Private Kingmaker

[Dante Iblis]

Dante Antares Iblis wore black on the day he was to kill a king.

He walked through the darkened underground access tunnel to the arena. Up above the crowd was roaring. Their excitement worked its way through the permacrete and into Dante's bones- Down here the only light keeping him company were the occasional sparks cast by his shock gloves.

Even as the crowd's roar grew louder, he only heard their cheers between the tense beats of his heart.

"King Krayt! King Krayt!" They cheered.

He did his best to ignore them. The light of the arena began to bleed into the hallway and he had to hold up his arm to block out the blinding glare. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, until he could make out the ring, and inside it the massive shadow standing in the opposite corner.

"And here comes tonight's challenger!" The announcer's voice crackled through the loudspeakers of the hall. "A dark horse, he's worked his way through the pits to stand before you today! A skilled fighter, no doubt, but does he have what it takes to dethrone the King?"

Dante stepped past his crew toward the ring, climbed the steps, and ducked through the ropes. The crowd's voices rose as his feet, one after the other, fell on that white floor. Their yells held no welcome to the challenger, simply excitement at the prospect of another spectacle. Tonight they'd see their champion tear down another unfortunate soul.

That champion, bearing the title 'King Krayt', bestowed upon him by the crowd, was beloved not for his charisma or presence in the ring, but for his dominance. He was a Dashade warrior who stood at almost twice Dante's height. That tower of muscle and bone stood in the corner opposite Dante. The King was a pale grey monster with red tattoos scrawled over his arms, legs, and head of some script Dante had never seen before. The heavy breaths the Dashade exhaled put the jagged row of knife-like teeth set into his jaw on display.

Any way Dante looked at the warrior it was difficult to not view him as intimidating, and only made more deadly by the lightning dancing around the shock gloves wrapping his clawed hands. Despite those gloves and the over-designed armour-weave shorts, Dante couldn't shake the sense that his opponent wasn't a shock boxer at all, but one of Kaas' beasts dragged into civilization and confined by the trappings of modern technology.

 

[Dante Iblis]

A hand pulled Dante back into his corner by his shoulder. The thick air of synth-tobacco filled his lungs.

"Remember! You only have to stand for three rounds, then keel over, and we go home rich." The faint ammonia stench of Rotgut came through with his manager's barks.

Three rounds. Three two-and-a-half minute gauntlets against the monster opposite him. It had seemed simple in his mind. During a regular match, a round could fly by in moments through the haze of adrenaline and the moment-to-moment sequences of back-and-forth blows. That only applied to mortal opponents, however. That King Krayt standing in the opposite corner seemed anything but mortal.

Dante pushed off the ropes, nodding his acknowledgement without taking his eyes off the other shockboxer. The Dashade, for his part, had not stopped looking at Dante either.

The bell rang, a cue for staff and fighters to get into position. A short, round droid hovered into the ring, projecting the two fighter's visages into the hall. The crowd's excitement rose in anticipation, and the announcer's voice once again crackled through the loudspeakers.

"Grab your Mantell Mix and settle down in your seats. Today's contenders are about to square off! But before that, a word from our sponsor ..."

Dante drowned out the noise as he stepped up to the Dashade, less than an arm's length away. He had to strain his neck up to meet his eyes. He saw no fire behind those eyes.

The Dashade stood eerily still. This close, it became apparent that the script wasn't tattooed onto the Dashade's skin. The jagged red symbols were painted on with ink. Some form of ritual preparation for the fight, Dante thought.

It wasn't uncommon for fighters to find solace in some greater power, though Dante never saw the appeal. All he'd needed were those two fists of his and some good leg-work. Strength and skill were the only two reliable factors in his line of work. He'd never needed some greater Force to guide him to the top. Leave the mysticism crap to the light-stick swingers and their self-righteousness crusades.

 

[Dante Iblis]

A projection of two hands appeared before the droid.

Dante stumbled backward two steps, pushed by an invisible force, the droid's repulsorfield. He caught himself and instinctively assumed the ready stance for the fight, with knees arched and fists held up to shield the head. The large Dashade did the same.

One of the functions of a referee droid included separating the fighters when necessary. This saw use much more sparingly than one would expect given the dangers of the sport. Fighter safety was not writ large in the Underworld, and the customers paid extra for the possibility of seeing blood.

The droid continued to hover between the fighters while the crowd settled down. The announcer had finished rattling off the pre-fight ad-reads. That moment of violence when the Dashade and his opponent finally engaged drew closer.

Dante replayed the strategy he'd worked up once more in his mind. The Dashade had both reach and ferocity, but Dante had speed and presented a smaller target to hit. Evasion would need to be the name of the game. One solid punch had the chance of knocking Dante's lights out for good before the bell rang for the third round to terminate. An early finish like that and he could say his paycheck goodbye, and the next one too, most likely, for letting an opportunity like this slip. Seluseus was an unforgiving task master in that regard.

