Work Text:
As the pair of rival kombatants stood there, both more than ready to throw the first attack, the crowd around them within the colosseum howled with anticipation, the blazing Outworld sun shining blindingly upon everyone.
"I do not fear you, D'Vorah!" Shouted Scorpion as he pulled taut the metal chain around his fist, glaring across the way at the poisonous woman.
"Then face this one's wrath!" Barked D'Vorah, immediately extracting a single stinger from her back to strike her rival, but Scorpion had briefly engulfed himself in a wall of hellfire before reappearing behind the insect woman.
The onlooking crowd continued to roar over the grunts and the battle cries of the two bloodied kombatants in the sands below, awaiting the inevitable.
"You will burn for the things you have done!" Scorpion growled just before firing his steel arrow straight from his palm at a disheveled D'Vorah, but she dodged it at the last minute, crawling quickly toward him before lifting him off the ground and using her stingers to pin him before he could collect himself.
"This one only seeks revenge, Hanzo!" She hissed his name and at the utterance of it, Scorpion grabbed her stinger with a fist and ripped it free from his bicep, a string of crimson connecting them only for a moment. He hissed behind his teeth as he attempted to pull the last stinger from his other arm, but D'Vorah's sharp-pointed pearlescent teeth suddenly startled him into submission.
The crowd went silent.
"We are nothing alike, D'Vorah!" That was where he was absolutely wrong. He knew, but how could he ever admit that to himself.
He knew revenge. He tasted it. Lived it. Breathed it, and laid with it in the dead of night. So did D'Vorah.
She knew his pain. His struggle.
"This one kills for survival! Do you not do the same, Hanzo?" D'Vorah carefully retracted her stinger from his other arm, but kept him caged to the ground with all four stingers, her clawed hands settled beside his head.
She cocked her head sideways and licked her glossy lips, her eyes examining every inch of his sweaty face.
A bead of salty perspiration trickled down Scorpion's temple, and he watched as D'Vorah's small nostrils opened wide to breathe in his scent. He didn't understand why, but seeing her reaction to his unexpected submission and the smell of his body sweat labored his breath and dilated his pupils.
She was quick to notice, what with how close to his face she was with her own.
"I have done things that I am not proud of, yes, but that does not mean that you and I are the same. You do not know what it is like losing your...whole..." He cut himself off, knowing deep in his heart that he was wrong, and saying those words aloud only made the truth slither deeper inside of him. Sending a sudden jolt of pain to his sternum.
D'Vorah was a humanoid insect, but there was more to her that many humans cared not to understand.
Hanzo Hasashi knew about her story. He knew what had happened to her species. He knew that her violence was but a result of pain and loss she had suffered.
"Fighting the truth only weakens the soul, Hanzo." D'Vorah simply put, readying herself to continue the fight, but her rival wanted nothing more than to show her that he didn't want to fight it anymore. He wanted to show her that he was wrong all these years.
The merciless Outworld sun continued to drain Scorpion of all unnecessary sweat, and just as the crowd started up again, he watched D'Vorah frown and in one swift motion, he used his heavy chain to pull the insect woman down until their lips collided. He angrily grunted against her smooth lips, furrowing his brow so deep he was surely going to have permanent lines if he didn't stop, but the frustration was so deeply set within him he wasn't certain that he could ever stop.
The insect woman reacted negatively at first, bewildered at her enemy's uncalled for and unexpected gesture, but shortly finding herself laying upon him, her hands timidly touching the sides of his head like a confused child.
The onlookers were amazed at the change of scenery, no longer starved for a gruesome death.