Chapter 57: One Trick Pony

William Oh joined an underground fighting tournament, and the people running the show paid him off.

But they didn’t pay him to lose. They paid him to not win so quick that nobody saw what happened.

After he was done with the fights, they also paid him not to come back, because the underground tournament had been relocated above ground by his sheer might.

-Jason Salazar

 

The bridge they’d been contracted to assist with the repairs was one of three main thoroughfares to transport food into the city from the east side.

There were three bridges because you never could tell when a kaiju might get a lucky kick in or fall in the wrong direction, and it wouldn’t do to have the whole city begin to starve just because a single bridge was down.

So they had backups.

The city itself was nestled between two oversized rivers that combined together into one enormous river a few miles downstream. Even further beyond…

There’s gotta be an ocean right? Except Will knew there couldn’t be an ocean, because they were in The Tower and there was only one biome per floor.

Where does the river even come from then? Common wisdom was that the rivers on the 5^th Floor came from the 6^th Floor…but that was stupid, because the 6^th Floor was salt water.

Do they pump it up from the ground or…what? Will thought, frowning.

“HUP!” one of the groundworkers threw Will a massive iron cable. Will caught it, struggling for a moment to secure a grip with his one hand before securing it under his elbow and hauling it up.

The workers with the ability to avoid or survive a fall had been sent up to the top of the bridge’s new pillars, which were being grown straight out of the riverbed by a team of geomancers.

Since he didn’t have any specialized skills that allowed him to modify stone or steel cable, Will just settled into the role of porter, climbing up and down the precarious slope of previously secured cables, his Aspect of the Goat making it look easy.

As it turned out, putting a bridge back together was a multiple-day affair, so Will and Loth were able to help Travis and June with their work.

Where is Mason, anyway? Will thought sourly.

“Heads up!” Loth called, a faint buzzing sounding along with her voice. Will glanced up and saw the rest of the steel cables – all sixteen of them – being hauled by thousands of insects, towards the waiting arms of the craftsmen ready to fuse them into place.

Why am I even doing this? Will thought to himself, grunting as he hauled the cable the rest of the way and passed it off.

“Try not to turn the bridge into a trap, lizard!” one of the engineers, a jovial man driving steel cable into stone with his bare hands, said as Loth delivered her portion of the cables.

Will bristled for a moment, but Loth took it in stride.

“Now that you mention it, I have been thinking about ways to make the bridges designed to break the ankles of kaiju that step on them while remaining functional bridges the rest of the time.”

The engineer squinted.

“Explain.”

“It would be a simple hinge and counterweight punji trap,” Loth said, flipping over the engineer’s papers and drawing a quick sketch that looked like it’d been drawn by a professional.

Which, I suppose she is…

“If you did this…it would be more resilient from the top and sides while also allowing the bridge to reset itself into a bridge after the kaiju foot was removed.” Loth made notes at the sides of the drawing.

“Resetting itself, huh,” The engineer mused, stroking his chin. “I’m not interested in a kaiju trap.”

Loth scowled at the idea of someone not wanting more traps in their lives.

“Baron Akul and the Kaiju Squad can handle them in a timely manner. But this resetting gimmick…let’s discuss what that would cost.”

Will and the other porters were dismissed while Loth and the head engineer began bandying ideas back and forth.

Will jogged back down the steel cables swaying in the wind, hopping back down to the ground where June and Travis were watching out for kaiju or human raiders.

There was no practical benefit for other Climbers to disrupt the bridge, but richer Lords might fund them to do so just to manipulate the market or weaken the city as a whole.

Lordship was a cutthroat world.

“Where’s Mason at?” Will asked as he arrived beside June and Travis, who were drinking cucumber water under a parasol.

“Oh, he went to do those underground pit fights.” June said.

“WHAT!?”

“I think he said something about proving he doesn’t have a tiny penis?” Travis said.

“He said he wanted to test his Build, get XP and new ideas.” June said, rolling her eyes.

It made some sense. Whereas other classes were a little bit more flexible, Nukers, and Mason specifically had dedicated every Ability to direct combat. Outside that, they were likely to feel…under-utilized.

“Does Reggie know about this?” Will asked.

“No, because if Reggie knew he would try to stop Mason.” June said. “What with the whole ‘ten years of indentured servitude’ thing hanging over his head.”

“What are Reggie and Alicia doing?” Will asked.

“Making out, probably,” June said, to which Travis scowled.

Aw, damn, that could be a problem, Will thought, studying Travis’s glower.

Across the city, in the carnivorous gardens, Alicia and Reggie were having a walk in the park. Both figuratively, and literally.

“Behind you.” Alicia whispered, throwing a knife at the base of the branch looming over Reggie. The knife must’ve hit something critical because the branch slumped over without striking at his back.

“Thanks,” Reggie said, plucking another of the oddly savory smelling lumpy fruit off the trunk of the tree and depositing it in the basket.

Reggie was a Plucker and Alicia was a Pruner, keeping an eye on the surroundings and taking care of problems before they arose.

“How can you see plants trying to attack?” Reggie asked. “They don’t have any bones, so I would assume they would be hard to see.”

