Battle Fever.

Yeah, I went straight for the kill!
See, **** doesn't stick in the Arena. But slavery lasts forever. Turns out in a surprising twist, it's more humane to kill your opponent than make them surrender!
But that's the friggin' point! Sure, getting out of any match was as simple as uttering a couple of words. But there's no way that'd be worth it!
Even if the Arena turned into the opponent's own personal **** chamber, and you're the main attraction, you'd still wanna endure it for a very hot minute or two; considering the alternative was becoming someone's **** permanently.
As a result, the contestants can give up at any time, but they'd rather fight to ****!
But those same rules also encouraged them not to kill off their opponent. Most people wouldn't wanna give up on their chance of such a tantalizing prize all for themselves, after all.

Not me though. I won't lie, getting my friends back from the clutches of a sadistic slaver was more than tempting. Honestly, I can't imagine any more revolting sight than when I saw them helpless and **** at her mercy. But I made up my mind, and I'm sticking to it.
Look, I don't think people should own slaves! All right? Reducing an actual person; a real individual with thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears, to mere property... That's not anything which is okay if done the right way. No. They're in the wrong. I'd rather be the one gal who has nothing to do with that heinous practice.

Lots of people would commit unspeakable horrors for the chance to un-**** their friends. Me too, for that matter. But this is about freedom! It's about independence! I can't compromise on anything I value that much.
Yeah, that sucks. But you know what else sucks? Torturing someone until they agree to become your **** for the rest of their life. So, call me a prude, but I think I'll skip on that.
I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but... Apparently that's absolutely necessary! Can you believe there are people who have followed my journey this far, and still imagine that's how I really think?

No. Snake Lady was going down.
The most colorful language spewed from her pretty mouth, while she tossed and turned on the ground. I stepped towards her briskly, the barrel of my gun drifting in her direction. She had no clue what was gonna go down.
Once I had my sight locked on to her, I squeezed the trigger.
The drilling roar echoed throughout the Arena, making my heart race and my blood boil.
I couldn't help but smile.

The bullets ripped through the sand, erupting in geysers around the girl.
Didn't hit her though. The way my goggles warped my vision ever so slightly didn't help one bit -- Neither did her frantic movement. When the first bullet pierced the ground she rolled away from my line of fire. Or should I say, the snake made her roll. It levered her by looping its tail, flipping her over again and again like a leash walking a dog.
That's how she wrestles with her front-tail during alone time, I imagine. But in the Arena, it did a fat load of good.
When bullets shoot out that fast, it's a matter of time before one of them hits.
Then, she could roll around as much as she wanted. In her grave.

Didn't really pan out that way though.
Turns out all that rolling ended up winding her up in the snake's tail from top to toe. A wrapped up mummy lay before me. One with a hell of a flashy sense of fashion. Not a single strand of purple hair stuck out.
I hit bullseye, but far too late. The bullets didn't so much as scratch that scaley parcel. Just the occasional shrill ring as they ricocheted off it.

That snake must've been made of steel or something, judging from how much it could tank! How freakishly tough was it?
Wait, how freakishly strong was Katey? She bit through that armor with ease!

I wasn't Katey though. What I lacked in raw strength, I more than made up for in RPM.
I locked the barrel at the cocoon, tracing circles around it. Nothing left to do but keep the trigger down. The rain of bullets persistently pounded at her snakey shell.
That hollow clang sounded nothing like a snake should when getting machine gunned. It was the sound of metal on metal. Not even a dent was left on its hide. But I kept up the pressure. Sooner or later, some bullet was bound to hit that one sweet spot not quite as reinforced as the rest.

CLICK! CLICK!
...Unless I first managed to empty my magazine.
Oh crap.
My chest felt empty, as if my heart dropped into a bottomless pit. Already out of ammo, and the Snake Lady hadn't even gotten started.
A suffocating silence settled over the Arena. One which the cold, mechanical tick of the squeezed out gun couldn't possibly penetrate.
My barrage had kicked up quite a lot of sand, which lingered in the air as a veil. I couldn't see her anywhere.

Her piercing blue eyes shimmered from beyond the veil. They burned with a relentless fury.
She stepped out into clear view, not even a scratch on her ghostly light skin.
And she was pissed.

Sand from her skin fluttered down with every tremor of her limbs. Now that her vision had returned, her gaze settled on me. Her prey.
I could do little more than respond with an awkward smile.
"...You'll live to regret that." She shot me a menacing scowl. Her savage eyes roamed over me, as though hunting my gaze.

