I'm Actually Quite Selfish

[Tearen Wover]

The sound of splashing water ricocheted lightly around the confines of the tiny bathroom. Tearen knelt at the edge of the tub, the sleeves of his Officer's jacket rolled up to the elbows. His hair had been loosened from the tight, braided ponytail that was required for public ceremonies for the Legion. Now it simply fell in long, wavy sheets around his face as he smiled down at the slippery toddler smacking her hands into the foamy bathwater.

Cradling her chin gently, Tearen let a cascade of warm water wash down her scalp, taking a sluice of foaming bubbles with it. The white soapy froth contrasted starkly against the deep, deep brown color of the child's skin (though she too had shock white hair like her father). As he went to fill the small rinsing basin from the spigot once more, the giggling child gleefully grabbed hold of the shampoo bottle that Tearen thought had been out of reach. With a delighted shriek, she hugged the bottle to her bare chest and grinned mischievously up at Tearen, knowing she had done wrong.

"No no, you know better." the pilot said gently, prying the shampoo away from her slippery grasp. The young girl maintained her adorable grin, and folded her arms down into her lap with another happy shout. It was a piercing noise, especially considering the cramped environs, but the joy within the keening brought solace to Tearen nonetheless.

The sound of the bathroom door opening caused Tearen to turn his head briefly, looking up at his wife as she walked in. Tearen squinted against the bright lights overhead; they made it hard to make out the exact details of her face.

"How's it going?" she asked, her voice distant. Tearen turned back with the bathtub with a smile, only to blink and recoil in shock. The child was gone.

"W...Where's...?" Tearen stuttered incoherently. The bath seemed to be deepening, stretching away from him as if it were an infinitely deep well, leading only to pitch blackness. Where was she? The girl. His daughter. Her name was...

"Where's who?" came the voice from behind him. Tearen shook his head and plunged an arm into the depths of the bathtub, flight jacket and all, swishing it around in desperation, searching for the girl. What was her name?

"You know who. The...our..." Tearen turned back to look at his wife, but she was gone. Only the blinding white lights of the bathroom greeted him, causing him to shield his eyes. This didn't make sense. He needed to find her. Them. Tearen removed his jacket and plunged deep into the blackened depths of the bathtub, but rather than swimming down through the water, he found himself in free fall, tumbling through the air uncontrolled. Too shocked to shout, Tearen tried to assess which way was up and flexed his core muscles, hoping to right himself in the air...


Tearen sat up with a lurch, his voiceless mouth taking in a hissing gasp of air. Still disoriented within the blackness, Tearen clawed aimlessly around him, and felt the cool stone beneath his body. Sucking in some more sharp breaths. Sensibility flooded in as disorientation left, allowing Tearen to slow his breathing as he looked around from his vantage on top of the Colosseum. A dream. How pedestrian. A long-forgotten physical impulse compelled Tearen to try and yawn, but the Prime winced as sharp pains rippled across his mouth. Running a smooth finger across the cracked orifice, Tearen found that it had been busy sealing itself shut while he had slept. An astonishing rate of healing...perhaps that was what had allowed him to recover from the fight with the Ripper so quickly. There was nothing for it; he was going to have to keep trimming at the flesh around his mouth to keep it open. At least this time the tissue was far more pliant and thin, though that didn't reduce the pain at all.

After a few minutes, he was finished with the grisly chore. Standing tall, Tearen looked down at the square of Azgradurg, far below. Quite a crowd now thronged there, the echoing murmur of their collective anticipation wafting up to his perch like a perfumed smoke. Perhaps it was best to find Ilthiax now...hopefully he hadn't slept through the qualifying rounds. In the interest of discretion, Tearen shifted his form into that of a mundane crow and glided down towards the ground. His black feathers concealed him perfectly against the obsidian vault overhead, and with deft wingbeats, the crow fluttered into the main entrance.

Picking Ilthiax's corpulent mind out amid the morass of demonic rabble was not entirely difficult. The cyborg demon's thoughts raged and stormed around the thoughts of Grooota, Tearen, and the money to be gained. It was odd, as Tearen thought on it. Ilthiax had told Tearen that Grooota's primary motivation in this was a gain of prestige. Was Ilthiax putting himself in a position of monetary gain somehow? Tearen tucked the mental flag away for later use as he alighted on the ground right behind the corpulent cyborg. Ilthiax was arguing with what appeared to be a Colosseum official who stood behind a small barred window.

"Look you fat simpleton. We're far past the scheduled start to the qualifying rounds. Your fighter isn't here, so unless you plan on entering yourself, get the fuck out of my sight." the wiry imp said, drumming clawed talons on the granite countertop. Ilthix let out a low, mechanical growl and ran a hand back over his horned head. Even as he did this, a small puff of wind caused him to wheel around on the spot, only to be met with Tearen's seething green eyes, gleaming out from under a burlap hood.

"Where in all that is Unholy have you fucking been?!" Ilthiax shouted, sizzling spittle spattering against the lapels of Tearen's simple tunic. The Shadow narrowed its eyes.

"I went for a walk."

"A..."

Ilthiax's eyes bulged as he grabbed his forehead with both hands, pulling at hair that was no longer there.

"...WALK?!"

Tearen nodded.

"You...USELESS...DO YOU EVEN KN-" Ilthiax paused for a moment, then cocked his head as if Tearen had just grown arms from his ears.

"Since when can you talk?" he hissed. Tearen just blinked slowly.

