Richie was bathed in the gloom of wavy shadow, cascading over the brick platform of the courtyard patio. Beyond the ornate gates, overgrown rose trellises and odd piles of exotic rocks could be glimpsed, and the garden border terminated in a brown picket fence beyond which was only empty sky, dyed the deep orange of a sunset. The ancient oak tree that stood sentry over the yard dropped fallen leaves and acorns, and the squeaking and chirping sounds of unseen squirrels and birds could be heard echoing through the place. Little tufts of moss and weeds were sprouting up between the cracks in the walkway, and Richie could almost smell moisture in the air, as though a fall shower was dawdling in the clouds.
A spotlight materialized from nowhere, as though they were on a phantom theater stage, and drew Richie's focus to the rafters of the oak tree's lower canopy branches. There, Luchesi was perched.
“Welcome.” he greeted the boy.
Luchesi had undergone a stylistic wardrobe change. His checkered jester pants he retained, but his torso was bare-chested, revealing a sculpted physique like Richie’s own, retaining only the ruffled sleeves of his jester shirt. The overly-long cuffs still concealed the steel gauntlets clasping his hands, the dual sets of two-foot steel claws still retracted and hidden. A red sash was wrapped about his waist with an uneven long end of it trailing from his side, and he wore curled jester shoes with little bells on them. His plaster Comedy mask had not been replaced. Instead, his face was painted white with black circles around the eyes, which melded with a ballroom eye mask that framed his face above the nose. His loose blond locks trailed freely about his shoulders.
Richie discarded his jacket, tying it about his waist nice and taut.
“You look so dashing up there, like that, it’s a shame you’re psychotic.” Richie chuckled, doing small stretches with his legs. Though his face and body language were calm, there was an undercurrent of righteous fury waiting to be unleashed. It was a relatively new experience for Richie, fighting for a cause he could be proud of.
“Get your ass down here. I want to punch your skull in till my fucking hands break.” he said.
“However can I reject such a gracious invitation?” Luchesi mused.
He dropped down from the branches, landing cat-like in the square, knees bent deep into a sumo squat from absorbing the landing impact. He raised his head, and his maddened eyes glazed over with barely-contained bloodlust as they fell upon Richie.
“I weep. After you’re nothing but stains on my claws, no one will be a challenge in this city. I’ll commemorate their corpses to your memory.”
He stood, bending backward as if in a crabwalk, and stretched out his body. When he took his stance, he crossed his arms and sprouted his deadly talons, gleaming, four on each hand. They made audible glinting sounds as they erupted.
Richie cracked his neck and breathed out. “Talk is cheap.” he said as he adopted a boxer’s stance, opting to stay light on his feet. “Come.”
Luchesi took a deep, self-aggrandizing bow - then he lunged forward into a somersault. His heels came down and his claws came up, swinging a bladed uppercut like a piston to stab Richie in the gut. The boy shot back, lowering his hands and breathing in between the frames of each movement, observing the jester, exploring for an opening. To go all in right now was tantamount to a death sentence.
Luchesi kept coming inexorably forward. Where his lunging stab failed to bite into Richie’s stomach, he instead planted his claws into the ground and flipped over into attack position again as though pole vaulting. His arms swayed to his right side as he dashed forward, carried by the momentum of his front flip. He slashed with both arms in a broad stroke toward Richie’s waist and side.
This was the opening Richie needed, as the jester threw pragmatism to the ground to sweep wide in a flashy, arrogant rushdown. Richie dashed in close, nullifying the reach of Luchesi’s claws as he fronted on him, getting all up in his grill with measured deliberacy. His arm, carried by the surge erupting through his whole body from the legs up, plunged an uppercut at Luchesi’s face.
With a grunt, the jester retracted his claws and leaned back so swiftly as to look like he had bent himself in half. He sort of slid on his feet, as if ice-skating, and reappeared behind Richie, a claw raised high before raking down the boy’s back. However, though Luchesi saw claws cleave shoulders and spine, he felt no feedback. The afterimage Richie had left behind faded away. In Luchesi’s blindspot, Richie threw a right cross over the jester’s arm.
In a flash, Luchesi, eyes wide with shock, was carried by his body's own automatic reflexes, faster than he could even process. He plunged his claws forward to intercept Richie’s knuckles. Instead, Richie pulled out of the feint, throwing a snappy roundhouse kick to the back of Luchesi’s skull. Again the jester ducked, swaying and bending like a crouching cat. He and Richie slid away from each other, eyes looked on one another, blazing, body’s tensed and ready.