Yeah, no.
I dropped my gun, reaching my fingers into the helmet once more to press the button on the side of my goggles.
My vision plunged into darkness.
The Snake Lady glowed as a swirling cocktail of hot and cool colors, within a dark negative version of the Arena.
Everything dim looked bright.
Everything bright looked dim.
'Bright' of course being a relative term. Really just any muted shade of grey that wasn't absolute pitch-black.
The only exception being the Snake Lady. I saw a balloon animal version of her filled with vibrantly luminous technicolor juice that lit up her skin. Her core shone with a mix of yellow, hot orange and white, while blobs of various shades of blue wriggled along her extremities.
That just made her little pout more adorable. Like the face of a cartoon clown.

I'd imagine that's what virtual reality is like, if programmed by someone who'd heard about reality only through rumors.
But that was actually reality. Real reality, as seen through thermal imaging.

That's right! I was going heat vision!
Unless her hypnotic powers lay in her heat signature, I should be safe to go.
Wouldn't make aiming any easier though. But I had no intention anymore of pelting her with bullets.
I bolted straight towards the panoramic blob. I intended to settle this up close and personal.

"Lightning Arrow."
A white dart sprung from her finger towards me. That attack looked the same without heat vision.
I had the same luck evading that as I usually do dodging lightning.
It struck me right in the core before I had the chance to blink.

And, nothing.
It fizzled out against my suit before disappearing without a trace. Didn't feel so much as a buzz. I bet that would look funny from the outside. There I was, on a collision course with an arrow burning with celestial eminence. They expected fireworks. What they got amounted to less than a water balloon.
I kept up the pace as if I hadn't noticed.
Boy did that frizzle her head! You'd think by the look on her face that she was the one who got struck by lightning.

"Lightning Arrow. Lightning Arrow!"

She hurled those blitz shots at me in a relentless ****. In total I got hit six times, before... Wait, it might've been eight instead. You know, there's a chance it got as high as twenty-nine.
Hey, it's not my fault! It'd be much easier to count if I could actually feel anything from them.

After being pelted by more bolts than I cared to count, she was only a few paces away. Her **** had long since stopped, yet she stood firm against my charge.
The colorful spots wandered along her skin away from her core. The white areas expanded along her body's surface, consuming her entirely before growing beyond her body.

The spectral glow pulsated, each burst growing in brightness until becoming as bright as the sun. Then it shrank, focused in a single hot point between her palms.
The radiant nucleus refused to be confined in the shape of an orb. It twisted between irregular shapes, as if the turmoil within would not let itself be contained in her grasp.
Loud crackling sprung up all across the surrounding air. The whiteness on her body had dimmed, yet the vibrant colors shifted across her skin with increasing speed. With a casual yet terrifying motion, she reached out her hand towards me.
She spoke in a soft yet determined voice, "Thunderthrike!"
A Palpatine style lightning bolt launched from her palm.

"AUIIIIIEEEEEEEEEHHHHH!!!"

No idea why I yelled. Maybe I thought that's what you're supposed to do when getting struck by lightning in the face.
I saw a bright flash, and a crackling beam from her hand connecting to my head.
Let's just say you can feel the pressure when the immutable forces of reality pull off their most terrifying stunt an inch away from your face.

But honestly? I didn't feel so much as a tap.
Sure, the thunderous roar could have split stone, and at least left my ears ringing.
And boy, did it get hot! I'm talking cooking-egg-on-the-asphalt levels of hot here.
The lightning itself, though, amounted to little more than a night light.

My Faraday suit worked terrifically!
As light and flexible as it was resilient. My special conductive textile that was a stroke of genius! If I had to say so myself.
You'd think wrapping yourself top to toe with sheets of conductive material would be the last thing you'd wanna do in a thunderstorm. But fact is, the reason it's such an ideal protection against electricity falls out from the laws of conductivity itself.
And it makes sense if you think about it!

Why do you imagine that you, or anything else on the ground, gets hit by lightning? It's cause the current seeks the easiest way to the ground! Since you're more conductive than the air around you, the lightning is gonna try moving through you if it can.

