Well, it's chapter three and I'm mildly embarrassed I don't have any reviews yet, but it looks like I have followers so, hopefully someone is reading this. Don't hesitate to leave a brief review or an intricate thumbs up craftily devised of symbols and spaces and numbers. (A simple comment will suffice in lieu of a symbol picture.)


They called it the Colosseum.

In reality, it was more of a glorified cockpit, but gods were suckers for the classics, even if none of them were exactly Roman.

The Colosseum was a smallish, basement level arena. The benches that wrapped around the room in a nearly completed square were built of solid limestone, the brick walls painted an off-white. The not-quite-white magnified the yellow light, keeping the place nice and bright, but at the same time exposing the dirt and grime that gathered in corners and cracks. And in the center of it all, in the pit of the almost-amphitheater, was a bloodstained mat enclosed in a wrought iron cage.

Most nights (except Tuesdays and Wednesdays — even deities need a weekend) the arena was packed with shouting men dressed in expensive business suits waving wads of high-numbered bills. The place would fill with the woody smokes of high end cigars that floated above the underlying scent of top shelf liquors and a mishmash of pricey colognes. Excitement buzzed around the crowds like a fiery aura that all but exploded when blood began to fly.

The night Casey Nash brought his own monster, excitement nearly frothed at the mouths of men.

For the most part, members and spectators didn't bring their own monsters. Monsters were purchased at a negotiable price from the gods and kept in their cages — a boarding house of malignancy. Sometimes the gods would pit two of their own against each other, just to keep the show and the money rolling. So when Casey Nash brought in a dragon, the crowds lost their shit.

Nash — a stout man who was venturing into his sixties with balding gray hair and watery green eyes — stood beside the cage with a confidence that straightened his spine, puffed out his chest and spread a grin across his red face. Not even the gods had a dragon, and they were damn near impossible to kill. Especially in a weaponless melee against a lesser beast. Not even the god's reigning champ could hold a candle to a mother loving dragon.

"You want me to play this up or take 'er out real quick like?"

Nash looked up into the face that peered down at him between the iron bars. It was a warrior's face; a hooked nose set on a square jaw with thin lips in between, eyes that burned like embers and hair the color of charcoal. He wiggled his thick brows in eager anticipation. He wasn't scared. He had little reason to be scared. He was, after all, a fucking dragon.

"If it's all the same t' you, boss," the dragon said with a thick accent most people would place somewhere between Dick van Dyke's chimney sweep character and Vinnie Jones. "I'd like to drag it out s'long as I can." He cracked his knuckles and his neck. "Ain't every day I get a chance to really get my hands dirty. I'd rather like to enjoy this."

Nash smiled.

"These people paid for a show," he said, motioning to the crowd that had gathered to watch what promised to be an epic battle. "And we're gonna give 'em a show." He paused and his eyes shifted right to the opposite side of the ring where a young woman stood with her back turned. "Take the bitch out before she knows what hit her."

His gaze shifted left and up to a handsome featured, black haired man in a crisp white suit. The Greek. Brandishing a sincere smile, the Greek lifted a rocks glass in salute to Nash and his impressive challenger. Nash tossed him a false, toothy grin.

"Let's show these bastards there's a new champ in town," he spoke through his teeth as he waved at the Greek. He looked back up at the dragon. "If it's all the same to you, Beat."

Beat shrugged and cracked the knuckles on his other hand.

"You're t' boss, boss," he said.

And Nash was just that. Beat was less of a pet and more of an employee. A bouncer, really, and a hired muscle when one of Nash's less legal business ventures became complicated. When Nash discovered what Beat was, it didn't take much to convince the dragon to challenge the Abomination. He would be rewarded in gold and in glory, and Beat was too much of a dragon to deny himself of the chance at either.

"All bets are final!" a voice charged above the others seconds before a sharp "ding!" of a bell sang out and the crowd went wild.

Abomination turned to face her opponent. She was a sad vision; pretty, but dirty with the woeful look of a shelter dog. Her black and white hair was tied up in a messy bun with wisps of black and white sticking out in several directions. Her gray sweatpants were smeared with a rust hue and streaked with brown, an abstract of blood and dirt on cotton. Her black tank top was ratty and stained with sweat and dried flecks of blood. She looked like she had rolled out of bed and down a wooded hillside.

In short, she looked mild and tired and the antithesis of a warrior. She looked like she would go down at the second blow, if the first one didn't take her. She looked like she wouldn't even fight back.

Nash knew her looks were deceptive. Beat didn't. They were both savoring the sweet taste of premature victory.

Beat turned to face Abomination. He hopped to the center of the caged ring like a boxer with his fists up, protective but combative. Abomination shuffled towards him like a bored teenager being forced to complete an arbitrary chore. They met in the middle where he started moving in tight circles around her. She stayed still as a statue, her gaze locked on the Greek. When Beat finally caught her attention, he grinned and drove a fist into her abdomen. She arched back with the fist, but the look on her face indicated the blow had phased her about as much as a gentle breeze would have. He knitted his eyebrows together and threw a second jab, an uppercut to the jaw. She tilted her head with the strike, and she nearly yawned in the process. Beat growled, put a booted foot up and kicked her square in the gut. She wheeled back a few paces but didn't go down.

Beat was frustrated, and teetering on the edge of fury. A fire ignited behind his eyes — a real, honest to goodness fire — and his skin began to glow a hot, orangish red. Abomination took note of the fire and the lava-hued flesh and, for a moment, seemed fascinated.

"You're a dragon?" she not so much as questioned as she did state. "My mother told me your kind had gone extinct." Her intrigue fell to grave sorrow. "That will make killing you all the harder."

