Give it your all!

"Kick some ass, Claire." you mumble towards your sister as you step backwards, your back resting against hers now as you are both looking at your own three soldiers walking your direction. "We can do this."

"I know we will, Darien" Claire replies as she steps forward, going on the offensive against her three guards.

Feeling her back leave yours causes you to step forward as well, making your way toward your soldiers. "Ahhhh!" you yell out as you pick up the pace toward them.

Each of these soldiers are wielding a medium sized buckler as well as a short sword. You slash at the front warrior, which he easily blocks, you want to stay on the offensive, hoping to take one out early. You slash again in an upward motion, which is blocked again, the guard pivots his shield to the side and thrusts forward with his sword. You easily deflect it with your dagger as you leap to the side, only to quickly have to leap backwards as another guard is right on your heels. He lunges at you again as you spin out of his attack, it actually brings you to his side, you use handle of your dagger to hook around the shield, pulling that guard towards you. He stumbles over your foot, falling to the ground but before you can finish him off, you're quickly dodging another thrust from the first guard, followed quickly by a slash from the third. The third guard's slash connects with your upper left shoulder-blade as you tried to pivot out of distance. "Fuck!" you grumble under your breath as the sting penetrates your body.

Back and forth the two warriors continue pushing forward on you as you're easily blocking, dodging and parrying their thrusts, all the while the third warrior who was on the ground is able to stabilize himself once more. It's not long before you see your opening, as the warrior to your left thrusts in, you jump left, forcing the warrior on the right to overextend, running into his friend. It gives you the perfect position to thrust your sword into the leftmost warrior, you hear a bloodcurdling scream as he drops his weapons, grips his side and falls to the ground. Finally able to bring this to a two versus one you know it'll be easier. Looking backwards at Claire while you have a brief second, you notice all three of her warriors are dead "Just amazing..." you grumble lightly once more, but you do notice a streak of red forming on her left calf, must have got slashed pretty hard as she's not moving as quick as she normally does.

As Claire is making her way to help you, in the corner of your eye you catch Rixx, bringing his hand up again, folding his fingers in. After he does that a few times, three more rathkin warriors step out from the circle, entering the fight once more. Noticing they are still far away, Claire, as quickly as she can, gets to your side as the two of you turn this fight into a two on two until the other guards get there. The two Rathkin warriors stand no chance at all as the first one drops almost instantly while the other one fights off for a bit, mainly blocking with his shield until your dagger goes into his side while Claire's sword goes through his throat. Both of you turn around, ready to fight the oncoming three new warriors.

Just like before, Rixx raises his other hand, motioning again, and just again, three more warriors step into the circle, making their way to the siblings.

Nineteen warriors. The two of you killed off Nineteen warriors before they started to get the upper hand. Fighting none stop for such an extended period of time was causing your stamina to get drained. Not to mention the constant slashes across your arms, legs and back. Claire wasn't looking so great anymore either, one of her legs had a shade of red forming down the side and every time she stepped on it, she'd limp down slightly.

You're once more, back to back with your sister as you see more guards walking in your direction. "Claire..." you huff and puff, gasping for oxygen "I...I don't know...don't know how much...how much longer" you gasp more "longer we can go..."

"I know, Darien...I know..." she sounds defeated

"We just have to keep fighting...for as long as we can! We can do this. I know we can!" you try to give a small pep talk.

That's when you hear it, Claire drops to a knee as her body starts to give out. "Uhhhh..." she groans as you glance behind your back, seeing your sister kneeling down, holding her leg, right above her knee cap, blood pouring out fairly hard. "It's bad Darien, very bad."

"Fuck...just, hold on!" you step forward as you quickly block two more attacks from two of the warriors stepping your direction. You try to parry, try to dodge, try to escape the oncoming ****.

You hear Claire give out a slight grunt as you hear a steel sword fly across the ground. As you turn your head, seeing a soldier standing over Claire, he grips his shield and sword in the same hand and then brings his fist down hard on Claire's face, forcing her to fall into the ground, she slowly pushes herself back up, blood dripping down her face.

You quickly turn your head back towards the warriors you were fighting, but you were too late, you feel the entire weight of a wooden buckler smash against the side of your head. Your body almost goes limp immediately as it knocks out the little wind you had in your body. Your weapons drop as you fall to the ground, only to be quickly pulled up to your knees as a warrior holds his short sword across your neck. You're defenseless, on the ground, on your knees, looking in the direction of the monster of Rathkin. All it would take is this guard to pull his sword backwards and your neck is slashed. Your eyes move to Claire, she's almost in the same position, on her hands and knees, blood dripping to the ground below, her body just wheezing through the pain, trying to get oxygen.

"HALT!" the bass filled voice of Commander Rixx orders.

You see the monster that is Rixx slowly start to walk your direction, you can feel each footstep he takes slightly vibrate the ground under his ****. His perfectly crafted greatsword, still dragging on the rock behind him. His form, his vision, his strength, just immaculate. He stops just shy of fifteen feet before the two of you. His gorgeous, yet scary eagle helmet trails over your weakened body before turning just slightly to the side, looking at Claire.

"The fire burns strong...." he begins as he walks over to Claire, kneeling down and pulling his glove under her chin, lifting her head up slightly to look into her eyes. He hesitates just briefly before he stands back up and backs away from her. He once again stands away from both of you, looking over you.

"What do you want?!" you grunt out, bearing your teeth, showing you still have strength.

The warrior standing next to you, with his sword against your neck, backs it away a bit before you're quickly hit hard in the side of the head with his fist. The guard holds onto your shoulder so you can't face plant into the dirt but you're feeling woozy and seeing stars. You briefly shake your head back and forth, squinting your eyes before refocusing them at the monster before you.

"Join us." Rixx finally lets out "Join Rathkin." he states "The three of us could conquer everything." his voice so threatening "Each of us, leading armies. Think of what we could accomplish. Rathkin would thrive. We would be the strongest **** in the world. Conquering kingdoms one by one. Taking what is ours. Leaving nothing behind. Join me. Join Rathkin. Join the Empire."

You're still gasping for air as blood runs out of your mouth now from the blow you took, spitting it onto the ground below you. You lean back, still on your knees, straightening your back out as you look at Rixx. Your head swivels over towards Claire, who is in the same position, on her knees, back straightened, looking at Rixx as well.

"Do you accept?"