11
Mauren wasn't with me as I followed one of the armored suits down the now familiar corridor to the elevator. I was naked once more, hands locked in hexagonal cuffs that seemed to be magnetic. The metal was thick and padded on the insides, but didn't have enough give for me to slip a wrist through. Whether I could overcome the magnetic force binding the cuffs together was still an open question, which is how I intended to leave things. I had no reason to try the cuffs. If I couldn't break free, my situation wouldn't change. If I could break free, I had no follow-up and more precautions would be taken in future.
The elevator ride was quiet, but when the car stopped the doors didn't immediately open. A voice I now knew belonged to Director Lane sounded through speakers above me.
"Mauren's told you most of the relevant details for this event. The sponsors are unlikely to speak to you directly but they may have their trainers test you in various ways. Killing a trainer will destroy any chance you have of acquiring a powerful sponsor. Remember: it's in your own best interest to behave."
I made no indication I'd heard her. After several seconds the doors opened and the armored guard moved to one side.
I stepped out into an open space roughly the size of an indoor basketball court. Most of the space was taken up by an obstacle course that reminded me of something off American Ninja, and I grinned idly when I saw it. I'd always wanted to try out for that show, but never had the chance. Besides, I'd done most of that shit one time or another with no water underneath me.
Above the course and across the way was a glassed-in observatory with a lot of succubi present. Most of them were lounging in plush chairs with attendants of various species standing by.
Of more immediate concern were the many specimens lined up in front of me. A quick count told me there were twenty-two of them, and the only thing that immediately struck me about them as a group was that they were all female.
Mauren had told me to expect that, explaining that while all the mainline contestants were male, their trainers were always of the opposite sex. I thought that was stupid, but hadn't bothered to explain why it was a bad idea because to a succubus it wouldn't make any sense.
There was a green square that I was obviously meant to go stand in, so I walked over and took up my position. No one moved, and as the silence stretched I looked up at the observation box again to see that while I couldn't hear anything, something was definitely being said up there. Most heads were turned toward me as flickering displays I couldn't read backward scrolled across the glass facing.
Eventually, several of the trainers moved in subtle ways, and I assumed they were listening to instructions through earpieces, or whatever served the same purpose for those species that didn't have ears.
Most of the succubi in the box seemed to lose interest, but a few stood up and moved to stand at the glass, which cleared of data as they looked down at me. Movement drew my attention back to the trainers.
One in particular was approaching with a deliberate stride, and I looked her over.
She was about seven feet tall, short on average, and shaped roughly like a human with several notable differences. The first was that she had a muzzle rather than lips and a chin, with ears that reminded me of a cropped Doberman's.
She didn't have fur, but her skin was two-tone, white with black spots, like a Dalmatian. She had a black spot over her right eye in fact, both of which were blue. She also had a wild mane of hair that started at her forehead and descended behind her, mostly white with black streaks. It gave her a vaguely punkish look. Her hands had bilateral symmetry with three fingers and two thumbs, all clawed. Her body was athletic, though I could see she had a perky pair of tits under the tracksuit-style green uniform she was wearing. She stopped in front of me and looked down, then stepped aside to ensure the observation box had an unobstructed view as she lifted her hand toward my shoulder. I noted as she did so that her claws were black and sharp, and she set one on the ball of my shoulder and very deliberately cut my skin.
The reaction among the trainers was immediate and mostly disdainful from those few faces I could read. It was pretty obvious to me what was going on: I was too easily injured and wouldn't survive a fight. They'd been shown my data and no one was interested in seeing me run the course. They already knew I'd destroy it. But how easily I could be damaged was something that hadn't been in any of my tests.
"Savor the moment," I said quietly, and the trainer blinked as she looked down from the observation box to me.
"That's your one free shot. Cut me again and I won't let it go."
The trainer blew out hard, a derisive sniff that translated across all species, and said, "Looks is all you've got, little male."
