20. Love-bite (2)

A lot of pained and pleasured screaming could be heard, the deeper Buzz took me with him. Then again, rather than a trafficking place for lost heroes, this was still a club. At least I didn't have to see the tits and hairy bush of a lady in front of me.

"Who will I be fighting?" I ask.

"Well, whoever still has the rush on fighting with them, and is not already dead."

The casual way he took all of this… it was quite scary to me. I could end up here, if Adleon asked for that.

The shouting got clearer, with cheering to the add. As we come to the clearing of what looked like a stage for fighting, with nets and a metal cage around the ring, I see one person standing, and another ripped apart and unrecognisable.

"And that concludes where the sixty-ninth rookie ends up… in the belly of the BEAST! May their powers feed the holy Beast," an announcer says.

The crowd cheers for this so-called Beast. A kind of cage falls around the standing person, and the remains of the fallen is collected by a crew, as the standing person hisses at them, trying to kill them.

"Guess you will be facing him. Sixty-ninth already… that was fast. Guess it all comes down to you and him."

"Now, we ask for the last contestant of tonight, the seventy-ninth rookie, to get ready."

"I'm just supposed to fight? Couldn't I have seen what the rules are first?"

"The rules are simple, one yields. And the other decides what to do to the yielder. Many of them are hungry so… the yielder usually is torn apart. So you better win. Only one match, so you are on the advantage."

"We call upon Season. Adleon would have really loved to see you getting shredded he says. But he is busy out there, ladies, so use your vibrators for tonight."

I get up and go forward, towards the door of the cage. They see me and understand that I'm Season. As they open the gate for me, I enter while gazing my hands on the metal-cage, particularly my nails.

By the time I slowly enter within the cage, the guy gets out of the net binding him. The cage closes behind me, as the guy looks towards me.

"Whenever both you freaks are ready," the announcer says.

The guy's pupils are formed as slits, in this night-like place. Interesting, he was some kind of a beast. He had slit his opponent… call him Slit, shall we?

Slit's nose twitches, as his head bops upward.

I stretch my fingers and loosen my palm.

We move towards each other, at the same time, and ready our hands. I straighten my palm, as if going for a karate-chop, but I simply push the front of my fingers towards Slit's stomach. The sharp edges on the finger-nail's tip succeeds in creating enough of a cut in Slit's tummy.

But before I can draw my hand back, something strikes my neck through my overcoat.

"Ooh," the announcer says, as I freeze while breathing in. "She just received a LOVE-BITE from this freak. Rookies, better update to our lingo soon. But one less rookie to care about the updating though."

"Beast food!" the crowd keeps chanting continuously, as I stand there in a stinging pain on my neck. Paralyzed… and feeling something wrap around my body, tightly.

"I think I'll save this food for myselfffff," Slit hisses. "Won't allow the mistake of them taking you to their holy beast. I myself am one. You're going to Swarg surely, for feasting my hunger."

The thing wrapping around me… was him?

My senses recover and I'm able to move just a bit, with something still wrapping around me, I was unable to move completely. I see thick scales around me… of some large snake wrapping around me.

As the snake completely wraps around my legs finally, the one thing I was trying to squirm to escape… I feel my neck getting freed from whatever was biting it. And the face of the culprit comes in front of mine… the face of a large cobra.

"I thought you were quite large, because of the coat. How foolish of me… but I'll take anything at this point…" Slit… somehow looking like a cobra… moves his face and tears part of the coat around my neck and shoulder. "Stay still darling."

Slit's large cobra-face moves backward and slashes back forward into my neck, to bite on it. I feel not much paralysis, but pain… but enough paralysis to only let me just tear in response to the pain.

I try to pull my hands out of the part of the scale I'm piercing, but as I do that, the snake tightens around me even further-closer, and my hand is just struck pressing in between.

"The way a snake hunts… let this be a lesson to all of you. Snakes are a superior predator. But… we can't be letting it steal the food of the holy beast."

I'm forced to take a breath, and as my chest expands, the wrapping gets tighter.

"Any second now."

It feels cold… all the blood flow… was possibly stopped. Or stopping. Any second now.

The cage rattles and opens. Some people come to hush away the snake – Slit, from consuming me. Maybe because I had stopped moving: they were comfident that it was time for this.

