Book VII: A Master and his Doll
Chapter LV
"Ladies and peons!" Juliani announced over a loudspeaker to an entire arena full of screaming fans. "Welcome to the Argentum Entertainment Center, where fools come to have a rude awakening!"
"Please give a round of the most sarcastic applause to the fool who accepted this challenge," Theory announced in her quiet voice. The ice blade decorated in icicles was the shy one of Juliani's two blades, but rumored to be the more powerful of the two.
The second one, Praxis, was decorated in water bubbles, the two wore similar shades of blue and almost looked like sisters.
"Open the gate you filthy peons!" she announced as two burly-looking men opened the gate that Azami and I waited behind.
We walked out and I immediately took a look around.
The large, metal gate began making a bunch of loud clanking sounds as the guards went in behind it as it closed with a loud thud.
The arena was large, I was in a giant open area full of sand, rocks, and the bones of humans, nopons, and other creatures, along with cracked core crystals. When blades had their core crystals cracked, they typically never returned to their core crystals, they simply died. But it was obvious that once the driver died, the blades returned to their core crystals, and then were left to get trampled on by whatever afterwards. This place already sickened me.
I looked up at the crowd, all females. The only males were wearing embarrassing outfits and selling beverages while getting constantly harassed.
"Allow me to explain the rules peon," Praxis said through the speaker. "You will be faced with three rounds of combat, survive and you win, fail and join the piles of bones you see around you. The crowd has decided that you will be given the most difficult rounds that we can offer, due to your most heinous crimes against the general public. No one has ever even attempted this difficulty, and no one has ever survived even our easiest difficulty."
I had finally realized why Juliani offered me this deal. I was a criminal under Adonis' orders, and she had been the one to capture me. I was nothing more than a publicity stunt, and I had fallen right for it.
"Azami," I called out.
"Yes, my darling driver?" she answered with a giggle. She didn't seem to care about where she was or what was going on, she seemed happy just to be with me. It was... both comforting and unnerving.
"I'm not going to die here, will you lend me every ounce of your strength?" I asked.
She let out a haunted giggle. "Oh love, I could never hold back anything from you."
"That's all I ask," I said, ignoring the chill that went down my spine.
"Bring forth the first beast!" Juliani announced with a very lighthearted giggle.
The gate began opening with loud metal clicking sounds, and a terrifying agonized scream-laugh mix echoed from the other side. Immediately the entire arena smelled of blood as loud thuds of it walking began filling the environment.
"Five hundred years ago, it was discovered that the ancient civilization of Indol did experimentation on the refugees it promised to save," Praxis began explaining as the beast began stepping into the light. "These poor souls were mixed with blade core crystal technology and were turned into half Titan, half human monsters. These beasts could no longer distinguish between life and death, and exist in so much agony that the only way for them to truly satiate their own suffering is by enforcing their suffering on others. Careful! These beasts are known to play with their victims and torture them to a horrid, agonizing death as it then plays with your disemboweled corpse."
"That doesn't sound too friendly...," Azami pointed out.
The beast finally came out of hiding, showing itself to the world. It was massive, more than five times my height and probably more than ten times my weight. It's eyes were bright red, as if a machine was what was keeping it alive. It had the head of a monster, a few horns, and a large mouth. It's claws were nothing to laugh at either, and the laugh-cries it kept emitting were bone-chilling.
"A new toy, has come to play!" it wheezed out in an extremely raspy, pained voice.
"It's suffering," I said aloud in realization. "How long have you been like this?!"
"I'm... going to rip you apart. And... play in your blood!" it said, now laughing hysterically.
"Why can't we fight something cuter?" Azami whined.
https/youtu.be/GlHBmlnYFe0
"What- happened to my body?" it asked. It even seemed confused.
"You don't know? You've been like this for five hundred years," I answered, trying to understand what this was.
"Wh-Where's Amalthus?! I want to kill him too!" it said, almost excitedly.
"Hunny," Azami said to me. "I don't believe this creature cares what you have to say."
The monster stood up on its hind legs. Revealing a very human face on its chest part.
"You're right!" it answered excitedly, for sure this time. "I want to use your blood to heal my wounds! Oh lovely day, lovely day..."
It than began humming happily to itself.
I felt my stomach knot up. This... this was too much.
"Alright mommy," it said, and to my disgust I realized that this had once been a little girl. "I will play with others! Just like you wanted me to! And then my pain will end!"
She stopped and began cackling. "I promise I'll be a good girl!"
"Azami, ready!" I shouted as I pulled my sword from its sheath.
Azami leaped backwards and began charging her ether cannon.
"I know!" the monster said as she began laughing. "Let's play tag! I'll start."
She immediately charged at me at an insane speed and tried to claw me. I extended my right arm and engaged the ether shield, blocking the blow. However the force threw me a back a good bit.
The crowd shrieked in excitement as I got hit.
"Azami, don't you have a certain shot that should end her immediately?" I asked, remembering that her cannon was much more powerful than most other blades'.
