The monster's attention was drawn mostly on William only momentarily, until she ascended towards the cloud bank that loomed above the arena. At a certain point in the thick haze, Aiko felt a barrier within the blurry environment. The only thing that cut through the smoky mist was a glint of something metallic. Her Nekovakyrja eyes would allow her to zoom in on what caught her vision: a name plate. The context of what was around it was too hard to make out in the fog, but she could read the name and some information on the beast they were fighting.
"Roghorden Snog: a menacing quilled animal. Its fleshy parts are protected with a subdermal layer of poisonous fat that, when the skin is broken, releases a powerful neurotoxin likely to kill most humanoids within a 40 yard radius. Its quills are not laced with any such poison and are mostly for show. Fighters should be persuaded away from using the quills against the animal in the head as its eye sockets are the only weak point of the creature. Its fanged mouth can gleek a poison and bite and thrash, leading to, most often, death."
As Aiko descended to eye level with the beast, she was greeted by its attention. It was at that time that the hook sent with William's show was about to find its mark on the creature's underbelly. He was definitely within a 40 yard radius of the gas about to be expelled.
The Nekovalkyrja warrior relayed what information she'd just read to William as soon as she comprehended the gravity of it, telepathically blasting the information to his mindware unit without delay. She thought for a moment to dive down away from the creature and sweep William up, but decided against it now that Snog was focused on her while she stood upon its monstrous face.
Time slowed as William learned that new piece of information. 'Oh now you tell me...' he cursed mentally. He let go of the chain he was holding and began falling away from the beast. At least he could try and fall away from it before it popped like a ballon.
The crowd had seen this monster cut before and the uproarious jests and cheers directed at William's impending death turned sour as they realized he had side-stepped death by moving away from the creature's killer vapors from its wound.
Aiko, too, thought it best to get away as quickly as her Neko body would take her — which was very quickly, as she'd demonstrated thus far, so long as the beast failed to catch her with its wretched claws — but not before squatting down and forcing her long, delicate looking fingers into one of its inky eyeballs. She figured it unlikely there was a poisonous layer in there and took the chance without question, feeling around the jelly and broken membranes that gave her foe sight. And then, as speedily as she'd landed, Aiko sprung off the Roghorden Snog's muzzle with all the power loaded up into her thighs. She'd be lucky to take the eye with her and focused more on clearing the area than doing damage, now.
The creature's rat-like mouth gaped wide when Aiko plunged her finger into its socket, showing the layers of razor fangs descended into a fleshy mottled pink and black throat. Its wail pierced the cacophony of the crowd's jests. With a silence and then a wave of arms and appendages in the air, the crowd began cheering ecstatically.
The excited chants of the three syllables, "Yahmatooie!" denoted the shift in their patronage as they hoped for the next move from the Yamataians (as they did not know William was Nepleslian) to be even better than the last ones. As for the Roghorden Snog, it had retreated to the dirt floor of the arena where its scorpion tail swished and swayed, as if ready to strike any and all down, though its sole eye was able to look at much less of its surroundings than before.
William hit the ground and rolled a few times before coming to a stop. He groaned as he got back on his feet and looked at the creature. "Take that you stupid rat." He growled as he began to circle the creature. Either it would focus on him and leave Aiko open or vise versa. "You're on the ground now. Now it's my turn..."
High above William and the flailing Snog, Aiko watched for another opening from her spot perched upon one of the big hanging chain links. She surveyed the crowd briefly, uninterested in their chant and nonetheless angry about their presence at all. They were still Kuvexians and no amount of their positive excitement tempered her disgust for their kind. She flung the monster's eyeball into the crowd in a moment of rage, reflexively lashing out at their enjoyment of their fight, only to watch it fizzle and burn up against a forcefield that protected the spectators from the spectacle.
Aiko then jumped down onto one of the raised platforms, ready to approach their nemesis again. She watched for any opening and hoped William would take whatever ones he saw. It'd be difficult for either of them to land a blow on the Snog now that it was so fired up (and now that the plaque she'd read confirmed its sole weak point).
With William circling it and closer than Aiko above, the creature let its focus turn to William as it quickly turned, pressing its haunch close to the ID-SOL before its tail quickly swept at him, knocking him off of his feet and splayed nearby. Though it had made contact with him with the weighty length of tail, now it descended towards him with the hooked end of its tail, looking to pierce William's torso with its equally large stinger.
William cursed and brought his arms up just in time to take the blow from the monster's tail. Even so, it slammed him into the ground. The ID-SOL groaned and rolled again onto his feet. "Come on! Is that all you got!" He yelled, charging at the beast and ready to dodge out of the way of its tail.
The hard packed soil where William had been fragmented into a plume of dirt and dust as its tail landed, missing William as it charged him. The quilled beast made no attempt to lunge out of the way, ready to either take the brunt of his attack while re-aiming its venomous stinger or see him kill himself on the usually unused quills that protected its body.
Aiko wiped what remained of the monster's eyeball goo across her face, leaving a black streak over her eyes and the bridge of her dignified Yamataian nose. Charging on foot, now, the Neko sped across the platforms and bounded down to the next in succession, her arms trailing behind the angle of her shoulders like some sort of crazed Kessaku ninja. Her eyes remained fixed on the Snog's poised tail and, as she approached and William continued his onslaught, Aiko leapt up and aimed to wrap her arms and legs around it, intending to redirect its sting away from her Nepleslian friend.
The ID-SOL roared in defiance as he planted his foot in the dirt, and cocked his arm back. The muscles of his arm tightening with extreme force as they prepared for what came next. Another step forward and he drove his fist into the beast's snout. He then followed up the punch with an upper cut from the opposite arm.
