William Winthrope
A wall of noise immediately crashed into him. The deafening clash of battle exploded throughout the room to the point that there was certainly some sort of barrier preventing the sound from leaking out or he would have heard it before entering.
Blood was splattered across the dome room, like red paint splashed on a giant canvas. Armored guards lay dead and lifeless on the floor, the few remaining huddled against the wall trying to fend off a severely injured woman in the same red robes as the old man he had seen before. Fighting by her side was a lithe stone pokeGirl, throwing her fists in deadly punches.
They were not the eye-catching part of the room however. At the furthest end from him was a large scaled beast. A Wyvern. The pokeGirl was the size of a large horse with the same pearly white scales tipped in a pale green the snake he had fought before had. A great set of matching wings sprouted from her back to add to her four viciously clawed feet. Two black horns hooked out her forehead that ended in deadly points if she managed to gouge someone, and a flash of green shone when her head flipped to the side revealing a green diamond inlaid between her horns.
The Wyvern was battling a mostly naked man wielding a massive sword. Anywhere he had skin showing, and most of it was besides the pair of boxers he had on, was marred in bloody wounds. Not that the Wyvern was in pristine condition, she had a fair few injuries herself, but not nearly as bad as her opponent. The Wyvern herself seemed to be protecting another pokeGirl that had fallen in battle: A Hei Bedu more commonly referred to as a Water Wolf. Her watery figure lay shimmering on the ground in a shrunken form that members of the Aqua Family took on when they suffered too severe of damage but were not in their humanoid form.
This all spelled terrible news for William. Not only was he not expecting people to already be in the final room, but a fucking Wyvern! She was a creature of the highest form of the Draconian Family, ending up as a Dragon in her final evolution. They were virtually impossible to dominate and conquer due their strong will and sense of pride. This prevented them from being captured and tamed at all unless a Holder utilized a bond formed before they turned.
Fighting a Wyvern would usually be a pointless venture but this one seemed to be oddly weak, the Imps only offering further proof to the ongoing fight right now. If she was at her full strength the humans in here would have been no match.
Seeing that the man battling the Wyvern had put up a decent fight so far, William decided that his best shot was to aid him in defeating her. He charged forward, dodging the lifeless bodies of the Queen’s guard. Before he could make it halfway across the room a flying body crashed into him.
The stone pokeGirl, a Lithipi if he remembered correctly, had tossed one of the guards in the air with the velocity of her punch, crushing his ribs and killing him immediately on impact nearby. The small band of guards had lost their position against the wall and were quickly backing up into him in their retreat from the Lithipi and the woman commanding her.
William quickly danced to the side, avoiding being trampled in the stampede of legs. Despite the massacre, the guards had impressively maintained their defensive formations in their retreat backwards. William didn’t want to get involved in their battle, and he snuck out of the ire of the powerful Lithipi, doing his best to ignore the screams of pain as she crushed another soldier.
He neared the intense battle between man and pokeGirl. A rain of razor sharp claws were currently beating down on the blonde man, and a familiar black tattoo flashed as he desperately defended himself.
‘Eli…?’
He picked up his speed, now sprinting to close the last 50 feet separating them and entering the fray. A sharp SWISH cut through the air, giving him a momentary warning. The Wyverns lithe tail tipped with a deadly ball of spikes at the end swung through the air having sensed his impending approach.
William slide to the ground, avoiding the decapitation the Wyvern was aiming for. He hit a blood puddle as he went down, propelling him under the pokeGirl like a water slide. He scrambled to his feet with a new red coating covering his body on the opposite side of the Wyvern, now next to Eli.
William wiped the fluid covering his face and called out, “Eli, what the hell is going on!”
“Stay out of this Pip! She’s mine!” A blood-crazed, possessive look clouded Eli’s eyes. Wrapped around his wrist was a Binding Collar, where he got it from as a nude man William did not know.
“Are you insane?! It’s a fucking Wyvern! There’s no way you’re going to tame it!”
“My bond with Kate is the strongest it can be. I didn’t do this for nothing!” Eli replied in a rage.
William stood there stunned. ‘Kate? What do you mean ‘his bond with Kate’? You mean that thing is -‘
WHOOSH
The sound of the tail slicing through the air sounded out again, this time making contact with William as his mind raced. The Wyvern tail thumped into his chest, sending him flying backwards and crashing into the white wall behind him.
It was his turn to contribute to the blood that seemed to cover the entire room, and his vision swam. A faint ringing noise echoed in his ears and he couldn’t seem to hear the blurry battle he was witnessing as he reached up and felt the back of his head.
His hand came away wet with blood, sticky strands threaded in between his fingers. William felt like he was in his own silent world separate from the disaster unfolding in front of him. Beyond the Wyvern, Kate, he reminded himself, he could see an injured guard slip past the stone pokeGirl and slash the preoccupied master. The woman opened her mouth in a silent scream before whipping around and cutting down the injured man easily.
