Chapter 14: Thrash Talk

Ash picked himself from the ground and brushed the dirt from his clothing. He kept his eyes on Micah, whose shadow extended across the battlegrounds in the fading sunlight. By this point, the crowd had formed a complete circle around the two men. In their minds, the day had ended, but the entertainment had just begun.

“Child, they await your first strike! Do you not want to give them a show?” Micah said, his muscles rippling with an involuntary spasm of laughter. He turned to the crowd. “Look at the bravery of the thief. He acts as though his villainy makes him great, worthy of praise, but when confronted by the Hand of Justice, he reveals himself to be a rat, a sniveling creature of insignificance.” Micah raised one of his massive hands into the air, as though his very hand symbolized the justice of the Wasteland.

Ash tried to steady his breathing. Within his chest, his heart beat so strongly and quickly that he feared everyone could sense his fear.

Micah lunged at Ash. Ash threw his hands in front of his face in self-defense. Micah, however, only toyed and played with his competitor. The lunge had been half-hearted, a mere joke. The crowd laughed at the stunt.

“This man pulled tears from my sister’s eyes. I shall make him ripe with agony!”

Micah’s face dropped its joviality. His playful demeanor, his crowd-working persona, vanished. The man readied himself for real combat, for a real exchange of blows.

Ash stepped backward and accidentally stepped on a bystander’s foot. He felt someone push him from behind. Ash stumbled back into the middle of the makeshift circle.

Micah avoided the opportunity for another jest. Instead, he placed his right hand in front of him, his palm toward the sky, and beckoned Ash with his fingers.

Ash took a step forward.

Micah did nothing.

Then another.

Micah did nothing.

Ash, unsure of what to do, tried to frenzy himself. With the biggest battle cry he could muster, he yelled and charged at the massive man. Yet, the attack was short-lived. Micah, unsurprised by the tactic, laid his open palm into Ash’s chest and flung him back to the ground. The man moved to the other end of the combatant circle and turned. He waited only for a moment before seeking to create real pain.

Ash pretended to be more injured than he was. He remained on the floor, nursing fake wounds. He planned to wait until Micah came closer. When the large man bent to grab Ash, Ash clenched a handful of dirt from the ground and threw it into his face. Amid the distraction, the blinding of his assailant, Ash went in for his first punch.

The dust floated into the space in front of him. Micah staggered. He rapidly blinked his eyes, trying to remove the specks of dust from them when he felt a punch to his midsection. The punch sent a shiver of pain throughout the large man’s body. In a retaliatory rage, he swung his arms in front of him, his eyes still gunked with dust.

Ash dodged the flailing arms, using the opportunity to shift behind the great man and kick him in the hollow behind his knee. The large man fell to one of his knees.

The crowd roared with affection. They wanted to see a good fight, and every time the underdog performed, their hearts soared with excitement.

Micah snarled like an enraged dog. He twisted upon the ground and tried to make contact with the young man’s face and body.

[Agility Check Passed]

Ash dodged punch after punch. He felt life roar into his body. The experience within the flesh and blood of Casper took over him. His avatar, after all, had been an experienced fighter or, at least, found himself in a lot of fights.

Ash moved and attacked with his bodily intuition. His feet moved deftly beneath his body, hopping in place, dancing with the finesse of a master boxer.

Micah, however, failed to see the change within his opponent. The large man moved with greater ferocity. Every punch he failed to land only enraged him further, making his subsequent strikes sloppier and sloppier.

Ash let out an involuntary smile as a sense of pride overcame him. He went in for a few body shots. His knuckles made contact with Micah’s soft underbelly, hitting him below the ribs. Micah threw a heavy arm, but Ash ducked, allowing him a few other shots to the ribs.

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Micah staggered back. He needed space from the little man. Then, he started to laugh.

“What a show, ladies and gentlemen! This craven rump of a man has fury in his blood.” He stopped speaking to wipe sweat from his brow. “Yet, the fight has hardly begun.”

Micah squared himself to his opponent. Rather than his previous striking pose, Micah dropped into a wrestler’s front stance. This pose exuded a fearsomeness.

Ash felt the limberness dissolve. He no longer felt as light or as agile as he had moments ago. His feet planted themselves into the ground, unable to continue their sportive jig. In parallel to his opponent, Ash lowered himself into a mirror stance, as though he himself was a wrestler.

With the speed of a bull, Micah launched himself at Ash. His massive hands descended on Ash’s shoulders. Their weight and force brought him lower to the ground.

