I fell to the ground, turned around and started vomiting. My head was spinning. I felt weak…

I could hear the crowd’s amazement and excitement… They couldn’t believe what they were seeing! And ant being equal to a hercules beetle?? This has never happened in the history of the Showdown!

Hercules was flying around the arena, holding the bloody hole that used to be his right eye. The blood was red, due to it being mixed with the ant venom I spat on him prior to poking his eye out.

He was beyond furious.

“I WILL END YA!!!”, his voice echoed around the arena and, for a moment, there was silence. Not a single bug in the crowd dared make a noise…

“The wings…”, I thought to myself while trying to get back up, “I have… to cut… the wings…”

My spear… I couldn’t find it! My head was still spinning from earlier and I must’ve let go of it when I threw up – and now I didn’t know where it was!

“Spear… must… find…”

I then felt an enormous weight drop on me. It was as if a thousand ants jumped on my back all at once.

It was, of course, Hercules. He landed at me from above the arena. I heard a loud cracking sound. It must’ve been my armour…

It was starting to break apart!

“SCUM!! SCUM!! YER DEAD BUG!!”

“Is… that all… you say?”, I asked him while coughing blood.

“I’LL SHOW YA!!”, Hercules said, then started flying once again. I knew I didn’t have enough strength for my plan to cut his wings to work… and I didn’t really have any other plans… my armour was about to break… my spear was nowhere to be seen…

I started panicking…

I was desperate…

“P-Please…”, I was praying to the late Queen Antlantia… I was praying for her to give me the strength to turn this battle around… I was praying that she would show me the way… show me where my spear was…

And my prayers were answered, as in that very moment I saw it. The spear. It was to my right… I stretched all of my right legs… And I could barely reach it… But… I still needed to turn around!

I could hear the heavy Hercules rushing down to crush my body. I had to turn around… “Come… on…”, I whisper.

Then… With one final rush of adrenaline… “AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”I manage to turn around and lay on my back. I grab my spear with all three of my right legs and put my spear upwards, so it was pointing at Hercules, who was milliseconds away from falling on me… I wasn’t sure if this was going to work, if my wooden spear was enough to pierce through Hercules’s tough shell… Hercules saw that he was about to be stabbed, but he couldn’t avoid it… he didn’t have the time to…

And so, Hercules’s heavy body once again landed on mine, but this time it landed on something else too… my spear…

On impact, my armour had completely cracked in half.

I spat even more blood. I couldn’t breathe with Hercules laying on top of me…

I felt a warm liquid pouring on my body from Hercules…

It was blood…

His blood…

He was bleeding badly from his stomach…

This meant that my spear did pierce through his shell, and that it had wounded him greatly.

Hercules let out a battlecry and tried flying, but only managed to do so for a second or two, before collapsing next to me…

For the next minute or so I could hear nothing. I didn’t know if the crowd was silent due to the shocking outcome of the battle, or if it was my ability to hear failing me. Either way the battle was near it’s end.

It was all up to mine and Hercules’s endurance…

I tried getting up, but I couldn’t… My whole body ached like never before… No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t move…

Then I started hearing them… the crowd… they were… they were saying something… cheering for someone…

“-than…”

“atha-”

I tried focusing on what they were saying… Did Hercules get up? Did I lose? Was I defeated?

But no… I look to my left and see Hercules, laying down steadily.

Then I finally understood them…

“NANTHAN!! NANTHAN!! NANTHAN!!”

The crowd… it was cheering for… me??

“GET UP, NANTHAN!!”, I could hear the voices of hundreds of bugs. They all cheered for me to get up… to end this brawl…

So I did… The cheering helped me regain the strength needed to do so… It was difficult but I did it! I got up!

Nanthan, wounded

I looked at Hercules. He was laying helplessly on his stomach on the ground. I could see a tiny pond of blood from where he was stabbed.

The spear seemed to be broken in half. One half was on the ground next to the bloody pond, while the other half was nowhere to be seen. I figured that the second half of the spear must still be stuck inside Hercules! That’s why he couldn’t move…

“HE DID IT, LADIES AND GENTLEBUGS!! NANTHAN, THE STURDY ANT DID IT!! HE GOT UP, EVEN AFTER ALL OF THAT!! NOW HE HAS ONLY ONE THING LEFT TO DO, FOLKS… HE IS TO FINISH THIS FIGHT!!”, I could hear the irritating chirping of the announcer…

“Yes…”, I said, and came closer to Hercules.

