Tonight in the arena, two longtime friends shall be fiting to see which one is stronger. Initially united in their tendency to vote on the losing Zoofighter, the two formed a bond and became close pals. Tonight, in our arena, they shall fite to the death to see which of them is stronger. Will it be the 8 foot tall mantis Widow Maker, who is able to wield a knife despite her anatomy? Or will it be the Red Spy, who has fought in so many battles that he's learned to expect anything?
Tonight we shall answer that question! Widow Maker and RedSpy, it's time to Fite Yer' Mate!
Realizing he couldn't get behind Widow Maker unseen because of her huge compound eyes, the spy enables his cloaking. The spy's watch turns him completely invisible, and Widow Maker quickly takes to the skies so she isn't stabbed in the back. Widow Maker hovers, waiting for the Spy's cloaking to falter or fade from overuse. The Spy decloaks outside of the mantis's view, and assesses the situation. His opponent is too high for him to hurt, so he'd have to hurl his knife.
So that is what he did. The Spy's knife sails through the air. A split second before the knife hits Widow Maker, she is able to see it. She begins to dodge, but that does not prevent the knife from making contact with her body. The knife, aimed at the back of the mantis's head, now tore through a wing instead, messing up the insect's ability to fly. Widow Maker managed to land herself despite the crippled wing and removes the knife from it with her free foreleg. Now wielding both her own knife and the Red Spy's knife, Widow Maker charged toward the spy, swinging the knives in a flashy display.
The spy is able to dodge in time to prevent himself from being skewered by the two knives, but one knife manages to slash a huge gash into his left arm. Grasping at the injury to suppress the bleeding, the Red Spy once more engages his cloaking. Widow Maker sweeps forward with her two long raptorial legs, but hits nothing. The Spy had already moved elsewhere.
Widow Maker begins surveying the arena in hopes of finding some clue to her balaclava-wearing foe's whereabouts, when she finds precisely just that. The Spy's bleeding arm leaves a dotted red path along the arena floor, and Widow Maker's eyes follow it to its destination...
When Widow Maker finds the end of the trail she finds herself facing Gezora. TWO Gezoras. It appears the Red Spy has disguised himself as the referee!
"Oh great, are we really going to do the whole, 'Which one is the real one' thing?" asks Widow Maker, frustrated to see a cliche in the middle of the battle.
Gezora and the other Gezora both look at each other in surprise and begin squabbling.
"I'm the real Gezora!"
"No, I'm the real Gezora!"
"I'm Gezora!"
"I'm Gezora!"
"I'm Tom Lincoln!"
"No, I'm Tom Lincoln!"
"Wait, what?" Both Gezoras look at each other in confusion after their argument veered into allusion territory. But this little back and forth gave Widow Maker the information she needed.
The genre savvy mantis noticed that Gezora was using personal pronouns, something it almost never did, but the unique circumstances warranted that both the real Gezora and its imposter would have to resort to using them. The damning evidence was the allusion to "The Island". Gezora didn't seem to be like the type to pay enough attention to a Michael Bay film's dialogue to quote it, while the Red Spy would definitely be someone who would pay attention to every detail of something. She knew which one was the imposter.
With a quick flick of whatever a praying mantis's wrist equivalent would be called, Widow Maker hurled The Big Earner knife towards the Gezora who strayed into referencing a movie from 2005. The knife dug into face of the cuttlefish referee, but something was wrong... That wasn't the Red Spy. Gezora had been around since earlier Zoofights that had taken place in the future, so the real cuttlefish ref had ample time to see The Island. Red Spy, however, had never even heard of the film!
"Gezora thought... the allusion... would make the exchange more comical..." The real Gezora fell to the ground, the knife having down quite a number on it. Red Spy turns back to normal and tries to pull his knife out of the fainted referee. While he wrestles it out of the referee's cuttlebone, Widow Maker cloaks herself. When the Spy frees his knife, he turns around, ready to resume the battle!
Of course, all he sees is an empty arena. He quickly tries to use his own cloaking watch so that they both could hide behind the veil of invisibility, but Widow Maker quickly reappears right in front of him, kicking him back with her middle legs while stabbing forward with Your Eternal Reward.
A woozy referee pulls itself into a sitting position so it can resume watching the fite. Gezora looks up just in time to see both competitors lash out with their free arms during their fencing bout. RedSpy manages to snap the forearm that his opponent held her knife in, but Widow Maker also manages to inflict a nasty wound on the Spy's dominant hand with her free raptorial arm. Both fiters drop their knives from their respective wounds, but they quickly recover them with their uninjured arms.
Now both competitors faced each other with their dominant arms crippled. Who can adapt better to this situation?
It seems the unexplainable knife-wielding dexterity of Widow Maker's primary hand is not carried over to her southpaw. The mantis's forearm clutched Your Eternal Reward oddly, and her performance suffered for it. The Red Spy seemed to have no issue switching his knife-wielding hand, and besides a slightly weaker lunge, he seemed unperturbed.
