The Will of the Shield
BlackSand Warrior Gauntlet
He stood in the half-light of the entry tunnel, the red cloak still draped over his shoulders like a curtain that wouldn't close. Sand fell in dry streams from the hem. He didn’t shake it loose. He didn’t move at all.
Behind him, handlers whispered their bets. High above, the necromancer’s voice oozed through the coliseum walls, echoed by Verus' barked announcements. The crowd thundered. But Tad felt none of it.
His hand rested on the edge of the shield. Not gripping it, just touching. Measuring. It pulsed faintly beneath his fingers. Warm. Too warm.
It was already awake. The thought passed like smoke, but it left a bitter taste.
The scars along his ribs twitched. Dozens of old slashes, clean and shallow, cuts the shield had ignored. He had learned early on: it never blocked for pride. Only for survival. And lately… it hesitated.
He shifted his weight. The movement felt slow. Not sluggish, just heavier than it used to be. He rolled his shoulder once. No pain, but the joint whispered back at him.
He'd ignored that kind of whisper before. It had cost him.
Verus gave the nod. Tad stepped forward, red cloak trailing behind him like spilled wine. The heat of the BlackSand rose like breath from a beast’s throat. It clung to him, not hot, just familiar. The weight of war.
Halfway to center, he undid the clasp and let the cloak fall. The coliseum drank it.
He unsheathed his rapier in silence. No flair. No motion wasted.
That’s when he heard it. The revving.
Chainsaw, fast and mean. A performance engine. High-pitched, erratic, teeth gnashing for attention. It echoed across the arena like a hungry insect, jittering against the nerves.
He looked across.
There she was, short, scarred, purple hair catching the sun like ink in oil. Antonia, Antihero of Rats.
She juggled the chainsaw. Juggled it. Spinning it above her head like it was part of her bloodstream. The crowd adored her instantly.
She didn’t look scared. She looked… thrilled.
That’s the dangerous kind, he thought.
The shield buzzed again. Not in warning, in interest. It was reading her, and it liked the puzzle.
Tad frowned.
“She’s not a clown,” he muttered. “She’s a trap.”
He stepped into stance. And for the first time in a while, the shield didn’t make him feel invincible.
The chainsaw shrieked like an unbroken horse, all steel teeth and chaos. She came fast. Low center. No fear.
Tad didn’t move. He let her come. But this wasn’t arrogance, not anymore.
He needed to know if the shield would react.
Her first strike was wide, angled for show, not kill. She spun into it like a ribbon on fire. The blade passed within inches of his side. The shield didn’t move. He felt the heat on his skin.
She danced back, twirled once, and launched into a follow-up that actually mattered, high to low, reverse-grip, teeth-first. A hook aimed to disarm or disable.
The shield caught that one, but barely. The impact vibrated down his arm and into his teeth. He stepped back, blinking. Too close.
Then she faked again, high, then low, then sidestep. She caught him on the thigh. A thin line opened. Blood. Not deep, but real.
The crowd exploded.
He exhaled, jaw tightening.
Antonia reset her stance with a flourish, chainsaw still humming like laughter. She smiled at him. Not cruelly, not with hate, with joy. He hated how much of it was real.
The shield pulsed against him again. No fear. No correction. Just cold data.
She had speed. Improvisation. Her footwork was messy, but she’d done this dance alone in the dark for years. It wasn’t theater. It was practice.
Another few moves like that and she’d crack his rhythm. Or worse, the shield’s.
He lunged once, just to test the space. She dodged clean, not even breaking the beat of her chainsaw’s roar.
His hands flexed.
She could win. Not likely, not yet, but possible. If the shield faltered again, if his timing broke for even a second…
He locked eyes with her. She winked.
And the shield, just for a moment, twitched late.
She spun the chainsaw behind her back again, once, twice, before catching it mid-air in a backhanded grip. The chain whined. Her boots kissed the sand in perfect tempo. She was playing the crowd like a song.
He should’ve struck then. When she was mid-spin, open. Distracted. But he didn’t.
Not because he froze, but because his feet didn’t obey fast enough.
Tad’s stance shifted a beat too late. The pressure of his front leg resisted like a rusted hinge. His body was betraying him in the smallest ways. In this arena, small meant death.
The shield buzzed softly. No correction. No panic. It was learning. Again.
But Tad wasn’t. He already knew she was better than he’d expected.
Antonia circled him like a predator trying to distract her own fear. Her eyes were bright, and her mouth twitched into grins she didn’t fully believe in.
She knew he was bleeding. She knew he was slowing. And worse, she was enjoying it.