[Strength Check Failed]

Ash fell to one knee as the weight towered above him. In this weakness, Micah grappled Ash tighter, letting his arms encircle him in a waistlock. Then, with an explosive heave, Micah lifted Ash from the ground, throwing him in an overhead suplex. Ash crashed into the floor. His back ruptured in pain as it hit the rocks upon the ground. He let out a yell of pain and could not hear the applause of the crowd. His ears rang with the wounding.

Before Ash had a chance to rise from the ground, Micah pinned Ash to the ground. He raised an arm into the air and began to strike. His fist crashed down upon Ash’s head.

Ash shouted in pain. His eyesight flickered as though the light of the world blackened, only regaining his sight a second later with a blur of incomprehension. He saw the second strike descending from the sky and shot his forearm in front of his face to block the blow. While his arm smote with the strike, Ash had avoided a greater head injury.

“Stop!” A female voice erupted over the sounds of the crowd.

Micah, posed for his next strike, halted. His right fist remained clenched far above his head, while his left hand loosened its grip upon Ash’s sweater. Amid the distraction, Ash pulled out of the man’s grip and tried to return to his feet. Anonymous crowd members seized Ash by the armpits and helped him to his feet. No doubt, they had placed a few bullets or bullion in his favor.

Micah snapped back to the fight and looked for the little thief who made his sister cry.

“Stop!”

Micah watched as a woman broke from the crowd and stood in the ring. Ash immediately recognized Kiara. She had stepped into the arena with her revolver thrust in one hand and her shotgun hanging beside her in the other.

Micah chuckled to himself with unbelief.

“Interference,” he said. “These are unfair rules, miss. I had told this low-life no weapons. The same applies to you if you wish to join the fray.”

“Not quite,” Kiara said. “Now, step away from the kid.”

“You’re ending the fight?” Micah addressed the crowd rhetorically. “Is this what we want? Some goddess from the sidelines? Shall we end our staged combat due to some miscreant with a gun?”

The crowd, as though possessed by a single spirit, shouted back a resounding ‘No!’

“You heard it yourself, miss. So please, either step aside and rejoin the crowd, or put away your weapons and prepare for a thrashing.”

“I’m not asking,” Kiara said. “You have until the count of three before I put a bullet in you.”

“Shooting? In Invernstead? You would be a fool.”

Kiara lifted her revolver into the air and fired a round. The gunshot echoed through the alley. The burst of noise was enough to disperse every spectator.

“You are a madwoman!” Micah shouted. He ran to his sister, gathered up the items of his stall, and went into his home. The door slammed shut.

“Thanks,” Ash said, wiping his bleeding nose. His right cheek felt tender from the blow to his face.

“And, to think, I don’t exist,” she said. She spat at the ground in front of Ash. Even though she saved his life, she obviously did not forgive him.

“Yeah, about that,” Ash rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry.”

Kiara grunted.

Ash found his dispossessed submachine gun and bolt-action rifle. He picked them up from the ground, slinging the bolt-action across his shoulder and keeping the submachine gun in his hands. He looked around, surprised to see no one. The entire crowd had dissipated into nothingness at the sound of a single gunshot.

“Will you be joining us back at the inn?” Ash said, trying to reconcile with her.

Before Kiara could respond, a group of six soldiers surrounded them. The soldiers wore dark grey military uniforms with a military beret, and their faces were covered with black half-face masks. Only the fierceness of their eyes distinguished them as human.

“Weapons down! Hands up!” one of them shouted.

“Boys, this is a misunderstanding,” Kiara said, smiling.

“Weapons down! Hands up!” one of them called again.

Kiara almost took a step forward when a bullet bit into the ground and launched dust into the air.

“Weapons down! Hands up!”

“Yeesh,” Kiara crouched to the ground and placed her revolver and shotgun on the ground. Ash, seeing her comply, followed.

The moment they straightened in their place, two soldiers swept behind them, seized their arms, and handcuffed them behind their backs.

“What’s the deal!” Kiara yelled. She started to struggle, which annoyed her captor. The soldier struck the hollow behind her knees. Kiara fell to the ground. The soldier dragged her into a kneeling position.

One of the four soldiers in front of them approached.

“You see, every city has rules,” the soldier said, “and you’ve broken the most important one. The question before you is whether or not you cooperate with us. If you do, we can negotiate a way out of the gallows. Otherwise, we’re happy to put a bullet in the back of your head and call it a day.”

“You wouldn’t,” Kiara said forcefully. Ash noticed that her voice lacked its usual defiance.

“Oh, I would,” the soldier in front of them said.

“Take them away.”

Ash felt heavy hands pull him from the ground and push him through the city streets. In a few moments, he would be on death row.