Indokani

The Fight

"I thought you said that's a bad thing," Red retorted.

"Not necessarily. Maugrim won't be expecting that kind of moves precisely because they're unindokuro-like. Cheesecake could catch him off guard if he can use them to his advantage." Sakr said.

"How long does each fight last?" Purple asked plainly; his gaze entirely focused on the arena.

"It depends. A match ends when one of the indokuros emerges victorious. To win, they must either disable or kill their opponent or have a higher blood score-"

"Blood score? What is that?"

"How much bleeding wounds they inflict."

Red groaned. "Great, just great."

The spectacle of lights went out, and the floating screen from before with the same announcer came down. "Welcome to this year's Traditional Indokuro Fighting Tournament! What a better way to conclude Indokuro Week than watching the progress of Indokani and their partners?!" She was met with cheers and roars from the crowd. "You know the saying: only the strongest will survive, so I hope you prepared your indokuros for this and said whatever you had to them before dropping them off. Who knows? Perhaps those were the last words you said to them."

"You all know the drills, but for outsider visitors who had the stomach to come here and witness this bloodshed, I'll give you a brief explanation." Purple wondered if she was referring to the non-Sobrekt audience in general or if she was specifically referring to him and the other Irkens. "Each round involves two indokuros fighting each other, most often to death. If you're lucky enough that it doesn't come to that, the loser is either whoever has the most wounds or whoever becomes incapacitated first. Then there's those who chicken out of the fight," The Sobrekt audience laughed. "Yeah, those are are automatically disqualified."

"Fuck." Red smacked his forehead.

"Hey, you can't be certain he will run away," Lena stated.

"You can't know that."

"Well, without any further ado, let's begin!" Two spotlights illuminated two iron slide doors on the opposite sides of the arena. "On the green corner, belonging to veteran Indokani Okana...!"

Purple didn't pay attention to whatever she announcer said. For the past few hours, his full focus was on the indokuros every time they were brought unto the arena. They were bigger than Cheesecake, sometimes even more than Fury. A few had the same feather crest as Maugrim. He watched as the animals tore each other apart. From this short distance, Purple even swore he could hear the claws and teeth ripping the flesh apart, tainting the arena in shades of violet.

The fight duration varied from a few minutes to an hour, just like the severity of the wounds. Red threw up when one of the indokuro's entrails were strewn out of its body. Purple closed his eyes shut as he heard the agonizing wails coming out of the creature's maw. The image of Cheesecake's mangled body flashed back again.

Please be safe, Cheesecake.

After what seemed like an eternity (and the latest carnage was cleaned up), his squeedly-spooch sunk as the kryvtor on the screen announced the 'main event.' "I suppose all of you have heard of a little issue regarding the Irken flagship stationed in our orbit." Red murmured something about her having to cry it out loud'. "Well, tonight, the next fighters will settle that score! In the green corner," the limelight illuminated one of the gates. "We have the infamous indokuro who tore a hand from an indokani! From the Irken Empire, belonging to Indokani Purple, the challenger: Cheeeesecake! Wow, what a dumb name!" As the doors opened, his Cheesecake timidly stepped out, looking around warily. The audience started laughing and jeering.