Mongrel
Mongrel felt his dream of obscene wealth slowly die as he watched Sam take one wound after another. The guy doing it to her—that serial killer the working girl had gone on about—was quick and all, but he didn’t look all that strong. What was that in his hand?
“Is he using a knife?” Mongrel asked.
Serene pursed her lips. “I can’t tell from here, but I wouldn’t put it past anyone to cheat in order to get a leg up.”
“Should we be reporting it to someone? What he’s doing should be grounds for disqualification, right?”
“It’s no use. They’d only enforce a rule like that if it was blatantly obvious to most of the audience that he was doing it, and they started making a fuss.”
“Shit.”
“It is what it is. Seems like he’s doing a good job concealing the weapon, too—look, his hands are empty right now.”
“He’s a Physician, which means he’s not using Illusion to hide it…”
“It’s not like it really matters how he’s doing it right now. What matters is whether our girl knows how to deal with it.”
Things were still looking inconclusive as the fight progressed. She took another wound when the killer hurled his knife, embedding it in the flesh of her right forearm before making it vanish. He then soon leapt on top of her, and sank his teeth deeply into her shoulder, the two of them staggering around as one.
“How’d he do that?” Mongrel asked. “Sam has Stoneskin and points in Toughness—he should have busted up his teeth before ever getting through.”
“I’m no system expert, but I think it’s a passive,” Serene mused. “There’s one called Dental Enhancement that might make his teeth strong enough to pierce her skin.”
“Dental Enhancement…? The Concord sure has some specific abilities…”
“Yeah, it’s pretty obscure. I only know about it because some of the girls I work with have been forced to take it when a client has busted their teeth up so bad they stop getting business. Apparently it regrows your teeth as well as strengthening them.”
Luckily, Sam ended up winning her bout as she beat the serial killer into the ground. Serene gave a pleased hum and clapped her hands, while Mongrel nodded with grim satisfaction. It was far from a perfect start, but at least she was still in the race.
* * *
Sam
“WE HAVE JUST ABOUT REACHED THE HALFWAY POINT, PEOPLE! THIRTY-TWO FIGHTERS REMAIN—ANOTHER SIXTEEN, AND WE’LL HAVE OUR OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT LINEUP!”
With the number of competitors dropping and people coalescing into larger teams, they were increasingly pulling into their own corners of the pit to regroup and strategize. There were only a few stray fights still ongoing amid the field of twisted corpses and weakly flailing wounded.
“We should find someone else to team up with,” Henke noted calmly, twisting a silver ring inset with a blood-red rubiy round and round on the forefinger of his right hand. “It might get dicey with just the two of us.”
Though she was glad for the backup, she was still more than a little unnerved by the way Henke had blown a hole through that woman without even giving her a chance to defend herself. She’d have to keep a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t find an opportunity to do the same to her.
He did make a good point, though. Looking around the arena, she saw several groups that looked to have four or more members. When she spotted a man on his back, vainly trying to defend himself while another stomped on him repeatedly, she started off in that direction without thinking.
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The aggressor looked up when Sam got close, pivoted, but not fast enough to avoid the dropkick aimed at his side. She felt his ribs crunch under her heels as he went ragdolling off his victim, and Sam rolled to her feet as she watched her opponent scrabble around on his belly, wheezing for air. He didn’t look like he was getting up anytime soon.
“You all right, man?” Sam asked the one who had been on the receiving end. “Are you good to stand?”
The battered man—a Level 5 Artisan—staggered heavily to his feet, and Sam put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Thank you,” he breathed. “I’m all right. Thought I was a goner, though.” His arms hung slack at his sides, mottled purple with fresh bruises.
“Wanna stick with us?” Sam asked, jerking her head in Henke’s direction as he came trotting over.
“Hmm, let me think about it,” the man said with a tired smile. “You know what, all right. Just ‘cause you asked so nicely.” He offered a handshake, fingers trembling with pain. “I’m Ratcatcher.”
Sam shook it, doing her best to be gentle. “Weird name, but all right. I’m Sam Darling. That one over there is Henke.”
“I know who he is.”
