It was a cool and cloudy afternoon in Harewood City and it was business as usual. People went about their business, traffic was backed up as usual as people headed home. One small portion of the city, however, was in chaos as people tried their best to run from the three terrifying creatures that walked down the sidewalk. The creature in the lead appeared to be some kind of monstrous spider creature. The creature was about ten feet in height and had four blue- eyed eye stalks growing out of its shoulders which it was turning in every direction to see all of the sights. It also had six long muscular arms that ended in clawed hands that each had a mouth filled with sharp teeth. It had a head that was completely blank except for a large smiling mouth, filled to the brim with multiple rows of sharp teeth, and eight red stripes that formed a V pattern located above its mouth. It also had short brown shaggy hair and was wearing a black vest that was covered in a complex silver circuitry pattern. Where his legs should be was instead a spider body that had eight six- foot- long legs and was six feet in length. The creatures skin was completely black except for the red hourglass on the back of its spider body. The creature hopped up onto one of the cars to get a better view of the city and also looked a little confused as to why the humans were running away. “Hey, why are those people running away?” it asked.
“Because you are scaring them web for brains,” answered the second creature, “Seriously do you ever use that brain of yours Erik?”
The second creature was trailing a bit and shook its head. This creature was only eight feet in height and also looked to be the most human in nature but that was not saying much. The creature had a beautiful human like face and had bright green eyes and blond hair that flowed down to the middle of her back. Also located on the sides of her head were an additional pair of large mantis like eyes that she was currently hiding beneath her hair. She was also sporting a large pair of antennae that are each a foot in length. She had two regular human arms and also had a pair of mantis claws that we're located beneath her regular arms. Each of the mantis claws, which were currently folded under her chest, had two rows of sharp serrated spikes that ran along their length. She had on tight fitting leather armor that accentuated her slim frame and large bust. Attached to her back was an old, well cared for blunderbuss that sat over a pair of crossed calvary sabers. Where the creature's legs would be located if she were a normal human girl, was instead the lower half of a praying mantis' body. The lower half of the creature was about four feet in length and had four four- foot- long legs attached to it. Her skin was the color of grass except for her face which was a much lighter shade of green. "Come on brother get down from there, " the second creature said as she caught up to the first, "before someone decides to get a giant boot to squish you. "
The first creature, which goes by the name Erik, turns its eye -stalks towards the second creature, " Fine. I'll get down but only because I was getting bored up here and not because you asked me to get down Jessica. "
The second creature, named Jessica, breathed a sigh of relief as Erik got off the car. Once on the ground Jessica whacked him upside the head.
" Hey what the hell was that for green bean! " Erik exclaimed as he turned around all six of his fists clenched.
"What was that for? That was for you being a complete moron eye-
stalks," Jessica says with a smirk, " Seriously as smart as you are you can sometimes be a complete idiot. You would get caught in your own web half of the time if I were not around. "
"I would not you over grown grasshopper," exclaimed Erik as he got right up in Jessica's face, " if anything you would be lost without my tech! Without my tech you would not know where all the local boys hang out or where the nearest pub was located, let alone be able to teach your sword fighting classes! "
"You take that back fly breath!" Jessica cried as she drew on of her swords while simultaneously pushing Erik back a few feet.
"Then why don't you make me you over glorified fishing lore!"
" Oh I will nightmare fuel! "
"Then bring it spider chow!"
" Oh it's on, " Jessica yells then she lets out a roar and charges. Erik also lets loose a battle cry of his own and charges.
Before either of them can land a blow on the other two arms reach out and grab each of them by the scruff of their necks and they are lifted off their feet by the third creature. "My children please stop this ridiculous quarreling at once," a voice rings out from nowhere in particular, "We do not need to give the humans any more reasons to fear us than they already have."
The two creatures lower their heads and look at the third as they speak in unison, "yes mother."
