Patricia was pleased by how well Tox had preformed in the first round, but she still had concerns. Even with the mix of different proficiencies her stingers each possessed, her team was distinctly lacking in diversity. Her stingers were, at the end of the day, all stingers of the same build. If she came up against the wrong foe she could be left without any possibility of victory. This worried her deeply and she found herself thinking of worse and worse situations that could occur.
A sudden loud buzzing broke her from her spiral of negative thoughts. Hope was pressed against the bars of her cage and vibrating her wings vigorously to get her masters attention. Patricia smiled and slipped a finger between the bars to caress the anxious insect.
"You're right of course hope. Can't do anything about what ifs." She shook her self. "These tiny preperation rooms stifle all my confidence." She put effort into focusing on her goal and the time she had put into preparing. "We are as ready as we can be. All we have to do now is stay the course!"
Patricia felt motivated and ready for her next fight. Luckily she didn't have to wait for too much longer.
The arena representative she was assigned soon came to the door and knocked before entering.
"Miss Patricia, your second round is about to begin. Please load your beasts onto the cart and we shall proceed to your arena."
Patricia couldn't put her finger on why, but the reserved representative seemed more receptive towards her than last time. She smirked thinking, it must have been my stelar performance in the first round. As she walked closer and closer to the location of her next clash her anxiety receded and her confidence swelled more and more. Why was she so worried her stingers and her could handle anything that came their way. By the time she arrived at the edge of the pit she was snickering quietly to herself. Her levity came to an abrupt end when she began to round the pit toward her opponent.
The short stocky middle age man that came forward was pointing and laughing in the direction of her team. "You're kidding right?! You can't possibly tell me those scrawny things made it through the first round! What were they fighting? Dead fish?!" He continued to guffaw his mockery even when the two met halfway around the pit. "Little girl I don't know what you had to do to get a win in your last round but I garentee it's not going to work on me!"
Patricia was no longer filled with confidence, nor was she anxious. Patricia was pissed. Her lips pulled back in a snarl. "Watch what you say about me and my stingers, other wise I'll-"
"Girl those aren't stingers! They are pokers at best!" He laughed right over her attempted comeback. "Look back there, that's a stinger." He pointed back towards his own cages, and just as he said there was a large stinger angrily buzzing in a cage. In fact large was an understatement, the thing was titanic for a stinger. It's stinger alone was as long as Patricia's palm. If she was stung by that thing forget about the venom, blood loss would be her main concern.
Patricia swallowed, she had never seen such an intimidating stinger before. She eyed the stinger with concern and didn't even glance at the other five beasts.
"Tell you what girl. since you obviously have no idea how to pick yourself a strong stinger, I'll give you an opertunity to see one in action." Without any hesitation he pulled a token from his pocket. "I select beast 3, stinger king!"
The arena personel attempted to dissuade him from maintaining his choice and to go through the proper procedure but the short man refused to budge. He crossed his muscular arms and stated he had made his decision.
Patricia thought quickly, what could she do against a stinger that big? Not even buzz would be able to peirce the beasts thick carapace, and even a glancing blow would spell the end of which ever stinger she sent out. It was possible blister would be able to score a lucky hit on a small more vulnerable spot like the eyes or where the legs met the body, but even a large stinger wasn't much bigger than a person's arm. Little hope had experience pining fellow stingers, but she was far too small to manage. Then it struck her. There was one other stinger who was very familiar with the pinning technique.
"I choose beast 2 Buzz."
---
The two stingers cages were lowered into the pit. Her opponent soon spoke up. "That big boy is pretty aggressive. I think we should get one of them nets over the top of the pit."
His arena representative called out for a net and it was quickly deployed across the top of the pit to keep the stinger contained. Patricia watched and attempted to get her neves back under control.
This could work. She knew it could work. She closed her eyes and took in a breath focusing her ki on the connection between her and Buzz. Buzz gazed across the pit towards the much larger stinger, and Patricia was surprised to find no fear or apprehension in the bug. The best she could tell the stinger was filled with indignation? In Buzz mind she had always been assured of her identity as the largest stinger. Now she found there was at least one stinger that beat her in size. But instead of feeling insecure, she was convinced that this stinger was intruding upon her birth right. SHE was the big stinger, SHE was the strongest. She had no choice but to put this imposter, who dared to ignorantly intrude upon her providence, down and prove once and for all that she was the superior.
At first Patricia didn't know how to react to the deep contempt Buzz felt toward her enemy, but then her face split into a big grin. If her stinger believed in herself then who was Patricia to doubt. She quickly sent her approval and a sense of total agreement.
The arena personnel began to count down, and as soon as they signaled the start of the match both stingers lifted off and flew out of their cages. The stinger king moved with notable speed for such a large insect, quickly taking to the air and covering half the distance to the center of the pit in just a moment. But, even that relative speed was nothing in comparison to the slowest of Patricia's stingers.
Buzz covered the same distance in an instant, then kept going. Buzz closed in on the larger stinger with seemingly no intention on slowing down, Patricia pictured the image of hope restraining Buzz in her mind and substituted the stingers for Buzz and her opponent. She expected Buzz to attempt a similar maneuver to hope, but instead Buzz did things her way.
Just before reaching the bigger stinger Buzz shifted position until she was upright with her stinger pointed at her target. The stinger king shifted its head easily keeping his eyes out of reach of her stinger. But the stinger never came. Instead, Buzz lowered her stinger a moment before impact and slamed her entire body into the face of her opponent. He was momentarily stunned inside how to react which gave Buzz a chance to latch onto his face and begin crawling up past his eyes and towards his back.
Stingers are normally very flexible by nature, allowing them to tuck their heads and strike at threats that manage to get on their backs with relative consistency. This general rule did not hold true in this case however. As a compromise for such extreme size and strength, while not being willing to loose too much in the way of agility, the King Stinger was not very flexible. In fact, it was down right inflexible. Barely able to move its stinger farther than necessary to strike a small range almost directly in front of the stinger. Patricia had recognized this and had assumed that even if she was wrong Buzz should be relatively small enough to avoid any strikes, just as hope did with Buzz.
Buzz was not in the habit of being gentle with anything she considered an enemy. Once on the largers stingers back she did not begin to try and pin the wings as hope had done to her but instead crawled to the place where the largest right wing met the body and began to chew through its connection. Patricia watched in shock as Buzz finished tearing out the wing and then turned to deliver two swift stings to the wound before beginning to make her way to the next wing. After that wing she moved toward a third. But by then the short man was screaming his surrender.
"I TAP OUT! I GIVE! GET THAT LITTLE DEMON OFF MY STINGER KING!" He yelled at the arena personel. But before they could do anything Patricia regained her senses and sent a mental command.
Buzz wasn't happy to be robbed of the prize of ending the usurpers life, but obeyed the orders she was given. she disengaged and flew away from the now grounded stinger, flying back to and settling comfortably in her cage.
"Umm... good job Buzz.." patricia reached into her pocket and pulled out a large cicada. Buzz buzzed happily, cicadas were her favorite.