Thump thump crash!
Thump thump crash!
"Is that an ordinary sound?" Ember asked, holding the mask he had picked from the locker room in his hands. Beside him, Snide was counting out a wild profusion of money into a collection of sacks. The two of them stood in a small stone corridor that led to a set of stairs that, if Ember was right, would head right to the arena. Ember found himself getting a little distracted from the rhythmic thumping and the crashing by the sheer diversity of money that Snide was counting. There were jade coins with their middles punches out, cowrie shells, silver thalers, chunks of glowing crystal that looked like they changed shape mid flight, circular white disks with numbers printed on them, small skulls of rodents with fire in the eyes, and in one case, a glass eye that kept swiveling all the way down until it vanished into the smallest of the several dozen sacks that Snide was using.
"Yeah," Snide said, once he had cinched each sack shut.
"I mean, it sounds like, you know, a bunch of people stamping their feet," Ember said. "Like they were mad."
"No, they're
stamping
because they're
mad
. Mad to see Xora the Maneater finally fight someone on par with her!" Snide slung an arm around Ember's red shoulders, drawing him in close. "Mad to see that big sharky bitch getting her ass kicked for once. And then, the aftershow. Heh." He winked at Ember.
Ember imagined smashing his face into Snide's huge, smiling gob with enough force to put him through the wall. Instead of doing the satisfying thing, he just smiled back. Snide smiled back more. Ember nodded. His neck ached with the amount of nodding he was doing. Snide slapped his back and stepped away. "Okay, kid! Knock her on her ass! I've got all these bets for ya! And, uh, if you think you might not be managing it, just look to the
left
of the match. I got a blowdarter with some yellow eyed frog venom."
"You what?" Ember asked - but then Snide was shoving him towards the stairs.
Ember stumbled a bit as he hit the stairs - and stumbled more as he tried to walk up the stairs while putting the mask he had chosen onto his face. It was sleek and form fitting and made of leather, and it covered his eyes and his nose, which he was fairly sure would be enough to disguise him. After all, Jerin Kah had been more focused on Ember's glowing anima than his face. Or at least, Ember
hoped
that was the case.
Then he was out onto the stage and before the glowing lights and the hundreds of eager faces. Ember stood stalk still. He had never seen so many different kinds of rich asshole in his life. In fact, Ember was pretty sure he had been wrong what 'rich asshole' looked like. For his youth and his childhood, that had been the wealthier farmers who owned houses with two stories, or the people who could afford to send their children to Nex-Ho, to get educated at the colleges here. But now he could see that they were, at the end of the day, only a teeny tiny step above him. In the audience around him, he could see a staggering range of wealthy
asshole
.
There were women and men in sleek dresses and costumes made of what looked like shimmering fire and crackling lightning, harnessed and clung to their bodies and maintained by servants who hurried around them, working the cranks and pulleys of enigmatic machines. There was a man, obscenely fat, jamming food into his mouth from a platter held by an emaciated child. There were a pair of women, their necks made to look extremely long by golden necklaces, who were casually pointing down at him and whispering to one another while being fanned by slaves who looked abjectly terrified. And at the front of the row, there was Jerin Kah himself.
And Mom.
And Mom's huge titties.
Ember blinked at the completely unexpected, entirely mortifying view of his mom sitting on Jerin Kah's lap, the front of her dress tugged down, and both of her breasts being cupped and fondled by the green skinned Knight. He was nuzzling her neck and, to Ember's increased embarrassment, Mom didn't even look upset. Not that he
wanted
her to look upset or anything. He was pro his Mom
not
being raped, or sexually assaulted. But it was also just a teeny bit shocking to see her squirming and mewling happily on the lap of the guy who had burned their village down, kidnapped her and her family, and spirited her away on devils.
Also...
Wow, his mom was stacked.
Like, by the Sun and his Lunar wives, those were
big
titties.
Then Ember had to focus on something other than his Mom being felt up publicly by his sworn blood enemy.
The crowd had noticed him. This was helped by a trio of flame spouts that exploded from the sides of the stage, shooting out golden confetti as a starkly dressed man emerged from the center of the stage on an ascending platform. He had a large poof of hair that was coiffed back into a curved pancake shape, while his face had been daubed with bright red circles to make his smiles and his frowns very visible from a distance - though, up close, it gave him a kind of icky, creepy, unnerving aspect that made Ember want to shudder from head to toes. The man's shirt was a tight buttoned tunic with silver buttons and gold lines interspersed among white cloth, and he wore similarly striped pants, with neat red shoes. He held in his hand a crystal goblet that was empty of all liquid - which made Ember wonder why he was holding it up to his mouth, like he was about to drink from it.
