Chapter 14

Let’s get into a fight!

When I woke, Janet was already awake and had taken a shower. Janet was busy drying off and putting on her clothes, but when she noticed I was awake, she shot me a smile and said in a way too cheery voice.

“Morning, sleepy head. Now you’re finally up, eat, and let’s get going.”

I winced at Janet’s loud voice and then had to squint to see Janet as the sun flooded the room from an open window.

“Ahh, too bright, too loud, Janet, give me a second. Let me go to the bathroom and drop some kids off at the pool. I’ll be right back. I told her. Janet just rolled her eyes at me but didn’t bother me again until we were seated eating breakfast.

“So, what were you saying about a plan for the day or something?” I asked Janet as I shoved food into my mouth like it was the last time I would ever get to eat.”

“Slow down. There’s no rush. I just wanted to start the day early, that’s all. I was actually doing some thinking while you were sleeping and…”

“Uh oh, thinking? Now we’re in trouble,” I cut Janet off. She threw a fork at my head, which I dodged, but I still stopped messing with her.

“no, but seriously, what were you thinking about?” I asked Janet

“Well, like I was saying before, I was so rudely interrupted. I thought it might not be a bad idea to find that crazy trainer from yesterday and see what he could teach us. Worst comes to worst. We waste a day, don’t learn anything, and have to find someone else to teach us. Basically, it’s the same position we’re in right now. What’s the harm in seeing what the crazy guy is all about? You down?” I had to think about what Janet had said for a moment. The guy did seem like a complete nut case, but maybe he had just snapped from too many matches in the Coliseum. Either way, I agreed that Janet had the right of it. Like Janet had said fuck it, we really didn’t have anything to lose, so I can’t see why we should at least try.

“you think the guy is gonna be at that bar like yesterday?” I asked.

“if not, the guy looked like a regular, or at least the bartender knew him well enough not to just kick him out. If worst comes to worst, we could ask the bartender about the guy and see what he knows.”

“I think you’re right, Janet. That sounds like a solid plan to me.” To Janet’s great annoyance, I popped the last piece of bacon into my mouth and asked if she was ready to go. Janet let out an exhale, cracked her neck, and then stood.

“Yeah, let’s go find a madman,” she said, and I smiled. We had found the bar again and were now standing outside it. Why were we standing outside, you ask? Great question. The bar was closed. Yeah, neither of us had really thought through going to a bar at eight in the morning.

“So, of course, it was closed. Have you ever heard of a bar being open at eight in the morning? I haven’t. Fuck! I should have thought about this.”

“Yeah, you really should, Travis. I can’t believe you.” I turned and looked at Janet, kind of pissed off, till I saw she was trying to hold back a laugh. I just deadpanned, then dragged my hand across my face.

“It’s fine, Travis. So they’re closed. Whatever, we’ll just come later.” Janet’s words did end up calming me down a bit, intended or not, and we now had to figure out what to do till the bar opened. Across the street from the bar was a large training area that anyone could pay to use. Janet and I had first thought about getting a bit of training in, but we gave up on that idea pretty fast. Each training area was only divided up by a wooden fence and a magical force shield. So, nothing was private, which meant going all out was a no-go if you were trying to keep any moves secret from the Coliseum.

At the moment, we were watching two fighters training with lackluster interest. To put it bluntly, these guys sucked. Their abilities were weak, and it looked like they were fighting in slow motion compared to the speed Janet and I moved at now. It was just boring. I turned from the fight to look at Janet, who was still watching the training match, clearly as bored as I was.

“So do you want to find somewhere more private to spar, like we were talking about, or what?” I asked Janet. Janet looked up, let out a breath, and then looked over at me. She was about to answer me but stopped, and her eyes lit up.

“Travis! Let’s sign up for a fight. Come on!” Then Janet was off. I almost lost her, but I managed to catch up with her, and together, we made our way to the Coliseum to get into a fight. Once we reached the Coliseum, we found the area where we could sign up for a fight, but of course, there was a line. We waited in line until we arrived at a window with an attendant sitting at a desk behind it. Even after the time it took to find the signup line and the time waiting in said line, Janet had not lost one ounce of excitement. She was now grinning widely at the attendant behind the window, which visibly weirded the attendant out.

“Hello, Miss. Is there anything I can help you with?” asked the attendant, clearly regretting his words the moment he had uttered them.

“Hi, yes, please! We want to sign up to fight!” The attendant let out an awkward cough.

“Um, yes, Miss, I can most certainly help you with that.” To the attendant’s credit, he got himself back together quickly and started going through some papers, looking for something. When the attendant seemed to find what he was looking for, he pulled two pieces of paper out and placed them on a clipboard, then turned his attention back to the eagerly awaited Janet.

