She felt the floor beneath her change, it became soft and gave way under her feet slightly. A warm breeze blew through her hair as she made her way along the pitch black tunnel. A faint light appeared in the distance, illuminating the pathway to her next battle and, inevitably, her next victory. She crouched down and drew her handgun from its holster, after the fire she had caused in her last round, she didn’t feel like spending too much time on whoever her next opponent was. Eventually she reached the doorway to the second round, and cautiously poked her head outside.

She was stunned to see she had managed to make her way outside, although when she saw the white marble wall next to her door she began to think she wouldn’t get too far with such a wall going around the plain. She stared up at the sky, sure enough there was a beautiful blue sky up above, a few fluffy white clouds hanging around and a bright yellow sun nestled right in the middle of it all. She looked around at the lush green grass that moved so lightly in the warm breeze. The landscape was especially breathtaking to the young Mistress, who had never seen such a beautiful landscape in her entire life. The impact of humanity on the land had stripped the world of such sights in her time, filling the sky with black smog and any surviving vegetation was yellow and sickly.

“Stay focused,” she told herself sharply, “we will have time to admire the landscape after I defeat whoever is here.” She looked over to see another doorway next to hers, half-way open. Holding her gun in front of her, she peeked behind the doorway. There was no one there, but she did notice a few drops of blood on the handle and trailing on the grass. She grinned wickedly, her opponent was injured, this was going to be a snap.

She followed the blood trail with her eyes, until she saw it was headed into a small village in the middle of the plain. She could see that it was in bad shape, like someone had come through and tried to burn it all to the ground. With the amount of wooden buildings that made it up, it was a miracle there was anything left of the village. She began to follow the blood drops into the village, where she found even more evidence that this place had been attacked. Although there was a distinct lack of bodies scattered about, there were several broken pots, farming implements, and ever some children’s dolls that lay burnt and ruined on the ground.

“Not that any of this matters to me,” she thought, “who cares about the lives of a couple stupid hicks that were run out of their homes. That’s why I’m at the top and not them, because I can fight for what I want.” She glanced away from the blood trail for a moment and saw a white statue in the middle of town. Stepping away from her current task, she walked towards the statue and noticed something next to it. A small stone well stood next to what she realized was an exact copy of the angel statue from the last room. Once she was standing in front of them, she realized a few things.

“The well is sealed,” she noted, running her hand across the metal bars. She noticed a ladder just behind the bars descending deep into the well, far into darkness. She felt herself shudder, “I hope I don’t have to go down there. It’s probably filled with mud and all sorts of filthy little beasts.” She put the problem to the side for a moment and turned towards the statue.

“It’s changed,” she muttered, and although it was still largely incomplete, some things had been filled in. First of all, the small hole in its forehead where the scroll had been placed last round was now filled, the word ‘TRUTH’ spelled in large, square, red letters. Also it now had a mouth, which was currently turned up at the edges just slightly. As before, the Grimoire sat open on a pedestal in front of it, but this time there was no scroll. She stepped forward and glanced at what was written on it.

“Fill the chalice with the blood of the unworthy.”

Thirteen grinned wickedly, “if the blood trail is any indication, I won’t even have to strike him to get what I want.” She stared at the gun in her hand, “although, maybe I should at least cripple them, just to make sure they’ll go along with it.” She returned to the blood trail, it went inside one of the ruined buildings. She shoved the propped up door out of the way and followed the trail. It stopped underneath the ruined blanket of a charred bed, a large lump under the covers. She readied her gun and slowly moved towards the bed, making sure not to make a sound and wake her foe. She took aim at where she expected its feet to be, and fired a round.

It exploded in a puff of feathers and dirty cloth.

“A decoy?” She said, pulling away the blankets to see a couple of half destroyed pillows underneath. “Then where the hell is my oppo-” she stopped as she saw a large blob of blood fall down onto her gun. She glanced up into the rafters and saw a bent-over blanket shuffling towards a gaping hole in the roof.

“Hold it right there,” she commanded, levelling her gun at its back. She was a moment too slow, however, as the shape slipped out the hole into the alleyway. She groaned inwardly, she really didn’t want to have to chase them down. “Well, I’m not restrained by a no-killing rule this time,” she realized, “I can just plug him in the head and empty him into the cup myself.” She ran outside to the alley her opponent had dropped into, and took aim at the crumpled figure, another blanket over it. She sank a couple more shots in it, watching bits of wood go flying away. She ran over and pulled away the second blanket, this time it was an old crate.

