Fool's Gold | God Tamer x Tiso

Chapter 2 - In Which Tiso Conquers His Trials

"Oh please, that threat doesn't work. I could only have one killer, unless, of course, you're actually multiple bugs stacked on top of each other. Actually, wait... because that would make a lot of things add up."

Tiso and Tamer have a chat about scars. They threaten each other's lives multiple times.

—

The Trial of the Warrior, Tiso thought, was nothing but grub's play.

Stepping into the arena for the first time was a rush like no other. Tiso had never seen an audience so packed, nor had he ever seen one so wild. They cheered as soon as he stepped into the light, and their combined voices were so loud he almost couldn't hear the iron gate fall shut right behind him. He hadn't even shown off his skills yet, and the crowd was already cheering for him to give them a good show. It made Tiso smile widely, and as he held his weapon into the air with a ferocious battle cry the audience cried with him. A cage was lowered into the arena, and his first opponent was released.

With ease he cut down foe after foe, relishing in the way their bodies went limp. He had to be honest, after everything he'd heard about these trials, he thought they'd be more difficult. With glee he recognized the two warriors who'd picked the fight with him earlier being released from their cages, and they recognized him as well. Their eyes filled with rage, they both charged to stab him simultaneously. It was a pitiful attack, easily blocked and dealt with.

When he had completed the trial, he was showered in geo and praise. And he rode the high it gave him all the way into the next trial.

The Trial of the Conqueror, however, was not as easy.

His opponents were tougher, faster, and stronger than before. At first, Tiso didn't worry. He figured that he had finally met a worthy challenge, and his heart was pounding from the excitement. What he wasn't prepared for, however, was the floor beginning to rumble. Getting a bad feeling, he leaped for a stable platform that had appeared, and as his claws scraped to find hold, the warriors stuck below him began to panic. Some couldn't manage the jump, others had tried to use him as a ladder, and he had to kick them away, but very few made it up. Tiso had to fight those bugs off on the tiny platform, and send them back down.

It was only then that he realized why the other warriors had been so scared. Suddenly, the floor stopped shaking, and just as suddenly as it stopped, it fell away to a bed of spikes. He watched from safety as his opponents landed onto the nails in awkward positions, some dying immediately, others left to bleed out. The crowd laughed at them for their incompetence. Tiso cracked a frightened smile as well.

He had little space to fight now, and as each opponent was brought in, and as platforms were added and taken away, the ever looming threat of the spikes teased him. Many times his foot came nearly too close to the edge, and many times he had to catch himself from being pushed backwards. He thought that surely he was close to the end, but then the walls were pushed closer, and his only bit of solid ground shook in warning.

He leaped for the wall, cursing as it scratched his shell, and a second later the platform he was just on had fallen into the spikes. Airborne foes were released into the arena, and he fought not only to defeat them, but to not lose his grip and risk plummeting below. It wasn't until his muscles were screaming that the spikes retracted from the floor and he had a place to stand again.

It was then that his final opponents were released, a pair of oblobbles, massive flying bugs spewing infection all around the arena. He struggled to keep his shell infection free, there was simply no way to predict where their attacks would fall, and Tiso thought it best to simply target one at a time. But when the first oblobble fell, the second one became enraged. If their attacks were unpredictable before, they were almost undodgeable now. Even so, Tiso eventually managed, though not without injury, and when the final oblobble fell, he had completed his trial.