Then the man spoke - and his voice
boomed
throughout the entire arena.
"Ladies, Gentlemen, and various transgressing individuals!" The man said, his voice rich and deep like a mountain stream. He flung his arm wide. "Innnnnnn the left corner, we have an enigmatic unknown, a mysterious newcomer, a stranger from the east, with the might of golden flames and the mask of a marauder. Who is this wandering warrior? Why has he come to Nex-Ho? What vengeance does he seek to wreak? Give it up...for..." He breathed in. "
Ken...Shiiiirooooo!"
Ember had come up with that name and hearing it belted out at the top of the strange man's lungs was kind of great. He lifted his arms over his head, flexing and blowing kisses to the crowd. The rich assholes cheered. Ember grinned - then, on impulse, he leaped upwards. A tiny spurt of power set him to landing on the platform and he snatched the strange amplifying goblet from the announcer. He put it to his mouth and shouted into it.
"Xora Maneater is going
down
!" He pointed his finger down.
The crowd went absolutely wild - though, disguised by his makeup, the announcer glared at him and snarled in his ear: "Don't fucking push it, newbie, get back to your place!"
Ember did
three
backflips on the way down and landed, feet first, on the very edge of the battle stage. The stage itself was about ten yards high, surrounded by a ten yard gap, and in that gap, there was nothing but hard stone and unforgiving surfaces. The nearest seats were at the edge of that gap, looking across it at him and the announcer. That was where Jerin Kah was. Normally, he'd be very safe from any attack from the stage. But Ember could go
way
further than ten yards on a horizontal leap. He continued to showboat as the announcer brushed his fingers through his coif.
"And in the right corner, the reigning champion. The undefeated. The unstoppable. The unbelivable...
Xora the Maneater!"
He said - and Ember felt a flare of pure irritation. He called
that
a build up? He'd gotten a whole spiel, but his Lunar wife got zilch? He scowled fiercely at the announcer - and hoped that most people would assume that he was scowling at Xora as she stepped up onto the side of the stage, plumes of water exploding from concealed tubes - showering her in mist as she cast off her robes with a single flare of her hand.
Xora looked bad-ass.
Like, Ember had seen her buck naked before. But there was a difference between Xora, his wife, being naked, while he and her made love and Xora the Maneater, his fist fighting enemy, standing before him in a loincloth, forehead wrap, breast wrap, and knuckle wraps. The bright white of the cloth around her was stark against her blue-gray skin, while her hair was a wild mane around her sleek, sharkish face. Her blunt tail whipped from side to side and she spat to the side. No showboating, no showing off. Just casual, brutal confidence.
"Wow, you're hot," Ember whispered.
Xora looked aside, her cheeks flushing with a pleased blush - and Ember hoped that it was subtle enough that most people didn't notice.
"This is a fight to the finish!" The announcer said. "First person to be down for a ten count loses - and the winner takes
all
. We're talking
all
, baby. Yes! You heard it here first, ladies, gentles, and transgressors, tonight we're going to be seeing all of Xora Maneater - or whatever she takes out of Ken Shiro's hide!" He spread his arms wide as the crowd began to cheer and clap and every single avaricious, rich prick in the stadium looked on with eager, gleaming eyes. They wanted to see Xora get her butt kicked and...
Well.
Raped.
Like, that was what they were so excited about.
Ember clenched his fists. A spark of gold flickered around his knuckles. He tried to breathe carefully - tried to marshal his fury. If he flared off his anima before it was too early, then this wouldn't go off the way they had planned. And so, he instead lifted his head and looked into the audience and spotted the single gleam of red eyes in the shadows. There was Chirp, perched in the shadows, ready for his signal. And so, Ember flicked his eyes off to left. He saw the blowdarter. She was a skinny girl in all black and had a very long, green blowgun that she was loading with a long, black tipped needle. Chirp saw what he was looking at and gave him a big wink - visible even at the huge distance.
Then the announcer called out. "Lets get ready to
rummmmmmmble
!"
The central platform dropped out of sight with lightning speed and the center of the arena shut solidly. Xora charged - her feet pounding along the pavement. She moved with grace and with speed, belied by her immense size. Ember lifted his hands and twisted aside as Xora punched. Her fist cracked out and smashed into the ground to his left - and the entire stage rumbled,
