His blade found the mark with a sickening sound, a thwappish searing sound that brought a collective groan from the audience. Their hero was struck, the colossus wounded, their gallant Goliath being slain by evil David. As Letho Ravenheart fell to a knee, the maudlin crowd was stripped of its elation. Perhaps this would be more than cat and mouse.

Fortunately for the sword-wielder, the malevolent adversary still had to face the trifling matter of landing. His momentum brought him back, landing hard on the freshly wounded leg. The leg gave quickly and left him crashing to his backside, the garish opening in his thigh opening further, spreading wider, bleeding now more profusely. The tear in his suit pants looked like tattered hyena skin about a wound that was a bucolic combination of grime, blood, and gore. The pain was devastating, and Veritas scrambled to work through it.

Storm, you stupid motherf*cker. Get up! Get up! That big sum’bitch ain’t down for long, and you know it. Scramble now, or you’ll be chewing steel.

A frenetic scurry of hands and feet, his weak leg ambling through as dead weight opposed to his three other near-superhuman limbs. He was the beggar again, his pressed whites and finely crafted clothes hopelessly soaked in fear driven sweat and crusted with a fresh coat of the blood-soaked arena dirt. He scampered and fell, arousing a round of applause. The words and taunts from several of the silver-spoonfed children reached him, their elation at his struggle less than reassuring.

”Aw’right! He’s down! Get him Letho! Get up and kill that monster!!!”

“Yeah, that’s it! Stay down you jerk! Letho’s gonna get you!”

“WHOO! Get him, Letho! Gethimgethimgethim!!!”

A sigh, a breath, a look of desperate confusion. Now was hardly the time for deep thought and introspection. He scrambled once more, this time arising to the disapproval of the general consensus. Turning, Letho was risen, yet looked slow, his maniacal sneer all too familiar from the horrendous trials upon Nyd. Letho leapt, the blade of the Judicator drawn, ready to strike down Storm and finish him, once and finally ending the torment that had become his existence.

The attack was long and loping, giving him ample time to move. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but there was little room for the bandit to work out the logic. His left hand held his second blade, another small and useless dagger. There was only one option from the looping assault, and he certainly couldn’t block it. This time, he stepped into the mouth of the lion, stepping closer to Letho, and dropping to a single knee.

The blade swished a few sloppy inches over his head, seeming both intentional and outrageous. The counterattack of Veritas was swift and dire, the left hand hammering hard up from his flank towards the ribs of the overstretched Ravenheart. Should the blade find a home, it could potentially drive between the ribs of the warrior. As the stiletto rifled towards his hated enemy, one pervasive thought wrought the ever-skeptical brain of the conniver.

Why are you letting me kill you?