But what if instead of air, the atmosphere was made of something more conductive than you? Let's say a massive heap of iron nails that reached to the peak of the firmament.
The current would still seek itself to the ground, through the path of least resistance. But since you're now the most resistant thing around, you're no longer eligible for that title!
Whichever way the lightning would move, it wouldn't wanna go anywhere near you. And that's precisely cause you've got so much other conductive material around you.
The Faraday suit is simply a 'conductive atmosphere' fitted over your skin. Any electric field tossed at you will go around you, along the surface of the suit, but not through you.
And that's the real reason cars work as great protection against lightning, by the way. If you heard that's because of the rubber tires, that's rubber wrong! You think an arc of electricity traveling miles through air would be even slightly inconvenienced by a few millimeters of rubber?

And of course, kids, don't do this at home. Leave testing what will and won't electrocute you to the mad scientists, all right?

When her spell concluded, only festive orange and blue smoke remained, dancing around me like fireworks. For me, at least. For most people, it was just regular old black smoke. All they knew was that I got struck by a big-ass lightning bolt, and then only smoldering debris remained.
Oh, this was gonna be great! I should let them wait! Build tension! Have them stare in awe at the aftermath of the calamity, where I'm nowhere to be seen. Then, when they least expect it, I break out from the mist, charging at my opponent with relentless determination!

Imagine the looks on their faces, watching me emerge without so much as a scratch!
I would.
Cause my heat vision couldn't see past the barrier.

I took a deep breath in preparation, but, "Cough! Cough!"
My lungs rejected the bitter fumes loudly.
Great... Of course waiting inside burning smoke in complete silence was a great idea. Not like smoke is hard to breathe in or anything. Or like I've already got a sniffle.
Once again I've been betrayed by television.

I waved the heavy plumes of scorched air away. The moment was ruined. But hey, at least I'd not turn into a bigger loser than her.
With a kick to the ground, I charged out of the smoke. The Snake Lady awaited me an arm's reach away.
I shot out my arm at her.
She shot her arm at me at the same time. Harder and faster.
I came to an abrupt stop when her palm crashed against my helmet. Her fingers clutched around the wires of the cage, holding me in place by the mesh.
"Lightning Arrow!"

Her expression of disdain and revulsion was the last thing I saw before my vision faded into darkness.
Yeah, she got me with that one.
The Faraday suit only works against electric fields from outside itself. Once her fingers got inside the helmet, it was a different game entirely.

I was still alive and kicking though. I did a good job insulating the suit's inside. My goggles though? They were a thing of the past. All I saw was colorful blinking light that defied the black screen with erratic flickering.
Which suited me fine. Her arm was right there. No need to see what I was doing. That'd be just another opportunity to be lost in those pretty peepers.

I closed my eyes, then grasped for her arm. It flailed through the empty air.
Crap. She let go of my helmet. I waved my arms around blindly in search of my escaped opponent.

Snap!
A heavy impact sunk into my torso. Pain coursed through my body.
The air stuck in my throat as I tried to gasp. I hunched over.
Damn! That felt like no fist I ever felt! More like getting struck by a sledge hammer, really.
That snap? That was one of my ribs breaking! Holy shit, that stung!
That chick wasn't just about fancy spells and hypnotic eyes! In this world, she amounted to a proper boss monster! Even if that wasn't what she was all about, she still had the strength of a monster.

But she was no Bat Girl.
And I was still alive.
I wouldn't let my chance go to waste twice.

My arm hooked around hers. My ankle hooked around hers.
My eyes closed. The blinking was distracting.
I let my sense of touch guide me. Her feet lifted from the ground as I swept her. While in the air, I manipulated her center of gravity -- My motions smooth and fluid.
Almost as if I was the snake.

She tried screaming, but the scream came to an abrupt halt, turning into a yelp when she struck the ground. One of my legs coiled over her arm and under her armpit, while the other wrapped over the knee of the first to lock it in place. I used my arms on hers to flip her body into an awkward position; her back on the ground and my legs on her arm.
Did it hurt? Of course! Such agile movements hurt like hell with a broken rib! But I moved through the pain and pinned her down.

That hold was as familiar to me as chewing gum. You'd think it'd be a different deal with a gal from another species, or freakishly strong. But no, I was surprised how well that move worked.
She tossed and writhed on the ground, trying to throw me off. Her efforts were rewarded with a jolt of pain in her joints telling her they were about to snap, and she screamed in pain. She kept squirming around relentlessly, but no longer with the strength needed to actually be free. Almost as if breaking free wasn't the point.

Judo is all about using your opponent's strength against her. Push when pulled, pull when pushed. Soft things can be used to beat hard things. It doesn't matter how strong my opponent is. If she doesn't know how to use that strength then she can't win.

