Star memories

The Coliseum?

Starr walked thru the door and looked around, the place she was now in a long, dark, cobblestone hall lit by the occasional lamp on the wall. The hall was very tall, stone arches rose many feet above her meeting together way above her head. There was no sign of people, however in the distance she could hear a crowd cheering, it was echoed and twisted in weird ways before it reached her. There was other doors and walkways, but trying all of them Starr found they were either sealed or completely empty. The only direction she could go was forward, so that was the direction she began walking. She passed by numerous other hallways each one of them blocked off by an iron gate. Artworks on the wall depicted all kinds of battles between man and man, man and beast, and even some beast and beast. The further she walked the louder the cheering got, at the end of the tunnel she could see it emerged into a bright light. She emerged out of the hallway into the bright light, all at once the cheering came to an end. She took a look around she was inside of some kind of arena, like a coliseum. Everything here seemed like it was pulled straight out of Ancient Rome. Crowds filled the stands, all sorts of people were here watching her entering the ring. None of them spoke, they just stared most likely sizing her up. Across from her a massive gorilla of a man clad in armor stood. He was at least twice the height of Starr, and he wore silver armor that reflected the suns rays, rays that Starr had not seen since the start of her adventure. He looked around at the audience and raised his hands up and down and the audience cheered along with him. Starr stood completely enthralled with the scenes playing out before her. Suddenly a loud voice boomed out over the arena. "THE NEW CHALLENGER HAS ENTERED THE RING. SHE HAS COMITTED MANY CRIMES AND NOW WILL BE PUNISHED BY EXECUTION. OUR EXECUTIONER TODAY, A CROWD FAVORITE, JOHNATHAN BLACK." The man bellowed out a loud roar and turned to face Starr. He started walking towards Starr, the crowd cheered ever louder with each step. He reached Starr who just stood there feet planted to the ground. The crowd went silent. From this distance she could smell him, the smell was an awful  mix of blood and sweat that permeated off of him and caused Starr to gag a little.
" You don't run, I respect that. I shall make sure you die an honorable death." He pulled a sword from his belt and handed it to Starr. Starr held the sword clumsily, it was too big for her and felt very awkward in her hands. He raised his hand and they threw him a new sword which he caught with ease. "I see, you've never held a sword before. I'll make this quick and painless then."
He returned to his side of the arena and raised has sword towards Starr in a non-threatening manner. Starr attempted to do the same, but found it difficult to raise the sword up in one hand like he did.
"WHATS THIS FOLKS, IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A CHALLENGE. HOW KIND OF BLACK TO GIVE HIS OPPONENT A CHANCE AT LIFE, ALTHOUGH I THINK WE ALL CAN SEE THAT THIS IS JUST A LITTLE ONE-SIDED." The crowd burst out in laughter at the announcers sleight towards Starr. "LET ME LAY DOWN SOME RULES FOR OUR LITTLE DUEL HERE, FIRST ONE TO KILL THE OTHER WINS. OUTSIDE OF THAT ANY METHOD OR WEAPON IS ALLOWED. WE HAVE PROVIDED SOME ADDITIONAL WEAPONS AT THE EDGES OF THE RING IF EITHER OF YOU FIND THE SWORD TO BE AN UNFIT WEAPON OF CHOICE. AND LASTLY BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY,
KEEP US ENTERTAINED
ALRIGHT, TO YOUR STARTING POSITIONS."
Weapons rose from the ground at either end of the arena, swords, maces, halberds and all sorts of other medieval era weapons. Starr scanned them carefully, she knew that there was no way she was winning with this massive sword. A small dagger off to her right caught her attention, even though it was small, it's blade was emerald green and seemed far easier to wield than this bulky sword.
"ALRIGHT, IT IS TIME TO BEGIN. LETS HAVE EVERYONE JOIN IN NOW." The whole crowd got to its feet and joined in.
"FIVE... FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE...
BRAWL."
Jonathan Black wasted no time, as he had promised it seemed he intended to make it a quick death. He rushed forward and swung his sword in an arc downwards towards Starr. Starr panicked, this was the end, how she got here, what Ancient Roman gladiators had to do with her memories, none of it would be figured out. Starr closed her eyes ready to embrace the end, but when the end didn't come after a few seconds she opened her eyes back up, and to her surprise, not only was she not dead, but everything was nearly the same as when she closed her eyes. Jonathan Black stood over her his stench overwhelming once again, his sword right above Starr's head, but not finishing it. Around her everything else had come to a standstill as well. She stepped to the side, out of the way of the sword, and as soon as she did the sword came down and hit the floor with a loud clang. Jonathan looked shocked. The audience had stopped cheering, a couple of them started booing them. Jonathan turned his back to Starr and made a confident gesture with his arms towards the audience.