If Henke noticed that they were talking about him, he did not care to acknowledge it. Walking over to the man Sam had just incapacitated, he finished him off with a booming jab that left the man’s head sagging and concave. He turned away from the dead opponent, still wearing a smile. “Okay, three might be good enough for now. Nice work, Darling.”
Sam couldn’t think of anything in reply, unable to tear her eyes away from the human ruin Henke had left behind him.
“Glad he’s on our team,” Ratcatcher muttered under his breath.
“WELL, WELL, WELL, LOOKS LIKE THINGS HAVE DEVOLVED INTO A BIT OF A STALEMATE!” Golden Boy cried, his ball-like form hovering lazily overhead. “WE DON’T LIKE THAT, DO WE, FOLKS?”
A wave of booing at that.
“I UNDERSTAND, I UNDERSTAND, SO HERE’S WHAT WE’LL DO; IN FIVE MINUTES, I WILL BEGIN DISQUALIFYING A FIGHTER AT RANDOM, ONCE A MINUTE. SO UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR CHANCE AT THAT PRIZE MONEY, I SUGGEST YOU FINE GLADIATORS GET A MOVE ON!”
Henke sighed, spinning the ring on his finger. “Well, you heard the man. Let’s go eliminate some losers, shall we?” Without waiting for a reply, he began making his way toward a nearby five-man group.
Still grappling with all the death she had been witness to in the last few minutes, and trying to reckon how much of the blame fell on her, Sam numbly followed.
Henke took the lead, flawlessly weaving attacks thrown by the opposing fighters when he stepped into range. An uppercut caught a man on the chin with a burst of explosive flame, shattered teeth flying everywhere. The second was tripped up by a shin kick, then took a right hook to the side of the head that burst his skull like an overripe melon.
Sam entangled a third man trying to circle around Henke and got him on the ground in a mount. She pried open his sloppy guard, then choked the man out with his own folded arm by pressing her entire weight down on him. By the time she stood up, only one of the enemy group remained, a thin fellow trying to clamber up the side of the ring to escape. He had almost reached the top when a disgruntled spectator planted a foot in his face and kicked him right back down, then spat after him.
The poor man screamed as he fell, landing on his back just in front of Henke. The Explorer sketched out a grinning bow to the audience member who had presented the offering, and proceeded to efficiently and emotionlessly stomp the man’s windpipe in, leaving him sucking in mute desperation for a breath that would never come.
Thirty seconds later, Golden Boy announced that the preliminaries were closed, and that the sixteen fighters left standing would advance to the real tournament. Sam found herself staring in cold disbelief as attendants came out to cart away the dead, finish off the ones that looked like they were headed that way, and tend to the ones not too badly wounded.
Henke jogged over with his charming, dimpled smile, waving occasionally at the cheering crowds who were evidently quite fond of him. More than one article of women’s undergarment was thrown his way. At least he didn’t pick any of them up.
“Impressive, Darling,” he said with an appreciative nod. “It’s not every day you see a Laborer in the pits. I’m interested to see how you’ll fare in the brackets.”
“Did you really need to kill those people?” Sam asked.
“Who?” Henke frowned about him, looking genuinely confused.
“Everyone. All the people you… blew up, or whatever.”
His frown deepened as his gaze returned to her, seemingly taking her in anew. “I’m not quite sure you understand the game we’re playing.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
He laughed. “All right, Darling—if you say so. But don’t expect to be meeting me in the finals with ideas like that.”
Confident, aren’t we? As though his ending up in the finals was already a foregone conclusion. Well, then again, Sam had already decided that she was going to win this whole thing. Maybe all fighters thought like that.
Sam turned away from Henke to make it clear that the conversation was over, and let him jog off to do some more preening for his fans. She regretted teaming up with him in the first place. If she’d known what kind of person he was…
“Psycho, right?” Ratcatcher said, watching the other man leave.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Sam replied.
“You should ignore what he said. People like that, they don’t understand what it’s like to have a conviction.”
Sam threw the Artisan a sidelong smile. He had a somewhat meek, unathletic look about him. “What about you?” she asked. “You got one of those?”
Ratcatcher returned her smile. “I do. This time, I’m going to win a fight, if it’s the last thing I do.”