With Aiko suddenly hindering its stinger, the creature's rump reared twice before it failed to keep its tail with Aiko on it erect. Both fell slowly towards the creature's quilled back while William pounded the creature, whose skull would have broken William's fist if he were not now an ID-SOL. The punch did little to hurt it, but it now knew where to attack. It twisted towards William, snapping at him with multiple sets of razor sharp teeth, grasping into his shoulder, taking a quick bite that left him bleeding from a dozen small incisions.
She hadn't expected the Snog's barbed tail to crumple so easily given the strength at which it seemed to strike, and held on tighter as she fell with it onto the beast's quilled back. Using every ounce of her focus, Aiko squeezed around the grotesque appendage even more tightly and pulled it down into the beast's own quills, using her body's inertial control capabilities to try and gain the upper hand as they fell together. The Neko girl tried to slip her body between the spikes as she tried to pin the Snog to itself, but still steeled her mind against any coming pain.
William roared in pain as the monster sunk its teeth into his shoulder. With his other arm he pulled back and did just as Aiko had. He stabbed his large hand into the beast's remaining eye. He did his best to not think about how the things teeth were tearing at his shoulder muscles as he drove his fingers deeper.
With the excitement of the crowd reaching an ear splitting boisterousness around the three, the stinger of the beast became pinned between its own quilled back and Aiko. The thick tail under her resisted the quill's penetration at first before the pressure became too much and it was pierced. She fell down with it slightly and could feel a jab of a handful of quills as they pushed into her thighs, forearms, and midsection. Unlike the Snog's second eye socket that William had tasked himself with, Aiko was not impaled by the quills. With its second eye plunged into, the creature made a great wail, louder and more high pitched than before, before slumping before William.
With Aiko atop the dead creature and William next to it, the crowd was going truly wild. There was a quick flicker of an orange force field and the Kuvexian that had announced them earlier came onto the dirt pit's ground, sitting atop a hovering platform and flanked by ten Kuvexians, as well.
"Champions!!" the man called to his crowd. "Yahmatooies have defeated the Roghorden Snog!!" With his amplified voice reaching those in the crowds, the cheers and madness of the crowd ascended. "We had our doubt about them, didn't we?!" He emphatically spoke and chuckled simultaneously. "The second class species of the Yahmatooies may be worth keeping around after all, no?" He asked, arms spread wide. "Cast your lot in with them or pay for their execution now!" The excitement of the crowd had diminished as heads bowed and those that had watched worked on data pads either in front of them or on the seats opposite. With their far seeing vision, the pair could spot some of those in the upper booths speaking to the attendants near them.
As the beast slumped to the ground, William forced the beast's mouth open and extracted his bloody shoulder. His arm was stained crimson as the blood dripped down and onto the dirt. He didn't pay any heed to the crowd or the annoying thing that dained to speak to them. He was looking for Aiko.
And then he saw her, stab by the monster's quills. His heart skipping a beat, time slowed once more. However this time, it was from fear. He rushed forward and climbed the monster's back to get to Aiko. His arm hung limp but it didn't matter to him. He pulled himself up and placed his hand under her head.
"Aiko... Aiko look at me damn it!"
The Ketsurui princess groaned and kept her eyes closed, squeezing them shut as hard as she could. A Nekovalkyrja though she was, combat against whatever a Roghorden Snog was still harrowing, bloody, and tough. William's familiar presence was a great comfort, and Aiko put one of her arms around his neck so that she could pull her body up and off of the dead beast and its quills that had perforated her front. Despite his own injuries, William's towering ID-SOL form gave the impression, at least in Aiko's mind, that she was worse for wear than he could ever be.
"It's good," she said, wincing as the tips of their defeated foe's needles slid out of her thighs at last. "It's good."
She paused for a moment, looking up at him thankfully. Not just for helping her now, but for his triumph over the Snog. Their Kuvexian overlord and his crowd seemed their primary enemy, now, but there wasn't much they could do in a prison such as this arena. So she did her best to ignore them.
"You're alright?" Aiko asked, her voice only loud enough for him to hear as she slid her free hand over his torso and up to his wounded shoulder, her eyes tracking along as she went. Her fingers retreated back so that she didn't touch it, and she gasped when she saw the full extent of what he'd endured. "There is still a great battle ahead for us, it seems. We must keep fighting a little longer."
William cradled Aiko with his good arm and stood before jumping off the creatures back and landing back on the dirt floor below. "I'll be fine." He said as he held her, straightening up to his full height once again. His arm still hung limp, but the blood that oozed from the wound was starting to slow down as his body tried to stop the bleeding.
"I am ID-SOL. I am a weapon. And I won't stop until all of them are dead." He said, deadly conviction evident in his voice.
Before any more words could be exchanged between the two, the Kuvexian turned towards them, finally addressing them and not the crowd, though his voice still boomed so all could hear.
"As our crowd votes for your lives to cease or for your entertainment to continue, we all are wondering if your fighting Yahmatooie spirit will last long enough to win again against the deadly foes we have prepared! I suppose only time will tell," his voice said as it grew louder, "since 2500 of those in the crowd have voted to keep you alive! We'll see if next time you are not so skilled..."
The metal door they had come through before fighting the Snog lifted once more, thundering over the excited but quieted crowd. They were to exit the arena, quit simply.
Aiko let herself down off of William and stood on her own, looking up to the Nepleslian again once their captor had announced their fate. For more than a moment, she considered launching herself up to the Kuvexian's hovering dais and giving his eyes the same treatment she'd shown the pit beast. But ten guards and an arena full of rabble was a tall order, even for a "second class species."
"Let's go check on Saya," she said at least, turning her head toward the arena's gate before following with her body and leading the way out.