In an instant the world came crashing back. The loud roar from Kate shook the ground, and steel hacking against rock flooded his senses, drowning out the slight ring in his ears. Kate had suffered another injury, a matching scar along her side to that of the one on her chest that managed to cut through her juvenile scales. A blue blood oozed from her side and she was clearly breathing heavily as she went on the defensive.
William struggled to his feet, stumbled as he regained his footing. He watched on in horror as Eli brought his massive sword down once more, tearing through the delicate pale webbing that made up Kate’s wing she shielded herself with. The dam that was the numbness that engulfed his body finally broke at the sight of Kate in such pain, who was now desperately trying to scramble away, and instead an absolute fury to protect her set in.
William heaved a dagger from around his waist with all his might. It tumbled end over end across the void that separated them before striking true into Eli’s shoulder blade adding another injury to his torn body.
A howl escaped from Eli but his attack had managed to pull his attention from Kate. Eli’s eyes met his in a look that even William couldn’t recognize. He was a completely different person in his altered state, a new part of him showing now that Kate was up for grabs. The madness cleared for a moment when he saw through William’s trickery to distract him. The blood rage returned to his eyes and he turned his back to William in his charge at Kate.
Kate had tucked her body as close as she could against the wall without crushing the wounded Water Wolf behind her. For whatever reason she refused to abandon her fellow pokeGirl, defending her with what would surely end up being her life.
Eli covered ground much faster than William could, and began to engage with Kate. A weak stream of fire burst from her mouth, singeing Eli’s side as he maneuvered out of the way. His injuries were starting to stack but Eli showed no sign of slowing down.
William hobbled as fast as he could, the world started to twist around him again with each step he took. Luckily as he progressed forward, the clearer his head felt as his body readjusted to his movement, but his time was up.
Eli brought his sword down once more to cleave her wing clean off. It would be a fatal blow unless she was tamed and allowed to recover in a Ring of Binding, all of which seemed to be Eli’s plan.
Kate's eyes along with the emerald gem inlaid into her forehead exploded with a green light before Eli’s fatal attack could land home. On his downstroke, a thick pillar of white stone exploded from the ground, meeting Eli’s sword in resistance. The pillar struck his sword in the middle of the blade, a weak point in its creation, shattering it into two separate pieces.
The green light faded from Kate’s eyes, and a new light emitted from her, an ephemeral light. Her Wyvern body disappeared and a slightly altered Kate's human body collapsed to the ground, landing on the Water Wolf’s body.
Eli on the other hand, was momentarily stopped, dumbfounded. It gave William a moment more to gain ground on the pair and was almost upon them. The broken sword handle clattered to the ground and William was astounded as Eli reached to his back and ripped the dagger out of his shoulder. A spurt of blood followed the exit of the weapon, along with the steady outpour of blood draining down his back. It was also the first time that William could see Eli’s wounds have any effect on his childhood ‘friend’ as he grunted in pain.
The spins had calmed and William could now move mostly normally. Traversing the final portion of the space separating the two men faster than he ever had before, he was able to attack before Eli could perform the ceremony needed to bond a pokeGirl.
He managed a clumsy strike with a matte black scimitar, trying to kill Eli in a single strike while his back was turned. There was very little force behind the strike, and managed to inflict a shallow, but certainly painful, cut stretching from his shoulder to his opposite hip, cutting right through his dragon tattoo.
AHHHH
Eli let out a cry and stumbled forward, barely managing to keep his balance. He turned and swung the dagger wildly, trying to fight off the unseen attacker. Bringing down his second scimitar William sliced cleanly through Eli’s forearm. The wrong forearm. Eli had managed to lift his left arm, his non-dominant arm, up in time as a shitty but effective defense against William’s impending strike. That still left the dagger in his hand ready to be used.
Eli used the sacrifice of his left hand to lunge forward with William's own dagger, impaling William in the thigh. He rocked back for a step and Eli dove forward and tackled him while he was unbalanced.
The two fell to the ground hard, wrestling in a sweaty, blood mess. William was forced to dismiss his blades to free up his hands and fight for leverage against his quickly weakening opponent. Their match lasted for several minutes, fighting for domination using any dirty tactic they could think of: Spitting in eyes, kicking crotches, and biting fingers to name a few. They were like two children battling for the last piece of chicken left before winter set in, only the stakes were somehow much higher.
The blood draining out of Eli’s body finally caught up with him, and William managed to best him, pinning him down underneath him. And William didn’t waste his opportunities. He bashed Eli’s face over and over until he was battered and bruised to be unrecognizable with blood leaking from his nose. He could tell Eli was barely holding onto consciousness, and William finally had the opportunity to withdraw his scimitars once more.
Before he could do so however, another voice interrupted the chaos.
“Don’t,” Was all the feminine voice said, cracking as it echoed over the mens’ clash.