"You damn right it will," Beat said. He began pacing in menacing circles around her. "I'm a tough motha fucka to put down. And I don't see no sword in you hand."

Abomination looked down at her right hand and whispered; "That's not what I meant."

Nash looked up at the Greek and the woman at his side, a lovely Egyptian with red lips that matched her elegant evening gown. They sat comfortably on their perch high above the shouting crowds, amused but worry free.

We'll see how worried you look after Beat annihilates your precious Abomination. Then we'll see who the big shot is.

He drew his attention back to the ring in time to watch Beat clutch her face with his fiery hands. Abomination's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as steam rolled from her flesh. Nash pumped a victory fist in the air before she could start screaming.

Only, Abomination never screamed.

With Beat's hands on her face, he had left himself exposed to a counter strike. Abomination took it, slashing his throat open with her finger nails. The slit ran deep, spraying her hand with blood as she tore into his flesh. Beat's eyes widened in surprise and he let go of Abomination to stagger backwards, clutching his throat on the way.

Abomination looked at the blood with an uneasy fascination. She seemed oblivious to the blackened handprints scorched along her face, and was anything but surprised when the burns gradually faded and flecks of black fell around her shoulders like snow.

"You bitch," Beat growled, his voice choked and hoarse as his wounds sealed. He removed his hand from his throat, looked down at the thick smear of blood in his palm, checked his neck with his fingers, looked again for more blood and narrowed his eyes when he was satisfied he had healed. He exhaled sharply through his nose and advanced on Abomination. He put his right hand — his blood stained hand — over her face and his skin began to glow hot from head to toe. Smoke rose from the space between his hand and her face as he pushed her backwards until she was pinned between the dragon and the cage. She made a grab at his arm with her right hand — the bloodstained hand — and held it on the fiery flesh, attempting, more or less, to pry his grip from her face while ignoring the burns she was sustaining in the process.

Nash retrieved a cigar from the interior pocket of his suit jacket, stuck it between his lips and lit it with a silver zippo. His victory cigar. He had meant to light it upon Beat's triumph, but he couldn't wait. It was a sign meant for the Greek. A brash gloat. Pompous pride. He glanced up at the Greek and his Egyptian companion. Neither of them looked remotely nervous. Their blasé demeanor took the wind out of Nash's sail, and, even with Beat burning the hell out of Abomination, with his brute strength pinning her against the cage, Nash suddenly felt less confident.

Beat bore a grimace as he pushed Abomination's head against the cage with his hand, attempting to either burn her brains out or cave her head in, whichever came first. But there was something resisting either from happening. It wasn't she herself doing the resisting; she wasn't screaming into his palm, and she was barely trying to pull him away from her. In fact, her conscious resistance seemed lazy. The resistance that prevented her head from popping like a grape, that was something ingrained in the fiber of her very being. She couldn't be crushed.

This epiphany dawned on Beat around the same time Abomination put her foot against his abdomen and gave him a kick that sent him sailing back to the opposite end of the ring. Beat bounced against the iron bars and crumpled to the mat with a confused moan. Abomination descended upon him, swift and urgent, yet calm and sorrowful. A black handprint reached across her face, covering her mouth and her nose, fingers spreading across her eyes and her forehead with a long thumb mark reaching across her left cheek. When it began to flake away, it left in its wake a mild welt the color of rust in the shape of Beat's hand.

Abomination gathered Beat's shirt in her left fist and hauled him up, effortlessly hoisting him a few inches from the floor. She drew her right arm back, holding her hand not in a fist, but flat and vertical. Beat noted the welts on her hand were the same as her face, and appeared only where his blood had touched her. And he realized what he had done.

"I'm really sorry about this," Abomination delivered a heartfelt apology.

"What are you?" Beat asked with a terror that only comes to those who have witnessed Fear itself. Abomination gave him a sad smile, and plunged her hand into his chest.

The crowd lost its collective mind. Men groaned and palmed their foreheads. Others cheered, pumped their fists in the air and high fived each other. Nash's jaw dropped and his cigar tumbled to the floor.

Abomination ripped her arm out of Beat's chest, taking with it his heart. She dropped him and he fell with a dull smack. His head bounced off the mat, his glossy eyes staring straight at Nash. With a deadpan expression, Abomination held his heart up for all to see, and fixed her gaze on the Egyptian. The Egyptian gave her an elegant nod and watched Abomination toss the dragon's heart into a steel bucket in the corner of the ring.

"H-how?" a stunned Nash managed to stammer up at the reigning champion. "How did you…?"

Abomination turned to look at him.

"You need a weapon forged with dragon blood to take one out," Nash said in an accusing sort of tone.

Abomination strolled over to Nash and crouched down with her face filled with dejection.

"I am a weapon," she told him in a doleful whisper. A sudden spark lit up her eyes like a match to gasoline. Her dismal mien was devoured by something nefarious and heinous. Her lips turned up in a wicked, Cheshire grin as she brought her hand up to examine the blood that coated half of her forearm. She gave Nash a mischievous look, then flicked her fingers at him, splaying blood across his face.

Nash blinked, stunned, as Abomination stood upright. He turned his gaze up to the Greek, and was not surprised to see the Greek was looking back. The Greek raised his glass again, this time as an insincere apology and a smug "nice try".

A cherry hue gathered in Nash's face. He averted his gaze, looking instead at the cigar smoldering at his feet. He withdrew a white handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped his face, vexingly eyeing the smears of blood when he brought it down. He cursed the day (without success, as Casey Nash knew nothing about witchcraft and curses) the gods had set foot in his city and silently vowed (a promise he would not be able to keep) never to return.