The female mantis struggled to keep up with her human foe, the battle turning more and more one-sided by the second. The Big Earner tore bits off of her exoskeleton effortlessly, and her return attacks never even made contact. Things were seeming hopeless for the eight foot tall mantis, but then the insect realized something and felt the sudden need to faceclaw. She's an eight foot tall mantis! A dinky knife isn't her only way to attack!
Widow Maker tackles the Red Spy, pushing down on him with four of her six legs. With the speed of a sudden realization, the mantis's southclaw firmly grips the knife and slams it down towards the spy's face. Red Spy is barely able to wiggle out of the way of a fatal facelift, but the knife manages to catch on a bit of his balaclava.
"This is interesting, we've never seen your face before... But I know better than to fall for that. Anytime someone removes a mask or uncovers a hidden face in Fite Yer' Mates, it ends badly for them." Widow Maker shakes the knife loose, but the Spy's legs begin kicking at her abdomen, surprising her. The RED team member uses the moment to grab Widow Maker's legs and pull them out from under her. Widow Maker falls, and her face slams into the Red Spy's face.
The mantis's mandibles painfully dig into the Spy's chin, but the mantis's huge exposed eyes get injured from being slammed right into the very solid face of the Red Spy. Widow Maker tries to pull back in pain, but her mandibles are tangled in the balaclava now. The two stand back up, locked in what looked like a passionate french kiss. The french spy found it rather amusing to be in such a situation, but he also found his feet dangling above the ground. The height difference meant this situation allowed Widow Maker to hoist him into the air with her mouth alone.
Widow Maker began desperately trying to stab her foe with her knife, but he wiggled about on her mandibles enough to avoid the blade. The close proximity also aided the spy, since now he could easily jab forward with the knife and make contact. Widow Maker quickly realizes she'd be a lot better off without a trained assassin dangling from her face and quickly begins to shake him off.
The Spy is thrown off of the bug's mouth, but his balaclava is now tattered. Luckily, he has a spare with him, and he quickly places it on his head without removing the torn one. But while he reaches into his still invisible suit to get the replacement balaclava, he also grabs two other things. One he fastens to his invisible torso, making whatever that object was invisible as well. The other object is a paper mask with Widow Maker's face. A small smoke cloud appears around him as the RedSpy disguises himself as Widow Maker.
What purpose could this serve? Is he trying to hide his weakspots by assuming an unconventional form? Is he trying to psyche Widow Maker out by making it look like she would be fiting herself? Whatever the reason, the two Widow Makers begin circling each other, each gripping their knives in the same manner.
One of the Widow Makers quickly lunges forward, and the other is barely able to hop over the blow. The dodging mantis darts forward, causing her (or his!) opponent to backpeddle away. The two Widow Makers briefly collide, and the flickering disguise of the Spy is momentarily disrupted, but by the time they are out of the tumble, its impossible to make out which one is which!
One of the Widow Makers again lashes out, but the opponent smacks the knife out of its hand. The knife goes flying up into the air as the armed one tries to quickly sneak behind the other's back. The unarmed one quickly retaliates by diving out of the way of an almost successful backstab. A single backstab with either of these knives would spell instant doom for the victim!
The unarmed Widow Maker quickly scurries around, trying to position itself in a good spot between where it thinks the knife will land and where its opponent currently is. The armed Widow Maker lunges forward, abandoning sneak attacks in favor of just stabbing its opponent's face. The unarmed Widow Maker starts to flee, trying to avoid the sharp blade of its opponent's dagger. Up in the air, the other knife has finished its parabolic and rather lengthy arc and is returning back to Earth thanks to the helping hand of our good friend gravity.
Unfortunately for its owner, the knife did not land quite as expected... Being forced to take the defensive, the unarmed Widow Maker was forced to go directly into the path of the falling knife!
"Please tell me we won't do some unnecessary cliffhanger here," quips the Widow Maker who doesn't have a knife in its head.
The Widow Maker that does have a knife in the head... begins to flicker.
It appeared to be some sort of book with a face chewing on a bomb on the cover...
Wait.
It's the Bombinomicon.
The RedSpy's death activated the book's bomb. The spy blows apart into an array of gibs, but Widow Maker was much too close to her fallen foe for her own good. The explosion hits Widow Maker as well, and her exoskeleton is torn apart by the blast. The mantis falls to the ground.
Is she...?
Widow Maker stands back up weakly. Her entire front was badly burned and parts of her sides were as well, but the mantis survived the final attack of the spy. She manages to weakly speak.
"Let's get someone to heal me... and someone to revive what's left of the Spy..."
Gezora is quick to interrupt this request though.
"Why should we? RedSpy thought he could be Gezora, so Gezora shall just be RedSpy from now on!"
Widow Maker looks weakly towards the referee. "I don't think he's in the state to answer you... and I'm surprised you went for this with your post-fite silliness. You must be pretty hurt about the whole 'mistaken identity' part of this fite."
"Gezora is hurt both physically and mentally from it!"
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