Standing under the spotlights of the Lucky Bird, the Kasuri baroness made her demands.“I Baroness Kalin Cerese have come to issue challenge for the life of your your disgusting captain, for he has offended me, and therefore all of Kasuri Kind, and must either prove himself worthy and/or pay with his life for his offense against me.”
Helio in a somewhat jovial tone (for a machine), announced: “Oh… that’s all you wanted, well please hold momentarily (Or you will be vaporized) and I’ll get him…..”
As Kalin stood silently on the tarmac and waited with impatience, the ships autoguns continuided to paint her.
Then a smug assured voice was heard over the speakers, a voice that made her blood alternate between fire and ice.
“Well what a lovely surprise, and here I was so sad that I was going to have to leave this planet without ever being able to make your “acquaintance.”
Kalin yelled at him, “you cowardly, disgusting, perverted, —-glovereken excrement—get down here so I can rip your —-untranslatable—- from your —-untranslatable—- and shove it up your—-untranslatable—- and then….”
Suddenly a huge holographic projection of the captain in a formal uniform appeared over the bow of the ship.
Speakers booming, Ivo spoke in the worst fake southern accent that he could muster. “Now hold up for just one damn minute.” The hologram started to bend, towering over Kalin. “You’ll call me a coward, while insisting, that I also fight you. Now how does that work, I thought that you, “Kasuri” would only hunt “worthy” prey, if I am indeed such a —-coward—- as you say, then I don’t see any reason why I should leave the relative safety of my ship, you know with its several tones of reinforced armor and plasma cannons.”
As he was speaking the auto guns nodded a bit up and down almost as if they were agreeing with his assessment.
Kalin took a moment to respond and followed with: “you bastard, you mock my challenge.”
“I’d only be mocking it if it were not in fact challenging.”
This took Kalin a moment to process, then anger rising ever higher she opened her mouth, but was cut off. As the hologram pointed at her accusingly.
“Understand something, I’m not much for fighting for my own personal honor, for someone else’s sure thing, but not my own, I need a bit of how you would say INCENTIVE.” At this Ivo’s hologram made a rubbing motion with two of his fingers.
The surrounding soldiers had their weapons locked both on the woman and the ship, but the whole exchange looked very confusing for everyone on the sidelines.
“You want money? You filthy disgusting bastard —shitlord—- translation error—-? “
“Nope, worse, I want YOU.” “Bwahhahahhaha” Ivo’s hologram extended both arms in her direction and then the giant holographic hands made some obscene wiggling motions.
Several hundred xeno’s watched this exchange, mentally thinking (the xeno equivalent) of “WTF?” in unison. At that moment Comadar Salkraveen literally choked on his tea, spilling it all over the console as he had just leaned forward to get a better look at the screen.
Kalin paused, her ears flattened and her hair stood on end making her disgust quite evident.
With a bitterness that would poison a cobra: “So, let me get this straight, if I agree to “be yours” if I lose, you’ll fight me? Cause if I lose I don’t think I’ll particularly care if you —-untranslatable—….. —-untranslatable– you corpse humping son of a —-monster whore—-….”
Before Ivo could interject to the tirad she paused and then calmly spoke: “But, however, if you lose I want your head and the coordinates to your homeworld.” As she spoke you could see the fire in her eyes as the thoughts of laying waste to this monsters homeworld filled her with joy.
Ivo pulled back some, “hmmm not what I had in mind, and that’s in fact two items.” A floating holographic tablet appeared, and ivo took it. “According to the basics of Kasuri challenge law, as I understand it, you issue a challenge, a demand, terms, fight, and the winner takes whatever terms were agreed on. And since I am the challengee I get to set the first terms.”
Ivo stated somewhat robotically, “You have challenged me with a demand for my life, and the coordinates to my homeworld, if you win. If I win, I want YOU, and I want YOU to LOVE and CHERISH me for the rest of your biological existence.”
