Sophia's eyes widened in shock. They needed a team name? Jax hadn't mentioned that!

She turned to the man who was guiding them, only to find that he looked just as surprised as she felt.

"Aah," Jax stuttered. "Um, can we get back to you on that?"

"Not if you want to get signed up for a fight," the foxkin said with a grin. "You can give me a name and change it later, but that tends to hurt your income for a while, so most teams stick with whatever they came up with first until they add or lose someone. For your team … I'd suggest something with feathers in it. You're going to get called Team Feather anyway, might as well make it part of your actual name."

Sophia flushed as she glanced around the group and realized just how many different feathers her friends had stuck to weapons and armor, not to mention the ones Dav had tied in his hair.

"Fierce feathers? Feathered Fighters? I'm not coming up with anything that sounds great." Dav shook his head.

"We could get fancy and make it something flock," Ci'an proposed. "Birds of a feather and all that. Flock of Steel maybe?"

They had that saying here, too?

"That's not any better," Xin'ri objected. "And anyway, it should say something about all of us, not just one of us."

Ci'an took a breath. "You mean like the Constellations?"

It took Sophia a moment to place the name, even though Ci'an had talked about the team a number of times. The Constellations were the team of the Shield of the Sun, the team Registry Master Jessamine of Casterville retired from.

"This is where they made their name," the foxkin agreed. "Stories of the Arena travel; people pay attention to the strongest groups."

Ci'an frowned. "I never heard anything about them fighting in an arena."

The foxkin shook his head. "No, you heard about what they killed and who they saved. Well, they did a lot after they left Mazehold, but many of the things you've heard they killed were killed here, in front of thousands. That's why we know they killed it."

"How do you do that?" Sophia tilted her head to the side. She'd somehow expected that they'd be fighting other people, but now that she thought about it, that wasn't true in Earth's history; while many gladiatorial fights were between humans, there were also many tales of fights against animals. It seemed even more likely that you would fight monsters in an Arena located right outside a place that released them into the world, but she wasn't sure how it would work. "Do you have people capture the monsters or something?"

"Sometimes," the foxkin agreed. "That's how it usually works for second upgrade monsters, the ones you are likely to face. We also have Summoners, plus some of who can attract a monster or even temporarily control it. You'll start off against those; there are other methods, but they're not necessary for second upgrade opponents. You are not allowed to fight up an upgrade at this time."

Did that mean they would eventually be allowed? Sophia wasn't sure she wanted to. Fighting in an arena wasn't what she wanted out of life, so did she care if she wasn't allowed to take on tougher challenges?

She did care, but she wasn't sure why.

"That's fine," Jax agreed. "But we still need a name, don't we?"

Sophia tried to think of something they had in common other than the feathers. Nothing came to mind, so she went through everyone's overall abilities.

Dav was a summoner who called on eldritch powers to enhance his fighting. For the purposes of the arena, that basically made him a flashy swordsman.

Taika was an illusionist and protective mentalist with some minor solid illusions he could use as barriers; they'd probably limit him to the illusions, if they let him fight at all. It might be better if they didn't.

Ci'an was a Nightowl. She specialized in gaze attacks that could debilitate opponents, but she also had a few straightforward attacks as well. She just never used them. She sort of played into "feathers" the same way Sophia did.

Xin'ri was an item specialist, but her role in the party was basically backline mage. She had different staves she used for almost everything. In some ways, that made her the most conventional of all of them, even if the way she got there was weird. Her theme wasn't really obvious to outsiders.

Jax, or rather his Mask Jaycen Deepmist, was an items specialist attuned to light. Visually, that meant he was another swordsman, though he used a sword and shield made of light and could use them to create effects that looked flashy.

Sophia snorted. Well, that was one thing they all had in common. Her feathers weren't exactly dim, either. Even Ci'an, who was as close as they got to a stealth specialist, had some pretty spectacular visual effects on her stronger Abilities. "We could call ourselves the Flashy Feathers. Most of us are pretty bright."

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No one seemed to like that any better than Sophia did.

"How about Foreign Feathers? We're all from different places," Dav offered.

"Boring," was Ci'an's verdict. "We need something with punch, like the Constellations, but something that still speaks about us. Something we can each build a name around, like the Shield of the Sun. I kinda like being flashy, but not by that name. We could go with colors and the aurora?"

Sophia shook her head. That was a bit too on the nose when Ci'an was a member of the Aurora clan and hiding it. For that matter, Sophia had to remind herself yet again that Ci'an was going by Amy again. "Not aurora. Starlight, maybe?"

She didn't really like that one, but it was better than something that gave Amy away. She'd really prefer something that was more active, too.

"Wait, are there meteors here?" Sophia hadn't seen any, but she also hadn't spent that much time watching the night sky. Most of the time when she watched the sky, it was obscured by an aurora; the entire time in the Wildlands, she saw lights in the sky that weren't falling bits of rock and ice.

