“Didn’t get a single hit in,” Wyatt said as Agalon opened the door and motioned for Xac to step through it.
“Here darlin,” Agalon said and handed Xac a canteen.
Xac’s eyes lit up and he snatched it greedily, but it was just water and he frowned.
Agalon noticed his pain and explained, “You can’t have nothin else till after the match. Listen to me, Honey Bunny.” He held Xac’s face gently in one hand and dabbed away the blood with the other, “I need you here with me, right now, alright? What’s that canteen feel like?”
“Um…” Xac said, trying to focus on such a strange question, “Cold? I guess? Metal...y?”
“What about my hand on your face?” Agalon asked.
“Aggie, you gonna get blood on your gloves,” Xaxac said.
“I don’t care,” Agalon said, “What’s it feel like?”
“The leather’s real soft,” Xac said, leaning into the touch, “Is them kidskin?”
“Honey Bunny, once you win this I’m takin’ you down to Sakala’s and gettin you some new yarn,” Agalon smiled. “Touch my cape. What’s it feel like?”
“Um… I don’t know?” Xac said as he obeyed him, “Is it a blend? It’s wove, ain’t it? It feels kinda felted… I… I don’t know… It’s warm as hell. Wool? It’s too soft to be wool…”
The bell rang, and Agalon reached behind him to open the door.
“Don’t let him hit you again,” Agalon said, “keep movin. Keep bouncin. And when you get a chance, hit him back!”
“Don’t go for the face!” Wyatt shouted, “You don’t know how to hit, you’ll hurt yourself! Go for the torso or the back a’ the head! Think about where he keeps his vital organs!”
Xac nodded and tried to mimic the stance he had seen the fighters take when they were training. He held his hands by his face and bounced on his feet.
“Not ready to forfeit yet?” The viper asked as he raised his own hands.
Xac didn’t answer him. Instead, he watched the way he moved. He held his body sideways, one foot in front of the other, so Xac changed his stance and realized that it made him an even smaller target. The viper was hunkering a little, leaning a little bit forward, so Xac mimicked him, though he wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to do.
“You know what?” The viper snickered, “I feel bad for you, kid. I’ll let you get a hit in. Come on, show me what you got.”
“I don’t know what I done to make you think I was stupid,” Xac said, “but I’m real sorry you been so woefully misinformed. I know when somebody’s about to scoop me up and throw my ass. Look how you stand. Nice folks don’t stand like that.”
The Viper narrowed his eyes.
“You ain’t about to knock me down again,” Xac snarled, “I can feel it now!” He paused and screamed, “Would y’all quit hissin!? Thesis above that is aggravatin! You picked the shittiest animal! Ain’t got no arms and legs… can’t even fuckin blink- ah!” He shrieked when the Viper lunged and hopped to the side in alarm, with much more force and therefore much farther than he had meant to, slammed into the side of the cage and felt it rattle.
He looked up at it and rattled it again.
It wasn’t particularly sturdy. It didn’t seem like it would actually keep a fighter inside, if they really wanted to get out.
The viper hit him hard in the back, and Xac slammed face first into the fence.
“Goddamn it!” he hissed, and clenched his hands out of instinct around the links he had been holding.
The metal bent in his grasp.
Shifters were strong.
And he was still standing, even with the pain radiating through his back; the pain he felt this time, the blood pooling from the broken vessels under his shirt, the heat of the Viper behind him, stark against the cool autumn night, and Xaxac grabbed the fence again, felt the cool metal against his fingers, the intensity of the pain, and heard the sound of Agalon’s voice.
“Get off the fence!”
This was sound advice, so Xac turned, threw up his arms to protect his face, and jumped.
He slammed into the Viper, and the force of it carried them to the middle of the field, and the viper seemed shocked that Xac had done it.
The crowd must have been shocked too, because the hissing stopped, and Xaxac loved the silence.
“Hit him!” Agalon demanded.
Xac realized he should have thought of that himself and acted faster, because before he knew it he was rolling and found himself on his back on the grass.
Shit.
He had seen this before.
The Viper was sitting on his thighs to prevent him from kicking up and kneeing him in the back, and his hands closed around Xac’s throat.
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“Get up!” Agalon demanded, “Get up, now!”
“Should’a never come in here, whore,” The Viper said as if he was giving essential life advice, “You wouldn’t made for this. You’re supposed to be on your back. You was made to be a pleasure slave.”
He wasn’t exactly being choked, so it didn’t exactly hurt. The Viper had the fingers of each hand wrapped around the vein on his neck that led to his brain, blocking it and cutting off the circulation. He was drowning.