“Yes, their flesh is pretty faint, but plants have weak spots too…at least these moving ones do,” Alicia said with a shrug. “And if you see disembodied weak spots moving up behind your friend, that’s pretty obvious.”

“Fair enough.” Reggie said before thinking a moment. “You have a hard time seeing wood? Have you ever walked straight into a wall?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Alicia whispered, her shoulders hunched.

“If you think that’s bad, I got kicked in the balls at a ball once,” Reggie said, aiming to curb her embarrassment with a much juicier story.

“Oh, that’s worse…”

“Yep, so it was right after we got our Classes. I was getting the hang of the toft Ability. That’s what we call Take One For the Team. Just faster to say. Anyway, I was learning it’s limits, how long I could have it up, what kind of damage it would cover, and so on. I joined Mason when he got an invite to a ball hosted by another rich family in the ring.

“I always hated balls.”

“Not as much as I do,” Reggie said with a chuckle. “So the girl whose parents were throwing the party was a real terror, exercising control over who could do what, eat what, dance with who, et cetera. A little tyrant in the making.”

“So over the course of the night she got on Mason’s nerves until Mason told her off in front of everyone, loud and embarrassing. Just laid into her. She then proceeded to kick him in the balls.”

“And by extention, you.” Alicia said.

“Yep! I was standing there talking to some girls from out of town when it felt like roots of pure pain had planted themselves in my crotch and began growing up and into my lungs. I toppled over and started crying for no apparent reason, and then the girls I was with started laughing at me.”

“That sounds awful. I know they’re one of a boy’s weak spots, but I’ve never heard it described before.”

“Yeah, pretty much my worst experience, but the silver lining is that everything after that has pretty much been a bree…wait a moment.”

Reggie frowned, thinking back to the way she’d said ‘weak spots’.

“Can you see my junk at all times?” Reggie asked, covering himself with his hands.

Alicia averted her eyes and started walking away.

“Hey, answer me! Hey!”

“Oh look, more fruits to harvest over here.” She whispered.

“Don’t change the subject!”

“I can only see nerve clusters and blood vessels, so it’s fine.” Alicia finally admitted after he’d pestered her for a while.

“Oh,” Reggie said, relaxing. “I guess that’s not-“

“They do take a certain…shape, though.”

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“So you can!” Reggie said, clasping his hands in front of himself, nearly dropping the basket of fruits, prompting Alicia to giggle and prance away until she tripped over a tree root and went sprawling face-first into the grass.

In the center of the city, in an abandoned warehouse that had been remodeled to accommodate superhuman brawls, Mason was warming up for his fourth fight.

Stretch. Stay light. Stay fast. Hit them hard, hit them first. Always hit them first.

Mason’s Acuity was high enough to perceive any tricks his opponents might try, while Mason’s tactic was brutally simple, and therefore brutally difficult to counter.

#1 Light them on fire.

#2 Use Feedback Shielding to ward off their panicked flailing.

Repeat as necessary.

The first fight had been over before it started. The second fight had been another Nuker, and Mason had been able to eke out a victory by launching his attack a fraction of a second before the other guy.

The third fight was against some kind of tank/warrior hybrid. That one took a long time to finish, because of the man’s sheer Resistance. He’d walked right through Conflagration and gotten few good hits on Mason, barely covered by the Feedback Shielding.

His body was covered in bruises and small cuts where just a bit of damage had gotten through.

If the warrior’s damage output had been any higher, Mason would’ve been out of the tourney with some serious wounds.

Now it was time for number four.

Just two more, Mason thought, stretching his shoulders. His ‘weapons’ such as they were, were a buckler and saber, giving him the ability to ward off the occasional blow. It was a bad habit to rely solely on his shielding feedback to protect himself.

The sounds of the crowd crested as his opponent stepped down into the steel-lined pit.

It was a thin, shirtless young man with dusky skin and a cocky grin. he wasn’t wearing a Relic on his head or torso, which Mason found strange for the 5^th floor.

His opponent was wielding a dagger, and as the announcer began to count down to the start, he crouched down deep in an explosive stance.

Is that a bluff or does he think he’s faster than Conflagrate?

Better to allow himself a small error because of the bluff than get shivved.

Mason crouched down, ready to dodge if his opponent got to him too quickly.

“Both fighters ready? BEGIN!”

Mason dropped a Conflagrate halfway between the two of them, aiming at making a speed dash disastrous for his opponent. This blocked the view, but it also pushed his opponent back, hopefully neutralizing his spe-

CRACK.

A strange popping noise behind him was all the warning he got, prompting Mason to whip around, bringing his buckler up.

A line of pain bloomed on his elbow and forearm until the buckler caught the dagger and shoved it aside, staring into the eyes of his opponent.

Conflagration.

The air between the two of them exploded, but the Ring of Consideration reduced it from flesh-searing to merely painful.

Mason counted as one of his own Party Members, after all. This gave him short-range options that he’d never really had access to before.

Mason felt a rush of power course over him as the damage to his opponent was converted to shielding, and he knew he’d gotten a hit in.

Alright, all I gotta do is keep the shield going with more damage and I’ve already won-

CRACK.

The sound went off behind him, and Mason whipped around with the saber, with the intention of using its reach to score a hit against the dagger-wielder.