A Cat, a Thief, and a Wizard

I stared at what looked like a homage to the most famous ruler I'd heard of in this crazy place.

It was definitely the Flower Empress. I recognized the coat, the boots, the circlet, and the necklace. They were carved in the stone, but were exact replicas of what I'd seen in the hidden vault in the Palace. There was also a half cape, and jeweled bands in her hair. Her sword was missing, but she held the crystal staff.

She looked beautiful and kind. Her pose was welcoming and she was reaching out with a gentle smile. Her eyes were half lidded. Maybe it was me, but I thought her eyes were hard and calculating.

I thought the statue was a lie.

Maybe I was a bigot. Maybe I was being judgmental. When I found out about her regalia and heard she was a demon, I thought she was bad news. And she was.

She was a major topic in history class. We'd only started touching on all the wars she started, all the people she slaughtered. Apparently, she was a big factor in there being no races other than human anywhere in her former empire.

As a non-human myself these days, I felt that her gaining a fandom and getting traction was hazardous to my future. Back in the day, boy did she have a fandom.

Once upon a time, she had a cadre of powerful and loyal people. She rewarded them well and excused anything at all that they did. In turn, they defended all of her actions as right and just with no regard for ethics or morality.

That the fandom might be reviving was scary. 'Gracious Lady' indeed. I wondered if her being described as a demon was literal or metaphorical. It didn't really matter, though. The word fit.

Whoever had made the statue was supremely talented. This thing was going to make my whiskers fall out with how powerfully magical it was.

I looked over at Tom and the little deer.

Tom looked like a proud dad, like this statue was a great achievement of his. The arc of his back and the flick of his tail made it clear to me that he expected us to be as entranced by this magical lump of stone as he was. It was obvious he had no idea who the 'Lady' really was.

The little deer was smitten. His tiny tail was wagging a mile a minute, and the little guy was nearly bouncing.

"The Gracious Lady is what makes what we do here possible," Tom said. "Each day, she gives us the means to grow our power and mana, and to do it safely."

"Safely," I deadpanned. I cast a look over my shoulder at the battle arena. There was a lot of blood on the sand in there.

"Yes. Safely. Not painlessly, though." Tom indicated the brown loop on the Lady's outstretched hand. "That collar will prevent the death of anyone who wears it so long as they are within range of the Lady. Anyone who is injured need only touch her hand and all their injuries will be healed."

I blinked. That was… powerful. Damn but artifacts can do funky things.

Maybe I shouldn't think of this as animal pit fighting. If it was all voluntary, this was no different than boxing as a sport. And if it was true that none of the familiars died, some of the more lethal competitors, like the manticore Scorpius, could practice and kill without harming anyone.

"I thought this was artisan made, not an artifact from Below," I probed.

"The organizer here found it some months ago," Tom said.

Right. New people had replaced the old staff at the Menagerie. I side eyed Tom. "I hear Robin got canned. I thought you liked her."

"I did like Robin, and she genuinely cared about all the familiars at the Menagerie," Tom said sadly. "But she viewed us as animals. She did not believe we should be able to decide for ourselves what was best for us."

Well, that was a sticky thing. I tended to think of them as animals, too. Or rather, like toddlers. My goal for the little deer was the same as for a toddler; putting it somewhere safe and letting someone else look after it. Boom. Not my problem anymore.

Tom seemed like the type to want what was best for his compatriots and I didn't think he was stupid. If this was something he viewed as fine, and that the familiars decided they wanted for themselves, then they could make their own choices.

I looked back up at the statue. For all I knew, the Flower Empress was just window dressing, and the statue meant nothing.

Yeah, I was skeptical about that.

Tom continued, "There are several humans here. You'll meet them if you choose to participate."

"I choose! I choose!" The little deer couldn't contain himself any longer and was bouncing straight up nearly his whole height.

"Hold your horses, short stuff. We should know more about what this does and how it works." I put a paw on the deer to keep his hooves on the ground. "There has to be more to this than just not dying in a cage fight. I don't see the point in joining that," I said to Tom.