Kalins rage suddenly went into a literal freeze, like something inside just kinda broke. She was literally speechless. Like a hurricane that can’t find Florida, Kalin’s rage was untethered, for this was not just the most obscene thing she had ever heard, it was the most confusing.”
At that proclamation comadar Salkraveen, who at this point had been wiping the tea off his console, froze in surprise and then slipped, accidentally banging his head. (Universal translators are sloppy affairs at best with specific word types that have multiple meanings in context, in this case “love” and “cherish”, were interpreted by at least a quarter of the witnesses as —F**K— and adore. Or the rough equivalent.) Those uncomfortable thoughts caused some of the witnesses to suffer cramps and severe nausea.
Both Fred and a half dozen of Helio’s drones looked at each other….silently, and then in sync facepalmed. Literally hundreds of soldiers stood frozen, the most fearsome creature they had ever known was being propositioned…..every mandible and jaw were hung agape. A few poor individuals even regurgitated their previous dinner.
“As to the arena here, and now on a 30 by 30 meter octagonal projection, the conditions for loss are as follows: The being who surrenders, is rendered unconsciousness, dead or otherwise incapacitated or are ejected from the arena equal a loss. We will go hand to hand, no formal weapons but armor may be allowed if desired. We start combat at the designated coordinates, after the timer counts to zero, combat initiated before zero will be cause for instant vaporization, I mean disqualification.”
At that a huge octagonal projection appeared on the tarmac, with lines designating the opposing starting corners.
“Baronese Kalin Ceres, do you agree to the terms of the battlefield.”
Her confusion disappeared as her focus snapped back to attention: “Yes you filthy worm.”
“The prizes for victory, If I win, I get YOU, and you’ll love me forever, but if you win, my life is forfeit and you get the coordinates to my homeworld.”
At this she ground her teeth and roared: “Yes you bastard I agree, now fight me.” The holo I’vo held up a projected piece of paper and looked up at the cameras and the onlooking soldiers and spoke: “This contract of combat has been set, the combatants absolve each other legally of responsibility for the others actions or outcomes, you are all now witnesses to the events that will transpire here.”
The huge hologram disappeared, as the projected arena took on fuller form, and holographic walls rose up.
Kalin took her duffle bag, marched to her side of the arena, and tossed it just outside. Despite the unlikely possibility of being injured by the “bastard”, she wished she had donned some light armor and not the lightly padded and form fitting space suit she currently wore. It had a utilitarian black and white pattern, that while leaving little to the imagination, was not the most flattering thing to go into battle wearing. At least she had her reinforced boots (They looked suspiciously similar to some extreme tarran high heels), that effectively cushioned the heel spikes on her feet. If this were jungle, she would have avoided wearing boots all together.
Another huge hologram appeared above, and projected a countdown clock, started at 299. Her rage began to ease, her goal was in sight, and she was going to cut this creature into nice minced chunks.
Soldiers, hover tanks, and support vehicles hung in the air, the unexpected turn of events pulled every eye toward the lucky bird. Hundreds of camera drones began to fly across the tarmac, taking up positions from every conceivable angle.
Silence pervaded as the countdown proceeded, when a loud mechanical screeching noise started, like the grinding of unnatural metal movements. The bow door of the spaceship lowered and smoke and steam began to billow out. Then slow but methodical reverberations echoed and grew in power, and reached the farthest sections of the landing pad, causing soldiers to stiffen up and re-position their weapons.
Like the mouth of a great beast opening and unfurling its tongue, the bow and ramp slowly descended through the smoke. The low reverberations grew louder and closer together, like the sounds of approaching footsteps, then they multiplied as hideous red eyed metal monstrosities marched out through the smoke. Their terrible mechanical steps too heavy to be possible, proceeded down the ramp.
Kalin tensed to run, thinking it was a trap, that the coward had decided to not use his ship’s guns but some kind of mechanical demons to do his bidding.