“Why you filthy son of a..” she growled through grit teeth. She heard a scraping sound behind her and turned, gun blazing. She had fired 4 shots towards the sound before she even saw what she was firing at. When she did see, however, her jaw dropped.

Standing before her was the filthiest, ugliest, most disgusting creature she had ever seen in her entire life. He was younger than she was, but the layers of dirt on his body were probably so old they needed carbon dating. His clothes were an utter mess, torn and badly sewn in some places, covered with a terrifying number of unrecognizable stains. His pants look like someone had just stuck pockets on them wherever they felt and they were already a ghastly pair of sweat pants. She shuddered, pants that made you look like a shapeless bulge. When she first learned of them she thought they were a terrible myth used to scare children straight. The shoes were barely passable, incredibly out of date, but they were in much better care than the rest of his person.

As she stood in silent horror at the creature before her, it seemed to unfreeze from the ramrod straight position it was in, four bullet holes stuck in the building behind him, uncomfortably close to his own head. He turned and ran straight into the building opposite her, but after taking half a step, it seemed to double over in excruciating pain. The injuries from the last round still taking a large amount of his energy. He gripped at his ribs and quickly hobbled into the house.

“Just my luck,” Rude thought miserably, “I just barely get a chance to rest and some psycho chick comes gunning for me.” He had to admit she cut an impressive figure, almost a foot taller than he was, and dressed in clothes he couldn’t imagine in his wildest dreams (have a Y chromosome might have contributed to that, however).  From the short time he had managed to see her without being terrified, he had noticed some interesting tattoos on her, most disappearing underneath her black dress. Her black hair had been tied up in what he suspected women called a ‘pony-tail’ with a weird pin shaped like an X and three I’s, although he had no clue what the word, “Xiii” was supposed to mean.

“Okay, enough thinking about the crazy lady,” he decided, shaking himself back to the present, “time to figure out how to escape her.” He looked at one side of the room, to his amazement, the wall of not only the current house, but of several more houses down the way, were demolished just enough he was certain he could slip through. He took off in his painful lope, Mistress following him in pursuit.

“Stay right there,” she barked. For a moment his body felt like it would stop, her voice had a remarkable ring to it that made him almost want to obey. But then he saw another bullet go whizzing by, and his body regained full control. He slipped through the hole in the wall, a clay pot exploding next to him. He caught his stride and was off running, but Mistress was not so easy to lose. She trained her gun on him and fired at him, always missing by millimetres. He slipped through the cracks, his pain momentarily forgotten as the joy of running caught up with him. He swung from the loose rafters and rolled behind whatever meagre cover he could find as bullet’s whizzed past him. Eventually he reached the last house and he burst through the doorway back into the sunlight. He glanced around wildly, searching for where his opponent would come from. Suddenly the pain from his last fight reclaimed him and he collapsed his knees, gripping his ribs tightly.

“Damn it, that giant really did a number to my ribs at the end,” he grit his teeth. “If I don’t do anything to get rid of this pain, I’ll be up the creek.” As he sat there focused on his pain, he was oblivious of the world around him. Or at least he was right up until he felt the gun barrel against his temple.

“Cute little running bit you did there,” Thirteen sneered, trying to hold the gun as far away from her as possible. “But I’m afraid it ends here. I don’t need you to be alive for this challenge, so goodbye.” Rude didn’t even have enough time to start screaming when she pulled the trigger.

*click*

Rude froze with his mouth wide open, the utter fear and horror at being killed replaced with confusion. As such, a weak, hoarse whine was all that escaped from his throat. The women stared down in horror at the gun in her hands, this was probably the worst time in the universe to realize you hadn’t brought any additional ammo along.

*click* *click*

Rude immediately felt his body return to his control and he leapt at her throat. He tackled her to the ground and immediately started to punch her in the face repeatedly. She managed to catch his fist after the fifth punch, however, and quickly flipped him onto his back. She jumped to her feet and grabbed her rapier, holding it ready in front of her. He rolled away from her and quickly got up as well, his hands scrambling for his dagger. She watched in amazement as it shape shifted into a long sinister sword, although watching him hold it with such an unconfident stance gave her some reassurance.

