The Dissolution of the Knights
In many places, it is traditional for hain to fight naked. A sash or splash of paint is used to mark their side, and beyond this the only use of clothing would be to remove and bind or gag the opponent anyway.
A Cosmic Knight, on the other hand, is always naked. They have long since given up the option to change their uniform.
Tauga tossed her polehammer out of the ring and spat bile. A page brought her water and she gulped heavily. The one femme-looking Knight took a squat next to her and drained a calabash gourd, breathing heavily. The other one, the big coated one with the serrated cleaver, simply stood.
"You don't talk much, do you?" said the smaller one, after a few seconds.
"I don't waste words," said Tauga.
"You had some real great words to waste on the lost ship the other day."
"Fucking idiot captain should've listened to my fucking advice, piece of shit," said Tauga instantly. The Knight laughed. His name was Sevvin.
"What? You want me to banter?""Well, if you're offering..."
"I didn't offer jack shit. I asked if you want me to.""If... That's acceptable, Marquise."
"Oh shut up," she said, picking her ravaged shell off the ground and flexing. Tauga was so rarely out of her suit that it was easy to forget how damaged she was, a corroded husk of a hain body barely holding in the bodily power beneath. She hadn't moulted in twelve years.
"Round three, hand to hand. Let's go."The big Warden set its cleaver down at the side of the ring. The watchers who'd gathered raised a whoop as it cracked its knuckles for their benefit. Feet stamped and a chant rose as Tauga stepped into the ring.
A pale green spark flickered between the two Knights. A duet of warriors is always greater than the sum of one and one. For Knights, even more so. For a Knight and a Warden... Well.
Tauga hadn't even won their last round.
The page cried, "Fight!"
The femme knight squared off and his partner stepped forward, the numbers setting him at leisure. A yellow halo blazed above its head.
Tauga was expecting it. At the moment of the cry she'd spun on her front heel and stepped forward, carrying the force through a kick into the space the Warden had entered. Her heel slammed on blue glow. Sevvin's own halo flared the same.
The Warden shot a jab into the space she'd been and Tauga flattened backwards onto palms and feet. She cartwheeled back on one hand.
Sevvin crossed into the Warden's space and the Warden appeared at Tauga's fore. She twisted her shoulders into a punch at its hip and saw Sevvin's halo switch to pink, jabbing an elbow to his knee as he approached.
He buckled back. Tauga leapt into him. The Warden spun a hook into her skull.
Sevvin took Tauga's knee to his face and was thrown backwards, Tauga crashing into the turf on her hip. She stood immediately. Bleeding from the face into the eye, it didn't stop her assuming the guard position. The Warden's mask flickered. Sevvin crouched outside of the ring, green connection broken. It had been a very unfavourable exchange for him.
"You wanted banter, Sev? Here's some," she said. The Warden and Blowfly circled. Its halo, too, had flashed to pink.
"You come to my islands because your Emperor sent you. You fight my battles in Lifprasil's name. You train my soldiers and say 'glory to Alefpria', but whose Marquisate is this?"The Warden's orb went yellow and it threw a volley of punches at the tiny figure, lunging down into each thrust. Its reach was greater than Tauga's ability to move, but Tauga was canny and knew what she could win. The blow that put its studded knuckles into her chest was the same she used to grab the Warden's wrist and toss herself upwards with the leverage. Her heel entered its face with a hard crack as the two leapt off one another.
Tauga flicked her twisted wrist into shape as the Warden went blue. Her bones didn't fit the same way normal hain's did.
"Mine, Sevvin," she said. Despite the blood, dripping now, she spoke on.
"Look around you. This is the empire you were sent to build. And it's not Alefprian. It's not even Xerxes anymore. Xerxes got eaten by the Devil. This is where all your ideas and your peoples come together and conquer. This is your glorious future, here in the dirt and the sand and the sweat. It's alive."The Warden made a sweeping kick and Tauga vaulted over it, smashing her fists into its sides, its gut, boxing and kick-boxing the giant warrior. They disengaged, Tauga bleeding from the fists. Her aura swirled from her. The watchers began to yell.
"Show me an God-Emperor who preaches from a palace and I'll show you nothing more than a sage with a general who can't be assed to claim power. You love him because he's kind, not because of what he's done. All true emperors are tyrants, Sevvin."The Warden stepped forward. Tauga flicked her beak and braced.
"And when you worship a tyrant-"She spun through the air, slamming a kick into the Warden's collarbone, and was smacked from the air onto the sideline. Tauga slid into the wall as the Warden skidded on its feet, leaving gouges in the dust. The back of its heels were just touching the ring.
"-you create a god," she said, and stood.
Some crowds might roar. This one simply murmured. Tauga felt her eyes fall shut.
"Some banter," said Sevvin. "Wow."
Tauga put her palm in the air, snapped her fingers. A blood-eyed worm fell into her hand and wound up her shoulder. It peeled away her damaged cranium and she licked her bloodied teeth.
"Could've won that if I wasn't talking. Just wasted words.""Perhaps not so much," said the Warden. Heartworm looked at it and felt no fear.