The first professional fight Tragos had ever seen in real life he'd been smuggled into the ring - not this one, a boxing ring with proper ropes and rules - by his brothers, long before they'd started calling themselves Barak and Cy. He'd been right at the front, he'd seen up close how fast and how powerful men could be. The fight had been too fast for his untrained eye to follow, but over time, as he watched more, as his own skills and reflexes grew, he could watch the most skilled of fighters and pick out exactly what they were doing.
This fight, though. This one was on another level.
No one he had ever witnessed was this much of a match for Ares. No one drew this much blood, or had this much blood drawn by Ares, and kept fighting. The fight went on and on and they slowed, a little, but the speed they slowed to would have still been a match for the best of the best. Blood splattered across the sand at their feet, each new spray from a blow that would have crumbled anyone else.
Marcie had said he's not just a guy and he didn't know how she knew it but she was right. He wasn't. Neither was Ares.
There was a small knot of fear deep in his gut. If Ares didn't win, that meant Tragos had not aligned himself with the strongest player on the field, and for the first time in months he felt vulnerable again.
"FUCK HIM UP!" he screamed, with the others. How many of them were feeling it too? Or was it just him, the newest War Dog, the one who remembered vulnerability the most. He poured all his hatred of this memory into the scream, his voice one of many. "DESTROY HIM!"