CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
The Bear greeted me to the massive concrete ring with a slow clap of her bandaged hands. She was tall for a meguca, sculpted arms, scars hidden under tattoos, looking like a brick-house that’d made it through a war and then assaulted by graffiti. But I focused on her face, on the broken nose and squarish jawline, and the way her eyes stared me down despite being half my current height.
“I saw your fight.” Bear smirked, the stare remaining cold and hard.
The floodlights around me made it impossible to see beyond the outline of the ring. The roar of idle engines revved from every direction. I’d seen this situation, there were a billion clips online. The Bear liked to set a scene, and it played to the song of brutality. It would've been exciting to be present for a live show if I weren't the designated victim.
“You’re one smart motherfucker.” Though she was talking at me, she clearly didn't intend the words for me. They were for her audience, for the benefit of those watching through a stream downloaded directly into their neuralink.
Slowly she began to trail the perimeter of the ring, I mirrored her, keeping my distance.
AP 00000000 / 150 Speed 160 Strength 183 Durability 85
The system’s prompt rattled in warning, it knew I was in over my head. The sense of power and confidence oozing out of Bear was like staring at an artillery cannon from the wrong end. I'd be drenched in sweat if not because I was currently covered in fur. My eyes kept darting around, trying to peer through the blinding floodlights and into any possible venue of escape.
“Not going to attack me?” She taunted, raising her fists.
No, I didn't. She was a meguca, one that could, and would, flatten me. I wanted to run.
But I knew what would happen if I tried. There were no end of examples of what happened to monsters that tried to go after the “audience” rather than Bear herself. I shuddered at the thought, but I wouldn't let myself be killed. So I raised my claws in a faux boxing stance and prepared myself. Bear twitched as she looked at me, brow furrowing ever so minutely. Her stance shifted, guard tightening and head tucked in as she shifted, turning to head towards me directly.
Rather than engage, I bolted to the side, sticking to the boundaries of the "ring". I could've gone faster, but not within the set boundaries, especially if I wanted to have a card up my sleeve. Still, there was nowhere to run, and Bear quickly broke into a sprint straight at me. As soon as she got within a dozen meters or so, she threw a swing at the empty air in front of her.
Fully aware of what was about to happen, I raised my arm, bracing. I'd moved not a moment too soon, a giant ball of chains materialized into thin air at my flank and slammed against me like a wrecking ball. I would've been sent flying if I hadn't dug my clawed feet into the ground. Even then I stumbled, nearly falling down as she moved in closer, punching the air in front of her. The ball of chains materialized a split second after, barreling at me in odd angles and smacking me before vanishing into thin air right after.
Trying to dodge was borderline useless with how large the attacks were, my only option was to raise my guard and clench. The improved reaction time came in clutch, allowing me to better roll with the punches, but even then, every blow was like getting hit by speeding bus. The force behind every attack was an order of magnitude beyond of anything I could ever hope to achieve, raw undeniable strength that would've easily broken bones were my durability any lower.
I was sure I could hold out, but not indefinitely. It was a pummeling I couldn't escape, and every blow made my legs feel weaker. As much as I could react to the barrage, I was desperately looking for an opportunity. My opening came almost a full minute in when she threw a punch a bit too high, just enough for me to duck under it and dodge it entirely. Bear had over-extended, leaving her flank wide open.
But I didn't take the bait, using the opportunity to put some space between us.
Her glare intensified, scrutinizing me as a child might a puzzle before smashing it into pieces. “What are you trying to do? Escape?” she said.
Her words held that same cadence I used when talking to myself. Of course. She thought me no more capable of understanding what she meant than any other monster. It was easy to imagine she had someone in her ear right now, giving her guidance about the stream and the audience. Bear’s hands took a dim red glow, four chains emerging, two leading into the metal-like spheres, the others to wicked looking harpoons. She was no longer trying to hide her powers, the moment I turned to run, she’d get a clean shot with those harpoons and nail me to the ground.
“You’re not going to make it very far.” Bear raised her fists again. “Better die fighting.”
I raised my claws, mimicking her stance.
"Stop doing that." Bear’s brow twitched, lips curled in displeasure. “You’re not human.”
I flinched at her words, and that was all the opening she needed. The meguca launched her assault faster and more aggressively than before. Her shadow-boxing started with just sending the chain-balls my way, but as I raised my defenses, she threw a right straight, the harpoon thrusting at my heart. The only option was to dodge to the right, but it left me open for the uppercut. Even as I saw the attack coming, my body just couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way. The chain-ball smashed directly into my chest, my feet lifting off the ground, ribs cracking, and as the ball vanished, I dropped, collapsing down to my knees, hacking for breath.
Bear followed it by cupping her hands together in a downward attack. A massive metal ball slammed against my back.
