The arena doors slid away and Annie felt a tingle of fear. She looked aside and saw that Virginia was also tense. Annie reached out with her paw and put it on Virginia’s shoulder. Her fingers tapped the tune under the guise of encouraging massage.
Gonna. Try. Beat. Him. Save. People. Medics.
Virginia smiled and only nodded, shrugging off the paw: "I am calm, relax. Let’s down this sucker."
They stepped into the arena and were met with heavy music. All the lights were out once more, leaving a circle of red light around Virginia and a circle of blue light around Annie. In the middle of the arena was built a new hill, made of compressed stone. Palatine stood on this hill, dressed in an unzipped white jacket and white leather pants. He was singing in tune with an unseen band of musicians, who were filling the entire arena with the sounds of metal rock. The beautiful voice of the creature was dropped to a low level, he even imitated the raspy voice of a professional musician. In one clawed hand, Palatine held a wireless mic.
The crowd was ecstatic, chanting his name over and over. Hilda was sitting on her throne, sipping from a glass of wine. Ultis looked down with an unreadable expression, holding the hound in her arms and patting it. This time there were no announcements, no speeches. Everyone expected Annie and Virginia to die here.
"Let’s disappoint them!" Annie howled to the ceiling of the room with all her might and Virginia joined her, their howls downed the music, downed the singing of Palpatine. The fear, the anxiety, they were all gone. Just a battle remained. Win this fight and move on. The pure state fell on both wolfkins, and they charged at Palatine, leaving footprints on the stone floor of the arena.
They reached the slope of the hill, climbing up and seeing crimson and blue lights shining in their eyes from the ceiling, as projectors were trailing them. Ignoring the lights, they jumped on the hill, meeting face to-face with the still singing Palatine. He danced to the clapping and cheering audience, flashing a smile to his foes. The lean body of their foe danced aside from Virginia’s thrust, neatly sending her flying with a casual push of his shoulder into her back as she charged past him. He danced back, evading Annie’s kick that exploded the ground in front of his feet, and then leaned forward in a fluid movement. Annie followed up with the rising kick, intending to smash the perfect nose back into the smiling face. She felt how her fur touched his beautiful skin, yet her leg missed the foe and he slipped past her gracefully, appearing behind her and sending Annie in a spin with one arm. Before she arrested her movement, he had already grabbed the wolf hag by the hand, as if they were a pair of dancers. Palatine dragged Annie closer to himself, stealing a kiss from her lips before her jaws could bite him. He jerked back, evading another thrust from Virginia, and put his leg forward, making her trip and fall in his arms. He kissed Virginia on the temple, making a movement with his arms that cast the wolf hag away from Palatine in a spinning throw that landed her on her feet and continued dancing and singing a song in honor of his foes. Each time the fighters collided, crimson, blue, and white lights intertwined.
"Palatine! Palatine! Kill! Kill!" The people on the balconies jumped to their feet, shouting and demanding blood, while an androgynous being teased them, dancing among the blows of his foes. A cage of cutting strikes tried to engulf him, but he danced away from each blow, not allowing even his clothes to become tattered, still singing his song.
Calm. Calm down. You are calm. See his movements. Annie stopped briefly, drinking in the movements of her foe, counting the time between each of his breaths, memorizing his evading patterns, inhaling the air that he was exhaling, listening to his words. Calm is good. Treat it like a training session.
Virginia slammed her arms on the ground, roaring in anger. Muscles popped along her body, visible even through thick fur. She charged at her foe like a comet, and Annie followed her lead like a moonlight.
Fury and serenity. But of course. What a fool I was. Palatine jumped away from Virginia's slash, and the punch of her right arm left a crater in the ground where he stood. Annie made a thrust with her right paw at his face, one that he gracefully evaded, without even landing on the ground. But Annie was still on the ground. Charging past him, she pushed him aside with her right shoulder, breaking his perfect dance. Virginia moved from the crater, slashing up with her right arm, and Palatine gasped at the small cut on his perfect abdomen. His shock allowed Annie to strike as well, leaving him with a crisscross wound on his abdomen. Monster or no, a soldier fights as part of a team. He landed, dancing away, no longer singing, and stopped at the edge of the hill, looking down. The wolfkins tensed, feeling something change in the air. When the being before them raised his head, there was not fury in his eyes, but exultation.
