Unconquered Pt. 05

Thump thump crash!

Thump thump crash!

"Is that an ordinary sound?" Ember asked, holding the mask he had picked from the locker room in his hands. Beside him, Snide was counting out a wild profusion of money into a collection of sacks. The two of them stood in a small stone corridor that led to a set of stairs that, if Ember was right, would head right to the arena. Ember found himself getting a little distracted from the rhythmic thumping and the crashing by the sheer diversity of money that Snide was counting. There were jade coins with their middles punches out, cowrie shells, silver thalers, chunks of glowing crystal that looked like they changed shape mid flight, circular white disks with numbers printed on them, small skulls of rodents with fire in the eyes, and in one case, a glass eye that kept swiveling all the way down until it vanished into the smallest of the several dozen sacks that Snide was using.

"Yeah," Snide said, once he had cinched each sack shut.

"I mean, it sounds like, you know, a bunch of people stamping their feet," Ember said. "Like they were mad."

"No, they're stamping because they're mad. Mad to see Xora the Maneater finally fight someone on par with her!" Snide slung an arm around Ember's red shoulders, drawing him in close. "Mad to see that big sharky bitch getting her ass kicked for once. And then, the aftershow. Heh." He winked at Ember.

Ember imagined smashing his face into Snide's huge, smiling gob with enough force to put him through the wall. Instead of doing the satisfying thing, he just smiled back. Snide smiled back more. Ember nodded. His neck ached with the amount of nodding he was doing. Snide slapped his back and stepped away. "Okay, kid! Knock her on her ass! I've got all these bets for ya! And, uh, if you think you might not be managing it, just look to the left of the match. I got a blowdarter with some yellow eyed frog venom."

"You what?" Ember asked - but then Snide was shoving him towards the stairs.

Ember stumbled a bit as he hit the stairs - and stumbled more as he tried to walk up the stairs while putting the mask he had chosen onto his face. It was sleek and form fitting and made of leather, and it covered his eyes and his nose, which he was fairly sure would be enough to disguise him. After all, Jerin Kah had been more focused on Ember's glowing anima than his face. Or at least, Ember hoped that was the case.

Then he was out onto the stage and before the glowing lights and the hundreds of eager faces. Ember stood stalk still. He had never seen so many different kinds of rich asshole in his life. In fact, Ember was pretty sure he had been wrong what 'rich asshole' looked like. For his youth and his childhood, that had been the wealthier farmers who owned houses with two stories, or the people who could afford to send their children to Nex-Ho, to get educated at the colleges here. But now he could see that they were, at the end of the day, only a teeny tiny step above him. In the audience around him, he could see a staggering range of wealthy asshole.

There were women and men in sleek dresses and costumes made of what looked like shimmering fire and crackling lightning, harnessed and clung to their bodies and maintained by servants who hurried around them, working the cranks and pulleys of enigmatic machines. There was a man, obscenely fat, jamming food into his mouth from a platter held by an emaciated child. There were a pair of women, their necks made to look extremely long by golden necklaces, who were casually pointing down at him and whispering to one another while being fanned by slaves who looked abjectly terrified. And at the front of the row, there was Jerin Kah himself.

And Mom.

And Mom's huge titties.

Ember blinked at the completely unexpected, entirely mortifying view of his mom sitting on Jerin Kah's lap, the front of her dress tugged down, and both of her breasts being cupped and fondled by the green skinned Knight. He was nuzzling her neck and, to Ember's increased embarrassment, Mom didn't even look upset. Not that he wanted her to look upset or anything. He was pro his Mom not being raped, or sexually assaulted. But it was also just a teeny bit shocking to see her squirming and mewling happily on the lap of the guy who had burned their village down, kidnapped her and her family, and spirited her away on devils.

Also...

Wow, his mom was stacked.

Like, by the Sun and his Lunar wives, those were big titties.

Then Ember had to focus on something other than his Mom being felt up publicly by his sworn blood enemy.

The crowd had noticed him. This was helped by a trio of flame spouts that exploded from the sides of the stage, shooting out golden confetti as a starkly dressed man emerged from the center of the stage on an ascending platform. He had a large poof of hair that was coiffed back into a curved pancake shape, while his face had been daubed with bright red circles to make his smiles and his frowns very visible from a distance - though, up close, it gave him a kind of icky, creepy, unnerving aspect that made Ember want to shudder from head to toes. The man's shirt was a tight buttoned tunic with silver buttons and gold lines interspersed among white cloth, and he wore similarly striped pants, with neat red shoes. He held in his hand a crystal goblet that was empty of all liquid - which made Ember wonder why he was holding it up to his mouth, like he was about to drink from it.

