a meager measure of their boundless prowess condensed to liquids left to burn the sand of conflicts of blue and green hues.

Blurs dashing left and right. Reverberations shaking the stadium. Spells hurled with abandon solely at the other. Between the two, the world is a blur, ignored for the one standing before the other. Galeria and her spectral dragon hurling its emerald flame. Reese and his halos behind him crossing ethereal projectiles, both leaping from their constructs to meet in the middle.

Spear and ax. Arguing again and again. Stares honed in every spec of the other, their intentions and subtle nudges. Battle damage chipping o their respective armors, weapons, artifacts.

The sand is but a radiance of itself, converted to mirrors of blue and green melding at the center. Galeria and Reese halted, the former, at the ground. The latter, still in the air.

Exhaustion binds the two like anvil shackled to their limbs, demonstrated by their faltering constructs. His sprung blades struggling to keep themselves tethered to reality. Her ethereal wyrm losing the anvil keeping it whole.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" The dark mage watched it all, from the morning to the end of midnight. She saw it all, even at their highest, so many techniques still remained hidden, poised for other purposes, purposes that would not suit an arena such as this one. Things she would likely never see unless an invasion occurred, where killing prompts would become reality "Our two champions have been going from the rising of dawn to the darkness of the night. And I'm afraid..."

Panting from high in the air, Reese broadcasts his hands outward, his ax, lost to the grind of combat. The hundred of spires he had summoned in his armoring rise to meet him, surround him. Brittles of his mana armor falter, revealing superficial wounds on his head "You're a real tough customer, you know that? To think I would be this battered..."

"I take your compliment and send it back. I did not expect to be thoroughly tested this deep. Unfortunately, I fear I have no more strength to continue fighting you. This..." The reptilian elf slams her scaly hands together, prompting her ethereal dragon to mount the space over her, the creature, doing the same from its frontal paws. All of its might collides in the maw of its jaw "...this will be my last blow".

"Hehe...you're...you're not alone on this statement" Reese slams his elbows and arms together, the spires levitating disassemble, returned to his halos. His halos falter and set before him, a regal array of rings swirling in front of him, one after the other. Their inner circles glow with the remainder of his power, azure flickering within, waiting to be utilized.

The largest of all rings come close to him, re-structured, as it was nothing more than his will, made manifest. In the stead of a ring decked on his back, the construct became a simple bow encrusted in diamonds made from solid mana. A single arrow. Pure mana. Amplified four-fold. His last chance. --- "So, this is it..." Barry had eaten the last of his apple, thoroughly satiate, now on the edge of his chair, trying to endure the blinding conflict of blue and green lights "Their last move..."

"Yea, tell me about it" Cally is at the edge as well, her claymore lodged on the tile "This little match has been much more investing than I've thought".

"Right?! I mean, they also look like they're..."

"Yea..." The Minotaur's mind is ripe with thoughts of lovers. Their fight, a declaration, weaves she could see between their spells and thrusts. A hopeful thought that their champion had found him... --- "This is it! I haven't named that one yet!" Reese screams from the top of his lungs, his distorted voice struggling to boom over the cheering of the crowd, the overpowering gathering of their techniques and the elements playing.

"I shall help you name it, alongside my Heaven's scar...once we...!" Her voice is snuffed out by the launching of her dragon's compensated beam. A radiant emerald of stars trails around the solid mass of searing energy directed solely at Reese and his set-up.

He shoots his arrow, passing through the four loops, sapping every ounce of their amplification, shattering them in the process. Each loop makes it hardier, brighter, stronger, ready to contest her Heaven's scar.

...or so he thought.

Reese sustained more damage, more loss of mana, more...everything. And so, as strong his struggle was, his arrow was broken to diamond dust, the beam, completely engulfing him. His shield, broken. His armor, burned. His body...sapped.

The gasp of the crowd is harmonious, seeing Reese falling, hanged off like a star, falling to the ground. His armor, his hard mana, reduced to dust. His crash, complete.

Which is not to claim that the Wyvarian elf came out unscathed. Her construct could no longer hold itself to reality. Her Halcyon garden was gone. Her scale shined no more. Yet, she walked, still with a murmur of power left, ready to meet the defeated foreign.

"And we have a winner! Our champion, the Goldwing! Undefeated for the  50th year!" The crowd cheers and cries in uproars. Barely able to contain itself over the everlasting victory of their undefeated victor.