The musicians broke the tune, stopping playing slowly and unsurely. The crowd fell silent. Doctor grabbed a notebook, furiously writing down something. Hilda stood up. Ultis widely smiled, kissing the hound in the ugly face. Judging by what was happening around her and by the silence that fell on the arena, Annie deduced that such a thing had never happened before. This being was never injured.
Palatine threw aside his mic and threw all three arms up, leaning backwards. A wide smile was on his face and three pillars of light disappeared, returning normal electric light to the arena. His claws twitched.
We can beat him. Annie decided. The being before her was strong, true. But she felt confident. He was not as freakishly strong as Hecktricktsen, or as overwhelming as Jack.
Palatine moved. His movements were as fluid as ever, but there was now some anticipation in his style, something that prevented him from moving with the former precision. He leaped forward, creating a web of cuts before himself with his claws. Annie parried his attack with her own claws, feeling the otherworldly might in this lean body. She barely had enough time to keep him from bisecting herself, not even daring to go on the counterattack. Annie and Virginia fought side by side, four arms against three arms, and yet they were the ones who were pushed back. Palatine smiled, dodging to the left as Virginia kicked in his face, her foot cleaving several strands of his hair. He counteracted, aiming to cleave her knee in two, and Annie blocked the hit. A clawed hand immediately struck forth, aiming for the exposed throat of the wolf hag, and this time it was Virginia who blocked this blow. Step by step, Palatine pushed the wolf hags back, weaving through their defenses and leaving cuts on their bodies.
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Annie felt the blood trickling down on her body. All that she could see before her was a wall of claws, Palatine struck at an almost machine-like pace. Keep the onslaught on. The moment your opponent makes a mistake, make a cut. Repeat again and again. This pattern never changed, not once in his attacks. And Annie felt like she had enough of playing by his rules. She said not a single word to her partner, yet both of them understood her plans for each other immediately. They charged forth, into the whirlwind of death, temporarily abandoning the defense for the sake of overwhelming offense. Annie's left shoulder received a deep cut, flesh was torn all the way to the bone. Skin was peeled away from the space just above the knee on Virginia’s right leg. And yet their reckless charge confused Palatine. His rhythm was broken, two clawed hands were pushed aside, and the wolf hags struck him in the chest with their claws, failing to reach his spine only by sheer miracle.
The impact from their hit sent him backward. Annie charged after him and was moved backward, feeling a searing hit on her left side. A kick. He kicked with his left for the first time in this fight, striking faster than Annie could follow with her eyes, shattering two ribs in her side and sending her back.
"Yes… Yes!" He said, looking with disbelief at the deep wounds on his body, at his own, unnaturally bright, blood that was pouring out, "This pounding of my hearts, the taste of my blood in my mouth... Is this what pain feels like? Is this what a true battle is?" His body disappeared, moving past Annie and causing her to frown, feeling how his claws scarred the bones on her right hip, "I love it!" He shouted, falling on the ground like an amateur and jumping back onto his feet. The form of Palatine disappeared once more, covering the distance between himself and Virginia in a single burst of movement. One hand hit the wolfkin in the ear, twitching her neck away at an unnatural angle.
No. Annie whispered in her mind. Her honor, her ally… All thoughts left her. The fact that Palatine was using a flash step, and a botched one at that, was irrelevant. Her pride was irrelevant. Her life was irrelevant. The dream of being a monster was irrelevant. All that mattered was that her ally was in danger.
Annie moved, performing a flash step with a grace of a master. Palatine’s eyes widened when he understood that his right side disappeared in a bloody fountain and that Annie stood behind him. He turned around, striking with his arm, and Annie redirected his blow, adding her own strength to his thrust, using two paws to send his clawed arm into his own shoulder. A new feeling began to form in his eyes, Palatine faced something that he had never felt before. And he had no idea how to deal with this feeling, so he responded in the way that he always did before. He tried to kill the foe before him. The second clawed arm made a thrust forward.
"Love the taste of your own blood? Then feel free to bleed to death!" Annie said as she met his claws with her palm. This technique was the one that her teacher taught her.
