Rick nearly didn’t believe he’d done it, and expected it to turn out to be a trick, or that the game would throw some twist into the mix, but as he approached and Alex smiled and raised her arms to begin, he had to admit it to himself.
He’d made it to the center.
They’d previously sparred in the training room a few times, and she’d let him play with some boosts and techniques, but he’d never legitimately gotten to the center. In researching the more full-bodied game—not the ‘tournament slice’ he’d be using for his bout with Sonny—he’d learned that even the best players regularly failed to reach the center of the map. It’s why the regular tournaments comprised hundreds or even thousands of matches to determine the best players. The game’s obstacles and bots were damned good at neutralizing even practiced fighters.
Alex had seemed more and more anxious as the days went by and he continually failed to make it. Now, the look on her face was one of determination—she wasn’t about to go easy on him—but there was also some relief there.
She stepped forward with her arms raised for the fight. “Finally made it.”
He nodded. “How long did it take you? The first time, I mean.”
She smiled. “Longer than you.”
“A little longer?”
Her face didn’t change. He raised his eyebrows. “A lot longer?”
She replied with a playful jab he dodged.
“I’ve hit a nerve?”
“You haven’t hit anything yet, sport. Come on.”
He glanced at his stat sheet with the combos and boosts he’d collected on the journey to the center:
Strength: 3
Speed: 5
Stamina: 7
He mentally pulled up the Skills & Combos tab:
Passive Skills:
Stiff Upper Lip: Passive resistance to head strikes and choke holds. Player will be less likely to lose consciousness or be knocked out via critical strike. Rare Skill! (May be stacked.)
Jumper: Cuts stamina use for jumps in half.
Active Skills:
Arm-Pull Elbow: This technique allows you to block, then grab most strikes aimed at the player’s head. After securing the opponent’s limb, pull opponent off balance into your other elbow. Close distance technique. Moderate stamina use.
Grab-Resist Slam: When an opponent grabs player’s waist for takedown, use this technique to kick out his or her feet while maneuvering to the top of the opponent. Usually results in player dropping onto opponent for damage. Note: Will finish with both opponents on ground. Use with caution.
Slap-Taunt: This rhythm breaking slap to an opponent causes insignificant damage, but requires no stamina. Will interrupt a flurry. Note: Can fluster a rush-down opponent.
The actives and passives game him a limited number of combos, though for the most part, these didn’t work well together. He’d had prior experience with the Arm-Pull Elbow, and it was deadly with a throw skill, but he didn’t have one this round. All he had was the Grab-Resist Slam, which didn’t look to be much of an escape at all, considering it still put him on the ground. He could always perform the moves of an over the shoulder throw, but any opponent had a better chance escaping it, or pulling him down. Using a true skill didn’t make him invulnerable to counters or reversals, but it did make them far less easy to pull off. He’d experienced the truth of this mostly by being on the receiving end of a skill or throw that he should have been able to counter, but couldn’t.
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The Slap-Taunt he’d gotten early in the run, and he’d used it to proper effect on a wiry dance-fighter, but again, he had little in his arsenal with which to follow up. This run, he’d focused on speed and stamina, since avoiding damage had been more crucial than dealing damage. He’d been a trained fighter once. Strength was great, but speed and coordination were what it took to hit a moving target in a critical area.
Something troubled him. “Do you have any stat boosts or skills? You skipped right to the center of the map.”
She smiled. “I have quite a few permanents. Shit, I had to disable more than a few just so you’d have any hope of winning.”
“That whole system confuses me. I mean, either you know and have trained a technique or you haven’t. What you describe sounds like de-tuning a race car before a match.”
She shot a playful jab at him, but he dodged. “That’s not a bad analogy, honestly. C’mon. It’s a game. You still have anything you know already, but you’ve seen that the likelihood of success is much higher if you’ve collected the skill. How many times are we gonna have this argument?”