In all of this, from the moment Luchesi flipped forward, to their protracted staring contest now, all of three seconds had passed in real time. To all outside observers, two man-sized blurs had zigzagged into and across from each other, blowing back fallen leaves and detritus in their wake.
Richie took a marked breath, having tensed his core during that entire exchange. He felt good, his breathing normal, body as relaxed as it could be under the circumstances. He wasn’t winded. He wasn’t afraid. He could do this.
He dropped his arms completely, squaring his legs up with Luchesi. “Show off.” Richie said.
“Naturally.” Luchesi gestured to the stage and his costume.
Richie pressed his shoe’s toe into the dirt, dragging a yard line across and planting his foot there. He leaned in, eyes daring Luchesi before his mouth even opened. When his lips parted, “Let’s see you go faster” was what came out.
Luchesi twitched. Her was that brat looking down on him again. Was he daring to claim that Luchesi was wasting his time? That was big talk from the boy who had been rendered human sashimi by Luchesi’s claws not a day ago!
Luchesi scraped his claws across each other, generating a ball of blinding golden sparks that flew at Richie’s face. Luchesi sprinted behind this projectile, claws retracted, and slammed his right arm upward toward Richie’s gut, aiming to launch his claws into the boy at point blank range.
Richie shot low under the ball, aiming for a scissor leg grab to take the jester off his feet. Or so it seemed. In truth, Richie anticipated Luchesi would try to jump over such a telegraphed move. That was when Richie planned to gamble on closing the distance, bearhugging the bastard out of the air, and slamming him into the ground where he belonged.
Luchesi clicked and a dagger jut out of his shoe, leading the charge of a football kick Luchesi aimed toward the boy’s heart. Richie sidestepped the leg and dropped an elbow on the jester’s ankle, forcing it to the floor with a painful sprain, only to grab under Luchesi’s leg before it could reach the ground. He hefted up, twisting, and moved to slam the jester face-first into the dirt.
Ever-dexterous, Luchesi plunged his claws into the ground, twisting and trying to kick free of Richie’s group. Though pushed back, Richie immediately followed up, throwing everything into a soccer kick to the back of Luchesi’s thigh, aiming to exploit this window while Luchesi’s claws were still buried halfway into the dirt. The kick struck, crumbling Luchesi’s leg and bringing him to his knees. He grit his teeth and retracted his claws, rolling over and over to distance himself as Richie stomped after him, leaving deep boot prints in the ground. Catching up, he snapped a thrust kick for Luchesi’s knee, aiming low like a charging boar, using his supreme center of gravity to keep Luchesi off-balance.
Luchesi twisted to the side, barely evading the successive stomps, and tried to return the favor of his buckled knee with a kick, tipped with a dagger point, to the side of Richie’s knee.
Richie pivoted on his back leg, and amended his flow into a roundhouse kick straight for the jester’s head.
In the blistering interchange of moves that began with the end of Luchesi’s melodramatic bow, perhaps ten seconds of continuous combat had now occurred, and only now was a clean strike rendered. Advanced calculations, instinct, feints, and measured second-guessing guesswork had played the two titans off of each other beautifully, gambit for gambit, but Luchesi was finally put in a check. The top of Richie’s foot crowbarred into the harlequin’s face, throwing him onto the back of his head and shoulders as though he had just sprinted face-first into a horizontal monkey bar as fast as he could, taking his own legs out from under him as the rest of his body just kept going.
Richie breathed out a sigh of relief to the satisfying sound of Luchesi’s head striking the ground. He was far from winded, had parried all blows, and finally given that fucker what he deserved - an unanswered, unmitigated strike right to his smug face. It was official. Richie knew, without doubt, that he could do this. He could beat the Checkered Slasher at his own game, in his own yard. He would do it, and he would yank that yard out from under him, putting his thieving prowess to noble use at last.
The jester stood on his head and jut his claws into the ground, using the extension as a recoil boost to throw himself backward far and away, a good ten to fifteen feet from Richie. An angry red mark streaked across the bridge of the nose Richie had sledged.
“Looks like I didn’t hit you hard enough.” Richie muttered.
“I disagree. In fact, suffice to say I disliked that.” Luchesi scowled, standing tall and straight again.