Her voice was brash and confident. She sounded young. Something about the way she stood and spoke made her seem inexperienced to me, and I'd have bet money she was new at this.
I said, "Not true. I bet I can teach you something new right here and now."
"Oh?"
My eyes flicked from her to the box, then back as I said, "Better get boss's permission first."
The alien dog-girl's face was quite expressive, and she struck me as intensely skeptical as she glanced toward the observation deck again. I knew that her boss had heard our exchange, and a moment later she looked back down at me and said, "Teach me something new then."
My cuffs disengaged and as I parted my hands the trainer took up what looked like a combat stance; one foot back, both hands up, fingers spread, claws facing me. She didn't look incompetent, but I didn't intend to fight her. She'd cut me for free. I intended to get my shot in the same way.
I showed her my hands and smiled as I said, "Easy, easy. I don't want to fight you. Just ... here."
I took a careful step forward, subtly setting myself as I put my left hand conspicuously behind my back. With my right, I showed her a knife hand and very slowly moved it toward her. She watched me with sharp eyes, tension in every line of her body. She was waiting for me to try something, but all I did was gently touch her just below her breasts, then slide the tips of my fingers slowly down, looking for the spot where her sternum ended and hoping her body was similar enough for this to actually work as I looked her in the eye and said, "I'm going to teach you an equation."
"You want to teach me math?" the trainer asked, visibly perplexed as she looked down at my fingertips, her body losing its combat-ready tension. It confirmed my suspicion that she was new at this, and I briefly felt a little sorry for her. She wouldn't be properly tensed.
This was going to hurt.
I felt the hollow where her sternum gave out and stopped moving a few inches beyond, fingertips barely brushing the material of her tracksuit as I calmly said, "Yes. A simple equation. Force is equal to mass, times velocity ... SQUARED!"
As I shouted, using the last word as a kiai, my fingers collapsed into a fist as I executed a move made famous by Bruce Lee. Called the One-Inch Punch, it's somewhat misnamed. It's actually somewhere between three and four inches, that being the length of the fingers. The trick to it is a technique dubbed kinetic linkage by fight science, which is essentially the ability to efficiently transfer force up through the hips, into the upper body, and out through the knuckles.
I obviously wasn't as good at it as Bruce Lee, but was confident for two reasons. The first was that I'd practiced this move. A lot. My brother and I used to take turns doing it to one another because let's face it: being able to do a One-Inch Punch is fucking cool. While I couldn't send anyone flying I could knock the wind out of my brother while he was tensed, ready, and a grown man.
The second reason for my confidence was the fact that while everyone around here was way fucking bigger than I was, none of them seemed to be as solid. My working theory was that they were bigger due to lower gravity environments. My strength trials revealed I was way stronger now than I'd ever been in my first life, at least by comparison to the people around me. While I hadn't competed against anyone else, I knew my strength surpassed their reasonable expectations because they quit testing me just when I was beginning to struggle, rather than getting me to failure. In all honesty, I had no idea how weights and measures here stacked up against what I knew, and no way to make a comparison. All I knew was that all the evidence I'd been able to collect suggested to me that the things — and people — here were more fragile than those I was familiar with.
This bitch might be able to cut me without a problem, but taking my fully loaded punch would be like stepping in front of a train. Because I wasn't a master of the One-Inch Punch, I figured it'd be safer — for her — than simply clocking her with a legit jab or cross.
Not only was it safer, it'd be more impressive because as I said, the One-Inch Punch is just that cool.
It worked.
The trainer folded up around my fist like a newspaper in high wind hitting a powerline. She touched down on her ass several feet away and her muzzle smacked the floor between her knees before the remaining momentum unfolded her, at which point she bounced as the back of her skull thumped hard enough for me to hear it despite the cushion provided by all that hair.
Her chest heaved a few times, then her muzzle twisted to one side as she threw up a mix of her last meal and blood.
I glanced up at the observation box as I very deliberately ran my thumb over the still bleeding cut on my shoulder, then sucked the blood off and stepped back into my square, bringing my hands back together so that the cuffs could link.
