Chapter 44

[Twitch Reflexes] was Luke’s new best friend. One moment, Zammin was standing in front of him, maybe five feet away, the next, the diminutive fighter was a foot in front of him with his fist driving into Luke’s outer thigh. And the only reason it was just his thigh taking the blow instead of Zammin’s intended target was that beautiful, beautiful skill: [Twitch Reflexes].

Luke resolved right then and there that his next level’s AP was going to be devoted towards bringing that skill up to rank 3. It had saved his ass so many times, and he was sure with another rank and a few more points into agility, he’d have dodged the cock shot completely.

“Dirty fucking pool, you little asshole,” he growled, lashing out with a knee. If it had connected, it probably would have knocked a few of Zammin’s teeth out, but the dwifkin was so damn fast that Luke whiffed it completely. A spike of pain shot through him when the little fucker punched the inside of his attacking knee, and the only reason Luke remained standing was his tremendous strength stat helping him resist the blow.

It didn’t seem possible. The pint-sized fighter was a fraction of his level. Even if he’d invested every single AP he had into agility, there was no way he was beating out Luke’s perception. Impossible or not, that was exactly what was happening. He couldn’t keep up with Zammin’s movements at all. [Twitch Reflexes] protected the family jewels, something Zammin targeted liberally, but otherwise wasn’t much use in getting Luke out of the way.

[Unarmed Martialist] had something to say about that. He couldn’t keep up with Zammin, for whatever reason, but he could and did limit the other fighter’s avenues of attack. It didn’t help him land a blow of his own, but it did help him protect himself. If he was going to win this fight, he needed to come up with something clever.

“See,” Zea said. “Look how well he’s doing.”

“He’s getting his ass kicked,” Fatty argued. “He hasn’t even touched Zammin.”

“Well no shit. Nobody touches Zammin! But he’s still on his feet, and he blocked that first punch to the balls.”

Luke lost track of the argument, or maybe it was a negotiation, after that, when the little testicle terrorist came back for another fly-by. He twisted his leg to block the punch, then hopped up about six inches into the air to avoid a kick to the ankles. His foot lashed out, and he planted it firmly on the leg supporting Zammin’s weight. The dwifkin yelped in surprise and pain and retaliated with an uppercut right towards his favorite target.

“Getting predictable, shithead,” Luke said, pivoting the heel grinding into Zammin’s upper thigh so that he could twist to take the punch. Then he leaned forward and put all his weight squarely on the dwifkin, who collapsed with a yelp and a loud snapping sound.

Luke landed, most of his weight on his back foot while his leading foot pinned Zammin to the ground by the leg. “I think it’s broken,” he called up to Zea and Fatty. “You want to call it here?”

“Holy shit,” Fatty breathed out. Zea just grinned.

Luke saw a flicker of movement, [Twitch Reflexes]tried to throw him to the side, and something clamped onto his ankle before he could move. There was a tiny fraction of a second between Luke realizing that Zammin had grabbed hold of him with one hand and the dwifkin fighter’s other hand driving hard into Luke’s nuts.

Luke fell back, an almost inaudible squeal of pain escaping his lips. Zammin wasn’t that strong, thank God, but even a 5 or 6 in his strength stat would match a full-grown Earthling in good shape. And the little fucker didn’t hold back, at all. It took a lot of willpower not to throw up all over the floor.

“Hah! The Nut Devil strikes again!” Zammin yelled from where he was laying on the ground. The fact that his leg was broken didn’t seem to bother him at all.

“I told you we’re not calling you that!” Fatty yelled down at him. “Someone else is already using that name.”

“Oh come on! It’s the perfect name for me. Who’s the other fucker who’s using it? I’ll pay him a visit and we can determine who the true Nut Devil is.”

“I said no.”

Luke groaned and steadied himself. He’d been hurt before, hell, he’d been stabbed and shot more than once. This pain wasn’t exactly worse, but it was different. He took a deep breath in, then back out, in, out. Slowly, he straightened out. Zammin was still sitting on the ground, his broken leg sticking out at a funny angle.

Luke took two running steps and then, leg fully cocked back, unloaded a kick into Zammin’s crotch so hard that it lifted the fighter off the ground and threw him across the pit. He skidded a few feet across the ground before flopping over, laughing hysterically.

“Haahahahahahaha! I love it! This guy is awesome. Hire him, Sideon.”

“We’ll see,” Fatty said. He turned back to Zea and said, “Okay, the human’s got some style. Audience would probably love it. He’s not fast enough to do a good fight with Zammin, but we could put him against a few of the upper ranks as a newcomer and clean up on the bets early on. He does good enough, maybe we put them back in the ring together. With a bit of practice, they could choreograph something that people will pay to see.”

“Hey, is this fight over now?” Luke asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, sure. Go get yourself a beer or something.”

* * *

The beer tasted like shit. Luke found himself missing that spiced drink and wishing he’d gotten the name of it. Maybe if he described it to the bartender, she’d know what he was talking about. He was just about to get up and follow through on that plan, when Zammin slid into the chair on the other side of the table.

“Hi there. Ugh, one second, the lever is stuck,” the dwifkin said.

Something popped and the chair rose up an inch before stopping. “Zixin take you, you piece of shit! Death on your family to the ninth degree!” Zammin roared, hopping back out of the chair.

