Author's Nightmare: Chapter 126 (Patreon)

Shango POV: Day 104

Current Wealth: 222 gold 0 silver 37 copper

The day was on us, and it felt bloody awful waking up during its morning. Everything was stiff, slow, like my own body was delaying my arrival in the arena for knowledge of what was awaiting me there. Beam, I knew, would be feeling all that times a thousand. I tried to comfort him as we headed out to the stadium, it didn’t work. I didn’t blame him. I reckoned, if I ever made my way to fight someone capable of cutting cars in half, I’d be owed a bit of grumpiness too. More than a bit. 

Conversely, the crowd seemed more excited than ever. Assholes. 

We didn’t bother getting comfortable, because none of us expected to be here for long. There’d be no fights today except Beam’s after all. Beam’s and the King’s. He was called down for it before we’d even settled in.

Solitaire, having come with us, placed the bet we’d all agreed on, and we watched our friend march out with a single long hope.

Please, man, just manage to last one single minute. It’s all you need- one minute.

The King stormed out into the arena, all glinting metal and reptilian grace. Beam stood where he was and prepared to meet him, sword clutched tight, body trembling with either fear or whatever insane emotion struck uniquely him in such times.

We all held our breaths, the audience excreted theirs as a single roar of excitement, and the match began.

Beam charged in, then wavered and stopped. He circled the King, looking for an opening or guarding for an attack, and he soon found the latter as his enemy took one step forwards and lashed out a sweeping blow to cut the space before him. Beam’s sword was up to guard it, but his body went flying. We all heard the screech of metal on stone as he slid all the way back to the far wall, shoulders impacting it hard.

The King was already closing the distance by the time he stopped.

It was a near thing, but Beam was barely up in time to keep the sword from catching his armour directly. I winced, hearing the sound of metal hitting metal. It was like a damned car crash, sheer weight and speed- sheer force. Beam’s knees bent, body curling down to disperse the impact and reduce his body’s strain. 

Unfortunately, the King wasn’t content to leave things at that. He kicked Beam while his guard was still busy with the sword, and this time he completely left the ground before flying away, soaring through the air and coming down hard.

…On the other side of the stadium, a dozen metres away. 

For one moment I worried Beam wouldn’t be getting up, but he did. Barely. He was wispy, shaky, unsteady on his feet. The King bought him less than a second by launching him- he crossed the space separating them faster than should have been possible.

Beam was barely turned and ready for his followup.

It wasn’t a fight, not at all. It was…I don’t even know what, bullying. Beam was utterly helpless, even fighting defensively was hurting him just through the sheer difference in physical prowess. 

“...Fourteen seconds.” Solitaire whispered, voice tight and terrified. He was scared. We all were. Give us a fight, we’d fight it. Give us a big one, even, full of thrashing mouths and innumerable enemies, and we’d figure something out.

What did you do with this? How did you fight something like this?

Beam, it seemed, planned on figuring it out. 

He attacked as the King came back for him, quick ones, light, fast, testing. He only got three jabs off before the King turned to a new swing, and it was over before I even saw it. 

This time, though, Beam actually withstood it. Sort of. He jumped before it hit, let the impact send him flying into the far wall and bounced off, landing on his feet, balance kept, force dispersed, body intact. For now. 

But the King had already shown how meaningless distances like that were to him, he closed back in. Beam tried to avoid him entirely now, skirting away, even almost running at one point, but it was never enough. The King just closed, stalking towards him with that ludicrous speed, shrinking the gap one metre after another. 

“Twenty two seconds.” Solitaire groaned, as the brutality continued. 

He wasn’t even fucking halfway there, and the King seemed as tireless as a machine. Down, down came the sword. Right into Beam’s guard. This time they were right in front of the wall, and every hit was forcing Beam back into it. I saw his armour deteriorating by the moment, tool steel crushed, bent and mangled as it impacted the stone.

I saw the stone taking damage, even, big chunks of it cracking and crumbling away where a hundred kilos of human and metal thudded into it. We’d kept Beam’s armour short of the multi-centimetre thickness common to this world’s superhumans, hoping he could use the lack of weight to equalise his enemy’s speed advantage. That had been a damned failure, and now it seemed he was feeling the lack of protection. 

A particularly hard swing sort of squeezed Beam against the wall, then sent him exploding out from between it and the King. He flew head over heels, stumbled and bounced, rolled away to stop in a heap. Once more, he’d crossed the arena. Once more the King was standing over him in an instant. 

“Twenty six seconds.” Solitaire breathed. 

“Do you yield?”

The King’s voice rolled out, low and grating through his helmet. We all paused- the audience paused, shit the rats in the sewers probably paused. But Beam didn’t. He took a few moments, of course, seemingly to steady himself, but really to buy a few more precious seconds. Then, finally, he answered as he stood. 

“Sorry, but no. My friends have too much riding on this tournament. I need to keep fighting you.”

The King studied him for a brief moment, then nodded.

“Then good luck, warrior.”

He moved like the embrace of death, and I didn’t see the hit before Beam was already flying away. 

This time, there’d been no block. The sword had caught him right at his- thankfully undamaged- breastplate and hacked through. A glancing, light blow, but one which had still cut clean through the steel, mail and gambeson beneath, and through the ethereal plate Beam was covered in for good measure. Blood drizzled out of his gashed-open chest in thick rivulets which hung in the air as his body soared past them. He only stopped when he thudded once more into the far wall.

Once more, and perhaps no more than that. I felt sick watching him lie where he did, slowly gushing out more of his blood, and Solitaire’s hands tightened about the railing so hard that the wooden structure shivered at his grip. 

“How long?” I asked him.

His voice was low as he answered, hopeless. 

“Forty one seconds.”

Beam was groaning, writhing around. I couldn’t tell how mobile he still was. The bleeding, at least, seemed to have slowed, but it was still a big gash he’d have taken. I couldn’t imagine things going on much longer now.

The King reached him, and then Beam took a page out of Solitaire’s book.

He took away one hand from where it had been held tight against his chest wound, then flicked it out. A splash of blood struck the King clean in his visor, sending his head back a step as he was briefly- ever so briefly- stunned. Beam turned the move into a roll just as his enemy’s sword came down, sliding between his legs and taking off at a run.

The King turned impossibly fast at the sound of him, nearly taking his head off with a blind swing, but after that he remained where he was, pausing a few more seconds to clean the blood from his visor and face, to restore his own vision. 

Beam didn’t bother attacking, which was just as well. He’d not have achieved anything in the process save to exhaust himself, instead he stood and rested, panting in more strength while his enemy prepared another attack. 

“Fifty four seconds.” Solitaire gasped, sounding painfully tense as he realised what I did.

Six seconds away, and a dozen metres between them. Beam had a fucking chance. 

The King took one last moment to ready himself, then charged. He was on Beam, swinging, feinting. His real attack came through but still found Beam’s sword anyway, and sent him flying back. The King was faster and more diligent in his pursuit now, closing in to skewer Beam while he was still sprawled out. He barely managed to block the sword, letting its force compress him down into the ground and sending cracks reaching out across the stone as his armour screamed.

“Sixty-”

Beam paused, and something in the air changed.