Deadly Game
Chapter One
Shadow studied the patrons of the dimly light bar. Watching metahumanity never ceased to fascinate him. Humans claimed to be descended from apes, and Shadow had decided long ago that their behavior invariably showed a strong relation to that displayed by primates, albeit at a much more complex level. The interactions he observed almost invariably came down to issues of dominance, or procreation. What interested him was that so many people espoused ideals such as mercy and justice, but so few actually lived the ideals that they claimed to believe.
For instance, across the room from him there was a group of five humans who seemed to be working themselves up to attacking a solitary elf sitting at a nearby table. As near as Shadow had been able to determine, the elf had done nothing to the humans and they had nothing to gain by proving their dominance. There was no territory, or food at stake, but there was no mistaking that these humans were about to try and prove their superiority. This raised an interesting problem for Shadow because his last few years had been spent among people who more than just professing a love for justice and mercy, had actually for the most part lived in accordance with their proclaimed ideals.
Somewhere along the line Shadow had actually come to believe that other beings had rights equal to his own, so now he felt obliged to act whenever he saw an injustice. To be honest, he found the whole matter to be more than a little bothersome, and sometimes wish that he had never left the simple life of his beloved jungles, but regardless he felt bound to act on his beliefs. Consequently, in a few minutes he would be forced to walk over to the elf’s table and hope that the addition of another person would discourage the humans from forcing the issue. Judging from past experience this was a long shot, and he would be forced to face off against all five aggressors, and maybe the rest of the bar with only the help of a somewhat sickly looking elf.
“Great,” he muttered. “Shadow, the defender of things weak and plague stricken.”
Shadow was in the process exacting a promise from himself to return to China, when one of the biggest trolls he had ever seen walked into the bar. As the dark-skinned giant sat at the elf’s table and started conversing, Shadow was torn between relief and disappointment. The troll easily weighed as much as any three of the humans, and appeared to be chiseled from obsidian. The lack of deformities common to trolls indicated that somewhere along the line large amounts of money had been spent on elective surgeries, and for anyone in this area of town, where muscles were valued much more highly than looks, the odds were heavily in the favor of even larger amounts of money being previously spent on a variety of technological and biological modifications all of which would make the troll seem like a superhero from a Marvel Comic book.
While this was merely an interesting fact when taken separately from the situation, it meant that the humans would probably back down. While the thought of not having to fight off a bunch of inebriated bar patrons was something of a relief, a part of Shadow longed for a fight. Any right really, but especially a fight with someone the size of the troll. A stupid desire really, there was a saying that had circulated back at the monastery in China. When two tigers fight one is killed, and the other is gravely wounded. Any fight between Shadow and an adversary as powerful as this troll look to be, would be unbelievably dangerous. Nevertheless, Shadow couldn’t deny a desire to match himself against a truly worth opponent again.
Exceptionally keen hearing allowed Shadow to monitor the conversation of the truculent humans, who seemed determined to attack the elf, even if it meant tangling with the troll as well. Fairly sure that the troll had hearing just as sensitive as his own, Shadow was astonished that the other had shown no visible response to the muttered threats coming from the next table over.
With one final expletive, and some kind of racial slur, the biggest human rose to his feet and approached the troll from behind. Now that he was standing and Shadow could get a better look at him, it became obvious that the massive human was probably heavily cybered. Coming to a stop behind the troll, the apparent leader of the humans paused as if unsure what to say next to provoke the desired fight.
Turning very slowly in his seat, most likely to avoid the violent reaction common when one moves quickly around somebody with wired reflexes, the troll calmly inspected the human.
“May I be of assistance in some manner?”
The human had obviously never imagined that a soon-to-be victim would respond in such a way. The troll took advantage of the pause generated by this astonishment to continue. “I am of the opinion that you are about to inform me that my associate and I are extremely offensive to you and your friends. Furthermore, you are no doubt going to stress the fact that there is nothing we can do to remedy this situation save engage in a violent confrontation, or perhaps to leave this establishment.”
Realizing that he had momentarily lost control of the situation, the human chose that moment to regain the initiative by launching an attack on the troll. Shadow was fairly impressed with the human’s speed, he was moving fast enough, that a normal person wouldn’t even have seen the blow coming. The troll however was moving even faster. Without leaving his seat, he deflected the punch that had just been thrown at him. Capturing the follow-up punch, the troll applied a classic aikido wristlock.
