"The Queen?" Alexander asked in disbelief.
"Yes!" Felicia confessed through pained tears. "It was her little project. The demonlings are hers too!"
"H-her's? How can… Did the Queen bring them into the city? Is she growing them? How is she controlling them?"
"… No idea. The White Masks took me to the mines where we planned the Forge of Champions. And there she was. It was the only time I ever saw Merillia outside the Palace. She just summoned the demonlings out of the depths of the mines with a wave of a hand. The same with the Abomination, though it was no bigger than a demonling back then. There are situations where you know not to ask questions if you want to live."
"Does the King know?"
Felicia shrugged. "As far as I could ever tell he's always high out of his mind. Either doesn't know or doesn't care, so does it even matter?"
"Why do the demons obey you? And what kind of a project is putting an abomination under the city?"
"I don't know! She just told them to obey certain commands from me and they did! It's not like I can use them as my personal army! I don't even communicate with them. Not really. They understand me, but I don't understand them. I just tell Okui when the dinner is served. And the demonlings are emergency guards."
"D-dinner…" Alexander gasped. "Then… All Champions… Even my brother…"
"Okui grows stronger and bigger with each powerful warrior it consumes," Felicia explained. "As far as I figure it lets Merillia get rid of rogue powerful individuals that are not under employ of the Guild, Purples, or Royals."
"'As far as you figure'?"
"It's not like I got a user manual for the thing! Everyone just drops things for me to handle and I get told below the bare minimum! For all anyone knows she could have also done it for shits and giggles! The Games were already agreed on before then. The Abomination was the Merillia's last-second addition."
"Who else knew about it then?"
"As far as I know, only those from the palace: Several Princesses, a few hand-picked soldiers. Even though all three from G.P.R. were directly involved in the Forge of Champions, this was a separate 'event' from the Games. Held several days later, overseen by white masks. If someone from the Guild was informed, they did a phenomenal job not letting on. Even our slut Guild leader… As for the Purples… Belmot couldn't be trusted to oversee his own wardrobe. And with the Flavna/Gamesh wonder duo, if anyone among the Purple Capes were to know, they would know too."
"Names."
Felicia sighed, "Samira, Asuna, Julia… Mira too, once."
"Not Mary?"
"That unstable child? You must be joking!"
"And you killed all the Champions? But that Odo Proudcock survived, how?"
"Obviously, he never fought Okui," Felicia snickered. "Just a poster-boy for the glories and pleasures of a Champion. Some put up a better fight than others, even driving Okui back, for a moment. Those lucky enough not to be devoured the White Masks dragged back to the palace. But by then they were barely recognizable minced corpses."
"WAS MY BROTHER AMONG THEM!?" Alexander squeezed Felicia's neck tighter.
"GHh-Nobody wore a 'Number Seven's brother' tag on them!"
*SNAP*
"GHYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! FFFFfuucking cunt!" Felicia cried and cursed after Alexander broke her thumb.
"Philip, his name is Philip!" Alexander said. "He participated two Games prior."
"H-Hhhhhhh," Felicia trembled as if she had a fever while holding her broken thumb. "S-sure. I remember him. Another overgrown musclehead. A dime a dozen in the Games. Yeah, he put up a fight. Julia and a few other White Masks dragged his body away to the palace."
"Ah," for a second, Alexander's eyes looked like those of a regular man, his grip lessened, and Felicia's white hair rose to life.
[Fluffy Cage]!! Felicia cast her defensive spell and her ample hair enveloped her body from all sides, turning razor sharp, cutting Alexander's hand and forearm, and started spinning.
"Argh!" Alexander withdrew his arm before Felicia spun out of control.
The white spinning furball of death flew at Alexander, who dodged the countless blades that could turn any man into minced meat. And as the Felicia flew past Alexander, she landed into another horrified inmate. She smacked him into a wall and spun in place, pulverizing his upper body. After that she bounced off that wall, then off another one and up to the exit she flew.
Seeing only one chance before Felicia escapes, Alexander grabbed both unconscious Michael and Zack, and jumped up after Felicia. As Felicia bounced off the ceiling, Alexander cut off her trajectory and thrust both eunuch's bodies right into the spinning death machine, knocking it off course while using the two bodies as shields.
"UAAAAAAAAA!!!" Michael was the first to scream when Felicia dug into his belly with her razor hair.
Alexander then managed to hold the spinning furball down on the ground, just beside the Pit while Felicia's speed slowed down, getting bogged down in the blood and meat, and intestines of the two eunuchs.
"Huaaah," Felicia breathed heavily when her defensive spell finally gave out. The little beastkin grabbed at the gaps in the floor stones with her tiny fingers trying to crawl from under the minced meat. But before she was even halfway out, Felicia felt a chillinly familiar big, strong, merciless hand push down on her back right between her shoulder blades, crushing any fleeting hope of escape.
"aaa… Ä̷͕́Ă̴̲A̴̪̕Á̸̟Ä̷̞A̶͗ͅA̶̳͂… Á̵̠̹͂́A̴̺͌̕À̶̭̈́̋—"
*SNAP*
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