This creature was the tallest of the three as it stood at a height of twelve feet. The creature had a human like face except that it had no mouth or nose and instead of the regular two eyes found on a human it had eight piercing blue eyes that formed a circular pattern of which only the top two pair were open. On the lower half of its head were four purple stripes, two per side, and beautiful red hair that flows down to its shoulders. The color of the creatures skin was a dark blue and at night it would look like it was full of stars. The creature wore no clothing except for a small piece of brass armor that looked like it was made out of thousands of fireflies that covered her small chest. Growing out of each of the creatures two shoulders was a snake like limb that was about ten feet in length. Each of these limbs ended in a beak that also has two stalk like eyes growing above the beak. The creature only had two elongated fingers and an elongated thumb on each of its hands. Where her lower legs would be was the body of a firefly. She had six giant beetle legs that were four feet in length and in total her lower body was about eight feet in length. The underside of her body had a giant bio-luminescent light that was currently glowing softly though it could not be seen in the current light of day. Along the top and sides of her carapace were golden spirals and lines that sparkled in the sunlight. Hidden in her carapace were a pair of insectoid wings that allowed her to fly freely through the skies.
Once she was sure that her children no longer had any intention of fighting each other did the third creature set them down. She put her hands on the side of her carapace as she looked from one of her children to the other, "the two of you are going to give me gray hairs if you continue this petty fighting of yours. By the Light can't you two get along for five minutes without trying to kill each other?"
Both of the creature's children kept looking down to the ground as they apologized for misbehaving. The third creature smiled with her four open eyes and pulled the other two creatures into a hug of which only the spider seemed to not like, "awwww mom come, on not in public."
This caused the large firefly like creature to chuckle and she let both of her children go. She closed one pair of her eyes and shook her head, "Come on, let's get going or we will be late."
"Where are we going?" Asked Erik as the three of them started off again, " You still haven't told us. "
"You'll see when we get there."
About fifteen minutes later the three creatures stopped in front a bar in one of the better parts of town. The bar had a sign that said 'Snake's Head Bar & Grill' and above that was another sign that had a snake with it mouth wide open and a bottle of beer held up by its tail pouring said beer into the snake's open mouth. Upon seeing exactly which bar they were at, Jessica got very excited and started to beg if they go inside then whereas Erik just looked confused and asked why they were even at the bar in the first place. The largest of the creatures just opens the door and says she will explain everything to him once they enter. Erik decided that he would enters first and got a loud scream from the waitress, that was waiting behind the stand just inside the door, as he entered. Then a muffled thump could be heard as she fainted and hit the floor. "Smooth fang head," says Jessica as she entered second. The third creature while her head as she entered last.
As the third creature enters the bar she looks to the left to where the waitress had fainted. The poor girl it seamed had hit her head on the way down. The third creature bent down and moved her to the wall where she tried to make her as confortable possible given the circumstances. That's when she heard the screaming and she instantly lifted her head and entered the bar proper. Upon entering she saw the source of the screaming. Immediately in front her was Erik and in front of him was a small group of people cowering away from him as he approached. Off to his right the bartender had a shotgun pointed at him, finger on the trigger. To his left his sister did nothing to help the situation as she laughed at she hoped was to be her brother's misfortune. Upon seeing all of this, the creature merely shook her head in annoyance, ' I taught my children to act better than this,' she thought to herself. When she spoke her voice came from every direction at once with as much godly authority as she could muster, which caused it to echo weirdly, " Erik back up right now! You are scaring these people senseless! "
This startled Erik something fierce causing him to jump back ten feet and land on the back of a table. This in turn caused the table to flip over with Erik still on it and him land on his back his legs flailing in the air. Upon seeing this Jessica double over laughing so hard that she had tears streaming down her face and she was holding her stomach. The bartender lowered his gun when he heard the voice and turned his head towards the third creature and a huge smile broke out on his face, "Serena! Is that you?"
The third creature, now identified as Serena, nodded her head as she closed two pairs of eyes, " indeed it is and the one on his back there that you had your gun pointed towards is my son. I must apologize for his actions, he can sometimes get a little carried away. "
The bartender nods his head and walks over to the frightened people, " it's safe now. it was a false alarm but it would be a good idea to leave because the bar is now closed until I can get this mess cleaned up. "
The people rushed out of the bar quickly and the bartender shook his head and Serena just chuckled. " People never change do they Serniga Lugaba, or should I call you 'The Scaled One' you old god you," Serena said teasingly.