The human screamed in pain and razor sharp spurs slid out of his forearms. Shadow had to give him points for guts, but the spurs did him no good-the wristlock the troll drastically limited the human’s range of motion. About that time people everywhere exploded into action.
The four other humans who had been sitting at the table were now standing, various bar patrons were turning towards the quickly forming scuffle, but most impressive of all the elf had somehow made it to his feet and was halfway around his table moving incredibly quickly towards the humans. Shadow revised his opinion of the elf upward several notches, the other was moving even faster than Shadow was able-something that he had only seen two people do previously.
As the fight started, Shadow quite unexpectedly found himself moving as well. Before the human had even thrown his first punch, Shadow had felt a familiar itch between his shoulder blades and known that someone was about to shoot at him. Years of training had taken over, and without conscious thought he had rolled out of his seat and launched himself towards the newest threat. Three humans who had been sitting at a table near Shadow’s had all produced pistols and opened fire-one at Shadow, the other two at the troll.
As he closed with the first shooter, Shadow wondered how the razors knew he was a potential ally to the metahumans, why the bouncers hadn’t caught the samurai trying to smuggle the firearms into the bar, and if the bullets which were hitting the troll would take him out of the fight. A fraction of a second later all three of the samurai had extended their spurs, and speculation was suborned to the pressing matter to avoiding death.
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The big troll called Hammer saw Shiver intercept the humans before most of them had even had a chance to step away from their table. The elf moved amazingly fast since his trip to Chiba, but it was obvious that he hadn’t grown accustomed to his new abilities yet. Maintaining control of the human’s wrist, and by extension the rest of his body, Hammer watched Shiver deal with the other four. The elf caught the first opponent with a strike to the throat, and scored on the second with a back thrust kick to the chest launching him over the table and into a third aggressor.
Unfortunately the fourth human was now ready for Shiver, and he avoided the elf’s attack, and scored-slashing the other’s arm with his spurs. Evaluating the action of the last second and a half, Hammer was struck by the sloppiness of Shiver’s technique-although the moves were lightning fast, none of them flowed smoothly, and his timing was slightly wrong. All those mods have him way off, thought the troll as he felt burning spears pierce the left side of his back.
Releasing the still screaming human Hammer rolled away trying to put a table between him and the location from which the shots had been fired. Looking in the direction of the shooters, Hammer saw a Chinese man streak towards the three samurai just before his roll brought him in range of the three humans who seemed eager for a target besides Shiver.
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Shadow had his hands full. The first samurai had gone down quickly when struck with several non-lethal blows. Unfortunately his two companions were being much more cautious, and had consequently come close to slicing him with their spurs on three occasions already. Although Shadow had a significant edge in speed, he was finding that the two Gillette’s were too cagey to let him isolate them as he had done with the first.
Looking over to his new allies, Shadow saw that things weren’t looking very favorable for his side. The elf was now squared off with the human leader, while the other three humans were giving the now wounded troll a very difficult time. Deciding that events had to be drawn to a close quickly before the troll passed out from blood loss, Shadow went on the offensive. Risking possible injury, the Chinese fighter stepped inside the arc of the first samurai’s attack, barely dodging an incoming elbow. Once inside the arc where the samurai could effectively strike him, Shadow grabbed the other’s shirt and twisted throwing the shocked samurai into his comrade. Two quick kicks rendered his opponents unconscious and Shadow turned to see how the rest of the brawl faired.
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Hammer was in trouble. Normally his three opponents wouldn’t have been much of a challenge-none of them was particularly fast, strong, or skilled. Not only that, but two of them were slightly injured, and were obviously dealing with extreme pain. Unfortunately, Hammer was much more severely injured than any of them, and although his pain editor was eliminating the distraction of pain, it couldn’t do anything about the actual consequences of those wounds. Hammer hadn’t had a chance to take stock of his injuries, but from the difficulty he was having breathing, it was almost a sure bet that he had a collapsed lung, and there was no question that the lack of oxygen was affecting his fighting ability.
Although it was obvious that Hammer’s opponents were very inexperienced, they had quickly realized that time would weaken Hammer, and had consequently chosen a very defensive strategy while they waited for him to pass out from blood loss. Looking over, Hammer saw that Shiver was struggling in his fight against the human leader. Realizing that there would be no aid coming from that quarter, Hammer decided that were he to survive this battle, he would be forced to use lethal force.
