by Rachel Aaron
Looking him straight in the eye, James calmly handing his staff to Thunder Paw.
“What are you doing?” Arbati demanded.
James cracked his knuckles. “Keeping the fight fair. You aren’t going to be able to say shit about my honor when this is over.”
“Overconfident fool!” the warrior hissed, baring his claws as he charged.
Taking a tight stance, James clenched his fists and waited. He knew for a fact that the game’s hit point system lingered, but after his fight with Gore Maul, James had come to suspect that normal biology and physics also played a huge role in which attacks were effective and which weren’t. Back in FFO, all you had to do was hit the target to do your damage. That was how Tina kept a giant boss’s attention even if the only part of him she could reach was his foot. Now, though, the rules were different. Where and how you hit mattered, or at least that was James’s theory. If he was right, he had options. If he was wrong… James clenched his fists and hoped he wasn’t wrong.
Arbati ducked low, coming in for a tackle. James waited until the cat-warrior was almost on top of him before stepping to the side, snapping two sharp jabs into Arbati’s face as he rushed by. They were perhaps the most perfect form punches he’d ever delivered. He wished the guys back at the dojo could have seen them.
Arbati’s charge turned into a stagger as James’s hits caught him by surprise. Too soon, though, he shook it off, whirling around to grab James in a crushing hold. The taller warrior was about to lift him into the air for a throw when James drove a chopping right into the side of Arbati’s head. The warrior’s eyes crossed as the hit connected, and his grip released as he staggered backward, freeing James to trip him sideways into the dirt.
Now it was James’s turn for a wicked grin. It looked like he was right. For all his strength and speed, Arbati was now subject to the same laws of biology and physics as the rest of them. Unlike the half-ton, metal-covered mountain that had been Gore Maul, Arbati lacked the size and armor needed to ignore direct attacks to vulnerable areas like the head, nor did he have the mass needed to swing a similarly sized opponent around.
That was all the edge James needed. Dancing back, he waited intently for his opponent to get back on his feet. He was tempted to jump on the dazed warrior and end the fight with a hold since he was certain Arbati had zero grappling skills, but he didn’t want a quick choke-out win. If he was going to avoid having to do this again, he didn’t just need to win. He needed to beat the bullshit out of Arbati so undeniably, it never came back. With that goal in mind, James held his ground, watching closely as his dazed opponent pulled himself together.
It was a painful show. He’d seen Arbati in a few fights now, and while he seemed to be effective enough against gnolls and tied-up players, it was clear the head warrior had a serious lack of formal training. When he’d shaken his head clear, Arbati confirmed this by charging James again, swiping his claws rapidly and thoughtlessly. James dodged easily, feet barely touching the ground as he danced back. Then he darted in again to land three more lightning-fast lefts into Arbati’s face.
The warrior yowled in pain and rage, raising his arms to protect his head. But while the guard might have done something if they’d been in a boxing match, James wasn’t feeling that generous. The moment his hands went up, James shifted to deliver a brutal kick to the side of the warrior’s knee, sending him to the ground again.
But not all the way. Arbati threw down an arm at the last second, catching himself before he hit the dirt. Smiling, James stepped in again, throwing his hips into the blow this time as he swung his left fist in a hook through the gap made by Arbati’s dropped hand.
The punch hit Arbati’s head so hard there was a cracking noise. His opponent spun sideways from the impact but stayed up, lifting his hands to guard his head but leaving his body exposed. Grinning now, James kept up the pressure, delivering a storm of compact one-two punches to Arbati’s abdomen and sides that the warrior’s leather armor did nothing to stop. Frantic and pushed back, the jubatus threw a sad, poorly aimed swipe that James dodged easily. He feigned a left hook next. When the poor bastard stiffened up in defense, James drove a powerful right directly into Arbati’s unguarded gut.
He was rewarded with a highly satisfying gagging noise. The lack of tightness in his opponent’s abs told James that the warrior had not prepped for a body blow, and he jumped back to avoid the resulting barf. Again, James waited patiently until the head warrior was finished before retaking his fighting stance.