"Of course. It's about power transfer." Tom moved so he was sitting next to the statue facing us. For some reason, I thought he should have a screen with images on it and a laser pointer.

"These collars prevent harm, but better than that, they form links. When a familiar wearing a collar kills another familiar wearing a collar, the losing familiar turns to stone."

"What the fuck! How is that safe?" I demanded, surging to my feet. Animal crazy land was fucking heavy on the crazy.

"Shut up and sit down. I'm not done," Tom snapped. He glowered at me until I planted my butt. "As I was saying, the losing familiar turns to stone. They stay a stone statue for a period of days or weeks, depending on their own mana reserves and the severity of their injury."

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"The new statues in the Menagerie. Those are real familiars that died?" That gave new meaning to the morbid art.

"Not dead, in stasis. The stone is mana attractive, so they gather mana quicker in that form. We have several locations for the statues to maximize mana absorption. The absorbed mana heals their injuries and funnels a significant portion of it to the victor."

The little deer's eyes were wide. "The winners can evolve. I'm in! Sign me up! I want to be a big deer!"

Tom smiled at the little deer. "There's more. If you defeat a familiar that has defeated many other familiars, not only do you get the mana from his defeat, but you get all the mana from his victories, too. We're calling that a downline."

"What kind of turnaround can I expect?" the little deer asked. "The evolution I want has multiple stages." The deer and Tom talked percentages for a few minutes. Who knew familiars discussing animal pit fighting could sound like investors looking for a new venture. I'd be more impressed if the little deer understood that a fifth was bigger than a seventh, even though seven was a bigger number. Whatever. At least the deer could count.

"Hold up here," I interrupted. "What's the point of this? Mana is everywhere."

Tom and the deer both looked at me like I was the stupid one.

"Ah, that's right. You're still a cub," Tom said. "All magical beasts can evolve into a higher-tier beast. One with more magical power, more abilities, more everything. You won't be able to evolve until you're an adult, so you may not have sensed it yet," Tom explained.

Actually, I knew this already; I just didn't realize it applied here. I knew wyverns hung out at the Mana Wells to gather enough mana to evolve into dragons. Chicky-chicky was doing just that. I thought there were special circumstances or locations required for evolving, but it sounds like it's just the availability of mana.

I suddenly had the image of a pack of velociraptors with the chicken dodge power. Shudder.

Those chickens had access to some concentrated mana in those berries, and there were no evolved beasts among the chickens. Unless they'd left once evolved? Eh, it wasn't something that affected me.

"How do you know what your options are for evolving?" I asked. Based on Mama Cat's size, I figured I was pretty top tier already, but it didn't hurt to know if there was another level and how to know what that level was.

"Got your interest?" Tom smiled knowingly. "There are as many paths as there are beasts. You can only travel the path you are on, but you can take any branch you choose to. Take the little one. He is a deer. He will stay a deer. But from there he can become a sylvan fawn, moon deer, forest walker, or any number of others. He just needs the power to do so."

"At the top you can go all the way!" the little deer cried. "You can walk on clouds and go to new worlds and do all the things!"

Wait a second. Did I hear that right? New worlds?

Could I go home?

This was worth looking into. It might be a clue to how I got here, too.

"So, how many have evolved then? Out of the familiars here?" I asked.

"A new familiar is evolving every month," Tom answered. "The only reason it is going slowly is because Scorpius is already a high tier, and he has the biggest downline. He is raking in the power, and we should see him evolve into his next choice any day now."

"What comes after manticore, I wonder?"

Tom shrugged. "If you like, we can get started. There is a cost involved."

Like any good sales pitch, the price was buried in the good stuff.

"In order to wear one of the Lady's collars, you first must break your bond with your current bondmate," Tom said. "The power the statue uses is the same type. You can only have one bondmate, so the statue will supersede it."

"Oh, yes. I want to do that!" The deer was a lifetime subscription type of customer. Not that he was losing much with a partner like Michael.

