Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Florida, New American Republic, January 4, 2037
“Folks at home, my producer is telling me that the slight delay is over and the fighters are about to take the field. Still no word on what the problem was, but it doesn’t matter now. Any last thoughts, Lanny?” Chip said.
“I think we’ve covered most of it. Although, I still can’t figure out what Lord De la Sangre’s class is?” Lanny said.
“Maybe it’s the same as the pseudonym he chose to hide his identity under before getting unmasked by Shrewed in the last match. ‘Blood-soaked Assassin’ does seem to fit. Hopefully, we’ll learn more from the match, since Lord De la Sangre was been coy about it. Rou is going to make him work for a win.”
“That’s right, Chip. No more holding your best Skills and spells in reserve. We’re in the Elite Eight now. The cream rising to to the top as the dregs have all fallen to the bottom. Both better give it all if they want to reach the Final Four and keep their hopes for the championship alive,” Lanny said.
“Well said, partner. With that let’s send it down to the field,” Chip said.
The lord, clad head to toe in dark clothing and light armor, held his arms out wide with one blade in a standard grip, the other in an icepick grip. He sauntered toward the middle of the dirt field.
His opponent growled as his body contorted and swelled. The sickening sound of popping joints and bulging muscles was accompanied by a rapid growth of hair all over his bare torso, arms and face. Fingernails lengthened and thickened into sharp claws.
The man, known as ‘Rou’, locked yellow eyes on the casual, confident lord. A feral smile revealed sharp teeth with the canine fangs resembling a wolf’s.
“Beastly,” the lord stopped a dozen yards away. “You might as well go all the way. It’s your only chance.”
Despite the dark cloth covering the lord’s mouth, Rou had no trouble picking out the words amidst the roaring crowd. “Ain’t needing ta. Not fer a faggot leech,” his guttural words were made even more difficult to understand due to physical changes.
“The correct term is ‘omnisexual’,” the lord said.
“Da fuck is at? More a yer faggy woke gatorshit,” Rou bent down to grab a huge handful of dirt.
“I suppose it makes sense coming from you. Once a man, now regressed to little better than a wild animal,” the lord twirled the twin short blades in a blindingly fast motion before gesturing up to the tens of thousands in attendance and the millions watching at home. “I will make you less of the man you think you are in front of them all.” Blood red eyes shined from the thin opening.
“I’s gonna eat you an shit you out.”
“No, no, no,” the lord wagged a finger. “Did that animal brain of yours forget the rules?”
“Nah, bitch, I’s member em fine,” Rou tapped a thick claw to his brutish, hair-covered brow, “ain’t no killing. Nuthin' gainst tearin' chunks outta ya when ya can survive jus fine. Time fer ya to git in ma belly, meat,” he threw his head back and howled.
The beastly man hurled the dirt.
The lord blurred around stabbing and cutting.
One blade into a broad, hair-covered stomach. The other slicing the back of a thigh.
Supernatural strength and speed went up against supernatural toughness.
The result was a wash.
The first blade failed to get through thick fat and muscle while the second easily parted tough jeans before drawing a thin red line across the skin.
A spinning backhand hit air as the lord nimbly danced away.
Rou snarled and gave chase with wild swipes.
The lord dodged while cutting thin lines all over the much larger Rou’s hairy arms and torso.
He gracefully spun around an overhand slash dodging claws and a spray of spittle.
“You rage like a beast. Your tainted blood runs hot, doesn’t it? Like a simmer,” he said. “Can you handle a boil?”
The viewers watched Lord De la Sangre point.
They saw Rou double over and roar.
Those that had fought and killed monsters and mutant animals recognized the tenor.
Pain.
“Hahahahahaha!” the lord gestured to crowd. He spoke whispered words only for one other. “Submit and I’ll stop.”
Rou laughed through the pain. His body twisting and contorting with such violence that a great cloud of dust bloomed around him. “This ain’t nuthin',” he grunted. “I’s got worse rollin' round with ma boys.”
