Foxtail waited in the locker room in silence, a feverish rage and paranoia roiling within her body like an ever growing typhoon. She observed the other fighters, their bodies scarred and bruised and toughened by exposure to all manner of violence.

Just give up and leave them behind. Behind. We’ll show you the way. Way. The little echoes manifested like cockroaches just outside her view, huddling up at a nonexistent entrance, a hiding place built just for her to get out of here and move on with her life. She ignored them as best she could, dedicating more of her focus to the fighters and their implements.

There were a variety of warriors, their sizes different and implements of varying size and effect. They conducted idle chit chat with one another, bouts of laughter here and there while death was dealt outside of these walls. Or so she was sure of it; the smell of copper mist lingered beneath the smoke and acrid perfume scent the way a shadow lingers on the surface of a wall.

“You look constipated, girl.” Approaching from her side, she yelped at the sight of a boorish block-headed man, his height and width about three of her both ways, her head craning upward just to see the glints of his blue eyes beneath a heavy brow and jaw line. He gave her a smile, rows of broken teeth greeting her as a precursor for things to come. “Well if you were constipated before, you’re sure to have shit yourself now!” He let out a hearty laugh, his gut moving with his body and shaking the immediate area with his immensity.

“Why’d you scare me like that!” Foxtail yelled, looking at the man with ire. He looked at her and laughed once again.

“Small animal like you does not belong in a den of predators. Your nerves. They are bundled and coiled like a kitten’s. Jokes help ease the body. If you are a kitten among lions, you might as well learn to act like a lion.” He gave her a big smile before sitting down next to her, his body a cinder block on the floor that she could have sworn resulted in the cracking of something underneath but she was afraid of how large a crack he’d left in his wake. “What is your name, little one?” Sensing no malice and having found a way to leave her own little ones on the periphery of her anxious mind, she sighed and sat next to the giant.

“I’m Foxtail. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet ya, but you scared me and I don’t appreciate it.” She gave a small pout from within her hoodie. His face retained the same slack-jaw smile he had from a moment ago, features like a wide scar that ran from his bald head down to his corner lip where the edges were raw or the mangled ear on his left side became prominent in view.

“Oh. Little Fox then. Not a kitten. It is my mistake.” He closes his eyes and whispers something under his breath before looking down at her, “I am Itzhak. Friends and foe call me Itzhak or bastard. You can take your pick.” She took another moment to analyze his frame, a body as massive and as built as Roxy’s back when she was just a pebble. But he was all flesh and bone!

“Itzhak. Where’s your weapon, Itzhak?” Foxtail asked, looking to use this conversation to learn more about what her frustration had signed her into. He gave her a wry smile and raised his hands towards the line. An intricate network of lines traced through where his finger bones rested, small nodes lighting up with energy at the flex of his hand movements. The hub for all these lines centered on the image of a strange symbol.

“I am the weapon, Little Fox.” He formed a fist and an arc of electricity coursed from one knuckle to another. “I used to carry a small hammer from my time as a smith in my hometown. It was when I fought something in this very ring and could not reach for my tool that I realized even the sympathies of the past could get me killed if I did not temper my body.”

“What sort of thing did you fight against?” There was a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Curious, no? It was something more, something different. Nothing like a man or earthly beast. It was different. And it craved violence like it was the air it breathed.”

“Did you kill it?”

“How could I? It was a monster I had never seen before. It was a man and before long it shifted into some manic thing. It tore into me with reckless abandon and left me with a present.” Itzhak lifted his shirt up to reveal a gap on the flank where his ribs were meant to be. A thick slab of metal was bolted into his skin but she could make out the rotten black muscle at the edges, the plate stained with long streaks of blood still dripping from the wounds. “It’s as fresh as when I fought it those years ago. It didn’t rip into my flesh so much as took it with its curled fingers.”

There was something else like her then in the arena. Something not motivated by a primal cowardice like her but with a desire of something else, something ravenous. Itzhak’s smile faltered and he placed his hand around her head like one cradles a grape.

“Do not worry Little Fox. In the end, I found victory where others had failed. There are a number of monsters to be worried about but you look like you can take those other creatures.” His reassurance fell on deaf ears. Her reckless abandon was still in the back of her mind, the ongoing storm pushing her towards conflict that felt so viscerally wrong within her. Her fear kept pulling her away from action and yet she maintained a calm on her face. There was no doubt in her mind that there was a reason that they had accepted her proposal to fight so willingly, and now that she was facing the consequences, she could only commit what time she had left on the sidelines towards becoming informed of her potential opponents.

“Itzhak, please tell me more about these creatures. Everything there is to know about them and the Thorn Bed.” Her eyes were avaricious, the echoes mere background to the chaotic resolve she was twisting together.