She struck him, easily knocking the blade out of his inexperienced hands. She felt as though with one move she had already won the fight, but was amazed to see him draw the exact same blade from his pocket once more. This time he held tight against her attack, mostly blocking her while getting slowly pushed backwards. He made a few cautious swipes at her, but Rude was clearly in over his head fighting her in a match of skill. Once more he was disarmed, so he turned tail and ran off, it was amazing how fast he was. She watched him round a corner and disappear behind a building, but this time she decided to play it smart and not try to match him. She ducked inside a building and looked through a window, sure enough he was trying to run behind the buildings and sneak up on her. She waited for him to almost pass the window, crouching in the windowsill. Then, like a cat pouncing on a mouse that thought it had escaped, she leapt out and tackled him. The two tumbled in the dirt for a short period, and she felt her rage grow as the sound of her dress ripping filled her ears. She decided it was time to try at a different tack before her clothes were utterly ruined. Besides, being so close to this living manifestation of filth was making her extremely ill.

“Wait! Please stop struggling, I just want to talk to you!” She shouted, pushing herself off him and taking a step back. The blow to the ribs had caused another mouthful of blood to escape his lips, leaving him in no good mood.

“Oh yes, I can see talking is high on your list of things to do,” he spat, “you didn’t even try to talk when I set up that dummy in bed. You just started to try and fill it with lead.”

“…I’m sorry,” she whispered sadly, suddenly on the edge of tears, “it’s just that, I have so much to fight for. You’re right, I shouldn’t have tried to attack right away, but after my last fight, I’m just so scared.” The sudden change had put Rude off balance for a brief moment, but he was well-aware he was being lied to. Not because of an enhanced ability to perceive liars around him, but his usual paranoia that the entire world was out to get him. Still, he was desperate for a break to recover, so he played along for the moment.

“Well, alright, let’s just take five and take a breath.”  He didn’t sit down until she had, but after that he took a moment to open his hoodie and check the damage. Nothing broken, that was a miracle, but he was still going to want some time to rest after this whole tournament business.

“I’m Mistress Thirteen,” she introduced herself, “if this wasn’t such a dire situation, I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you.” The last part of the sentence made her stomach churn, if this had been any other situation he would have been executed by her guards already for being so disgusting. She noticed the grey streaks in his hair, it made her blood run cold to think someone could be ravaged by old age so early.

“Rudy Culver, call me Rude,” he responded shortly. “Listen, I decided to get a nap before dealing with whatever this round requires, so fill me in what we have to do.”

“You know that angel statue in the middle of town? Well, apparently one of us has to fill the cup in its hand with their blood.” Rude’s frown deepened at the news, but he didn’t make a move.

“I’m guessing that one who fills this thing loses, right?” Mistress Thirteen nodded, causing him to let out a deep sigh. He got to his feet and for a moment she was scared he was going to strike her down, but then he solemnly said, “well, if you don’t mind waiting for awhile, I think I can fill that thing on my own.”

“Y-you’re seriously going to give up, just like that?” She exclaimed, there was no faking her surprise. He gave her a half-hearted shrug, then winced in pain.

“I didn’t want to be part of this mess in the first place. Just let me fill the cup in peace and I think we can all go away from this satisfied.” He stood up and offered to lift her up, but glancing at the disgusting hand caused her to shrink back and push herself up. After a brief moment spent trying to vainly clean herself off, she lead him back towards the statue.
--------------------------------
“Hurry it up, this is taking forever,” she barked over her shoulder.

“Chill out woman, I’d like to retain control of my body after this little ordeal.” He snapped back, poking his finger gingerly with his tiny dagger once more. So far he’d poked his fingers and left a small couple dots on his palm and wrist. It had been almost an hour and the blood barely filled the bottom of the cup. Thirteen was running out of patience, staring at the ragged husk that was Rude was making her more and more disgusted not only with him, but with her own body. Her desire to live for eternity grew stronger with every passing moment she watched his body and his infuriating slowness to do what was necessary.

“I could just kill him, and then I could just cut off his head and pour the blood in quickly.” She thought maliciously, the idea was seeming more and more appealing as time went on. She slowly reached down and drew out her rapier, a quick stab in the back to drop him, then she could take that magical dagger of his and use it to decapitate him. She silently moved towards him, he seemed utterly absorbed in his task. She positioned herself behind him and silently moved behind the statue, shifting the blade in her hand to get it primed. She lifted herself onto the angel’s shoulders and wound up, Rude sitting on the statue’s arm. He was lost in his task, lightly pricking his fingers and staring into the shiny red surface of the blood. It was almost like a mirror, showing his unwashed hair and his dirty face…

And the insane woman standing behind him, her weapon raised above her head.