"But, one question remains, ladies and gentlemen--"

It was obvious to the spectators. Having seen their champion so invested in this fight of all battles, struggling so much to keep her streak, to speak so brilliantly of her defeated adversary currently struggling to get himself up, it was obvious "Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

It was unanimous. Reese had lost. And, by the rules of the arena, the victor could do whatever with him. The same one walking down the crater, a hand on her shoulder "Dear adversary of mine, you have brought me to my utmost limit. Yet, I win still. Unlike the rest, I shall not squander the prize that lays before me. I shall not..." --- "Shame..." Barry recedes back to his chair, somewhat relief, somewhat disappointed.

"Aw, come on~ Cally turns to him, as sweaty as he was, pretty relieved to see her champion win once more "Don't be like that. He put up an excellent display. Ours just had a...deeper desire to win this one".

"I guess since you tell me she's been at this for a bit. Well, I'm sure he'll be glad to finally have someone to spar--ohh...oh no..." Barry gets himself off the chair, to the Minotaur's surprise.

"What?"

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, no!" He takes to the door, only to be intercepted by his host "Get out the way, I have to speak to him, now!"

"Wait, what? Why? Our champion is likely going to be busy with him for the--

"That's the problem! He won't!"

"What?!" Taking his hand, Cally drags him forward in a sprint outside to the stadium "Exactly what are you--

"He's going to do it! He's going to kill himself! He told me while the others were fighting! 'He'll sooner slit his throat before being violated by anyone here', that what he said with Iron Mongrel's loss!"

"What?! But, it's not supposed to be--" Cally accelerates hurriedly, pressed to halt anything before--

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

"Claim him!"

The crowd shouts with fervency as Galeria is mere meters from the stumbling Reese, a gaze filled no more with the warrior's mettle, but a woman. A woman with a beating desire "Well, my dearest adversary, the crowd is speaking. How long I've waited to devote myself to--huh?"

Her eyes catch the peculiar light of azure gathering to a small sharp blade under a shaky hand barely able to rise. His voice, raspy, wounded "I guess...they...do...a shame..."

"Darling, you need not fight anymore, you can barely lift it--

"Ma'am, remove it! Remove it quick from him!" A voice booms from one of the gates, grabbing her attention.

"Wha--

"Take the blade from him, quick! Quick before--

"Reese!" Another voice, a familiar tone "Reese, it's fine! You don't need to do this! It's not as it looks--

"...I...don't...work...well..." The reptilian elf backsteps easily, avoiding his swath, only to see the ethereal blade adjusted over his stomach.

A shrieking beat skips her heart, her hand raises his direction, a plea his way "Dearest..." She starts running towards him, forsaking her own exhaustion as the broken dragon construct shimmers back to life, a distress gaze in its expression. Everything is frozen in slow motion.

The crowd, slowly realizing the intent of his act. Roars of joy turned to horrified shrieks. Some turning away, others, broadcasting their palms in joined pleas

The announcer, now in a dive, a hand raised down his way.

Cally and Barry, running his way, the former, calling out his out deaf friend.

None was close to stopping the ether from puncturing his stomach, the flight of blood sparkling alongside its shattering. His fall, as his weakened state made him much more vulnerable. The closing of his eyes, shutting in a world of darkness. The collapse of his visage on the soft mold of glass.

Blind to it all. To the mass, some of them turned to horrified babbles. To Galeria, her fierce womanly gaze, reduced to that of a widow who had yet to feel the arms of her fateful, cradling his lightless gaze on her battered attire, unable to believe what was occurring, pulling the rest of the ether blade out, screaming his name, over and over again.

Or the announcer calling out the medics, men, incubi, rushing as fast as they can...to a slowly dying Golden Hand.

---

--- Voices. Shallow voices. Hollow voices. Darkness swathes over all, most of all, his closed eyes. The only light, a tiny little blue spark, shiny like a diamond.

It persists in its existence, an echo to the outside world. Filtering shock. Filtering horrified surprise. Filtering confusion. Filtering anger. From countless voices, all in the depth of his darkened mind.

Then, pain. A sharp pain everywhere, most of all, his chest. One kicking all of his synapses awake, fueling his senses once more.

"Haaaa!" An unintended gasp breaches his jaw wide open, dragging his body in an instinctual lean forward. The surrounding space is altered. No arena where he thought to die. No, the arena is a few miles away from the window, should he glance at it.

But, as he does in question, the shimmering light of the morning greets him in a blinding manner, his eyes yet unused to the morning dew, much less in a land of beasts.

