A Battle Lost

TW// violence

Within the first blade strike, Callisto could tell it was beyond a losing battle. This was a beat-down. A borderline public execution.

She was getting parried and forced back at every moment, and it felt like he wasn't even trying.

At this point, it was a race to not lose quickly, as opposed to any possibility of winning.

For the first time since the fire, she felt the cold grip of death on her neck, almost distracting her from the oncoming attack. A blink of a vision flashed before her eyes, someone shouting at her to run, and flames engulfing her soul.

The sword came down on her, slicing completely through the metal pipe she used to block the slash, even when the blade became covered with frost.

Nicking Calisto's collarbone, the man sheathed his blade. The expression behind his mask was hidden, but it was easy to tell he seemed uninterested.

Compared to a couple of bruises and cuts that her opponent had, her body looked like it had been through a meat grinder.

Her right Achilles heel had been cut at the start of the fight, and the pain was finally setting in. Large gaping slashes covered her body, the fabric of her clothes barely clinging on from all the tears, the blood weighing heavily on her blouse.

She could feel it with every throb of her bloodied palms, the salt from her sweat burning the open wounds on her neck.

"This all you got?" He taunted her, but she had little pride, and immediately dropped her weapons and surrendered.

She had no fight left in her. This battle was pointless. Callisto knew when to secede, she wasn't an idiot.

"Come on. Pick it back up and fight."

Her chest heaving, she mustered up her best attempt at a glare, though it ended up more like a weak glance as the man approached her.

She attempted a weak swipe to remove his mask, which the man easily sidestepped.

Callisto tried to back out of the arena, only to be pushed back in by the crowd, causing her to fall forward.

Before she could fall onto the ground, the man grabbed onto her forearm and pressed a foot against her back.

"What happened to that determination of yours?"

He pressed more weight onto the foot against her back, pushing her forward into the ground while her arm was still twisted back.

Callisto's eyes widened.

'Wait, this position, he wasn't going to-'

'Pop!'

The audible sound of her shoulder dislocating was covered by the immediate scream that followed.

She muffled her cries by biting into her mouth, blood and tears running down her face as she curled up in pain.

The crowd gasped, sounds of enjoyment filling the arena.

Even the patrons were back into the show again, the battle being too good to even care about the fact that a fellow noble was being beaten.

The man wearing the mask of Thalia kneeled down over her, the slit eyes and wide grin on his face covering an unnerving sight to see glowering above Callisto.

"You'll never kill Lux at this rate."

Her eyes widened as he murmured that into her ear, and she felt all the blood drain out of her, if there was any left.

Who was this guy? How did he know?

"Finish her!" The crowd chanted.

They were rabid, excited by the brutality.

The man dropped his hold on Callisto's arm, letting the twisted arm fall painfully on the ground.

His foot hovered over her leg, as if he was thinking about stepping on it.

She scrunched up her eyes, anticipating the pain of her bones cracking. Her fingers fiddled desperately with the nearest piece of fabric as she held her breath.

But the hit never came. She opened her eyes after a long pause of nothing and saw that the foot still hovered above her leg. Was he showboating?

"Take this woman to a healer." He yelled out over the crowd, and like magic, they began to disassemble, calling for a doctor and looking for a bed she could lie on. He picked up her body like it was nothing and held onto her until a healer came.

"Thanks for not killing me, I guess." She coughed out lamely, her mind in a fugue state and getting hazier with each passing second.

"Next time, don't disappoint me. Or it will cost your life. But then again, you've already given that up, haven't you?"

Was this guy Lux himself? He knew so much about her. Or was he with the entity she made the deal with?

Her mind was floating in and out of consciousness. She could feel her body trembling to keep herself alive, and as the blood continued to spill out of her, Callisto could feel herself succumbing to the darkness of sleep.

------

"I met the cutest girl today." The brown-haired woman named Lenore announced as Astaroth arrived back at the safe house, an area of land hidden from Lux's sight, inconspicuously settled within a hidden grove that was built back when the world was being created.

"Don't care, didn't ask." Astaroth tossed his mask off to the side and ripped his shirt off, hating the feeling of being dirty.

Lenore wolf-whistled as Astaroth revealed his well-toned figure, hardened muscle sharply contoured by battle.

"Woo! Are you trying to impress me, baby girl? Sorry, I'm only into women!"

The woman was jovial despite having a shadow monster on one side of her and a tall, muscular man with anger issues on the other side.

"We know." Both creatures on each side of her said tiredly, as if they'd been through this exact situation over a hundred times.

"Astar, where'd you go? You know you're not supposed to be in the capital. If Lux finds out you're here, he'll kill you." The void monster floated towards the man.

Despite having dark, endless pits for eyes, it managed to project a semblance of concern for the man.

"He wishes he could kill me." Astaroth hissed, anger flaring up, before returning to a neutral state.

"I was giving encouragement to the latest victim." He said dryly, and Lenore and the entity could tell that Astar was upset, even if he didn't show it on his face.

A small twitch in the eyebrow, a brief glance to the left. After centuries of being together, it was pretty easy to understand each other.

"Doing worse than expected?"

"No. Actually, doing much better than I expected. Surprised she didn't die at the first hit." Lenore could see a small smile as he reminisced about the battle. She shuddered. Men were freaks.

"So what's the problem?" She asked, flicking a dagger at him. Astaroth caught the dagger and twirled it around his fingers aimlessly.

"When did I say there was a problem? There's no problem." There was definitely a problem. If there weren't a problem, he wouldn't be getting so defensive.

"Alright, then just sit back and enjoy the ride," Lenore put her legs up onto his lap, which Astaroth pushed off without a second thought.

She then opted for the table. "If she dies we can get more. Plenty of people get desperate enough when we kill off their loved ones, right?"

Lenore got no response as expected, and heaved a big sigh, setting a small flame on her index finger to light her cigarette.

Men were so complicated.