Chapter 48

Luke walked behind Tantoro as they followed Fatty out of the back room. The previous fight had gone on even longer than anticipated, which didn’t seem to surprise any of the other fighters, but now it was finally his turn. He was about to step foot into the ring with a seven-foot tall naked, hairless, green man.

They passed through a gap in the bleachers and hopped down into the pit. Tantoro walked over to the halfway point and stood there, hands crossed over his chest while the crowd cheered for him. Luke glanced around and saw, perhaps not surprisingly, more than a few women cheering. In fact, they were the ones howling the loudest.

“Alright, folks!” Fatty yelled, cutting through the noise, “We all know who’s here for this fight, so pipe down and let’s get it started. We’ve got another new fighter for you, as you can see. Aldrick here sparred against Zammin himself and held his own. He even got a good hit or two in, so let that serve as his credentials. But no reason to take my word for it, not when you can see him in action himself.”

The crowd started cheering again, though be fair, the loudest were a group of women positioned at the front row along the centerline of the pit. Fatty let the noise wash over them for a second before cutting in, “Will this newcomer give our resident exhibitionist a challenge? Or will he be crushed into the dirt! Let’s find out!”

Luke glanced around at the bleachers again, looked over at Fatty, who had a hand raised up in the air, then to his opponent. Tantoro was now visibly aroused, which brought some heat to Luke’s cheeks. “Are you for real with that?” he asked.

“Battle is in my people’s blood. It is only with the utmost willpower that we live to see old age.”

That was not a sufficient explanation to start a fight while at full mast, not in Luke’s mind at least. The refusal to wear any sort of clothes did not help matters, though Tantoro’s fan club seemed to like it.

“And fight!” Fatty bellowed.

Tantoro charged forward, his arms open wide and his stance low. He was set to tackle Luke, something that Luke wanted to avoid at all costs. Even if he outmuscled the green man, size and leverage were important advantages, not to mention… other considerations.

Luke leaped backwards to dodge Tantoro’s grab, skirted around to the side, and flicked a low kick at the other fighter’s knee. Tantoro shifted expertly, not even trying to dodge the attack, and instead caught it on the meat of his leg. When Luke’s foot connected, the ostol fighter surged forward, pushing back on the offending limb and trying to throw Luke off-balance.

Luke hopped backward to help disperse the unexpected counter-momentum and keep his balance. That tiny break in his defenses was all the opening Tantoro needed to close the distance again, and this time he got Luke’s arm around the bicep with one of his giant hands. He heaved, pulling Luke towards him and tried to wrap his human opponent in a bear hug.

Luke was having none of that. He might have been able to plant his feet and resist Tantoro’s pull, but that would leave him vulnerable to a follow up attack and unfortunately, [Twitch Reflexes] wasn’t doing much to help. Tantoro’s attacks were fast but also very visible, which left the skill very little to work with. [Unarmed Martialist] was pulling most of the weight in this fight by helping Luke predict oncoming attacks before they started and respond accordingly.

[Counter] also had something to say, namely that in response to the pull on Luke’s arm, he needed to jump forward with it and plant both knees in Tantoro’s chest. Luke didn’t even have time to think about whether that was a good idea before his legs started moving. He slammed into the other fighter as hard as he could, which was more than enough to send Tantoro staggering backwards, but not enough to actually get free of the vice grip on his arm.

Luke dropped down, found his face uncomfortably close to a flopping green sausage, and pivoted in place. Tantoro had to either twist with Luke to keep his hold, or let go. The ostol didn’t have his feet set to move with Luke and didn’t have the leverage to prevent the spin. Luke broke free, completed the pivot with another kick at Tantoro’s knee, and darted out of the big man’s reach.

They went back and forth for a few minutes, Tantoro’s greater range giving him an advantage, but Luke’s higher agility helped him even it out. He knew he had a higher strength stat than his opponent did, but he was also confident that if Tantoro managed to take it to a grapple, he’d lose anyway. [Unarmed Martialist] would be of limited help and the rest of his skill set would be basically worthless. It would come down to pure muscle power on his end against what suspected was a highly ranked grappling skill.

Luke got in a few good punches, one right on Tantoro’s face that split his lip, but the green man’s defenses were superb and his reactions quick enough to keep Luke from really setting himself and putting his full power behind any single attack. He could technically use [Power Strike]without a weapon, but he never had and wasn’t sure what kind of feedback it would give him. Plus this wasn’t a fight to the death, and accidents could happen.