On and on it went. When Arbati covered his head, James delivered liver and body blows. If the warrior tried to hunch to protect both body and skull, James attacked his knees and feet. When that made Arbati’s guard drop, James drove relentless left-right combos to his opponent’s unprotected head. Whenever the warrior tried to punch or kick him back, he’d dodge the strike and deliver a brutal counterpunch or cross kick.
If this had been an MMA match, it would have been over multiple times, but while targeted hits were definitely a thing now, Arbati was still a level-fifty two-skull. He had a health pool like an ocean, which meant beating him would be a war of attrition. So James focused on keeping his breathing steady and his endurance up, working his opponent over systematically like a jubatus-shaped punching bag.
After twenty brutal minutes, though, James was starting to wonder if an unarmed support character like him could do enough damage to win. He was a lot stronger than a normal human thanks to being level eighty, but though Arbati had yet to land a single hit, he wasn’t going down, and James was starting to wear out. His legs were so tired that he hadn’t dared lift them beyond basic footwork for the last five minutes, and his breathing was ragged no matter how hard he tried to keep it in check. The gnoll Naturalists had healed his arm, but the rest of the damage he’d taken from Gore Maul was still with him, not to mention the bruising his knuckles were taking from constantly pounding a hard, muscular cat body. Then just as he was settling into a new rhythm, James made a dumb mistake, and Arbati’s claws suddenly raked down his cheek and neck.
Swaying away, James risked a look down to check his neck. Blood was running hotly down his chest, making his head swim, but the cut didn’t feel deep. He still had his artery, it seemed, but the hit had shaken his confidence. He was giving Arbati the beating of both their lifetimes, and the guy just kept coming. One real hit from him, though, and James felt like he was going to fall down. Years of martial arts practice gave him miles of advantage in a fight like this, but it was all for nothing if he couldn’t take Arbati out before exhaustion did the same to him.
But just as he was getting spooked, he remembered what the coaches said. What he’d said to fighters a hundred times as a ringside assistant when a fight had gone too long and everyone was bloody.
“You never know how much the other guy is hurting.”
It was a boxing platitude, one of those sayings like “it’s not over till you’re out” or “when you see the desperation in their eyes, that’s when you’ve got them” that every fighter hears a million times. But the reason coaches said those things over and over was because they were true. Just because Arbati wasn’t panting as he was didn’t mean James hadn’t done damage. In any event, giving up wasn’t an option, nor was winning dishonorably. The only way James could keep his promises and pass his trial was with an unquestionable, straight-up victory. So switching to a wide stance, James decided it was time to put his own advice to the test.
The next time Arbati closed in, James didn’t back up. Instead, he braced his shaky knees and swung back, letting the head warrior’s iron fist clock him in the jaw just as he delivered a powerful right straight into Arbati’s face.
Given Arbati’s super strength, the punch should have knocked James off his feet. But while the blow made him see stars, he stayed standing. Arbati, however, was swaying.
James gave him a bloody smile. It looked as if the old wisdom held out. He’d hidden it well, but the warrior was tired, and he was weakened. Un
fortunately, so was James. Too tired to keep dancing around, so he gritted his teeth for a slugfest, holding position as the warrior came back in for more.
As soon as Arbati was in range, James snapped a left hook into his head, but the warrior managed to rake James’s right shoulder. In return, James landed two hard body blows to Arbati’s ribs, but the head warrior slashed his left arm.
Gritting his teeth at the stinging gashes, James realized he could use his claws as well. But scratching Arbati felt too much like bringing a knife to a fistfight, so James kept his hands curled tight, delivering solid punches even though Arbati’s strikes were covering him in cuts. Finally, James landed a smash to the warrior’s stomach that made Arbati double over. As his opponent’s head came down, James slammed him with an uppercut to the chin. When the warrior’s head popped up from the blow, he hit with a hook that opened a cut above Arbati’s eye.
