I sprung out from the wall as the boss finished yodeling, and landed on him as he recovered. My jaws clamped around his skull; I lashed from side to side, ripping the green goo now holding onto his neck. It was stronger than it looked, pulling away like steel cables snapping under great weight. Vanara bellowed, punching my flanks, but I had three more functioning limbs than he did and turned the blows away as, slowly but surely, I ripped his head off a second time and threw it to the ground.

The boss's body spasmed, hands clawing at the air. I jumped back, and had about a split second of smugness before I was snatched out of my leap and crushed against the huge ape's chest. Trapped, I did the only thing I could think to do: I clamped my jaws together, and plunged my sharp, bullet-shaped muzzle into one of the gaping, bloodless wounds on the motherfucker's chest.

My HP began to plummet, 500 points a second. Agony – real pain – swept through my body as I forced my armored head forward toward the monster's sick, slushy heartbeat. Flesh and bone parted, and when I felt the organ tickle my snout, I levered my jaws apart and tore at it with panicked strength. The boss's body shuddered, then tottered in a slow spiral, arms loosing over my creaking spine. With the last of my stamina, I surged forward to grasp his heart in my teeth, then ripped it free in an explosion of dark green slime.

The headless corpse stumbled to its knees, legs twisting, and then collapsed bonelessly to the floor. I dropped to the ground in front of it, spat the heart to the floor, and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when I was reamed by about a million system messages the HUD had been keeping out of view during combat.

[You have defeated Vanara. You earned a Vanara Award Tribute.]

[You gain 500 EXP. You are Level 14.]

[You have obtained a Mandala: HRIDAYA, The Heart of Earth. Meditate on this Mandala to gain new abilities and learn its meaning.]

[Congratulations: You have passed 1000 viewers. You been granted a Copper Arena Tribute.]

[You have 153 new subscribers. You have two new Patrons.]

[Congratulations: You have exceeded 100 Spectator subscriptions within your first 24 hours. You have been granted a Silver Fame Tribute.]

[Buh_Buh_Bacon has sent you a Bronze Subscriber Tribute.]

[There are still hostiles in the Boss Arena. You must defeat all enemies to exit.]

Tail and puds lashing over my back, I slowly turned to face Clive and the four Hell Pigs still left alive.

"W-Wait!" Clive got to his feet. "Ahh... now look here, Mister Reaper. You seem pretty dang smart, as Brutes go. Maybe we can sort something out? Y-You know? Like gentlemen."

I snorted out a wad of Vanara goo from my grille holes, then pulled my lips all the way back over my fangs with a low, rumbling snarl. All of the Pigs except Clive flinched. His henchmen scrambled for weapons, but Clive waved them back and took a step forward, flashing me a scar-twisted, gap-toothed smile.

“There’s an honest to god human mind in that head of yours, isn’t there?” he said to me. “Look, we somehow got off the wrong foot, but hear me out. We need strong fighters like you, Mister. Real men, men who take what belongs to them.”

I snorted at him, lashing my tentacles around so the points all angled at his head.

“I’m a war leader in the Hell Pigs. I got connections to Sponsoreds, guys who know what’s happening on the outside.” Clive was sweating like a whore in church, but if there was something I could give the guy credit for, he had balls. Most people – like the four guys now cringing back against the wall – would have been at the pants wetting stage already. “People who can talk to you and tell you how you got here. WHY you’re here.”

I narrowed my eyes back. But his words gave me pause.

Clive’s beady eyes took a hopeful glint. “You and me? We’re the same. We woke up here, no fucking idea what’s going on. No idea how we got here or who sent us. Well, I know, now. I got family on the outside who I know are safe thanks to my position here. And it’s not really as bad as it looks, either. No one’s really dying when we niner them. Survival of the Fittest is just a fucked-up fantasy, man. It’s the real world that counts.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of white. The albino girl had scavenged some clothes for herself and was now mostly dressed. Video games being what they were, the female Hell Pigs armor was mysteriously a lot scantier than what the men’s. She'd left the gloves and helmet off, so I could see her hands and facial expressions. Two vital components of sign language.

"You can understand me, right?" She signed, stepping up beside me.

I bought my right paw up, curled it into a fist, and made a knocking motion as I nodded. The sign for 'yes'.

"He’s lying. People who lose all their lives are wiped from the game and deleted, and the AI doesn’t let Sponsored Players tell people about their pasts. This guy is a piece of shit." The woman's hands and expressions had the fluidity and speed only a life-long signer could possess. "You killed his Brute, which means he has his Command Collar back. I don't know how, but he's got a plan to try and replace the collar you’re wearing. And if he does, he'll control you."

