Chapter 3

Beginnings of Slaughter

“BEGIN!”

The massive oak doors opened, showing a large arena before them. Unlike the normal sparring arenas with flat dusty ground, this one had multiple landscapes. From what Taeyeon could see, there were sections with dark, ominous-looking forests, a sparkling lake in the center, a frozen tundra, and a vast plain of sandy dunes looming in the distance.

The cheers from the crowd were deafening, and Taeyeon could see herself being broadcast on the large screen.

“How do you guys want to do this?” she asked her teammates, “Should we split up?”

“No, we should stay together. That way, we’ll have a numbers advantage,” said Tiffany calmly. “Let’s try to make this as quick as possible.”

They moved together as a pack, with Ice still passed out in Flare’s arms. Soon enough, they spotted their first enemy team. However, it looked like the enemies were still unaware of Taeyeon’s team.

“Leave them to me,” whispered Taeyeon.

The other three nodded, giving their tacit assent, and crouched down behind the peak of a small sand dune.

Taeyeon maneuvered in a wide circle around the enemy group, eventually positioning herself behind a cactus. Her conveniently small stature allowed the cactus to completely shield her from view, even from the diligent sentry who was constantly looking over his shoulder. As the sentry turned around, assured that there was no sign of danger, Taeyeon used the of her knife to smash the cactus forward, uprooting it and sending it sailing toward a member of the enemy team.

Before he could even shout, the sentry crumpled to the ground, impaled all over by cactus spikes. Next to him, his teammate gasped in alarm. Taeyeon grabbed a throwing dagger out of her belt, and launched it at him, hitting the man square between his eyes. The other two teammates, now well aware of Taeyeon, drew their respective weapons- one wielded a sword, and the other what looked like a sniper rifle. The swordsman posed a little bit of a problem for Taeyeon, because his reach with the sword was longer than Taeyeon’s reach with a dagger.

Taeyeon unsheathed her twin knives, and cautiously stepped forward across the sand. The sniper readied his rifle, and shot. Closing her eyes, Taeyeon could hear the bullet whistling its way towards her, and right when it was about to hit, she swung her knife at it, and batted it back at the sniper.

Thinking that his bullet was unavoidable, the sniper had grown lax in his defenses, and the rebounded bullet pierced his left .

Finally, only the swordsman was left. Out of all four team members, Taeyeon could tell he was the most experienced. The man unhooked his shield from his back, and attached it to his arm. Over the crest of the hill, Taeyeon could see her teammates watching the fight curiously. Ice, too, had seemingly awakened.

The two paced towards each other, keeping in low fighting stances. They circled around each other many times, both hesitant to make the first move.

The swordsman was able to manipulate Taeyeon so that his back was to the sun, making her squint and shield her eyes. In an instant, he lunged forward.

Crap, thought Taeyeon. This was a classic trick that she should have easily avoided, but she had spent so much time in the last couple of years fighting at night that it completely slipped her mind.

As the point of the gleaming sword barreled towards her neck, the cornered assassin raised her arm to defend herself. The sword pierced through her forearm, and thus only pricked the base of her neck.

Taeyeon almost fainted from the intense waves of pain as the swordsman withdrew his sword from her arm, leaving a gaping bloodied slit. He then brought his shield down with a crack onto Taeyeon’s head. She stumbled forward from the blow, and as her face landed in the sweltering sand, an idea came into her head.

The swordsman, clearing gloating now, took his dear sweet time while playing it up for the audience. A fatal mistake.

Using the tip of her dagger, Taeyeon swept sand into his eyes.

“What the f-“ he cursed, but before he could finish, Taeyeon sprang to her feet and sliced at his chest. Unfortunately, his shirt hid solid armor underneath that repelled Taeyeon’s attack. Smirking, the swordsman moved towards Taeyeon, only to have his arm nearly sliced off.

Howling, the swordsman looked at Taeyeon with questioning eyes. How had she cut him without seeming to move an inch? Distracted, the swordsman only managed to dodge at the last minute a dagger flying towards him.

“You missed,” he sneered, as the dagger zoomed past his arm and into the trunk of a nearby cactus.

Above, Flare and Ice watched with respect in their eyes. Flare quietly said, “She’s a smart fighter,” and Ice nodded his agreement.

