Ritz

It was a pirate's life for Ritz. Always had been, always would be-- from a ragged childhood lost in the streets of Port Royal to his later years, sailing free with a dame at every dock.

He was never a very good pirate, mind you; it was rare that he wasn't in some kind of trouble of his own making. From schemes gone wrong to idiot mistakes, more than a few captains had thrown him overboard themselves. Nevertheless, he always survived-- like a cockroach. Always came crawling back, saying it was all part of the plan. Maybe it was.

It was these words that his partner repeated to himself years later, over and over, while Ritz woke up in a deadly arena, dimensions away.

"Share a drink with me, won't you?" Ritz offered his opponent a cocktail spiked with a familiar poison, his grin wide, "A moment of truce before we beat each other to death?"

She'd found him alone in the cave-- a drink for one poured into a second glass as she approached; as she took it from his hand and didn't drink.

The manic grin didn't leave his face as he coughed and heaved the contents of his own glass back up onto the ground, red with wine or with blood--

"Idiot," The demon hissed, dumping her own drink onto the stone, "How you made it this far is beyond me."

His echoed cackling followed her for the rest of the game; for while she might find victory, only one of them would be getting out of there alive.