Without diving back to get his weapon, EUe shot up toward me, grabbed my hand, and pulled us both over to one of the smaller platforms jutting out from the arena's second level, even higher up than the one I'd been on.

My heartbeat whirred through my head, leaving me giddy and dizzy.

"What is it?" I asked. "What's going on?"

"This gU-lUte is god-touched," EUe said. "It's not just legs and teeth, it has powers. Damn it" He flicked his wings in anger. "I should have checked."

Then, EUe closed his eyes—or, at least that's what I thought as I saw eyelids sweep down over his eyeballs. However, I realized these were some kind of second eyelids, as they were nearly transparent.

He groaned. "Of course, they'd use shUo-twen."

"Who?"

"The god of mysteries," EUe said. "They hid the prayers' not-light under a tangled mess. There's no knowing what abilities it might have in addition to the force reversal it's already displayed."

"Reversal?"

"Any impact gets reflected along the normal vector," he explained. "Gods help us if it can toggle the blessing, otherwise—"

Down on the area floor, the gU reared its forepart off the ground like a giant caterpillar. Then it tilted its head back and started making the same pained hawking noise from before.

And then the announcer did his thing, and made everything worse.

"Well, would you look at that, folks?" he said. "It seems that our warriors have gotten cold feet. Let's fix that, shall we?"

Suddenly, with an oil-hungry squeal, the platform we were on swung down until it was flush with the wall. All the nearby platforms did the same. Worse, a thin, ring-shaped segment allaying the wall set off in a glow, growling with nascent power.

I bobbed in the air, my wings barely revved, only to look up and watch a golden mesh of light crackle into being. The energies' threads strung up from one end of the ring to the other.

The mesh started descending toward us.

The crowd belted out a very unhelpful chant: "Fry them! Fry them!"

"Scatter!" EUe yelled.

The two of us went our separate ways right as the gU breathed out another venom cloud. I rushed toward the ground. I managed to look up and back just in time to see the venom spray collide with the descending energy mesh. The liquid exploded in a shockingly bright flash, leaving me flying blind for a couple of seconds.

For my own safety, I flew around in circles, lest I crash into a forcefield and barbecue myself. Yet, when my vision cleared, I realized I hadn't closed my eyes at all. Rather, I'd brought down a second pair of eyelids, just like EUe had done. The transparent membranes were like a pair of eyeglasses, and boy oh boy, the things I could see with them!

It seemed twEfE's second-eyelids came with built-in wyrmsight.

I saw pataphysical weaves everywhere I looked. Even in the thick of combat, it was hard not to gawk at the sheer glut of pataphysics on display. A tangled, colorless haze of them were etched into the gU's skin like a full-body tattoo. That had to be the work of the god of mysteries EUe was talking about. The power came in every shape and texture imaginable, from the crackling wisps at the energy mesh's edge, to the schools of wavy vibrations that made up the forcefields protecting the audience from the combat in the arena. Even the audience was awash with magic, clothed in pieces of pure spirit that twinkled in the sunlight.

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While I was gawking, EUe had grabbed his naginata and was back to work striking at the gU. He darted beneath its underbelly in the split seconds before the creature flopped back onto the ground. However, instead of stabbing it, EUe ran the edge of the polearm's blade against the gU's hide. Even though he barely put any pressure on the cut—it was a minor laceration at best, with barely any blood—I still saw a trail of light flare in the path of the cut where the gU's force reversal was taking effect.

EUe zoomed out of the way as the gU struck back with a swipe of its front claws. He twEfE flew over me while I hit the ground running.

The gU roared.

"This is going to take forever!" EUe yelled.

And then it gave chase, rumbling across the arena on all sixes.

I pushed off the ground and joined EUe in flight.

"Thank the Herald we still have a nectar supply," he said.

He made a beeline toward the nearest nectar fountain, only to yell, "No!" as all the nectar fountains sank into the ground. EUe jabbed his beak into one of the receding basins, but a floor tile slid over the pit the fountain had retracted into, and EUe ended up slamming his head into the triangular tile. The impact left him stunned.

The gU squealed in delight, saliva dribbling down its slackened maw.

It was definitely hungry.

Yelling, I pushed my wings to the limit. Pain burned in front of my heart as I rocketed toward the gU. Knowing it was a bad idea to try stabbing the thing, I chucked my daggers at it, aiming for its mouth. One dagger would have hit one of its eye had the force reversal not sent it flying back at a low angle.

I wince as my weapon sliced through one of EUe's wings.

The twEfE yelled in pain.

As for my other dagger, it missed entirely, instead landing on the ground in the gU's path, skidding across the stone.

This was why you never wanted me on your frisbee team.

The gU brought one of its paws down hard on the metal, only to bounce up from the impact as its own weight was turned against it. It wasn't enough to seriously injure the gU, but it did knock it off balance.

The six-legged lizard roared in surprise.

And that gave me an idea.

I remembered what EUe had said about starting the loop in a state of exhaustion. The thing was, while he might have been exhausted, but I still had some juice left in me. Given my twEfE body's diminutive stature, there was no telling if I had enough raw power to pull off, but I figured, what the heck, it was worth a shot.

I dropped to the ground and then started hopping in place, waving my arms and wings while squeaking⁠ at the top of my itty-bitty lungs.

"Come at me, you big, scaly motherchucker!"

EUe righted himself and took off. He raced toward me in shock. "Genneth, what are you—"

"—Stay back!" I yelled.

The gU snarled and then charged at me, eagerly snapping its maw. I set off in a sprint, buzzing my wings behind me to speed myself forward.

My strides turned to leaps.

Then, holding my wings stiff, I skidded to a stop a couple feet from the wall, scraped in my toe-claws into the stone floor, spun around, spread my arms and wings and conjured up a great big spike of pataphysics—many times my height—in between me and the gU-lUte barreling toward me. The spike stuck up from the ground at an acute angle, facing the gU-lUte like a gazelle bearing its horns.

The thing sparkled beneath my birdsight⁠ as I let my power flow.

The result was pinball machine perfection.

The giant, six-legged lizard crashed into the spike like a pinball onto a gutter post. My force spike didn't push the gU in the slightest; it didn't need to. The gU's own enchanted hide reversed the creature's momentum, kicking it up and back, smacking it into the protective barrier at the arena's periphery which it ricocheted off of and flew back the way it came at an even greater speed, and then bounced off the arena floor with a sickening crunch that hurled it like a major league fast-toss at the arena barrier on the opposite side.

The impact cracked its body in half, producing two chunks that bounced around for a bit, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces and spraying blood and guts over the arena and its energy barriers like confetti before the creature's sundered body finally came to a stop in a rain of wet, squelching plops.

Steaming hot gU blood dripped from my and EUe's feathers.

Blinking, I lifted up my second eyelid as I flicked off the blood.

And the crowd went wild.

"For the Nectar! For the Nectar!"

They hollered and jumped and buzzed and cheered.

"For the Nectar! For the Nectar!"

Mothers tossed their children in the air like hats.

Then I swooned and I fell to my knees, drowning in the curious yet extremely satisfying sensation of my whole body feeling like a used napkin or a popped balloon, with EUe staring at me in shock.

I stuck up my arms and shouted "For the Nectar!", and then collapsed in sweet victory.

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