Worse than Evangeline

Author's note: Slight retcon, renaming the opponent.

He's no longer the Undead King. He is now The Artist. Thought it over, and realized this was better description. Also, Citrinas has silver hair, not blue hair now. Just noticed the picture wasn't actually blue. Finally, sorry for the wait. It's hard to plan fight scenes.

The audience roared with approval as Verdi tried to look small, cowering behind Fenri as he tried to hide his shame from their entrance. The whistles, demands he give her a kiss, and so forth only caused him to cower while Fenri just stared blankly forward, unable to understand a lick of what they were saying. As this was all transpiring, Verdi tried to think of whether he'd aggravated a malicious genie, finally getting the fame and cheers he'd so desired at first. It was during this chaos that the harpy announcer gave them their introduction.

"To the West, we have the thief who stole our hearts, the chilling beauty, the gal with a tongue of ice and a bite of frost, the treasure that couldn't be collected, Verdi!" The harpy announcer shouted, his voice booming throughout the entire coliseum as Verdi shook his fist to the booth the harpy was watching them from.

"Fuck off bird!" Verdi shouted, his voice drowned out by the crowd and the announcer as he continued speaking.

"And paired up with her is the dark skinned slasher, the cutie with the cutters, the babe with a blade, she's got swagger and a dagger, our current Hero of the Hunt, Fenri Volk!" He continued, the crowd going wild at the announcement of her title as Hero. The humans in the crowd cheered uproariously at the knowledge one of their fabled heroes had come to compete while the monsters of the crowd jeered and lobbed insults at her, either wishing her ill or outright threatening to kill her. Rather than bloodlust of a hated enemy, those with monster blood sounded like they were shouting at a competitor's sport's team. At worst, it was a friendly disdain more than anything else.

"I heard my name. Did he give me a cool introduction?" Fenri asked, unable to understand a lick of what the announcer was saying.

"He said you've got nice jugs and could probably suck a potato through a straw." Verdi lied, slightly bitter that Fenri had a cooler introduction than him. Rather than be insulted or angry at the statement, Fenri smirked and waved to the crowd arrogantly as though he had given her the compliment of a lifetime.

"The fact that you're annoyed means it was great." She said cheerily, playing up to the crowd as she took in the cheer and boos with equal vigor. Rolling his eyes, Verdi crossed his arms and decided to just ignore the harpy and hope his combat results spoke for themselves.

"I give you Beauty and The Beast!" The harpy shouted, the coliseum going wild at their presence. The very ground seemed to quake as Verdi felt slightly disoriented, unaccustomed to such energy. He fiddled with a coin from his coin pouch, rubbing the silver with his fingers as he idly listened to the audience.

"Go show those fucking zombies who's boss!"

"Hope you get fucked like all the other Hunts!"

"Mount his ass on your wall!"

"I wanna mount her ass on my wall!"

"Step on me mommy Fenri!"

"I want to lick the sweat off your abs!"

"I want you to crush my head between your thighs!"

He decided to stop listening to the crowd. As they finished their introduction, Verdi looked to the East entrance where their opponent was taking the stage in a more conventional method, his movements slow and dejected as he stumbled forth like a drunk. Though he was still in the shadows beyond Verdi's line of sight, he could detect a great many things about the supposed Artist that Daria had warned him about.

The Artist was of standard build and height with a thin, almost gaunt demeanor. He moved without purpose, as though he were advancing out of habit than out of any desire for glory or victory. He had long, disheveled hair that ran down to his chest in matted clumps while his shoes were ill fitting and worn out from prolonged use. He had on a long cloak with a hood that concealed most of his body while the clothing underneath his cloak was a simple tunic. Oddly enough, he wore over his eyes a thick blindfold, sealing off his sight as walked forward without so much as stumbling over the uneven sandstone. He had elongated canines identical to Daria's, proof of his vampiric heritage, yet that wasn't what drew Verdi's attention. No, what had gotten him interested were the vampire's hands.

They were not smooth hands of a mage free from a harsh upbringing like Citrinas nor did he have the callused hands of a swordsman like Varrick or Mathias. It wasn't even the grizzled hands of a survivalist like Fenri, whose skin told a story of a harsh upbringing. His hands were that of a craftsman at the height of his profession, each bump and crease speaking volumes of his experience. His fingers were worn from carefully holding a paintbrush. His palms had the telltale signs of a man who swung a hammer not in combat, but in sculpting. As for his knuckles they were completely smooth, devoid of the slightest blemish as though he'd never thrown a punch in his life. It was almost picturesque to see such a craftsmen walk forward, his slow advance accompanied by the harpy announcer's words.