He spread his claws wide, then lunged for Richie again. This time he was a whirlwind of spinning claws, slashing rapidly in great sweeping strokes at the torso and face, unrelenting as he pushed forward. Leaves were drawn into the vortex and blended to bits. Richie practically ran backwards to avoid him, untying his jacket from around his waist as he did so. He kicked dirt up into Luchesi’s face, aiming to blind him.
Luchesi returned the favor with another shower of obfuscating sparks, which hit Richie’s raised arm. His flesh burned and sizzled like bacon as a griddle, and Richie launched himself another ten feet away from the bladed twister that was Luchesi.
But then, Richie was right in front of him.
“Did I do the afterimage thing right?” he sneered as he brought a claw down across Richie’s blocking forearm.
“Level 3 unlocked!” - blue dragon scales coated Richie’s blocking arm, stopping the claw in its tracks and turning his whole body into a twisting punch aimed not for Luchesi’s head, but for his heart itself. The punch planted itself in Luchesi’s sternum, which cracked with a loud crunching noise like a pine nut popping in a hot campfire as the extending dragon muzzle buried itself in Luchesi’s chest. It was as though he were hit with a two-part punch, consisting of the initial impact, and then a secondary, pointed impact, sprung from a piston in Richie’s knuckles.
“Heartbreak!” Richie cried out.
Luchesi’s eyes bugged out of his head as he was sent flying backward, skidding across the brick courtyard floor. His hands, claws retracted, clutched at his bruising chest, a bit of spittle leaking from the corner of his mouth.
The scales began to disperse, but Richie wasn’t unscathed. Blocking had left four shallow cuts in his arm, not deep enough to draw blood, thankfully. He made his way over to Luchesi, cracking his knuckles as his tattoos began to glow that brilliant azure blue, slithering across his skin. Richie unlocked Level 1 again, and waited.
Luchesi sprang his claws out again, thrusting himself back onto his feet, coughing. He looked up at Richie with cold, calculating eyes.
Richie was calm, but he gave off an odd air. He relaxed as he slowly put his arms up into the guard he had first used when their fight began.
Luchesi held his arm out straight at his side and clicked a mechanism in his gauntlet. The four blades slid together into a conjoined single sword again, trading off the wide spread and wind resistance of multiple edges for a faster, saber-like weapon specialized to rapid fencing stabs. He shifted his other claw into saber mode as well, and began walking toward Richie, arms spread wide in a posturing t-pose meant more for flair than use. Any moderately-skilled swordsman would admonish Luchesi never to present his chest, but reason was swiftly going out the window. The battle at play was not one of blood for blood, body against body, but a clash of ideologies, the ultimate gutter battle of abandoned, unloved street rats coming to blows on what their sad fates ultimately meant - and how best to escape them.
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Ah, what a cruel mistress fate was. But it was that cruelty and poetic span that made a battle like this a beautiful marvel worth having! Oh, fighting and killing an equal, what could be more gratifying?!
Richie turned his body sidewise, holding up his right arm in front of him as though it were a fencing foil, slowly shuffling towards Luchesi, accepting his invitation to fence in an unspoken gaze.
Or not.
Luchesi plunged his swords into the ground and rapidly spun, kicking up a dust devil. Moments later, he exploded out of the top of the funnel, jumping straight up into the hiding shadows of the trees and roofs.
Richie felt Luchesi’s intent move with him, ratting on him, trailing him like a wafting perfume trail. He turned upward, gazing through obscuring, blinding sunlight filtering in through the window of the oak tree boughs. Luchesi dove for Richie from the tree, his rapier form gauntlet leading the charge in a plunging death from above stab. Behind his back he held his other claw, which had reverted into its standard four-blade configuration. He had no doubt Richie would see through the straightforward plunge to bury his saber in Richie’s collar, and that the boy would backdash away from him. That was why he would slash the boy’s thigh with his proper claws on retreat, expecting the boy to parry his initial foray.
