"What the Hell do you mean, I can't look at the files!?" Shere Khan, it was rumored, had been a combatant once. She could almost believe the claim, as big as he was, but she'd been here twenty years and she'd hardly seen him move his hulk from behind his magnificent desk. Although, he was half-blind and crippled to an extent - to what extent, she doesn't know, only that he requires a cane to walk - so it's also fair to assume his glory days were ended on the field.

"Simply that, Elsa," he smiles, it's filled with satisfaction. "Kaa restricted access to that information a week ago-"

The same day Elsa had met that little freak.

"If you want anything, you'll have to clear it through him."

"That's BULL SHIT!" She slams a fist down onto his desk. Ice crawls out from beneath her hand, attempting to slowly encase the wood. Shere Khan sniffs and flicks at some. As she draws back it crumbles then disintegrates. Calmly, she begins again, "Kaa and myself don't really see eye to eye-"

"Bull shit," he shoots back with a chuckle. "You hate him and he adores, but resents, you. All it takes is a conversation. You're just being a child. Funny, considering I'm almost entirely certain you're well older than me."

"There's something wrong with that girl," she says at length, and lowly. "It's more than not being human she's..." Elsa suppresses a shiver. "She's not normal."

"Your body, innards, skin and hair are frozen by the very same magic that keeps you alive... But that girl isn't normal? And by what right do you have to judge her?" He's stopped listening. Even with her magical display he's NOT listening. He thinks this is funny.

"Simply because of that. Simply because my Champion in Arms was an experiment that failed and he, too, is so strange," She growing louder, impassioned. "Simply because I have survived and fought here for TWO decades and seen all manner of unimaginable strangeness! Due to that, due to ALL of that, would I say I have earned the right to judge something as fucking strange and guess what?"

He's still smiling. As she leans forward over his desk, hands planted in the middle, agitation sending ice out from every point of physical contact she has with the wood, she drops into a hiss,

"That girl is not normal. That girl is a fucking hazard. To everyone and everything around her. I know it, I had hoped even your dulled battle senses might catch it," His smile splits his face wider. "I want to know what I'm dealing with, Sir. Would you please allow me that?"

"Absolutely," She hasn't seen him so pleased since the day she walked in looking for work, so many years ago. "Just as soon as you've got clearance from Kaa." Ice sheets the desk, her mouth opens and she draws in a breath to begin an argument anew. He's standing in a flash, one hand gripping his icy desk for support, the other locked around her throat. She grasps at his thick wrist. It won't budge. It isn't freezing. "You're not the only one with magic tricks, Elsa. Though I'll admit mine was an acquired sort."

He flexes his grip on her throat. She chokes. A ring on his finger burns against her skin.

"Don't think you can bully me, Elsa. I can respect your ability, I can gladly accept you as my top reigning champ... But never, ever delude yourself into thinking that you have any power over me or my decisions." He tosses her back away from his desk. She hits the floor hard, but concerns herself less with minor aches and pains and more with sucking air into her desperate lungs. "We're all fighters here, but you magic users always get so cocky. You forget there is always a way around your little spells."

He holds his hand up, a garish ring with a glowing red stone greets her. But that's just the one he used on her. Every finger is garnished with finery she now assumes hold some sort of magics.

"For what it's worth, you're right. That girl is a freak. An emotionless death machine the likes of which I've never seen, never dared dream of... " He's falling back into his chair, suddenly weary. Looking older than he is, ancient and resigned. "A monster."

Blinking back into the present, he waves her away.

"Now begone from me. Find your ex-Sponsor. Grovel, bribe, threaten for all I care. Get your clearance and don't bother returning until that point." She picks herself up, rubbing her neck. Her skin there still burns. She glares and backs towards the door, but stops when he calls out to her, "Oh and Elsa?"

"Sir?"

"Unfreeze my damn desk."

He looks at her with fond eyes and an uncharacteristically warm smile. She smiles back only because of the sling his arm is in. She'd heard from Ralph that a week ago The Snake had slithered back into the med bay shortly after he'd left with Anna - less than an hour - with a hand mangled beyond belief. She assumed, and correctly so, that shortly after receiving medical attention, he'd gone to Shere Khan and restricted access to Anna's records. His little monster had broken the hand that fed and that was entirely too amusing. Or maybe just expected.