The bartender shook his head, "please its just Sern or 'scale' in the language of the ancients. And besides I have not been a god for a long time. "
The bartender went back behind his bar looking into the mirror that spanned its entire length. What the bartender was not the reflection of a man but that of an anthropomorphic snake. He was about five foot eleven in height and had a long thin tail that trailed about twelve feet behind him. His entire body was covered in small smooth cerulean scales except for the underside of his neck and tail which were scale free and instead had the smooth segmented skin of a snake's underside that was the color of a dandelion. His neck was about a foot long and extremely flexible while his head was similar to that of a ball python. His eyes were the color of blood and had a mouth that had two pairs of sharp fangs in it. The upper set were the larger of the two and hung over his lower jaw when his mouth was closed while the lower set were retractable that only appeared when he yawned or needed to bite something. Occasionally a pink forked tongue would shoot out between his lips and taste the air. He had two regular arms that ended in a five fingers that each had a razor sharp claw on it. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and what appeared to be a leather vest over top of that and black jeans. "Now then Serena what can I do for you?" Sern asked as he turned around his vest unfolding to reveal that it was actually a pair of bar wings, "You don't usually leave the Forest of Light unless you are hunting some vile creature."
" That is true my dear but in this case I had to because the wind goddess asked to meet her here, " she says as she smiles with her eyes, her bio-luminescent glowing brightly for just a moment, " that and she has yet to meet my children. It's been over five hundred years since I last saw her and we have so much to catch up on. "
"Oh her, " chuckles Sern, " well to be honest she was in last week and well she said she could not make it because it was that time again. "
" Oh not again, " Serena said her eyes closing slightly, " we had been planning this meeting for over a year now. I swear it is like this almost every time. She forgets that it is time for her to die and then be reborn in a burst of fire every millennium, I mean how hard is it to remember that! It happens like clockwork every thousand years! "
Sern nods his head apologetically, " true but even the longest living gods tend to forget things from time to time. Hell I forgot that I was even a god until the turn of the last century. "
Serena nods as Erik, now back on his feet walks over, " mother what do we do now? "
Serena was about to answer when the speakers in the bar suddenly stopped playing music and a male voice came on, " Serena to the battle arena! Serena to the battle arena! You have a fight in t minus two hours. "
Jessica grinned and started jumping up and down excitedly shaking the nearby tables as Serena shook her head, " apparently we go to the arena. Come on kids your about to see how your mother fights in real combat. "
************************************************** *************************************
The family of creatures reached the arena along with the bartender in tow about an hour later and went in. Once inside the larger creature parted from the group to head towards the sign in desk. Once that was done she was handed a ticket that had a name and photo of her opponent. Holding on to the ticket, Serena returned to her group. " Ok my dears, my battle is in approximately twenty minutes and I am fighting someone named Obzidias. Why don't you guys head into the arena and get some good seats and enjoy some of the fight, " Serena says as she hugs her kids, Erik once again squirming when he is hugged.
"Ok good luck out there mom, " Jessica says as she puts a hand on Erik shoulder, " Come on tech boy, we need to get some front row seats. "
Erik nodded his head enthusiastically as he turned his eye - stalks towards his mother, " he careful out there mom. "
With that the group parted ways and Serena saw Serniga pull out a bottle from a small cooler and hand it to her daughter and heard her exclaim, "
awe yeah! The good stuff! "
Shaking her head Serena headed to the designated area where gladiators were supposed to wait before their fights came up. Once there Serena spotted her opponent and headed over as some of the other gladiators either stared as she past or got out of her way. once at her opponents table Serena spread her legs and settled down and looked over her opponent and waved, " hello. I believe I am to be your opponent today. "
Her opponent nodded his head and folded his hands on the table. Her opponent was approximately seven foot eight and muscled. His hair was black with purple highlights and reached just below his neck. His eyes were red and his slight angular face still had a little baby fat on it. He was wearing a dark purple shirt that had a distorted V symbol on it and over that he had on a black piece of plate armor. His black trench coat was hanging off his chair. He had on black pants and large shoulder guards. Under his shoulder guards were two red tail cloths that went down his back. On his hands were black gauntlets that were slightly spikey that also reached up to his elbows. He had black boots that went up to his knee and a black helmet that that had a sharp red V shaped visor. The helmet also had a long purple plume that went down his back, ending just above his thighs. His helmet was currently resting on the table next to a large eight foot long staff. The staff was such a dark grey that it appeared almost black in color. The staff also had several purple accents and designs that made it look almost arcane in nature and near the top of the staff was a red insignia that was in the shape of an SC. " So I am guessing you are the self proclaimed goddess of fireflies and serenity, Serena correct? "
Serena chuckles slighty as one of her snake like limbs pointed its head towards a disturbance between two of the other gladiators that were having a heated argument, "that is correct, I am Serena but I would not say self-proclaimed goddess. That fact has already been well established throughout the millennia though few people remember."