The beastly man suddenly sprang from the ground with quickness that belied his bulk.
The lord blurred but was a fraction of a second slow.
Rou had caught him off guard.
Clawed fingers sank through light armor into a chest. The sharp digits hooked into the lord’s ribs and held fast.
Rou took care not to dig too hard lest he accidentally tear the chest open.
He knew that the lord could survive many things. He just wasn’t certain if complete evisceration was one of them. Despite the difficulty in pushing down the beast within’s hunger for blood and death he managed. The rules were clear and his alpha had made it clear they were to be followed. He wasn’t about to piss off the only two men he feared.
With his other hand he grabbed the lord’s head and squeezed. Again, not hard enough to crush the skull.
He pulled the lord closer so that he could peer into those blood-red eyes.
“No tricks? Not like that alpha bitch of yours?” he sneered.
“We are not animals, like you and your kind.”
“You hunt meat jus the same, cept you do it all faggy cause yer a pussy,” he spat.
The lord continued to carve at Rou’s chest and arms. He ignored the bladed reply. Barely scratches and he healed fast anyways. He guessed that the leeches didn’t know about the silver.
“Yer tricks ain’t worth shit,” he raised the lord high as if presenting a kill to the crowd then planted him into the dirt with a thunderous slam.
The lord choked. Blood stained the dark cloth around his mouth and where Rou’s claws dug into his skin.
A howl heralded another ride.
Up then down.
Twice.
Thrice.
The crowd bayed for more.
Rou held the lord up like a dead rabbit as though presenting a kill. He didn’t notice the lord’s dark blood slowly flowing down his fingers, through the crevasses of his muscled arms, until finally reaching the boulders near his neck.
The blood reached up toward Rou’s neck in thin streams, like cilia reaching for nutrients.
They struck suddenly snaking their way through the beastly man’s thick, tangled beard.
Rou’s triumphant sneer became a rictus of rage as his body was invaded.
Sensing something, the crowd hushed.
Rou screamed as a hundred streams of his blood burst forth from all over his body.
The lord landed lightly as the big man’s hands relinquished their hold. He loomed over the fallen Rou and reached down. He brought his hand to his nose. “Unpleasant. How do you like it? The Quietus,” he whispered. “You don’t even understand the word. I doubt you’re literate. You inbred swamp dwellers only use book pages to wipe, after all.”
Rou was on his hands and knees, thick hair matted with red.
“Like a wet dog,” the lord sniffed as he laid his blades against both sides of the beastly man’s thick neck. “Submit!” he raised his voice.
“I feel yer arms shake through them pig gutters. To bad ya ain’t got the right shit to put me down fer long. Wut’s a little blood when I’s got gallons of em to spare,” Rou’s ham-sized hand shot out like a snake.
The lord blurred out of reach.
Rou rose. “See,” he held his arms out wide. “Them little holes already closed up. Ain’t nuthin' ya got fer me.”
They came together in a blur.
Both moving too fast for the normal human eye to follow.
Half the crowd looked up to the huge screens for the slow motion video.
The rest were content to try and fail to keep up with the action.
Blades cut and stab a dozen times a second.
Claws swiped almost as quickly.
Teeth snapped on a steel blade.
The weapon resisted for a moment.
Rou spat out a broken blade.
He struck—
Air?
The lord had vanished.
He spun.
Nothing.
Everywhere he looked.
There was no sign of his opponent.
The crowd murmured.
He felt their confusion.
Saw some of them pointing behind him.
He spun again.
Nothing.
The lord was making him look stupid.
He howled as something stung his lower back.
Blind swipes came up empty. Checking his back didn’t. He brought back red-tipped fingers.
Thousands of yammering voices filled his sensitive ears.
He tried to tune them out and focus on his immediate surroundings.
He remembered watching that smug kid that could turn invisible.
Ears straining, he listened for steps on the dirt.
Nothing.