Then misfortune struck. Throughout the day, the pit had been torn up and churned, and this last fight hadn’t helped matters. Luke’s foot slipped just enough that he had to catch his balance, just enough that Tantoro managed to clap both of his hands down on Luke’s shoulders and drag him forward. The big man threw himself backwards, taking Luke with him.

He hit his back, Luke pulled in close, and continued to roll until he was on top of the human. Luke struggled to rise; he knew he could lift the weight if he could just get his limbs coordinated. Tantoro wasn’t having any of that though. He expertly kicked Luke’s legs out to keep him from getting back up to his knees and pushed him belly-down into the ground.

“It was an excellent fight, my new friend!” Tantoro said from his position on Luke’s back. “Quite exciting, and you are most slippery prey!”

Considering the position he was pinned in and the fact that he could feel the ostol’s erection grinding against him, Luke felt entirely justified being creeped out. “Man, we are not friends,” Luke said. “Maybe if you put a pair of pants on.”

He wasn’t going to escape on his strength stat alone. Agility was basically out the window with the compromising position he was stuck in. It was time to play the trump card. Luke kicked [Life Surge]on and felt power shoot through him like lightning. With a roar, he heaved and, heedless of the joint lock Tantoro had on his arm, swung his whole body around.

There was a look of comic surprise on Tantoro’s face as Luke threw him with the strength of one arm alone, but before he could recover, Luke sprang on him with a drop kick to the chest, followed by a solid pummeling with his fists. Tantoro got his arms up to guard his face, but Luke still slipped in a good blow every few swings.

By the time [Life Surge] gave out, Luke was on his feet, chest heaving, while Fatty screamed something in the background that was completely drowned out by the crowd. The only part of it he got for sure was that the fight was over, and he was pretty sure he’d won. Tantoro lay on the ground groaning, and Luke reached down to help him up.

“Good…. Fight,” Tantoro said again. “Surprised me… at the end. Come, help me out, please.”

Luke gave his defeated opponent a boost, then wearily climbed out of the pit after him. They both trudged through the gap in the bleachers towards the waiting room, the deafening sounds of the fans chasing along behind them.

* * *

Myla considered the three new human fighters at the Harbor. The first two were obviously amateurs, unlikely to be her target. They were farm boys who thought they were good at bare-knuckle brawling and had little in the way of ability. They were also both obviously low level, so low that she could disqualify them by that alone. If either of them, or even both together, had killed an entire brute squad of templars, their levels would be higher just from the XP gained in that one fight.

Of course there were ways around that. The system didn’t tend to reward indirect killings, at least if the person setting the trap was far enough removed from the actual kill. She had more reason than most to know that a clever mind could trump a strong arm, after all.

Still, she doubted they were who she was looking for. The man from the third fight, Aldrick, was more likely to be her target. He was a higher level, for one thing, though again not high enough to beat even one templar in a fight, let alone five. He was reasonably clever, though in her estimation he could stand a year or two of training to learn how to really fight instead of relying on his skills.

The most damning piece of evidence was the manager though. She was one of the little folk, or dwifkin as they called themselves, and if the testimony that had led her to the pawnbroker was correct, the breastplate had been sold by a human and a shortie. It was a suspicious coincidence, even though she didn’t see how the human could have possibly survived an encounter with the brute squad.

The problem was that the information wasn’t really reliable. It made no mention of any of the weapons or other armor, which if someone was stupid enough to sell stolen temple gear, she would have expected them to sell all of it. The description of the seller had also been muddled so much that about the only things she was sure of were that the human was male and the shortie was probably a female dwifkin.

If not for the Sign of the Six on it, she would have thought the sellers had just gotten into a storeroom somewhere or broke into a templar’s house and taken it as part of the loot. Equipment with a Sign inscribed on it wasn’t easy to come by, even if it was forged. People knew better than to copy something like that. She had sent the piece in to be appraised, just to confirm, but she was confident it was genuine.

Myla left the Bloody Harbor, still mulling things over. She would watch for now, follow up on a few other possible leads and see if she could find a better candidate. This one fit some of the facts, but not enough. That wouldn’t stop some inquisitors, but she prided herself on bringing in the right criminal the first time and never having to make the wrong person disappear to cover up mistakes.

Mistakes were for amateurs, after all. She was the apprentice of the greatest inquisitor who’d ever lived. She couldn’t bring shame on her master’s name with slipshod work. So she would watch, and she would wait. Once she was sure she had the right target, she would move.

The human left the Harbor an hour later, strangely sober after his victory. She would have expected him to celebrate. His opponent had been a tough one, and his last-second upset had been the talk of the bar. Myla ghosted along after him, silent, practically invisible, determined to see where he was going and what he was up to.