Somehow, Shadow’s voice was able to carry above the obscenely loud screaming above them. “I swear to the spirts, Blizzard, if we die, you are never going to live it down!”

Above them, crystal white bleachers sparkled in the evening sun, filled to the brim with the screaming and chanting of just about the largest crowd Blizzard had ever seen. No, scratch that, it was the largest. The only thing he could dicerne from the cries was they they were certainly not in any language he knew.

Someone threw something to the arena floor, it smacked the ground with a wet thud and a plume of dust and fell open, releasing one of the worst smells Blizzard had ever been exposed to in his life. Instinctively, he recoiled, nose wrinkled in a futile attempt to block out the assault. His back paw hit a rough wall and scraped some of the decaying stone off, leaving a smear of bright blood.

Shadow was looking at him with a blank expression, he hadn’t even tried to move away from whatever the hell that thing was. “Scared of a little flower?”

“Shut the hell up, aqua-cat,” Blizzard snarled, deciding to ignore how sharp the wall seemed to be. They did not need more issues at this moment.

Shadow made a face, something between a grin and a grimace. His “I-hate-you-and-you-aren’t-going-to-live-another-day-even though-that-was-actually-really-funny” face.

“My mother drowned, what’s your excuse? Flower eat your brother?”

Blizzard was about to respond when a chilling sound filled the arena. A chain broke somewhere to the side of the arena—the area blocked of by a wide pillar—and a scraping sound, like a ball and chain being dragged across rough ground, reached their ears.

Blizzard slowly moved closer to Shadow, head lowered and shoulders set in a fighter’s crouch, mirroring Shadow’s. The two stood at each other’s sides—Shadow’s left and Blizzard’s right—heads facing opposite directions, flank to flank, like a pair of video game characters about to face off against the big boss. Except, this wasn’t a video game and whatever was behind the pillar, spirits hope it wasn’t as big as it sounded, it was far from being “the big boss.”

“Flank or frontal?” Blizzard whispered, hoping Shadow could hear him.

He did, bless that wolf’s ears, he would never again complain about having no privacy around him. “There’s two of us, how do you want to flank it? It’s flank is probably ten times bigger than both of us combined.”

“I’ll take that as ‘frontal,’ then.”