The warrior was staggering back when James finally saw what he’d been waiting for: desperation. Face half-covered in blood, Arbati looked like a demon, but James could now see the fear beneath the anger, and he sucked a big gulp of air to try for the finish.
In a final burst of defiance, the tall warrior roared and tried to power past James’s guard for another tackle. When he got close, James slapped the warrior’s hands straight down, grabbed his hair, and pulled Arbati’s face into a knee strike. There was a bloody crunch as his hard joint connected with the warrior’s nose, then James felt the jubatus sag.
That was his signal. Letting go of his head, James grabbed Arbati’s left arm and kicked the warrior’s feet out from under him. Betting that the head warrior was almost out of hit points, he locked Arbati’s wrist and twisted as the warrior landed, using his opponent’s momentum to pull the joint out of place. There was a slurping, popping noise as Arbati’s shoulder dislocated, then James let the screaming jubatus drop into the bloody dirt.
Drenched in sweat and gasping for air, James staggered back to look down at his mangled foe. The warrior was clutching his shoulder in agony and writhing on the ground, clenching his teeth to keep from screaming. When it was clear he wasn’t going to get up again, James raised his voice so everyone could hear.
“It’s over, Arbati. I win.”
“Never!” Arbati snarled, his voice ragged with pain. “I’ll never surrender to a player!”
That was to be expected, so James limped over to retrieve his staff from Thunder Paw. When the old gnoll gave it to him, James turned and walked back to Arbati and stepped on the warrior’s dislocated shoulder to hold him down as he placed the butt of his staff against the jubatus’s throat.
“You can still live,” James said patiently, “if you yield.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” Arbati snarled. “That doesn’t mean you win! You have a player’s power. No one will accept your victory! It is honorless for you to beat me!”
“Honorless?” Despite his best efforts to not be a sore winner, James’s outrage took over.
“You challenge me to a duel to the death on the thinnest pretense ever, and you have the gall to call me honorless? You’re bigger than me! You’re stronger than me! You have armor, and I don’t! I gave up my weapon when you lost yours! I let you get up without attacking every. Single. Damned. Time.”
He hunched down to grab Arbati’s bleeding face. “I am a healer!” he yelled. “My character gives me no fighting skills other than magic! Magic that you so ‘honorably’ waited until I couldn’t use to challenge me! Now I’ve won and am giving you a chance to live when you would have killed me! So you tell me, cat-man, who’s the honorless one here?”
Arbati lowered his eyes, and James released his grip on the jubatus’s head in disgust.
“I didn’t beat you because I was a player. I beat you because I, James Anderson, know how to fight! I won because I’ve been training at this since I was eight years old! Hell, even when I was sunk deep into FFO, the one other thing I did with my life was work as an assistant trainer at a MMA gym. I take punches from professional fighters sixty hours a week for minimum goddamn wage to pay a debt I can’t afford for a career I’ll never have!”
He was shouting inches from Arbati’s face now and perhaps not making the most sense, but James didn’t care. “You lost because you fight like you’ve never trained for a single damned day! All of your power and ability comes from being a level fifty in a level-thirty zone, and it shows! You don’t own your strength because you never earned it. I’ve worked for twenty years on being a good fighter, and I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours working on this character, and you have the nerve to say I won just because I’m a player?” He bared his teeth. “Don’t you dare act like you’re somehow more deserving.”
With that, James straightened back up and limped over to Thunder Paw. It gratified him to see that even the gnolls were also looking at the head warrior in contempt.
“I’ve won,” James said with forced civility. “Accept it and yield, or I’m going to have the gnolls throw you into the plains to walk home. On the way, you can figure out how to explain this to Gray Fang in a way that doesn’t make you look like total scum.”
James would have said more. He was still shaking after his second brutal fight of the night, and the urge to keep pounding Arbati until the idiot accepted his victory was burning in his skull. The only reason he didn’t was because Thunder Paw had mashed a waterskin into his hands. Blinking out of his angry, jittery haze, James got the hint to shut up, taking a long drink instead.