He tried his nose.
Blood, sweat, adrenaline and half a dozen other scents mingled around him. Most of it came from him.
A trick like with the blood?
Well… the lord wasn’t the only with bullshit tricks.
He took a deep breath ignoring the cuts across his broad, muscled back.
The howl ripped through the arena.
Unlike the normal howl, this was a Skill.
There!
He marked the lord.
His opponents presence should’ve stood out like a bloody beacon in all of his senses. Instead, it flickered in and out of his perceptions like a candle flame in a light breeze.
It was better than nothing.
“Yer ain’t gonna hide from me,” he pounced.
Lord De la Sangre was caught off guard as the big, hairy monster in the guise of a man bore him to the ground.
His Skill had been working to obfuscate his presence from even the keenest of natural scents.
And yet?
That howl?
It was only fair that the beastly man had his own Skills.
The only question now was how many of his abilities did he want to reveal.
One meaty hand held him down while the other battered his head.
The blows stung, but he was tougher than he looked.
He stabbed and cut at the hand pushing on his chest like an industrial press to no avail.
The damn bastard healed too fast.
He regretted not listening to that annoying punk’s suggestion to find some silver.
Admittedly, his personal disdain for his disrespectful coterie member often clouded his judgment when it came to not listening to anything out of Rebel’s foul mouth.
A hiss escaped his lips as something stung the side of his head.
It could only be one thing.
That cursed sun.
It’d burn him to ash if he sat in direct contact with it for more than a handful of minutes.
Sigh, Velvet warned me about this, he thought. Called him a fool for risking combat in the daylight. To be fair it had been fifty-fifty. His first two matches had taken place near dusk and at night.
It looks like his run was about to be undone by bad luck.
Still, he had gained much from his three previous victories.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
There was no shame in bowing out gracefully.
“I yield,” he said.
Rou’s beady black eyes blinked at him in confusion for a moment. Followed by a thudding punch to the face.
The crack of the lord’s nose sent a spasm of pain radiating through his face.
“Stop! Fight’s over!” the referee’s voice snapped.
Multiple referees rushed onto the arena floor.
Rou reluctantly allowed himself to be pried off by a dozen hands. “Get off me! Yer a pussy faggot!” he spat at the lord.
“Get it right. ‘Omnisexual’,” the lord mocked. He held one hand over the tear in the side of his head covering and raised one to the crowd. He listened to the cheers and ignored the boos.
With one last flourish, he strode toward his tunnel.
“The winner and moving on to the Final Four… Roooouuuuuuuu!” the announcer’s voice echoed.
The lord let the sting of it was over him.
A loss in the arena didn’t matter than much.
This was a game.
Sport.
It wasn’t real.
He vowed when that time came he’d be the only one walking away.
----------------------------------------
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Florida, New American Republic, January 5, 2037
It’s said that the eyes were the windows into the soul.
What did that say about the two competitors battling for the last spot in the Final Four?
One was a dark-skinned man in his thirties with eyes of fire.
The other was a pale woman whose eyes glowed with white light beneath a white blindfold.
Issac Freeman.
True Patriot.
The air shimmered around Issac was though he was standing in the middle of a desert highway in the heart of summer.
True Patriot brandished a stick while she cautiously moved forward testing the boundaries of the oven-like heat.
Though it glowed with the same white light leaking through her blindfold the crooked stick resembled a snapped branch. As if she had picked it up at the park on her way to the stadium.
She reached out carefully. Then snatched her hand back as if she had just touched a hot cast-iron skillet handle.
This was a lot hotter than she had expected.
She had studied the videos of her opponent’s previous matches.
His opponents had been weaker than her and they had managed to penetrate the heat and last long enough to at least attempt a few attacks. Granted they hadn’t lasted long.
Issac hadn’t given any interviews.
The commentators and analysts had speculated that he had given his opponents heat stroke.
A theory confirmed by the information her team managed to get out of the medical staff reports, which were supposed to be kept secret. The slavers didn’t want to give competitors advantages over their opponents.
