Chapter Twenty-Six - ...And The Fall

The green skinned leader didn’t give her the luxury of battling one after another - instead she just gave a single whistle and her ten underlings spread out.

Arette grinned as she looked at them, eyes scanning for a weakness she could exploit.

She fought on instincts she’d honed in the past ten years - as soon as they came close, she rushed in, not giving them any chance to surround her.

Her sword slashed neatly against the first she’d darted towards and the man staggered backwards, a bloody gash appearing on his chest. Without waiting, Arette jumped and twirled towards her left, delivering a kick to the head of a woman planning to ambush her.

As soon as the woman was down though, another blazing pain lodged itself into her side. Another dagger - thrown by a young looking boy behind her.

She snarled and ran backwards, getting space between her and the others, unwilling to let them gain an advantage. Her eyes zoned onto the leader - the green skinned woman stood back, but her posture was ready to attack at any second.

If Arette could take her out, the group would be a lot less stable. A grin crept on her face again as she ran towards the leader, jump kicking one of the underlings as she ran.

Exhilaration flooded her veins as the wind whistled in her ears and she used the shoulder of one of the goons to propel herself close to the green skinned woman.

Optimally, she needed to take her out quickly - before the others had a chance to react to her advance and attack her.

Whirling around, she flung a decisive slash against the woman’s throat, but was swiftly blocked by the twin swords her new opponent flashed. Arette darted away, aiming at the abdomen with a kick and the head with the sword, but her enemy was even more nibmle than herself.

The woman threw herself to the floor and rolled under her, kicking against her knees so that Arette fell instead of landing.

That lapse of judgement was enough to turn the situation around.

A kick against her wrist let her sword sail away from her, another kick onto her ribs made her stay down instead of jumping upwards immediately.

A hiss escaped her and by now, it wasn’t just the leader that was lording over her - the six other people she hadn’t taken down yet had arrived as well.

One of them stabbed his sword towards her heart and she rolled out of the way, but she didn’t get far. A kick threw her back into the makeshift circle they caged her in and the sword grazed her arm, leaving a long and bloody gash behind.

Her breath wheezed past her lungs as another blow caused a sickening crack in her ribcage.

Arette stared upwards at seven sneering faces and every trace of a grin bled out of her face.

Shit.

The word stood out among the blur of her thoughts, an understatement if there ever was one. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, yet the excitement of being alive swiftly left her.

Another kick crunched her shoulder blade and she only barely managed to dodge the slash at her throat by curling into herself.

Pain blossomed over her back as the Immortals started kicking whatever parts of her body she gave them and she couldn’t even feel angry about the fact that they were toying with her when they could finish her off easily.

Instead, she felt something she hadn’t felt before. Not like this.

It was chilling and cool, a dousing of water over her fire of life and it settled herself in her guts like a stone that sunk deeper and deeper with every breath.

Fear.

For the first time in her life, Arette was afraid.

Her eyes snapped open as she stared upwards and a sword drove into her leg, piercing her flesh as if trying to skewer her alive. The faces above her blurred into nameless demons and every bit of fun faded away from her.

This wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t fun or making her feel alive.

Fighting had always been fun, even when she’d been losing, even when she was beaten, but this, this wasn’t fighting. This was a cat playing with a mouse before chewing its head off.

In that moment, Arette didn’t feel like playing games anymore.

With a loud cry she pushed the fire usually contained within her heart outwards, over her skin and the ground until it reached the feet of the people still kicking at her defenseless body.

Her flames were hungry. They flared up and ate flesh more than cloth as her anger and fear fuelled them into life. The flames bled out of her and took her over, burning her clothes to crisps, but she couldn’t have cared less about a lack of modesty at the moment.

As screams echoed over the clearing, agonizing and anguished and the kicks at her decreased, Arette fought herself to her knees, pushing the pain down in favor of anger and fear for her life and a general instinct of survival that was spurning her on.

The five weaker underlings went down easy and the sixth didn’t last longer than a minute either. The only one that remained standing under the blazes that possessed the entire surroundings was the green skinned leader - with a strength on par with Arette, even Starfire couldn’t take her down so easily.

Arette stared her down and growled, blood running down her body from various wounds. Her ribcage throbbed and her back, side and shoulder were severely battered - but none of that mattered right now. Now that the fun and excitement had left her, she knew she had to end this fight - now, before the fear in her took over and made her run as fast as she could.

It was still there - the cold, harrowing sensation of fear lodged inside of her. She was still scared, scared of that feeling of powerlessness.

So scared that she wasn’t sure she could move one more step.

But somehow, she made her feet move forwards towards the green skinned woman, who was still using her own pressure to try and contain the hungry flames that wanted to devour her.

Without hesitation, Arette punched her fist into her face, satisfaction settling in her as she heard the crunch of jaw breaking. Fire was engulfing her body, heating herself up until every punch, every touch came with severe burns.

But the woman wasn’t giving in easily - every punch of Arette’s was countered with a wound from the twin swords that she still held and soon enough, Arette’s blood was draining out of her so fast, she could feel exhaustion coax her into unconsciousness in the edges of her vision.

Their battle dragged on - each wound met with a punch, each punch with a slash. Their movements grew slower but both of them were trained fighters and neither wanted to give in.

But with every wound, every more drop of blood draining out of Arette, the fear inside of her grew stronger.

Run, it yelled at her, wanted her to throw her pride aside, to ignore her instincts and save her life at every cost. And with every new wound, she wanted to give into it more.

She’d never felt like this before. Fighting had always been fun for her and she’d never been scared of death in her entire life.

But she’d never been this close to it either.

And then, suddenly, a loud bang echoed over the clearing.

The green skinned woman had positioned her blade towards her stomach and before the noise, Arette was about to dodge, but hearing the sound, she whirled around.

For a moment, the world seemed to stand still.

She could see the gun directed towards her, in the trembling hands of the thief she’d forgotten a while ago.

She could hear her heartbeat, overwhelmingly loud in her ears.

She could feel the fear blossoming, taking over as she realized - she was going to die.

The gun was aimed at her heart and behind her was a blade and she wasn’t fast enough to dodge.

I don’t want to die.

She held her breath as the thought lodged itself into her brain and she was scared, so scared because she was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her eyes were wide and open.

She was going to die - just like this.

And then the world resumed and the bullet hit her chest just as the sword drove itself into her back and the world erupted into pain.

I don’t want to die.

Everything faded to black.