[BT] Sub-City Arena - Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Anyway, you know something they tend to leave out of stories when the “hero” makes some declaration or challenge? The time it takes for it to actually happen. After all, this isn’t some play or movie scene and the villain isn’t just off screen, ready to step into view.

I wasn’t really paying attention, but if I had to guess, it took a good hour and a half for Harold to show up with a bunch of mooks backing him up. Seems this still counts as a test for him so the elders of the bigoted mage faction weren’t going to nuke me from a distance. Though it probably helped the vampires still wanted to see if I could humiliate their enemies.

Hard to tell now that the moment it passed, but it probably helped that I no longer looked human. No human here, just a big naked dragon lizard thing. If anything, I was even less human than the vampires.

Anyway, you would think that with both stars in one place, everything would align and the fight would start. Nope, it took another half hour. The high up muckety mucks had to hammer out the details of this impromptu challenge. Though it did mean we got to fight in the arena instead of outside of the city, so that’s nice.

Oh, and the arena was underground, because of course it was. Though I guess it makes sense. Space is at a premium here and so what waste a view of the sky on something like an arena?

Not to say it was cramped or anything. Rather, as they led us down, I saw they had excavated the entire space under the city. All around us, seemingly so close you could touch them simply because of how mind numbingly big they were, are stone pillars. Honest to whatever deity you worship, looked like one of those dwarven holds you see in fantasy movies.

Don’t know why they bothered with such a high ceiling. But that is neither here nor there as I didn’t get to see much of it. The fighting arena was to the right of the giant staircase and I was being pushed along with some urgency. I guess 30 minutes of my time isn’t worth anything, but 5 of theirs is irreplaceable.

Still, despite the rush, I got a good look at the arena before the fight. It was clear this place was used like the colosseum of old. There was even a damn watermark half way up the arena’s wall from using the place for aquatic fights. Though maybe not boats? Maybe there’s a water environment out in the wilds somewhere?

Whatever the case may be, I was put into a waiting area slash cage that would lead straight out into the arena. Real obvious this side was for holding the monsters and such. Claw marks everywhere, including the metal bars.

Though to be fair to them, maybe the other side is like this as well? Anyway, a bell sounded and the gate out into the arena fell open. Not that I got to even leave the cage before being attacked.

Harold must have been charging up a spell while we waited as it packed quite a punch! Straight through the now open gate and right into my gut. Not sure the exact spell, it was just some kind of sphere with a nasty spin to the thing.

I want to say I took it like a champ, but we both know that isn’t true. Stupid spell knocked me right into the back wall and that is after I managed to shift to the side and deflect the thing. Guess I’m lucky it wasn’t an exploding spell?

Though Harold probably only held back on that so as to not damage the room any. While it was a sturdy cage, I don’t think they had bothered to activate any of the supernatural defense it might have. Unfortunate for him, as once I got my balance, I managed to dodge a follow-up spell and get into the arena proper.

From there, I charged the man. Though he still had those shoulder turret auto spell casters. So as soon as I got close, those little blasters did exactly that and blasted me.

You would think that after surviving the more powerful blast Harold had sent my way, these would be easy to tank. You’d be wrong, though. The little things were as dangerous as the first encounter. So, either part of the hour and a half was him getting them updated or those magical shoulder spheres were so above either of us and didn’t just vaporize me because their damage output was purposefully limited.

I lean towards the second one as I could totally see them having already decided upon minutia like this. After all, back when we first got here they managed to provide Harold with the gear in the time it took to get from the portal in, to the gate out. For that to happen, they must have had the gear ready to go.

Either way, those stupid rapid fire bursts were still just as dangerous. Good thing my flexibility wasn’t too negatively impacted by my sales. As long as I kept moving, the auto-fire wasn’t going to hit me. That was up to Harold to accomplish.

Of course, with me dodging all around the arena, he had more than enough time to charge up his spells. Nevermind what I now realized was my core weakness. A complete lack of ranged attack.

So I waited until his next spell was ready and took a chance. The turrets fire and Harold let’s go right after, likely in an attempt to hit me as I’m dodging. I don’t.

Instead, I charge straight forward! The two turret blasts reach me one after another and I swing my hands out to block or deflect them. The first blast does just that, exploding on contact with me, which is new and not very pleasant. Maybe he did get them adjusted at some point?

Anyway, this sent a couple of my fingers flying and left the palm of my hand ripped up and ragged. Didn’t stop me from blocking with my other hand, though I did manage to shift things so that it hit the lower side of my hand, losing only my pinky. Harold wasn’t expecting this in the least bit and his spell went wide of me.