He looked at me with his eye… I could see a tear flowing down it… “Do it…”, he said, then he closed his eye, awaiting death…

“I will… but not… what you think…”, I said, then I started pushing on one side… I started pushing Hercules, trying to lift him on one side… I managed to flip him after a few minutes of struggle… the whole time I could hear the crowd wondering about what I was doing…

Hercules seemed to have completely given up… or should I say, he accepted defeat, and did not struggle…

I then saw it… the other half of the spear, stuck deep inside Hercules’s stomach… I grabbed it with three of my legs and started pulling it with all of the might I had left in me.

“W-WHAT IS THIS??”, the announcer said in amusement.

“NANTHAN, THE STURDY SEEMS TO BE… TRYING TO SAVE HERCULES?”, the announcer could not get his head around my actions, but the crowd seemed to have been even more surprised.

I did not mind what they were thinking, I just wanted to succeed in what I was trying to do… I kept pulling and pulling and, slowly but surely, the spear came out of Hercules. His wound started bleeding more, so I threw the spear and put pressure on his open wound.

“P-Please… Medic… Help…”, I said as loudly as I could and, thanks Antlantia, somebody heard me, and a few cockroaches and weevil medics came and took Hercules away.

The last thing I heard that night was the announcer praising my mercy, and announcing that I have won.

Everything went black after that…

I woke up in the BeetleField Ambulance the next day and saw that my wounds were all taken care of. They were still there, but they barely ached and they did not bleed.

“You’re awaaaake?”, I heard the familiar female voice coming next to me.

“Darra…”, before I could say anything else she kissed me. I pushed her away and yelled: “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Why so ruuuude? You won, and I’m keeping my prooomise…”

“You’re a monster.”, I coldly said.

She looked at me with shock, anger and fear.

“Wh-What are yoooouuu-”

“Get out.”, I said.

“Fuck you!”, she screamed and left the Ambulance. I never saw her again…

I got up and went to see with the medics if Hercules was okay. They told me he was in stable condition, but that he had to rest for a few days. Still, I was allowed to visit him so I did.

I entered the room he was in. He saw me. We looked at each other for a few moments… I didn’t know what to say… last night we were at each other’s throat and now…

“Thank ya.”, he broke the silence. This caught me off-guard, as I did not expect a ‘thank you’ from him… I expected him to yell because I took his eye out… I expected fury… heck, even ignoring… anything else…

“I… I’m sorry-”, I started, but then he stopped me.

“DON’T! Never… apologize… for sparing a life…”, he said.

“I… I was apologizing for… the eye-”

“NO! Stop. We are warriors… I knew the risks when I entered the Showdown… I am happy to have left the battle with only one eye missing… nothing else… Listen to me now, Nanthan… yer a very brave warrior… very sturdy one… but above else… yer a good hearted soldier… I don’t know many bugs who would’ve spared someone like me… Especially after all I’ve said… All I’ve done… Just so ya know… I was going to murder ya…”

“I know…”, I said. “You tried to cut me in half after all…”

“Heh… yeah, I did… and for that reason, I did not deserve to be spared… but I am grateful… grateful that ya have chosen to spare a scum like me…”

“You’re not a scum…”

“Yes. I am… Uhm… greet Darra for me…”

“I ditched her.”

“Ya-huh? Ya did??”

“She’s evil.”

“… maybe evil is a bit of a strong word, but… I guess yer right… she ain’t exactly the best type of ladybug, that’s for sure! Well… I don’t wanna bother you anymore… I’m sure you came here out of pity… Ya don’t have to pity me…”

“I don’t pity you… I was just worried… I am glad you will be okay… friend.”

“… friend…?”

“Yes, friend.”, I turned around and left to prepare for my next match. I heard him wish me good luck as I left the room.

* * *

“The next few battles were much easier, and I had no problem knocking out my opponents. That is, of course, until I faced Lucana, the sharp, who ended up winning the Showdown… Now that I think of it… I think that was her last public appearance… weird...”, Nanthan finished telling his story to his young friend.

“Wooow!! Your life is so cool, Nanthan!! And Hercules, while being a jerk when you met him turned out to be a pretty cool guy!”, Antonio said.

“Yes… he did… he recovered just in time to see me lose against Lucana, haha! We went to the Gregor’s place a few times after the Showdown… Those were really good times…”, Nanthan smiled.

“Yeah… I’m sure he’s still around, Nant! Let’s go find him!! And then you teach me how to fight like you did in the Showdown!!”, Antonio’s eyes shined as he encouraged Nanthan.

“Yeah… let’s go, Antonio!”, Nanthan said, and the two ants left the tunnel and entered the BeetleField city…

* * *