"Where...where am I? Am I not...dead?" He gestures his hands forward, snapping off the web of pain coursing through them with a grunt. Looking closely, he sees a myriad of bandages licking his wounds. His mind snaps back to his brittle armor and the burns.

"You are not parted from the living, gold one". A voice from the slumbering shadows. Her cloth masks her in the shades, only until now. Her voice comes to him as reassuring and yet...

Galeria sees his wounded body tense at the sight of her presence "I see you remember me..."

Slowly, Reese attempts to coerce his body to a self-defensive behavior, wholly discordant by the persistent wounds crippling him. His tone is as wary as the Wyvarian was peering with relief "I do".

"Then tell me. Why do it?"

"Why do what?"

"You know what I speak of!" Unable to conceal her bewilderment, the reptilian elf takes a scoffing uprise in which the sudden gesture makes the chair flop to the side, a notable frown behind her blindfold "In the arena where we fought, you tried ending your life! Despite your agent! My plea! The crowd! You..."

"Well, sorry, with the fate of becoming some boy toy, I preferred death. Though it seems like I missed--

"Is...is that..." Her hands have long returned to their gilded mantle, no longer showing the scales underneath. Never the less, they clench "...what you really thought was your fate? That you'd be some emasculate pleasure thing? Are you really selling the people this short?"

"With the whole damn crowd screaming for my violation with you just...giving in--

"That wasn't my intention!" Her tender voice turns anew to the typhoon that once directed her movement in the arena "Did you not see yourself fight against me?! Our weapons! Our might! Our minds! Crossed and contested, long seeking to find the other! Did you not feel the long withered pulse of your heart?!"

With no sound, no word, Galeria takes hold of his arm, demonstrating the disparity of their conditions. At his prime, he might have seen it coming. As he was, all he could muster was surprise. Feeling the recovering palm stroking the silk threat of her cloth's folds. A thin veil between it and the surprise buxom idling behind. The heart quivering still, beating in high alert, an assertion of its overbearing joy.

"I! Felt! Every! Inch! Of! It!" Her speech is slow, emphasizing every single word "Do you feel this?! This is three days after our duel! Fifty years spent idly before my own heart finally found its special someone".

"Really?" Reese can't help but feel the rhythmic beats to her chest pass the softening of her features "I mean, I think I did. Or at least, I thought I did, before..." His mind trails off to their last moment in the ring.

Galeria's knife ears flop down, shaking her head all the way "I wasn't supposed to be like that, strange as it may be. They weren't advocating for a...mindless violation".

"What?"

"No. In this duel, amidst our clash, I felt like finding the one with which I could cross the Forgotten Gate. Someone with which to span evermore sparring. Someone to who to confess myself to. Someone to...commit to..." The last words bring her cheeks as red as her lips, halting her momentarily.

"In the advent of my bare victory, barely standing, I wanted to commit the fiery passion this one fight among the fifty-year hod to my undefeated title. To lower myself to you...like this" Slowly, the elf takes to the bed, one hand keeping his to her chest, her leg and shirt overlapping to his hips.

Reese's benign stare turns to confusion, feeling the soft cloth beneath her attire "Wait, what are you doing--

"To lean in...like this~ The elf closes in, mere inches from his face. Her hands had hastily reached for the back of his nape. If Reese didn't know that her attire had currently little int he way of protection, he did now, feeling the searing gentleness of heat stroking his chest by her own.

"No, seriously, what are you doing? Why are my hands  Why does this feel like a--

~And to commune...like this~ Her blindfold falters, revealing the gaze of a crimson dragon. One fanned by flames of devotion, yearning to join, as slit as they were. Her lips open in a soft sigh, spilling the warmth of her emotions before ultimately sealing his in a burning kiss.

Her ears instantly rise as if overcharged by the simple act. Laced in the overstayed gap to this moment, Galeria momentarily leans back by the instinct of inexperience. Her tongue spills out, panting equally as her quarry.

Reese was far from intact from the lips of an elf, a pair that would snap his question before it even had the time to voice itself "What was--

This time, her mind fishes deeper, longer, more emotionally driven, compensation for her novice behavior. He had no strength to resist, his own emotions springing forward for a synchronized beating to her own, state that would remain true even at his apex. An undeniable truth that accompanied her words from before.

He loved her from the moment their arms crossed. As such, his arms spring forward, tying themselves to her waist. He had heard of the elven kind, the danger they had on mortal men enthralled by their mesmerizing beauty, their grace in combat and outside. The way she looked, the manner she spoke, the similar mind to her thought, he had fallen for them all in one individual.

