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- Chapter Eight -

- The Lord's Lady vs The Abomination -

- Bereallia -

Fleern was a strange creature; half man, half crustacean. His upper torso was that of an average man, muscled and with a blue tinge. Instead of hands, his left was a large crab claw while his right was a shell formed in the shape of a curved spear, the shaft extending a couple of feet from the elbow. His crustaceous lower half of hard shell was brown in colour and jagged in various places across its surface; his six legs, jointed in two places along their lengths, all ended in thick points. Covering the area where his waist joined the two species, Fleern wore a wide band of purple armour, with waves etched into its length. A similar piece covered his upper chest, leaving his abdomen bare, but had been etched with rotating swirls instead. Both elbows of his arms were protected by this armour as well. His face was covered with a purple helmet completely, a narrow slit from ear to ear allowing him to see clearly. A red gem sat in the centre of his forehead, while his slimy white hair hung free from a gap at the helmets rear.

In normal circumstances, Fleern was proud of his body, despite how surface dwellers referred to him as a monster to be slain. However, in his present location, he was starting to get angry at himself. The ice below him, under a tenuous blanket of snow, was slippery and his pointed legs of hard shell were having a hard time gripping it. For the fourth time in a short period he lost his footing and ended up slamming the underside of his crustacean body into the snow. With a snarl from under his helmet he flexed one leg and stabbed down quickly in anger, giving a satisfying crack as it impacted. It took Fleern a second to realise that it had not slipped; instead, it had pierced a couple of inches into the ice.

He tried it with a second leg with the same result, and then quickly followed with the other four, standing up for the first time without falling immediately back down. He was glad his opponent was not in sight, it would have been embarrassing if they had seen him so helpless. There was a reason he preferred the sea to ice, and he tended to say away from the latter; not that he had had a choice in the matter after his refusal to enter a tournament of fighters had been met with a bright light and then waking up in this snowy hell.

Ensuring to add force to his normal walk, to keep his grip on the ice, Fleern moved forward slowly and looked around. His vision was impaired by the thick snow that fell in lazy swirls around him, covering the floor, but he could still make out the mountains that surrounded him. His sensitive ears could pick out the moving of water and going by the minus temperature, Fleern guessed he was on some sort of glacier or the like.

He stepped forward slowly, head turning left and right, trying to catch sight of his opponent; but they were nowhere to be seen. Then out of nowhere, a loud wail reached his ears.

"I hate the cold!" It screamed, its tone and pitch identifying it as a woman.

For a second, Fleern was worried about an avalanche. He had heard such things were caused by loud sounds and the woman he had just heard had been screaming at the top of her lungs. However, nothing happened, so instead he focused on trying to see where the woman was. The scream had bounced around the mountainous region and so locating it by sound alone was pretty much impossible even for Fleern's ears. Suddenly, a mound of snow a couple of feet in front of him exploded outwards and revealed a rather underdressed woman.

Senestra Ayaren wore all black leather with the exception of the dark green cloak she had fastened around her neck, resting on her shoulders. She had thigh high heeled boots decorated with a horned skull at the knee and small spikes running up the front. A thick belt clinched around her waist and was buckled with another, hornless, skull above a knee length loincloth. A corset that only just covered her breasts had small square buckles across her stomach and sides while small frills lined the uppermost edge. Thick bracers around her forearms were decorated with small golden studs in consecutive rings. Senestra had long brown hair, down to her waist, decorated with red roses and dark red lipstick that matched her red eyes.

"Hetold me it was going to be exciting! Hetold me to do it for him! But he! Didn't mention! There was going to be snow!" Senestra howled, stamping around in the shin high snow beneath her and flapping her arms around to try and bat away the falling flakes.

Suddenly, she stopped and her eyes looked to the side at Fleern. Her head followed sharply, before it tipped to the side as if she were a hound who had seen a new plaything. "You're a strange one." She said, lowering her hands to her side and turning slowly to face him. "I could nearly excuse himfor sending me here." Senestra raised her hand and a red glow encompassed it before a spiked ring of black metal appeared floating above it; a smaller one hovering at its centre. "So the sooner I defeat you, the quicker I can leave this forsaken place."

Fleern narrowed his eyes, invisible in the shadow of his mask. "It seems so. Don't think I'll be easy though." His voice was smooth and handsome while at the same time, it clicked as though he had a set of mandibles where his mouth should be.

Senestra smiled and twisted her hand to grasp the floating spiked ring. Fleern lowered his spear-arm slowly in preparation for the attack, but was taken aback when the woman stabbed the weapon into her arm and dragged it down its length. Crimson blood spattered the ground in arcs while streams and droplets leaked from the large wound itself. Senestra revelled in Fleern's confusion and added to it by running her tongue along her sharpened teeth before running it from wrist to elbow; taking a lot of blood into her mouth.