Fair play rules. In her estimation? A farce.
Rules were meant for games and sports that didn’t truly matter in the greater scheme.
Despite the packaging and marketing from the slavers, the Freedom Championships— what a hypocritical name— was no game.
It had real world stakes.
The New American Republic was a vile construct made by the darkest hearts of her country. The all-consuming greed that spurred men to treat other men as things, assets to be used for their own benefits. The selfish rot that had always wound its way through the core like a worm inside an apple.
She was here to work towards its eventual destruction for the true America and its people. To build a better nation. The spires had given them that chance. A clean slate to start over.
To that end she needed to win it all.
For herself.
For her mission.
Strengthening herself strengthened America.
In a just world Issac Freeman would be fighting at her side against the slavers.
Instead, they fought for their entertainment.
“Give up,” she said.
Issac said nothing.
Stared at her with those eyes.
No, not eyes.
She saw no pupils, no sclera.
There was only flame.
It licked at the edges of the openings.
She stared into the blazing heart of a forge.
“Then don’t take this personally,” she hurled her stick like a javelin. It flew straight and true despite being crooked.
The white light within her, the power, would remain in the stick long enough to make its passage through the hazy distortion separating her from Issac.
Flame flashed.
Her eyelids closed reflexively even though there was nothing to protect. Even though she could see regardless. The darkness had been illuminated for her years ago. The day she had gained her powers was the day that her eyes would forever remain open.
Heat washed over her face.
She watched as fire poured from the twin holes in Issac’s face.
It streamed out like water from a hose drenching her stick burning it to nothing in an instant.
Her trusty stick that had made it through the entire tournament.
Unfortunate that she’d have to reveal more of what she was truly capable of.
She drew a pistol from the concealed holster at the small of her back. Fed her power into the bullets, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger.
The fire burned, but her white light protected them long enough to become molten bits of metal that streaked across Issac’s face.
They cut his dark skin.
Flame, rather than blood, leaked.
Interesting.
She reloaded.
If he was content to stand like a stationary target then she was happy to treat him as such.
She took aim and stifled a curse.
He sprinted toward her.
The painful heat enveloped her forcing her to leap back.
A dozen yards in one with the power flowing through her body.
His eyes flashed, sending streams of flame that bloomed into a tsunami-like wave.
It was too wide to dodge around and too fast to run away.
So, she jumped over.
20 yards straight up shooting all the way.
Empty.
Eject mag.
Reload.
Shoot.
Brace for the heat.
It enveloped her while she was still in the air.
Confirmation achieved.
It extended the same distance above as it did on the horizontal pane.
Did it do the same below?
She held her breath, was forced to by the heat stealing it from her lungs.
Her pistol grew hot, as did her armor.
Her clothing smoked.
Her body… that would last longer than everything else.
Her vision blurred, which should’ve been impossible since she no longer had physical eyes.
Somehow, she located Issac in the haze. She aimed, squeezed the trigger—
Her pistol exploded.
The heat had cooked the powder.
That had hurt.
She flexed her fingers experimentally.
Still working.
Thinking quickly she pulled the remaining magazines from her belt and tossed them at Issac.
They exploded before they got close.
A wave of flame washed over her.
The pain…
Ignore it.
Draw on the white light.
She pulled out the collapsible baton, fed it, made it exponentially stronger. Powering through the fire she landed a cracking blow upside Issac’s head.
Dark skin cracked and flaked at the impact revealing more of the inferno seemingly contained within the man’s mortal form.
She struck him over a dozen times in a handful of seconds.
Issac took the blows without concern.
He barely felt them.
His flesh was just a temporary shell after all.
The blind-folded woman was strong.
Stronger than anyone he’d ever faced before. Even that true boss made out of iron at the rail yards hadn’t hit as hard.
No matter.
His victory was a forgone conclusion.
The woman couldn’t last forever with as hot as he had made it.