Obzidias raised an eyebrow at that comment and leaned forward slightly frowning, " we will see once we get into the arena now won't we. "
"Indeed we will, " Serena chuckled as her eyes sparkled, " now I wonder what has those two gladiators over there so upset. "
The two of them did not get a chance to figure it out as over the PA they called for both Serena and Obzidias to step into the arena. " Looks like it's time for our fight, " says Obzidias as he puts on his helmet and picks up his staff and heads for the large double doors located just beside them.
Serena gets up and follows after him, " Hey good luck to you out there and may the Light be with you."
Obzidias simply nods as he heads through the double doors with Serena on his tail. Once through they found themselves in a long hallway. Near the end of the ball were a couple of screens that had a picture of each gladiator and an arrow pointing to which direction they should go. Serena went left and her opponent went right. She walked down a long hall that turned right once then right again and she saw light at the end of the tunnel. Upon exiting the tunnel she saw that she was in a huge dirt arena that was filled to the rafters with people. She looked out among the crowd and saw her children resting near the middle of the arena and she waved at them before looking forward again as she saw Obzidias exit his tunnel and nodded towards her. The announcer came on over the PA system shortly after, " ladies and gentle men we have one hell of a match up for you today! In the left corner we have the Goddess of fireflies and serenity, Serena the Banisher of Darkness! And to our right we have Obzidias the Obsidian warrior!!! Now let's see which of these two warriors will come out on top!! "
The crowd goes wild as the count down starts as both Serena and Obzidias got into a fighting stance. "And begin!!!" Cries the announcer as the
countdown reaches zero.
Obzidias charged forward forming an obsidian halbert out of his staff as Serena stays put and lowers all six flaps on her face and lets out huge swarms of fireflies that start flying towards Obzidias. He rushed forward and swings his halbert creating a shockwave that kills a one of the swarms of fireflies outright but sends the rest away. The fireflies only reform into one large swarm and fly at him again. This annoys him and he keeps swinging his halbert to clear the swarm. Once he clears a large hole in the swarm he sees that Serena has dissapeared. Suddenly the swarm flies away from him and he has barely a moment to roll to the side as lighting strikes where he was but a moment before. Looking up he sees that Serena is flying above him and she is holding a lightning sword. She closes her wings and falls towards the ground her sword raised as Obzidias rolls backwards barely dodging her attack as she lands heavily where he was just a moment before. Serena charges forward her sword swinging towards her opponent as he ducks to the side and swings his halbert at her. Serena summons up her electric shield just in time to catch the tip of the halbert and
deflect it into the ground.
Gritting his teeth Obzidias makes an upwards sweeping motion with his right hand and obsidian erupts from the ground under Serena. She jumps back in time sending forth twin gouts of fire from her snake like limbs. Obzidias raised more obsidian from that ground to block the attack as he retreats slightly. "Your pretty good at fighting me so far but I wonder if you can handle my full strength, " Obzidias calls out as readies his halbert in front of him.