“In the real world, you learn a technique, practice it until it’s correct, then drill it until it’s second nature.” He jabbed and followed with a hook. “What we do here, it’s more resource management and stat boosting than anything else.”
She smiled. “How would you know? You’ve never been—”
“Let’s pretend—”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to explain it, but let’s stop pretending you’re just lucky, all right? You don’t ever have to admit it to Hector, but I think it’s best if we don’t deceive one another. Okay?”
He took a deep breath. “It’s complicated.”
“You don’t have to explain.” She stepped in to trip him, but he stepped high and danced out of her range. “Good! I thought I had you there.”
He jabbed her and this time the follow-up straight right fist connected, too. She stumbled, and his knee glanced off her as she corrected, then somersaulted backward before coming up again.
In a moment of self-chastisement, she said, “Jesus, that was sloppy.”
Rick tried to process what she’d said, and that was enough time for her to close the distance and land a hard kick to his upper body. He grunted, but instead of backing away, he went for a hard right.
When she moved away and counterattacked, it was what he’d expected. He performed his Arm-Pull Elbow, and followed it up with a takedown.
She struggled, and he shuffled to get his groin out of the way of her knees—almost too late, but that’s all a fight was. It was all a matter of being on the right edge of danger. It was a guided mistake where you corrected everything on the fly in ways you’d drilled a hundred thousand times.
In a matter of minutes. He’d choked her out.
Victory!
He stood, curious what would happen to a defeated non-bot opponent. Alex faded, but unlike with the bots, she reappeared nearly immediately, standing next to him.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Not a fighter, my ass!” She clapped him on the back.
He’d expected her to be angry, but she beamed. “Ah yes. Holy hell—I didn’t expect you to put that many points into speed.” She cocked her head. “How did that not fuck you up?”
“Couldn’t you see all that before we started?”
She shook her head. “I would have had far too much advantage that way.” Her eyes went wide. “I’d have been a lot more cautious if I’d known you had that Elbow counterattack.”
He smiled. He’d gotten precious little praise from her so far. “I’m surprised it worked. It seemed like a limited skill.”
She looked him intently in the eye. “Every skill is limited. Don’t you understand? Half this game is the hand you’re dealt, but the other half is what you do with that. Your biggest advantage is also your biggest hurdle—you already know how to fight.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Her jaw was clenched as she shook her head. “You’re gonna need to forget some of what you think you know. You’re gonna have to use the tools you’re given in unconventional ways. That means some of the flashy shit that’ll get you killed in a real fight will be exactly the right thing to use—because you’ll have unlocked the skill, which gives it more usefulness than something that’s strictly utilitarian.”
Again, he said, “Okay.”
She pointed at him in a way that reminded him of a football coach. “You made it to the center, and you got me once. Next time, I’ll turn on more of my permanents. These are skills I’ve built steady strategies around. If—heaven help you—you ever get to compete on a bigger stage, you’ll be able to do some of that yourself, but until you do, you’re gonna have to learn how to make the best out of whatever shit sandwich you get, got me?”
“I got you.”
She kept up the coach routine for a few seconds, nodding and glaring, before her smile was back. “Jesus fuck, man. Got to the center and beat me in a week and a half. That’s something. You hungry?”
That last part took him by surprise. “Yeah.”
“Tell Hector I want him to give you fifty dollars out of what he pays me. Get some takeout and get some fuckin’ sleep, yeah?”
“You don’t wanna come out and celebrate with me?” Rick asked.
The look on her face was pained. “I… can’t. I’d love to, and you’ve done well, but I just can’t.”
“Okay…”
“Get a good meal, and get a sleeping pill from Hector if you have to. Before you take the pill, look up Santino Esposito’s tourneys. Tomorrow, we’ll be drilling everything we can to counter what we know about his fighting style.”
Rick took a deep breath. “So we’re done today?”
“Yeah man. You can ride the red balloon back out.”
He closed his eyes and imagined the red balloon and watched it in his mind’s eye as he and it rose into the clouds. As he did, he slowly awakened from simulation.