Ava had expected a flamethrower when she lit the butane, and was disappointed when only a small trickle of flames sputtered out of the can, her fingers starting to burn as they did. She could hear Shadow Priest laughing in the darkness, behind her.

“Not such a great plan, huh, little girl?” they said, mockingly. It was at this point that Ava’s hands, still holding the can, started to burn, and Ava’s eyes went wide as dinner plates as she realized what was about to happen.

Without thinking, she spiked the can of butane, still sputtering out licks of flame into the dark, down onto the ring tile as far away from herself as she could, and dove to the opposite side of the ring, just barely clearing the edge and poking her head out of the darkness as her stomach smacked directly into the edge. She grunted in pain, then fell directly forwards out of the ring and hit her head on the ground, blacking her out for a second as the can burst open in an explosion.

When she came to, her ears rang. The darkness was still there, but flickering; she hadn’t finished the job yet. Most annoyingly, she was covered in the dirt from the outside. Sam was by her side, checking her vitals.

“How long?” she asked him.

“You’re at three,” he said. “He’s almost done. Go get him.”

“Four!” she heard the announcer shout. She pulled herself up the side of the ring, and beheld the results of her actions; the attempted flamethrower, that had turned into an improvised pipe bomb, had sent shrapnel into the air, catching Shadow Priest in the gut and causing them to drip a trail of blood as they walked. The darkness, while still there, was flickering, and the flames of the explosion still lingered, cutting it even when it manifested.

“You’re pretty good,” they said. “I thought I had you.”

Ava, for once in her life, had no time to enjoy this fight. She wanted to end it as quickly as possible. She focused killing intent into her arm and threw a punch… and was surprised when her fist, on the wind-up, began to form a gauntlet made of hot, reflective chrome, with large spikes jutting forwards from the wrist over her hand.

Her evolved Code made contact with Shadow Priest’s face through the cloak, not doing as much damage as her initial Code of Fist would have, but still doing enough to render the shadow-moving fighter’s face completely and utterly unrecognizable and cave their skull into their brain, the spikes remaining lodged in until Ava’s intent faded and the gauntlet vanished.

The announcer walked up to lift Ava’s arm as usual, as the crowd screamed and roared, but she yanked her arm away silently and took off at a brisk walk for the entrance as Sam accompanied her.

----------------------------------------

“Who’s next?” Ava bluntly asked Sam when they arrived at the suite. Sam checked the bracket; Ava’s opponent was still blank.

“Dunno yet,” Sam said. “We’ve probably got the rest of the day to go. You should get some rest.”

“I’ve only got one more person to kill before I get my hands on that fucker,” Ava said. “And, between what Scott did and my new bullshit, I’m gonna take him down and avenge our friends. And then we’re gonna be rich as fuck, and my mom and I are gonna actually have food in the fucking apartment and not have to worry about making rent every month. And I’m gonna make God damn sure Luke and Scott get a big-ass gravestone with a statue of them taking turns shitting down this guy’s neck or something.”

As she went on, she started to rant more than talk, her eyes wide and her breath quickening, and Sam was starting to get a little worried. He put his hands on her shoulders, gently but firmly.

“Are you okay, Ava?” he asked.

“No,” she said, and then broke down into tears, collapsing into his chest and sobbing. “I… I didn’t want either of them to die,” she sobbed into his shirt. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I mean, I basically dragged you guys here.”

“C’mon, Ava,” Sam said, sitting her up and looking her in the eyes. “Trust me, if the rest of us hadn’t wanted to be here too, it’d just be you in this suite. We all came on that boat with you because we wanted this.”

“Why, though?” Ava asked, starting to pull herself together. “Luke and Scott seemed like they were doing fine. And, like, your mom’s a doctor. None of y’all have to worry about, like, having food in your fridge, or making rent every month, or, like, having clothes that don’t have holes in them. Why did y’all come, too?”

Sam sighed.

“Luke and Scott, uh… I hate to tell you this, but they kinda weren’t doing fine. They were pretty close to running out of the money their parents left them. It was either do something like this or get thrown out on the street in a year or so,” Sam explained.

“Well, okay, but what about you?” Ava asked.

“My mom’s got a fuckjillion dollars in student loans,” he said. “Like, I honestly don’t even know how much. And she works at Ben Taub. You know, the hospital where they take all the unhoused people and whatnot. She doesn’t get paid great. I was gonna give my cut to her, and either clear all of that out or at least make a pretty significant dent in it, I don’t know what.”

“So, what, you’re here for your mom?” Ava followed up, chuckling a little, even though it wasn’t really funny.