Soldiers and heavy weapons operators began cycling up their systems at the site of automatons. But behind the robots the captain suddenly appeared out of the fog, every step taken with his boots shook the launchpad. Full of confidence he strode forward, wearing black gauntlets that covered his forearms and a tan tank top, with webbed harness that his maroon half cape and shoulder pads clipped to. His toned upper body was fully visible under the tank top while his cape fluttered behind him. He wore tan baggy rakian armored pants that tucked into his carboned black boots and had a feral grin, his full bravado on display as the cyclopean murder machines took up an honor guard stance, which he walked past to his designated corner of the octagon.
Kalin was unaccustomed to intimidation tactics, but this, this was a pretentious monster, the kind she never thought possible. She could only imagine, it must go world to world seeking out the most horrible monstrosities to………do ..horrible… things to. She genuinely felt a little nauseous but as the clock continued its countdown, she re-centered herself..99,98,97,96.
Comadar Salkraveen never in his wildest nightmares did he ever think that Travos VII would see a Kasuri dual in its capital, but the requests for orders kept flooding in, and he kept sending the orders to hold. This, he had to see, this was something that could be a harbinger of things to come, for once in his life, he wanted a Kasuri to win, for if it lost, that might mean there was something worse than a Kasuri in the universe.
(Technically there are are many things worse in the UNIVERSE than the Kasuri, but generally those monstrocities don’t travel often outside of their specific home galaxies. Besides nobody appreciats when when a new horror shows up unanounced.)
Fred tried to ignore the entire situation that the captain had put them in, but then he looked up at one of helios drone eyes, and said: “It’s a shame the captain couldn’t have planned his suicide a littler earlier, I think at the very least we could have made a few credits promoted this as some sort of event. What do you think?”
Helio regarded the turtle with curiosity, ever since being exposed to the human, this turtle showed lines of reasoning that were atypical for his species.
“Technically it’s not too late.”
“How so?” Fred asked.
“It’s never too late to place a bet” At that, one’s and zero’s appeared on all of helio’s emote screens and on every drone on the ship.”
“It is done”
“Explain, frederick stated.”
“This event is about to go live on every screen on the planet.”
“Hmmm,…well so much for leading a discreet lifestyle.”
“Anonymity is overrated or so I’ve read” The machine responded.
Suddenly an alert on almost every public and private screen throughout travis 4 appeared.
“Breaking news, Kasuri Fights unknown xeno, all bets welcome.” Any xeno who clicked the ad was directed to a live stream of the arena, as the timer counted down, crude stolen graphics announced betting was open. Suddenly news networks throughout the planet began displaying the fight. The clock now at 30,
Kalin watched her prey, the beast was mocking her yet again, going through some sort of “exercises” while keeping it’s eyes locked with her. Her hair bristled, and she bared her fangs to the fullest. As the timer counted down, she drank in the surroundings, the pheromones from the xeno’s on the roofs she ignored, but she let her senses roam, exploring the creature in front of her, she could sense its confidence, it fear, and it’s…….She’s going to f***king kill this bastard harder than anything else she had ever slayed.
As the clock reached zero and Kalin shot forward and ran full blast at Ivo. Ivo held his stance holding the half cape in her direction with his black weighted gauntlets. He shouted at her “ándale!!, ándale!!” as he taunted her, and one meter short of Ivo she lunged, but missed as he flipped his cape, confusing her to the direction that he dodged. She landed and flipped, reoriented herself instantly, and charged him again on all fours this time, but again with a swoosh of his cap, he evaded her.
4, 5, 6, 7 times she charged, and he dodged. On the eighth one he was not quite as fast, and she thought she had him, but all she got was a mouthful of cape instead.
