Dirk's reminiscences [open]

    Dirk walked into the  empty stands of the Battle Arena. Dirk looked down on the empty arena perplexed. He was working over some of his memories of the area as he thought about the last time he had stepped into the arena.  It was the spring tournament and the adrenaline, the  loud roar of the crowd, the embarrassing memory of wearing comic book pants, and most of all the sickening sound of bones breaking. Dirk had to hold back a bit of vomit as he recalled the loud SNAP that had rung through his one available ear at the time. Now that Dirk thought about it, he was still ashamed about almost killing his opponent. Kicking  Lon's ribs and breaking them was going too far he could have ruptured a lung leading to the inevitable depressurization of the lungs and eventually death through strangulation. Dirk had lost himself in his memories and finally had found himself at the last place he wanted to be. Dirk shivered at the thought at killing a person and as a result flashed back to his time in the smugglers den.

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- flashback (extension of dirk's history)-

The smell of cultivated drug plants hovered over the large hideout of his adoptive smuggler family. He was easily the youngest but still, he was useful to the people around him and as a result he was accepted. Actually, The people actually seemed to start to like him, especially John. John was a particularly jovial character who everyone loved and talked to; Dirk, in fact , loved John like a brother, until the day his life took a complete turnaround. John had invited Dirk help him smuggle some dangerous material over to Cuba, naturally Dirk, who trusted John like a brother, agreed, but while they were passing the fence John had called out to some slavers who immediately came out and tried to restrain Dirk, but being surprised caused him to jolt into a mode where he was oblivious to anybody else except for himself. Dirk pulled out his special combat knife he kept for occasions like this and called upon seemingly unending strength. The blood lust covered his eyes as he thought about only one thing.... his brother just tried to turn him into a slave.The fight that proceeded was a terrifying one and that day blood was splattered and the smell of iron hung over the area. He was found staring at the corpses and  crying. He was then questioned, acquitted of the charges of murder, and taken to a boat and was shipped back to his smuggler home town.

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Dirk snapped out of his flashback and noticed that a trail of tears had raced down his cheeks. He tried to stop them, but he couldn't. Why couldn't he?  He didn't answer and sat down, covered his eyes, and bent forward. Why was he so weak? Why did he let this get to him now? Why.... Just....Why? His usual stoic manner was abandoned  as he tried to hide his face from the world. Not that he expected anyone to be in the area. 

He was trying desperately to regain control of his emotions.

(for those who are curious about the mentioned fight here)
(Dirk's badly written profile: ->here<- )

A light rumbling entered the arena with the origins being one of the tunnels leading into the battle zone of the arena. It was a very faint set of tremors that could go unnoticed by most, especially if their attention was honed in elsewhere. While the creature that was approaching was of a decent size, it would become quite evident why its steps weren’t as heavy as they could be. The resident sand golem entered the ring, her feet sloshing about in a rather lazy manner.

Her trifecta of eyes emerged from the mass of its body and honed in on one of the practice dummies that were left out and about. The titan began to correct its footing and readjusting its body so that its sand was far less goopy and more structured and compact. Once the prep work was finished, she held out her arm, pointing it like a gun at the defenseless dummy. In just a split second, the golem’s blobby limb shot forward like a harpoon, there even being a stream of sand following behind it so it looked like they were still connected. The digits on the hand sprung open and then snatched the oversized doll.

The eyes of the titan immediately snapped toward its inactive arm, watching as its ‘shoulder’ began to droop downwards and out of place. In a matter of seconds, the entire left side of the creature’s body became limp and fell to the ground, acting exactly how a pile of sand would. This was not the first time that Tem had experienced such a sensation, in fact she had come to the colosseum specifically to see if it would happen again.

Tem retracted her arm and left the dummy where it was. She peered over the pile of sand that used to make up half of her body and attempted to will it back into place, a task that she normally wouldn’t have to put much effort into. It didn’t even budge.

The golem began to decrease her size to accommodate for the lack of sand she had on her body. Once she was back into her proper shape she gazed at her hands rather blankly. Her contemplation continued as something in her mid-section began to bubble, making her seem like she was breathing, but breathing wasn’t something she was required to do. Underneath her trifecta of eyes grew a makeshift maw that radiated a strange wheezing noise. The bizarre noise soon grew into an uproarious laughter as the mouth burst open and the golem leaned itself back so that it could laugh into the heavens. “I’M DYING!” she shouted with the most amount of pride that anyone has ever had when making that statement. It was like she won the lottery or stumbled upon a brick of gold.

After making her victorious statement though, the mouth disappeared back into her body and she continued to feel pumped for her oncoming death. There was a disturbance in her joy though. Originally, she thought that she was alone in the arena and given her overexcitement she probably wouldn’t have noticed normally. She didn’t talk to students much considering that they were smaller and stupider than regular humans, but she was in the mood to give out the good news.

The titan began to slide up the stadium seats, reducing her lower half into a blob of sand so as to allow herself to climb faster than merely taking the stairs. Her torso remained in its normal shape. Once she was nearby, she shared her announcement. “Human! I’m dying! Rejoice!” she stated as she lifted her arms into the sky triumphantly.