Khanivore

**Khanivore** is a creature in LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS, appearing in the first season episode "*Sonnie's Edge*". She is the Beast that Sonnie merges with in pit fights.

## Backstory

Khanivore's exact date of creation is currently unknown, but she was possibly genetically modified with DNA of lizard (reason of her vaguely reptilian appearance), colossal squid (the tail in its four tentacles mode sports two rows of swiveling hook instead of suckers in regular octopuses or squids), spider (the secret of her ability to crawl in spider-like manner with her tentacles), and echidna (hinted by the presence of quill on the back of the skull) to create her. As with other Beasts, hominoid DNA was involved as her base genome, explaining her semi-humanoid appearance. At some point, Wes and Ivrina infused the consciousness of Sonnie into Khanivore's body after the human woman was brutally tortured and left for dead by several estate men.

## History

Khanivore is wheeled into a fighting arena, sleeping in her tank as Sonnie, Wes, and Ivrina bump into Dicko. After a heated argument with the wealthy man, Khanivore is put in an elevator and after the announcer starts to build the crowd's anticipation, Khanivore is released into the arena and merges with Sonnie before getting into a fight with her opponent's monster, Turboraptor. Using her speed and agility as well as her natural abilities against Turboraptor's strength, she tears his left arm off, revealing a retractable blade made out of bone, which he then uses to slice Khanivore's tentacles and stab her in the gut. However, Khanivore uses this to her advantage to kill Turboraptor by driving her sharp nose horn into his neck/chest before tearing his head off, much to the crowd's joy, but Dicko was angered by this, as he wanted Sonnie to throw the match, which she had no intention of doing.

Khanivore appears again when Sonnie and the Mistress start to talk. When the Mistress tries to kiss Sonnie, she accidentally turns on the lights of Khanivore's tank, startling her as the Beast sleeps, presumably healing her wounds.

After Sonnie is 'killed' by Dicko's Mistress, Khanivore wakes up and proceeds to kill the Mistress and presumably devour a helpless Dicko.

## Powers

* **Strength**: As a Beast, Khanivore has amazing strength, as shown in her fight with Turboraptor.
* **Agility**: Khanivore is capable of moving rapidly, even being able to run across a wall.
* **Tail/Tentacles**: Khanivore's tail can split apart into four tentacle-like appendages that can be used to stab her opponents as well as an extensive means of mobility. She can also use her tail to wrap up humans, much like an octopus. Each of the tentacle ends with a blade that can slash and pierce through Turboraptor's dense muscles.
* **Claws**: Khanivore's main weapons of choice when fighting other Beasts.
* **Snout Blades**: Khanivore's upper and lower jaws have protruding bone blade to stab opponent with at point-blank range.
* **Opposable Thumbs**: Thanks to hominoid DNA as her basic genome, she possesses human-like hand complete with a opposable thumb to firmly grab things.

## Differences between Short Story and Love, Death & Robots Short

> "*Khanivore is close on three metres tall, roughly hominoid in that it has two trunklike legs and a barrel torso, albeit encased in a black segmented exoskeleton. After that, things get a little out of kilter. The top of the torso sprouts five armoured tentacles, two of them ending in bone-blade pincers. They were all curled up to fit in the pod like a nest of sleeping boa constrictors. There was a thick twenty-centimetre prehensile neck supporting a nightmare head sculpted from bone that was polished down to a black-chrome gleam. The front was a shark-snout jaw with a double row of teeth, while the main dome was inset with deep creases and craters to protect sensor organs.*"
> ― Khanivore's description in the novel.
>
>

* The short story described Khanivore possessing stocky body with trunk-like legs not too different with Love, Death & Robots' take on Turboraptor, five armored tentacles where two end with bone-blade pincers acting as main arms, and domed, shark-like head with two rows of sharp teeth in addition of deep creases and craters to ensure sensor organs not susceptible to attack, indicating octopus, crab, and shark as her only additional genome.
	+ As of *Sonnie's Union* however, Khanivore received further modification where her updated appearance echoes' her *Love, Death & Robots* version in some degree. Most notably, she now sported digitigrade, tyrannosaurus-like legs.
* In the short story, Sonnie stated that Khanivore's biology was deliberately designed for maximized combat performance thus devoid of internal organs (any vital organ is a potential vulnerability) and usually received pre-oxidized blood which replenished between fights. *Love, Death & Robots* retelling by contrast, indicated her possessing at least a heart which designed so its loss won't significantly hinder her performance unlike other beasts, if Wes' panic regarding her rising heart rate as the fight escalated and later, her ability to survive from getting stabbed in the gut with moderate discomfort (Turboraptor's bone blade dangerously shoved deeper into where a human heart would've been) were any indication.
* Khanivore was designed to be ice-smooth, lacking features for display such as horns and blade fins because of their potential liability in combat (providing something for opponent's beast to grab on in combat). Her *Love, Death & Robots* counterpart by contrast possesses jagged elbow and foot fins as well as snout blades, though it can be argued that they were designed for practical purposes given that Sonnie employed the latter to tear through Turboraptor's throat by surprise.

## Trivia

* Khanivore's name is a pun on "carnivore". Since "khan" is also sometimes a rough translation to "king", the name can also mean "king eater"-- which, given that she devours Dicko, the man in charge of the fighting ring, is also an appropriate description.