Clive glanced at her gestures, uncomprehending. "The hell is this?"

I looked between the pair of them, back and forth.

“I swear I’m not just trying to save my own ass,” the girl insisted. “I know this game as well as he does. He’s lying to you.”

Clive made an insultingly flippant impression of sign language, jangling his fingers together. “Makin’ fun of me, you squid fingered cooze? What are you? A fucking crip or something?”

I didn't have the right anatomy – lips - to reply with the sign for 'okay'. But there were other ways to answer in sign language.

I put my head down and ran straight at Clive before he could react.

"OH YOU STINKIN’-!" Whatever he was about to say was cut off as I took him to the ground and struck him with my upper jaw. With my mouth open, teeth exposed, my jaws worked like a double-edged battleaxe. His scream of agony cut as teeth sheared through hide and flesh. While he gurgled his life onto the stones, I ran down each of the other Hell Pigs, pouncing them like the biggest of pumas. Screams pierced the air as blood sprayed and flesh flew. My new lady friend shrunk back against the remains of the altar, clutching it, but not looking away.

[You have defeated your enemies. You gain 121 EXP.]

[You are Level 15.]

[The Boss Arena will open in 60 seconds.]

Just as well we had a timer - because the Hell Pigs were howling outside the gates. The guys who'd been in here had respawned in the camp, and they were banging on the door to the temple. The grace period was probably to give you enough time to prepare for this exact PVP kill-stealing scenario.

Turning to the girl, I struggled with what to do. I could make the hand gestures for ASL, but I didn’t have a face capable of holding a proper conversation. But I was a Psionic Legion, right? Could I use telepathy?

I concentrated as hard as I could. “We have to get out of here! There’s a way through the roof!”

The girl flinched like I’d slapped her, clutching her head with one hand. She angrily and quickly signed with the other. “OW! WHAT WAS THAT?!”

“Sorry! Too loud.” I reeled back the concentration a bit. “First time communicating with a real live human-person.”

She pawed at her face, grimacing. Then I realized: I was defaulting to speech telepathy. If she’d been born deaf, like my sister, the sounds were jangling around in her head but not making sense. ASL wasn’t just English spoken with the hands. It was its own language, more closely related to French.

I couldn’t remember what I looked like as a human, so I made up a picture of Noodles the Human FBI Agent. Big. Brawny. Nice hands. I tried projecting the image to her, speaking with a ghostly expression and gesture instead of spoken words. “We have to go!”

Understanding dawned on her. Stricken, she pointed back at the body of the stag. “We can’t leave Kaya! They killed Sam… Kaya was her Legion. if they take him, they’ll collar him.”

I was about to tell her that he was already an ex-Runtina when the great creature gave a spasmodic kick of its front legs, then lifted its antlered head from the floor. When he saw the pair of us, he moaned and lurched up onto his knees.

“Hey, buddy!” I tried pacing around, honking to get his attention. The deer shook his head, eyes unfocused. They were full of grief and terror, but he didn’t respond to my mental urging. However, he knew the girl, orienting on her as she ran over and helped him to rise. With her help, he clambered unsteadily to his feet.

“I’m sorry, Kaya.” Sam voiced aloud in English. She was crying now, tears washing thin trails through the dirt and blood on her face. “They took all my heals, my weapons… everything. Sam’s dead. I could try collaring you? We can… we can try and get out of here. We have to, we… I…”

Kaya looked to the shuddering door, nostrils flaring. Then he looked to the girl with eyes dulled by pain. Then he turned to me. For several seconds, his gaze bore into me. There were no words – but I understood.

“Got it, chief.” I gave him a sharp nod, then turned my head to the girl. “Come on. We’re out of here.”

“I… but we can’t just leave him!” Sam protested. “They’ll kill him! Or collar him!”

“We don’t have a choice. He’s on his last legs, he can’t climb the walls, and there’s no way out of here for him except out those gates.” I went down to all fours and jabbed toward my back with one tentacle. Emphatically.

Moaning with frustration, the girl climbed my elbow and pulled herself onto my back. Her voiced speech was loud with panic. “Stay alive, Kaya! I’ll find you one day! I’ll free you! I promise!”

The stag heard her, but the only sign was the hunching of his shoulders as he stared at the rocking temple gate.

The girl grasped two of my tentacles at the base, and I curled one around her back to hold her in her seat. I sprung away, scaling the nearest pillar until we reached the opening along the roof. I vaulted through, keeping my passenger low to my back, and spared one last look at Kaya. He had his feet planted and his shoulders set, facing the door with the murderous intensity of a man with one pure, unwavering desire: to kill as many motherfucking Hell Pigs as he could before he died.

“Godspeed,” I thought, and bounded out into the night.