Sam

Sitting in a care tent inside the fairground, Sam endured as Serene poked and prodded at her and Mongrel plied her with a slew of foul-tasting potions he had pilfered from Will’s workshop before they left. The chimps stood guard outside to make sure they weren’t bothered.

“You were reckless,” Mongrel admonished, jabbing a finger at her nose. “Do you have any idea how much money I’ll lose if you die?”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Sam said with an amused smile. It quickly faded, however, replaced by a frown. “There was so much… death, out there. Maybe I should have expected it, but I didn’t think it would be like that at all.”

“Well, you kept moving, and that’s all that matters,” Serene murmured, her face only inches from Sam’s shoulder as she worked to seal the ring of weeping puncture wounds marring it. “And now that you’re moving into the singles battles, you’ll be able to affect the outcome more. If you win, you get to be as merciful as you want, and if you lose, well… Then you’ve got a lot less to worry about, at least, since you’ll be dead and all.”

Sam nodded.

“Your head on straight, girl?” Mongrel asked sharply, tapping her foot with his boot. “Don’t go getting all shell-shocked on me now.”

“I won’t lose, Mongrel,” she assured him.

Serene bandaged the shoulder, then leaned back and gave Sam's thighs a final-sounding clap. “All right, I’ve done about all I can. I’ve only cleaned and glued your wounds, because I think if I put in stitches you’d just rip them open. You’ll need to get them looked over properly once this is all over.”

“Got it. Thanks for the help.”

The working girl shrugged off Sam’s praise. Number Three came in with a sheet that had the fight brackets on it, and Mongrel read it over before passing it to Serene.

“What’s it say?” Sam asked.

“Well, you’re in the A-Bracket,” Mongrel said.

“That’s good news,” Serene added, wiping bloody hands on an equally sullied rag. “Henke’s in the B-Bracket, so you won’t have to go up against him until the finals. If you’re lucky, he might get knocked out before then.”

“What’s his deal, anyway? He was throwing all these crazy punches that blew holes in people, but it didn’t look like he was using any AP.”

“That’ll be because those explosions don’t come from him using a skill. It comes from his Soulbound item, that ring he wears. The SPFL ruled it as an ‘accessory’ rather than a weapon, so he’s allowed to use it as much as he likes. It’s supposed to be pretty special, procured at great cost by his sponsor, but I don’t know many details. He’s tight-lipped about it. Basically, it lets him throw as many of those fire punches as he wants, since the skill is imbued into the ring rather than him having to use it himself.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Well, he didn’t win the last tournament by accident, so.”

“What about someone named Ratcatcher? Do you know anything about him?”

Serene slowly nodded. “That one guy you teamed up with? He’s not a client of mine, but I know of him. To be honest, he’s a bit of a local joke.”

Sam frowned, rolling her shoulder to test its mobility. Serene smacked her on the arm and admonished her for moving before the glue had fully set. “Why’s he a joke?”

“He’s lost every fight he’s ever been in,” Serene said, shrugging. “If he knew what was good for him, he would have given up the whole pit-fighting thing ages ago. Artisans aren’t equipped for this kind of game to begin with—they’re just not that well-suited to fighting builds.”

“I see.” Hearing that, Sam couldn’t help but feel some kinship with the man. She knew what it was like to beat her head against the same wall again and again, even though she knew she’d never break through it—even though she didn’t even know why she was doing it in the first place.

He had said that his conviction for this tournament was to win at least a single match. She hoped he’d get there.

“And who am I fighting first?” Sam asked.

Having taken the paper back, Mongrel frowned down at it. “Someone called Terry Terrible. She’s a Cook—I happened to notice her during the qualifier.”

Serene chuckled. “Oh, he ‘noticed’ her all right.”

Mongrel sniffed haughtily. “I was talking about her fighting style.”

“Sure you were.”

“I was!”

“I’m not arguing with you.”

Mongrel muttered something of a distinctly derogatory nature under his breath, then shook his head. “Whatever. What I’m trying to say, if anyone would like to listen, is that she seems to be using a Spark-Amplify strategy.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sam said.