"I see that..." Galeria finally plucks her morning dew from him, tongues still poked out, distraught by the sudden separation of the other "...you have fallen under my conviction~

A soft smile comes in her face as he pulls himself from the pleasure-induced haze his mind was sent to "Well...if that's how you speak, well, I don't see any reason to contest".

"It was supposed to be my confession. It was what they wanted, like the rest of the combatants. But, I don't suppose anyone has mentioned that to you".

"The others, huh? Then..." Holding her so close, the wounded gladiator sees his victor nodding.

"The only reason more was unraveled with them lies in their species. Finding their eternal mate, there are so many willing to commit to the very stadium they fought in, often after a little bonding, much like the one we are communing to at this moment. This is what gets the crowd so riled".

"Really? Is that what you wanted, then?" This question earns him a sultry gaze from her Dragonite aspect. A close leaning to his ear. Burning breath to his lobe hiding as a barely contained whisper.

~No. Not in the arena, not among countless eyes. Someplace. Like here, alone with my quarry. Waiting to feel your--

The door of the infirmary slams wide open, prompting the denied elf back to her blindfold, her mood broken to the neutral tone, especially as another couple stepped through. A woman, a man, both recognized by the bed-ridden man.

"Hey!" The large and stout Minotaur stumble forward, a little more than peeved by Reese's stunt amidst a crowd of thousands "What's the big idea, Bob?! What sort of wacko just pulls out a shank last minute and--

"It's fine, it's fine! He doesn't look like he's--" Barry held her by the armpits, like how a man would a bull by its horn. Unlike her, he had seen the champion skulk away into the room through his many visits.

"Huh?! The hell do you mean 'it's fine'?! Just look at him!" Cally points back to the duo, caught up in the flames of outrage only slowly simmering with the increasing realization of her homeland champion's presence "A man who tried offing himself like it was that or a fate worse than death! Slowly on his way to...to..."

Looking again, her mind painfully acknowledges the stolen moment, air charged with snuffed out wisps of passion, spiking Reese with his first whispers of the ruined moment, his body knowing what his mind had yet to discover. Galeria did not have the gift of ignorance despite her persistent chastity of the last fifty years, her calm demeanor laced with mild annoyance. One she hides as well as her gaze, mixing itself in understanding.

"...to have his...with the...before I...barged in..." Cally sighs as guided back by Barry. Her eyes are an unhidden 'I'm so sorry!' toward the champion close to claiming her prize. The door quietly shuts behind, the agent silently waving back to Reese, a meager greeting.

The reptilian elf sighs, mostly out of relief to left alone with her confused quarry, still dangling on the escort's words "What was that? Exactly what did she..." His words move apart, pushed away by his conqueror's returned whisper and the touch of her chest leaning on his, fully woman. A fiery breath tickles his ear once more, burning the words of an excited maiden.

~Your emotions, my dearest. She spoke of them ridding me of my pur--

Another slam of the door, this time, via telekinesis. An announcer more than hurried in her breach, excitement in her tone "I was told our foreign patient had only now slipped back to consciousness--ahh, excellent!"

Confusion bewilders Reese for the second time as the orator of the stadium now blinks close, settled on a chair with a tiny book fixated on a hand, a pen and ink on the other.

"Now, now, now...seeing that you are awake, would you be willing to explain this 'issue' you had three days ago?"

"You mean the...hum...well--

"Did the whole place feel unwelcomed to you?"

"Not really--

"Did our sponsors coerced you? Did they try anything with you?"

"Hum...no, they didn't, but--

"Then it must be people. Surely they have done something!"

"No, not them either--

"Then what could explain--

Galeria, straddling the wounded champion of the orient, paced her eyes left and right to whoever had the parole until it was nothing more than a whirlwind of unfinished sentences, curious to hear the stream of attempts of understanding.

"Then--if it isn't this, that, or those, then, why? Why would you stray so far from our arms? Why prefer the wanton loss of life? Do you realize how distraught those watching became at the sight of you...and your death wish?"

"Look...between the weird escort that went out of its way to get to my homeland, the people yelling violation and whatnot, I was not at all aware of the lines between. Until my conqueror over here went to whisper this in-between, the idea of becoming some boytoy to a ravenous crazy".

"Your conqueror--ohh! Miss..." Exactly like the previous intruder, the announcer only now was made aware of Galeria's presence atop of Reese, deeply in throes of his arms coiled at her waist. The mentioned looks back, a faint smile crossed on her crimson lips of the epiphany scratching the dark mage.