He just had to be careful not to accidentally turn her to ash.
The slavers didn’t have the kind of healing that could fix that. No one did.
It took him three tries and cost him another dozen hits to the head before he managed to grab the woman’s arm.
Which was a mistake.
He lacked physical strength and was a lot lighter than he looked.
The woman shook him like a terrier did a rat.
He hung on and turned up the heat to his hands.
The woman’s arm guards began to melt.
She grimaced.
“Give up before something permanent happens.” He had given all of his opponents the opportunity to quit and they all had taken it after it became clear that they couldn’t hurt him. The fear of fire was deep in the subconscious of normal people. Ask anyone and they’d say that being burned alive was one of the most painful ways to go.
The woman couldn’t talk, holding her breath as she was, but the look on her face made it clear that quitting wasn’t on the table.
He let go and went for a short flight landing in a heap a dozen yards away.
Victory wasn’t worth maiming the woman.
She didn’t deserve it.
Not like the slavers.
He turned his burning gaze to her and hit her with another low-powered stream of fire.
She pushed through it.
The white orbs hidden beneath the blindfold glowed brighter underneath the assault.
Her armor and clothing burned. Fair skin smoked and began to blister.
She hastily removed her helmet lest it turn into a molten crown.
The crowd roared.
Disgusting.
He reined the fire in with difficulty.
Once the veneer of humanity cracked it had always been a hard thing to pull it back. To remember that he wasn’t the inferno. That he was a man in mind if not in body.
Issac Freeman.
Sophia’s brother.
Remember yourself… for her.
He shifted his gaze to the ground in front of the woman.
He traced a line of flame across her path.
His fire wasn’t natural.
It burned without the need for fuel for as long as he desired.
It burned as strong or as weak as he chose.
True Patriot recoiled from the wall of flame.
Against expectation and logic it stayed in place. Twice as tall as her.
She moved to the left.
Another flame wall cut her off.
She looked to the right.
Of course, she thought, just as another one flared to life.
Issac left her one way out, so she took it.
She sprinted back and out of the scorching heat.
A deep breath to fill her lungs.
Her skin felt raw despite the white light inside suppressing the pain, healing, though not quickly enough for the fight. She felt as tired as she had ever been in a long time.
Facing this man was like the worst true boss fight she had ever done.
That one she had barely triumphed over even with a full support team.
She was alone in the arena.
Her and Issac with tens of thousands of bloodthirsty bastards braying from their blood.
This was a battle of attrition.
And her tank was the one dropping quickly.
Issac stood within the shimmering haze of his heat.
She had marked his head and face with a spiderweb of cracks. Dark skin had flaked in patches, but he looked unbothered by it all.
How much further did she want to push?
Winning had been Priority 1A… 1B loomed in the back of her mind.
The other, equally important reason they were in the so-called New America Republic.
She couldn’t spend her strength here. She needed it for later.
There was no shame with how far she had come.
She had tested herself against the strongest people in the land and had compared favorably against them until this one.
Time to take her winnings while she was ahead.
Like the smarter of her soldiers liked to say when gambling with each other.
She looked up to the crowd.
Then to Issac giving him a slight nod.
“I withdraw from the fight,” she raised a hand.
----------------------------------------
“That’s two quitters in a row,” Shrewed said.
Cal watched the aftermath of Issac’s win on the massive screen taking up an entire wall.
“Still salty?”
“A little. That bloody lord sucked my blood. I feel a little violated. Least he could’ve done was try harder,” Shrewed shrugged.
“How you feeling by the way? Hungry? Thirsty? For the red stuff? I noticed you took that steak pretty blue.”
Shrewed chuckled. “That’s how I always like my steak. Just a few degrees above mooing. No worries on that account. I’m feeling almost a hundred percent. Going to be ready for our move. Speaking of which… got any insight on why Captain Patriot up there gave up?” he gestured to True Patriot brushing past the bleach blonde woman in the too-tight dress angling for an interview.
