“I really don’t like this.” I commented, looking down at a metal staff with an acrylic green clump screwed on top. There was a tiny button half-way down the staff that made an LED inside the clump to light up.
“Too late to back out of the fight.” Isia commented, throwing brush-strokes against my skin as if trying to cut down some elusive creature.
“Not the fight… this, the…” I waved the staff around. “It just feels a little too over the top?”
I could almost hear Vesper’s shoulders drawing taut next to me before she let out a huff. “That is exactly how it should be.”
“What Vespi is trying to say is that it won’t cost much to do the extra bits, and it’ll earn a lot more money.” Isia patted my back. “Besides, if you’re going to die in a couple days, you might as well have fun, right?”
The last pat was a slap, one I had to pretend that had stung. Otherwise, she just might start looking for ways for it to actually hurt. I wanted to elaborate, it wasn’t as if Shadow targeting me had been my choice! Heck, I was mostly certain she’d been tagging along by the time I’d transformed. If anything, my slight blunders had been the sole reason why I’d found out about her in the first place.
“Look, win or lose, your goal should be to make as big of a splash as you can. So long as enough of Bear’s viewers get hooked, we can count this as a big win,” Vesper said. “Bets aside, Bear’s in this to regain face.”
“Ignore Vespi, she’s probably prepping some back-door deal under the assumption you’ll lose because you’re up against Bear.” Isia grasped the sides of my head and yanked me so we’d look eye to eye. “Fuck that, you’re going to win. Got it?”
At least in this I was in agreement. “Got it.”
“And, outside of the butt-kicking sesh, you’ll stick to the script.”
Grumbling, I just let out a dejected sigh, nodded, and focused on the screen to triple-check on everything. Sure, the ‘script’ was this chunk of broad-stroke guidelines following the ‘before’ and ‘after’ fight. But my focus was mostly on the rules of engagement for the match.
Only non-firearm and non-cutting melee weapons were allowed, and Bear was forbidden from doing anything that would be deemed as instantaneously-lethal if it were to hit a non-armored F-class. Not exactly reassuring when I’d need a few good swings to kill an F-class while in human form, but it was about as good as it was going to get. They’d hired two AI referees, and also called in a CYPHER node to double-check her output.
My attention was on that last bit above all.
I’d known CYPHER was involved with megucas in some shape or form. In the academy, they’d stressed that deploying megucas against high-end monsters without confirmation from the system was the sort of stupid that could get you shot. The courses hadn’t gone into details over why or how this process worked, but after reading the contract, I had to guess that just as there was a database of monster details, so too there was one for megucas. It was an intriguing prospect. What would the system say about me if I were to be put into it?
It was one of those pie-in-the-sky hypotheticals I’d never get a proper answer to.
A prospect that did dampen my mood a little was the certainty that CYPHER undoubtedly would have a file on Shadow. It was a kind of “so close yet so far” situation that unnerved me. On one hand, I wished I could just nab those details out of the AI system. On the other, I knew that if I had the skill to do so myself, then just about everyone on the planet would have a decent shot at that.
“You focusing?” Vesper interrupted my thoughts.
“Just trying not to think too hard over how two thirds of the contract were about her pinky promising to hold back, and the last third was of me making it clear I understood I could accidentally die anyway.” I mumbled, closing the laptop. “When I thought of ‘gang fight’, I’d not imagined there’d be so much legal paperwork involved.”
“Don’t get me wrong, gangs are perfectly happy illegally doing a lot of illegal illegalities to one another.” She rolled her eyes at me. “But this is a stream, so we cover our asses. Or… well, Bear covers hers since she’s got more to lose.”
Ah. Yeah, she was definitely a higher-brow person, so recording herself committing crimes and posting it online to her fanbase could prove a headache. Nodding along, I continued to review everything, muttering some of the lines under my breath and trying to hype myself up.
Yet the more I checked every corner, every feature, every rule, every safeguard… the more I tried not to think of how desperate this truly was. All of this was built off of an assumption, a suspicion.