"It would seem the home guide has yet again forgotten to deliver the much important pamphlets to our..." The Dragonite elf slowly and gently leans on the wounded man, arms around his nape, cheek against cheek "...beloved guests".

"Pamphlets? I was not..." Reese's voice is robbed by the touch of his captor laying on his recovering body, again, the touch of monster skin is captivating to him.

"Is that so? I should have known. Well, better this than you being recruited. By those white emissaries, I mean". The announcer breathes in relief, noting everything as but a misunderstanding.

"White emi--you mean the men who would occasionally wander around? Clips and all?"

"It's actually amazing how quickly we get to your sort before they can. Though I don't suppose they had much faith in what looked like barbarians and whatnot". She chuckles quite loudly, writing some more through papers.

"So, you're telling me this is some operation you're pulling here?"

The dark mage stops her feather midway, looking back to the man and his infatuated captor "Tell me, ever thought about going to war? Or battles? Or anything that would have you invade other people and whatnot?"

"What? No! Never! Never for this sort!"

"Well, here's your reason. People like you. With people like her. Far from pointless battlefields".

She continues writing, this time while getting herself up, a pretty satisfying series of notes in her tiny diary "That's very well. I have people to reassure, a sleepy sheep to talk to...and two love birds to let nest. See you around~

Her body disappears in an eruption of magical dust, once again, leaving the two together.

Wasting no time, Galeria re-iterates herself in her warm embrace, sapping any confusion that Reese might have had, her words creeping up with the guise of a maiden ~Now that we're in solitude, I have something I've been keeping close to me for fifty years. Just. For. You--Ohh, by Great Reptilian! Will the unending interruption ever cease!?"

Not the door, but the wall, breached and rendered in pieces. Twin axes, a rhino's mantle. Iron Mongrel sneers by his teeth, pointing one of his arms solely at Reese "The hell was that stunt out there, man?!"

"Mongrel?!"

"Hey, hey, hey, don't skedaddle around my question like that! You know you owe me a rematch! And I sure as hell don't know jack about necromancy!"

"Dude, it's fine! I'm not looking to end myself no more!"

"Babe, babe..." A hand coils around his neck, softly, but firmly. An ebony skin belonging to a high boar, the winner of their duel.

A rather strenuous effort she makes to avoid her new husband from literally jumping at the bed-ridden man, searing axes in hand "Ain't no way you go croak with that mantle of yours! I'm grabbing that first!"

"Guy, I'm not even a champion anymore! Did you not even watch the fight?! I was defeated!"

"Tsk....that! Doesn't matter! You still owe me a scuffle!"

"Oh, yea?! Well, riddle me this: how can I do that when I'm literally still recovering?!"

"That's on you, dude! You're the one with that mental deficit to try and off yourself like zealot junkie!"

"I didn't know they did things like that here! How was I supposed to know?!"

"Did you not read the pamphlet they distributed to us?! Are you illiterate or something?!"

"I didn't get the damn pamphlet--

And they kept screaming at each other, to the high boar's embarrassment and Galeria's exasperated sigh prompting her up from the bed. Well, not before a promise to come back when things are less...heated.

And heated, they would be, with more coming in droves simply to argue with the ex-champion about his less than sound 'heat-of-the-moment' act, often referring to a piece of paper he never received, the handler falling asleep midway to his door before the event.

All the while Galeria returned home, disrobing alongside the sleeping sun. Her delectable body soothed by the decrease of silk binding it tight. Slowly waltzing to the bathroom, glistening thrice in the sweat of unfulfilled passion soon washed away. Her golden hair, her fair visage, her womanly assets, all washed, all renewed, coupled with the more typical attire of elven... --- The night hits the sky, populating it in its blanket of stars. The arena suffers reconstructing efforts after the mettle of two champions. The city falters to slower outer activity, the denizen opting to remain indoors.

And Reese, looking through the window to the city's nightly dress was welcomed to another set of dresses. Knocking at the now deceased door, Galeria stood, seductive as any woman looking to get noticed.

Bundle of high-end silk, worn by lavish nobles. Unlike her regal attire, this one exacerbated her curves and shapes, looking nude while bathed in fabric, all black, semi-gold. Even her blindfold is masked in a way to entice rather than dismiss.

~Are you all alone, my fairest?~ Her pace is deliberate towards her quarry, stunned by what he saw prancing his way. This blatant staring, only rescinded by a portion of words uttered back then...

