'Smoke and Mirrors' Pt. 8

I hope you enjoy Part 8.  The pit fight rages on...

The girl with scales for skin came for her with unbridled ferocity, each attack raking and clawing for Domino's face as she worked to maintain her deliberately loose defence. Every movement the exotic made was predictable to her; she was fighting angry, out of control, telegraphing her attacks through changes in stance, making it easy for Domino to remain one step ahead at all times.

The crowd roared at the spectacular display from the dragon girl. Her fighting style, a stylised combination of Snake and Dragon forms, was flashy and explosive and each time she launched an aerial combo the crowd became more vocal in their appreciation. So far, everyone seemed to be buying into Domino's staggering retreat. Everyone except for the exotic, who suddenly seemed to realise she had no way through her opponent's defences.

She whirled away from Domino, hissing and spitting her indignation.

[Don't let the exotic in close, Yuki-chan. She's got razor-tip claw implants and worse yet, she's had a nasty dental mod to go with those fangs: she can spit venom from a reservoir in her lower jaw.]

[Thanks for the heads up. You into her records there?]

Domino had been keenly aware of the Spetsnaz edging around the ring, his footwork light despite his hulking frame. Now she saw him close in on the exotic as her rage provided him with an opening.

[Yeah, what little I could find from the facial recognition match. Working alias is Violetta. She got her body work done in Kowloon. Trained there too, from what I can gather. She worked high profile escort jobs for Pacific Rim rock stars and the like before dropping off the grid for a while. Both Hong Kong police and Interpol have a long standing interest in her. Collateral damage follows her every assignment.]

[So, a cold bitch of a sociopath, then?]

[And then some...]

[Angel, see what you can pull on the Russian.]

[Already on it.]

The Russian had pinned Violetta with a near flawless grapple hold, the grafted muscles in his arms flexing, forcing veins and capillaries to the surface of his skin as he tried to wrestle the much smaller girl to the floor. For a moment, it seemed to Domino that he might overpower Violetta. That was before the exotic dislocated her own shoulders.

The popping of her joints was felt more than heard as she struggled to work free of the Russian's grasp. Her desperate move bought her enough latitude to angle her head towards him as her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Before Domino could intervene, Violetta spat her venom into the Russian's face, almost instantly melting the flesh of his cheek.

[The Russian's Borislav Petrov. Spetsnaz trained, as we thought. Special weapons, systema, the whole lot. Not sure why he's here, though. No criminal record, nothing obvious to run from.]

[Maybe he just needs the cash.]

[With his skills, he could earn it more safely elsewhere.]

[True, but it'd be nowhere near as fast. Keep digging. If he's as clean as you say, I'll make sure he walks out of here.]

The dragon girl was free of Petrov's hold now and had somehow whipped her shoulders back into their sockets. She sprang after the staggered giant with a sequence of combo attacks which mirrored her assault on Domino in their speed and malevolence. The beleaguered Spetsnaz had little choice but to throw his arms up in an attempt to fend off the exotic's cruel onslaught. Domino knew that he would soon crumble and, most likely, meet a bloody and meaningless end.

She raced for Violetta with an uncommon sense of abandon, hoping to intersect the dragon girl's deadly trajectory. Domino closed the gap in a heartbeat and her hook punch smashed through Violetta's scaly jaw with a sickening crunch. Skin was stripped from Domino's knuckles and searing pain lanced along her arm as the exotic's head snapped backwards, halting her advance on her prey.

A mist of blood hung in the air between the three as tiny splinters of Violetta's jaw fell to the floor. The lower half of her face was ruined, hanging loosely on mangled tendons and ripped remnants of skin.

“Let's see you spit poison now, bitch!” Domino whispered with just enough vehemence for the exotic to hear. Enraged beyond reason or perception of pain, Violetta flew at her, hot breath bubbling through a mess of blood and bone. 
 

Domino was distantly aware of the stunned silence surrounding them now and as she sidestepped and blocked the dragon girl's flailing arms, legs and tail she resolved to end the fight quickly. She engaged her pain suppressor implant, enabling full use of her near-ruined hand again. 
 

She caught the next wild attack and pulled Violetta towards her, simultaneously retracting her arm so she could launch a double pronged attack. One hand, a rigid 'v', found the exotic's throat, collapsing her windpipe while the other formed an open palm attack which slammed into Violetta's sternum, the sheer energy behind it instantly stopping her heart.

The entire exchange had transpired in microseconds and now the too-proud exotic stood shakily, her eyes glazed over as her brain caught up to the idea that she was dead. Domino saw something there, in that moment, in those glassy eyes. Remorse? Loneliness? A reverie for a happier life left sublimated for too long? She would never know. Violetta's limp form crumpled to the bloodied mosaic floor with what seemed like a sigh and then she moved no more.

Borislav Petrov had rarely experienced such pain: the molten agony torturing his face was hell enough but when the scaly bitch started clawing chunks from his arms it was all he could do not to pass out. He forced himself to recall the words of his old instructor:

The body is but a tool of the mind and the world around you a product of that same mind. Allow no pain into your mind and there will be no pain...

