Eve

Chapter 5

Raven moved away for the guards to cut Hawthorn's broken, bleeding body from the vines. At the slightest touch of a knife, the vines shrank back into the ground, leaving no trace they were even there. They carried him off, while Raven sat poking the ground with a feather, as if bored. When the guard had left the arena, he looked up and saw Eve staring at him through the bars. He trotted over and said "Ya know, if I did not have to kill you, we would work together quite nicely,"

 When she tried to bite him through the bars he said smugly "just a thought." he retreated to his end of the arena and turned around. The second her doors opened, she flew high into the air, thinking she was out of his reach. But his feathers turned gold, and one hit her, paralyzing her wings. As she fell, he launched a white feather straight at her, but she managed to twist midair and the feather grazed her but did not hurt her. He looked confused, then calmly sent half a dozen orange-tipped feathers at her, but instead of hitting her, they flew underneath her, elongated, wove in and out of each other, and formed a sort of net. She hit the net, and it sprung shut around her. She was lowered to the ground, not gently, but not forcefully either, and Raven walked over with a sad yet smug look on his face. He pulled a white feather out of his tail, but before he could kill her with it, she twisted her head around and bit his leg. He dropped the feather, crying out, and Eve snatched it up and sawed her way out of the net in no time. She blasted away around the arena, again incredibly fast, and started pacing the borders, waiting for Raven to do something. He growled, then his feathers turned dark green and he tried to entrap her with the vines. When she kept evading his attempts at capture, his feather became a light dirt-brown color, and when they hit the ground or any other flat, hard surface, a spire of rock came shooting out of that spot. Then he did something unexpected. He made a large, extremely sharp spire across the arena from Eve, then sent an even larger yet flat-tipped boulder into her side. It hit with such force that pain instantly laced itself through her ribs and she was rocketed across the arena. One thing Raven underestimated though: he was in between Eve and the sharp stone. She careened into him, knocking her back towards the stone that launched her there, but with less force. He was not as well off. He was speared on the rock, the tip protruding from his stomach. His eyes were wide in surprise, and Eve was carried into the medic door, where she blacked out from the pain in her chest. When she woke, she was back in the arena, in front of the competitor's door. When she saw who she faced, she knew he would not be as easy to defeat as Raven was. 