"Ehm...ahh...a...actually..." Reese forces his jaw back to place, the latter busy proverbially salivating with wanton abandon at sights others have fallen for before "You mentioned something about a Forgotten Gate?"

Surprised by his question, Galeria drags the closest chair near the bed, a curious expression behind her blindfold "Well, yes. I...I waited here for the longest part of my life looking for someone. Someone to accompany me to a place forgotten. A pathway to somewhere deep in the past. A place where ancient things dwell. Ancient creatures, ancient constructs".

"I'm surprised you even needed someone, to begin with" Reese's back growls in effort as he forces himself to a sitting position "I mean, I've tasted that emerald shower you just drowned me in. I'm pretty sure you could have dominated your way to whatever is..."

Her braid transits from his spot, yielding to her shaking head "No...I wouldn't have. Not even as I currently am. I needed--No! I...wanted someone to accompany me. Someone with which I would share an unshakable bond with..." Focused on her mesmerizing facial features, Reese could see her hand making its way to his, to then take it in her own scaly set of fingers, a reminder of what once lingered under.

He holds her palm back, taking it in fully. Her hidden eyes turn to him, a mix of overwhelming joy and relief. An answer as quiet as the breathing night, scoring yet another breath-taking smile on her lips ~I knew you would so casually accept. I am glad to see fate bless me with coincidence~

He looked back to her, unable to resist the peerless visage shining brightly to him. His mind, however, was slightly curious "A coincidence you say? So, you met someone like me before?"

"Actually, the tome you kept spelled it for me" By this moment, Galeria already had her hands on his tome left on the side "The man who made this...he still lives".

"Ohh, I'm sure. He just disappeared somewhere--

"No, no. I know of it. His current location".

"What?!" Reese slams his hands on the bed rail, painfully reminded of his broken state by torn muscle "Argh! That's painful".

"Yes. The Shimmering Gauntlet. Fought as a gladiator. Spirited to a place like this one by the winds of fate. Met someone like me, another Wyvarian, again, by fate. He and his new dearest, the Aureate Claws. Drifted to another gate in search of a mystical item left by our kind, much like the first couple. They went to the Lost Path, broken and left incomplete. The man you venerated, he and his companion went through the Forbidden Path, sealed and exiled from existence".

"Did they find it? Whatever is on the other side".

"They have. A piece, at least. A hundred years from before now. Remained to these fantastical paths to the past, beyond the danger they crossed...until they came back, leaving the wondrous coves in other planes empty. All of the wonderful buildings, the nourishment, everything from the golden past, waiting for them".

"Returned? Why? I mean, did they go back? Was there something that--

"Oh, no, no, nothing serious. They just said that 'it was no longer a place for three'. Something along the lines".

"So..." Reese takes a deep breath "You know where he currently is".

"Why, yes! Like the first one to join with one of us toward the Lost Path, he lives among us, sometimes coming back to the place where they met. I've met him, once.  He told me that, like the first one, he made a tome out of the first one, and, with his popularity rising, improved on it and had him printed. All of his teachings, hidden between the line, hoping that someone would catch on to them and, well, here you are".

The tome falls from her hands, looking to pluck his in them "Fate sought to make him right. Guide you to this very place where the first and second of our kind would meet someone that would compliment us".

Reese gently clenches her hands in his "So, fate, huh? Fate dragged me here for a relic? All this power for that. I'm fine with that. Honestly, I've been waiting to see the extent of this gold stuff anyway. If it means walking with you to some weird part of the past, then I'm in".

~I'm glad to hear it, beloved~ Galeria leans in to meet his side cheek midway. This cheek rub turns to a kiss, one of her hand twirling his face for their lips to meet at the center. Then, it turned to a straddling, Galeria fully intended to make use of her sultry attire, palpitating to be rid of her purity.

~But first...the more important matter~ Reese's sheets mysteriously disappear, leaving but his battered body exposed to the world...and the elf.

"Woah, woah, you forget the ring--" Another soft kiss drowns his sentence away as her hand plucks away the straps to her dress, revealing her sublime breasts, untouched by hands other than hers for all too long.

Moving mere inches from his, her panting does not forbid her from speech ~Ahh...The ring...Ahhh, it can come later...I have been waiting fifty years to become someone's woman~ She leans, wholly loving, wholly yearning, whispering to his ear ~After all...you still owe me, Golden Hand~

Her lips smirk, her blindfold dissipates while moving from his lobe, washing him in the sight of a blushing elf. His hindquarters feel her weight lashed in something humid, recognizing what was occurring. Thrice she has attempted intimacy. Thrice she was slandered in interruptions. No more.