He was almost positive he had drowned before.
The sounds of the world faded away, and he could hear the waves crashing, the water flowing above him as he sank.
But Xaxac was a rabbit, and he did not want to die, and he was not underwater, because he was right here and he could feel the dirt under his back. So he reached down, and he dug.
He grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it upward, into the face of the predator, and he began to couch, sputter, and released Xac with one hand in an attempt to get the dirt out of his eyes. Xaxac grabbed him by the beard he hated and jerked, throwing him so hard by the face that he went slamming into the ground beside him.
Xac’s head swam as the blood rushed to it, and he hopped to his feet.
“You think you’re fast, motherfucker?” he screamed, “You ain’t seen nothin! I ain’t goin down tonight! There is nothin you can do to me to hurt me! Do you fuckin understand that!? I’m a goddamn monster!”
The slam had dazed The Viper and Xac took advantage of the time he had to run back to the fence.
“What are you doing?” Agalon asked, “He’s gettin up! Keep him down!”
Xaxac rattled the fence again in the place he had bent it.
“You ever get rid of them rabbits?”
“Ain’t no gettin rid of um. I got me one of them metal fences and I’ll be goddamned if they didn’t chew through it.”
Xaxac pulled the fence forward, stuck his face into it, and bit.
He had expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. The secret was, apparently, several small bites in quick succession.
“He’s up!” Agalon called, “What are you doin!? Get him! Move! Get away from the fence!”
Xac pulled the piece of metal away just as the Viper had moved to hit him. It was small, but it was sharp, and Xac slammed it forward into his torso.
The Viper screamed and Xac jerked the shiv to the side.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Xac screamed as the blood sprayed from the wound. “Don’t fuckin touch me!” He jerked forward in another stab. “I am sick to death!” He screamed, “Of folks thinkin they can hurt me!” He was moving faster now, and did not understand himself, did not really even register that he was speaking, “Touchin me! Fuckin with me! Throwin me down!” He shrieked, accentuating each point with a new wound, “Don’t fuckin touch me!”
The Viper seemed as if he finally understood what had happened and grabbed Xac by the wrist in an attempt to wrestle the shiv away from him.
“Crazy little whore,” he screamed.
Xac screamed, not in pain, but in frustration.
“I’ll kill you! I said not to touch me!”
He jerked that hand forward and the Viper went with it, likely a little light on his feet from the blood loss, and Xaxac brought his knee up to hold him, fisted both hands together, and slammed them down on the back of his head.
Again.
And Again.
And Again.
“Little Bunny Foo Foo!” Alex began to chant to the stunned crowd, “Hopping through the forest!
Scooping up the field mice!
And bopping them on the head!”
He hopped to both feet and held up his sign, and Kyrrtar began to clap and chant with him.
Xaxac watched the Viper fall from his knee and roll onto his back, but something had come over him that he did not understand, and he could not stop. He kicked him onto his stomach and began to stomp the back of his head. His lower body strength had always been greater than his upper body strength, and he heard the bone crack, felt it splinter, but still he kept going.
“Little Bunny Foo Foo
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin’ um on the head!”
The crowd chanted, so loudly it filled the arena, and those chants fueled whatever madness had taken hold of Xac, and he watched something happen that he had never seen before. He watched a living, breathing, sentient person become an inanimate object.
“Ky, call that thing off!” The other earth elf demanded, “It’s over!”
But Agalon did nothing. He was still clinging to the fence; he hadn’t even moved. A spectator could likely not say, with any degree of certainty, that he was even breathing.
“Uh,” The loud man said, with his eyes darting back and forth, “The winner who will advance to the next level in Capital Town is- seriously Your Grace do literally anything, I know this is a bloodsport but this is hard to watch- Xaxac ‘Bunny Foo Foo’ OfAgalon!”
“Xaxac!” Agalon snapped, “Stop it! He ain’t gonna get no deader!”
But Xaxac did not hear him over the screams of the crowd.
They knocked him out of the flow that had taken over his body as the chant changed to a shriek.
And he realized it was for him
He was Bunny Foo Foo.
He was the one they were chanting for.
And they loved him.
They loved him just like Agalon loved him, not in spite of his monstrocity, but because of it.
How he wished he could have shifted in that moment.
The entire arena was cheering for him, he was the last man standing, he had won, and he didn’t feel any pain at all. He had healed.
He would not look at the corpse.
He didn’t need it clogging up his brain for this happy memory.
It didn’t mean anything.
They were all going to die one day, and everyone who had ever known them was going to die, and it would be like none of it ever happened.
But right now? Right now they loved him!
So he threw both hands into the air and bounced.