“…no, not really, that’s not all of why,” Sam admitted. “Do you want me to be completely honest about it? Like, even if it might come off a little insensitive, given the circumstances? Like, I legit wasn’t gonna ever say this, but now that the stakes are pretty clearly at ‘we might die’ levels, I feel like I gotta.”

Ava wasn’t sure where he was going with this, and wasn’t sure if she was going to like it, but figured she could at least trust Sam not to be a complete asshole.

“Yeah, sure, shoot,” she said, her face still stained with tears, but her composure mostly having returned. Sam took a deep breath, preparing himself for this.

“Honestly, it’s… it’s because of you, Ava,” Sam said. “I knew you were gonna be all-in on this shit the moment it involved punching people, and… I like you, and I care about you, and I don’t wanna see you get hurt. You kinda have a habit of charging into danger head-first, and I feel like I need to be there to protect you in any way I can if shit goes wrong. Like, I know I can't do much, but even if I can do something to help, I...”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ava blinked, taking a second to process what she’d just heard, then blushed harder than she’d ever blushed in her life and kissed Sam, wrapping her arms around him.

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“So, uh… does this mean we’re…” Sam started, his arm wrapped around Ava’s shoulder, as they sat on the couch and she leaned her head onto his own shoulder. A few hours had passed, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation as they half-watched filler episodes of One Piece that were airing on Adult Swim. They’d only taken a break to order up some room service, having noticed that the menu was markedly better than anything on the food-court-style stands available to the peanut gallery; the remains of a chicken Caesar salad, which was all Sam could stomach, and a butter-poached salmon filet over rice that Ava had ordered sat on the coffee table, along with two empty whiskey glasses that had previously contained Old Fashioneds made with Jameson.

“It means I kissed you and now we’re cuddling,” Ava said. “Look, don’t read too much into it, I’m really not in any state to make long-term calls right now.” On top of her emotions being a wreck, she was fairly bruised from fighting Shadow Priest, and had a cotton ball jammed into the hole of her knocked-out molar by an on-site medic to keep the bleeding down. A definite downgrade from Scott’s whole Jesus hands thing, she thought to herself.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Sam said. “Same here, honestly.”

“I kinda wish I could just curl up into a ball and forget any of the past, like, week ever happened,” Ava said. “Like, everything from punching Luke on. Just… bam, never happened, Eternal Sunshine style.”

“What about meeting me?” Sam asked, facetiously worried.

“That'd be the one part I’d keep,” Ava said, smiling.

“Aw, you’re sweet,” Sam said, giving her a peck on the forehead. Ava grimaced a little. “Sorry,” he added.

“It’s okay, just… I mean, come on, you know me, do I really seem like the type?” Ava asked, chuckling a little.

“I mean, shit, I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to full-on grab me and plant one on me, but here we are,” Sam said, laughing himself.

“Yeah, I’m usually not the type to do that, either, but… I dunno, I guess I just didn’t know how else to react to you saying that,” Ava said. “That was really sweet of you. Honestly, that made me kinda feel better in and of itself. Even with half of our team gone, I definitely don’t feel alone, you get me?”

“Yeah, I get you,” Sam said. “Same. I’m… glad I was able to get that out.”

“Damn, you were having trouble?” Ava asked. “Sure didn’t seem like it with how out of left field that came.” Sam blushed.

“Yeah, uh… you’re gonna probably freak out, but honestly, I kinda started to have a thing for you when that whole Devourer fight happened,” he said.

“No shit? I… can I ask why? You don’t have, like, a thing for cannibalism or gore or anything, do you?” Ava asked, bolting upright.

“Oh, God no,” Sam said, waving his hands defensively. “No, honestly, you know what it is? The whole way you just straight up fuckin’ bolted into the crowd to go fight him, and then backed it up by splattering him into goo all over the hallway. Like, I thought you were cute at first, but that just made you, like, ten out of ten, holy shit perfect.”

Ava was blushing bright red at this point, and she hugged him closely.

“God, Luke and Scott must be rolling in their graves right now that we’re just cuddling and watching TV and not, like, going to try and find this guy in his room or something,” Sam said, trying to change the subject a little. Ava rolled her eyes.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m fucking nuclear pissed at him too, but… you ever see the movie 300?”

“Not a big Zack Snyder guy,” Sam said. “But yeah, I have.”

“Oh, come on, he’s fine,” Ava said. “But yeah, you know that whole bit where they’re all feasting and he’s going ‘enjoy your breakfast and eat hearty, because tonight, we dine in Hell’ and all that?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “You just like Zack Snyder movies because the cast is all beefcakes.”

