A large, circular backroom was bathed in ultraviolet. A crush of Volunteers pressed against a metal dome-like cage sunken in the center, jeering and shouting. The pulsing music from the next room was reduced to the dull roar of an echoey, underwater rumbling.

There was a smattering of high top tables throughout the space. Motely Volunteers leaned against them and sipped their drinks. My embarrassing t-shirt shone like a beacon under the oppressive blacklights, but no one looked my way. All attention was on the cage.

“Ay! You!”

Camel was using a high top as a crutch, already quite tipsy through a process I had not yet discovered. Didn’t the Cycle just start? Well, it had to be 5 o’clock somewhere. He waved me over with one fingerless gloved hand.

“Come to watch the spar? Still raz to make a bet.”

A bet?

“Wager. Gamble. You know?”

Uh oh. There was that tingly sensation again. That twitchy urge deep within me.

What is it we’re betting on?

“This match? Clean spar. Odin on odin. No guns. No items. Melee and skills only. To the death.”

To the death?

I craned my neck, trying to see who was in the cage. My virtual breath caught in my throat when I saw an ashen-skinned woman with intense white dreadlocks. It was Rook, from the Round Table. And who else was in there with her? Another female I had seen somewhere - shorter and stocky, with a pink mohawk, spiked shoulder pads, and heavy black boots.

They circled each other like caged tigresses. The pink-haired woman clutched a massive silver battle axe in both hands, some rune-like designs on the blade. Rook dual-wielded the kusarigama I had seen her use before to deadly effect, connected by chains to some spot between her shoulder blades, possibly to the metal collar around her throat.

“My pretty polly is on Rook. Pixie doesn't stand a chance, even with that messel new axe.”

But why? Why are they fighting?

“You'd have to ask somebody who pays more attention. For the sport of it? For the pretty polly? Maybe some baddiwad krovvy?”

I shook my head. I had a lingering admiration for Rook, and I didn’t want to see harm come to her. I stood on my tip toes and spotted her partner Bigwig against the outside of the cage, shouting encouragement to her ringside. It didn’t look like any blows had been landed yet.

What is this place exactly?

“The Schwarzmarkt. Well, right now it’s the Fleischmarkt, but soon enough it will be the Schwarzmarkt again. Good for making trades off book. Barter system mostly.”

A loud siren blared overhead. I flinched at the sudden sound, then slowly straightened myself, feeling a bit foolish. I set my bag on the high top and gripped it tight in both hands.

“You missed your chance! The spar is starting. Can't make any more wagers.”

I had a suspicion that was probably for the best.

In the ring, the woman called Pixie charged forward, swinging the battle axe. Rook bent her knees and arched her body backward in an instant, the heavy axe humming just above her torso. Wow, those were some impressive reflexes. I wondered what her Agility score must be to pull off a dodge like that. The gawkers went wild, cheering and slapping the metal wall surrounding the combatants.

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Rook righted herself and slashed with her sickles as she advanced, left - right - left - right. Pixie held the silver haft of the axe vertically in defense, parrying each blow as it came. She had some moves too. Rook went for a leg sweep, and the stocky woman leapt in the air. Rook answered with an acrobatic downward slash over her shoulder as she spun, unluckily clanging against one of her opponent’s spiked pads.

Pixie yelled and thrust her now horizontal haft sideways, shoving the nimble Rook backwards in the ring several paces. Creating some distance. Pixie pounded her chest and her eyes flashed red. Were my own eyes playing tricks on me, or did a coat of primal fur appear over her shoulders and arms? Suddenly, she charged forward, slashing wildly with the large axe, yelling with guttural rage.

Rook ducked back, turned, and made a sharp dash to the right, sprinting straight up the side of the cage wall itself, seeming to defy gravity as she narrowly dodged chop after slash coming after her. The crowd screamed with excitement.

“Berserker trance,” Camel muttered before draining a glass and belching.

A skill.

After a time, the effects of the skill wore off, and Pixie’s assault slowed. The animalistic skin I had either perceived or imagined was gone. Without missing a beat, Rook performed a backflip off the wall of the cage and landed right in front of Pixie, jabbing the sharp point of one sickle into her exposed calf. Pixie yelped with pain, blood dotting the floor. The crowd hooted.

Pixie brought the axe down with all her might, crashing into the floor right where Rook had been a second before. Had Rook been a moment slower she might have been bisected on the spot.

Still like your odds?

I wasn’t even sure if Camel was paying attention to the fight anymore. He seemed to be preoccupied with ogling some nubile form across the room.

“Oh yeah, that devotchka’s got nothing on Rook,” he said.

Gasps of surprise turned my attention back to the fight. Pixie had activated another skill, blowing a gust of frigid vapor just as Rook brought one of her sickles down for an attempted killing blow. Her arm froze instantly, locked in icy blue suspension above her head. Immobilized.

“Frost Giant something something…” slurred Camel by way of running commentary.

There was tittering around the room. I overheard someone complain that Pixie was ‘overdoing it’ with the Scandinavian mythos. Whatever she was doing, her next move was devastating. She swung her silvery axe straight at the exposed, frozen arm. Rook tried to dodge but this time was too slow, as if the ice had affected her overall speed. The axe struck its mark, shattering Rook’s arm like an oversized icicle.

No!

Cubed and jagged chunks of frozen flesh exploded and scattered across the floor of the cage. Rook winced in agony, her pupiless eyes growing even narrower, but gave no cry. Her right kusarigama fell to the ground, dangling from its limp chain. The crowd was in a frenzy, many begging to change their bets or make side-bets, however all that worked in here.

Rook staggered back until she was up against the cage. Her will to fight had melted away. Bigwig pounded the cage, shouting advice, but Rook remained in a crouch, cringing from the terrible pain. Meanwhile, Pixie thrust her battle axe high in the air, soaking in a moment of glory before moving in for the finishing blow. Half the crowd egged her on, chanting.

“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Pixie sauntered forward to do just that, running her finger against the sharp edge of the axeblade in a bit of showboating and licking the trickle of blood that appeared as a result. She raised the axe one last time.

One last time, because all the while Rook was crouching she started to glow with faint blue energy. Then, in a flash, her missing arm regrew! She grabbed the loose chain and yanked it up and to the side with all her might, sending the prone kusarigama flying through the air and impaling itself into Pixie’s temple.

The crowd screamed, practically climbing up the sides of the cage in agitated, jubilant bloodlust.

What just happened?

“That’s a Hydra skill,” Camel snorted.

That’s… incredible. So the Round Table hunters must have bagged that elusive Hydra after all.

“Costs a Shiva load of Energy though.”

Pixie dropped her axe, staggering backwards. Rook ran forward, lightly vaulting over Pixie’s shoulder and wrapping the twin chains around her neck, strangling the life out of her as the sickle’s blade remained buried in the side of her head. Twin streams of stigmatic blood dripped down from Pixie’s vacant eyes.

Another siren blared. This time signaling the end.

Rook let her opponent’s lifeless body drop to the floor. Soon enough, it melted away into pixelated nothingness and only Rook remained standing from the deathmatch. Bigwig and her other companions from the Round Table cheered her victory, and bets were paid out to those who backed the winning horse.