“Let me see your GIC, and then we can find you a fight.” Janet almost threw her card at the man while I placed mine on the window ledge where the attendant could easily grab it. The attendant scanned our GICs and then looked over some kind of receipt that was printed out from the scanner. The attendant ripped the receipt off, picked up his clipboard again, and gave it a once-over.

“Okay, I have two time slots available back to back in three days. One at eleven and one at twelve-thirty. Do you want those two? Because this will be your first fight in the Coliseum, you will start off fighting weak opponents. This is to get an idea of your power level to help the spell diagrams and arrays we use to pick the fights and, more accurately, place you in a weight class. Plus, it helps pit bosses figure out what odds to put up. No one likes to lose money more than those guys. They set it up like this so the house won’t get hit with anything unexpected.” The attendant said all this while rapidly filling out some forms.

“So you want the time slot?” the attendant asked again. We were stunned and caught up in his quick description of how the Coliseum functioned. Janet was the first to answer.

“Uh, um, yes, that will work. What was it three days from now at eleven and eleven-thirty, right?”

“Perfect, I’ll fill the slots now.” The attendant, who had paused what he had been doing as he waited for Janet and I’s response, was now back to rapidly filling out paperwork and speaking at the same time.

“Excellent, so I’ve got you down for eleven, Janet, and twelve-thirty for you, Travis. Janet, you will be at Arena F1A2 and Travis, you will be at Arena F1A5. Make sure to be at least thirty minutes early for check-in, and that is it. Oh, except for your payment. How would you like to pay? It will be a gold per person.” I put the money on the window sill, and the attendant swept it up in the next second.

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“You’re good to go, friends. Have a good day, and good luck in your fights. Thank you for choosing the Coliseum. Come back again soon.”

The attendant said all this while he finished your paperwork and then handed us back our GICs with a “fight receipt.” It showed where we had to go and how much we paid for our fight. We got out of the way so the next person in line could have their turn, and Janet was buzzing. It had taken a few hours to find the right line to stand in and then the whole standing-in-line thing. So, it was around lunchtime, and I was hungry. Janet always gets a little hangry when she doesn’t eat regularly, and I admit I do as well, so food was the next thing on the list.

We only had to walk for a few minutes before we found a street vendor selling meat skewers. They smelled so good that we had to stop and buy a few each. We found a bench to sit on and ate while we people-watched. It was nice to just sit there and let the movement of the city pass us by. We spent about an hour there. Not the eating part, which went relatively quickly. We even went back for seconds, but after we finished eating, it was nice to take a break and just watch people going about their day.

We finally moved on around one o’clock and decided to check the bar again. Just as we suspected, it was still closed, but as we were getting ready to head out to find something else to occupy our time until the bar opened, we saw someone entering the bar from a doorway about ten feet into an alleyway next to the place. It looked like someone was dropping off supplies, but if someone was making a delivery, there had to be someone accepting the delivery. Maybe we could just talk to whoever that person was. Worst case, we would have to return when they were open and try again.

We made our way down the alley to the door that the delivery guy had entered and knocked a few times. It only took a few seconds before the door was yanked open, and behind it was the heavily built, human-looking bartender we had seen the day before.

“What do you want? The place is closed. Didn’t you see the sign on the front door?”

“I understand, and I’m sorry for bothering you, but we just have something we were hoping you could help us with. The bartender scowled at me, then Janet, and then started closing the door. Before he could, Janet spoke up.

“Wait, please. The man. The man in the rags. The cra… crazy, crazy trainer? That’s what he said people called him. You know him? You know where we can find him?” The bartender stopped closing the door, but the man burst out laughing when Janet finished. He actually laughed for like a cool minute. It definitely got awkward after a while, too. When the bartender finished laughing and had whipped several tears away, he finally answered Janet.

“Yeah, I know the guy. You guys are looking for that guy?

“Yeah, you know him, right?” Janet followed up.

“I mean, I don’t know him well. He always pays his tab on time, and so even though he’s a filthy mess, I let him sit at the bar, and he keeps to himself, well, mostly. Every once and a while, he starts some shit, but when that happens, I just kick him out for the night, but he’s always back the next day. Other than that, I don’t know where he goes.

“Dam, well, thanks for the help. We’re just trying to find out where we can find the guy.”

“What, are you guys looking for a trainer?”

“Yeah, we were hoping he could help us out,” I told the man.

“Well, good luck with that. All I know is that you can always find that crazy man here. Six o’clock on the dot. He never misses it. Or, well, I don’t know if this is any help, but I did hear him talking about some deal once with another patron at the bar. That was one of the nights I had to throw him out for inciting a fight. It was interesting, though. The two of them seemed to get into it over an agreement gone wrong. It was honestly hilarious to listen to. The guy you’re looking for, “The Crazy Trainer,” seemed to have promised this guy something, and they didn’t see eye to eye on the terms of the deal.