"My blood is like bile in my mouth…I wonder what yours will be like." She muttered as she flicked her hand forward and her spiked weapon shot forward towards Fleern.

The half-man, half-crustacean didn't even try to dodge the attack as he raised his spear-hand and batted the weapon to the side. As he did so, he felt a sharp sting at his waist and looked down to see a strange creature jabbing a trident into him. The creature was as red as Serena's blood, and reflected the white of the snow around it. It was only about as big as his head and looked like a pudgy baby sporting leathery wings, the trident in its hand. Even as Fleern looked at it, two more burst from the snow beneath him and attacked his fleshy stomach.

With a growl, he swept his claw hand along them and flicked them to the floor. As he did so, two more jumped from the snow but this time he scuttled back quickly and pierced them both through the chest with a quick double strike of his spear-hand. Instantly upon piercing their flesh, they burst into a shower of blood, and Fleern's gaze flicked back up to Senestra.

She was giggling softly and holding her wounded arm aloft where more of the creatures would grow from bubbles and leap into the snow, digging beneath it to attack Fleern from below. When she saw Fleern watching her, she laughed louder and two slightly bigger blood creatures appeared out of her arm and dropped to her feet. Instead of sweeping forward like the others, these two remained stationary until Senestra stepped up onto them, when they raised her until she was about on Fleern's eye level.

"These are my Peekwees." She explained, holding up her right hand with the spinning spiked ring and growing more creatures from her wounded left. "Born from my blood, they seek out new flesh for me to consume. Which, in this case, is just you, crabby." She flashed her fangs and leapt forward. As she was in the air, she created more large Peekwees and used them to stay above the snow until she was right in front of Fleern.

Fleern attempted to side-scuttle but Senestra quickly followed with another well placed Peekwee. She ducked under his spear swipe and, using another Peekwee as a foothold, hit him with a left jab in his armoured chest. Fleern couldn't help but cry out as it felt like someone had jabbed him with a steel bar into bare flesh. His purple shell armour cracked and as Senestra pulled her fist away, she left an imprint of it in the material. As Fleern took a second to recover from the surprise strength of the blow, Senestra bounced up on another Peekwee and aimed an axe-kick at his left shoulder.

It struck with the weight of a forging anvil and more cracks spread across his armour. However, Fleern had somewhat recovered and while her leg was extended, he clamped it tight in his claw-arm. Senestra clenched her teeth but then smiled widely as blood started dripping freely. Fleern realised too late what she had done when a large Peekwee forced his claw apart and Senestra jumped backwards to escape.

"Don't forget that my babies don't fight for me." She smiled, bouncing off more Peekwees until she was stood a couple of feet above Fleern.

Fleern held his spear-arm low and swung in a wide arc to where Senestra was stood, but she laughed as he was nowhere near her. Then, with a scraping sound, Fleern's spear extended to about 7 feet long and the blunt side caught Senestra in the cheek. She cried out and was flung from her Peekwee perch towards the snow below her. A couple of small ones tried to catch her, but she was too heavy and she hit the snow with a weighty thud.

Now that she was off her creatures, Fleern took advantage and rushed forward, aiming to pierce her chest with one of his legs. Senestra was flexible though as she bent at the waist to avoid the blow and then wrapped her legs around the Fleern's shelled equivalent. She opened her mouth wide, flashing deadly fangs, and bit down hard. With a cry of pain she pulled her mouth away quickly as Fleern couldn't help but chuckle.

"It's a little bit harder than my armour." He said as he jabbed at her head with his spear-hand.

Again, she bent and avoided the blow, this time with her long neck; although it pierced her hair to the snow. With her legs wrapped around Fleern's, Senestra opened a free hand and her spiked ring appeared in it. She pushed it towards Fleern's leg, but instead of hitting it, a small opening appeared and she latched it to him. Fleern noticed and pulled away, catching Senestra with his spear again and throwing her backwards.

The ring was still around his leg, but Fleern couldn't feel anything different. He looked up to where Senestra was getting to her feet and saw her raise her hand in a claw shape. With a laugh she clenched quickly and Fleern felt a searing pain; looking down to see that Senestra's weapon had severed his leg. He screamed and used his remaining five legs to quickly step backwards as Senestra summoned the spiked ring back to her hand.

Fleern retracted his spear-hand, and watched carefully as Senestra stepped forward and picked up the severed limb. Light blue blood dripped from it and she lifted up until it was falling into her open mouth. She held it there for a few seconds before throwing the limb away and smiling across at him.

"Delicious… if a tad salty." She said. Two larger Peekwees suddenly burst from the snow beneath her and launched her like a catapult towards Fleern.

