Mongrel

Mongrel bulled his way to the edge of the pit so that he and his boys were there to keep the angry rabble at bay when the girl came jogging out of a tunnel that led to the fighting area. She was in strangely high spirits considering the extreme vitriol being hurled her way from all sides, not all in the form of words. Despite all that, she wore a huge, stupid grin that almost made her look a bit touched in the head.

It was only because of his boys acting as shrieking, chest-pounding bouncers that they made it to Sam's assigned tent without incident. Serene sat her down to check her for injuries, but soon found that there were none, and neither had any of the old ones reopened.

“They really hate me, huh!” Sam said to no one in particular, eyes sparkling.

“Don’t need to look so damn excited about it,” Mongrel grumbled, and wrestled his way out of Nyx’s overbearing hold on his arm. “You’re making this a lot more complicated than it has to be, you know.”

“Sorry about that,” Sam replied with a shrug, and winced at the pain it no doubt caused her injured shoulder. “This is actually great, though!”

Mongrel decided to humor her. “What’s so great? You’ve successfully turned every viewer against you over the course of a single match. It’s actually impressive how stupid that is.”

“For once, he’s right,” Serene said, standing up from her foldout stool. She frowned down at Sam over crossed arms. “Fighters are forbidden from interfering with each other between matches, but nothing’s stopping an unhappy spectator from putting a knife between your ribs.”

The meat-headed young woman clicked her tongue with displeasure, though it did not seem to lessen her good-natured giddiness. “You’re all being so negative,” she argued. “Look at the upside—now I know what my role is in this tournament.”

“Role?” Mongrel asked.

“Yeah!” Sam made an airy gesture with her hands. “I’m the heel!”

“Uh-huh…?”

“That’s a wrestling term for the person you’re supposed to hate. Like… the villain, I guess. Which is a bit ironic, considering I’m the one doing the least amount of evil shit out there, but it is what it is. And if I’m the heel, I’m gonna play my role to perfection.”

Her grin took on a worryingly mischievous edge that made Mongrel's back sweat. What was this crazy bitch planning, exactly?

Before he could interrogate her about it, though, she leapt to her feet from the empty chest she had been sitting on and made for the open tent flap with long, hurried strides. “Sorry, gotta run! Ratcatcher’s on soon, and I want to be there to cheer him on.”

“Don’t—”

Sam was already gone by the time Mongrel had gotten anything meaningful out. Wanting to cry, but settling for a weary sigh, he went and plopped down on the seat his witless fighter had just vacated.

“Why?” Mongrel muttered into his hands. “Who behaves like this? Doesn’t she understand that she’s making more work for me?” Mongrel sighed again for effect—more loudly this time—so that the others would understand how badly this had upset his day.

“There there, Matthew,” Nyx murmured, and fussed at his hair in an annoyingly maternal fashion. He could not muster the energy to shake her off. “You have a lot on your shoulders, don’t you?”

“Don’t mock me,” Mongrel growled, though there was not much of an edge to his voice.

“You know… if all the spectators want our dear Samantha to lose, they will be inclined to bet accordingly in future rounds, don’t you think? And more people betting against her means…”

Mongrel slowly let his hands fall from his face. “Bigger payout on betting for her.”

“That’s right, Matthew. Clever boy.”

Miraculously, Mongrel felt the fatigue beginning to lift from his shoulders. “You know what,” he said with a surge of moral outrage, “on second thought, I think it’s about time that the fighting pits went and picked up some damn principles. So much senseless bloodshed…” He shook his head. “It’s our duty to help our girl show people the way, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” Nyx agreed.

All that stress had given him an appetite. Mongrel was about to send one of the boys to fetch him something hot and greasy, but Nyx offered to do it instead. He was suspicious, of course, but it wasn’t as though he could really stop her in any case, so he gave her leave to go. If she wanted to go running errands for him, who was he to complain? It wasn’t going to earn her any points with him, after all. He knew her game—to charm the pants off him so she could suck his soul out through his cock. Or something of that nature, anyway.

Well, it just so happened that ol’ Matt Caldwell (esquire) was entirely immune to feminine trickery. He’d let her bash her head against the steel trap of his mind until he died happily in his bed of old age, as he suspected a demoness’s pride would never allow her to admit defeat.

She’d never get one over on him—no, sir.

* * *

Serene

When the demon known as Nyx left the tent to fetch the pot-bellied idiot food, Serene felt compelled to go with her. That couldn’t really be what she was doing, was it? It had to be a cover for something, or some evil joke Serene could not understand the significance of—the Fallen Ones did like their pranks—but for the life of her, she could not figure it out.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When they were eventually standing in the back of a disordered pile of people trying to get to a food stand, Serene could not contain her morbid curiosity any longer. “Most calamitous,” she said meekly, “if I may ask, what is your interest in that… man? He’s an idiot.”

“Yes,” Nyx replied curtly; gaze fixed firmly ahead, hands folded over her trim stomach.

“Then…”

Serene felt herself go stiff as two sharp, yellow eyes fell on her, just for a moment, before sliding past. “That’s not for you to know, sweetness. All you need to know is your place.”

Unable to physically flee, Serene made herself small, stared at her feet. “Yes, most calamitous. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Good girl. You serve the True Blood, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Serene replied, barely able to force her voice above a whisper. She had worked under Darkside’s infernal whoremasters long enough to understand the consequences of defying one of the Fallen Ones.

“Excellent. Then listen carefully, sweetness.”

“Yes, most calamitous.”

“You will not sleep with Matthew.”

Despite her utmost efforts, Serene could not help a confused frown knitting her brow. “I… wasn’t planning to?”

“If he offers you money, you will refuse it.”

“I… see. Yes.”

