“A new challenger appears!” The voice repeated.

Rick scanned the room, searching for whatever fighter had just been announced. The faces of the crowd stayed on him, and one of the fighters, a man dressed in what could only be a kabuki costume, complete with wig and red and white face makeup, gestured him to come to the stage. The other fighter that had been Kabuki’s opposition, wore nothing but a loincloth. He bowed and left the stage.

He squinted, then smiled. This is wild. He stepped forward and the crowd clapped, slowly at first. As he gained momentum and confidence, the clapping got faster and faster, until it propelled him forward with the force of its enthusiasm.

He climbed a small set of stairs to the elevated platform of the stage and Kabuki swept his arms up in welcome. The crowd roared and clapped all the harder. Kabuki pointed across the stage and nodded. Rick frowned and narrowed his eyes, but the fighter in makeup nodded more emphatically.

When he arrived at the other end of the stage, a trumpet sounded. Unlike with any other fighter or Wild One he’d faced, this time, a name appeared above Kabuki—Danjūrō Shidō—as well as what looked like an old-fashioned red life bar and a yellow outlined capsule that looked like an empty bar of some sort. Holy shit, a special moves bar? Shidō bowed. Rick hesitated, then also bowed.

“Round One!”

A gong sounded and the kabuki fighter, whom Rick now knew as Shidō, smiled and smoothed back the long white hair of his wig, then, with no warning, rushed at Rick.

He waited for Shidō to get within striking range, but before he could react, the kabuki fighter leaned back and slid along the slick wooden stage, knocking Rick forward off his feet as the theatric man slid to the other side beneath him. Rick rolled and pivoted as he stood, hoping to come up facing the strange actor, which worked, but something made Rick pause; the man’s cheeks were full, as though there were something in his mouth. There was a flame in Shidō’s hand as it rose to the kabuki’s lips.

The spout of flame made Rick yell, and though he shuffled back, the flames had singed his hair and blackened his skin. Holy hell, that hurts! Rick blinked and grimaced in pain as Shidō laughed and danced in an oddly mechanical way as the crowd roared louder. Rick blinked away the pain, but Shidō was already on him, locking Rick’s arm behind his back.

Instinct took over as Rick dropped to the ground and spun, pulling his arm free, while also kicking Shidō’s chest as hard as he could. The man flew comically into the air, as though strung up by wires, then landed on his back with a thump a short distance away. Rick climbed to his feet and charged, running on nothing but adrenaline. He almost didn’t notice he had no more stamina bar, but that his own red health bar had lost some paint, and his yellow bar was half-full. What? He ignored it as he closed on Shidō, though the kabuki actor rolled quickly away, somersaulted backward, and came up on his feet just as Rick reached him. The actor spun to the side, and though Rick tried to get his hands on the weird man, his fingers only pulled a loose bit of fabric away from the other fighter’s costume.

He tried to regain his balance, but Shidō was on him again. Just as he punched where Shidō was, the warrior had again taken to the ground, but this time, the weird warrior spun impossibly along the floor with spinning kicks that defied physics. Again, Rick tumbled to the ground, and his red health bar flashed.

“K.O.! Perfect!” the invisible announcer called out.

What the fuck! What the actual fuck was that? Rick panted, too frustrated to make sense of what had happened. What was that spinning kick bullshit?

Shidō chuckled and pointed again to Rick’s starting position. Really? Again? He considered leaving the arena, but something within him made him question the wisdom of retreat. He sighed. They can’t actually hurt you. Worst case, you go back to the starting cave. He shook his head. It’s not like I haven’t been knocked out a dozen times in the last four days.

As he trudged back to the starting point, an idea hit him. Wait… Power moves? Health bar? Weirder-than-usual opponents? Did this game have old-school fighting game moves? He looked down at his own clothing. This is almost a karate gi. I wonder…

“Round Two!” the invisible announcer called out.

Shidō bowed once more, but Rick didn’t return the gesture, instead he rushed at the goofy son-of-a-bitch before the clown could get the upper hand again. He remembered these games. Though they were nothing like real fighting, they rewarded certain tactics for certain fighters, and he was pretty sure Shidō was what folks used to call a “rush-down” character. If they were both rush-downs, Rick should have been able to match the actor’s techniques, thereby eliminating the advantage.

But Shidō was ready for him, and in a comically unrealistic move, the actor dropped beneath Rick as he charged, then rose against him as he tumbled, throwing Rick as his momentum carried him over the squatting kabuki.

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Damn!

He landed hard, but rolled in the direction he thought most safe. His intuition saved him, as Shidō again tried to attack him, this time with a hard ground strike heel that landed where Rick had been only a second before.

Oh, you bastard. Rick rose to his feet and Shidō taunted him again with another high-pitched laugh.

I wonder. Rick somersaulted forward, then rose with a fist and, in homage to his favorite archaic arcade game, cried, “Dragon fist!” as he launched high into the air, dragging Shidō upward by only the man’s chin and neck, against which Rick had lodged his fist. Blue flames flew back from where he’d connected with Shidō, and while he was still airborne, Rick tried to spin-kick as he came down. Success! He windmilled into the lower body of the man, spinning him sideways in mid-air, somehow magically connecting with Shidō’s body with every new spin and, breaking all laws of physics, his momentum didn’t slow until he landed gracefully on the ground.

