My sword seemingly grows hotter for a moment.

He spits on the ground, “Fine then, you have thirty seconds. I’ll end you with a single swing in thirty seconds if you cannot move your sword.”

I struggle with my sword, placing my right hand on it as well. I pull with even more strength and it refuses wielding. Fennis is looking down on me. He’s pitying me, pitying my sword, pitying who I- who we are.

The banging in my head causes physical tremors throughout my body now. I can hear Fennis in the background, counting mockingly, jostling the rowdy crowd of spectators. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Move!” I shout at my sword. “Please, move!” I scream to it.

I notice Fennis with his venomous smile, mocking me for talking to just a sword. But he doesn’t understand, this isn’t just a sword. No way could it be. Even now, within my palms, I feel its heat. It’s pulsing. I can imagine it, full of life, it would be a massive shock. Almost like… I gasp audibly. Almost like a pounding. A slamming, pounding, tremor crashing through me.

I am inside myself instantly, mentally, I stare at the door. In the distant background the crowd shouts, “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

I grab the door and shout to what’s behind it, “Just this once, just this single time, you will be free, and you will obey me.”

The roaring sea of voices shouts, “3! 2!” With no other choice I undo the “lock” on my “door” and in the real world, my very body itself spasms, my hands tight on the sword, and I am sent flying towards the arena wall. My body makes an audible crack as I leave an indention and slides to the ground.

Fennis stares at me, completely flabbergasted. Yet ever in hubris, he shrugs his shoulders and charges at me. He intends to end me while I lay unconscious. Ten feet away from me, he stops. He simply halts. His blue hair glimmers and keeps going for a time after his stop, inertia carrying it forward. He pulls up his ice blade just in time to block a blow aimed at his neck. Before he knows what’s happening, blocking or not, he’s sent flying across the arena back to where he started.

Fennis gathers himself and stands. What he sees before him makes him shudder.

Before the First Knight stands, in all her glory, The Zeroth Knight. Eve stands before him, fifty feet away, yet her pressure is felt even here. She stands, dignified and proud. Her red hair, beautiful under different circumstances, has fallen completely out of her ponytail. It’s length, greater than Fennis would have believed.

But more startling is its color- a solid onyx with ruby red streaks through it. Emerald eyes stare back at Fennis, seemingly devoid of emotions. She, this Raven, tests her sword with a bored look. Swinging it this way and that. Then she looks toward Fennis, simply looks, and Fennis falls to his knees.