I clicked my helmet open, shaking my head to release my long hair, letting it cascade down my back. I could hear her angry groans with each breath. Her chest heaved and her body shuddered with indignation.
"You dare!?" She snapped at me, "If you toucthh Uth you thhall regret it! Do you hear Uth? Not a day will go by without paying for what you have done! Who do you think you are?!"
"Oh, but I know exactly who I am! My name is Allison," I dropped the helmet, "And I am not from this world. Usually, I don't have this much trouble making friends, but when you're in a whole new world with new people... That's a whole other game! Still, I managed to make a couple of friends here. One of them is named Katey, the other is Uni. They're the best friends I could ever ask for. And my friends they will remain. They didn't deserve what happened to them. But don't you worry. Now it's time for what you deserve."
I grabbed her head before she could respond. My fingers ran along her thick luscious hair while holding her in place. I kept my eyes closed, puckering my lips as I leaned towards her... Guiding her head towards a fiery kiss.

That's right.
I was ending it Poison Ivey style!
Seems that's par for the course in this world, and when in Rome yadda-yadda.

The match was wrapped in a bag! If my kiss of **** worked, I'd emerge victorious.
Of course, if it didn't work, it'd end up really weird afterwards... But hey! At least I wouldn't be alive to suffer from that!
Well, at least for a microsecond.

One of her arms was trapped between me and her. The other between her and the ground.
If she had some way of tossing lightning in my face, the time to use that was well overdue.
That was it.
I could feel the warmth of her breath on my nose.

We were so close our noses touched. I turned my face, only to--
I felt a sting on my leg.

I peered over my shoulder, shifting the goggles over my head.
When I opened my eyes, the sight of a snake latching onto my thigh greeted me. My skin seared with a throbbing heat where its long, pointy fangs had penetrated the metallic sheets of the suit.
Oh.
Oh, shit!
How could I, of all people, have missed her front-tail? It's not like it had anywhere to go!
But that's my brain for you. I didn't see it, so it couldn't exist. It's not like thermal imaging will miss cold-blooded reptiles or anything like that.

I wrung the snake as if trying to **** it, "Get off me! Get off!"
I tugged violently at its neck. It mattered fuck all that it hurt! It had to get off! God, I hope snakes shed their teeth as well!
I watched it slink free of my loosened grip before I could pull it out. My hands felt soft; but they were stiff as ice. Completely unresponsive to my commands.
I wonder how I managed to lift my hands when they went numb.

As if to answer my own stupid question, my arms went limp, dangling from my sides like dead weight.
I felt my body drift towards its center of gravity, toppling to ground with a crash that told me it would bloody hurt if I could still feel pain. I tried with all my strength and will to get up, but I couldn't so much as wiggle my toes. I stared at the sky as if from the eyes of a lifeless doll. But inside that doll, a primeval desire to escape raged like a storm.
It wasn't painful. It wasn't anything, except...

The Snake Lady emerged into my vision, her hands resting on her hips. Her blue eyes roamed over my sprawled body like a predator eyeing her prey. The most shit-eating grin imaginable grew on her face.
"Oh, crap..." I hissed.
Well, at least I've confirmed I'd be able to admit my surrender.

"Tho, you were going to give Uth what We detherve, were you? How amuthing. You think yourthelf worthy of bethtowing juthticthe on the liketh of Uth. Of courthe, you ended up exthactly where you belong," She planted her bare foot on my chest, smirking heinously, "Under Our foot."
A strange shuddering moan left my mouth. You'd think I'd be able to feel it when she pressed down on my broken rib. And yeah, I did. But that wasn't pain.
It was pleasure.

Whatever was in that snake venom, it completely warped my senses. My range of viable emotions no longer included pain. Or anything else elicited from touch other than erotic stimulation.
Being stepped on by that reptilian sadist felt like being carefully fondled by the most alluring lover. A sensation of arousal coursed through my body that beckoned for release. My body felt hot, and my mind was swimming with lewd thoughts. But satisfaction was forever out of reach. An animal part of my body whimpered, clawing and beckoning for the sweet chance relief. But I knew what the price would be.
I stared defiantly into her eyes.

"I thee you have noticthed Gilbert'th little gift, hmm? Worry not. Hith venom carrieth no harmful effect. But it hath a motht interethting property. One thuitable for a delectible prey thucthh ath you. Look at you; unable to ethcape Our clutcthheth. Unable to reject the delight of Our toucthh. We are going to have thucthh a lovely time together making you admit your placthe under Uth." She admired me with a feral hunger, licking her lips as her eyes dimmed with domineering lust. She grabbed her front tail, stroking its back enticingly.