"And to the East, we have the the man who puts the pain in painter, the hands of hell, the man chiseling jawlines, the jailor tailor, The Artist, Bell Cohola!" The harpy announcer said as Verdi frowned at their opponent's name, staring at the elongated canines he shared with Daria. Though they were both vampires, had the same last name, but they shared no other physical traits outside of the teeth. As Bell reached the arena, he looked up, his blindfolded eyes looking over the arena and scanning over it, sending some of the crowd out. Even the monsters of the arena seemed put off by him, unsure if the vampire would lash out at them rather than at Verdi. Despite the blindfold, his face was undoubtedly one of depression, as though he couldn't find something he was looking for. As he entered the light, he raised his right hand and uttered a single word.

"Inventory." A second later, a hammer appeared in his outstretched hand, his glum demeanor lessening slightly as he gripped the tool in his hand. It was not an implement of war, nor was it a tool of ****. It was a simple chisel hammer any sculptor would own. It could be held in one hand and swung freely with a focus on dexterity over brute ****. It had a wooden handle and a standard stone head with an even weight distribution. Despite that, Verdi could see visible wear and tear on the hammer, the tool and the user leaving their marks on one another. The only part of the hammer that seemed to exhibit the slightest trace of wealth was the handle where a solitary gem lay, a faint blue glow emanating from it. As he clutched the hammer in his hand, he glanced up at the harpy announcer despite being wholly blind with his blindfold.

"I will need a few minutes to get my partner." He said, lacking the slightest trace of enthusiasm as Verdi detected the harpy announcer tremble within his booth, Bell's voice causing him to cower like he did with Evangeline. He seemed to be actively trying to make himself smaller, the vampire's gaze enough to leave him on the verge of tears. The same response could be seen among the crowd, some of them shifting nervously as Bell's blindfold glazed over them, uninterested in the slightest as he focused, the gem at the base of his hammer glowing brighter with each passing second.

"Wow. Wish I had a knife like his hammer." Fenri said, staring hungrily at the tool as though it were a big, juicy steak. She smacked her lips, taking in every detail as Verdi tried to make sense of just what she was talking about. Fenri only had an eye for knives, but she knew about high quality materials when she saw them. The fact that she was almost drooling at the sight of the hammer meant it wasn't just a normal tool.

"Why? What's so special about it?" Verdi asked as Fenri pointed to Bell, focused more on the hammer than the person holding it.

"Judging by the smell, it's made of the same wood as Varrick's sword handle." Fenri explained with an envious voice before focusing on the gem embedded within the hammer. "Plus, it's got a Dimensional Marble in it." She added, familiar with the tool as Verdi just tilted his head in confusion, staring at the coin sized gem embedded into the base of the hammer's handle to find just what its function was.

"And what's the marble do?" Verdi asked, watching their opponent stand in silence as he held the hammer up.

"It's an artifact that can spawn a portal to a pocket dimension like Princess' Domain." Fenri explained before flashing a sadistic grin. "Only difference is that you can look into it from the outside and talk into it. It's a fun little thing for imprisoning people and watching them squirm." She said, sending shivers down Verdi's spine as he tried not to think about what she'd do if she owned one. As the gem grew brighter and brighter, a thought popped into Verdi's head.

"... Hey, can he just throw us into his pocket dimension and starve us out?" He asked, more worried for Fenri than himself. Though he needed biomass to regenerate, his body was built fundamentally different from any other life form. He could recycle his own biomass and survive without eating for what seemed to be indefinitely even in his human form. At most, he'd need some water and he was fine. Fenri, on the other hand, still needed to eat. Rather than panic, Fenri patted him on the head reassuringly.

"No worries. As long as we aren't both stuck in the same pocket dimension at the same time, I can get us out." She reassured as Verdi raised an eyebrow.

"How?" He asked, making sure they kept their voices low to avoid letting their opponent hear them.

"Hunt lets me cut open portals to other dimensions if my target's hiding there. As long as we're not both together, I can use Hunt on you, cut a portal open, and hop through or drag you out." She said, jinxing the fight as Verdi nervously shifted in place. They were probably going to both end up trapped in Bell's pocket dimension in this fight. Before he could make anymore complaints, a massive portal 80 feet in diameter tore open, displaying a gateway to hell itself no less disturbing than Evangeline's lovers. Even Fenri was taken aback, wrinkling her nose at the stench of decay that escaped the portal.

