The Shield That Watched

BlackSand Warrior Gauntlet

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The boulder jutted from the arena floor like some ancient relic, half-buried in the black sand: jagged, weather-worn, a monument left by a god who'd lost interest in the war it once marked. Tad Rogue’s eyes brushed over it as he stepped out from the shade of the tunnel, shield pulsing once beneath his palm.

Not warning. Not excitement. Just awareness. A presence sensing the contours of the battlefield.

The roar of the crowd surged around him, as full-throated as ever, but it washed over Tad like water over a stone. Familiar. Insignificant. The noise was part of the ritual now, not the purpose.

He moved slowly, shirtless, scar-lined, the long red cloak trailing behind him like the final petal of a wilted flower.

A show for them. A mask for him.

His rapier gleamed in the sun, but he kept it low. Passive. There would be time for that later.

Across the sand, Victor stood in contrast: the lavender shield, the horned helm, that taut, lean stillness that came not from fear but from some deeper, older grief.

Tad had fought men like that. Ones who wore their pain like armor, who fought as if each strike could rewrite history. He respected it, even if he didn’t envy it.

But then the jaguar emerged beside him. Romeo.

The crowd responded instantly: the creature’s name whipped across the arena in thousands of voices, half in awe, half in devotion.

The cat didn’t acknowledge them. He moved low, sleek, limping slightly but still holding the muscle-tight poise of a predator who knew the timing of every footfall.

Tad’s fingers tightened around the grip of his shield. It pulsed again, this time sharper. Focused. "Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "I see it too."

Victor’s stance didn’t shift. No signal. No dramatic opening move. Just presence. The kind that didn’t ask for attention, it commanded it.

The bell never rang. They simply moved.

Victor came in fast, no flourish, no wasted motion, a blade-tight approach with deadly efficiency.

Tad pivoted smoothly, shield rotating just enough to test the edge. His rapier flicked forward, barely grazing Victor’s pauldron: a question mark etched in steel. Victor didn’t blink.

He pressed forward, no pause between steps. Tad could feel it in his ribs, that relentless momentum, the kind that didn’t just want to win, but needed to. That made him dangerous. But it wasn’t just Victor.

The cat was waiting. Not pacing. Not pouncing yet. Calculating.

Tad caught the rhythm in the movement: how Romeo mirrored Victor's footwork, how their spacing danced together like halves of a whole. It wasn’t trainer and beast. It was symbiosis.

The first attack from Romeo came fast, claws low, nearly silent, and Tad barely sidestepped it in time. Not graceful. Just efficient. The second leap landed.

Pain bloomed as claws raked along Tad’s thigh: shallow, but punishing. Blood welled instantly. His shield didn’t move to stop it. “Sloppy,” he muttered.

But the shield wasn’t punishing him. It was studying them.

Victor surged forward to capitalize: a rising slash meant to follow the cat’s strike. Tad braced, rotated into it, and the shield caught the worst of it, redirecting the blade just wide enough for Tad’s counter-thrust to slip beneath Victor’s ribs.

It connected. Not deep. But enough.

Victor stepped back, his eyes flaring for a heartbeat. Not from pain. From disappointment.

Tad could feel it now, the pressure building. The pace Victor kept wasn’t sustainable for most men, but he showed no signs of slowing.

The shield was learning, but Tad wasn’t ahead. Not yet.

Then Romeo flanked again.

Fast. Fluid. The coordination was breathtaking. Tad pivoted with them, trying to keep both in sight. He edged toward the boulder: a conscious choice now. Cover. Leverage.

But Romeo anticipated it.

The jaguar came in low, faster than the shield could redirect. Tad turned, just late enough, and the full weight of the beast struck him mid-turn.

It felt like being hit by a storm given shape.

The impact knocked him off balance. His back slammed into the side of the boulder with a sound that echoed like cracked ribs. Stone scraped his spine. The shield snapped to defend too late. It had guessed wrong. Tad grunted hard, pain sparking down his right side.

Victor was already charging.

He was mid-leap, blade cocked back like a scythe in a reaper’s hand.

Tad dropped.

His body obeyed before his mind could catch up. He ducked just as the blade scraped the stone inches above his skull, sparks cascading.

Victor landed hard and pivoted fast, already recalibrating. Too close.

Tad rolled, bringing the shield up just in time to catch the next blow, but the impact staggered him sideways. He hit the sand on his elbow, pushed off, and kicked out, catching Victor’s knee with a crunch.

It wasn’t elegant. It was survival.

Victor faltered. Not fully, but enough to open a gap.

Tad came up fast, breath ragged, pressing one hand to the boulder behind him. His thigh throbbed. Blood trickled down his ribs.

But the shield… it hummed. Awake now. Fully.

There was no hesitation in its pull, no resistance to his motion. It had tasted enough. Now it wanted to act.

Across the space, Victor stepped back. His breathing was heavier now.

Romeo circled again. The cat was slower, limping more visibly. Tad’s eyes flicked between them.

The weakness was forming.

He didn’t smile. But he knew it.

He feinted left, fast and sharp.

Victor bit, blade coming to intercept, and Tad used the momentum to pivot inside, driving a shallow stab toward Victor’s ribs.

Steel hissed off the lavender shield, magic sparking as the two enchantments repelled each other. Both men staggered back.

And then it happened.

Romeo leapt. Not at Tad. At the shield.

The moment hung in the air: so bold, so beautiful, that Tad forgot to move.

The cat soared, claws angled to rake across the shield’s glowing surface like a final prayer.