“Not tired, are you?” she teased, flipping the blade over her shoulder like a baton. It caught the sunlight and spun back down into her palm.
She was close. Too close.
He lunged, and she side-stepped with a tight pirouette that brought her shoulder behind his guard. She spun the chainsaw low and caught him again. A grazing hit along the ribs, shallow but hot. The sound of it carved through the coliseum like music.
The crowd roared. The crowd always roared.
Tad gritted his teeth.
He pushed back with his shield, shoving her off with raw force. She stumbled, only briefly. But she came right back, cocky, grinning like a champion.
Where is the opening? he thought.
And the answer came: There isn’t one. Not unless she gives it to him.
She was pressing. Testing his every angle. She fought like someone trying to leave a mark, not just a corpse. It wasn’t about killing him... not exactly. It was about killing him memorably.
That made her more dangerous than anyone he’d faced in years.
She came again, this time faking low, then stepping into a spinning vertical slash meant to draw his guard high.
He raised the shield, Too slow.
Her blade scraped down his right shoulder, splitting the skin open in a clean red arc. He stumbled. Just one step.
The shield buzzed again. Not warning. Apology.
He looked at it. Not with fear... With suspicion.
And for the first time, he thought: If I lose… will it even care?
He saw the setup. The first toss. The moment her chainsaw left her hand, Tad knew what was coming. Some ridiculous crowd-pleaser, all smoke and fire. She spun beneath it, flipped it behind her back, caught it one-handed, tossed it again.
And he couldn’t move.
His legs had just enough fatigue in them to make the difference.
He tried to step forward, just one clean lunge, but his knee screamed. The blood loss. The weight. The cost of waiting.
She’d timed it perfectly.
The blade would fall back into her hand at the same moment she landed and pivoted. The kill would come mid-flip. Through his chest. Flashy. Beautiful.
He wasn’t going to be fast enough to stop it.
The crowd surged to their feet. He could feel them vibrating above, rattling the bones of the arena itself.
Then the shield moved.
It didn’t vibrate. It didn’t warn. It acted.
A metallic groan, like old hinges snapping open, and the shield launched itself forward and up, just past his arm, on a path he hadn’t chosen. Not this time.
It rose like a hawk and intercepted the chainsaw mid-spin.
The weapon cracked against its rim with a clang of sheared teeth and redirected gravity. It tumbled out of rhythm, not falling to Antonia’s waiting hands, but over her shoulder and into the dirt with a skidding, defeated growl.
Gas hissed from the exhaust. The engine cut out.
Silence.
She landed with nothing in her hands.
Tad stood still.
She stumbled, just slightly, and spun to find the blade. Too late. He was already moving.
This time, he didn’t hesitate. This time, his legs obeyed.
He stepped forward, rapier extended. Her hands lifted in reflex. She kicked sand, maybe trying to blind him, maybe trying to recover distance. It didn’t matter.
Her momentum was gone.
She dropped to one knee to dive for the chainsaw... He struck.
Just a sharp inhale. And then a long, shuddering exhale that sounded like regret.
She collapsed to her knees, then to the side, her chainsaw just beyond reach. Her arm twitched once toward it, almost childlike. Reflex. Not purpose.
He didn’t watch her face.
He looked at her hands. Fingers curling in the black sand. Then glanced toward the chainsaw. It hissed softly, leaking gas and heat.
The crowd’s cheer rose like a wave crashing over broken stone.
They weren’t cheering for him. Not really. They were cheering for the story. The spectacle. The sound of something final.
Tad stepped back. Blood coated his blade. Dark, arterial, thick.
Her body slumped forward, folded in half like someone bowing. The wind caught the edge of her Viking helmet and rolled it from her head. Purple hair spilled loose. A bright color, almost festive.
He tried to remember her name. His lips moved slightly. Something with an A.
The shield returned to his side with a faint thump. No heat. No hum. It had already forgotten.
He stared at it for a long time. Wondered again if it had acted to save him, or just to win. Wondered if it would act like that again next time. Or if it would wait. See what happens.
She had been fast. Precise. Beautiful, in a way he didn’t have the language for.
But it didn’t matter. None of them mattered.
Not until the next one beat him. Until someone finally broke through and proved the shield wasn’t a god.
He turned from her body without ceremony. No flourish. No final word.
The crowd howled louder as he walked.
Someone would collect her. The sand would drink the rest.
By the time he reached the edge of the arena, he couldn’t remember what her voice had sounded like. And it would never come back to him.
Entered by: 0xB9D1…4eA5
