Colosseum - Quarterfinal - Okor vs the Bandit

[Okor]

A vermillion streak scorched across the marine’s exposed face, flesh and skin turning to ash in its wake. His opponent was far stronger than he had anticipated. While the skull hung by his hip was immensely powerful, they were all showmanship, a mere clown endowed with a proclivity towards battle. There was no such theatricality here, nothing more than pure and simple violence. A woman after my own hearts. His blessed flesh faltered under her onslaught, parasites that had walked with him for centuries annihilated. Another laser carved across his breastplate, melting the surface of ceramite older than some worlds, the wielder of the damnable weapon cursing and shouting at the paladin of plague. ”Enough.”[b] Spat Okor, the tendons in his jaw clearly visible and burnt, their blackness matching the infectious abyss of his mouth. His pistol howled, a corroded shell falling to the stone as he advanced forward. “God-ass-mother-shit-dammit!” Came the cry as phosphex adhered itself to her fleshy forearm, the unfamiliar las-weapon dropping from her hands as she recoiled in pain.

The green flames of the alchemical inferno died away, leaving the woman gasping in pain as she clutched her ravaged limb. [b]”You still resist his embrace.” He gurgled, gesturing with a singed claw towards the ragged gash on her torso, blackened veins pulsing with every gradually slowing beat of her heart. “F-fuck you, you Omni-damned bastard.” She stammered, the poison spreading through her veins, sapping her essence. Booming laughter emanated from the disgusting maw set in the ravaged face of the plague marine. ”He’s already within… you. Every spasm of your heart spreads his touch further.” He took a step closer to the disarmed woman, a maggot burrowing out from his necrotized face, pushing aside charred flesh in its endless hunger. ”Don’t you want… this?” The response he got was a derisive laugh, echoing around the narrow streets. “Why the f-flying fuck would I want your nasty-ass necrosis?”

”Can you not see the… signs? A storm is coming. Bread and… circuses, to distract the masses, take their eyes off of the building cataclysm.” He paused for a breath, clean air entering his lungs, and crying out in a silent scream as innumerable pathogens ravaged its slim hopes for purity. ”These people are soft. Weak. They shall be… swept away, unable to protect themselves. They barely survived the last crisis, and they have only grown weaker since then. When the storm breaks, who will… stand with the kingdom? Perhaps 3 of our number. The secondaries are feeble, mortal, finite. Our most… precious resource, and yet discarded like spent ammunition. The people do not need a hero, storming out of the mists to rescue them from the weekly monster. I offer them… salvation.” The monster rasped, rotten tongue slapping against jagged, broken splinters of teeth. He extended an emaciated claw, wriggling parasites barely visible underneath jaundiced skin. ”I offer them security. I offer them unity. I offer them equality. I offer them… Immortality. They do not need to suffer. You do not need to suffer any longer. Together, we can save this world from its eternal stasis. No more hurt. No more… pain. Just his embrace.”

His single eye blinked, pus encrusting its diseased lid. His devotional tabard flapped in the slight breeze, the sigil emblazoned upon it seeming to pulse in time with the bandit’s heatbeat, resonating with the maladies afflicting her. ”You no longer need to walk alone, Warrior. Join with… us. Accept your death, and you will find it will never come. An eternity to raise hell, to make this realm… right. To make its people safe, to elevate them.” Her eyes, becoming tinged with fever, darted around, glancing at her fallen weapon, the vulnerable form of her opponent, and the simple rune that called out to her, whispered promises and affirmations of adoration to her corrupted blood. ”All you need to do… Is let go. Rot, and be reborn. Spread his blessings, taint the wells, save the… world.” He stopped, the cyclopean eye set in the center of his mutated skull watching the spread of disease in the bandit’s body with interest. The pathogen’s efforts were stymied, halted by her impressive physique. If she would only stop fighting…

704 words.