It was a world of stone and ****, where massive undead spawned by necromancy lay waiting for their master's call as they stood motionless, posing as though they were pieces in an art exhibit. Verdi's heightened touch gave him insight into what lay beyond the portal's reach, telling him all that was to be known about The Artist's debauched work. Evangeline's perverse love was the outcome of life magic brought to the limit to regress life to its most basic protoplasmic ooze in a vain pursuit of immortality. Bell's necromancy had taken the opposite direction, utilizing necromancy to take the mundane form to strange directions anathema to nature's guiding hand.

The first "exhibit" he could perceive was an aquarium containing some aquatic beast whose previous life was that of several men. Their skins were removed as were most bones, with their rib cages broken and fused together through the use of cement to craft one, vast cage to hold their multitude of organs. Their arms were absent save for one whose limb ended at the elbow to craft the approximation of a fin. For stability, a dorsal fin was added to their backs using a spare arm while their legs had been altered, the surplus limbs grafted to their legs to create a long finned tail that stretched far beyond their body's length. The entity was in an aquarium, swimming about in a predetermined routine. Despite the thing being undead and having no need for air, it would randomly surface and suck in air, the sutures somehow holding strong as not so much as a bubble escaped from the undead monstrosity. A half second later, it was ensnared by a long, spindly tendril as another of Bell's art pieces ensnared it.

While the first art piece was an aquatic mammal that still required oxygen, the one feeding upon it was a deep sea terror that had a superficial similarity to Verdi's own monster form. It was a 12 limbed entity that had a long, cylindrical body that was laden with eyes. The base of the monster's body had a gaping maw that had the lips of several different people sutured together to craft a massive circle with rows upon rows of human teeth. Of course, the presence of bones within its double jointed limbs and the multitude of organs were the major divergences from Bell's creation and Verdi's own body. As the tendrils coiled around their prey, Verdi could tell that there was no real strength behind the grab, a theory proven true as the dolphin-like specimen escaped its bindings and continued swimming around. A few seconds later, it was snatched by the very same tentacles in the identical manner as earlier, the two preprogrammed to repeat their little show until the end of time.

Similar dioramas could be seen throughout his little pocket dimension where twisted corpses were defiled and reanimated to complete a skit with zero deviances over thousands of repetitions. He could detect lumbering oafs of leathery flesh that stood at 30 feet in height flee from roving packs of gremlin-like creatures that smiled, displaying rows upon rows of canine teeth rather than the flat, herbivorous teeth humans had. A spider larger than any natural arachnid stretched its legs out, each limb a pair of femurs fused together at the joint and that stretched no less than 20 feet in length. Its body shifted and squished, its spinneret a repurposed sphincter as intestines spewed out of its body in an attempt at mimicking spider silk.

Paintings could be seen quite literally moving on the paper, the stand being the tibia of a poor soul while the "paper" was the skin and flesh of the Bell's victim. Rather than rely on a trick of perception like Verdi's movie projector, the movement of the painting moved through the twitching and pulsing of the undead's muscles, the image itself carved into the flesh and the meat shaved away to give differing colors. Rather than being some violent or perverse show, the movie that played atop the painting was merely of a rider on his horse, the movements flawless as the image danced upon its cursed parchment. It was a vast world that exceeded Verdi's ability to perceive, the dimension within spanning what felt to be an entire other continent and packed with his perverse art pieces. The brutality of his work was matched only with the genius, the mere acknowledgement causing Verdi to question his own sanity.

Each creation, each affront to nature, every taboo crafted in that hell had been crafted with love and affection of a father to his son, the stitching for the altered joints done with the hand of a true artisan. The joints were not haphazardly cobbled nonsense with a focus on aesthetic nor were they mere weapons of war. They were truly new forms of unlife wholly viable for survival and combat in nature. Each joint had a logical reason behind its placement, each sensory organ was situated in locations best suited for its environment, and every creation had a dedicated environment for where it would best thrive. It was in this context that Verdi's mind was drawn to the "lawn" of the museum.

While a portion of the pocket dimension consisted of his art pieces, almost 80% of the area consisted of what appeared to be a multi-layered field of fingers and toes embedded into the ground. Each finger had a dedicated monster core tethered to it, and could only extend or bend itself. Unlike the vast, elaborate displays of creativity, the finger fields were a neat, orderly row with precisely 3 centimeters separating each finger. At the very top of the building of fingers was a team of undead standing next to a pipe of signs labeled with numbers. The more Verdi tried to understand it, the more confused he became. Before he could grasp the logic within the madness, he saw The Artist's partner make its way to the stage.