“It took a great deal of effort to get that Red House trollop to see the error of her ways. It simply would not do to have him fall in love with somebody else. That would be a terrible waste of my time.”

Fortunately, the demoness was quite obviously not looking for Serene’s input, because she did not believe she could have offered any kind of coherent response to that statement.

What, exactly, did the Fallen One expect to get out of that repugnant man? Was he actually more than he seemed? Someone of great influence, perhaps? He did not seem particularly rich, at least judging by his shabby clothing…

Serene decided it was a riddle she would never know the answer to, and resolved to put it from her mind before her curiosity landed her in even more trouble.

* * *

Sam

B-Bracket was holding its matches in Hell-3, a pit of identical dimensions to Hell-5. When Ratcatcher was not to be found in the tent allotted to him, she went trawling the fairground for him. At one point, Serene’s prophecy nearly came true when some belligerent, red-faced fellow tried to stab Sam in the gut. She handed the gaping man his knife back twisted into an avante-garde bracelet, then continued on.

Eventually, she found the guy she was looking for sitting at the top of some tall wooden bleachers that overlooked the Hell-3 pit. It was pretty full, but she managed to convince the person sitting next to Ratcatcher to scoot over enough that she could just about squeeze her butt onto the bench.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Ratcatcher replied, looking a little green in the face. “I heard you won your first match.”

“I did!”

“Congrats.”

“Thanks!” After a few moments of silence, she bumped the unassuming man’s shoulder with her own. “So, how are you feeling?”

Ratcatcher glanced her way with a nervous smile, then returned to staring at the fighters lining up in the pit below. “Honestly? Like I might puke and shit myself at the same time.”

Sam chuckled. “You’ll be all right, man. Besides, I’ll be here cheering you on.”

“Really?”

“Of course! You’ve got that fighting spirit—I can tell.” She patted her bicep for emphasis.

“Thanks.” Hearing that, he did actually seem to relax a little.

Sam noticed that Henke was one of the fighters down there when she saw his face reflected in the cube screen that floated above the pit. After his performance in the qualifiers, she wondered how he would fare in a one-on-one setting. She found herself hoping he would lose—it wasn’t as though his bloodthirsty ways were anything unusual in this place, but there was something about his cavalier attitude to death and unrestrained showboating that she found insufferable.

“I’ve been wondering,” Sam mused, “what’s with that name? Ratcatcher. It’s kind of random, isn’t it?”

Ratcatcher scratched the tip of his nose. “Oh, uh, not really that random, actually. You see, I only moonlight as a pit fighter—most days, I work as a… well, a rat catcher.”

“Oh. That’s a real job?”

“‘Course it is. There are probably more rats in this city than there are humans. I do this,” he motioned to the pit before them, “because I want to believe there’s something more to this life than hopeless drudgery—I had more than my fill of that in my previous one, thank you very much. Of course, the abilities of a so-so rat catcher don’t necessarily translate to being a great pit fighter, so I haven’t had much luck.”

“You haven’t won any yet, right? I asked a friend about you, and that’s what she said.”

Ratcatcher gave a sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, pretty much. I reckon the only reason the organizers throw me a fight every now and again is ‘cos people think it’s funny to watch me lose. Like watching a guy slip on the same banana peel over and over again.”

Sam nodded soberly. “I know what that feels like.”

“You do? But you seem so strong…”

“Eh, from my other life. I was a fighter back then, too. I wasn’t bad or anything, but I guess you could say my ambition went a lot farther than my body could keep up with. You get used to losing after a while, but it never stings any less.” She gave Ratcatcher a slightly pained smile. “Right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He paused, then licked his lips and spoke again. “That’s why I decided to go all-in. I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere as long as I had some wiggle room to back down or fall short, so I signed up for the tournament. I want to know what it feels like to win, even if it’s just once. And if I die trying, well, that’s all right too. At least, that’s what I told myself, but…” He hugged himself tighter. “It seems my sphincter doesn’t quite agree.”

Henke’s fight was a blink-and-you-miss-it thing. The horn sounded, Henke threw a punch, his opponent’s gray matter fanned out across the sand, and the horn went off a second time just as the headless corpse went sideways.

Ratcatcher shivered. She was starting to worry that he would actually be sick. “Even if I win my first match by some miracle, that’s what I’m up against in the second.”

She hadn’t thought about that. “I’m sure you can take him. Is he really as strong as everyone seems to think?” She frowned at the distant figure that was Henke. He was basking in the overwhelming adulation as he pranced about the pit, waving and pointing and doing the occasional victory backflip.

“He is that good,” Ratcatcher said miserably. “Apparently no one's even landed a strike on him in years. He's untouchable.”

“Damn. That’s, uh…”

“Yeah.” The smile he gave looked more like a nervous tic than an expression of actual mirth. Slowly, reluctantly, the unassuming man peeled himself off the bench. “Well, I guess I’d better start getting ready for my fight…”

“Any idea who you’re fighting?”

“A Laborer like you, actually. Some amateur talent named Skullcrusher.”

“And he’s called that because…”

“Because he crushes people's skulls?” Ratcatcher sighed, shoulders hunching. “That’s what people say.” He began making his way down the bleachers, but paused and turned in the aisle before he got more than two steps. His eyes were big and pleading. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

“You’ll do all right, man,” Sam said, and leaned forward far enough to punch him on the shoulder. “You said he’s an amateur, right? That means you’ve got experience on him.”

“I guess so.”

“Then let that be your weapon.”

Ratcatcher nodded, looking a tiny bit more confident. “Thank you.”

Sam watched him go, and was proud of herself that she’d managed to sound so sure.

Whatever the odds said, she wanted to believe that he could win.