"Not something that big, my adorable driver. However, if you weaken it enough, I believe I'll have a sublime shot," she explained with a grin.
"Fine, I'll do my best," I said, putting an earth ether crystal into the sword's socket. "This should do it."
With an earth ether crystal, my sword now hit with more of an impact. My sword was now more like some sort of hammer, despite not changing shape, and slicing was near impossible.
I quickly moved forward, slamming my sword into the beasts claw as it tried to swat me away. This caused the beast's hand to bounce up away from me, leaving an opening. I then slashed upwards, right across the beasts human face. However, instead of cutting, this launched the beast into the air, and the opposite reaction put me back on the ground.
The beast landed on the ground, and began coughing up blood as it stood back up.
"I'm going to kill you!" she shrieked at me as she began charging at me.
"Oh my beloved!" Azami called. "You should come here for a minute!"
I didn't know what she was planning, but I trusted her, so I ran back towards her as fast as I could, with the beast trailing close behind.
"Oh my you are so adorable when you run to me like this," she said as she got all flustered.
"Please tell me... you have... a plan!" I shouted as I ran towards her, trying to keep my breathing up.
"Of course!" she giggled. She waited until I was right in front of her before she grabbed my shirt and tripped me, causing me to tumble past her. She then focused her ether cannon at the beast as it approached her.
"DIE YOU STUPID DOLL!" the monster yelled.
"My my!" Azami giggled. "You're a rude little one aren't you? What would your mother say?"
The beast stood up on its hind legs, revealing her human face again.
"My... my mommy?" she asked in confusion.
"Goodbye sweetie," Azami said before blasting the beast square in the face with a bright purple ether beam that lit up the entire stadium.
Once everyone recovered from that blinding light, the beast fell backwards, its life leaving its body.
"Oh... I... I just wanted... to play...," she said with a sniffle.
I walked up to the beast and put my hand in its large, clawed hands.
"Rest easy, child. Go see your mom, she's waiting," I said, trying to ease her pain.
"M-My mommy... she's... waiting? For me?" she asked in her tortured voice.
...
https/youtu.be/wTTeu_iEQqA
"I don't want to go outside Mommy!" the young girl said, arguing with her mom.
"Listen hunny, I want you to go make friends! You can't expect to go your whole life without talking to anyone do you? Our life on Indol is hard enough, please?" her mother pleaded.
"The boys only want to play war and the girls all think I'm a freak!" the girl argued.
"Baby, you're still so young. With all these rumors of war, you are going to want to have friends! I just want you to try, for me!" the Mother continued.
"NO! I WON'T DO IT!" she yelled as she ran to her tent.
The refugees all lived in a big tent society on Indol, which was a very small Titan. The people protested blades day and night, and how they only caused war. Now that's all anyone talked about, and she wanted no part of it. To be honest, she had met a blade once, a pretty fire blade with a bright green core crystal. Though they never exchanged words, the little girl couldn't help but feel that blades weren't evil. After all, how could someone so pretty be bad? That's why she was considered such a freak.
She didn't leave that tent again, so she didn't know that her parents would never see her again.
"Mommy? Where are you?" she called out, leaving her tent. She felt so bad about earlier, her mom just wanted her not to be so lonely, and she had pushed her mom away over it.
"Mommy? I'm sorry! I'll be a good girl from now on... I- I promise!" she called, but there was no answer.
In fact, there was no one around. Maybe one of the Indoline guards would know?
"Have you seen my mommy?" she asked one of the guards.
"It seems we missed one," he said. "Round her up with the rest, we have a schedule to keep."
For the next few months, she was tortured and experimented on. The pain she endured throughout that time, it's the only thing she could remember. She kept forgetting about the way her body changed, the way she had claws and a murderous voice. Her body throbbed and throbbed and wouldn't stop throbbing. The whole time she would only scream, or whimper, the same phrase.
"I'm sorry Mommy, I promise I'll be a good girl!"
...
"I-I promise... to be good," the monster said one more time before her body finally stopped throbbing.
I was engulfed in a pure rage.
"HOW COULD YOU?!" I shouted out into the crowd. "HOW COULD YOU LET HER KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS?!"
The crowds were half cheering and half booing. Soon, Juliani's voice came over the loudspeaker.
"I'm afraid we can't hear you peon, we're in an arena of over one thousand people, your voice is lost, but you look angry! Was that fight too easy? Well fear not! We have round two approaching as we speak! Let's get ready ladies!" she announced as the crowd went up in a roar.
I only remembered praying that the next thing I had to fight wasn't anything like that...
...
"Master, we have passed through Gormott and will be arriving at Argentum next," KOS-MOS announced to Acacia.
Acacia sighed. "Why did you start calling me that again?"
KOS-MOS didn't respond.
"Fine, whatever, just get us there soon."
She knew they didn't have long. Who knew what Juliani had planned for him?
All Acacia could do, was vow to get there as soon as possible.
After that, they'd save Mythra.
Readability Level: 11-12th Grade
Time Taken: 4 Hours