"This peon won't let me fight?" the Prime asked, gesturing at the Colosseum clerk with a small gesture. Ilthiax's face screwed into a foul expression.

"No thanks to YYOOUU-"

Ilthiax was silenced as Tearen brushed past the overweight cyborg, staring the black, skinny imp-clerk in the eyes.

"Oh, what. What are you gonna do?" the Imp sneered. His confidence only lasted for the length of time it took Tearen to phase through the bars to the official's office. Wide-eyed, the clerk took a few harried steps back, pressing himself into the far, dank wall. Tearen silently turned his gaze from the clerk and looked at the ledger, listing the order in which the combatants were being qualified. Almost all of the names either had an 'X' or a check next to them, but luckily it appeared as though there were a handful of warriors still waiting for their turns. With a delicate touch, Tearen touched his hand to one of the names and closed his eyes, focusing on the ink that the name was etched with.

A rainbow of color flashed and sparked within the cramped officiates hall as Tearen absorbed the Omnillium composing the black pigment, leaving the space blank and fresh. The Shadow pushed the heavy ledger under the opening in the bars to a stunned Ilthiax.

"Write my name there." the Prime whispered. Ilthiax grabbed the pen from the countertop tentatively and glanced at Tearen with a genuinely fearful look.

"What about the imp...?" he blubbered. Again, Tearen said nothing, but turned away from Ilthiax as a pure white light began to spill from his eyes.

Hopefully the ensuing screams weren't audible over the fervor of the spectating crowds.

...

"Our next entry...Tearen Wover!" the announcer said haltingly. The eruption of noise that followed was an affront to Tearen as he tried to maintain his concentration. This arena was much different than the one he had fought in a few days ago. It was well-lit (by Underverse standards), carrion did not litter the battlefield, and there was much, much more room to move around. In addition to that, the floor was tiled instead of being bare dirt. It ultimately did not matter, however. The primary determining factor would be the supposed immense strength of Tearen's opponents. As the din of the crowd's cheers died down, there came a sharp, echoing wail. It was so shrill that Tearen was brought back to the shrieks of the girl from his dream. This, however, was much more animal in nature, much more bloody.

With great loping strides, the monstrous...thing, easily as tall as five men, lurched out into the battlefield. The Beast was misshapen, to say the least. One of its arms scraped along the ground as it dashed forth, covered in long, matted ropes of grey and black hair. It looked muscular in its arms and legs, but its torso was emaciated terribly. It had the face of some kind of amalgamation between a wolf and elk, but the face was peeled back to reveal only raw bone and weeping muscles. No eyes filled its ravening sockets.

There were so, SO many ways that Tearen could dispatch a beast such as this without risking unnecessary harm to himself, but that was not the point of this arena. These demon-folk wanted a show, and for that, it was befitting for him to have a weapon to slay this creature with. Reaching back into his memories, the Shadow called forth an old weapon that had traveled the span of galaxies with him. A polearm he had named Enigma, ten feet long and deadly at both ends, was summoned into existence with a shimmering glow. By the time the halberd was called into existence, the Beast was upon him, slamming a huge paw into the ground.

Far from intimidated, Tearen stepped inside the gap between the Beast and its arm, and jabbed the sharp pommel of the halberd into the Beast's thigh. The beast reacted with a sharp shriek, and hopped away from Tearen, causing the arena floor to rumble from the landing. It was clear that this monstrosity was more nimble than its hobbled appearance let on. Tearen slipped into a faster stream of time and accelerated himself past the Beast, appearing only as a muddy blur for a moment. The Beast whipped its larger claw around behind it in response, smacking Tearen off balance. Tearen leaned into the direction of his wobbling spin and pirouetted in place, before hurling Enigma at the creature's lingering hand with all of his might. The jagged head burrowed into the hairy flesh, and the Beast slammed its fist into the spot Tearen had been just a moment prior.

Enigma rattled out on to the tiled floor in a spurt of blood. Tearen, who was currently hovering directly behind the Beast, called the halberd to his hand with a telekinetic mandate. Much to Tearen's surprise, the Beast snatched Enigma out of the air as it flew to the Shadow's hand, and proceeded to wield the halberd with its smaller arm like a tiny hatchet. Swallowing the humiliation of his hubris, the ex-enigma breathed deeply and once again slipped into a higher relative flow of time. The entire world took on a blue hue as the movements of the Beast slowed. Every fleck of spittle, every jitter of its mangy coat began moving sluggishly, giving Tearen the time he needed to assess the situation. He was disarmed, but as far as he could tell, Enigma had barely been hurting this creature.

The shadow's eyes ran over the beast's body, looking for something to exploit, when suddenly it began to unleash yet another horrid scream. The blood-curdling noise was even more insufferable in the realm of accelerated perception, and Tearen cursed the mouth that bore it. It did, however, give the Shadow an idea.

He focused his thoughts around the space between the Beast's jaws, and let his power flow freely into the fabric of the Underverse therein. Breathing deeply, Tearen summoned another...then another contraction of time and space. A great, rippling field of imminent destruction glimmered all around the Beast's head as Tearen pulled on the fabric until it could be pulled no more. Releasing everything at once, there came a thunderous blast as the Beast's lower jaw was immediately separated from the rest of its head. In shock, the now warbling wretch clutched at its hemorrhaging face weakly with its small hand, releasing Enigma in the process. Finally reclaiming the halberd as it sped through the air, Tearen sneered down at the Beast and approached it slowly.

Was this really the best they could do?