Shidō wobbled as though stunned and Rick came at him again, this time with a one-two punch followed by a high heel that he dragged into—then down—Shidō’s hunched body. Again, there were blue flames. Shidō fell to the ground.

“K.O.!” the announcer called.

Rick pumped his fists and jumped. “Oh yeah!”

The win injected energy into him. He raced back to his starting position. “Come on, Shidō, let’s do this!”

Shidō dusted himself off and wordlessly trudged to his starting point as well.

“Round Three!” the announcer called.

Shidō didn’t bow, nor did he rush to the center. Casually, and with alert eyes, Shidō approached. Rick matched his pace, uncertain what to expect. The yellow of Shidō’s special meter caught his eye. It was full.

Oh sh—

Rick blocked just in time as the whirlwind of Shidō’s special combo blasted into his raised forearms. Thank God he isn’t a grappler or I’d be screwed. The kabuki fighter’s barrage of twists and punches from weird angles forced him to duck twice and jump once—which he barely accomplished in time. Even with the blocks, the onslaught pushed Rick back two yards, give or take, and when it was over, Shidō gasped without raising his guard.

I wonder what my special is—

Without his conscious control, Rick struck high, then low, then did three consecutive uppercuts—the ones he’d called ‘Dragon Punches’—in a row, each punch more outlandishly powerful than the last. Each strike landed against Shidō. As the automatically triggered special pushed him through the motions, Rick realized his own yellow special meter must have been full, as well. Interesting…

“K.O. Victory!” the announcer called before Rick had landed from his final Dragon Punch, which had launched Shidō a comical distance into the air. The painted actor landed on the stage with a thud a full four seconds later.

*************************************

Shidō’s defeated body faded, but even that was strange. The kabuki fighter’s body stayed frozen in place, a heap on the ground. It disappeared in in a series of increasingly rapid, blinking flashes, the way a fighter might have in one of those old brawlers, those Golden Axe-cum-Rage-Streets sixteen-bit affairs where they needed to save resources on animations. Rick felt more wonder than disappointment at the strange effect, but his eyes went wide with eager curiosity when the box that rose was purple, and not orange, blue, or yellow. As the box transformed into a dark lavender-colored icon, he approached it.

Permanent Trait Acquired!

Mark of Ditto!

Passive Trait: ???

What the… what? Passive trait? What’s a trait?

A New Challenger Appears!

Another fighter, a man dressed in a standard kung-fu uniform, stepped up to the side of the stage Shidō had previously occupied. The fighter’s health and special bars appeared, as did the fighter’s name.

Ditto. The fighter’s name was Ditto.

The fighter smiled, then opened his mouth to speak. “No fighting today, Rick Prophet.” Ditto’s voice was mechanical, comically and anachronistically so. Before Rick could react, the other man bowed, then said, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Do I know you?” Rick asked.

Ditto cocked his head and smiled. Again, his voice was strangely mechanical. “No. I knew someone would come. I didn’t know it would be you.”

“How do you know…” Rick sighed and looked up. He hadn’t noticed it before, but his name, prominently written in bright white letters, floated above his health bar and special meter. He blinked. “Where are we?”

Ditto opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Rick had the sudden feeling of being yanked backward and down into a tunnel, as though the world had swallowed him up. His view went black, and he landed in a seated position on something soft. Gradually, his vision came back, and there was a sucking sensation at the base of his skull as the implant disengaged.

He fought nausea and clutched the armrest of the chair. He’d arrived back in Hector’s basement SR room. The buzzing of equipment invaded his consciousness, and he panted as he glanced around the room, searching for an explanation, for someone to give him a clue as to why he’d been forcefully pulled from the simulation.

“Where did you go?” It was Alex’s voice.

“What?”

“We lost you. You’ve been gone for at least—”

“Wait,” he protested.

“For the last thirty minutes or so, you’ve just been gone.”

He tried to stand.

“Don’t get up, man. Pulling you from the simulation—you’re gonna be dizzy a while longer.”

He clutched his stomach and tried not to vomit. “Why did you—”

“Your wife…”

“What?” He struggled to accommodate the various stimuli—the sickness, Alex’s voice, and the news he’d been ‘lost’—whatever that meant. “Kris—”

“I wouldn’t have pulled you out if it wasn’t serious, Rick. She’s…”

Rick checked his pocket, and panic struck him. There was no familiar rattle of pills there. He stood, and the world turned upside down, flopping him onto his back on the rubber-matted floor. The tight control he’d had on his stomach vanished, and he heaved, though his stomach was empty.

“I said not to get up.” Her voice was elevated, but it sounded more concerned than angry.

He tried to crawl to his hands and knees.

“She’s in the hospital, Rick. Manuel is coming down to help you. Just sit tight, okay?” This time he had no doubt. Genuine feeling—sympathy, and maybe fear—colored the tone of her voice.

Anxiety locked him into timelessness, and panic choked him, blurring his vision. Was it thirty seconds later or five minutes when the door opened and Manuel rushed in with a blanket and water?

Rick stared into the middle distance as Manuel helped him to his feet. The water passed his lips, then his throat, before settling into his stomach with the cold weight of metal marbles, but he didn’t vomit again. “Can we—”

“Yeah, man, of course. I’ll drive,” he said.