Mission:
I sighed and rubbed my temples. A monitor? I hated monitors to the very core of my stone-cold heart: those strange, dilating eyes, the rustling scales, the cruel demeanor, the cannibalism, even the way they spoke. I wasn't going to have many regrets about slaying one of them, but if there was one thing I really hated about monitors, it was the way they fought. Monitors were natural survivors, so they did anything they could to beat their enemies, which meant that they were the dirtiest fighters around. Killing one of them wouldn't be easy, even if he was sane. As it was, he would be even more reckless and dangerous than usual. Still, orders were orders, and now that I was a captain, I had even more of an obligation to my duty.

I drew my saber, and began to put a new edge on the blade. Not many weapons were sharp enough to pierce a monitor's thick hide: mine was going to have to be.

The next day I strode resolutely out of my captain's cabin, bidding my "muckers" and crew a good day. They weren't aware of the mission I had been asigned, and it might very well have been the last time I would ever get to speak to them. I went straight for the ship's armory, knowing I was going to have to give that monitor everything I had and then some. I donned a chain-mail tunic, gloves with metal spikes on the knuckles and steel-toed boots to kick at him with. To my usual weapons I added a battle-axe. It wasn't a very weildy weapon, and I didn't like the weight of it in my paw much, but I knew I would only have to use it one day, for one purpose.

I left the ship and started heading towards the palace. It was a brisk winter's day, and even in the Sampetran tropics it was cold and wet this time of year. The wind, damp and cold, was blowing about, and gray clouds lined the sky from horizon to horizon. I looked up to see the palace of Ublaz towering on the hillside. I glanced to the left of where the palace was, and it seemed like a small communion of corsairs and searats cheering and jeering at somebeast or something. I quickened my pace, knowing quite well just what that somebeast was. When I arrived on the edges of the crowd, I peered in over the heads of the warriors that made up the small crowd. In a ring in the center of them was a big, burly stoat and a monitor. His gray-blue scales were smeared with blood, his own and his opponent's, but unlike the panting stoat he seemed to worse for wear from his injuries. He weilded a massive pikestaff, a formidable weapon of war, and in his eyes there was that mad glint that marked him as insane. The stoat swung his cutlass at the monitor's head, and there was enough power behind the blade to behead the big lizard, but a deft flick of the pikestaff sent the cutlass into the sand behind the lizard. Even as I tried to push and shove my way through the crowd, I knew I couldn't stop what was to happen next. The stoat fell to the ground, his head lying at his footpaws, mouth still open from agonized shock. I snarled, and shoved a rat recklessly into the circle in my attempt to get in there myself. The rat shrieked and dodged back into the crowd on the other side, cursing.

"In the name of the emperor, shut up and listen!" I roared at the top of my lungs. Nobeast paid any attention, they were too busy trying to entice their big burly friends to go after the monitor and making wagers of who could beat the lizard. With a disgusted snarl, I snatched a bow from a short ferret standing next to me. Despite his cries, I pulled back an arrow and fired at the lizard to gain some attention.

I was not expert with a bow, and the arrow only struck the big mangy reptile in his shoulder, but it was enough for silence. His maniac slitted eyes blazed at me as he marked me out as his next target, and he ripped the arrow from his shoulder. Despite the blood that rushed from the wound, he grinned with yellowed teeth and tipped his head back to howl his challenge to the damp, gray sky. Almost before I had drawn my saber, he was coming at me as beasts cleared away from us to form a new circle. He brought the pikestaff down on my head, and as I parried the strike with my saber I felt my paws shake at the force of it. As the top blade of his staff met my saber, he swung the bottom of the weapon at my stomach.It was only the chain-mail tunic that kept me from being gutted on the spot, and as I backed away from the crazy monitor I could feel paws on my back trying to push me back into the fight. I sought an opening in the lizard's defenses, and noticed a cut in his side the stoat had made.

Every movement of the lizard's body brought the loss of more blood, and I knew I had to use that to my advantage. Suddenly, I dropped my saber and pulled the axe strapped to my back into play. It was single bladed, and though it was heavy I knew what I had to do. I flung it at the lizard. He brought the shaft of his pikestaff up to block the slow moving projectile, and the sheer force of the heavy weapon snapped the pikestaff in half. With a snarl, I snatched up my saber and ran up to him, thrusting the blade up at his stomach. He dropped the smaller part of his pikestaff, and batted my saber away with the bigger part. He swung the weapon at my skull like a club, and I ducked under it. I stabbed upwards with my saber, the sharp weapon biting deep into his flesh. He stood there, looking shocked for a moment as he tugged at the saber thrust halfway through his middle. The insanity left his eyes as they clouded over, and he fell to his knees. I pulled the saber from him and turned to march away. As I did, I felt his claws gouge deep into my footpaw, and his yellowed teeth dug into my ankle. I shrieked from shock, and as I fell I stabbed down at his skull once, twice, three times. I lay there for a moment as my fur became soaked with the lizard's blood and my own before I pulled my wounded footpaw away with a grimace. Slowly, a cheer was raised throughout the small crowd, and the ferret whose bow I had stolen helped me up with a grin.

After I bandaged my footpaw, I made my way up the palace to make my report.