The heat around Issac had been too much for them to even approach, which Cal knew was intentional.
It was a good thing that Issac hadn’t had to go hard. The next fight against the other werewolf should be easier.
The finals against the ‘girl’ was going to be a problem.
The blue-haired terror was set to face the Magus of the Ten Eyes in the other Final Four match, but that result had already been determined. The magus needed to save her strength for their true goals. Not waste them for entertainment. The victory rewards might’ve been everything to another person but the magus cared more about her friends and doing what was right than gaining personal power.
“They’ve got plans,” he said.
“Our old government has plans? That can’t be good. Is it going to mess ours up?” Shrewed said.
“They’re looking to get out of here with the secret to the slavery collars. Plans and blueprints at a minimum. Taking the people with the knowledge is their optimal goal.”
“Let me guess, they’re wanting their own collars.”
“They’re telling themselves that they don’t want to use them in the same way. They’re looking to give collars to volunteers in order to create soldiers that feel no fear. That’ll fight past their limits all the way to the end.”
“Don’t sound much different to me,” Shrewed said.
“Yeah, that’s basically the slave soldiers. They’ll call it something else but it’s still slavery in the end.”
“Like putting a dress on a pig.”
“What?”
“Something my grandpa used to say. Said putting a dress on a pig didn’t make it a woman.”
“Okay…”
“Yeah, he was from Texas. Never got it myself. Made me look at farmers differently.”
“And now I see it. Thanks for that.”
“Heh… welcome. So, what’re we gonna do about them?”
“The government? Let them add to the chaos, but make sure they don’t get what they want. It’ll be a moot point if we destroy the whole collar system as planned.”
“That doesn’t take care of those that knows,” Shrewed tapped his head, “up here, I mean. If they ain’t dealt with permanently they’ll just start over for the Feds or someone else.”
“America did that after World War II. Took the Nazi scientists and gave them jobs. Won them the space race among other advances, but I don’t think I’m interested in these slavers’ advancements.”
“I’ll volunteer to put them down. In case you didn’t want to cross those lines,” Shrewed said.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, at least for most of them. I can make sure that their knowledge is destroyed before they face justice.”
“We going to put them on trial? With what court? Send them prison? What prison?”
“I was planning on letting the people they enslaved decide their fates, minus letting it devolve into indiscriminate bloodshed. Guilt flows throughout the people that live in this city, however, that guilt isn’t parsed out equally. Many went along out of fear. It’s a relatively small percentage that chose to be monsters to the enslaved.”
“How you going to separate them all out? I can’t say I’d be okay with letting anyone off that got something out me being in one of them collars. Forced to do… to do all those things. I’d be wanting blood from everyone and everything.”
“Understandable, but that can’t be allowed to happen. Each individual should get what their actions earned them. Thankfully, I have the ability to actually see that they get them without any of the uncertainty of how our world used to be before the spires.”
“Yeah, truth spells and Skills are fucking awesome for that. Man, the cops in the old days would’ve hated them. They couldn’t sprinkle crack on people or drop a gun next to them.”
“It would’ve fundamentally changed our entire society. I can’t see how politicians could exist if they couldn’t lie. In any case, we have them and I have my own ways that are even better.”
“Well… okay then. I ain’t gonna push back on that. You haven’t done us wrong yet.”
Cal rose from the couch. “I need to go check on the preparations for our little party tonight.”
“Man, I’d be worried about all them Gold Div ass-kickers in one place if you weren’t here to keep them all in line,” Shrewed said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from all those scary women,” he laughed.
“I do like them dangerous,” Shrewed raised his hands at Cal’s look, “don’t worry. I’ll keep it strictly professional until after we finish the Quest.”
“I’m not. You’re the example of professionalism. Many of the other rangers could do better following that.”
“Thanks, man,” Shrewed pounded a gnarled fist to his chest, “means a lot coming from one of the top dogs out there.”