Entering the arena, Arete was frustrated, tired, and more than ready to call it a day. Sadly, that incessant irritant called fate had other plans.

"Ah, Arete! Vonderful to zee you." She could already feel the migraine blooming before she even turned to face the source of the voice. "I vas actually looking for you," the Vampire continued. "You zee, Zobriquet and I vere reminizing about Allons-y and vere vondering how she haz been?"

Arete swallowed the rising bile in her throat and answered through gritted teeth. "Mother is dead. Killed in action during the Second Human-Mokoi War. She was trapped in the Rain Theatre when you refused to send troops to help."

Her hands trembled. Her chest felt tight. The temptation to slay this monster where it stood was unbelievable. But the Vampire only tilted his head, pondering her answer as if she'd told him the weather. "Vhat a shame; She vaz a good lay. You know, if vee had met a few yearz later, I could have been your father." He laughed at his own joke. Arete did not.

Her tail coiled tighter around the whip hidden beneath her coat, her vision narrowing to a hateful point when in a sudden bout of suspiciously perfect timing, Dionysus turned the corner.

A few of the mouths on the back of the director's head paused their hushed conversations as he noticed them. "Well, if it isn't my two most troublesome contestants! I hope you two aren't planning on overthrowing the government and restarting an intercontinental war."

Arete opened her mouth ready to deny any such thing, but Dionysus spoke again before she had the chance. "Just kidding, I don't actually care." And with that, he strolled past — oblivious to her tension. Or perhaps indifferent to it.

Arete turned back to the Vampire and found that hating him was more effort than it was worth. "You know what, I have a match to prepare for. I know preparation is a foreign concept to you, so I hope you'll be too dead to learn your lesson after your match. Goodbye." She pivoted sharply on her heel and left.

She was mostly lying to The Vampire, there was very little to prepare for this close to the match but she refused to leave letting him have the last word. What she truly needed was time alone, locked away in her chambers and free from the filth of this cage of a city. Meditation did little to cool her rage, though, and by the time she finally emerged only moments before the match, she was still simmering, very much ready to hit something. The excitable thrum of the audience enveloping the building only aggravated her further.

Every step to the awaiting arena antechambers aggravated her growing headache more. A Tournament attendant came to guide her, but a glare through the eyelets of her inhuman porcelain mask was enough to scare them off and she made her own way over.

She recalled that after the first round of the Tournament, a team of wizards had been dispatched to repair the arena — patching stone, clearing debris, and generally restoring everything to pristine condition before the next bout. Given that fact, why, when she peered through the entrance gate, was there a massive tree sprawling across almost the entire arena grounds?

She hadn't had long to wonder as Dionysus's many mouths boomed out, announcing the start of the arena.

"Welcome back! It has been a long and exhausting week but fret not for we have an exciting match for you today! As many of you have likely noticed, there has been a slight adjustment to the arena grounds." He gestured toward the enormous tree. "A side effect of having the sixty-four most powerful beings in the world combat one another is that sometimes our staff simply can't keep up. Despite our best efforts, it would appear that this tree has been magically imprinted and is now a permanent feature of our arena!"

Dionysus tried to maintain his showman's extravagance, but the exasperation in his voice bled through. "Thank you to the Game and the Topiary for your… contributions to the Tournament." The crowd chuckled, finding a schadenfreudic delight in his irritation.

"Now then," Dionysus pushed forward, "Today's fight promises to be extremely… interesting, shall we say. We could not have two more conflicting personalities facing off. First, we have a creature my professional analysts have described as a baffling anomaly of inexplicable terror!" Gasps rippled through the stands. "When I asked whether we should build protective countermeasures for the city, they told me it wasn't necessary — because the creature was simply too cute to be a problem. Please welcome: the Animal!"

The audience erupted into cheers, which quickly softened into coos and adoring awws as the small fox trotted proudly into the arena, its enormous tail swaying gracefully behind it.

"And next," Dionysus said, his tone shifting, "we have a very special contestant, one which I feel requires a small disclaimer." Most of the crowd stopped fawning over the Animal, focusing on Dionysus, both intrigued and confused by what he meant.

"I would like to remind everyone that the Tournament is a contest done in jovial rivalry, it is neither political, nor ideological. The Tournament Corporation exists only to bring you — our beloved audience — the greatest fighters this world has to offer, regardless of origin."

An unsettled hush fell over the arena.

"With that in mind," Dionysus continued, a grin spreading across several of his mouths, "I now have the unique privilege of introducing perhaps the most significant figure of my entire career as a director. She is one of the most accomplished individuals of the Second Human-Mokoi War. She is unarguably one of the most pivotal members to its end, and one of those to find the most success from its ashes. I present to you, for the first time… the New Mokoi Khan: Queen Arete, the Curio!"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Arete really wished that the director could have at least tried to not paint the largest target possible on her back. As she stepped into the arena, the crowd erupted—a chaos of horrified gasps, angry jeers, and flung scraps of food. One piece tumbled to her feet: a better conditioned version of the pastry gifted to her by the Animal.

She stared at it, gritted her teeth under her mask, and thought—Yeah. She was ready for a fight.

Dionysus on the other hand was loving the reaction. "Clearly everyone is very eager to see the match's results. So, I won't hold you any longer. Let the match begin!"

