“-the rabbit to the stage.” The lamb spoke before the crowd. The wolf, trying to hold back her tears, grabbed onto the rabbit’s blazer as he was walking away, “Why?” she choked. The rabbit quickly turned to the wolf “I need to go to the stage now.” he replied apathetically. The wolf tightened her grip. “Is he alive?” the rabbit did not respond. “Tell me he’s alive.” The wolf begged. “I have to go now.” The rabbit said forcibly removing her grip from him. The rabbit walked on to the stage and the wolf covered her arm in an ethereal silver aura.

      As if magnetically attracted, the mask flew onto his face. The black porcelain mask in the shape of a spiked star hid his dried tears from the rest of the world. It still wasn’t easy to breath with the punctured lung, but he could endure the pain. He stood up, now alone on the stage. He looked over to the sea of corpses. Their burning bodies filling the room with a horrendous odor. With the mask on, he was filled with a sense of calmness. He looked up to the roof. It had partly crumbled allowing the calm man to peer out. The day star was finally up beckoning a new day on. The sky was littered in many soft white clouds, truly dazzling. His cloud watching was interrupted by the screech of a man from the room to the side of the auditorium.

      “You should put on your mask before entering.” The barkeep told the well-dressed man while pointing to the pink rabbit mask. Similarly, she put on her own mask, it was of a green porcelain turtle. The well-dressed man nodded and put on the rabbit mask. She didn’t know how this man got a hold of the rabbit mask or the briefcase. But she had to find a way to alert the rest. It may be the weakest mask, but one could never take too many precautions.

      The wolf leaped onto the stage throwing a mighty fist at the rabbit, the rabbit calmly placed his briefcase between him and that charging fist and as if it was some immovable mountain the wolf’s fist stopped dead against that briefcase. The crowd let out a shocked gasp to the sudden development but before they had any chance to process what happened the fight was over and the rabbit placed his foot imbued with pink energy on the chest of the collapsed wolf. The bull ran up onto the stage but was halted by a raised arm of the lamb. “It would appear that our VIP is quite excitable today.” The lamb gestured to the bull to step away. “That is understandable. I would be to if I had the honor of giving away such a gift. But surely Mrs. Wolf, this is no cause for jealousy. And Mr. Rabbit, could you please not overreact so much, you’re going to scare our initiate.” The rabbit removed his foot from the injured wolf and turned towards the lamb. “You know, from the fairy tales, I always expected the two of you to be in reversed positions right now.” The lamb chuckled in a feeble attempt to cut the tension. “Why don’t you give me the box.”

      The octopus focused all of his mask’s power into keeping him hidden. The side room next to the auditorium was filled with all six masks currently, and he had no intention of partaking in the imminent fight. He silently slipped past the plump corpse on the ground and through the door into the auditorium. “Who are you and what did you do to the real rabbit?” he could hear from the side room. The octopus would definitely have a lot to report when he returned to his superiors. The octopus stood at the center of the stage and relinquished his camouflage. He stared on to the large crowd before him, most of which were totally unsure of how to react. The octopus was certain that the powers that be would want as few as possible to know of this incident. A faint ethereal yellow mist oozed out of the octopus mask and filled the room. The yellow mist began to seep into every open pore of the asphyxiating crowd, and they all lifelessly tumbled to the floor. The yellow mist surrounding one of the people still struggling for his last gasp of air hardened and merged with his skin giving it a faint yellow hue. The man instantly felt comfortable in the poisoning mist and could breathe normally. The octopus looked over to the other man on the stage. This man was totally unaffected by the yellow mist, he had a hole punctured through his chest, but he was not dead. He was desperately crawling across the stage to get to an item. The octopus easily outpaced the dying man and picked up the object. It was a porcelain mask; the mask had the vague shape of a star with many limbs outstretched in all directions and was riddled with countless small black spikes. The octopus carried the mask over to the dying man and knelt next to him. “There is no Whittler, I am your whittler and I am giving you this mask. You will do well to remember that. It is with my generosity and mercy that you survive this night.” The octopus gingerly placed the mask next to the dying man. “The rabbit isn’t the rabbit anymore. I don’t know who he is now, but who he used to be used to be someone who knew you… if that helps any. And… please be the last person to leave this place. I’m sure a warrior of your skill can understand how to do that.” The octopus got up and walked towards the exit of the auditorium. “There’s some oil lamps and torches in the back, go get them.” The man with the yellow skin ran to the back of the stage.