With his eyes thoroughly burned with the body of a Dragonite elven, Galeria leans on to him in a much more intimate manner, prompting his arms to instinctually join on her waist. His pants, as well as her underwear, both were unfastened by a 'mysterious claw' of an all-too-familiar apparition to Reese. This unraveling lets his body commit to what his mind already sought from her walking in a provoking dress.

"You know I'm still broken by our bruising, right?"

~Ohh, right. I forgot you never had your set of new realities. Well...~ Galeria leans in again, close to a cut on his cheek. Her mind flashes to her spear cutting close through his helmet. Her crimson lips come in a part and kiss it. The tiny lash soon knitted itself, flowing with a barely visible band of purple.

Reese, being as aware of as she is, could easily recognize the work of mana "Did...did you just kiss my cut back to health?"

Her hips move upward, one hand holding something special to her body, halting its vigorous throbbing. All while sending a channeling of her seductive glare back to her impendent husband in name in action ~Individuals like me are able to nurture humans back to health with the aid of a precious aliment called Demon Energy. But, it requires a special condition for it to decipher our intent~

Slowly, her hips lower, taking in his hardness. Slowly, gradually, inch by inch. Galeria feels her purity rupture, her face slightly winced in pain. A meager price for the one in which she encircles her arms around, again, mere centimeters from his confounded expression ~The stirring motion of lovemaking~

Reese could barely speak, clinging on to his will's strength, literally under the pleasurable assault of an elven's body, only by bouts of guilt "Did...did you just throw your virginity away? You know...I...was fine waiting--

Snapped for the third time by the kiss of a tearing Galeria, overjoyed to be rid of it ~Beloved, I have been holding on to it for fifty years. To cast it away to my faithful half is but insignificant to the boundless happiness I bath with our connection. Besides...~

Washing her cheeks clean of her persisting tears, she kisses him again, unable to withstand the idleness of them two. Her tongue pokes out, a clear demonstration of her hunger for love, hunger for pleasure, hunger for the merging of two to one ~...I always have been curious about this act. To see it entangle me so easily, it makes me hunger for more. To know that I could heal your wounds with my body, it was...irresistible to fathom.~

"I...I can see why". Delicately, his hands cling to her back, a joined cowgirl between the two "Well then...I'll gladly...submit to your rapid alternative".

~Oh no...this won't...be rapid...not at all...Ahh...This will be...slow...and reminiscent...It needs...an extended time...for your...extended wounds~ Excuses for the champion looking to taste her victory, closing her eyes as she began moving, knowing now that none would think of interrupting her. Not as the hospital now glimmers in a candle of gold, held hostage by the gigantic apparition slumbering over it as a sigil, ready boom its deepest growl to anyone with the heart to halt the champion from 'feasting' on her defeated foe... --- Then, they left. A year later, with old scores settled. Their retirement from the scene. As lone champions. As joined couples. They ventured deep to the realm of reptiles, a promise to return one day.

A daughter meeting her parents. coveted in warm embraces.

The parents meeting the son-in-law. A handshake between men recognizing the other's worth.

The son-in-law meeting his idol. And... Reese faltering to his fan's instincts, fawning to his idol even with the power he wielded.

And them, their traveling to a spot hidden in the fog. The third gate, the Forgotten Path and the guardian they must defeat. A construct made of cubes, connected by ancient magic. A preview of the obstacles beyond its crumbling carcass... --- Five years. Five years passed since their disappearance. Others came and went, escorted to the coliseum. An upgrade from the stadium since the Golden Hand and Goldwing. Rumors came to be born among many.

Rumors left to falter as the newest tournament was minutes from starting. Invested spectator filling the elevated seats.

Bored nobles looking for a time sink in the more exclusive lounge rooms.

Old champions and contestants, since elevated in fame yearning to take to the nostalgia, and curiosity towards new arrivals. The men, most of all.

People such as the Jaguar man, the Luminescent Arrow, the Iron Mongrel and more in tows with their wives. The parents, leading their children alongside, young eyes waiting to be amazed. Some, instead, tug at their parents, looking to be carried. A funny image for the father and mother to lean down for their youngs, walking them to the place where they met and promised to each other.