And it worked.

The jaguar’s claws caught the edge. The shield shifted, not to defend, but to observe. A pause.

Victor moved, slicing across Tad’s ribs with a clean, practiced strike. Blood sprayed. Tad hissed. The shield twitched. It had seen enough.

Tad didn’t think. He turned.

And Romeo, still mid-air, tried to twist for his landing, but there was no time, no space.

Tad’s boot met the jaguar mid-leap.

He didn’t mean to. Not exactly. It was instinct.

The contact was brutal: a sickening thud that cut across the noise of the crowd.

Romeo twisted once, then hit the sand with a crash of limbs and breath. He didn’t rise.

Tad froze. So did Victor.

And in that heartbeat, between the last rise of the cat’s chest and the silence that followed, Tad saw something in Victor’s posture break.

Just slightly. A shoulder lowered. A hand didn’t rise fast enough.

It was all Tad needed.

No flourish. No gloating.

The rapier darted forward, under the lavender shield, into the seam of the armor, finding the gap.

Victor gasped. Dropped to one knee. Blood spilled onto the sand.

Tad stepped back. Not out of fear, but to finish this with clarity.

Victor looked toward the cat. Then toward the crowd. But never at Tad.

He was already gone.

Victor didn’t rise. Not fully.

He planted one foot, then faltered, blood now pooling from the wound beneath his ribs, wetting the lavender wrap that clung to his midsection.

The blade in his hand dipped, then steadied, but the hand was shaking.

Still, the man came forward.

Tad watched the face behind the helmet. There was no snarl now. No fury. Just weight.

The kind that came from knowing exactly what you’d lost, and having to move anyway.

He raised the blade again. Slow. Heavy.

The crowd around them was ravenous. Roaring. Chanting. But none of it reached Tad anymore.

He could feel the blood still warm along his ribs. Smell it.

Victor had gotten him clean. The jaguar had made that possible. They’d fought like one body, one will. But now, they were separated by death.

Victor lunged again, not with elegance, not with form, but with raw, ragged purpose. It was sloppy, but dangerous in its desperation.

Tad stepped sideways, let the strike pass, and rapped the back of Victor’s knee with the rim of his shield.

A precision correction.

Victor dropped again. This time slower. Like something unraveling.

Tad advanced. Not quickly. There was no need.

The kill was already circling. It had smelled the wound. It was waiting to be acknowledged.

The rapier’s tip dipped, then came up again, not to threaten, but to offer.

Tad found his voice. The first words he’d spoken since entering the arena. “Yield.”

Victor didn’t speak. He didn’t lower his weapon.

Instead, his off-hand slid behind his belt, reaching not for mercy, but for his last dagger.

Tad’s eyes caught the motion. So did the shield.

The blade never had a chance.

The shield moved first, slamming Victor’s hand into the sand with a meaty crunch.

The dagger spun free, a flash of silver swallowed by the black sand.

Victor’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Tad didn’t wait.

The rapier came forward, clean and direct, sliding beneath the edge of the helmet, between bone and steel. It sank to the hilt.

Victor’s body spasmed once. Then stilled.

And from that moment, the haze began to rise.

Purple. Somber. Not the roaring firework from the last match, but a curling plume, like smoke from incense burned at a funeral.

It crept from Victor’s wounds, from the seams of his armor, from beneath the broken rune on his helmet.

It touched nothing else. Only his body.

Tad held still. He looked down at the corpse, not in triumph, but in a silence thick with understanding.

He had not beaten a fool. He had not outplayed a coward. He had outlasted something sacred.

The Rune of Mars flickered once, then dulled. The light inside it was gone.

A breath later, the jaguar exhaled its last.

It had still been breathing. Somehow. Until that very moment. As if it refused to leave until its master had fallen too.

They died within seconds of each other.

Tad’s eyes flicked to Romeo’s body, stretched in the sand, one paw out, jaw tilted, eyes open to a sky that hadn’t yet decided if it was mourning or proud.

No one in the arena spoke.

Then, finally, the crowd erupted.

Their screams didn’t feel like victory. Not to Tad. They felt like hunger.

Noise in the face of something too quiet to understand.

He wiped his blade once across the hem of his cloak. Not to be clean, but to acknowledge the end.

Then he sheathed it, carefully, and approached Romeo’s body.

The cat had fought like no beast Tad had ever known. Not because of its strength. But because of its choice.

It hadn’t been leashed. It hadn’t been driven. It had leapt into death, eyes open, knowing what it was doing.

Tad crouched beside it for a moment. Not to pray. Just to look.

He met those glassy eyes, and saw no hate. No blame. Just the last echo of loyalty. Of love.

Gods. He envied that.

The shield hummed faintly on his arm, a soft pulse, as if testing his thoughts.

He didn’t respond.

He stood, turned, and walked toward the gate.

The crowd screamed his name now, louder than ever. "Tad! Tad! Tad!"

A frenzy of voices desperate to crown their new favorite. Their arena-born legend.

But Tad didn’t lift his sword. Didn’t raise a hand. Didn’t smile. He didn’t even hear them.

The sand beneath him was heavy with blood. His thigh burned. His ribs ached.

But none of it lingered as much as the image behind him, the bodies of warrior and beast lying side by side in the shadow of that old, jagged boulder.

One man. One jaguar. One final bond. The kind even the arena couldn’t break.

Tad disappeared into shadow. The crowd’s roar chased him. The haze followed behind. But he didn’t look back.

Entered by: 0xB9D1…4eA5