      A streak of pink energy sliced through the lamb’s left arm, severing the limb and launching it across the stage. The black cloth now knocked away, revealed within the lifeless hand a porcelain mask depicting a strange many limbed black star littered with small black spikes. The man in the dark cowl tried to jump away, but the rabbit’s arm, along with its deadly pink aura pierced his lung as if his arm were an impossibly sharp blade. Pain encroached on every inch of the cowled man’s body as he fell to the floor. He wanted to stand back up, but every ounce of his body shouted at him not to. The whole world was spinning, and voices were distorted to incomprehension. A shade of yellow waved towards where the lamb once was and away again, followed by shades of pink, orange and brown. Were these colors real? It was impossible to tell at this point. He wasn’t even certain of his own consciousness. Perhaps, the solution was just a few inches away: that black porcelain star.

      The wolf’s arm had grown into that of a great monster. It was no longer ethereal; the thick grey fur was tangible, and one could feel power emanating from it. All of the air within the room seemed to be drawn into the arm, being sucked away. She swung her arm towards the rabbit across the room. Despite the fact that he was far out of her reach, he desperately jumped aside, barely dodging out of the way of a great slash that tore the wall behind him. The building exceedingly weakened by the fire could no longer sustain its weight with the new wound. The wall collapsed dragging part of the ceiling down with it. The rabbit propelled himself forward out of the debris and swung his pink clad foot towards the wolf. Again, at the last second a green shell materialized defending the wolf. An orange pressure on his neck, a brown force at his back, a grey blade towards his chest, the rabbit expertly weaved and dashed out of the continuous onslaught of the coordinated group. Each one of them individually were extremely powerful and skilled, their cooperation making them even more so. The rabbit was unsure of how much longer he could push back against them, he had to end this fight quickly. He imbued more energy into his mask and the pink energy around his foot began to climb up his leg. The rabbit could sense a brown force charging straight towards him, just on cue the large ethereal horns of the bull emerged from the fiery smoke. The bull charged towards him while remaining low to the ground, nearly on all fours. The rabbit raised his briefcase between the two. Upon colliding with the briefcase, the bull stopped cold. The rabbit swung his pink infused leg towards the stomach of the bull. The green shell appeared again but was too weak this time, the shell shattered, and the rabbit’s foot comfortably depressed into the bull’s stomach. He could feel the organs squish under the weight of his kick. The muscles shredding under the force, and the cracking of ribs reverberated through his entire body. The explosion of force was so great that his back ruptured spitting blood and spinal fluid onto the rabbit’s mask. The death was instantaneous. “NO!” The fox shouted, tears erupting from the eyelets of his mask. All the fire in the room extinguished as the air rushed towards the wolf’s arm. She pulled her arm back to prepare for a great swing, when suddenly a black aura ensnared it, and the arm immediately dissolved to liquid.

      Right when she was worried that he wouldn’t show up, the rabbit entered through the large auditorium doors. Thankfully it was hidden by her wolf mask, but she couldn’t help but grow a giant grin. He arrived just in time as well, the presentation was just about to begin. “mhm” a man with a lamb’s mask cleared his throats on the stage, a small black cloth obscuring some object being held in his left hand. She couldn’t care less about that. She ran over to the rabbit while waving, she was going to call to him before she saw the turtle behind the rabbit shaking her head no.

      In the doorway stood the short figure of the black star. It glanced towards the turtle and with such hundreds of ethereal black spikes appeared piercing her body. A quick cough of blood was the only thing she could let out before collapsing onto the ground. The wolf was already on the floor trying to scoop up her liquid arm. The air around the fox went cold and viscous. The fox wanted to fight, wanted to avenge his allies, his friends, but his body couldn’t move through the now congealed air. The black star looked towards the rabbit. The rabbit was readied in a fighting stance, but the pink aura was beginning to flicker and dissipate. A loud bell chimed in the room despite their being no bell. A small pink rhombus grew out of the thin air in the center of the room. More things had arrived, and it was not time for the black star to reveal himself to the world; besides, the powers that be told him that the octopus and his orders would not be relevant for much longer. He wasn’t even certain if he could defeat the rabbit and whatever this pink rhombus was at the same time, so instead he just left. Left in the room was the green turtle, convulsing in mortal agony; the grey wolf, grasping at her phantom limb; the orange fox, trying to pull out of his thick encasement. The dead bodies of the brown bull and the white lamb; the pink rabbit staring at the strange being before him; and the pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a feutureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the rabbit holding a glowing parchment: It read.

      You have been invited to

             The Tournament

          You are The Reliquary