No, those teachings did not make the beatings stop or help relieve him of his wounds. He was about to lose his only chance of gaining the money he needed. He was also about to lose his life. Borislav shook his head shamefully. Such a defeatist attitude would never have been tolerated when he was in his unit! He gritted his teeth and approached his defence with renewed vigour. He would succeed. He must succeed.

A blur of motion passed between him and his vicious assailant. It had been the tiny Japanese girl. And she had left in her wake a ruined and quite furious dragon girl. His shoulders slumped in unabashed relief as he watched the girl in black effortlessly deflect and weave around the machine-gun paced attacks of the scaled one.

And then she ended it. He had barely seen the move, hadn't even discerned the points of impact. The girl with purple scales for skin was now a puppet whose strings had been severed and so she fell, discarded, on the cold floor.

The Japanese girl turned to regard him with eyes of purest obsidian. Borislav Petrov had seen many battlefields and fought countless foes. Not one of these had given him the sense of inevitability he felt now. He had understood all those he had fought before, even the strange dragon girl. But in the impossible youth of the one stood before him now he recognised an unfathomable depth of experience and an unshakable certainty of purpose.

He was undone, he knew. He would never return to his daughter. Never provide her with the prosthesis she needed to continue living in this world. His dream of winning enough to take her to the best surgeons in their pristine orbital stations was at its end.

[I've found it!]

[Found what?]

[Petrov. His reason for entering the pit fight. His daughter is dying. She needs orbital-grade prosthetics. That's why he's here.]

[Dammit.]

Domino turned from the lifeless form of the exotic at her feet and found the ex-Spetsnaz trooper returning her stare. His grey eyes shifted along the spectrum from defiance to resignation in that moment and she knew then that this ageing, noble fighter may well undo her plan to gain access to Capricia without ever laying a finger on her.

[I can't do this, Angel. I can't just end him because it serves my purposes. I'll have to find another way to get to Capricia and Yamada.]

[You might not have to. A lot of his implants are old tech, using an obsolete neural interface. If you overload the control unit at the base of his skull, he'll pass out and, to the untrained eye, appear to be dead.]

[Hmm. That might work. Is there any risk of – what the...?]

Petrov stepped towards her slowly, a wistful smile on his malformed lips. He extended his arms cruciform, hands held palm up in a clear gesture of surrender.

[What's he doing, Yukiko?]

[Giving up. This isn't good.]

[But I thought -]

[They won't let him. They're all out for blood. And money.]

“I yield.” his voice boomed around the club yet was almost instantly drowned out by a cacophony of distaste from the crowd. All eyes bar those of Domino and Petrov turned to Capricia, who was stood imperiously above them all. She milked the moment for more than it was worth before offering a down-turned thumb in a ridiculous pastiche of an ancient Roman Caesar.

“Your 'yield' is not accepted. You will find no quarter here. Kunoichi! Finish him!”

Domino wanted very badly to kill Capricia in that moment, wipe the self-satisfied smirk from her artificially glamorous face. She settled instead for glaring at her coldly before turning her attention back to Petrov. She saw he was resigned to a certain destiny, and as he transitioned from his capitulation to a combat-ready stance, she suspected he would offer little, if any, real resistance.

As they faced off, he seemed to read her reluctance and he shot her an almost imperceptible nod before closing on her position. He would attempt to make the task before her weigh less heavily on her conscience, launch a barrage of attacks so she would have no option but to defend herself.

His kicks and punches came at her in clever combinations of feints and mix-ups, his every move informed by an obvious wealth of experience and hard-earned wisdom. More impressive still was his ability to temper his strength with grace and control. He was a consummate fighter, the type with the power to level a brick wall and the skill to halt a blow a mere hair's-breadth from its target. It had been sheer bad luck that Violetta ever had the chance to harm him.

[I need to know how to take out that control module, Angel. Are you sure it won't cause any lasting damage?]

[I'm certain of it: it was a design flaw with that particular unit. A strong blow to the soft tissue at the base of the skull should have the desired effect.]

[Okay. Thanks, Angel. Here goes...]

They had continued the sham fight for long enough now; the crowd was sufficiently engrossed in their martial dance to buy into the Russian's collapse.

Domino threw a flashy aerial double kick at Petrov and, as she had hoped, he intercepted her risky attack with a high block. Such was the strength of his augmented arms, she was able to twist her body and shift her momentum so that his block became a stepping stone for her to somersault over his head.

The move was fast enough to give her a clean line on the back of his neck and so she snapped her leg out in a reverse kick. Her foot connected with the base of Petrov's skull with a loud crack. The giant toppled, and the crowd rose in ovation as she nimbly touched down behind his prone form.

While she knew she had not killed him, she still felt sickened by the audience's reaction to his apparent demise.

Domino was left in darkness then, as all the club's spotlights shifted to Capricia's balcony. The arena battle was over. 

Copyright © A. Flood 2010