Then the man spoke - and his voice boomed throughout the entire arena.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, and various transgressing individuals!" The man said, his voice rich and deep like a mountain stream. He flung his arm wide. "Innnnnnn the left corner, we have an enigmatic unknown, a mysterious newcomer, a stranger from the east, with the might of golden flames and the mask of a marauder. Who is this wandering warrior? Why has he come to Nex-Ho? What vengeance does he seek to wreak? Give it up...for..." He breathed in. "Ken...Shiiiirooooo!"

Ember had come up with that name and hearing it belted out at the top of the strange man's lungs was kind of great. He lifted his arms over his head, flexing and blowing kisses to the crowd. The rich assholes cheered. Ember grinned - then, on impulse, he leaped upwards. A tiny spurt of power set him to landing on the platform and he snatched the strange amplifying goblet from the announcer. He put it to his mouth and shouted into it.

"Xora Maneater is going down!" He pointed his finger down.

The crowd went absolutely wild - though, disguised by his makeup, the announcer glared at him and snarled in his ear: "Don't fucking push it, newbie, get back to your place!"

Ember did three backflips on the way down and landed, feet first, on the very edge of the battle stage. The stage itself was about ten yards high, surrounded by a ten yard gap, and in that gap, there was nothing but hard stone and unforgiving surfaces. The nearest seats were at the edge of that gap, looking across it at him and the announcer. That was where Jerin Kah was. Normally, he'd be very safe from any attack from the stage. But Ember could go way further than ten yards on a horizontal leap. He continued to showboat as the announcer brushed his fingers through his coif.

"And in the right corner, the reigning champion. The undefeated. The unstoppable. The unbelivable...Xora the Maneater!" He said - and Ember felt a flare of pure irritation. He called that a build up? He'd gotten a whole spiel, but his Lunar wife got zilch? He scowled fiercely at the announcer - and hoped that most people would assume that he was scowling at Xora as she stepped up onto the side of the stage, plumes of water exploding from concealed tubes - showering her in mist as she cast off her robes with a single flare of her hand.

Xora looked bad-ass.

Like, Ember had seen her buck naked before. But there was a difference between Xora, his wife, being naked, while he and her made love and Xora the Maneater, his fist fighting enemy, standing before him in a loincloth, forehead wrap, breast wrap, and knuckle wraps. The bright white of the cloth around her was stark against her blue-gray skin, while her hair was a wild mane around her sleek, sharkish face. Her blunt tail whipped from side to side and she spat to the side. No showboating, no showing off. Just casual, brutal confidence.

"Wow, you're hot," Ember whispered.

Xora looked aside, her cheeks flushing with a pleased blush - and Ember hoped that it was subtle enough that most people didn't notice.

"This is a fight to the finish!" The announcer said. "First person to be down for a ten count loses - and the winner takes all. We're talking all, baby. Yes! You heard it here first, ladies, gentles, and transgressors, tonight we're going to be seeing all of Xora Maneater - or whatever she takes out of Ken Shiro's hide!" He spread his arms wide as the crowd began to cheer and clap and every single avaricious, rich prick in the stadium looked on with eager, gleaming eyes. They wanted to see Xora get her butt kicked and...

Well.

Raped.

Like, that was what they were so excited about.

Ember clenched his fists. A spark of gold flickered around his knuckles. He tried to breathe carefully - tried to marshal his fury. If he flared off his anima before it was too early, then this wouldn't go off the way they had planned. And so, he instead lifted his head and looked into the audience and spotted the single gleam of red eyes in the shadows. There was Chirp, perched in the shadows, ready for his signal. And so, Ember flicked his eyes off to left. He saw the blowdarter. She was a skinny girl in all black and had a very long, green blowgun that she was loading with a long, black tipped needle. Chirp saw what he was looking at and gave him a big wink - visible even at the huge distance.

Then the announcer called out. "Lets get ready to rummmmmmmble!"