“It’s a fairly standard combination for Cooks,” Serene explained. “Spark is a cantrip skill that makes a small flame—only really good for lighting a campfire or a cigarette or whatever. But if you pair it with the skill Amplify, you can make that fire even bigger, and if you use Amplify on itself first, you can even make a combustion so violent and fast it creates an explosion.

“I imagine Henke’s ring is using the same principle, or at least a similar one. Your opponent will probably be a bit conservative since she’ll want to avoid stacking up skill fatigue with successive matches, but I assume she’s got some other nasty tricks she’s probably planning to spring on you, so stay on your toes. Your best shot is to wait her out, get her to waste her load, then go in and finish her.”

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Sam spent the next hour-and-change resting, before it was time to go out to her first match. It was being held in Hell-5, one of the smaller pits. Golden Boy was there to announce the fight, even though she could also hear his muffled screech from where B-Bracket was holding its own matches. Either the man had a twin identical to him in every way, down to the outfit and gaudy scepter, or he was using some kind of skill to be in two places at once.

The woman lined up on the opposite end of the ring was robust and clad in light attire, staring Sam down without any crack in her confidence. She wore her hair cropped to a dark fuzz, and a pair of tough leather gloves on her hands.

The announcer did his opening remarks for a somewhat diminished crowd, since half of them were over at Hell-3 to watch the B-Bracket.

A floating television cube like the one in the qualifier shimmered into existence in the air high above the fighters’ heads, Golden Boy’s sphere darting about them to capture audio and video, but Sam only had eyes for her opponent.

The nerves were getting to her. She wanted to be sick.

A horn sounded, shrill and urgent.

Sam ran forward and all the unwanted emotions evaporated at once like morning dew, leaving her completely calm.

I’m going to win. she told herself. This time will be different.

* * *

Mongrel

Watching the girl enter the ring through the image on the airborne Illusion cube, Mongrel rubbed his lucky marble between thumb and forefinger and held it up to his lips as he beseeched the thing to part with its power.

“Why are you so nervous?” asked the pretty working girl beside him, arms crossed in contempt. “You saw how she did in the preliminaries. She’ll be fine.”

“Just covering all my bases,” Mongrel muttered. Women didn’t understand the importance of lucky rituals. “Can’t hurt to be safe.” He let his arm fall, though, and pocketed the marble. He’d already squeezed all the luck out of it anyway.

“Hello, Matthew,” a smoldering voice suddenly whispered in his ear, straightening his spine and curling his toes. “Did you miss me?”

Mongrel whirled around, struggling with the sword on his hip, but the damn thing was stuck—rusted to its scabbard, he realized. He’d always considered the most successful kind of fighter one who never had to draw his weapon in the first place, but what use was there in lugging the damn thing around if he couldn’t use it when he needed it?

Mongrel was still glaring at his sword and tugging at the hilt when the ashen-skinned demon placed a soft hand over his, her blazing-hot touch somehow intensely, unnervingly comforting.

“No need for that, dearest,” she cooed, patting his hand. “Well? What do we think?”

Mongrel looked up and found Nyx standing with arms outstretched for his perusal. She was clad in a very tight skinsuit that hugged seemingly every curve and contour of her body, and somehow seemed even more revealing than when he had seen her in nothing but her birthday suit. Exposed sections were adorned with thick swirls of paint, and her black hair was wound about her head in a complex braid, leaving her looking a pornographer’s vision of a warrior princess. Yellow eyes flashed, and sharp fangs glinted.

Gods? If any of you are listening, please save me. I promise I’ve been good sometimes. At least once, probably.

“You suit the summer fashion perfectly,” Mongrel intoned in a suave drawl, deciding to play things cool. He took the demon’s slim hand and brought it to his mouth. “I haven’t had the pleasure of your company in some time.”

Nyx shrugged at the unspoken question, and her impish grin widened as she watched him kiss the back of her hand. “I wanted to enjoy the debauchery of the city for a bit.” She sighed dramatically. “Alas, I quickly grew bored of such trivial pursuits. What luck, then, that the moment I began shopping around for something else to occupy my attention, I should find my favorite mortal in all the Frontier. Lucky indeed.”

