For David Lebowski, things were looking up. He was out of jail, he'd managed to get most of the money he was supposed to in his contract, and he was back on top of the world; on the way to a superbowl if he played the way he had been so far. Bitches, money, and fun. And this time, he wasn't going to lose it all because some asshole peeked through the wrong window at the wrong time and spotted a body. Oh, fuck no. He was safe, secure, middle of nowhere. Guards at the gate, guards around the house, and this time none of the damn hobos was gonna get to see his face, or even where the hell they were.

He had the warehouse setup, nice and neat. A fighting arena in the middle, well-lit, cameras all around; and he and his friends got to watch from behind a two-way mirror; up close and personal, but without any of them possibly seeing that Lebowski was back in on it. A couple of armed guards to feed the hobos in, one by one, from each side, and a nurse to drag them out and, well. Honestly she probably wasn't gonna save any of them, but he didn't care. His lawyer had advised him that in the unlikely event he was caught, having a medical professional on-hand would help him fight the next batch of charges... as if there were going to be any.

This was the second time he'd run this gig since he got out; the first time, selling the video online had made the company that was of course not based in the US and had nothing to do with him tons of cash. And by pulling them from a different city, none of this new batch would be aware that better than nine in ten of the last one had never made it 'home'... Hah. Alive.

He walked up to his head of security, Hamilton, and slapped him on the shoulder. "You did great last time, Ham. What did we get now?"

"Got thirty contestants for you, boss. No trash this time; all homeless, of course, so none of em are in perfect health, but I got some vets, some former athletes and fighters. All of em know a bit about how to fight, so we shouldn't see any of the kind of crap we had first-round last time."

"You put the cards up?"

"Yup!" He nods at the wall. The guards who'd picked up the volunteers had taken a snapshot of each man at time of pickup; written down whatever the man had said about himself; and then Hamilton had printed it all out and laid them out on a wall in the viewing area; and even drawn a series of lines on the wall to show who would fight who.

David laughed. "Perfect! Alright, gentlemen!" He turned to his friends; a couple of fellow players from his team, wealthy local businessmen, some not-so-local businessmen. A group of about twenty-five men that were collectively worth billions. "We've got our line-up for tonight. Our first fight is gonna start in just a few minutes. You know how it goes. First one to yield or get knocked out is out. No rules, and there's weapons in the arena. Everybody who wins the first round gets ten grand. Second round, fifty grand. Third round, a hundred grand. Fourth round, two-fifty. And our main winner gets a million. Granted... last time we only had two survivors, and the winner wasn't one of em, so how much we actually pay out remains to be seen."

Suddenly... a loud buzzing sound. The lights flickered... and with a series of pops, mostly went out. The monitors were dead, the emergency strips he'd had put in the roof suddenly came on, glowing red... "Well, fuck. Power outage? Alright, we can get the generator going and..." He frowned. His phone was dead too? What the...

Gunshots. Screams. David turned around the room, suddenly afraid. What the hell was going on? Hamilton gripped him by the shoulder. "Come on, boss. Lets get out of here." The tall, thin security guard started leading Lebowski towards the exit door; when suddenly a massive 'crunch' sound. The squealing of metal; and the biggest sword he'd ever seen slammed in through the wall a few feet away; only for a massive chunk of wall to be ripped out. He got a brief view of a giant monster of a man, a figure in black armor with a sword that must have been seven feet long... and then the figure had stepped to the side. Gunshots. Hamilton suddenly fell away, dropping at David's feet... and David turned, screaming... but there was nowhere to go. Just that glass wall over the now red-lit arena... and the two glowing red dots of eyes entering the room, a single handgun pointed forward. All of the security men in the room... were down.

"Strip down. Take everything off but your boxers and put it in a pile, right there. Anybody who takes too much time gets shot. If you're not wearing boxers, don't care, you can go naked. Butcher, you go arrange the cameras. I'll explain how things are gonna go to our friends here."

***

It was exhillerating. With all the doors sealed, the guards couldn't get in; and Jason could clean up all of them with quick, precision shots as they struggled to break down the doors. Most of them hadn't even seen him before he took them out; none of them managed to return fire. Once they figured out where the 'viewing area' was, Butcher had cut his way in... and all that was left was the guards inside, the rich assholes, and the victims of this scheme downstairs in cells.

He looked out over the scared... some of them had pissed themselves... assholes in the room. "So, here's how things are going to go. I like your whole idea. Two men enter the arena, one man walks out. It sounds like fun. We just need to take it up a step. I'm Eyeball. The news has been calling me 'Titanslayer', but I think we should stick with Eyeball. All of you dipshits have money, so we can skip the cash prizes. My friend Butcher is gonna give some of the cash to those guys you picked up for thier troubles, and I'll be keeping the rest. No... you'll be getting something much more valuable if you win."

His chuckle sounded far more harsh when it was digitized. "Your lives. Leave your shit here, and lead the way. You're heading down to the cells you kept your 'prize fighters' in for the night.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

One of the men; tall, fit, tanned, in almost perfect health; decided to play hero, and after pretending to head to the stairs... charged Jason head-on. Jason, of course, saw it coming; and used a single Burster grenade.

The remaining men were sprayed with bits of blood, bone, and hair as the object impacted his chest, cracking his rips... and after a moment as the armor-piercing tip sought the warm flesh of its target... detonated. Some of the men screamed. Lebowski apparently pissed himself. But none of the rest stepped closer as he waved them down the stairs.