Now, I have no idea what opinion my readers think a straight lady might have about being violated by a predatory reptile woman with a snake for a dong. But in case you're wondering, then allow me to enlighten:

AAUAAUHHHHUUUGGGHH-UEEEEAAAAAAWWWHHHH!

"Uhh, Hebi?" The snake said, as if I gave a fuck about shit about whether dicks could talk.
"You thtand before real power now, my little pet. Your adorable toyth hold no thway in Our domain. And look," She leaned her face uncomfortably close to mine, "In the end, who wath it that ended up ath the adorable toy, hmm?"
"Uhh, Hebi? I think you should check this out..."
"And yet not even thirty minuteth have paththed. We have all the time in the world to make you pay for your intholencthe." The Snake Lady sauntered around me, admiring me as her catch all the meanwhile, "Your Queen ith motht dithpleathed with your demeanour. You entered thith Arena; her domain, without underthtanding your placthe in it. But thoon you will underthtand it perfectly. Thoon..."
"Hebi! Seriously, now!"
"Not now, Gilbert!" She hissed, "We are in the middle of... UUUAAACK!!"

You know, if I was empenised, I imagine I'd be paying close attention to my member. I'd like to think it wouldn't have to yell at me to check up on it, if by chance it started bleeding a mixture of pus and blood from bloated discolored wounds suddenly appearing across its length.
Makes you wonder why that's not how it went down for our Snake Lady.

"Gilbert!" Her eyes grew to the size of saucers, "Gilbert! What are you doing!? What ith happening to you!?"
"Maybe you're having your time of the month? How the frick should I know!? Just make it stoooooop!" But it didn't stop. The wounds grew, and new ones appeared across its scales. They spread to the Snake Lady's body, who shrieked as she stomped frantically around. She tried scratching the wounds away, with expected results.
"Auhh! Euehh! Thith ithn't happening! Make it thtop! You! What did you do to me!? Oh, no! Oh goodnethth! It hurtth! It hurtth tho fucking mucthh! Make it thtop! Make it thtooooooop!!"

She fell to her knees. The wounds kept appearing all over her body, necrotic tissue spreading around them until...
You know what? Maybe I don't need to describe what happened next. Instead, let's talk about chocolate.
Imagine that you put a chocolate statue of a sexy Snake Lady in the microwave, then turn it on to full heat. What happens next is that fluids start leaking all over its surface. The fluids, of course, are what the statue is actually made of. So after a while, it becomes a disfigured version of itself. Much smaller. Much lumpier. You might see its confectionary limbs fall off, now unable to stand upright. But that doesn't matter. Soon the concept of standing upright won't apply for it, being the amorphous chocolatey heap it turns into.

What I am trying to say is that the Snake Lady melted like chocolate.
Nothing remained but a pile of bone and chocolate pudding.
And boy, did it reek!

About time that flesh eating virus took effect! Seriously! I was about to get ****! Forget talking about last minute! How about last second? Last pico-second? That was such a close call, if that were a flying tomahawk I'd feel my eyebrows being trimmed!
Ugh... I suppose if I'm looking for someone to blame, then I'd have to blame the one who designed it.
Which of course was yours truly.

At least it worked. Didn't even have to kiss another girl for it.
For science, of course.
Seems like her front-tail, who went by Gilbert apparently, wanted in on the action as he felt left out. Poor thing. So, it acted on its own accord, stealing my first smooch from under the lips of his owner. The gall of that dong!
So the reward for his boldness? Becoming the first entity to be disintegrated by the virus!

"Uhhhh... Hebi-san has been defeated? The victor is... Allison? I suppose?"

Ah, I love it when a plan comes together. I was kinda hoping I'd be able to beat her without using Operation Chocolotastic. Can't really complain though. After all, the fact that Operation Chocolotastic engaged means I can start working on getting Uni and Katey free.

I watched the sky beyond the barrier. It was the most beautiful sunny day one could ask for. Blue as Snak Lady's eyes. On days like these, you shouldn't be made to stay in some stuffy office listening to the prattle of that Office Dork.
Call me psychic, but I just know he'll somehow take umbrage with me crafting a highly contagious super-virus, then bring it to the Tournament grounds.
Even though it's totally not against the rules!

Ah... The things you do for friendship.
Hold up, Uni and Katey. I'm coming for you!

PLOP!