The next volley of auto-fire comes my way as Harold is now stumbling backwards, trying to weave a quick defense spell. I don’t trust that, though. Instead of blocking, I throw myself into a forward roll.

Just in time for the magical sparkles of his “spell” to fall away and Harold to instead toss out a marble sized pellet. There is an audible gasp from the crowd. And yeah, glad I dodged because when that pellet hit the ground, it exploded into some way too goopy fire.

Fire which stuck around and kept burning through the floor of the arena. Not just the sand and dirt, either. That stuff hit rock and kept going till the arena’s magical defenses stopped it.

The boos from the crowd are nice to hear, but no one’s coming out to stop the match so either I’m on my own or Harold’s group are stopping any help from arriving. Worse, at this point Harold doesn’t even bother hiding his new toys anymore. I guess not rolling over on the second spell was too much of a slight for him.

Anyway, I’m now dodging the auto-fire and fire pellets. Good thing he likely doesn’t have too many of them as he chooses his shots carefully. Which also sucks because that means I can’t just dodge, I have to instantly be in position to dodge again. Though I’ll take it over him carpet bombing the arena with those things.

After a few volleys, I’m ready for another attempt. Harold wasn’t paying attention to them and so failed to notice my hands had already healed. Still, I held off.

Now ready, I put another plan into motion. Up till now, I had been dodging in both directions, but mostly to the left. In most fights, this wouldn’t matter, except we were in a round arena and Harold wasn’t moving. So I stopped dodging right at all and soon I was much closer to him than during my last attempt.

The crowd also got a bit heated so I figure they noticed what was happening. Harold didn’t though and it came as a complete surprise to him when I dodge a pellet, lost two more pinkies, and was suddenly on him. My claws stretched out to take a piece of him.

More boos from the crowd though as with a snap-hiss a blue bubble appears around Harold and pushes me back. Though the boos soon turn to laugh when they notice that I didn’t completely fail. My claws had managed to sneak in a slice before his shield activated and Harold was now sporting a nasty slice across the side of his chest.

Worse for him, this was a calculated move on my part. With how many pellets he was throwing, it had been child’s play to figure out where they were. A shame, though as it seems they needed to be primed or activated as when the leather pouch falls out from under his leather jacket; it doesn’t burst into fire despite the round pellets spilling out of it.

Though it seems Harold doesn’t trust them anyway as he scampers back from the pouch as his shield dissipates. Which seems like a good enough reason for me not to approach either. Even if that does put distance between us again.

Oh, and I might have been slightly distracted by those pellets. A bad thing to be when the enemy has auto-fire turrets. Got my attention dragged right back to the fact though, courtesy of a new hole in my shoulder.

And much to my displeasure, this is when Harold broke the silence. “YEAH! That’s right, you should have just died when I first found you. At least then you would have been human. Though I can see why the bloodsuckers were so into you, you traitor! I’m going to blast you into so many pieces people will wonder who painted the damn arena green.”

Yeah, he didn’t exactly have the most unique of insights to share besides, “I’m fucking aqua you idiot!”

He didn’t particularly like my comeback and started rapidly casting some kind of dart spell. Might as well have been a kids toy though. They did manage to penetrate my scales, but it seems I’m relatively unaffected by simple piercing attacks. My ectoplasm filled the holes back in as soon as the dart was gone.

Not that I let him in on this. I made a decent attempt at dodging all the darts, even if I put more focus on the turret fire. Though it seems Harold has learned his lesson and wasn’t standing in one place, allowing me to get close to him again.

That’s fine, I still had one more card to play. There was just a matter of waiting for my shoulder to heal. Though I had come into the fight on a mostly full ecto-tank so my healing factor wasn’t being a slouch.

Then it was a matter of waiting for the right moment. We circled the arena. Him blasting at me and at some point he started cackling? Like, I can get behind a good villain’s laugh, but he needed more practice.

Anyway, I began to force him into a corner by approaching the center of the arena. Harold didn’t seem to mind this, at least until his back was literally up against the wall. He wasn’t happy about that.

He honest to goodness snarled at me, “Trying to trap me you lizard? I had a harder time cutting the legs off of salamanders as a kid than I will removing yours!”

Serial killer much? Whatever, I was almost in position. I ducked to the right, but right away reversed directions. Harold had just sent a wave of darts in the direction and I simply let them pass through. Felt like the weirdest pin pricks ever.

Harold himself ended up dodging in the same direction I was now going and for the first time since the shield protected him, we were closer than half the arena from each other.

Blood Drinkers But Not Those Blood Drinkers - Chapter 23

I Salute You - Chapter 25