Don't Let Them Catch You

4• No Honour

His name was Rodrick, Aura came to acknowledge.

The boy who sought victory in beating girls. Who bent Tanya's arm at a ghastly angle and beamed at the result of his actions.

And according to the snake, she was to be thrown into the pit to spar with him.

"I don't know how to spar." Aura muttered quietly, gazing off to where Markus and Skye had disappeared. Oddly enough, she felt like she had been stripped naked. Alone surrounded by people she didn't know, who didn't understand her, they might aswell have ripped off her clothes.

Her hands twitched with the urge to clutch her arms. But even though Aura's knowledge of strength was extremely limited, she knew that to clutch herself like that would instantly make her an easy target.

"It's not up for debate. Get in the pit." The snake hissed, her emerald eyes narrowing into slits.

Aura could have sworn she had seen a serpents tongue peak from behind her teeth.

She gazed off again to Markus' direction.

But the snake had had enough impertinence for one day, as she stormed towards her.

Aura cried out as she latched her bony fingers around her ear. It throbbed with a stinging pain as she dragged her by it, the entire time she screamed, yelling at her to let go. Her feet struggling to rebel against the woman because of the pain at her head. "I dont know how things worked in whatever shit hole you crawled out of, but here, when I give you an order, you obey!" Her voice rising far above Aura's.

With the swipe of her free hand, she flung the angel into the pit, at Roderick's feet, like a sack of potatoes.

Aura landed with a hard thud, eyes stinging with humiliation as she felt the whispers of the crowd of students judging her. Each sound a stab to her body.

But she didn't feel the pain of the floor. If she hadn't felt anything falling from heaven, she would most definitely not feel anything now.

"You will spar!" Roared the snake, thunder and lightning seemed to echo from within her voice. "And you will prove to us what you are made of! I'll have you whipped if I hear another scream--get up you miserable brat!"

Aura didn't say another word about sparring.

The crowd had moved to surround the pit, as Rodrick leered down at her.

From Aura's angle on the floor, she couldn't see passed his beefy chin, apart from the sharp points of his piss yellow teeth, and the thin skin of his lips.

She stumbled to her feet, her hair, which had been tied up as neatly as she'd ever tied it, was already messing up with stray strands and fly aways. Her hands moving quickly to brush away as much of the dust as she possibly could.

"Now." The snake roared.

Aura wasn't ready.

He lunged forward, his fist came like a hammer, cutting through the air in a swipe of his arm and slamming flat onto her jaw.

Aura howled, turning as she stumbled on her own feet, closing her eyes as if it would take the pain away.

But she should have kept them open.

And she should have never have turned her back on him.

She should have realized there was no honour in battle here. To attack an opponent while their back was turned.

Then she would have seen the lunge of his claws, his left arm moving in a double strike. She could have avoided the pain of each talons ripping through her flesh like hot irons, and his fingers would never have wrapped tightly onto her ribs.