Rude screamed in horror and hastily rolled under the arm, landing on his back and crushing the pedestal beneath him. He scrambled back to his feet and broke into a run just as her sword struck where he had been lying. He drew his sword and they faced-off once more, slowly moving in a circle around each other.

“What is your malfunction?!” Rude exclaimed, “I was doing just fine as I was, when did our plan change to killing me?” For a few seconds, she just glared at him with those mad eyes, scanning and judging every square inch of his body.

“FILTH! FILTH!” she screamed madly, “YOU’RE A FILTHY, DISGUSTING PIECE OF GARBAGE! I CAN’T STAND YOU’RE VERY EXISTANCE!” She lunged at him again, he rolled out of the way with almost no effort. “And do you know what I do when I find a piece of trash lying around my mansion?! I have it burned! In a furnace!” She swiped again, clanging against his sword. All form had left her attacks, she was just stabbing and swiping wildly.

“A mansion? You live in a bloody mansion?!” Rude exclaimed, deflecting her blade once more and lunging at her. “I don’t even have a cardboard box to call my own and you have a mansion?! What the hell are you doing in this damn tournament?” He pinned her against a wall, glaring at her beneath his mess of hair.

“That’s right, I have a mansion, and people who work for me!” She shoved him away and took another stab, “I even have my own daemon, and do you now why? Because I am clean, because I am educated, because I MATTER!” She took one overly desperate swing, and Rude managed to hook her blade in the many saw-teeth of his sword. He gave a violent jerk and they watched the blade go flying. This didn’t seem to hinder her in the least, as she tried to rake her overly manicured nails against his face.

“That’s why I need this wish. If I die, all of that will go to someone who doesn’t matter. I need to escape old age, to live forever! I must become a DAEMON!!” She swiped again, but by now Rude cowardice had taken the best of him, and he took off running again. He ducked into a building that still had a door on hinges and slammed a piece of the rafters in front of the door.

“Christ, I thought she was a psycho before, now she’s just a raging ball of unfocused insanity.” He thought to himself, “why do all my fights seem to have my opponent devolve into that?” He set those thoughts aside for a moment, but now she’s unfocused, so now I can at least take the upper hand. Come on Rude, I know thinking about fighting isn’t something I do often, but right now I could really use my help.” He looked around trying to find something to help him end the fight quickly. He paused as he stared down at his feet, his eyes began to trail up to his pants, then they travelled up to his hoodie. He felt a small grin appear on his grizzled face.

Thirteen banged on the door with all her might, eventually it gave way and she kicked the pieces of rotten wood out of the way. Her eyes passed over the room, her looks now like that of a wild animal, there was some trash in this house that needed to be burned. She was going to make the cup overflow with his blood, let it dribble down the statue as she laughed maniacally. He was nowhere to be found, and she almost began to think he had escaped through a hole in the wall, like the rat he was. Then all of a sudden she felt something wet on the top of her head. She lifted a hand up to check, and when she looked at it, she was shocked at what she saw.

“Blood…” she muttered, then slowly a realization dawned on her. She looked up to the rafters to see Rude holding his bloody hand outstretched, a long length rope coiled up and held tight in it. In the other he had his dirty grey hoodie, leaving his frail upper body naked to the world. A rare smile was on his face.

“You know, I never really get a chance to be cocky,” he said to her bewildered face, “so I don’t really now what to say here other than, CATCH!”  He dropped the disgusting hoodie square on her face and after a few seconds of abject horror, she began to scream. It was the animal scream of pure primal fear that came with confronting ones deepest and darkest fears, which she had already been forced to weather not too long ago. She staggered outside, desperately clawing at the filthy rag on her face. Unfortunately, years of wearing it everywhere had made it rather sticky and clung to her body tightly, almost like a second skin. She rolled on the ground, her mind awash in a terror that she could not described, tears rolling down her obscured face. This was when Rude decided to make his move, but he couldn’t take her out until she stop flailing around like she was. He grabbed his rope and ran towards her, sizing up the jumps and turns and knots he would have to make in a brief flash of his true brilliance.