The central platform dropped out of sight with lightning speed and the center of the arena shut solidly. Xora charged - her feet pounding along the pavement. She moved with grace and with speed, belied by her immense size. Ember lifted his hands and twisted aside as Xora punched. Her fist cracked out and smashed into the ground to his left - and the entire stage rumbled, crunched, then exploded in a spray of dust and fragments. A concussive wave picked Ember up and smashed him face first onto the stage. He skidded, tumbled, flipped, and dropped off the side, catching himself by his fingernails at the very lip.

"God, I love my wife," Ember whispered, his lips skinned back in a goofy grin. Then he flung himself upwards, flipping - and as he sailed back to the stage, he saw that Jerin Kah was watching curiously while Mom had her hand over her mouth. That hadn't actually stopped Jerin Kah from fondling her - but, hey, at least he was paying attention. Ember could see, though, the subtle ways that Jerin Kah was prepared for attack. He had a sword near his hip - not the same long blade he had used before their last battle, but definitely deadly. He sat tensed, ready to fling Mom into the way of any attack...

He'd need to be more...engaged.

Xora's pounding feet drew Ember's attention. His wife was charging at him again - but this time, rather than punching, she snapped out a fierce kick. Ember ducked, came up, and punched at her stomach. She turned almost completely concave, skidding back away from him before spinning. What would have been a nearly useless pirouette instead smacked his thighs with her tail and sent him flipping. He landed on his palm, bent his arm, then launched himself up into the air, just in time to avoid a claw strike to his chest.

He landed behind her, and Xora drove an elbow towards him. He twisted aside, slipped past her, and hooked his finger under her breast wraps. He came away with one loop, leaving a rather significant amount of underboob. Which, Ember realized, was a radically underrepresented, highly valid form of...god, his wife was hot. Xora looked at him - and for a second, looked nervous. Ember gave her a thumbs up and a big grin.

Xora shot him a tiny, nervous smile.

Then he darted backwards, his heels skidding along the stone as she snapped out quick jabbing punches, keeping her stance low, rooted, shuffling forward to keep pace with him. Her blows cracked the air and Ember felt them getting closer and closer to landing a solid strike. Ember snapped an arm up at the last second, knocking Xora's arm to the side and twisting into her guard. His finger hooked on her loincloth and he flipped away, coming away with the rippling banner of white fabric that trailed in the air behind him. He landed on his left foot, his right poised up, while Xora stood, her arms raised in shock.

Under the loincloth, she was wearing a very thin, very sheer, very tight thong that clung to her ass, vanishing between her cheeks, and leaving less to the imagination than being completely naked. If she had been naked, then you'd have just seen her sex. As it was, you didn't really have a choice to but to have it in your head. Ember blew her a kiss.

Xora stood perfectly still - and Ember saw that she was caught. Caught in a pitfall that he hadn't realized would be there. After all, Xora was so big and tough and she had done performances since she had been bought by Mr. Snide. But he had forgotten that she didn't actually like her body. She didn't see her height as majestic. She didn't see her muscles as something to drool over. Ember felt his entire body clench up and his heart stop as he realized that he had just put Xora, the love of his life, into literally her worst nightmare.

The justification that he had only met her four hours ago and that their love was due to deific fiat via millennia old cyclical reincarnations felt like such a weak excuse. He should have asked. He was her Unconquered - he should have asked!

Then Xora put her hands behind her neck. She flexed her back and grinned out at the crowd - and only Ember, this close to her, could see the tiny quiver in her knees, the nervous twitch in her tail. "Looks like our Ken Shiro here has his mind on something other than fighting."

The crowd 'ooohed.'

And Jerin Kah's entire attention was on Xora.

No, wait.

His attention was also on his free hand, which was currently on the back of Mom's head, her mouth closed around his thick, green cock. She looked absolutely happy as a clam. Like Chirp when they went down on Ember. The juxtaposition of his arch-enemy, his wife's amazingly hot ass, and his own Mom eagerly sucking said arch-enemy's mouth nearly broke Ember's tiny little brain. But then a small, whisper-soft voice squeaked in his ear: Hey! This is the exact moment you were waiting for.

"Xora! Hup!"

Ember shot forward, his feet pounding.

