Henke

Despite her less than confidence-inspiring appearance, he had to admit that Venture did good work. Throwing combinations against the mitts of his sparring partner to limber up for the fight, he felt only a mild protest from his muscles. He was back to full range of motion, and moved with close to his usual agility. Additionally, the Physician had ensured that the substance that crazy woman had tried to poison her with was flushed out of his system without too much discomfort.

The extra prep time had worked in Henke’s favor, giving the Devil’s Eye just a little bit longer to restore some of its charge. It was still on the low end, but it would be more than enough to finish off that bleeding-heart Laborer.

“You’re going to destroy her,” said his sparring partner.

I’m going to destroy her.

“You’re a winner.”

I’m a winner.

“You’re a champion.”

I’m a champion.

“They love you.”

They love me.

“Now go out there and make it look easy!”

Henke threw a furious combination; jabs, hooks, straights, overhands, and ended with a primal scream that pulled the tendons in his neck taut and left his face hot. Taking a step back and wiping a speck of saliva from his lower lip, he felt fresh confidence surge inside him.

He was the best. He just needed to make that abundantly, unmistakably clear to everyone else. To the fans. There couldn't be any doubt.

Dickie Rich in his crisp gray suit came away from a small throng of business associates and strolled over to Henke, giving him a hard clap on the back. “You look lethal,” he said.

“I’m in top form, sir,” Henke replied, nodding.

“Good. Now, from what I hear, they’ve barely got Sam Darling upright. I’d say a stiff breeze would knock her over.”

“I’m going to destroy her.”

“Obviously. What I’m saying is, don’t go too easy on her. Drag it out a bit—give the fans what they want. Make it bloody.”

Henke grinned. “I can do that.”

Dickie Rich’s own smile was thin and measured. “Attaboy.”

Henke was accompanied by a small group into the tunnel. They checked his wraps, and gave him a final rub-down of oil to keep him slippery in case Sam Darling decided to try and grapple him. No one patted him down. Dickie Rich paid the League enough for the attendants to conveniently forget that little detail. Not that it would matter either way.

Then the doors opened, and he trotted out onto the sands of the enormous Hell-1 pit. His stage. His home.

The ringside was packed with his fans, jostling for space with one another. The bleachers were equally full. They were screaming his name, a chorus so loud it hurt his ears.

“Heee-ro! Heee-ro! Heee-ro!” they chanted.

Henke raised both hands over his head in greeting, and the roar got even louder. “Heee-ro! Heee-ro! Heee-ro!” Then he sketched out a bow, which he turned into a nimble front flip to show the fans that the previous fight had not left any marks on him.

He crossed a good portion of the hundred-foot diameter ring at a leisurely jog, nodding at eager attendees, giving high fives to ones that reached down to touch him, even shook a hand or two.

They loved him.

They were there to see him.

Henke had been worried for nothing. The fans did not think less of him for struggling a little in his fight against the rat. If anything, they were even more enthusiastic than usual in their support.

On the other end of his stage, a lone figure emerged from doors already closing behind her. Sam Darling. Henke’s confidence shot higher as soon as he saw her. She was moving in a slow, shambling gait. If anything, ‘barely upright’ had been a hyperbolic statement. She looked like the living dead.

Henke could not hold back a laugh. The hardest part of this match would be trying not to finish Sam Darling too quickly. Dickie Rich was right, after all. It wasn’t enough to just win—the fans deserved a spectacle.

His step was light and loose as he approached the center of the stage, wanting to meet his opponent halfway and get a closer look at her. Gone was the clown act she had been putting on for most of the night—the painted symbols of love and peace had mostly been wiped off, leaving only colorful smears here and there on her arms and face. Gone, too, was her cocky grin. Her face was gray and grim, her short boyish hair a dirty mess.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The sequined vest she had been wearing was gone, and her upper body was only clothed in the gauze wrapping that covered most of her torso. Her feet dragged in the rain-wet sand, unsteady.

Most importantly, her eyes were dull and downcast, all the life gone out of them. She knew she was beaten. They both knew the outcome of this fight—letting it play out was just a formality.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” Golden Boy cried, twirling about in the air above. “WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE! NOW, AT LAST, THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE FINAL PERFORMANCE OF THE NIGHT! CHAMPION VERSUS CHALLENGER, WINNER TAKES ALL. ONE FIGHTER WILL WALK AWAY WITH FIFTY THOUSAND GLORIES, WHILE THE OTHER…” He trailed off, leaving the statement unfinished. “BETS ARE OPEN FOR ONE MORE MINUTE, SO MAKE SURE YOU LOCK YOURS IN NOW! YOU DON’T WANNA MISS OUT ON THIS ONE, FOLKS!”

Sam Darling was twenty feet away now, still trying to make her way to the center of his stage at a snail’s pace.

“OUR DEFENDING CHAMPION NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION,” Golden Boy continued. “HENKE THE HERO, THE MAN WITH THE KILLER HAND, WITH A RECORD OF THIRTY-NINE WINS AND ZERO LOSSES. HE HAS OVERCOME SOME TOUGH COMPETITION TONIGHT TO GET HERE, AND IT SURE LOOKS LIKE HE’S HUNGRIER THAN EVER, DOESN’T IT FOLKS?”