The guy said something about, what was it… oh, right, it was something like, in a place like that, then there was something about a tannery and the smell. Oh man, the guy was so pissed. Then they started going at it, and I had to kick them both out. I haven’t seen that other guy since then, but the guy you were looking for was right back here the next day. I hope that helps?”

As the bartender finished his story, someone grunted in annoyance from behind us, and we quickly got out of her way. A delivery woman had a sack of what looked like potatoes slung over her shoulder. The bartender moved out of her way and watched as the woman brought the goods inside.

“Look, I’ve got to deal with these deliveries, so I’m going to need you to clear off, but come by anytime when we’re open.” The bartender finished his statement and then closed the door in our faces.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of that conversation, but I think we’ve reached a good starting point.”

“Yeah, that went better than I thought it would. Should we go find the tanneries?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” and with that, Janet and I were off.

We found the tanneries relatively easily. After asking around a bit and getting a general direction, we inevitably followed our noses. Once you were in the general vicinity of the tanneries, they were hard to miss. The air became hot, wet, and rancid as we approached our goal. The neighborhoods became worse and worse. Beggars filled the street corners, begging for work and coin, while the buildings became more and more shack-like. This was a side of the city we had not seen until now, and it was depressing.

Janet felt so bad for one child begging that she gave her a silver coin. The look on the child’s face had been magical, but as we watched the young lizard-kin girl run off, Janet began to get swarmed by young begging children, all asking for their own coin. We were so swamped by pleading and starving children that there was nothing we could do when we saw the little lizard-kin girl get stabbed in the gut before she was robbed of her silver coin and left to die on the ground.

Janet lost it. She pushed free of the children begging around her and ran over to the small figure lying prone on the cobblestone road. Janet bent over and gently lifted the girl into her arms. The girl was still breathing, but every breath was shallow and ragged. I followed Janet over to the small dying child, and when I saw Janet slowly pouring some healing smoothie down the young girl’s mouth, my first thought was that I couldn’t believe she was still alive. My second was we gotta find a doctor. Yeah, my second thought was stupid, and after a few tense moments, it seemed to be working.

The gut wound was sealing, and the child’s breaths were coming more easily. Then everything went downhill fast, and the child got an intense fever before her breathing became labored once more, and then no matter how much smoothies Janet poured down the child’s throat, there was no saving her. Then, moments later, the young girl was dead in Janet’s arms. Janet didn’t say anything, but I could see tears falling from her eyes and landing on the child’s face. I gave Janet a moment to just hold the young child and cry. We stayed like that till an elderly-looking woman walked over and spit on the Cobel stones near where Janet knelt holding the small child.

Janet’s head shot up toward the woman, killing intent infused into her glare. It turned out to be a lizard-kin in her thirties, not an old lady. She had just appeared elderly because she was limping and had wrinkles covering her face. The woman held Janet’s gaze for a moment, looked away with a scoff, and then spoke.

“She was always a waste of space, another mouth to feed, and never bought any money home. Good ridens. I have five other daughters and three sons already. No one will cry for this one except you. If you want to help her dear siblings, any coin would be much appreciated.” This, I was guessing, was the child’s mother, and the lack of remorse and grief was just mind-boggling. Even Janet was speechless, but the last shameless words of the apathetic mother snapped Janet out of her shock.

“You piece of shit! This was your kid! Your fucking child, and you don’t seem to give a shit. Actually, you seem happier at the fact that she’s dead more than anything else. I’m not giving you shit, you fucking bitch…” Janet’s tirade was cut short by the lizard-kin woman.

“Fuck you! You don’t know me! You don’t know my life! Fuck you, you stupid whore. Go fuck your boo over there and leave us poor folk alone already. Don’t pretend to know my life. She’s dead, so now you give a shit? Fuck you and your…” the woman stopped talking because Janet, while still holding the dead girl in one arm, had grabbed the woman by the neck and lifted her into the air. Janet’s eyes were stone, and I was starting to get nervous that she was going to kill this woman. I tried to intercede.

“Janet, maybe we should…” but then Janet cut me off.

“listen to me, listen! I could kill you like snapping a twig, but I shouldn’t, right? Right? Should I protect the weak because I am strong or crush you because I can? Is that fair? Is that right? Or is that just how it is, hu?” The woman could barely breathe, but she managed to squeak out.

“Then do it bitch.” Janet was visibly shocked by the woman’s response and unceremoniously tossed her back to the ground with a look of disgust on her face.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here Travis,” Janet said, then coldly turned her back on the woman still holding the dead child in her arms and began to walk away. The woman started coughing on the ground and then spit up a fat lougee onto the street.

“Fuck you. Kill me! You bitch. Kill me. Come on, you fucking bitch! Kill me!”