"Elsa," he greets. Warmth from him was almost as uncomfortable as the still smarting burn on her neck from Shere Khan's enchanted ring. "So glad you could join me."

"Sponsor Kaa," she returns, formal as can be. Cold as ice. She takes a seat across from him. "Let's cut the chat and get right down to business."

"Hmmm," he steeples his fingers, setting his chin on them as he leans his elbows against the table. "No I think not. You need me, not the other way around."

Today is not her day. This week has not been her week. She needs a drink. She's only so thankful a waitress arrives beside them.

"Yes, I'd love you to get me the strongest drink possible. Physically, literally possible. I don't particularly care what it is or who makes or how. You just get it done, and make it strong, is that clear?" She might make the waitress cry, but she can't help glaring. She's fucking angry. The girl nods quickly, shaking as she turns to Kaa. He waves her off. She is visibly, physically relieved by this, a great heave of a breath leaving her, shoulders relaxing. She scurries away and then Kaa speaks,

"You're frightened," he notes. She'd like to deny him. But for the first odd number of years competing in The Arena he had been her Sponsor. He understood her well enough to read the hard set of her mouth, the fissure between her furrowed brows, the ceaseless drumming of her fingers on the table for what it really is. "You should be."

"Yeah," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. "No kidding. No one else is and I. I don't get it." She reigns in her nervous hands by threading them together. "Ralph loves her, Van loves anything that her man loves, for the most part. The fans are nuts over her. Shere Khan is ready to let her run rampant through here for fucks sake!"

The air around her is frigid, she knows by the extra shakes and trembles as their poor waitress sets her precious drink down. She stutters out a question that Elsa doesn't let her finish. Cutting her off with a sharp glare and a wave of her hand. Kaa observes this with a smile. She tips her glass, groaning lowly at the bite and spice on her tongue, trying to convince her that her insides are anything but cold.

"You're a mad man." She cradles the glass in her hands, staring down at the nearly black concoction. A watery shadow watches back. Kaa chuckles.

"I am," he admits, shameless. "And you're right. Even I'm not afraid," he pauses, snorting as he slightly lifts his sling. "Good lot that did me." Her lips peel back from her teeth, smiling though she doesn't mean to.

"Good lot indeed," she picks up the glass, saluting it to him before tipping it back again. She drains nearly half of it. Somehow it bothers her mostly that she can get along with this fucking creep. What does that mean for her? "Where is she?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he teases but it lacks venom. "I've got her down in the dungeons." She sighs loudly, relaxing back into her seat truly for the first time.

"Sweet fuck, actual good news!" He laughs easily, leaning forward with interest.

"You really can't stand her... why is that?"

"She isn't normal," One of his brows positively pierces the heavens. "I know I know. I'm blue. I'm magic. I get it. It's just. Something is. Something about her it's." Flustered, she took another hearty gulp. Gathering her thoughts, she said finally, "She's unnatural. She shouldn't exist."

"Funny," he leans back, a king in his throne, content with his kingdom. "She said something along the same lines just before she broke my hand. Called herself a mistake."

"Oh I like that one," she's laughing now. "Smart little monstrosity."

"Oh that she is indeed. I'm hoping to, hmm, unlock that potential of hers."

"Like you did mine?"

"Oh, but much greater," For some reason that makes her bitter. "I've only just begun to scratch the surface of what she's capable of. I think she might very well be the first to take you down." He's laughing delightfully. That bitter taste won't leave her tongue, even after gulping up a bit of drink.

"Doubtful," she tells him. He never stops smiling.

"And yet you fear her."

"Fear won't stop me from destroying her."

"Oh it won't stop her from destroying you either. Poor bastard can't feel it. Can't feel anything really but," he shrugs with one shoulder. "That's all the better for me."

"Why did you restrict information on her?"

"Does that particularly matter?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"I am."

"You discovered something about her. Something you don't want just anyone to know." He was laughing, but not at her.

"You always were smart. You might be as smart as Anna," she's scowling again. He coos at her, "Oh don't take it so hard. That girl is a freak, her intelligence is but part of it."