The wait just allowed that doubt to gnaw at me.
But I could not lose this.
“It’s time.”
With a solemn nod, I stood up.
----------------------------------------
The dark constricted against me from all sides, a line of green lights cast the concrete in a dim glow, leading the way deeper down. My steps echoed, a soft crunch of dirt. A dozen tiny drones buzzed all around me, reminding me that every second was recorded, analyzed, and cut-up in preparation to be cast live to thousands of strangers.
What were they saying? What were they seeing? Cheering? Jeering? I ignored the cold sweat running down my back as I walked steadily. There were too many important things on the line, my life among them, and the whole thing was now a spectacle. I pushed aside the churning in my gut and focused on how large the tunnel felt, the last time I’d been here my head would constantly scrape against the ceiling.
“You’ve reached the half-way point,” Vesper said through my earpiece.
Fingers tightening around the toy staff, I picked up my pace, going for a light jog.
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My breathing drowned out every other sound, I focused on following the green lights. The drones kept up, swarming and spinning around me, catching every angle. It took a few minutes before I caught the first sound of something new: drums. It made the air shake around me with a beat that matched my every step.
“Two hundred meters.”
The light jog turned into a sprint, suddenly the number of green lights doubled in frequency, as did the beat of the drum. It was a trick, made to sell an illusion. Real-time AI effects would be thrown in along the way, light shows and particle effects only the viewers would see.
It was meant to be a spectacle.
“One hundred meters.”
I grit my teeth, redoubling my speed.
The entrance to the tunnel was just ahead, a set of metal stairs attached to it, meant to make it easier for me to climb down.
Instead, I jumped.
My feet hit the dirt with a bone shaking thud, bones complaining as I straightened up to look around. The underground coliseum had been redecorated, the other tunnels covered up by large cardboard cut-outs. Large boxes littered the arena, props meant to be the physical representation of objects the AI would throw in real time. My gaze trailed over to Bear, the force of her presence as impossible to miss as a mountain. She sat on a metal box on top of one of the tunnels, wearing little more than a shirt and shorts.
If I had my neuralink, I might have been able to see what was meant to be projected. The script vaguely described the scene as some sort of grand coliseum, with a massive crowd. That Bear would be dressed in thick armor or somesuch.
“BEAR!” I called out, voice echoing in the massive cavernous space. I was meant to raise the toy staff, proclaim that I was cursing her. It would be this grand spectacle of special effects where the meguca would see her “powers” stripped away.
Yet, as I raised my hand, I realized the cheap plastic had shattered in my hands during the leap.
I looked at the broken toy, then at Bear.
Fuck it.
“Fight me.” I growled, dropping the crappy prop and raising my fists.
“Axel, what the-” I yanked the earpiece before Vesper could finish the phrase, eyes fixed on the meguca.
Bear stared down at me, face unreadable as her gaze flickered between me and something slightly to the side. She was reading something or another, I guessed. City-sponsored meguca neuralink, or maybe she’d been earning enough to get her own. I didn’t care, I just kept myself at the ready, waiting for her response.
“You are arrogant, to think you can come here, into my own house, and fight me.” She haughtily declared. Her voice was like a grater rubbing against the inside of my ears, everything about it sounded wrong.
“You talk too much.” I snarled, earning a slight twitch of her brow.
Pushing herself off of her steel box, she dropped down from the pipe, landing on the arena so softly she might as well have been weightless. I’d thought for a moment it was some skill or ability, but then I noticed a maglock harness peeking from underneath her shirt. That meant there must be some somewhere in the coliseum’s ceiling, but why would she be wearing such a thing?
Bear lunged… no, she flew at me. In a single bound, her body rocketed in a straight line, ignoring gravity as she turned herself into a spear. I dodged, rolling to the side and watching her regain weight, skidding to a halt several meters back. Blinking rapidly, I realized she was using the maglock to make herself weightless within the arena. This was certainly not in the script, and definitely not something I’d seen in any of her clips before.
