[M] Retribution IV: Rebirth

[Proto Man]

With a dull thud, the hammerhead smashed into the ground in front of Scylla. Its wielder—a muscle-bound man with horns jutting out from his temples—swallowed back a scream of frustration as he tried to wrench his weapon free of the earth. “Release my weapon, Witch!”

“I’ll do you one better,” Scylla muttered as the ground around the warrior started to rumble. Before her foe could fathom what was happening, the spot he stood on dropped down about four feet into the defiled soil of the Underverse coliseum. A moment later, walls of magically hardened dirt crushed in around him. The man struggled in the cold embrace before his strength failed him, and in one final bone-chilling moment, the audience drew silent enough to hear and watch the warrior’s body crumple like an empty aluminum can.

At the realization of the fighter’s gruesome demise, the crowd of demons and damned souls broke out into thunderous applause—their lust for violence and orgasmic displays of gore once again satisfied by the somber woman who now strode back into the bloodworks. As she sat down onto a wooden bench, she overhead a few of the other gladiators talking once again.

“That prisoner… the one they called 11256, you know the one?” A man-ish sounding creature asked a peer.

“Oh yes, the fire brand,” a second individual replied with a snicker. “She finally get what was coming to her?”

“She got out last night, or at least, that’s what my buddy in the other bloodworks said. Apparently, she overpowered a guardswoman, chopped her head off, and slipped into the cistern.”

“She keeps digging herself deeper and deeper, heh. At this rate, Belial’s going to personally rip her to shreds.”

Scylla had only seen the woman in question fight on one occasion. In a battle a few days ago, ‘11256’ had managed to overpower and murder more than a few fighters and creatures larger and seemingly more skilled than her. While Scylla wasn’t one to be impressed by the folly of mortals, she did find it amusing that someone would try to buck the authority of a fascist hell-world.

If anything, it would provide a break from the monotony of killing her lesser, and since she was a fighter by her own free will, she had the freedom to walk away without incurring the wrath of a few hundred demon barons and eldritch monstrosities.

With a blank expression on her face, the bloodstained Archdemon rose from the bench and made her way out of the bloodworks. She would find this prisoner and figure out what all the talk was about.