"Fight already!" She demanded, glaring, clenched fists, watching me as I struggled up to my feet. "You are not going to fool me. Stop pretending like you're afraid, you're not human."
A wave of red hot anger coursed through me, even with wobbly legs, I straightened up, glaring. With a snarl, I raised my arms into the exact same boxing stance she was using, curling each clawed finger into a fist. Bone cracked as I coerced my joints into a proper fist, ignoring the sting of sharpened nails against my palms. Slowly, struggling to breathe, I placed a leg slightly back, bent, and fully copying her stance.
The meguca's jaw squared up, but she didn't say a thing, throwing a simple right hook.
I'd been hit enough to know what was coming, I threw my whole body behind my own punch, slamming against the metal ball.
There was a deafening metal bang where our attacks met, chain-sphere coming to a dead stop.
‘Concussive Touch’ Every blow hits with twice the force.
It'd taken everything I had, and a skill that multiplied the force of my attack, just to bring a lazy punch to a dead stop. I grimaced even as Bear's eyes widened in shock.
Not giving her the opportunity to attack again, I put my full speed to use and launched myself at her, raising my fists. Bear crossed her arms, chains materializing to rush in to block me. But I didn't attack, rather, I ground to a dead halt, claws tearing through concrete and sending a spray of dust and debris at her face. "H-h-HEY!" She screamed in shock as I hurriedly backpedaled, preparing for the attack.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
My gamble paid off.
Rather than punch me, the half-blind meguca had thought I was about to jump the human spectators, and threw both harpoons my way.
They would've hit had I turned away from her, but I'd seen them coming and grabbed one with both hands. Then, sinking my claws into the concrete, I yanked. Bear was stronger than me, undoubtedly so. But she was not heavier than me. All that strength became meaningless the instant her feet left off the ground, I held all the advantage I needed, twisting my heels to spin around on the spot. Bear screamed, held to her own chain as she became my living flail. One rotation, two, and then, aiming as high as I could... I let go.
My payload hadn't even begun flying off when I'd immediately bolted in the opposite direction, ignoring the scream, and flinching slightly at the "thud" sound that followed.
She was a meguca, she’d be fine… I hoped.
My eyes took a moment to adjust to the shift in illumination as I broke past the floodlights. There was an empty stretch of terrain between the floodlights and the nearest gang-member. Several mounted weapons were brought to bear, but I kept myself low on the ground to make it impossible to open fire without risking people on the other side of the ring. Fortunately for everyone involved, whoever was on the mounted weaponry was either smart enough to realize this, or had been ordered not to shoot.
Should’ve kept to a proper C-formation.
More concerning was the sound of people shouting and of engines roaring to life. Someone got off a shot on me, but whatever caliber they were using, it barely tickled against my thick fur. The gang scrambled to get out of the way, members that’d been on vehicles already pulling away with whoever could catch a ride. I didn’t bother with any of them, turning them into a blur as I ran straight towards the city, looking over my shoulder every other second, dreading the moment Bear would catch up. Though I was moving faster than any vehicle would be allowed to move through the city, I couldn't push much harder without risking someone's life, and I had no illusions that the meguca would be able to catch-up.
A buzzing sound drew my attention skyward, only now noticing the dozen-odd drones that were keeping pace as they flew over the buildings.
Right, my shimmer made it hard to track me by digital cameras, but it wasn't at a level that would let me become entirely impossible to track.
My brain scrambled to look for an out, grasping at anything I could in search for escape. A part of an idea emerged as I recognized some of the graffiti flashing through the streets I passed through.
All around me, the roar of bikes was starting to join the buzz of the drones. The gang was mobilizing and organizing. Cars were rushing to get out of the street, and the gang was gaining more room to accelerate. Gritting my teeth as reached the trash-filled alleyways. The obstacles proved to slow my pursuers down more than they did me as I needn't bother to touch the ground. I zig-zagged through narrow and cumbersome streets, changing directions and even turning back a couple times to make it impossible for them to set-up an ambush-point.
Though I couldn’t see it, I could hear the panic that was spreading throughout the district. Cars honking, people screaming, alarms blaring. Everyone was hurrying to get out of the way of the rampaging monster. I let out a pained roar, if just to add to the chaos a little. Not my proudest moment, but if I could get traffic-jams to slow or even halt the gang chasing me, then I wasn’t going to complain.
Fortunately for me, I reached my destination before the lock-down could be properly put into effect throughout the whole district. Barreling through the glass doors, I ran into the building, head bowed so as to not scrape against the ceiling.
“Welcome to Organ Harvesters incorporated, how-”
Shoving the bot aside, I broke through the heavy metal doors to go deeper into the building. The buzzing of drones had diminished, undoubtedly spreading over outside the building to cover all possible exits. The two drones that had gone inside to follow me met an unfortunate end when I rounded a corner and proceeded to apply some blunt-force. Their chassis turned into an example of overwhelming force meeting tissue-paper resistance. They were just not meant to handle monsters, their scrap littering the hallways in my wake.