A second later, they did.
I now had the full attention of most of the people up in that box, and I could see a few of them gesticulating wildly at what I could only assume were my stats, which wouldn't reveal the secret of my technique. It was simple physics, but I really doubted anyone up in that box was up on their fight science. To a layman, a properly executed One-Inch Punch looked like magic.
I couldn't hear a thing despite all that activity, which was a bit annoying. Turning my attention to the trainers, I saw them looking at me with new expressions, like someone had just told them I was highly radioactive.
I grinned as I looked from one to the next, but no one would meet my eyes.
Felt good man. Felt reeeal good. Might not have been the best flex of my life, but it easily made the top five.
Movement on the far side of the room caught my attention as a door slid open and another female of the same species as the one I'd just laid out jogged in. This one looked closer to ten feet tall, stronger looking, with skin that was black and tan. Her eyes were golden and locked on the downed trainer. My intuition told me this was her trainer, maybe a relative. She looked older and her head was shaved, leaving her standing ears the only feature up there. I couldn't help but notice that despite being a hardbody she was stacked like a brick shithouse, which left me to wonder if fake tits were a thing here or if those blessings were legit.
She was wearing a green tracksuit similar to that worn by the others before me but unlike theirs, hers had red piping up the seams.
Reaching the downed trainer, the new one knelt and looked her over with obvious concern. She said something I didn't catch, and to my surprise the one on the ground actually managed to stammer, "I ... sorry. Don't know. Hurt bad."
The new female straightened, turning on me with lips peeled back in a feral snarl.
I met her gaze and raised my cuffed hands, smiling past them at her as I mildly said, "It wouldn't be a fair fight."
"That was hardly necessary," she snarled. I couldn't tell if she was acting with permission or not, but decided to engage because honestly, there was no way they'd let her kill me.
I glanced down at my shoulder, then at her as I tilted my head toward the wound and asked, "This was? Someone up there wanted to prove a point, so I bleed? Fuck you. That's not how I work."
"It's obvious that did you no harm!" she said, gesturing sharply at my shoulder. It really did feel like she was barking at me and I simply could not escape the impression that this woman was a canine, granted whoever made her did a way better job than Doctor Moreau. The weirdest part wasn't actually the muzzle, but the fact that she had what looked to me like fur patterns without the fur.
"She'll live," I said, nodding at the downed trainer. "Maybe next time she'll know better than to relax right before getting hit."
"You tricked her!"
"She fell for it."
The woman's snarl got even more vicious and I actually heard her growling at me. Just for that, I decided to rub some salt in and said, "Whoever trained her did a shitty job."
Her growling stopped like someone pulled a plug, and one of her ears twisted as she turned to look up at the observation deck. She obviously wasn't talking to me as she said, "I want this one. I'll come out of retirement."
She paused, obviously listening, then shook her head violently and said, "Nothing. As long as Yim is the lead, I'll advise."
"What are you, her mom?" I asked.
"You should be happy!" the dog-woman snarled, her head whipping back around to glare at me. "I've trained two champions."
"And her," I said, grinning viciously as I nodded toward 'Yim.'
Teeth bared, the woman in front of me clenched her fists in what looked like pure, frustrated rage. Her claws apparently weren't retractible because they visibly impaled her hands, both of which started to drip blood as she glared murder at me.
Blinking bemusedly, I said, "Doesn't that hurt?"
"Not as much as having my work insulted," she growled, lifting both fists and opening them explosively. The move flicked blood at me, which I raised my cuffed hands to block.
As I lowered them, I glanced past the still unnamed woman as Yim began to sit up, groaning. Since — given the obvious damage I'd done — that shouldn't have been possible, I looked from her to her angry senior and asked, "Regeneration?"
Pointing at my shoulder, she said, "You'll do the same."
Glancing down at my cut, I said, "Not in a few minutes I won't. Now I'm annoyed. What are you getting mad about if she's going to be fine in five minutes?"