Among them, Reese in the crowd. His hand lovingly coiled around the waist of an elf in a white mantle, her blindfold taken in the same color. Both of their hands, sleeved with a singular golden ring, a promise he held before their departure.

The other feign excess surprise. Men shaking hands with the ex-champion. Women sending a wink to Galeria upon seeing her basket wolven with pure white silk within held preciously by the elven.

They take to their room, a luxurious palace of a piece waiting for all of them. Galeria affectionately puts the basket on the bed, reaching for the insides with a hand before moving away, joining her husband at the window.

A banter displayed at the magnified coliseum of new gladiators and their greeters. Mostly a selection for the monsters to indulge in while the men hurl their best quotes.

~Fufu, I wonder, will there be any winners this year?~ She whispers, tenderly held close by his arms.

"Well, according to the last ones, none of them came close to winning anyway. I wouldn't put it past for this batch of new rivals to experience their first loss".

~I wouldn't put it past them either~ she replies, the two turning to the door, feeling someone coming.

It opens, revealing an old friend to Reese "Barry! It's...been a while, has it?" His hand comes stretching forward, taken in a firm shake "Seems that Cally sought to tone you a bit, huh?"

"You're telling me..." The agent has returned, changed, and unchanged. His eyes, purple. His skin, caramelized. His structure strengthened.

Or, his voice persistent. His demeanor, largely untouched. His attitude, the same as they once met before.

"I think it matches you well with your tender half~ Galeria interjects, causing the agent to simper in a sly blush.

"You're telling me...but anyway..." He steps in the room, looking at the next batch of people that might have been recruited by less favorable coalitions. His efforts, literally on the sand.

"I didn't expect the two of you to return with that magic adventure you left on".

"Neither did I, with what lies behind. Caught some frames if you want" Reese tosses him a few memory crystals, a picture in time of 360 degrees.

"Well, what brought you back, then?" Taking one, Barry sets it active, waiting for the miniature gem to crystallize its content to human eyes, his purple irises.

"Oh, nothing serious...~ Galeria paces to the bed, close to her basket. Her unclothed hand takes hold of its grip, moving the thing with seemingly excessive caution. She sets the bassinet on her thighs, a smile beyond her blindfold ~It's just...my husband and I...we both realized this was no place for three~

"Ahh, ok---wait! Three? But, wait! I remember you saying this was something the two of you embarked on!"

"Yes, she did". Reese nods, a bolstered grin on his face.

"Well, what's this 'three' thing, then? You didn't happen to pick someone midway, did you?"

~No~ Galeria subtly shakes her head before looking back to her basket, sometimes, moving a hand within.

"Ok...if you didn't grab a third someone or find one in this magic jumbo, well, that only leaves--" He stops, his mind caught on to his ex-client's smirk. Galeria's unusual attention to the basket. He can't help but smile a bit "No way..."

He approaches the sitting elf, quick to feel his pace. She presses a button on the basket, enabling the other half to slide down "No way".

~Wakey, wakey. A nice man wants to say hi~ Her whisper is motherly. Her disposition is centered. Her body, enchanted as his own wife was.

"No way! Out there?!" He sits softly, looking to avoid startling the infant in the basket. A diminutive stature of her mother. Sharp and elongated ears, if thin to her size. Tiny green hands clinging to the sheets covering her. Small ruby eyes slow to open.

Looking through his elevated eyes, Barry can easily see a miniature fledging of a dragon snorting near the infant's head. A baby symbol of their child's potential "Woah, they all are small, are they".

"Ohh, your newborn was as fragile as well?"

"Newborns. And, yes. They were. I was a bit surprised, to be honest. Cally wasn't".

"Fufu, well, dear friend of my dearest, meet Mimie~ Finally unable to resist, Galeria takes to the basket, tenderly clasping her fingers on her little one, taking her tiny head to her bosom. Her broad eyes open, looking at the visage of another parent while his stare brings him to her feet. Embedded in scales, just like her mother.

The tiny dragon now rests on her shoulder, trying to keep its balance despite Mimie fixated on her mother like an anchor.

"Yes. Surprisingly..." Reese had since turned from the window with the new combatants waiting to be called out "...nobody really wants to start a family in a place foaming with danger for a newborn".

"Indeed, it was better to close this little chapter to open this one. Isn't that right, Mimie?~ The infant smiles broadly at her name being called out, giggling.

"So, we bought a home here and moved our stuff in. What better place for her to live in than the one that literally brought her in our arms, to begin with?"

(By the way. Anyone curious about the Wyvarian, here)