Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)
Page 29
“Ouch, bro.”
Niko felt the air turn sour. Teddy’s face darkened a bit. This was dangerous, talking about their past together. It hadn’t been all roses.
Teddy turned his back on him. “I’ll give you some privacy while I defend myself. First of all, you know I’ve supported you since seventh grade, when I saw you fight. Ah, even as a little Mercury Belt, your First Study attack was mighty. The Mighty Kowalczyk! Isn’t that what you fought under?”
Niko put on the top shirt of the robes and grimaced as the damp material touched his skin. Putting on wet clothes was terrible. And wet clothes that smelled of someone else’s body odor? Maddy was going to owe him big. But this was as much for Teddy as it was for her. “Yes, the Mighty Kowalczyk.” There was a name that made him grimace. He wanted to put his friend at ease. “Even when I wasn’t around for you, you were always there for me. There wasn’t ever ‘we,’ but there’s always been a ‘we.’ You know?”
“Yes, I do know. If it wasn’t for my asthma, I’d be fighting Stan Howling!” Teddy made a fist as if he expected something to happen. Nothing did. His birthday was September 5, so that made him a Gravitas, but Teddy had always been a Second Study fighter when he fought. While Teddy loved the Arena more than most people loved chocolate, he’d stopped fighting. He blamed his asthma, but Niko always thought there was more to it than that.
Niko finished buttoning the twelve buttons that went from his right collar to his left hip. He pulled on the pants. More wet clothes madness. He cinched the belt. The robes were the color of a muddy green river.
Yet when Teddy turned, he beamed. “Oh, dude, it’s so good seeing you in your Artist robes. Seriously, can’t you feel how right this is?”
Niko raised his hands over his head, stretched, and then fell into a fighting stance, feet shoulder-width apart. He bounced back and forth. “I can’t believe this is happening. It shouldn’t be happening, but I’m kind of glad it is.” He tried to temper his excitement. “But we both know I’m not going to win. I’m a crippled Mercury Belt against a Mars Belt. Best-case scenario, I don’t die. Worst case? Stan doesn’t want to give the people a good fight and takes me out in the first round.”
“Crippled?” Teddy asked.
His friend didn’t know the truth. No one did. “Cusp, you know, I’m a total cusp between Quintessence and Luna. Crippled.”
Teddy pursed his lips. “Yeah, there’s been a ton of cusps that have kicked major butt. Franklin Wash in the 1930s was a cusp Artist, a Jupiter Belt, who won the 1937 LBA Championships with a Discordant Study.”
“Franklin Wash went on to fight in World War II. Right?” Niko asked.
“Bingo.” Teddy flicked up a finger. “A cusp who punched Nazis in the face. There you have it. Also, LJ Crown uses Harmonic Studies.”
“Jupiter Belts have prana to spare,” Niko said. “That’s different from being a cusp.”
Teddy dug into his pocket and took out his phone. “A text from Maddy. Are we ready to rumble?”
Niko bent over, stretching out his hamstrings. “No, I’m not ready to rumble.”
“Ready to win?”
Niko’s muscles were as tight and constricted as his core. “Let’s just say I’m ready to give another lesson for my teacher to use with me.”
“A thousand losses are a teacher. A single victory is a pause.” The big guy knew his Pranad.
Niko straightened. “But you know, it would be nice to pause for a second.”
“Do you think that means you pause to enjoy? Or is it just some bit of lost wisdom?” Teddy asked.
Niko wasn’t sure, but he thought he knew. “One victory isn’t the deal. You pause because it doesn’t mean much.”
That put a smile on Teddy’s face. “What’s the deal then? What matters in the Battle Arts? Tell me, great master.”
“The deal? Battle Artists battle. That’s the deal. Win, lose, or die, a true Battle Artist is in a constant state of creation and destruction.”
“This feels like old times. This feels like the start of something.” Teddy’s voice was soft, like he was talking to himself. “Creation and destruction. Not sure I get that. Boil it down for me.”
Niko remembered his high school sage, what he always said. “A lot of people will talk about the Arts, especially other Battle Artists, but not many will really practice them. In the end, the deal is to do it.”
“Then let’s do it.” Teddy laughed.
It did feel like old times, which scared Niko. It frightened him far more than what Stan Howling might do to him. Or that Andrew J. Coffey was going to watch him fight. The celebrity Artist was there, standing with his arms crossed, in the sparse crowd around the Arena.
The day had gone from mildly annoying to straight-up terrifying. A guy’s day off shouldn’t be so fraught with danger and intrigue.
Click here to continue reading Sages of the Underpass (Battle Artists Book 1).
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Dedication
For DJB and QJA. Hope is a strategy.
Copyright
Storm Girls is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Aaron Michael Ritchey and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.
JStrode@ShadowAlleyPress.com
About the Author
Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of The Never Prayer, Long Live the Suicide King, and Elizabeth’s Midnight. He was born on a cold and snowy September day in Denver, Colorado, and while he’s lived and traveled all over the world, he’s a child of the American West. Sagebrush makes him homesick. While he pines for Paris, he still lives in Colorado with his cactus flower of a wife and two stormy daughters.
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