The water and the silence helped cool his outrage as the battered jubatus dragged himself to his feet. Now that the battle rush was fading, James was ashamed of how badly he’d mauled Arbati in the end. In any other world, one without healing magic, the guy would need to be taken to the hospital.
Left arm dangling uselessly, the head warrior of Windy Lake shambled over to James. Clutching the waterskin, James readied himself to dodge whatever final stupidity Arbati was about to try, but the warrior didn’t swing at him. Instead, Arbati lowered his head.
“Kill me.”
James blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”
The warrior sagged to one knee. “You’re right.” He panted. “I didn’t earn my power. Any of it. I was made head warrior when I was seventeen because the previous head warrior died and my father bought me his position. I was supposed to lead our warriors, but they wouldn’t follow me. They wouldn’t even train me. I’m actually lucky the Nightmare hit when it did, because I never had to face a serious battle. Then it broke, leaving me with all the power I needed to finally be my position, but now…”
He looked down at his useless arm. “With all this, I still lost, because you’re right. The power the Nightmare gave me is nothing against real skill. You held back our whole fight. Never used your claws even though I used mine. You’ve laid my dishonor bare for all the world to see, and I deserve it, because I have treated you with nothing but misplaced disrespect. I blamed you for the Nightmare without proof. I have bullied and hazed and beaten you, though you had done nothing to me. You’ve risked your life to save others, where I’ve only used mine to try to take what you earned.”
Arbati bowed his head lower. “I have heaped more shame upon myself than I can ever erase. You are the winner of the duel, so please, kill me that I might regain some small measure of my honor.”
“Denied,” James said immediately.
Arbati growled. “But—”
“I forgive you instead.”
The warrior’s head shot up, his one good eye wide in disbelief.
“All your shame is how you treated me, right?” James said, holding out his hand. “So I forgive you. There. It’s all gone.”
“You cannot get rid of dishonor so easily!” Arbati said angrily. “A good death is my only—”
“Death is the coward’s way out,” James snarled. “So you messed up, and it sucks. So what? Are you going to quit life over it, just because you’re ashamed? Were you only playing at being the head warrior then?”
>
Arbati flinched, and James knew he’d struck true. “You accused me of playing the hero,” he said gently this time. “And maybe that was true, but it’s wrong now. Look around. We’ve got so many lives riding on us. Lilac needs us. Thunder Paw’s grandson needs us. Hell, if we can kill the lich and destroy his hold on this place, the fate of the whole damn savanna could be up for grabs. We don’t have time for self-pity, so no more playing around for either of us. All I want from you now is what I’ve always wanted. I want you to help me.”
“Help you?” Arbati arched an eyebrow. “But you won.”
James laughed and gestured at the remains of his clothing, which was so shredded and filthy it bordered on public indecency. “You’re crazy if you think winning means I don’t need help. Dude, I’m homeless, penniless, practically naked, and I’m stuck in this world with no family or friends. I could really use someone on my side, so please. Help me.”
The warrior sighed. Then at last, he reached up to grab James’s offered hand in his shaking one. “You are right,” he whispered. “I am sorry. I will help you.” That last word came with a pained smile, but it was a smile nonetheless, and it banished the last of James’s lingering anger.
“Apology accepted,” James said, pulling Arbati to his feet.
“Just one request,” the warrior said, straightening with a wince. “Stop calling me ‘dude.’ I don’t know what it means, but it’s insulting.”
James smiled. “Sure thing, Arbati. But you’ll have to start calling me James and not ‘player.”
“Deal,” the jubatus said, rubbing his dislocated shoulder with a wince. “Now, James, can you please heal my arm?”
Chapter 11
Tina
For one glorious hour after the raid had rallied around her, Tina finally achieved her goal pace of “bats out of hell.” Then everyone remembered how tired, hungry, and thirsty they were, and things began to slow. By the time the first hint of the false dawn began to light up the gray-clouded sky, she was grateful for any distance at all. Even with her taking point to set the pace, the entire raid was dead on their feet. The only reason they hadn’t fallen over yet was because then they’d be actually dead.