Damn you, marble! That wasn’t what I meant!

“I see,” Mongrel replied. “Well, to be honest, I’ve been very busy lately. I’m not sure I have the time for a social call.”

“Wouldn’t you like to hear the good news first?”

“What good news?”

“Your beloved Annie has returned to work.”

Mongrel blinked. “What? How? Why?”

“Apparently, married life did not agree with her. Something about infidelity—ridiculous human custom, by the way.”

“Huh.”

Mongrel was so distracted by this information that he entirely forgot that he was supposed to be maintaining a healthy wariness. Without a second’s hesitation, Nyx smoothly stepped in beside him and slipped an arm through his. Before he had a mind to protest, he found their fingers inescapably interlaced.

“Who are we rooting for, then?” Nyx sighed contentedly, gazing up at the cuboid screen. “Matthew, is that who I think it is? Oh, it is.” She directed a shrewd little smile in his general direction. “I should have known you’d enter her into something like this, you dog-faced scoundrel.” Something in the way she purred the insult made it sound like a compliment instead, which in turn made it difficult to bristle at.

Mongrel glanced up at the screen, an excuse waiting, but found it dying in his throat with a strangled sound when he saw the fuzzy image of Sam Darling standing over her opponent, who was ragdolled gracelessly in the sand.

Only then did he notice that the crowd had gone up in an uncertain cheer.

“What happened?” Mongrel demanded of Serene, stopping just short of shaking the woman.

“Greetings, most calamitous,” Serene said with a respectful bow toward Nyx before turning to answer the question. “She knocked her out with one kick. It was over before it started, really.”

Oh, thank you, marble! I never doubted you!

Mongrel barely had time to enjoy his victory, however, before he became aware of the crowd’s mood turning. Their cheers petered out into angry mutterings, then became outright jeering.

“Guh…” Mongrel groaned. “What did she do now?”

* * *

Sam

Sam knelt before her opponent—what was her name, again?—and flipped the woman onto her side so she wouldn’t choke on her own tongue while she softly prodded at the skull and jawline for damage. There didn’t seem to be anything too catastrophic that she could tell from a cursory check. Hopefully she would wake up with nothing but a concussion and a bump on the head.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sam was vaguely aware of the announcer drifting down toward her, as though lowered on wires.

“You are the winner,” Golden Boy said with a hint of displeasure in his voice, the amplification turned off so only the two of them were privy to the conversation. “It’s distasteful to play with your food. Finish her off so we can move this along.”

“I’m not going to kill her,” Sam said with a smile, wiping sand off her knees as she stood. “There’s nothing in the rules saying I have to, right?”

“The customers want blood. Expect it.”

“That’s just too bad for them, isn’t it?”

“I strongly advise against this.”

“And I appreciate your advice, but I don’t remember asking for it.”

The Entertainer looked like he wanted to say something else, but was silenced by a sharp look. Before ever touching the ground, he jetted up high again, catching the top of the floating cube and hanging off its side.

“GOOD PEOPLE!” he announced in a high-pitched, amplified whine. “YOUR WINNER IS SAM DARLING! IN HER MAGNAMINTY, SHE HAS ELECTED TO SPARE HER ENEMY, TERRY TERRIBLE.”

Cheering turned to a confused murmur, then nothing. Somewhere, a horn honked awkwardly to mark an official end to the fight, almost comedic as it rang over the extended silence.

Then they began booing.

Angry faces surrounded the rim of the pit on all sides, mouths working as they hurled insults that quickly turned into an indistinguishable mess of voices.

Slowly turning to take them all in, Sam felt a grin creeping onto her face.

“Thank you!” she cried, throwing her arms wide. “Thank you, everyone! I couldn’t have done it without your support!”

She folded double in a deep bow, and the jeering got louder. She began to laugh. When she had to begin sidestepping half-empty bottles and miscellaneous food items thrown her way, her laughter rose to an uncontrollable fever pitch.