Temporarily blinded, he took the opening and struck her with his open palm on her left cheek as she fell past, the blow contained enough force that she involuntarily yipped. Getting untangled from the shredded cloak, her ass tingling from the blow, she roared with animalistic fury. This time she approached him more slowly, slashing left, right, up, and down in a fury, trying to bite him anyway possible. But not carefully watching her footwork, on a downward slash, he jammed her foot, tripping her, taking the moment she was off balance to grab her tail firmly, letting her unbalance gave him enough momentum to fling her, several meters across the arena.
She got up frazzled and embarrassed.
The onlooking xeno’s were enraptured by the spectacle, millions of xeno’s began flocking to screens and everything on Travos VII came to a halt. And the bets, Helio was watching as the betting money came in, the ratios for win/loss fluctuating widely, initially most xeno’s assumed that the Kasuri woman was going to win instantly, but now things were in chaos. Some of the worst dens of villainy and scum were quiet, while others we’re a bloodbath of bets, fights and disagreements over the possible winner. Whatever the case the members of the local propaganda bureau were too distracted to properly censor the dozens of pirated livestreams.
Ivo was disappointed, while formidable the Kasuri seemed to be operating on instinct alone. This was both good and bad, for 6 months he had trained, but against an opponent that didn’t use any specific style, predicting moves was difficult. But like her, he was going to have to turn off his mind and go on automatic reflex alone.
Time to go on the offensive, Ivo thought, and with a change in his stance he charged at her.
She saw him run toward her and she in turn charged, but at the last second he slide tackled, knocking her feet out from under her and sending her flying over Ivo. She hit the ground and slid again.
Bruised she got up and roared, but the sound was fainter, she finding it harder to summon her full strength. She got up and closed the gap between them, cautiously this time, she slashed, he deflected, and struck back with his open palm, pushing her back. Over and over she slashed and bit, but he intercepted and redirected the blows. And then with maximum force with his open hand her smacked her on the right cheek, holding for a moment and squeezed. This filling her with rage, but his hesitation gave her an opening in which he barely dodged a lethal slash, yet her claws still raked him just above the waist.
Ivo realizing he over committed, grabbed his left side feeling his wound as he broke from her and put a few meters between the Kasuri and herself. She was about to pursue, but then seeing the droplets of blood on the tips of her claws, stopped, and sampled them with her tongues.
It was delicious, literally the the most delicate and divine flavor she had ever tasted. She was tired, but the salty copper flavoring tinted with hints of adrenaline, dopamine, fear, anger, desire, was unbelievable. She could smell the wound and it smelled amazing.
Momentarily re-energized she charged again. This time Ivo had to be serious because this time he was REALLY on the defensive. Only with his armored gauntlets was he able to deflect her blows.
Ivo did not want to actually injure her, so all his strikers were with the open palm. Every hit pushed her back and continued to frustrate her attempts to eviscerate him.
She lunged again, and this time he countered, throwing her off balance, flipping her over and catching her head in a pin with his legs. “Yield”, he said to her but she refused. She tried struggling but her arms couldn’t reach past his torso. She tried scratching his legs, but the armored flex hard discs kept her strikes from penetrating. For a moment she stopped, realizing the futility of her situation, or so I’vo thought, but then she rolled her head at an inhuman angle and snapped her jaws open and then closed and clamping down on Ivo’s leg.
Again the flex-hard disks prevented her fangs from penetrating armor, but the force of her bite was causing him to lose feeling in the leg, and if continued threatened to sever nerves, or even possibly crush his bones. Thinking quickly he twisted his leg, hurting himself, but breaking her clamp, while possibly dislodging some of her teeth.
His boot free, he opted to release the pin, but as he did it he brought both boots back together on both sides of her head, with a smack, temporarily stunning her.
Using the window, he rolled away from her and stood back up, with a noticeable limp. While he didn’t think he had been cut, if felt like his foot was wet, and he could feel it swelling against the shell of the boot.
She got up again, bleeding some from the mouth, and charged him again. He dodged sloppily and began raining heavier open handed blows. She’d strike, he’d parry, over and over and over.