Instead, Richie held his ground, retreat not even crossing his mind. He shifted into Level 2, and lunged. They passed each other, Luchesi’s claw stroke and Richie’s punch mutually missing. They looked back to each other. Luchesi spun on his sword and flipped to his feet, giving pursuit. His lightning-quick flurry of storm-thrusts at Richie, lead with his dominant arm, was unyielding, and frenzied. He pursued Richie doggedly, abandoning all pretense and merely trying to pepper him with holes as quickly as possible. Richie, finding himself overlain by the memory-induced aura of his dearly departed mother, remembered how she had woven in between dozens upon dozens of that psycho-fencer’s thrusts, back on the fateful day the cult came for them. It seemed he and Ella became one as he swayed like a lightning-swift reed in between each of Luchesi’s thrusts. However, his form was not flawless, and he began to accrue small cuts along his body. Tiny, decorative ribbons of blood flowed like confetti as the storm surged on. Richie pressed on, breaking through, his arm reared back and punching with a right hook. His dragonhead enlarged and launched itself off of his arm, the shockwave aimed to blow away the dirt as well as slam Luchesi. Luchesi gave no ground either, lunging, and stabbing the dragon construct through the neck mid-flight, impaling Richie’s right shoulder.
Richie clenched his teeth, holding back a scream. He bit his tongue, spun his whole body, and drew his right shoulder from the blade as he went to pound a left hook into Luchesi’s liver. What followed was another right cross, this one hitting dead on into the jester’s cracked sternum. Richie slipped away from the conjoined blade before it could spring back into four separate claws. Had they reverted inside his shoulder, it would have taken his arm off from the inside. Not processing the liver shot yet, Luchesi lunged his dagger foot into the underside of Richie’s extended arm, stabbing it and coming dangerously close to slitting his wrist.
But then, the liver shot took effect, and the winded Luchesi dropped onto one knee. Spittle flew from his mouth, and his eyes seemed to shake with equal parts blinding rage, and a rising sense of fear and panic. Richie was holding his ground. He was standing his own. He was matching him, and breaking through his guard and his onslaughts. He wasn’t hiding or cowering, or trying to escape. He didn’t show any hesitation. Hesitation was worthless in a fight to the death. A mind clouded with fear is heavy, and a heavy mind pilots a heavy body. “Maybe I can’t” is only good for getting oneself killed. Richie was in primal, bestial mode, a focused engine of fight or flight, leaning overclocked two hundred percent on ‘fight’. Luchesi was not a figure of mythic terror, or a demigod claiming his harvest. He was an obstacle for Richie to surpass. No, a pest to be stomped, after taking one too many bites of Richie’s goddamn plumbing or wood paneling. He was simply - a chore.
Richie, heedless of the pain racking his body, slammed his knee into Luchesi’s face, crunching his nose, even as his slit arm fell uselessly to his side, numbed and temporarily taken out of commission. He pushed through. To hit your mark, aim behind. Don’t aim to break the board. Aim to punch the sensei behind it right in his fucking face.
“I’M GONNA BREAK THROUGH!” Richie cried, throwing a haymaker into Luchesi’s face.
Luchesi flew back, grimacing, having used his claws as springs again. Clever. He jumped back mid-strike to reduce some of the damage he took to his face. Flecks of blood still flew from his nostrils as he slid backward on his feet.
Blood for blood, neck and neck. They were both panting now, at last. But Richie was catching his breath faster.
He stared down at Luchesi, the dirt line he had drawn as the starting mark earlier long forgotten and smudged to brown streaks.
“You moved back from that position.” he smirked.
“Am I expected to just sit there and take those hits you’re so proud of?” Luchesi growled, cracking out his neck and licking Richie’s blood from his claws. He started circling Richie at a walking pace, keeping his face turned toward him at all times. Richie felt flattered that he was now being circled by the shark. The jester felt the need to keep a lockdown on his movements at all times. Luchesi was afraid of him now.
Richie dropped his stance completely, turning to face Luchesi in turn. His scowl gave way to a grin, and Luchesi realized he had misread the boy. Kicking the jester’s teeth in was no mere chore, nor was it fueled exclusively by the vengeful fury answering the crimes Luchesi committed against Richie’s friends and Station Bay. Richie, oh dear god, he was having fun. This was fulfilling him. This was affirming his purpose, and the path he chose to take.
“Yeah, you are.” Richie chuckled.
Luchesi zigzagged toward Richie, sweeping a kick at his shins in a takedown maneuver, aiming to force Richie to jump to avoid being tripped.
Instead, Richie hunkered down. He widened his stance, forcing himself to take the kick. He would not budge. He raised his arm and brought it down atop Luchesi, using a blast of wind on top of his fist to increase the speed. Luchesi grimaced as his leg buckled against Richie’s stronger one. He clenched his eyes shut as he saw Richie’s fist fly at his face, knowing he couldn’t dodge it. Instead, he retaliated, slashing his claws along Richie’s right hip before taking the knuckles in the mouth.