He reacted quickly and lashed out, extending his spear-hand in the process. Senestra had gotten used to his speed already, however, and caught the spear in her free hand as the other moved the spiked ring in its direction. Realising what she was trying to do, Fleern retracted his spear and caught Senestra in the gut with the outside of his claw, sending her crashing into the snow again. Senestra rolled a few times before jumping into the air and landing on a couple of Peekwees again. Red blood flecked her lips.

However, she smiled with a downwards glance and Fleern looked down in horror as he saw that she had managed to get her spiked ring around another leg. Before he could pull it free, it activated with its red magic and Fleern roared out, stumbling away on his remaining four legs.

Senestra reached up with her left hand and clawed four long scratches into her other arm. From the stream of blood the largest Peekwee yet appeared and rushed towards Fleern. He clashed his spear against its trident as Senestra grabbed his second leg and drained it dry.

"More!" She screamed and flung her arms forward, the two middle fingers folded in to the palm while the others pointed at Fleern.

From the wounds on her two arms, thousands of tiny Peekwees flew forth and attacked Fleern like a swarm of bees. He managed to keep the larger one at bay, but every time he defended, a clump of tiny ones attacked his flesh. The small pinpricks were mostly painless but within a minute or two, his light blue blood was flowing from all the tiny holes.

In the red mist of tiny Peekwees, Fleern had lost sight of Senestra. So he was surprised when she appeared at his back and dug her fangs into his neck. He felt her power as she sucked his blood, and tried to knock her away with his claw. However, she had anticipated the attack and stopped his claw dead with her strong grip. Fleern guessed what was coming next but couldn't pull his arm free as she latched her ring around it. As with his legs, Fleern lost an arm to the blood thirsty creature.

As he screamed, she spun on his back and drove an elbow into the side of his head. The mask covering his face cracked and then shattered revealing what was below. Fleern had the eyes of a man, wide and shocked with the pain, but his mouth was merely a gaping hole filled with thousands of small sharp teeth. With a flick of her wrist, Senestra sent a river of Peekwees forward and they started flooding into Fleern's gaping mouth.

Senestra started laughing but stopped suddenly when her Peekwees started fleeing Fleern's mouth like a waterfall. Which is apparently what followed as a torrent of water burst from Fleern's mouth and pushed the Peekwees away. Senestra was stunned and didn't see the butt of Fleern's spear-hand as it caught her in the gut and knocked her back into the snow.

Where his water had touched, steam rose and Senestra realised that it was boiling water, melting away her blood-made creatures. She snarled and jumped away, helped by some more platforms in the shape of Peekwees, as Fleern aimed his spurt of water in her direction. For a second, Senestra was worried but as Fleern lunged forward with an extended spear-hand, she realised that she wasn't really in trouble; he was starting to panic.

She nimbly ducked under the spear and caught it in a two handed grip before wrenching in opposite directions and tearing the limb in two. Fleern seemed unaffected, in the strange rage he was in, as he followed up the attack by rearing up on his hind legs and aimed his two foremost limbs at Senestra's location. She stepped around the attacks, her quick reflexes easily out-matching Fleern's speed, and when she was close enough, she delivered a heavy punch to the hard shell of Fleern's underside.

He was flung backwards and rolled in the snow a few times before coming to a stop with his shelled legs pointing into the air, his human upper body bent awkwardly. Senestra used the opportunity to latch her spiked ring around another leg and cut it free with her magic. Fleern screamed again and managed to scramble upright quickly. However, with only three legs remaining, his balance was completely off and he tipped over to crash into the snow like a beached ship.

Senestra lunged forward to her weakened prey and kicked him once in the forehead before latching her spiked ring around his spear arm. With a quick pull, she lopped it free and drunk directly from the flow of blood it sprayed across the snow. Her guttural laugh was loud and Fleern's consciousness returned as he looked down at her. It was clear to him he had lost the fight, but she continued to laugh as she took the rest of his legs until he was nothing but a legless shell with an armless human attached to the top.

"Monster." He managed to mutter as blue blood leaked from his oval mouth.

Senestra froze where she was and looked at him, his severed leg dripping blood onto her face. "Why, of course I am. It's the only reason he'sinterested in me." She smiled as she dropped his leg and held her hand aloft to summon her spiked ring for a final time.

However, as she gathered her blood-red energy, a beam of light shot down from the sky and engulfed her.

"No!" She screamed, trying to break through the light only to be shocked away from the edge. "No! I'm not finished! The creature still lives! Give me my blood!" Her screams faded away as Fleern watched the light take the woman who had bested him away.

He hung his head, wondering what would happen now, when a cloaked figure appeared before him. As Fleern opened his mouth to ask what was going to happen, the figure appeared behind him and in one smooth motion, broke his neck. Then with a flutter of fabric, the figure disappeared.