He wore a huge buck's skull and had armor made of bones fused together fitted over his body. His claws were long and sharp, with even sharper metal claws fastened to them, and fangs longer and sharper than a vampire's. There was a wicked gleam in the red eyes that looked through the skull's sockets, and the horns on the deer skull alone were weapons in themselves. As soon as the announcer said go, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, one was iris was pure black while the other shone gold, interlaced with purple. A huge skeleton clawed its way out of the ground, and for a second, an image flickered over the bleached white bone. It was a huge lion, bigger than lions should be, with deep purple eyes, firey breath, and a huge scorpion stinger for a tail. The image faded, and the only things that remained were the eyes and the stinger. The lion jumped at Eve, pointing the stinger at her chest. She rolled to the side, narrowly missing death, and the skeleton lion skidded to a halt in the dust. It turned to her, snarled, and lashed out with its claws at her neck. Eve jumped up, and the lion's claws flashed under her before she landed on the lion's arm. She scrambled up the huge radius and onto the humorous. When she got the collarbone, she clambered on top of it and bit the lion's neck from behind. The lion tried to shake her off, but when she would not let go it tried to stab her with its tail. That was its fatal mistake. Eve launched herself off the lion and its stinger buried itself deep in the lion's neck. The lion looked surprised, and the purple glow faded from its eyes. It fell over, and the skeleton lion looked like it had never been alive. "Done hiding behind your pets?" Eve called to Rouge. In reply, Rouge lifted his head and made a long, loud screeching sound. Two shadows appeared over the arena, circling. Rouge screeched again and the shapes dove down and landed beside him. One was a huge skeleton horse, with a pair of skeleton dragon wings. The other was, of course, a skeleton dragon. Each had a golden collar, with amethyst gems embedded in the metal. Eve knew she would never be able to kill them, and she had a feeling that there was deep magic embedded in the golden collars. The horse charged her and spread its wings. Instead of hitting Eve, the horse aimed its wings for her body. When the blank spot in between the wing spikes hit her, instead of going right past her, an invisible force slammed into her, knocking her flat. She lay on the ground, winded, but she had a plan. There was a clasp on the bottom of the collar, and if she could hit that clasp and get the collar off... the horse charged her again, trying the same thing. But instead of the horse's wing hitting her, she flattened to the ground. When the horse passed above her, she jumped up and grabbed the horse's neck. The many holes in the bone made for great footholes. She hung, upside-down, on the galloping horse's neck, let go with one of her front paws, and unclasped the collar. It clanked to the ground, the gold and jewels shining in the light. The horse instantly stopped moving, throwing Eve off its neck. She skidded to a halt in the dust a few yards away, and the horse realized it was free. It spread its great wings, and before it flew away, it walked over and nudged her thankfully. Then it flapped its wings, rose into the sky, and spiraled out of view. Eve got up, covered in dust, and approached the dragon. The dragon, wanting to be free, walked over, and instead of trying to kill her, lowered its head so she could get the collar off. She unclasped it, but instead of flying away, the dragon turned around and swiped at Rouge, snarling. His armor cracked and the buck's skull went flying off his head. The dragon bit his leg and flew away before Rogue could retaliate. Rogue lay there, bleeding, with many good-sized chunks missing out of his armor. Eve trotted around him, not far, but not close either, sizing him up. She did not want to kill him, and she was thinking that as he struggled to his feet. He lunged at her, catching her off guard. She managed to jump away before he could hurt her, but her leg got twisted painfully from the scramble away. She limped off, and not too far away collapsed on the hard-packed dirt floor of the arena. Rouge stalked over and glared at her. "You are a good fighter," he growled "but not for much longer." he limped over to his buck skull helmet that lay on the ground, picked it up, and snapped off one of the large horns. He walked back happily bouncing the horn between his two front paws. Before he could kill her though, Paint screamed her name from across the arena. Rouge looked up and stared at the tiny deer wolf as she rammed her horns into the bars of the competitor's door, bending them and soon snapping them. She charged across the arena floor, her antlers, which had suddenly grown a lot longer and sharper, lowered to the level of Rouge's heart. He barely managed to dodge her, diving to the side, but did not escape unharmed. One of her horns made a long, deep gash in his side, and he stumbled next to Eve. He wrapped his arm around her neck and pressed the buck's horn to her throat. "One more move and she dies." He growled, gritting his teeth through the pain in his side. Paint stood stock still, and she and Rouge glared at each other, each daring the other to make the first move. Eve suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of protectiveness, and magic flowed through her. In a big, orange explosion of fire magic, a large ring of fire surrounded them. She somehow knew that the magic fire would only hurt Rouge, not Paint or herself. Paint was inside the circle and Eve outside of it. Rouge and Paint immediately started fighting, and it seemed like a really fair fight. What Paint lacked in size, she made up for in speed, agility, and aggressiveness. Eve stalked through the flames to watch the battle more closely, just in time to see Rouge pin Paint to the ground, snarl "die, mutt!" and lunge at her throat. Before either, Eve or Rouge could react, Paint craned her neck so that the points of her horns were right where Rouge's mouth was aiming- Eve tackled him, pushing him away from Paint. They tumbled in the dust, scrambling to get on top of one another. Finally, they skidded to a halt, Eve pinning Rouge to the pale, dusty ground. "What did you do that for!?" Paint yelled at Eve. "We could have won this!!"

"We at least have to give him a chance to surrender!" Eve snarled back. Paint immediately went quiet, looking down at her paws. Eve pressed her paw on Rouge's chest, restraining him from moving. "Now, will you surrender and let me and my friends go?" She snarled quietly in his ear. "Or should I make it painless?"

"I surrender," he said. "I SURRENDER!" He yelled to the crowds in the stands.