Serena chuckles and opens up a second pair of eyes as she releases yet another cloud of fireflies, " we shall see my dear. This is getting interesting. "
Obzidias frowns at her words and sweeps his fist forward and obsidian erupts from the ground in a jagged wave heading straight towards Serena and she jumps over the wave forward her lightning sword raised ready to strike. Obzidias jumps aside before Serena can land and swings his halbert towards her striking her on the back of her carapace. Serena swings her lighting blade around and it connects with the halbert electrifying it and consequently Obzidias as well. This sends him flying backwards and he hits the ground his halbert sticking in the ground near him. Serena chuckles as she walks closer and summons her fire sword as she makes her lightning sword disappear. " I thought you said you were going to show me your full power, " she says as she opens a third pair of eyes and sends a cone of flames in his direction.
Obzidias rolls to the side picking up his halbert in the same motion, his face now contorted in rage, " oh I'll show you my full power alright. "
He makes a sweeping motion with his hand and huge pillars of obsidian rise from the ground as he is carried up on one. Serena looks around confused as she sends her fireflies out to see where he went. As she is looking around spikes of obsidian start flying out of the pillars towards her. She manages to dodge most of them but not before one of the spikes severs her left arm which causes her to scream in pain and open up her forth pair of eyes as she locates Obzidias standing on the pillar above her. Obzidias smirked and swept his hand downwards causing the pillars near him to start calling towards Serena. Serena jumped up on to the falling pillars one at a time as she got closer to Obzidias who swung his halbert sending multiple shockwaves towards her which knocked her into one of the pillars. Serena pulled herself from the crater she made and fired lighting out of all twelve of her eyes at Obzidias relying on her fireflies to tell her where he is. Obzidias jumps from one pillar to the next as her lighting follows after him and he growls sending forth a hail of obsidian shurikans flying towards her. Serena summoned her lightning shield in front of her to block the shurikans and instead caused them to fly in all directions some of them even striking Obzidias.
Once the rain of shrapnel was over Serena jumped up to the pillar where Obzidias was and started pounding her feet rapidly which cause the pillar to shake and start to fracture to bits as Obzidias jumped to another pillar. Serena followed after him as he caused the remaining pillars to shot more spikes at Serena. This cause her to lose both of her snake like limbs but she kept following pound her feet rapidly in each pillar she lands on shattering it. When only one pillar was remaining she summoned her fire sword and cut cleanly through it turning the obsidian the sword touched to magma. Obzidias fell to the ground and slowly got up his left leg and arm broken. At this point he growled and decided that he only had one option left. So he summoned a humongous obsidian eastern Dragon and sent it flying toward Serena. Serena narrowed her eyes at the Dragon and jumped to the side only to have to Dragon turn and chase after her so she decided to lead it back to Obzidias. Once she was in front of him she flashed her bio-luminescent light brightly blinding him. While he was blinded he did not realize that he had lead his own Dragon back to him and it crashed head first into the ground causing him to fly back and hit the wall of the arena. When he next looked up he saw that Serena was pointing her fire sword at his face as she had her eyes narrowed at him. " You have lost this battle but you do show promise, " she made her fire sword disappear and held out a hand to him, " now come on let's get you patched up. "
Obzidias smiled and took the offered hand with his one good arm and slowly stood up as Serena helped him stand. Suddenly the announcer came back on, " The winner of this battle is Serena!!!! Let's hear it for the Goddess of Fireflies. "
The crowd goes wild as Serena ducks her head slightly, "I never was very good with attention now come one let's get out of here. "
Obzidias nodded his head and slowly the two of them made their way out of the arena.
************************************************** ***************************************
" That fight was so AWESOME!!!!!! " exclaimed Erik once he, his sister, and Serniga meet up with Serena who was holding her missing arm as it glowed with golden runes and slowly regrew.
" Yeah that was pretty good. Why did you never tell us that you could fight like that mom? " Jessica asked as she hugged Serena.
" well to be honest I never needed to before. It just did not feel like I should have. " Serena said as she hugged her daughter back and smiled with her eyes, " besides the last time I had to fight like that was during the war of darkness. "
Sern chuckled at that, " I remember that time it was scary but enough about that now about we celebrate back at the bar. I have a new drink that I need somebody to test out for me. I call it Venom fiesta. "
And with that the four of them went to the bar to celebrate while Obzidias rested up in the hospital with a free copy of training videos on how to hone one's element attacks.
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Originally Posted by SH@D0WC0RE