Stepping quickly towards the closest gillette, Hammer waited until the triangle surrounding him started to shift before quickly reversing his course. Even as the first samurai realized he had retreated too far, Hammer grabbed a chair with his left hand and threw it at the second enemy to keep him occupied. The chair flew towards the unfortunate human at an astonishing rate, actually knocking him over and rendering him unconscious. Hammer never saw the chair strike his target due to the fact that he had already closed with the third samurai, and had delivered no less than three strikes before the other even realized he had been hit.
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Shadow was always amazed how few of the people he fought were ready for throwing attacks like the one he had just used. One would think that people who knew that they would face off against people trying to kill them would invest a little more time into learning how to avoid all kinds of attacks.
Running towards the troll Shadow was amazed to see him take out all three of his attackers in a matter of maybe a second and a half. The Chinese man was astonished when the first went down to a hurled chair. Admittedly anything thrown by a troll of that size is going to be moving pretty fast, but anyone with the standard cyber modifications should be able to take a blow like that and at least get back up after being knocked down. These jokers must have wires, spurs and very little else-maybe a smartlink. Relegating the opponents facing the troll to a lower threat bracket than that which he had originally placed them, Shadow wasn’t surprised to see the other two humans go down before he could make it to the troll to help. What was amazing was what happened next.
Immediately after dispatching his last opponent with a combination Shadow had never seen used successfully, the panting and bloodied troll lashed out with a back thrust kick catching the human leader from behind and launching him over several tables.
Upon seeing that all the enemies had been dispatched, the elf immediately bent down and began relieving the fallen of credsticks. Shadow returned to his table to collect his pocket secretary, cautiously watching the troll who was headed towards him.
Stopping just far enough away so as not to be a threat the troll bowed to Shadow and began speaking in Chinese. “My student and I are in your debt, may we accompany you to another location where we can repay your bravery?”
Impressed by the other’s flawless Chinese, Shadow was preparing a suitably polite response when several observations clicked together and he decided that the other was of Japanese education if not descent. “It was nothing,” he replied taking a chance by doing so in Japanese. “Any other person of good conscience would have done as much, and consequently there is no debt to repay.”
Smiling gravely Hammer nodded and turned as if to leave when he stumbled and fell. Reasoning that a fighter of such caliber didn’t fall down unless something was seriously wrong, Shadow crossed the intervening distance and requested permission to aid the other in rising. Hammer accepted the offer of help waving away Shiver who had likewise raced over to help.
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Seeing that for the moment he was not needed, Shiver finished searching the humans. As Hammer and Shadow stumbled towards the door Shiver pocketed the pistols used by the three gillettes and grabbed pitchers of water from various tables. After dumping several pitchers on the floor to wash away Hammer’s blood Shiver followed the other two out the door.
Shadow was impressed by the elf’s foresight in destroying anything that could be used for ritual sorcery against the troll. As they brushed by the completely useless bouncers the elf caught up and helped support the troll’s weight.
The trio had just made it to the corner when a pair of helicopters landed on the street outside the bar. Doc Wagon medical personnel poured out of the aircraft, and entered the bar while the high threat response teams spread out to protect their colleagues. In less than thirty seconds the first team had exited the bar with a stretcher bearing the human leader. Ten seconds later one of the helicopters had lifted off and headed towards the nearest Doc Wagon medical facility.
As the medical personnel brought out the rest of the unconscious humans, two black city master urban control vehicles arrived. Hidden behind a car where Shiver was trying to bandage Hammer’s wounds, the trio saw black-clad figures exit the city masters and fan out to prepare for attacks on each side. Shiver counted ten gun-wielding figures, and what looked like three mages. Assuming that there was another mage in one of the vehicles running astral over watch, and remembering just how rare mages were, this group had way more magical firepower than was reasonable for anything short of a minor corp trying to protect some kind of expensive asset.
Just before he passed out from blood loss, Hammer tried to decide whether or not his protégée and newfound ally would be smart enough to make sure they weren’t being followed before going anywhere they didn’t want compromised. People with the kind of resources this group seemed to have didn’t usually let people just walk away from a situation like they were leaving.
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