“Okay, fine, guilty,” Ava said, laughing. “But yeah, I kinda see it like that. We’ve got a time blocked out for this shit. It’s tomorrow. They’re gonna knock out the semifinals, and then they’re gonna do the finals. If we survive both, we get our vengeance. If we don’t, well, that’s us in the ground too. Might as well enjoy the night while we’ve got it.”

“Yeah, that’s actually kind of a good point,” Sam said. Ava bolted upright, putting a look of slight alarm on Sam’s face.

“I’ve got an idea,” Ava said, taking Sam’s hand gently and leading him along out the door and to the elevator.

----------------------------------------

The two had gotten four beer boots, carrying two apiece, one in each hand, and they tried to keep them balanced and took occasional gulps as they descended the steps towards the dock. When they reached the bottom, Ava set one down, prompting Sam to do the same; he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on here, and Ava was leading the way entirely.

“This is the best way I can think of to give them a funeral,” Ava said. “Since they’re probably not gonna get a proper one back home. You wanna do them separately or both at once?”

“Uh… separately is probably better,” Sam said, being unsure what to say about Luke.

“You got anything to say about Luke, or you want me to go first?” Ava followed up.

“You go first,” Sam said, passing the buck to his apparent new girlfriend splendidly. Ava cleared her throat.

“Luke, you were an absolute stupid son of a bitch, but you were… you were a good dude. You did some real badass shit when it counted. That whole thing with the rib… Jesus, dude, that’s going to inspire me for the rest of my fucking life,” Ava said, tearing up. “I’m sorry I’m not gonna get a chance for a round two with you, and I hope you wait for me down there in Hell so we get a chance to slug it out again, buddy.”

Jesus, the way this girl thinks, Sam thought to himself, trying not to stare at her.

“Alright, your turn,” Ava said to Sam.

“Uh… I got nothing,” Sam said. “I’m gonna be completely honest, I didn’t know Luke very well, and the only impression I got of him was kinda negative. Like, I was kinda more sad for Scott than anything when he kicked it.”

“That’s… that’s fair,” Ava said, awkwardly. “Alright, let’s pour one out for the guy,” she said, lifting up one of the beer boots and pouring it out onto the sand of Isla Refugia as it washed away into the Gulf of Mexico. When it was empty, it was Sam’s turn to pipe up.

“Alright, we doing Scott next?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, you wanna go first?” Ava asked in return.

“Sure,” Sam said. He looked up at the sky. “Scott, I’m sorry this ended up this way. I don’t know… exactly why you did what you did, but I think you did it to help Ava and to avenge your brother, and as much as I hate that you’re gone, I respect that, buddy. We miss our healer.”

Ava nodded at him and looked up at the sky herself.

“Everything he said, and also, I’m gonna make that motherfucker shit my fists,” she added. Sam did a double-take and looked at her.

“You’re gonna make him… shit your fists?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, like, I’m gonna shove my fist down his throat so far it comes out his asshole,” Ava explained, cheerily.

“I get it, but like… man, that sounds weird,” Sam said.

“Hey, you try coming up with one liners after the kind of day today’s been,” Ava said, defensively. “Let’s pour one out for Scott and finish chugging our own beers, and stagger back to our room, alright? We need to get some sleep.”

Sam stopped her as she reached for her beer.

“Hey, I just kind of realized something,” he said. “Haven’t seen Mr. Johnson since this morning. Little fucking suspicious, no? Don’t you think he’d wanna come give his condolences?”

“I… guess? He might just be busy,” Ava said. “You know, rich guy bullshit, running the tournament.”

“Yeah, running the tournament. You said Maxim had Yoda vibes and was being really nice on the ship. Him just flat out murdering Luke like that, when Luke didn’t pose any threat to him, is out of character, right?” Sam asked.

“…you know, you’ve kind of got a point there,” Ava said. “He did, like, very specifically say a bunch of stuff about not wanting to kill oh fuck me he was trying to give us a very specific warning and we did not catch it.” Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates as the realization hit her.

“He’s not the bad guy, isn’t he?” Sam asked.

“It’s possible I’m not reading this right, but… yeah, between the fact that he was very vocally against killing us on the cruise ship and the fact that he’s doing a whole lot of killing us right now, I don’t think the buck stops with him, at least. I think we’re having our strings pulled,” Ava said. “And I have a suspicion I know who’s pulling them.”

“Who?” Sam asked, already suspecting the answer.

“That absolute fucking Gucci-suited fuck, Mr. Johnson,” Ava asked.