“Hold still woman,” he shouted, “otherwise this might hurt a little.” He first wrapped the rope around her wrist, making a quick knot to hold until he got further in and could make long term knots in the rope. He ran around her with terrifying speed, the pain in his chest burning like red-hot iron. But it didn’t matter, he grit his teeth and rushed on, he had to do this as quick as possible. He dodged and rolled around her, leaping above her and even sliding between her legs. It was quite a acrobatic display, although the reason for this series of madcap movements was just to keep her from struggling too much. Slowly her limbs became constrained as round after round was made on them, binding the to her sides. Eventually he pulled his hoodie off her face, showing her terrified features. Quickly he wrapped a few passes around her mouth, silencing her screams into a panicked moan. In the course of only a few seconds, she had become completely wrapped in rope and was squirming wildly in vain. She was so wrapped up in being wrapped up, that she didn’t even noticed the foot come flying at the side of her head.

Rude stood next to her unconscious body, her felt his hand travel to his dagger and he wrapped his hand around the grip. It would be easy, she was totally unprotected, just a quick stab and then he could finish pouring his blood into the chalice and go home. After all, it was only fair after all the garbage he had suffered through with her insanity, he should just finish her off. He drew his dagger, lifted it high above his head and…

He hesitated. He had killed people before, it was no matter to stab a person  for him. But every time he had struck the mortal blow, it had been in self-defence. He had always had his back against the wall (literally and metaphorically) with no other options but to take a stab at them and run like hell. Killing someone in cold blood, when he had a clear view of his target, he just couldn’t do it. Slowly he lowered his knife and solemnly put it back in his pocket.

He turned around to look at the statue, fill the chalice with blood. Any other time he would have lunged at the chance to get out with only a little pain. But now parts of his mind that handled compassion and morals, parts that had almost never been used before in his life, were slowly humming to life after his dilemma with Thirteen. There could be whole lot more people out there who had a wish they didn’t deserve, people who were just greedy jerks who were trying to get some ill-thought out wish. He didn’t feel any sense of justice, that was still far out of his range of beliefs, but he did feel something a little more familiar. Anger.

“A bunch of rich idiots just decided to go, give up their cushy mansions, and go around killing each other for even more cash and power.” He growled, “I can’t let something like that happen, as long as they’re weaker than me,” he had the last part diplomatically.  He made have been full of rage, but he was still a coward at heart. “And then there’s the dick who’s running this whole circus. I got a special bone to pick with him for making this so stupid. Sign a contract, fill a cup of blood, this is rediculous.” He glanced over at the cup, “speaking of which.” He dragged the hog-tied woman over to the statue, and after a few minutes of struggling and awkward lifting, he managed to lay her in the angel’s arms. He pulled himself up and began undoing the complex knots, slowly revealing the flustered woman underneath. He removed his own blood from the cup with his bare hands until he was happy enough it was clean.

“Alright, now where will this not kill her, but still leave some scars to grow on,” he pondered. Eventually he just threw one arm across the cup and left a nice cut in her arm, not so deep to kill her, but deep enough to fill the cup fairly quickly. He took out his dagger and pulled it carefully across the skin, letting crimson liquid appear where it touched. He waited patiently as the cup filled, massaging the wound to keep it from scabbing over. After what seemed like forever the cup filled to the brim, and he heard a strange shrieking from the well and he looked over to see the iron bars on top of it evaporating.

“Well, this is it,” he said grimly, “today’s the day I go from utter coward to a kind of, sort of coward. But if the next challenge is a lot less painless, then I might still opt-out. Baby steps, I’m still new to this righteous rage thing.” With that he turned his attention back to his unconscious foe. He had an idea, nothing too violent, but he felt it was perfect for her. He quickly hunted down her rapier and handgun, then threw them down the well, he wasn’t going to use them, but she didn’t need them. Next he pulled his dagger out again and carefully cut the word, “GRANDMA” into her forehead. He snickered slightly, then quickly turned and made his way towards the well. Just as he reached the ladder, he paused to reflect once more, this felt so utterly against his character, to think about his actions and take time to consider what he would do next.

“Man, I’ve really gotta’ stop doing that then, it makes me do some stupid things,” he muttered. With that he hopped onto the ladder and slowly made his descent into the darkness. The world above left to a woman who wouldn’t even notice her loss for at least an hour. If anyone had looked at her hair closely, they would notice that the utter horror of meeting her opponent was starting to make the hair at her scalp turn the colour of pure snow.