Xora dropped, cupping her palms - as if she instinctively knew what he wanted. But Ember felt as if he had compacted an entire battle plan into that quick, two word bark. He hopped up, bending his knees as he landed in Xora's hands. Then Xora stood and heaved, her arms flexing as she punted him like a shupa ball. Ember arrowed at Jerin Kah, whose eyes widened - and he barely managed to fling himself to the side before Ember smashed, shoulder first, into the ornate wooden chair he was seated on. Splinters exploded into the air and smoke roiled as the entire crowd began to scream in shock.

Jerin sprang to his feet, sword in his hand, and then gaped at Ember as he stood on the cracked back of the throne. He grinned down at him. "You thought I was Ken Shiro," Ember said, his voice loud enough to carry to the whole room as he reached up, then whisked off the mask. "But it was I! Sleepy Ember of Rataka! The Unconquered!" His body flickered and roiled with flames as he stood there, his anima at full bonfire.

Jerin gaped at him.

Mom gaped too, hastily wiping some precum from her lip. "Ember!?" She yelped, then tugged her shift up, her entire body turning beat red.

Jerin Kah opened his mouth to respond.

Ffft.

A dart appeared in his neck - the same dart that had been loaded and prepped for Xora, in case Ember hadn't been able to defeat her. Jerin Kah wobbled slightly. But then his teeth bared as he snarled. "I am Jerin Kah, I-"

Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft Ffft

About fifty darts pincushioned out of his chest, each one quivering.

"Okay," Jerin Kah said, his voice remarkably clear. "Down I go."

He fell flat on his back.

Xora and Ember turned and saw Chirp, standing on the very corner of the stadium, the blowdart in their hands, a huge grin on their face.

"They can really blow can't they?" Xora whispered.

"Phrasing," Ember said, winking and making a finger at Xora.

Xora's entire face flushed.

Mom scrambled to her feet - and as she did so, Ember noticed that the crowd was frantically fleeing. Ember frowned, scratching his chin. "Wait, why are they running? Why would a bunch of rich, slave owning, decadent assholes be running from the Uncon- OH!" His eyes widened as he remembered his sobriquets: The Chosen, the Breaker of Chains, the One Who Casts Down Thrones, the End and the Beginning.

The Breaker of Chains.

The One Who Casts Down Thrones.

"Right. Mom, wait here, also, Mom, this is my wife, Xora, she's awesome, Xora, this is my mom, she's great! Bye!" He back flipped away, sailing into the air and catching onto one of the hanging light fixtures that spilled their shafts of illumination down on the crowd. He swung, then leaped, and then landed on the ground before the exits. The rich and their slaves all drew to a stop as he stood before them. None of them tried to call him a blasphemer or a false Unconquered. Instead, they gaped at him as he cracked his knuckles. "Okay, everyone..." He said, frowning. "I am the Unconquered. I may not be doing this for long, but I have a basic idea."

He picked up a statuette that decorated the wall behind him - a tiny naked, winged baby angel thing that he was sure had a name and symbolic meaning. He pushed his palms together and the statuette exploded into a haze of hissing, zipping fragments. He dusted his palms off, then beamed. "That? I can do that any time I want. Now, I don't want to do it to your houses. But I can. Meanwhile, you all don't have to own people and use them as personal property. You don't have to buy and sell babies." He glared at them, starting to walk forward. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. So, right now, I'm going to ask you..."

He grinned, cocking his head to the side, his mien changing from furious to cheerful. "So, who wants to leave first?"

The two girls with the big gold necklaces walked forward, then knelt before him. "Oh glorious Unconquered! Our slaves are orphans who would not know what to do with themselves if we gave them their freedom. We brought them a better life-"

Ember looked over their heads at the slaves, who were burdened under the luggage and baggage of the two women. The female slave who had been holding the fan shook her head hurriedly, then mimed slitting her own throat.

Ember looked back down at the woman who was speaking. She saw his expression. Her smile grew wider and more frantic. "W-Which is why we're glad to free them, of course!"

"There we go!" Ember gave her a thumbs up.

***

If there was one thing that Ember had not expected, it was how much paperwork freeing the slaves would take. Yes, getting them free was easy enough. But once they were no longer held by the owners, he had needed to then talk to the governor of Nex-Ho. She had been a shockingly reasonable woman: Upon arriving at the Casino and seeing the mass of terrified rich people, the still glowing Ember, and his two Lunars dragging Jerin Kah and several of his servants - Chirp and Xora had fished them out of the upper levels - out of the Casino, the Governor had nodded and said: "So, I work for you now!"