The back of Luchesi’s head was put through some loosened courtyard bricks.
Richie let out his first shout of pain and rage since this duel had begun, lifting his right leg, and hoping back as he averted his eyes from his dented leg. “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” he put eloquently.
Richie’s chink in his stoic armor bought Luchesi the precious time he needed to get back to his feet. His head lifted, revealing a patch of shattered rubble beneath it, stained with blood from his scalp, and dyeing strands of his blond hair a muddy brown. More blood pooled from his split lip and gums where Richie socked him hard. His tongue darted out to lick up his own blood, even as his half-conscious eyes were still rolled up in the back of his head.
What has this man done? He wasn’t anything like this when he fought and killed the phantom pain, or when I slashed him up nicely before flinging him off the tower. What in the world is going on here? Is he truly the same street rat I played with earlier? What has this man done?!
He slouched, arms dangling like an ape’s, knees pronated inward and shaking. His gauntlet clicked, and his left set of blades began reshaping themselves. They spread apart in pairs that turned the edges inward, creating a giant pair of shears. He opened the huge scissor around Richie’s neck, intending to snap it shut and decapitate him.
Richie leaned out of the way instantly as the scissor snapped shut, drawing only a thin red line across the skin of his neck. He ducked low and barreled into Luchesi, his shoulder ramming the wayward entertainer in the gut. As the jester was rolled away by the ramming attack, he reverted his shears to claws and raked Richie’s shoulder open as they broke away from each other.
More crimson rain splashed high, following the lead of Luchesi’s claws, and pattered to the courtyard floor, pooling around Richie’s feet, planted firmly in the ground.
Richie grit his teeth again, looking grim, and balanced on his one good leg.
“Too weak…” he said.
Luchesi licked his bleeding lip again - then smirked deviously.
“What’s that? You’re too weak from the little cuts I’ve gifted you with?”
He jumped straight up into the trees again.
“What shall we play at your eulogy? Let’s hear it!” he called.
“You don’t get my playlist.” Richie looked up at him, arms crossed. He leaned forward, as an Olympic sprinter would, but one foot barely supported its own weight.
“Have you gone lightheaded from blood loss already? I suppose you’ve parted with around 20% of your total blood volume so far. Was your endurance test with how much lifeblood I robbed you of before just an outlier, a lucky shot of adrenaline and fumes keeping you up and defiant? What’s wrong? Eyes getting blurry? Legs feel like jelly? Where are you looking, I’m right up here!” the jester ranted and raved, his poison voice dripping from above. Loose leaves were raining from various branches all across the courtyard. Luchesi’s steps were too soft to be heard.
Richie steadied himself, his left hand on the ground, humming something to himself, face peaceful.
Luchesi didn’t appreciate being ignored. He dropped from the boughs, falling toward Richie, claws crisscrossed so that the blades threaded each other, wrists turned so that the edges faced outward toward Richie.
Richie pushed off his left leg and pivoted on his hand, suddenly beginning to spin around in a one hand stand. Luchesi saw the faint outline of a dark skinned woman in a yellow bikini moving in sync with Richie as he swung a vertical hook kick at Luchesi’s hand.
“What the?!” Luchesi’s crossed claws clashed with Richie’s foot, throwing him backward by his deflected arms.
How did his blades lose against Richie’s heel?!
Richie stood as blue dragon scaled began to cover most of the right side of his body. He took up a wide yet straightened stance, hopping side to side in steady rhythm.
Luchesi landed in the splits, then sprang back up into a standing position.
“Well, that trick is beginning to vex me. First order of business is to break through your guard.” Luchesi retracted his left claw and gripped his right arm about the wrist, splaying his still-extended set out toward Richie.
“Good luck.” Richie said, his right side toward Luchesi, arms low but not down. The scales began to coat his face as well, his cheek armored in serrated, silver-tipped blue scales that accented one gleeful, child-like eye at their center. Richie’s smile looked a lot like Cuppy’s.
Luchesi tried to kick Richie in the nuts with his dagger foot. Richie turned, retaliating with a swift kick to Luchesi’s inner thigh. The jester corkscrewed over it, bringing his claws up at Richie’s stomach in another bladed uppercut. Richie swayed back, evading the cut, swinging an uppercut of his own into the jester’s gut.