"IT LOOKS LIKE JONATHAN WANTS TO GIVE US A SHOW." The audience resumed cheering, as Jonathan did some shouts in there direction, his back still to Starr. Starr took this chance to grip the sword with two hands and raise it up above her head, and attempt to swing it towards the Jonathan's back. Mostly led by gravity the sword harmlessly bounced off of the armor on his back and clattered to the ground. Jonathan turned back around, and seeing what had happened, laughed, which was followed by laughter from the whole audience. He kicked away Starr's sword well out of her reach. He readied his blade again, this time he was coming in from a horizontal angle in an attempt to limit the chance that he missed. Once again everything slowed down to a crawl, and Starr was able to easily duck under it. He proceeded with two more swings, Starr dodged the first one, and then rolled to the side under the second one. Starr had no idea how she was doing this, but each strike the Jonathan did Starr was able to dodge. Each strike also slightly narrowed the amount of time the world was slowed, until finally it didn't slow at all. But Starr was still able to dodge them, like some instinct inside of her was telling her what to do. She rolled under another strike, as she was getting up she felt something cold on her knee. It was the sword, she reached down and found the handle, she lifted it up and took it in both hands. Jonathan readied up a thrust, and jabbed his sword straight towards Starr's chest. This time Starr didn't dodge, she swung her sword straight at his knocking it to the side just enough to where it didn't hit her. She clearly did not know how to handle a sword, but with every swing she was able to parry or dodge. Eventually Jonathan lowered his sword.
"You're a lot better than you look." His mouth curled upwards in a smile. "But you need to strike back, you won't be able to leave this arena unless you bring me down." Starr knew he was right, she could block and dodge his attacks as long as she wanted, but she would still be here. Starr remembered the dagger she had seen earlier, after a quick surveillance, she saw the stand with it off to her right, not to far away. Raising his sword back up the fighting continued. She dodged a few more, and she saw her opening, he did another thrust, this time aiming a little higher towards her head. Starr swung her blade to counter, this time she put all of her might into it catching him off guard. She let go of her sword on impact letting it fly in the direction of the weapon stand. While Jonathan was recovering from the shock, Starr ran over to the stand and found the dagger. From up close she could see a strange liquid dripping from the edge of the dagger. Jonathan turned and swung towards her almost immediately, Starr easily ducked under it causing his blade to crash into the weapon rack sending the weapons flying everywhere. Starr quickly lashed out with the dagger at the closest part of Jonathan, his hand. The dagger cut his skin, but that was it, Starr quickly pulled the dagger away from him. Even though the cut was small Jonathan dropped the sword in pain, his hand beginning to swell up. He swiftly picked up a mace from the ground with his left hand, and wasted no time swinging it towards Starr. Jonathan gave no quarter, he simply swung the mace around in a blind rage, where his moves had a certain elegance before, now there was none. Starr ducked and dodged around, but it was getting harder to avoid. Every chance she got she would attempt to hit him with the dagger.  Jonathan wound up a big swing, it came so fast that there was no way for Starr to dodge, she raised up both of her arms, and used the dagger to block, it helped but not much, Starr still went flying about twenty feet back. She landed on her back, and the air was immediately knocked out of her lungs. Jonathan however did not look in much better of a state, whatever was on that dagger was taking its effect. His movements slowed to a snails pace, he attempted to make his way to Starr, but his movements were staggered, and eventually he fell right onto his back. Starr took her time recovering, ignoring the boos and such coming from the audience. Getting up, Starr herself was barely able to walk, but nevertheless she made her way over to Jonathan. The massive man looked like a beached whale lying there in the center of the arena. Starr got up on him and stood on his chest, he twitched a bit in an attempt to get up. Starr, almost instinctually, inched her right foot closer to his throat. His voice came out out in little gasps. "Do it.... you win..... claim your victory." He closed his eyes ready to accept his fate. The crowd started up chanting again saying things such as "cheater", or "stop fighting dirty". Even the announcer joined in.
"THE ACCURSED WITCH IS ABOUT TO CLAIM ANOTHER VICTIM, UNABLE TO REPENT AND HAVE A FAIR FIGHT EVEN IN THE FACE OF MERCY."
She reached down and grabbed his sword and raised it to the sky, it took all of her power, and both of her hands to keep it up. The audience screamed in disapproval, and some began throwing whatever they could get their hands on towards her. She hesitated, as much as she needed to she couldn't bring herself to finish him. She lowered the sword to her side and stepped off of him. Her feet did not remain on the ground long, as soon as she stepped off of him, Jonathan Black swung his legs around and knocked her top the ground. The crowd resumed cheering and yelling insults at her. Black got up and stood towering over her, he lifted his right foot and ground it into her stomach.
"You should've finished me when you had the chance. I'm sorry little one, but I can't lose, not here, not with all of them watching."
"WHAT A TURNAROUND, IT LOOKS LIKE THUS WAS JONATHAN'S PLAN ALL ALONG, TO GET THE WITCH TO LOWER HER GUARD."
Starr squirmed in pain she couldn't get him off of her no matter how hard she tried. She closed her eyes everything was starting to go fuzzy, the pain in her stomach growing unbearable. All she could think about was how she wanted it to stop. She closed her eyes and imagined the pain, the cheering, all of it gone. And then all at once the pain went away.