“You are a fool, fighting me at my full power!” She spread her arms wide, levitating several feet up into the air as she forced out an overly haughty cackle. I had to assume there was a digital version of her where lightning was coming out of her hands.
It was all just theatrics to her.
“Feel my wrath!” That was when I heard the very distinct ‘click’ of the autocannons, one of the turrets swiveling to aim at one of the sides of the arena. My confusion redoubled as she mimed throwing something invisible, followed by the autocannon firing in tandem.
This had not been in the script, not in mine, but clearly had been in hers.
She theatrically threw three more “blasts” randomly across the arena… and then she pointed her finger at me, the second autocannon swiveling to target me. “Oh, shi-!” Lunging out of the way, I heard the distinct click sound, and the cannon going off. Yet the spot it’d been aiming at did not explode, with even a fraction of the intensity as the previous three.
A dud? No, as I rolled back up to my feet, I spotted the black fist-sized sandbag that’d impacted the spot instead of the live bullet. Glancing up at the autocannons, it became clear they’d loaded one of them with less-than-lethal ammunition.
“You should’ve used your shamanic trinkets when you had the chance!” Bear roared, voice strained and body tense even as she floated midair, pointing her finger at me. Was this meant to be some sort of game? They were wasting live ammo for the sake of spectacle!
I broke into a full sprint, aware that even if those shots weren’t live ammunition, getting hit by one of those sandbags would definitely not be good for my health. The cardboard props around me were torn under the sandbag barrage, live ammunition used further away, but I made a beeline towards Bear.
The meguca merely rose higher into the air, pulled up by the maglock. “You cannot reach me, little mortal, you will pay!”
She tried to shoot, but nothing came out, her hesitation became apparent as she swiveled to look at the autocannon, only now realizing I’d moved so she’d be in its line of fire. A part of me felt slightly disappointed that it hadn’t just shot the sandbacg into her back, only slightly, though.
“Fucker.” I heard her growl under her breath.
I just grinned, coming to a standstill. “You can’t really do much without coming down, you know?” I spoke up with a half-cocked grin. “You’re using a single point maglock. Had you wanted to be able to fly around, you should’ve gotten a three pointer.”
Maglocks could only pull the harness towards the anchor-point, effectively working as an invisible and intangible motor tied to a rope. It could potentially allow for a lot of neat tricks, but standing completely still as Bear had meant you could only really go up or down.
She glared. “I find the sight of you running around boring.” The overly haughty tone felt… wrong. Tense. The meguca descended as I moved closer, making sure her body remained between me and the autocannon. “Let us-”
At the last second, right as she’d been about to reach the ground, I rushed forward. I tried to clock her in the stomach, but the meguca had twisted enough that the blow landed against her hip instead.
What she’d clearly not expected was to fly off, launched like a tetherball, tumbling across the air with a furious squeal. The meguca spun twice across the arena, flailing her limbs and trying to regain her balance, but entirely unable to. She screamed, then apparently turned off the harness, because she was then suddenly thrown away, rolling half-way across the arena before coming to a complete halt.
I couldn’t help but smirk. Now we were even.
Bear stood up, reaching under her shirt and removing the harness. “Alright fuckface.” She snarled, throwing the piece of tech away and stomping her way towards me. “You want to dance? Let’s dance.”
With a burst of speed, her first attack came quickly, a telegraphed left hook. But rather than block or dodge, I threw my own punch against it, putting everything I had into it. Our fists met and, unlike everything I’d feared, my fist won. The meguca stumbled, eyes wide, too shocked to avoid the quick jab that smacked her squarely in the nose.
It was like trying to punch through a steel wall. Still, she was stunned, taking a couple bewildered steps back, she looked at me with wide eyes. I’d been right. She might be incredibly strong for a human, but what pushed her well beyond that was some sort of active skill or effect, not part of her baseline.
I could win this.
“Yeah,” I said, tightening my stance. “Let’s dance.”