Luchesi took the blow to the gut, knocking him breathless and causing him to start hacking and heaving. The blow was mitigated by his other claw rearing up to stab Richie in the torso. The scales prevented a deep stab, but the blade tips pierced partially through a weak link in the scales, lodging itself in the armored skin.
Richie was indifferent to the blades lightly piercing his skin. He grabbed Luchesi’s wrist roughly, then hooked a punch right into Luchesi’s elbow. The jester’s compromised elbow joint lost, utterly. His socket crunched in sideways and dislocated, his now useless claw arm dangling loosely at his side as he gave an agonized scream.
“ROTTEN CHILD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!?” he screamed the foiled line expected of his role.
“You aren’t the boogeyman.” Richie locked death glare eyes on the spoiled child he was spanking. He dislodged Luchesi’s claws and crouched, bricks cracking beneath his supernaturally-augmented weight, heavy with aura.
Luchesi’s eyes went white, and he held his mouth open agape, murderous intent rolling off of him like heavy fog from the sea. The borders of the yard began to waver and blur.
Richie’s eyes became ever more focused, and the ground seemed to shake. No, the entire realm shook. The blurs at the edges of the stage disappeared as quickly as they came. Luchesi’s pupils returned, dilating with mixed fury and sudden terror. It couldn’t be - the boy had gained such aptitude over the Backyards in so little time? He overpowered Luchesi’s living imagination and will, and canceled out the fallen jester’s desperate attempt to shift the world around them into a nightmare in which Richie would be just another plaything.
“It’s over. Now you fall.” Richie said resolutely.
As Luchesi feebly tried to throw his other claw at Richie, the boy caught it under his arm and wrenched.
“This is for Cuppy.” Richie said, then snapped Luchesi’s other arm.
The fallen jester howled, knees shaking.
“This is for what you did to Freyja. Deadbolt!” Richie buried his scale-coated spear hand in Luchesi’s waist, busting his bladder.
A wheezing breath on the heels of an aborted scream, Luchesi swaying, struggling to stay on his feet, his two broken arms dangling like dead snakes at his sides.
“For Station Bay!” he slammed an uppercut into Luchesi’s jaw, forcing mandibles together and shattering a few teeth, launching Luchesi above his head, flecks of blood flying from his mouth, the jester’s head rocking back so swiftly and violently that any normal man would have had their neck snapped.
An extended dragon rune bit Luchesi around the ankle and dragged him back down.
Richie closed his eyes, consolidating his aura, and reflected on how Luchesi had bled him like a sacrificial lamb and flung him off the roof. He seemed to see the images of the Corporation thugs, the trenchcoat man, and the Faceless Man overlap with Luchesi, becoming one abstract representation of everything wrong with the cosmos. He breathed a sigh, and found his inner peace, remembering the smiling face of his mother.
“For myself.”
He launched a flying knee strike into Luchesi’s stomach, folding him over, Richie’s kneecap covered in bright blue scales.
“Solar Breaker!” Richie roared.
At the moment of impact, Richie seemed shrouded in the ethereal likeness of Captain John Thratta, as the seal had struck a finishing knee blow in the fight pit before.
Luchesi’s stomach dented in as he was lifted off of the ground on Richie’s knee, carrying them into the air above the square. His bowels, improperly healed from the reeming Freyja had given him, perforated, internal wounds reopening, and his vision went dark, vomit splashing from his slack mouth. His jester shoes were left behind, the flying strike throwing him out of them.
Richie, still airborne, reared his fist back as puke covered his shirt.
“Level 4 unlocked.”
As they fell, Richie reared his arm back while his tattoo lunged off of his arm. He threw a punch directly into Luchesi’s fractured chest, causing the tattoo to enlarge and corkscrew into the jester, burying its muzzle print deeper than before. Luchesi’s breastplate cracked in half the rest of the way and compressed his heart, as his sash scattered to shreds of flying fabric. Richie’s matching scarf was blown apart in the gale force winds as well.
“Strikeout.”
Luchesi’s eyes bulged as the corkscrew dragon sent him spinning into the ground, crushing him through the bricks.
The jester lay with his back planted in the mud under the rubble, blood leaking down the corners of his mouth. A massive bruise in the shape of the dragon’s face was stamped into his chest. He was out cold.
The trappings of the stage around them began to flicker and then run like wax, seeking an image from Richie’s mind to mimic now that their previous master had lost control of them.
It was Richie’s victory.