Not that he had many redeeming qualities besides that.

The bell rang, and the first round was opened.

The Dashade closed the distance in two leaping steps, appearing in Dante's face before the bell had even fully registered.

Dante ducked and awkwardly stepped back two paces from a crouch. The Dashade's clawed hand swept through the air above his head, pulling his hairs up from the static of the shock gloves. A second strike followed immediately as the Dashade launched into a sequence.

Wide swing with the right, quick jab with the left to advance a step, and then a strong hook with the right to transfer the momentum into a knock-out blow. Dante stepped around the Dashade's attacks as though they'd been telegraphed. That initial moment of surprised wore off once instinct took over.

The Dashade made a low grunting noise, and locked eyes with Dante for a heartbeat. Most foes would have shown more surprise after being read, but the Dashade let on only annoyance.

Dante found his footing the same moment the Dashade locked into another sequence of blows. Dante stepped back to avoid another opening jab and risked a glance at the Dashade's feet. He'd stepped forward into a transitionary position, there'd be another jab to close the distance.

The Dashade slid forward with his back foot and cut a diagonal path through the air with his shock glove. Dante stepped back in tandem, as though he'd recited the next step in a dance, and swung his own fist perpendicular into the Dashade's forearm to redirect the blow. When his fist struck his opponent, the Dashade spread his claws out wide. Their razor edges caught Dante's other arm on the eccentric, opening a bloody stream from his wrist to half-way down to his elbow, and the crowd lit up with a roar.

Dante recoiled, fighting the instinct to clutch his wound with the elctrified gauntlet of his right arm. He retreated several steps away from the Dashade into the ring ropes.

The Dashade did not pursue, content to merely flash the dagger-teeth set into his jaws.

 

[Dante Iblis]

The referee droid hovered into the ring, flashing a break symbol. Med-techs arrived at the ringside a few moments later. Dante knelt and held his arm through the ropes for them to examine the wound. His forearm burned. He'd had cuts from broken bottles before, but the shallow scrapes from those didn't compare to the claws of a monster.

Dante worked through laboured breaths, biting the shirt on his shoulder as the med-techs applied some sterilizing spray and a synth-skin patch to staunch the bleeding. It was the underworld, but even low-lives didn't want a corpse on their hands less than a minute into their prize fight.

The med-techs ripped off the tattered sleeve, and, once they secured the patch with adhesive tape, they thumbed their go-ahead to the fighters. The cut was gruesome, but that limb had not been severed. By their measure, nothing stood in the way of Dante continuing the fight. Not that Dante had expected anything else.

Without much fanfare, the referee droid hovered up and away from the ring, leaving Dante, with one arm effectively done for part-way through the first round, and the Dashade in the ring alone again.

 

[Dante Iblis]

Dante pulled himself up to his feet by the ring ropes. The cut along his arm burned from the sterilizing agent. With each heartbeat the pain seared through his lower arm, right below the synthskin cover which prevented his heart from pumping all his blood onto the ring floor.

The Dashade stalked a semi-circle around the ring edge, occupying a majority of the available space. Not only had Dante already sustained a debilitating injury, the Dashade could now direct him wherever he pleased in the ring by simply cutting off the direction he tried to break off into. The Dashade began to close one arc of the semi-circle in on Dante, who had to evade by approaching the ring's corner.

This would be bad. With his back against the ring corner, it became exponentially more difficult to break out and regain positional control of the ring.

Dante slid another foot closer to the corner, still a few steps out, and watched the Dashade pace closer and closer to tie the noose.

Between the adrenaline and the pulsing pain, Dante felt another emotion start to break out in his chest. His breaths came shorter, and his muscles tensed. He could see flashes of his own demise at the hands of that monster play out in his mind's eye like unwritten snapshots of unwritten futures.

He recognized the emotion. He was afraid. His heart beat loud in his chest, and he could feel fear pulse through his limbs. Fear. When was the last time he'd experienced genuine fear?

Sweat ran down the side of Dante's face. The Dashade's nostrils twitched, and his grin reappeared. He could sense the fear. The Dashade came to a sudden halt near the ring's center. It dropped into a ready stance again, and began approaching Dante directly.

Dante matched the monster's steps backward, keeping a constant distance between them, until his back hit the corner of the ring proper.

The Dashade took it as his cue, and leapt forward.

Dante brought up his guard just in time—in time for the bell to ring the end of the first round.

The Dashade stopped in his tracks, a mere two steps from bring its claws down on Dante, growled its displeasure, and turned to walk back to its corner of the ring.

Dante's heart raced. It took a moment before he lowered his guard. Someone set down a chair behind him, and he slumped down into it. The med-tech in his crew shoved a straw into his mouth and ordered him to drink, but Dante barely registered it.

Across the ring, the Dashade's eyes still stared him down, as though the monster could see his heart and wished it as a trophy.