"Falling stars?" Jax grinned. "I like that, but it should be flying stars. That gets us back to the feather or bird theme and still lets Amy pay homage to her favorite team."

"Hey…" Ci'an flushed and looked away from Jax, proving his point.

Jax winked at Ci'an. "I said I liked it."

"So do I," Xin'ri spoke up. "I don't think I've heard of a team with a name like that, so everyone will know who we are. It also isn't as bad as some I've heard."

"Four Knights and a Mage?" the foxkin suggested. "That's one of the team names right now. It's, ah, memorable, but I wouldn't call it a good team name."

The standards for team names were really low, weren't they?

"I'm good with it," Sophia agreed. She didn't think this world had the same connotations of celebrity, which made it a little less embarrassing to call herself a star.

"It's a decent name, and we're all capable of at least floating, so that works." Dav didn't sound like he loved it but he definitely did sound like he was past caring enough to keep looking for a better option. "We're supposed to pick individual titles, aren't we?" Dav turned towards the foxkin.

"It's not required for a full team match, but you should still pick them as soon as you can. Individual names help grab the audience's attention, and that means more aurichalc for your matches. If you don't pick one soon enough, you might get one assigned to you and those are generally less preferred." The foxkin placed emphasis on the last two words.

Sophia suppressed a snort. She was certain he was thinking that the Arena made more money, but as long as some of it went to her team, it was worth picking names. She'd rather pick one than have it assigned, too; she was sure she'd end up with something like feather girl and she didn't want that. "So, we need something that goes with meteors .. I mean Flying Stars. I don't think I know enough constellations to pick those out."

"We should do birds," Xin'ri stated calmly. "Well, things that fly. Myths would be best; they have the majesty I like to hear about. You can be the Coatl, the Feathered Serpent who brings blessings. That makes Amy the Strix, the Owl of Doom."

Sophia started to object that she wasn't a serpent, but the words didn't come. She wanted to make it clear that she was a feathered dragon, but at the same time the whole point of the Arena titles was to get attention. A myth that people recognized would be better at that than one that they didn't, even if it was more accurate. It meant that she should probably always fight in her feathered domain form, but that was probably for the best anyway. She usually did; it was safer as long as the monsters weren't spreading fire everywhere or numerous but extremely weak.

Ci'an didn't look any happier than Sophia felt.

It took them a while to come up with names that sort of matched what they did. Xin'ri's suggestions stuck for Sophia and Ci'an, but they went through several different options for everyone else. Eventually, they settled on other mythical birds.

Jax would be known as Bennu, the Sun-Heron, also known as "the one who brings the dawn," for his connection to light. Sophia didn't know that particular myth from Earth, so she didn't know if it was shared or not.

She did know the myth of the Simurgh, the benevolent bird; in fact, she was the one who suggested it. The mythical Simurgh was a chimera, which fit Dav in a way, and it also brought health which fit their healer. It wasn't the only "healing" bird out there, but it was the one that Sophia had the strongest feelings about, because she knew someone else named after the mythical bird back home.

The mythical Simurgh was also strong and could kill, though the fact that it was opposed to snakes made her own title of "coatl" a worse fit. Dav eventually accepted it with a mutter about star-crossed lovers being a good story.

Sophia didn't like the idea of being a star-crossed lover. Romeo and Juliet stories were not her idea of a good romance. Fortunately, they weren't actually at odds; that might be something they'd play up later, but it certainly wasn't reality.

Xin'ri was the hardest. There were a lot of mythical birds that had some sort of magic, but none of them seemed to fit Xin'ri well. She was no healer and she didn't limit herself to a single element. They eventually started throwing around the names of mythical witches and other powerful mage-gods. Hecate was the first one that came to mind for Sophia, but she failed for both not being associated with birds and for Xin'ri's dislike of curses. They had a brief detour into crafting gods, but Xin'ri thought that was too revealing and they went back to magic.

Several others were suggested, but Xin'ri didn't like any of them until Dav came up with Isis at almost the same time as Sophia came up with the Morrigan. Neither was perfect, but they both had a wide enough range of magic that Xin'ri was willing to consider them. Isis had wings all the time, but she was associated with healing and resurrection as well as storms and calamities.

The Morrigan could turn into a bird, which Xin'ri rather liked; after all, she didn't fly unless she needed to. It also kept the bird theme going a little more than Isis. Despite the Morrigan's primary attributes being about war rather than magic, the Morrigan was still a powerful mage in some of the myths, and her magic was never that of healing. Sophia thought that was what made Xin'ri's choice more than anything else.

They would be the Flying Stars: Coatl the Feathered Serpent, Strix the Owl of Doom, Bennu the Dawn-Herald, Simurgh the Wise Guardian, and the Morrigan the War-Crow. None of them mentioned Taika, and that was probably for the best.

While they debated, the foxkin watched, openly amused. It was probably the best entertainment he'd have for quite a while, because no one else came in during that time. It was no wonder he was willing to take a nap.

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