The swordsman continued to dodge as four more daggers flew by into surrounding cacti.

Laughing, he said, “What’s wrong with your aim? Feeling faint from blood loss, little girl?”

He tried to lift his arm, only to be cut again. Bemused and slightly panicked, the swordsman lashed out using his sword, only to hear a slight ping as the sword bounced off of something seemingly invisible- Taeyeon’s steel string. All of her daggers had steel string attached to them, including the one buried in the sniper’s dead body, which had been responsible for the first cut on the swordsman.

As the sun grew brighter, the steel strings flashed brilliantly. They were all anchored to a metal ring fit snugly around Taeyeon’s middle finger. The swordsman was trapped, and any one wrong move or twitch cut result in a severed limb.

“You’ve been oh-so-nice to me,” began Taeyeon as she palmed one of her knives in her hand. The swordsman, all traces of arrogance and ego lost, pleaded silently with his eyes.

“I have no mercy, though. You cannot find mercy where there is not a human conscience.” Finished with speaking, Taeyeon yanked her hand with the steel string ring anchor backwards, thus pulling all five daggers towards the swordsman. The daggers sheared smoothly through the man’s body, and Taeyeon nimbly caught all five. Leaning down, she used the hot sand to clean and sharpen the edges of her knives.

Awed, Flare and Ice approached her. Tentatively, Ice spoke, “Doesn’t that hurt?” pointing to Taeyeon’s arm wound.

“No,” replied the assassin, “After the initial waves, the pain really isn’t that bad. Plus I’ve gotten so many of these in my fights that my body’s grown accustomed to healing at a relatively fast pace.” Already, Taeyeon’s wound was scabbed over- normally a wound of that size would have to have been bandaged and treated with antibiotics. Even when Taeyeon flexed, the wound didn’t reopen.

“By the way, where’s Tiffany?”

“Oh!” squealed Flare, “When you were fighting, news came out that one other team was completely wiped out. In the process of wiping that team out, another team lost two members… so Tiffany went to clean the remaining two up.”

“Right, which direction did she head off to?” questioned Taeyeon.

Ice pointed at the dark, gloomy forest.

“Let’s go then!”

~

The forest seemed to close in around them the further they got. Spindly trees looking on the verge of death were overshadowed by tall oaks. The foliage overhead was a dark blue color, and was dense enough to block out any traces of sunlight. Not so strangely, then, in this twilight atmosphere, fireflies darted around, flickering on and off. Unlike normal fireflies, these ones had wide pincers. High above, strange things stirred in the branches of the trees, obscured by wide leaves.

Next to Ice, a light bobbed up and down.

“What the is this place and what the is this thing?” whispered Ice harshly.

“This entire forest is apparently imported from a real forest close to the center of the kingdom. The makers of this arena wanted to simulate real environments… or something like that. Oh! And also, that thing is a werelight. I don’t think it’s good, though. Light here, as in any dark place, would probably attract unwanted attention,” said Flare.

“Watch out!” cried Taeyeon as a sharp tree branch hurtled by at breakneck speed. Luckily, with Taeyeon’s warning, Flare had been able to dodge.

“How did you know it was coming?” asked Ice.

“Just listen to the sounds,” replied Taeyeon quietly.

Taeyeon examined the branch closely. It didn’t seem as if any human had tampered with it. As Taeyeon leaned closer to look at the branch, the trees around her seemed to creak and groan, swaying slightly. Taeyeon lightly dodged as one more branch flew by. As she dodged, her foot sank into a pool of mud disguised by a light covering of spiky grass. Her movement impaired by the mud, Taeyeon was unable dodge as she heard another branch flying towards her. Ice reacted quickly and punched the branch out of the air before it hit Taeyeon. With Flare’s help, Taeyeon was able to pull her foot out of the murky mud that seemed reluctant to let her go.

As the trio stumbled and hacked their way through the forest, all three of them came to the same realization: The forest itself was trying to kill them. And if they, with three people, were struggling, then how in the world would Tiffany be able to survive while fighting the two remaining applicants?

~

AN

I still haven't decided what Ice's weapons/power should be (cough cough actually I ran out of ideas cough cough), but if you guys have any suggestions, don't hesitate to post them!! Preferably nothing super magical like Ice being able to shoot bolts of ice (even though that would make sense with his name).