Honestly, I was shocked. This was some serious superhero shit going on, and my being tougher and stronger was beginning to look a lot less valuable to me.
"This was her first trial and you've humiliated her!" the woman snarled.
Her hands had already stopped bleeding.
I just watched her, waiting. I had nothing left to say. The other trainers were all focused on her, and those few expressions I could read told me they respected her.
The activity up in the observation deck was still pretty lively, and I asked, "So? What's going on up there?"
"There's a bidding war," she said, no longer growling at me.
Lips twisting, I thought it over, then said, "Is your sponsor good to you?"
Her brow furrowed, and she tilted her head in a very canine expression of confusion before she said, "Good to me?"
"Good to you. Do you like working for her."
"She's the best," the woman said. "I've worked for several and she's the only one who offered me good compensation and an opportunity to train my daughter to replace me."
"Fine, let's make this easy," I said, then raised my voice to yell, "If anyone but this woman's sponsor wins the bidding war, I'll kill their trainer!"
Jaws dropped. The activity up in the observation box froze like someone snapped a photo, and I grinned as I glanced over the assembled trainers. I said, "What I did to Yim was just a party trick, ladies. You don't want to be on the receiving end of what I can really do."
Several of them began muttering under their breath, and I could tell they were talking to whoever was up in the box.
The woman confronting me was staring, head cocked in obvious confusion. I met her gaze and said, "What? If your sponsor is good to you, she'll be good to me."
"She's not the wealthiest," the woman admitted. "She won't be able to guarantee many events."
I shrugged and gave her a vicious smile as I said, "I don't care and it doesn't matter ... I've got a champion trainer."
"Are you mocking me?"
"Absolutely. I plan to crush everyone and everything that gets in my way with or without you. I will kill them all. The only difference is whether or not my trainer lives through the season."
It wasn't strictly true. Well, it was, but there was a reason I was being so deliberately and loudly arrogant. I wanted the trainers terrified of me and I wanted their sponsors to think I was too stupid to realize some of the games and events wouldn't be the sort that let me kill the competition. They'd think I was a dumb, one-trick pony and drop out of the bidding war, lowering my 'value.' My hope was that making myself deliberately less desirable would put me in reach of this woman's sponsor.
Lowering my value would also piss off Director Lane, which made me happy. I had to assume she'd be getting a cut of whatever sponsorship money came in, so whatever damage I could do her prospects while protecting my own felt like a good deal to me. If this chick really was a champion trainer, getting her on my team for cheap was the best of both worlds.
Another minute passed, and things in the box calmed down dramatically. The woman in front of me abruptly asked, "If my sponsor claims you, you'll work with me?"
"And Yim, yes. Though I get the feeling I'll have more to teach her than the other way round," I said wryly.
Miss black and tan looked up at the box and nodded once, then turned to me again as she said, "My name is Pala. Congratulations, you're now sponsored by Liminal Science."
Nodding, I glanced past Pala at Yim as the latter climbed shakily to her feet, tracksuit spattered with blood and less recognizable chunky bits. Marveling at their regenerative power, I glanced down at my still bleeding shoulder, thinking hard about the implications. If their ability to regenerate was common I would have to go through these games with absolutely no mercy, curb-stomping all the way. If I'd taken a shot as hard as the one I'd laid on Yim, I'd be cooling to room temp by now. If I'd somehow survived it would've been thanks in part to a month in traction.
"Do you have a name?" Pala asked.
Blinking, I shrugged and said, "Taz."
"Is that ... short for something?" Yim asked. She was holding a hand over her middle and in obvious pain but was gamely trying to reassert herself rather than let mommy carry. My respect for her went up a notch.
"Is Yim short for something?" I returned.
Nodding, she said, "Yimshe, and my mother is Palashai."
"Pretty names, and yes. Taz is short for Triple A Zero," I said.
Both women gave me identical confused canine head tilts and I gotta say, it was fucking adorable.