Free of immediate pursuit and inside a (hopefully) empty (hopefully) normal office building, I began breaking down doors one after the next. Each room was an empty office building, no computer terminals, no desks, no chairs. I ignored the unnerving emptiness and kept looking for what I knew had to be in here somewhere. No company, no matter how small, could function without...
There!
A wave of relief washed over me as soon as I recognized the janitor’s closet. Cleaning utensils and… an unnerving amount of deactivated cleaning drones. And more importantly, clothes! Gingerly, I snatched the overalls and continued through the building, this time wrecking more things and opening more doors. Intentionally this time around, so as to muddle my tracks.
There was a concerning amount of unfurnished empty rooms.
I ignored that, however, finding the bathrooms and releasing my transformation with a pained groan. I felt like a balloon that was deflating after someone had released the knot, exhaustion washed over me in waves, mixed in with pain and stings from my chest, back, and arms. The bathroom mirror showed the beginning of bruises forming throughout my upper body, with one big circle at the center of my chest. But the bones weren't broken, just tender. It seemed the injuries from my monster form carried over, though fortunately not in their entirety.
My hands were shaking with adrenaline, my body exploding with a thousand pinpricks of pain, my chest felt like it was partially caved in, but that was a concern for future-Axel. There wasn't much time for self-reflection, I hurried to put on the overalls with the “Organ Harvesting” logo alongside the bare-bones hazmat mask-filter to hide my face. Barefoot, I hurried back towards the entrance, head low, breathing forcefully quickened, empty hands raised as I bolted out into the street.
"MONSTER!" I screamed through the mask as I scrambled to make it out.
There were a dozen bikers there already, armed to the teeth, pointing heavy-caliber rifles towards the building. I waved behind me towards the building, tripping over myself, groaning, breathing, and doing my best impression of utter desperate panic. It wasn't that hard, not when my everything was already pumped full of adrenaline and aching in every humanly possible way.
The bikers had aimed their weapons at me for half a second, then raised them into the air. “Run off, we’ve got this.” One of them stepped forward just so he could shove me off and out of the perimeter they were setting up. They didn’t even give me a second glance as I ran past them and into the alleyways, stomach shooting me with stabbing hunger that became worse with every step. But I couldn't relent, not until I’d gotten far enough that I'd stopped hearing the buzzing of drones a kilometer ago, and not until I was so far out that the screaming people and sirens had become a background lull.
Holding my stomach, the hunger clawed at me, uncaring for circumstance, demanding food. It was becoming increasingly harder to think, let alone orient myself, not when the world was becoming narrower and narrower.
My eyes drifted to the trash.
Passive ‘Stomach’ Grade: [F] [1 / 22]
Effects: Digest any ANY biological matter.
“No.”
I just needed to make it to my stuff, then to the storage unit. There was a pile of tasteless nutrient-paste with my name on it, right next to a bag full of tasteful flavor-packets. It would only take... where was I? I needed food. I needed to eat. Another pang caused me to double over.
Throwing my mask off, I groaned, hand reaching out for a half-empty food wrapper. Behind the pungent stench of rot, there was a slight hint of meat. My body acted on its own will, stuffing the whole wrapper into my mouth as I chewed through the plastic.
It didn’t taste as bad as it should have.
I hated that.
There was a mild corn-mulch flavor to it that was almost tolerable.
+Durability:
. .∟Poison 5+ -> 5+
[08%] -> [12%]
“I hate you so much right now.” I groaned between mouthfuls.
----------------------------------------
After eating just enough out of the trash to be able to drag myself to the storage unit, I then proceeded to gorge myself stupid with the pre-bought paste. It took a while, eating literally everything I'd bought, and still feeling like I wouldn't turn down a few dozen snacks if offered. But there was no more food, and I couldn't stick around since the storage unit's rental time was about to expire. So grabbing some extra trash-food, I dragged myself back towards the motel.
I had to walk the whole way, because the district had gone into full lockdown.
Everything hurt, and my brain was only half-aware. The pain was getting worse with the exhaustion now that the hunger had been sated.
One strong breeze was all that would be necessary to knock me over.
Which would be bad to say the least.
I just did my best to follow the third wall and keep it to my left until I eventually found the Well. It took hours before I finally maneuvered my way around, following the graffiti until I eventually found the motel.
Grills was at the lobby, unresponsive, blankly staring ahead as I dragged my feet past her. I wasn't in any condition to ask questions and potentially meet the wrong end of a shotgun.
I clambered into the shower to remove the stench of trash.
I collapsed before I even felt the hot water running over me.