Slash, up, down, right, parry opening, hit, withdraw, repeat. Over and over and over. Her momentum lost, she continued to attack, but it became easier to predict, easier to parry, and deflect.
The Kasuri were traditionally ambush predators, though they have the capacity for good stamina (at least by most xeno standards) the regimen required to maintain that however, Kalin had pretty much abandoned since graduating from the embodiments military academy.
Her effective combat abilities were no longer an actual threat, but she still refused to give up, though the attacks came more slowly and sloppier.
Ivo’s initial wounds were clotted now, and the blood ceased to flow. He had no intention of terminating her, and now he was finally able to simply play the waiting game while he wore her down bit by bit, blow by blow.
The fight lasted another full hour, the excitement of the match replaced with apprehension.
Kalin was covered in bruises and soaked from head to toe in sweat, her fur thoroughly matted, but she did not relent, however her attacks had become quite pathetic.
Ivo’s tank top was soaked with crusted blood and sweat, and it seemed that blood was still filling his boot, but the nanites were doing their jobs splendidly keeping the swelling down somewhat, though dehydration was his biggest threat if this continued much longer. But it would not last much longer, she was beaten, but she refused to admit it, and she refused to give in. In fact the combined dehydration, bruising, and stress were causing her vision to blur, and finally at last, her legs gave out and she collapsed.
“You bastard, you……bastard, you can’t win…..” She murmured.
Walking toward her now, breaking the stance he had maintained, he grabbed her ungracefully by the back of the neck and then also the tail tail, and held her aloft like a humanoid battering ram and began walking to the edge of the arena. Seeing his intentions she struggled and swatted at him, cutting him deeply down the chest, but he seemed to be ignoring it at this point.
With an undignified heave-ho he flung her over the edge of the arena, her bruised form sliding along the tarmac a full two meters before stopping.
Ivo honestly felt like kind of a bastard for beating up a girl. (A dangerous, murderous psychotic alien monster of woman, but still a woman nonetheless)
Huge projected words appeared above the arena, Knockout, winner Ivo Borris Oni, Human of dirt. (Earth)
With that the projections began to dissolve, Ivo walked toward her whimpering crumpled form, intending to help her get up, but realizing she might still try to kill him. Signaled to a terminator drone, to pick her up, while ordering another to collect her bag.
Speaking into his comm, Ivo said. “Helio, that was one hell of a workout, abbreviate the exit sequence and let’s get out of here, I need a drink the locals are looking a bit, uncomfortable to me.” Looking down at his fresh wounds, and feeling a little dizzy, spoke again: “Helio, break out a pack of the red stuff, I think i’ve lost too much blood, and may need to be topped off.
“Roger captain, the locals have indeed become slightly perturbed, get inside and I’ll have a medical drone ready with IV shortly, be advised 40 seconds to departure.”
Like some terrible villain out of a space opera, the bloody captain picked up his shredded cloak and threw it over his shoulder. Smoke began again to roll with much force out of the ships hatch, as the terminator drones walked up the ramp with the near unconscious Kasuri woman in tow.
The robots stopped at the top of the ramp, turned and looked at the spectators, the captain walked up, and joined them at the front, motionless with a look of steely determination, stared up at the “witnesses” and cameras as the ramp retracted and the bow doors closed. The last view on all of the vids, was a closeup of the captains harsh stony visage as the doors sealed..
In the dark, running lights kicked on as the spotlights turned off, and with little ceremony the ship rose into the air, turned and rocketed up into the night sky.
Thousands held their silence, something had beaten a Kasuri hand to hand, something that looked nothing like a predator, but was more terrible than anything they had ever imagined.
Within seconds secure FTL comm pods began launching from the spaceport in every direction. Within the week this event would reach a quarter of Draco Dwarf, within a month, the entirety of the Confederated Alliance would know of a Ivo Onni Borris.