At the bottom, there were the cells; two guards, one of them literally cut in half, the other on his knees, hands raised... and the homeless men were seeming to calm down as they talked to Butcher. The nurse was cowering in a corner, trying to avoid looking at anyone; and judging by the scrapes and markings, someone had been trying to force the door open through the foam.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jason smiled. "Alright, gentlemen! Here's how its going to work. You idiots decided to throw some weapons in there. I think I see... an aluminum baseball bat.. a machete... some knives.. well. Me and Butcher over there? We're gonna send you in, two at a time. One of you is gonna walk out... the other is gonna be left bleeding on the floor. Once all of you have either won or lost? If you put on a good show, we'll let you go. If not... we'll hold a round two."

Butcher stepped up to the group of half-naked businessmen; his expression invisible behind his helmet, but the black armor; and the blood-dripping blade; were menacing enough to convey the idea.

One man dropped to his knees immediately. "Please! My name is Jimmy Russo! You dealt with my brother in vegas! I promise you, you kill me, he'll make you regret it." He was old, balding, and smaller than Nicky... but had a passing resemblance. "Hmm. You can sit this one out... but I'll be making a phone call on the way out of here, and taking you with me. If you're lying, you'll never get the chance to say anything again."

Jimmy; if that was his real name; stepped aside, leaning back against the wall. "So, Lebowski. This was your idea, right? You go first. Annd... you." He picked one of the other businessmen at random. "You're his opponent. We got cameras out there to catch the action. So make it look good."

The man he'd pointed at looked down at Jimmy, then at Jason. "Look. Eyeball. I've got over a hundred million dollars. I can make you rich. I can.." The gun that he'd cleaned off the 'hero' upstairs with started to raise level with his chest. "..." He backed away... and then turned, running through the door into the arena, sprinting for the machete.

"Hah! Good start, there. Might want to catch up, Lebowski!"

The quarterback started.. he was the biggest, healthiest man among the figures there.. aside from Butcher.. and when he realized the other man was grabbing a weapon... he ran in after him... and instead of going for a weapon, he sprinted in... and slammed into his back, knocking him to the floor just a few feet short of the blade.

Lebowski grabbed the machete, standing over him... raised the machete... and slammed it down on the man's shoulder. With a loud, meaty thunk it was buried in the flesh, the man screaming, blood spraying.. and Lebowski grinned. "So... thats it, right? I beat him, I can go?"

Jason tilted his head. Well. He was a football player. Probably not fair to expect your fat old businessmen to keep up with him. "You know what. That wasn't really a fair fight. You know what you need to make it fair? A handicap." He switched to the tenner, and fired a single shot; the bullet going right through the machete handle, and Lebowski's hand, sending the blade flying... and costing him at least a couple of fingers, leaving his hand a ruined mass.

"Alright, gentlemen. I'll let the first one to enter the arena be Lebowski's second challenger. Should be more fair, now that he's down a hand."

Lebowski had dropped to his knees, groaning in pain.. and one of the other businessmen had sprinted in, charging away from Lebowski to grab a baseball bat.

Even so, Lebowski didn't go down quietly; he managed to deliver a few powerful, left-handed punches that may have broken ribs before a blow to the side of the head sent him down... but when the man started to swing again, at the already downed player, Jason called out. "Thats enough. I gave him a handicap, so I suppose its not quite fair to kill him. You're good. Leave the bat."

As he cycled the men into the arena one by one; most of them going for the machete and fighting over it; sometimes they would grab different weapons each and almost have a duel; though it always ended in a brutal fashion; the nurse, scrubs quickly dripping with blood, did her best to keep the men alive. She'd been paid for this... and knew what was coming. Honestly, she'd prefer these men to be hurt rather than the ones she'd started off planning to treat.

As Jason kept watch; and occaisionally gave orders; Butcher checked through the lockbox of cash the men had kept, planning to give to the survivors; about two million in hundreds. Butcher wasn't sure why the men would actually pay the winners; it would probably have been better to just, well. Lie to them and dispose of them. But having a few winners out there bragging about it would probably make it easier to recruit next time.

This lockbox was worth much more than the bounty on Lebowski; but Butcher went along with the plan; giving each of the men who'd been dragged out here one of the envelopes marked '10,000$'. Granted, they couldn't leave til the show was over.

When the last of the 'Observers' had been put through the arena, Jason smiled. "Alright, boys. These guys drove some nice, fancy cars to get here. I wouldn't recommend keeping them... but if you go up in that observation room they were gonna watch the fights on... you can grab some keys, and get the hell out. And for you..."

He turned to the survivors. Some were just bruised. Some badly injured or maimed. Sometime during the fighting, Lebowski had woken back up, and was curled up in the corner in the fetal position. "You guys have fun cleaning this up. I'm sure you can come up with a plausible reason for all these corpses, especially the ones you killed yourselves. I'm probably gonna go ahead and sell the video... or maybe just send it up for free. Fun like that deserves to be shared."

Butcher took hold of the lockbox, heading out the hole he'd cut in the wall; most of the men who'd been hauled in were already gone, the keys on the floor missing, engines starting in the distance. Jason glanced back. "Except for you, Jimmy. Come along. We're gonna have a chat with your brother, and see how he feels about this nonsense."

The man looked at his friends; broken, battered, dead... and at the murderer who'd blown a man in half just minutes before..."Can... Can I get my clothes?"

Jason glared at him for a moment. Regretting once again that he couldn't properly convey anger through this helmet and the voice digitizer. "...Fine. But I would hurry, if I were you."

He turned to the broken hole in the wall. So. Had he just made an enemy of Nicky, after this? Would Valkyrie keep him alive, if so? He just wanted to absolutely ruin the day of a few rich assholes, and have fun doing it. Why did it always have to be so damned complicated.