He kicked something under the seat, Luke heard a piece of metal squeal, and the chair rose up another foot. As if nothing had happened at all, Zammin calmly climbed back into the seat and looked at Luke. “Right, like I was saying. Hi.”

“Um… hi.”

“Your manager is raking Sideon over the coals. Very ferocious.” Zammin waggled his eyebrows as he spoke.

“Look, no offense, but my balls still ache and this beer is piss water. Do you need something?”

Zammin reached across the table, plucked Luke’s beer out of his hands, and took a drink. “Oh, yuck. That is nasty. Let’s get something better.”

“Hey. You can’t just… you know what, fuck it. I don’t even care. It’s not like I was going to finish it anyway.”

“I’ll be right back. You just wait here.”

Luke watched, bemused, as Zammin weaved through tables which he could barely see over, approached the bar, and loudly demanded two flagons of something called ‘Black Burrow Stout.’ Then he carried them back over, each one about the same size as his head, plopped them onto the table, and hopped back into his seat.

“Right, take a sip of that and tell me you don’t love it,” the diminutive fighter ordered.

The liquid was pitch black, and thick like melted chocolate. At least, that’s what it looked like. It was hard to tell if it was even moving inside the flagon. Almost hesitantly, Luke took a drink. It was incredibly bitter. “Oh God damn,” he said. “That’s something.”

“What, you don’t like it?” Zammin asked.

“I didn’t say that, just that it’s a lot.” Luke took another sip. “Is this even alcoholic?”

“Oh, incredibly so,” Zammin said happily. “At least, it is for humans. You probably shouldn’t finish that if your stamina is under 30.”

“Ehhhh, close enough.”

Zammin shrugged and took a long pull from his own flagon, an act that looked ridiculous to Luke. When he set it back down, he leaned back in his chair with a happy sigh. “I wasn’t sure about you at first, but after the match, well, you’re alright for a tall-boy.”

Luke took another drink. Still bitter, but he was warming up to it. “Thanks, I guess. Uh, weird question, but are you wearing a cup?”

“A cup?”

“A… uh…” Luke gestured towards his crotch. “Armor?”

“Oh, a codpiece? Always.”

That explained the weird resistance at the end of that kick. He hadn’t been sure if it was dwifkin biology or not.

“So anyway, wanted to talk to you about your fights. Sideon always wants to put the new guy up against Tantoro. The regulars expect it, so it’s pretty much mandatory.”

“Okay, thanks for the warning, I guess?” It didn’t mean too much to Luke since he had no clue who the hell Tantoro was, but he appreciated the gesture. Admittedly, he’d appreciate it more if his balls didn’t hurt. Though the stout was a good start. The flagon was half empty already.

“It’s not a warning,” Zammin said. “Well, kind of. Tantoro isn’t human either. He has… different customs. Don’t be shocked when you meet him. Also, he doesn’t have the stats to take a full-shot like that, so maybe go a bit easy on him, yeah? It’s supposed to be fun, not deadly.”

“Yeah, I got ya. Speaking of which, how’s the leg? I thought I broke that.”

“Oh, you did. Hurt like a bitch. I’ve got it splinted now.”

“You’re just walking around on it? That’s crazy.”

“It’ll heal. No big deal.” Zammin eyed Luke’s flagon. “Are you sure you should be drinking that? You don’t sound like a man with a high stamina stat to me.”

“I, uh, I guess I never really dealt with having to heal up big injuries like that. I’ve got a fast healing skill.”

“Those are expensive,” Zammin said. “But good to know. Means I don’t have to go easy on you when we fight for real.”

Luke choked on his drink. “That wasn’t for real?” he asked, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve.

“Nah, that was just playing around.”

“Jesus.”

Zammin was already faster than he could handle. If that was just him screwing around, Luke was completely outclassed. He eyed the dwifkin dubiously. Maybe he was using some sort of skill to hide his level. Luke was doing the same, it was just that his wasn’t very effective. The conversation so far had been casual and they’d both dropped a few hints as to their skillset, but Luke wasn’t sure how rude it would be to just ask like that.

Zammin emptied his flagon out in one long pull. “Gods, that’s good stuff,” he said. “Alright, I’ve got stuff to do. Good to meet you, tall-boy. Looks like your manager’s about done anyway. See you at the fights.”

“You too,” Luke said. He stood up when Zammin walked away and turned towards Zea, who was threading her way between the tables towards him. As soon as he got his feet under him though, the whole world tilted and Luke staggered. He grabbed onto the back of his chair desperately, just trying to hold his balance.

“Holy shit, that just hit me all at once.”

“Black Burrow Stout?” Zea asked, sniffing the flagon. “You dumbass. Come on, let’s find you a place to sleep it off. I’ll tell you all about how rich we’re going to be tomorrow.”

“Not sure I can walk that far,” Luke admitted, his head spinning. He’d never drunk anything that hit him that hard, or that quick. He’d been perfectly fine until a few seconds ago when he stood up. “And it’s only… afternoon?”

“You’re done for the day now, trust me. And you can’t sleep here, so try. If I have to get someone to carry you out of here, I’m making you pay for it.”

“Okay, okay. Just give me a minute.” Luke took a couple of breaths. “I got this. Let’s go.”

He made it four steps before he tripped over a chair.

“Gods damn it,” Zea muttered. “Come on, back upright. Let’s try it again. Fucking Zammin.”