As the Raptor and her little friend Talok stepped into Xeno Dessaron One’s private training area, she immediately noticed that something was off. She had explicitly asked them all to be there at 10am sharp, but Kayel wasn’t present. At 10:05am, Kayel burst through the shadow in the corner of the room, glanced down at himself then loudly cursed.
“Fuck. Sorry. Forgot about this meeting.”
Phovos stared at Kayel. It wasn’t the fact that Kayel was late that bothered her. It was what Kayel was wearing.
Most Skyavok covered themselves up. They wore hoodies all the time in cold weather, and a head scarf and wraps around the arms and legs in the summer, as well as a stomach wrap and a loin cloth at all times. The head scarf (or hood) would be lowered indoors, but while outside, that hood remained up and covering most of their head. Right now though, Kayel wasn’t wearing arm wraps, his hood was lowered completely and the stomach wrap he was wearing might as well not have existed. In fact, the only normal clothing on him was his loin cloth, and even then, it wasn’t one of his standard brightly coloured yellow, blue or orange ones, it was black and almost translucent.
“Why, in the name of the Death Wolf, are you wearing hooker clothing?” Phovos immediately asked.
“Uh… It’s complicated…” Kayel stuttered.
“Where were you?”
“Psiksi’s private training area.”
Phovos crossed her arms and snarled. “Kayel, we are currently in working hours, I would appreciate it if you waited until after work to run your side gig of prostitution. And I am going to have to have a word with Psiksi, he should both know better and be capable of getting some without having to pay for it.”
“Alright, that’s fucking not true and pretty fucking cruel!” Kayel snarled back. “Psiksi was just helping me pick a sexy outfit because these fuckwads don’t know what’s attractive to other Skyavok, and the fucking Allbirther asked me to somehow seduce Arkay! I haven’t done any sort of prostitution in five years!”
The Raptor continued to stare at Kayel.
“Look, boss, I know I work for you, but I can’t NOT do a job for the Allbirther. She wants to help our Silent Blade, I’m the one who has to try and warm him up, I don’t care what you think. And if I want to dress like a hooker, then I fucking will. I don’t judge you for your matted excuse for a mane!”
Phovos snarled some more but lacked a counter-argument. She had more important matters she needed to discuss.
Talok though, feeling utterly confused, raised her hand awkwardly. “Um, my queen, what is a hooker? I know some things of other races. Different things. But not that?”
Tenuk moved over to Talok, put her hand down and pulled her to one side. “I’ll tell you later, after the boss has spoken to us, alright?”
Talok nodded, then settled down. Phovos sighed and decided to give up on the whole “Kayel being almost naked” problem and started going over why she wanted everyone here.
“So, you all know that tomorrow is The Day of the Doom Drums, a massive Ksithan holy day, and everywhere will be closed, but annoyingly, I’ve had a bunch of last-minute drop-outs for the holiday events on Friday and need competent people to fill the gaps.”
“What is the Day of the Doom Drums?” Talok asked. “Is Ksithan tradition, yes, but what?”
Phovos sighed some more. She’d forgotten that Talok, being a Vohra, didn’t understand a lot of things. It wasn’t Talok’s fault, the Vohra kinda just didn’t do things like religion and holy days, and had very little culture in general.
“The Day of the Doom Drums is a celebration of the Ksithan Creation Myth. We believe that the universe was built on the corpses of two horrific entities, the Demon Rat and her pet/companion, the Void Deer. These two entities were slayed by the Death Wolf, who was badly injured in the battle. The 15th is a day of rest, noting the time the Death Wolf took to recover from his wounds, and the 16th to the 18th, it is tradition that us Ksithans hold gladiator battles commemorating what happened.”
“But…” Talok stuttered. “I thought… I thought Sini and her Shadow worked together to bring life and death to the orbs that Epani and her Flow created?”
“They did, yes!” Nyssi explained some more. “What the Ksithans are celebrating is kinda… what happened before the universe was properly formed. Our shared Sinian Creation Myth would theoretically follow after the events of the Doom Drums…” Nyssi trailed off. “So, like, who’s dropped out?”
“Thank you for bringing us back on track, Nyssi. Normally, we have particular gladiator events on the 16th, the bigger ones being the Doom Terror edition of Thirteenth Night, representing the tyranny of the Demon Rat and the Void Deer, and the Dance of the Doom Drum, a ceremonial battle between a Kaoshan and a Skyavok gladiator representing the battle between the Demon Rat and the Death Wolf. Now, I know that-”
“Wait, that really nice Mavrolyka won’t be the Demon Rat?” Tenuk interrupted. “I was training with her just yesterday so I could be the Void Deer!”