Slit moves away from my neck and hisses while slashing his head towards the people trying to stop him. But he still continues wrapping around me, making me feel… cold.

Cold… the sweat and moisture around: makes my body shrink, and I jump out of my coat, and out of the grasp – in one instant swoop.

"She got out!" the announcer screams in surprise. "But wait a minute… does this look familiar?"

Camera flashes go off, all around. Surely, this was something to picture, not because I was almost naked… even then… I was something piquing for at least this genre of people.

"Is she the successor of Adleon?" the announcer asks the question which everyone is asking through murmuring and whispers, and even deep envy.

The orange-tint on my skin glows with the camera flashes. This won't just be made public… but nobody could not capture even such a private moment.

"SSSAAAKKKKK!" Slit screams, feeling the cut's pain now. "Let me OUT!"

Slit knocks many people away, and grabs one person in his mouth. The person being the smallest, even smaller than how small I was now, simply fits in that huge mouth. Gun shots trigger inside Slit's mouth, and even from the outside. But none of it were sharp enough, seemingly.

I bare out my claws, and glance at them. Like with the body-size, the claws were tiny too, but sharp. As if they were needle-tip nuts.

I pounce forward, and use my claws on the upward facing throat of Slit, which was trying to gulp-down its medium-sized prey.

Slit spits out his prey. His throat was simply scarred but the pain adding to the hunger… must be quite a toll.

I look at the little person which Slit had spat out… definitely looked dead. I couldn't exactly make out who it could be.

"I… am dying…" Slit says. "Tell my lover what they did to me. Tell her I thought only of her, of getting to her. But I failed. Whoever is the kindest of heart here… please, fulfil my last wish, and bring doom on them all. Tell her…" his voice resounds out.

Slit moves in a fast gush, making me scared for a moment. But he finds his own tail and starts swallowing it… until he finally stops dead on the ground, while squirming in pain… pain which nobody tries to relieve him from.

"What a sick snake… but we have a winner!" the announcer says, making the crowd cheer. "The rookie number seventy-nine, who's going to bring home a lot of questions for Adleon to answer. Maybe all the rapes were just a disguise, he could finally have produced his own, successfully."

I stand there, and taking a little cold from the air, and wearing back my torn and crushed coat, change back.

"And look at her. Unscathed. The… Queen… of rookies for now. But who knows? Adleon sure will get a call from me tonight, guys. I'll find the truth."

I silently stand there, until somebody signals at the gate, that I can move out. I go towards Buzz.

"Marvellous… somehow zero scars, when I thought you were going to die. Badass, surely."

"Show me the way out. I'm quite bored and tired," I finally utter some words.

"Yes mam," Buzz bows, and signs me to follow him.

We don't exchange words. Though he does give still-shook and joyed sighs, here and there. But, I don't react to any.

He waves me bye, after one last bow – and goes back into the club.

I make it back to the apartment, in one piece. After closing my room's door behind me, I collapse on the floor.

Blood sizzles out, as the covered wounds are finally let to open with my orders. In truth, I could not hold it back anymore, no longer.

I moan in a muffled way, and let myself recover a bit, while bleeding on the matted-floor. Pushing myself a bit, I find the first aid box with everything in it to cover my wounds. Bleeding on towels, I somehow stitch my neck neatly… in truth, sloppily.

Scars from shapeshifting into something smaller. Wounds opened by the tight wrapping and the sudden escape from it. Broken nails, accounted by the largest wound I made on Slit.

All this… for one of them. One… quite strong surely, but not the strongest. Not even close.

How could I dream of killing them all?

And to the others… it merely seemed like… they called it as a fucking love-bite. Making me feel disgusted at my weak self. I couldn't let them see me as low… I couldn't let them see me only through the Adleon mask I wore… I needed to show them how seasons change.

But I couldn't let Buzz see me this way, what if he comes to see me? I take out the sheet of barbed wire I had brought in the noon. Added with a mosquito net, and a poisonous repellent… I should be fine from any more love-bites.

I even make the curtains closed in a way that the only way somebody could peak-in, was by tearing it.

Having lost all my strength, I don't even realise when I faint, but I do.