"Even I was mostly human once. I don't think that, that thing ever has been."

"Oh," he was chuckling. And she'd never heard him sound so genuine before. "I made the mistake of assuming she was anything other than a monster. Told her I'd turn her into one. As if she needed my help... ahh, but at least someone does." He's smiling at her. "Need my help, that is. Tell me, Elsa, why should I give you access to her records?"

And here's her in. She's supposed to convince him with her unshakeable conviction. She's thought about this long and hard for hours (one hour and twenty seven minutes) and had planned scenario after scenario. She tosses the rest of her vile concoction of death by alcohol poisoning back. Slams the empty glass down. A dark drop of liquid slides down the side. Idly, she tries to slow it's descent.

"In some weird way?... I feel obligated. I had so badly wanted to meet her, and then I did and it was nothing like I expected... I, I guess I'm not entirely certain what I'd expected but it wasn't... that. I feel almost bad for her... She lives only for death. I will deliver this unto her. If it's the last thing I do, if it's the only thing I do, I will make certain that girl is brought to an end."

He'd brought a briefcase. As she'd spoken he'd taken to slowly pulling it up from the ground next to his polished shoe. And as she finished it clicked open with all the speed one hand allowed him. Carefully, he removed a device - his Viewer, it looked like - and slid it across the table to her. He looked as satisfied as ever and when she hesitated he gestured grandly, insistently. She acquiesced, bending over it.

"1-0-3-5." He fed to her when the password screen popped up. And there it was. Her files on the screen. Anna. A quick scan of the contents revealed as much as Elsa already knew. A basic description of her features, body. She was actually nine. Or at the very least, her birthday had been three days ago. Celebrated in the dungeons.

There was that odd sensation of feeling sorry for the little beast. She shook it off.

She was a Lycanthrope, apparently. More specifically, she was-

"Fuck," She breathed. "She's a fucking inbred."

"Ah, ah, aahh," he chastised, gentle and half amused. "You know how inaccurate that claim is. Ibryda, darling, are not from inbreeding."

She did know that. She'd met one once before. He had been an unbelievably kind and gentle soul, before...Before The Arena stole his light.

"She might be," He laughed at that.

"Watch the videos," it wasn't an order but it wasn't quite a suggestion. Either way, she obliged him, curious enough without all his prompting. The first was a security feed. Noiseless but easy enough to understand. Still, he provided, "I was introducing her to Shere Khan. The old bastard lacked faith in me. So I arranged for a demonstration."

She watches in mute fascination as Anna crushes the windpipe of her opponent, and snaps her neck.

The second video is longer than the first. And decidedly less impressive. Almost boring. She voices this as the bully trips over a rock and Anna lunges, "Really? She tricks him into trip-"

She watches in mild shock as Anna beats his skull into a bloody pulp.

What the fuck.

The third video is the one Van had mentioned. The Skinner. Slimy freak he was. They'd stopped pitting him against children for a reason. Even knowing how this ends up - with the inevitable loss by The Skinner - it seems so awful that they give him a kniffe.

And so she watches almost in a daze as that girl snaps a femur in half over her knee, thrusts it into The Skinner's gut, catches his knife, pulls him to his FUCKING KNEES, and proceeds to eviscerate him, while forcing him to look her in the eye. That is, until he's too unsteady, so she shoulders his weight and continues to penetrate his organs with a six inch blade. And then she decides he's had enough and with one last slide of the knife into a lung, she ends him.

Elsa sits back. Pushing the device back to Kaa. Numb to his smiling face. Their waitress returns and Elsa is very soft spoken when she politely requests another drink. Kaa declares that he'll have one too. The waitress is even more terrified of this reaction. Regardless, within a minute they both have near-black death concoctions. She sips hers numbly. He hums, content, into his own drink.

Anna is not like her friend of old. Anna is unlike she's ever seen. She'd felt bad for that thing...

"Cheers!" Kaa calls to her suddenly. She jerks, looking to him with wide confused eyes. "To you, and your lofty endeavors. May you accomplish them," here he paused to chuckle, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. "Or die trying."