Phovos frowned, then nodded. “Unfortunately, Mavrolyka’s mum is ill, potentially a stroke, she’s had to rush off back to Portalia City to look after her. Which is why I want to ask Nyssi if she wanted to take Mavrolyka’s place. After all, you two already work together, and I don’t have time to set up a training session with some other Ksithan gladiator, doubly so since Mavrolyka’s the only female Ksithan gladiator I have, and the Demon Rat HAS to be played by a female.”
Nyssi grinned, but quickly straightened herself out to look more professional. “Of course I’ll do it. Never thought I’d get the chance to play as a Big Bad, so I’m in!”
“Wonderful!” Phovos’s frown faded. However, she quickly noticed something was wrong. Phovos watched as Retvik, who had been standing behind everyone else, stomped over to the corner, grabbed a small, rubber training mat then tore it apart with his teeth. He then stomped back and grunted. “Uh, Retvik, are you alright?”
“I am fine.”
“You just…”
“I needed to get rid of my anger. I am fine now.”
Talok raised her tiny hand again. “Mister Retvik, you want to be the Big Bad too! Oh… Sorry… I… I did not mean to… sorry…”
Retvik grunted again. “Yes, I am annoyed that I am the only member of this team who has not been given an opportunity to be the Big Bad, despite being the biggest among us.”
“Retvik, I’ll be blunt, no one likes it when Rethans play the Big Bad. You don’t have a predatory instinct to actually hurt people. Sure, Tenuk’s a Spast, but he’s capable of acting and at least pretending to be a genuine monster…” Phovos went back to frowning. “Anyway, don’t worry too much, I do actually have a match for you on Friday, which is why I brought Talok here.”
“Oh?” Retvik perked up a bit. “You want me to do a Combined Differences match? Normally you get Psiksi and Ct’Era to do those events.”
“Normally, yes, but Talok has been doing really well and I want to give her some more exposure. And I know you still feel a bit bad about…” Phovos snickered briefly. “… About punting her across an arena. So I thought you two doing a match together would help. You’ll both be fighting a Torr by the name of Terrorhertz in one of those giant mechs.”
“But…” Retvik hesitated. “What happened to Killerhertz? He used to always do these Combined Differences battles. Did he retire?”
“He died a month ago.”
Retvik hesitated some more. “But… Killerhertz was younger than me…”
“Torr gladiators… tend not to last very long, and they don’t allow themselves to be hired as house fighters, so there’s nothing I can really do about it apart from minimize their arena contributions and screen time… You’re both happy to do this match though, yes?”
Retvik nodded. Talok flicked her tongue out, then nodded and bounced excitedly.
“Alright, good. Now, Kayel, I’ve saved the best until last. I want you to play the Death Wolf in the Dance of the Doom Drum. Not dressed like that though.”
Kayel crossed his arms, mimicking Phovos. “Did someone else drop out? Because that’s a pretty big offer. I assume. I literally never watched arena stuff until I became a gladiator myself and I never watched the Ksithan religious stuff.”
“Normally, we get a white Ksithan to play the role, with their mane dyed yellow. But this is the first time I’ve had access to a yellow-plated Threanic, ESPECIALLY one that can shadowjump. You even look a bit like the Death Wolf. It’d be… dishonourable of me to not offer you the chance to participate in this ceremonial battle.”
“It’s literally just… a fight against one of those big, furry, horned Banikan-likes, yes?”
Phovos nodded. “Yes. You can be as bloody and ruthless as you want, the more blood, the better. The Kaoshan has been bred to be fought and killed, and once you’ve killed it, it’ll be taken away and cooked up to feed everyone at the local temples. You’ll also get to wear the special ceremonial Death God armour that we have hanging up in the middle of our armoury, but you’ll only be allowed to fight with daggers.”
Kayel thought to himself, then shrugged. “Daggers are my main weapon choice after a rifle anyway, so that’s fine. Plus, that armour is fucking cool… Yeah, sure, I’ll do it. I can use my Phantasma powers, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Alright, sure, I’m in.”
The Raptor smiled, properly this time. “Well, thank you all very much. You have saved me a massive headache. While your matches will all be in the evening on the 16th, please come in as early as possible, so we can sort out your special ceremonial gear. I shall leave all of you to your training.”
Phovos bowed slightly, then left the room. Surprisingly, she had left Talok behind, but Talok didn’t really care, she got to now spend time with her best friend Tenuk.
“So, I know we’ve got training to do, but do you all want to get a quick drink or something first?” Nyssi eventually asked.
“Yes, please!” Talok beamed. “But I would still like to know what a hooker is.”
Kayel grinned, then kneeled down next to Talok and started to explain. “Sure thing, little buddy…”