By absorbing the very air before her hand into her palm, by sending an impulse through her muscles, starting from her feet and all the way into her hand, she could create vibrations potent enough to rupture even the blood vessels within her opponent’s body. But by releasing the stored air within her paw the moment an impulse reaches her paw, she could perform a true miracle, one that only a new breed could pull off thanks to their superior physique. The speed of the released molecules of air from within a palm resulted in the creation of a miracle known as the sound palm. This was what enveloped her paw for a brief moment, a sound strong enough to shatter stone itself. And this was when the claws of her opponent hit with the sound of an explosion. The resulting impact threw Annie back, the ground of the stone hill between her and Palatine cracked. The crack produced by Annie’s arm could be heard even on the farthest balconies.
The body of the foe refused to move back even an inch, not in the least because Virginia put her paws on his back, holding Palatine in place. With a crack, her neck returned back to its original place, fixing the position of her head. And the arm of Palatine was ruined. The wolfkins could retract their claws, in any moment, they can easily remove their weapons of murder. Palatine could not. His claws were buried deep into his fingers, shattering bones and puncturing skin, tearing muscles in his arm apart. His own claws were pushed all the way through the hand, all the way through the wrist, and finally were left within the arm itself. Palatine smiled nervously, trying to hit Virginia with the elbow of his remaining good arm, still trying to tear up the arm that was still stuck in his body. Virginia took the blow like it was nothing, her body seemingly absorbed the impact.
Annie moved to Palatine, fully understanding that this was their chance to end it. She dislocated the bones in her right arm, putting her left leg forward and striking with her right arm, wielding her own limb like a person would wield a whip. Even normie could break the sound barrier with the tip of the whip, resulting in the crack of the whip. When Palatine failed to block this attack, Virginia grabbed his good arm by the inner side of his wrist and outer side of his elbow, shattering his arm in a single motion. Annie’s strike smashed the side of Palatine’s head, popping the eye and tearing the skin away from the impact area. Fixing the positions of the bones in her arm, Annie made a thrust with both arms, burying claws in his chest, remembering his words about the "hearts" earlier. Palatine’s legs twitched, but the deadly kick never came. Virginia tore at his spine with her own claws, closing her jaw on his lean neck.
"Hey," Palatine said, and both fighters stopped, unsure if he was giving up, "Is this what the world outside these walls looks like?"
"No," Virginia mumbled, keeping a hold on his neck, "People there have families, and they live peacefully and normally. They sleep in beds, read stories to their cubs at night, have dinners together, all that stuff. Only because of the murderous jerks like the ones in this arena, that we have to fight."
"Heh," Palatine said, spitting blood from his mouth. The remains of his popped eye flowed down on his chest, "I'd like to try and live a normal life. I refuse to surrender. Finish the deed, please. It hurts."
"Apologize to the ones you have killed in the afterlife. Maybe then the Spirits will give you the life that you want next time." Annie said to him.
When Virginia smashed his neck between her jaws and Annie made a full circle in his chest with her claws, shattering his lungs and whatever organs were inside his head, Palatine croaked. Light disappeared from his remaining eye when even his unnatural body could no longer sustain him. His head dropped, dangling on his chest on a string of muscles. The wolf hags released his body and Palatine fell silently on the ground.
The crowd fell silent. Hilda was silent. Doctor turned around and a black oval opened before the woman, slowly becoming a gateway into some bright room. She walked inside in silence, accompanied by her guards.
Ultis smiled: "Jackpot."
Annie slapped the paws with Virginia, allowing a nervous breath to leave her lips. She was scared right now, there was no mistaking this. Her entire body hurt. The bones in her right paw suffered numerous cracks, and it hurt just to bend her fingers. She was bleeding. Shattered ribs scratched her lung with each breath. She suspected that Virginia felt the same. And yet they were still alive. And she could feel how her body becoming slightly bigger, as her power was driving her closer to the peak.
"Is this all you can offer us, Hilda?" Annie shouted, spreading her arms and looking at the arena owner, "Step down and fight us yourself!" The arena owner was silent, looking at the remains of Palatine in calm anger, "No answer? Are you afraid by any chance?"
"Get them off the arena." Hilda commanded, turning around.