The roar of the audience thundered through the arena. Arete leapt backward, widening the gap between her and the Animal. She steadied her breath, shutting out the sound of the mob until all that remained was the steady pulse of her heartbeat—and the enemy before her.

The Animal, too, reacted immediately. Arete watched in bewilderment as the Animal sprang upward in a twisting half-circle and landed backward so it faced away from her. The creature then circled around her, hindquarters first, tail raised, swivelling its head around its forelimbs so it could peer back at her. All the meanwhile, the fox swished its oversized tail aggressively as if the soft appendage could somehow threaten her.

Arete froze, unsure what to make of the display.

Of all the countless beasts she'd slain, this one—peering at her upside down through its own legs—was by far the most confounding.

Arete reached beneath her burgundy cloak with her tail and drew her bladed red whip. Rather than thinning, the whip thickened the further along it went, until at its tip, the hard leather coil turned to ebony metal in the form of a broken scythe tip.

The Animal visibly flinched at the provocation, but rather than remain passive, it lunged at her hind-first, claws flashing.The awkward backwards movement was easy to dodge, and Arete riposted with a sweeping lash of her whip, its path carving a void of destruction through reality itself.

The fox yelped and darted away. Arete pursued, her whip constantly snapping at the creature's heels all across the arena floor, but it was always just out of reach. She chased further until the Animal bounded up the colossal tree, its claws biting deep into bark as it scaled effortlessly.

Arete followed, vaulting upward from branch to branch, cloak flaring behind her. Yet no matter how she manoeuvred, the creature always remained one step ahead—mockingly agile, its titanic tail swaying such that it obscured her vision of its next move.

Trying to outwit the inferior species, she circled around the trunk to cut it off, but when she emerged on the other side, the Animal had twisted to keep its rear pointed squarely at her. Swiftly, she circled again to the opposite side and again—the beast turned so that its rear met her.

The mighty queen of the mokoi paused on a shaking branch, whip in hand, staring up at a small fox that refused to do anything but moon her. Finally she relaxed her posture and waited; however, the Animal never initiated an attack. Unable to find threat in the soft tail and bum facing her, she took a moment to think.

The Animal awaited, poised for battle but nonetheless patient for her to mull things over. Having developed a theory, Arete vaulted higher, then dove past its flank to land straight in front of it. The fox yelped, tumbled over itself, nearly falling off the tree—and, at the last possible moment, managed to twist around so its hindquarters faced her again. Immediately it lunged rear first and kicked her off their shared branch.

Arete tripped over the side and plummeted down. Mid-fall she caught a lower branch with her whip, swung herself upward, and landed back on level footing, teeth gritted. She dashed forth, it away, and the chase resumed.

By this point in the fight, the audience was now watching the debut unveiling of one of the most feared beings in the world, queen of their eternal enemy, running circles around a tree with a small canine that continuously pointed its butt at her. It looked more like an overzealous game of tag than a fearsome battle between living legends. The crowd which had just a few minutes ago been jeering and tossing rocks at the mokoi, were now laughing at the comedy at hand.

Arete felt the temptation on her face, the mask calling to be used. She exhaled, forcing the impulse away. It was too early to reveal so much. Instead, she stopped her pointless chase and reached out for the Animal's red string of fate.

The second the creature saw her reach for it, and saw that string so amicably pull towards her, it howled.

The sound was cataclysmic. A thunderous pop shocked the arena, leaves cascaded like rain as the entire tree shook. Nearly the entire audience cringed, hands clamping to their ears for protection. So close, Arete stumbled, clutching her mask as blood trickled beneath.

"Why!?" she shouted, voice raw with anger and confusion. "Why do you care so much about that stupid string!?"

The fox barked back almost intellectually, if not still incomprehensibly.

"It's just some useless human!" she snapped. "She probably doesn't even remember you!"

The fox's returning bark was confident, uncaring, as if whether its deeds went appreciated were irrelevant to the very deed's value. Arete hated the fact that she could gleam so much from the bark, just as much as she did what it meant.

She trembled with fury. "How many times? Over and over again, you protect that string, you do so much for so many, and how many times was the favour returned? Do people even know your name? Do any remember Basal, or are you just an Animal?"

The fox turned to face her fully for the first time. Its neck rose high and proud, six unscarred eyes meeting hers. Then it barked. Despite the linguistic barrier, everyone knew the words, felt the declaration: It was Basal.

"You're a fool! You'll stand by that string and keep being beaten down, punished for your honour until one day the punishment leaves you unrecoverable."

Basal barked back uncaring, it mattered not. Basal was fulfilled enough by its efforts.

"Fine, if you want to destroy yourself, then who am I to stop you!" Basal did not respond so Arete stood and approached the irritating fox, but it did not flee, or ready itself for a fight. "Is that really what you want?" She asked softly, almost pleading for it to find sense.

Basal nodded.

"It will be your death."

Basal barked, accepting.

Arete reached out once more. The red string coiled from Basal's mangled seventh eye into her hand, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. Basal did not resist.

She raised an uncertain brow at the creature. "Are you sure? Last chance."

Basal barked.

Arete pulled the string.

The Animal was no more.

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