"I won't be doing that today," I said. I watched Tom to gauge his reaction.

"That's fine. There is only one collar right now anyway." He took it with surprising grace. If this was as culty as I suspected it was, he should have been ticked.

Wondering if I was just being a negative nancy, I watched the deer place his chin, the spot with his familiar mark, on the outstretched hand. Tom did something with mana at the statue base, and boom. The statue produced a powerful and concentrated blade of power. I could feel it flooding the deer with a sharpness that the familiar ritual did not have.

The familiar ritual I'd done with Seth was gentle, a connection and a little more that took nearly half an hour to do. This was brutal, done in less than a minute, and I was glad it wasn't me on the receiving end.

The deer whimpered and then the collar on the statue's hand was around the deer's neck.

My misgivings were back. I had two issues with what I just saw. First was the big one. The deer didn't actually do anything. No mana, nothing. This was something that could be done against the animal's will. I could only hope this bond was as voluntary as a typical familiar bond. Since a familiar could reject their bond, they should be able to reject this one, too.

Second, that ass Michael should have noticed that his bond with the deer just ended. The kids were going to have a meltdown. But that was a mess for later.

I had no sympathy for Michael. I felt bad for worrying Seth, but not enough to unkink the bond hose.

The deer was so excited and happy.

Welp, he chose this. I hoped it worked out for him.

"Lets go talk to the arena master and see if we can't get you into a training bout," Tom said warmly to the little deer. "It would just be a spar. It'd hardly be fair to throw you into a real fight without some practice first."

I tagged along and picked a spot in the bleachers to watch. The little deer with a plant power was facing off against a turtle that could squirt water. Tom must have set up an easy matchup on purpose.

There were several other practice matches going on. Mostly they'd do a couple of moves and then stop and discuss. I saw the potato-looking dude who had been a statue the last time I was here. He was made of wood, not potatoes. That was so disappointing.

I watched the bouts and considered the smorgasbord of powers before me.

It would be really easy to take powers here. I could only steal them while they were in use, and what better time for a beast to use their powers than when they were fighting? I could be getting new powers every time I fought a beast.

I'd be found out so fast and then my goose would be cooked. I would have to be careful how I went about this. I wouldn't be able to use the powers I'd stolen in the arena at all. And if I'm in a tough fight, I'd instinctively want to use every advantage. Hell, I used the chicken dodge reflexively more often than I used it on purpose.

Also, it wouldn't take long before the critters noticed they always lost their powers when I was around. I'd have to be sneaky about it.

But I could get strong very quickly. I would have all the powers. I could collect all the mana. I would steal the downlines of all the competition. I'd be rich in power and ability.

Once I was strong enough or successful enough, I'd be meeting the people who organized this. I'd be finding out the real secrets.

This was easy street. Power, connections, everything I was looking for. I watched a new match get started, the wooden potato dude against a dodge chicken.

And in another corner, a flaming wolf was brutally shaking a weasel.

Fuck no, I wasn't doing this.

Getting bit in the face? Nope. Getting scratched, thumped, stung? Nuh uh.

For one, I didn't like fighting.

That involved getting hurt, and I was allergic.

Could I do it? Of course. I've fought plenty already, here in crazy land. But there was a different feel to fighting because someone would die if you didn't, and fighting to crush a small animal that wants to do better for itself.

I may be a cat now, born for torture and murder, but I had been human, and I wasn't a bully. Nor was I digging the culty and questionable vibes here.

Also, I didn't want to sever my bond with Seth. I liked the kid. For a dumb kid he was pretty smart. He tried hard at everything he did. He was loyal and sweet and dedicated. More than that, the kid belonged to me and I was keeping him.

I mean, seriously. He fed me every day. Now, if he stopped or the quality went to shit, all bets were off.

I watched the deer bounce in a circle around the overturned turtle. Yeah. There was no way I was going to do this. At least the deer was happy about it right now. I just hoped he could walk away later if he wanted to.