They cheered. Oh, how they cheered.

“AND FOR OUR CHALLENGER… A FRESH CONTENDER WHO APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE TO TAKE THE B-BRACKET BY STORM. SAM ‘PEACEFUL FIST’ DARLING HAS GOT A LOT TO PROVE—NOW, LET’S SEE IF SHE CAN DO IT!”

The fans booed, drawing a grin from Henke. They were on his side.

The gold-plated announcer floated down beside him, throwing a chubby arm around over his shoulders and putting the scepter up to his mouth. “DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO THE PEOPLE BEFORE THE FIGHT STARTS?”

“I do,” Henke said, his voice echoing out over the crowd. “With the risk of plagiarizing our late Jax, I think that Sam Darling is a disgrace to this sport. I mean to make a sacrifice of her, but not in the name of some dead goddess. I will water this blessed ground with her blood, and add one more name to the list of unworthy ones who have been judged and found wanting in our glorious arena. Death or nothing. That is all.”

“Death or nothing! Death or nothing! Death or nothing!” the fans echoed back at him.

Golden Boy drifted a short distance over to Sam Darling, who had finally almost made it to the center, and followed her at a slow glide as she continued her dogged trudging. “ANY REBUTTAL TO THAT, DARLING?” he asked.

The Laborer said nothing, didn’t acknowledge the announcer’s presence in any way. Coming to a lurching stop just beyond arm’s reach from Henke, she slowly raised one hand into the air and made a fist of it.

Henke’s grin widened. What was that supposed to mean?

Then, for the first time, she looked up and met his gaze.

For some reason, the steely intensity in those pale blue eyes made his smile slip a hair.

Golden Boy zipped away, leaving his floating golden orb behind to bob sedately around the two fighters. The crowd cheered.

Henke could not pay attention to any of it. For some reason, a voice echoed in his head, refusing to go away.

Sam Darling is going to take you apart.

Justice is coming for you.

The horn sounded, and Henke took several cautious steps back. Darling followed at the same sluggish, labored pace, her fist held high.

* * *

Mongrel

Watching his fighter shamble into the ring from his vantage point at the railing, Mongrel wondered if he really should have made that last bet.

He would have netted a tidy profit just from the previous predictions he had made that night, could have made off with enough spending money in his pocket to last him a year. He hadn’t needed to put every penny he owned—along with the funds he had strategically borrowed from Will—on Sam winning over Henke the Hero. He could have washed his hands of the whole affair and walked away.

Then again, if Will’s girlfriend ended up dead at the end of this, he would undoubtedly track Mongrel down and dice him into tiny little pieces, so he was kind of all-in anyway.

If you’re gonna make a bet, might as well bet big.

Words to live by. But when you were reasonably certain you were going to lose everything, they felt a slim comfort indeed.

A loud, brassy cry marked the start of the bout, and Mongrel said a hushed prayer to his lucky marble, along with a humble and heartfelt appeal to every deity he could name.

Sam kept walking toward her opponent, a hand in the air, while Henke backed slowly away from her, wary.

“Why has she got her fist up like that?” Mongrel asked, leaning close to the demoness beside him to be heard over the din. Sam had hardly said a word since waking up, and there hadn’t been any time to strategize, so he had no idea what her game plan would be.

“She’s a fool,” Nyx hissed, arms crossed over her chest.

“I knew that already. But what’s she doing?”

“I believe Samantha is taking inspiration from Ratcatcher. She is telling Henke that she will hit him with that fist—telegraphing her attack to set up a valor surge.”

“Oh.”

Nyx shook her head. “Needless to say, it won’t work. Just because Ratcatcher happened to hit the one-in-a-million jackpot, that doesn’t mean Samantha will have the same luck.”

Mongrel groaned softly, running a hand down his face. “I’m so fucked.”

Nyx patted his shoulder. “You’ll be all right, dearest.”

Sam did not break stride in her excruciatingly sluggish advance toward the Hero. Henke kept a light, bouncy step, hands in a tight guard, while her free one dangled limp by her side.

Of all the idiot things she could pull, why’d it have to be this one? Did she even have a backup strategy in case she failed to call up a valor surge, or was that plan A through Z? He guessed the latter, and that made his sphincter clench even tighter than it had been.

Then again…

If you’re gonna make a bet, might as well bet big.

Sometimes, he hated how wise he sounded.

Sam took a step and placed her foot down wrong. Her ankle rolled, and she stumbled. Henke saw his chance. Reversing his retreat in a dime, he darted past her defense and threw a right overhand, putting all his weight behind it.

A fiery explosion washed over Sam’s upper torso as his Devil’s Eye ring connected. Her weight tipped back, and she teetered, then fell like a log, her bandaged chest leaving a trail of smoke that traced her path.

Sam Darling lay there on the ground, one arm flung limp over her head. She wasn’t moving.

Mongrel grabbed twin handfuls of his hair and pulled until it hurt, a long, low groan escaping him like the final, flaccid fart of a dead man.

The seconds stretched on, and she still wasn’t moving.

Mongrel was already visualizing the coldness of William Greene’s knife pressed against his throat.

I really fucked up, didn’t I?

The tournament had seemed like such a sure thing at the time.