There was an elegance to its movements, the many limbs moving in perfect synchronicity as its vast body stretched onwards, the long tubular thing standing leagues above even Varrick as it emerged from the depths. Its ever footstep flowed with an inhuman grace, each step akin to the sound of rainfall as its multitude of limbs shifged it forward. It had an elongated snout befitting of a wolf at the front with a bate that could swallow entire carriages while its body was covered in dark gray fur. Woven underneath it was a layer of scales that would deflect any blade while underneath that lay thick leather to stifle any blunt trauma it suffered. It had 8 legs on its body that had been constructed to mimic an insect's, the limbs extending outwards with chitinous plating coating the limbs. As Verdi looked upwards, he could see a human form nestled at the top of the beast's wolf-like head that seemed to direct its movements.

It was the slender form of a female from the waist up, her spinal cord merged to the creature's to make them truly one. Her long, flowing bright silver hair covered her chest to give some semblance of decency, while her ivory white skin almost glowed in the sunlight. She had high cheekbones and bright blue eyes that were surrounded by a pitch black sclera, blood seeping into the whites for her eyes from her undeath. As Verdi looked up at the woman's face, he took a step backwards, horrified as recognition struck her. Rather than ask him what had startled him, Fenri followed Verdi's eyes, only to gasp as she blurted out the same question Verdi had in mind.

"Why the the flying fuck does that thing look like Citrinas?" She asked as Verdi tried to make sense of what he was seeing. It was no illusion, his sense of touch and sight lining up perfectly. She wasn't a one for one copy of Citrinas, but he could see the similarities between the two. As the creature finished its entrance, the portal closed as The Artist stood alongside his masterpiece, pride on his face as he reached to his blindfold with one hand, placing it in his inventory as he spoke.

"It's a pleasure to meet you two. My name is Bell Cohola." His voice was soft, melodic even as he gestured to his creation, pride flowing out of him as he continued speaking. "And this is my finest masterpiece. Titled..." Fenri scowled , spawning several barrels of water from her inventory as Verdi braced himself, unable to avert his eyes from the thing that had emerged.

"Beauty is The Beast." He said, his creation lowering itself into a battle position, the woman merged to it staring them down with a blank expression. As he opened his eyes, he seemed taken aback as he rubbed at his eyes, assuming he was seeing something wrong. After a moment of thinking, a smile reached his face, warmth and joy emanating from his very core as he spoke. Rather than fixate on Fenri, his eyes were focused on Verdi as he took in every detail of the alchemist. He muttered a soft word, under his breath as he took a step forward.

"Inventory." In his left hand spawned an item that simultaneously made sense and no sense whatsoever. Clutched in his hand was not a blade, axe, or even poison. It was a long steel rod with pointed end that spanned the length of his hand. In a stonemason's hands, this would be a chisel for sculpting stone. In Bell's hands, this was best described as the bane of all vampire's, the tool used to slay untold numbers of their undead kin. He raised the stake in his hand pointing it towards Verdi's limbs as though he were planning out his victory. It was during this ritual he spoke to them, his voice calm and measured as though he already knew the answer.

"Alchemist, do you mind if I ask you an odd question?" He asked, staring deeply into Verdi's eyes as he spoke. His creation stood beside him, her eyes focused on Fenri as she placed her hands down at the furry head she was fused to as though patting it on the head.

"What is it?" Verdi asked, doing his best to avoid looking at the undead creation only to have his sense of touch detect her. Luckily, he was able to ignore the undead thing when Bell asked his question.

"Have you met a little white fox in this city?" Bell asked, the simple question causing Verdi and Fenri to tense up. Rather than let them answer, he continued talking without a care in the world, their reaction answer enough for him. "Some time ago, someone delivered a gift to me. A silver hair, a map to Olskroya, and a promise I would find my lost muse and complete my art piece." He mused before chuckling and looking to the crowds, searching for whatever or whoever orchestrated his arrival.

"I can't say that I have met any white foxes in Olskroya." Verdi answered truthfully, unsure if the vampire could detect lies. He could tell if Bell was not working with Tristiana, but at the same time, he knew that fox had lured him to Olskroya for some reason. He could tell that Fenri had the same thoughts as him, the pair slightly excited to have a lead into Tristiana's whereabouts. For now, however, they had to fight in the tournament. Interrogation could come later.

"You get the leech, I'll get the mutt." Fenri commanded as Verdi nodded, opening one of the barrels she'd spawned and placing his hand in the water. As the water froze, the wooden barrel splintered and cracked as the harpy announcer cleared his throat.

"Let the match begin!"