First Foray
“Feels like I’ve become a fucking video game,” the Rabbit grumbled as he arranged the little rocks and antlered skull between two of the standing stones outside of her (former) hut, “So help me, if a big green pipe pops up out of the ground here...”
Organa chuckled, hovering watchfully nearby as he carried out her instructions. Despite his near-constant complaints, she admired his attention to the details and ability to remember her instructions for days at a time. “I thought you liked those games...”
“Fucking fighting games,” he grunted, “This is RPG shit here. Never had the patience for those.” The distinction was probably one of nuance to her. The ancient ghost had thus far been unimpressed with most of the technological advances of modernity, calling them cheap imitations of the wonders of magic. Something about technology being dead and crystallized, while magic was apparently living and fluid. Even so, she had been impressed that he could gather all the materials she’d listed off within a matter of minutes, thanks to the glorious global market available on computers.
Of course, the fact that they then had to wait several days for all of it to arrive put a little damper on that impression, and Oro himself had been very unimpressed with the expense of it all. Mrs. Hope had given him a very strange look when he asked for the money...but seeing as he had never openly asked for anything except food since he’d moved in, she didn’t hesitate much. She did make him reassure her that he was shopping for a project of some kind, and not anything shady. He was pretty sure this still qualified as “shady”, but it wasn’t drugs or drink or porn, so he didn’t feel too bad about being a little vague in his answer.
None of that stuff mattered to him. All he cared about was that today he was finally (supposedly) getting paid...if he could survive a run through “The Gauntlet”. It sounded ominous. He brought his bat.
The Rabbit poured a line of salt across all the arranged gems and between the two tall stones. A gate erupted into existence between them. A full-blown gate, with gigantic doors almost three times his height that opened with a booming echo and everything. Oro gave a low whistle. Now he was impressed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell someone where you’re going?” Organa asked, floating nearby, “I’m not trying to scare you, but it is conceivable you won’t return. And no one will know where you went or what happened.”
“And no one would let me go in if they knew,” he shrugged, picking up his bat and resting it comfortably on his shoulder, “That’s if they believed me, instead of writing me off as crazy. Give it to me straight: what are my odds? What’s even in there?”
The specter shrugged her shoulders. “It’s different each time you enter. The one consistent thing is that it gets more and more difficult each time, and the rewards greater and greater. I have never had a champion fail to return from his first foray, if that’s any comfort...but it’s not impossible. They all assured me of that.”
The Rabbit quirked a brow at her. “Just how many ‘champions’ have you gone through?” he asked, thumping his bat on his shoulder. She smirked, as if he’d just figured out something she had been waiting for him to trip over, but as she opened her mouth to answer he waved the bat at her. “Nevermind. Doesn’t change anything here. If I don’t make it back out, good luck with whatever you plan to do next.” Not giving his nerves even one more second to buckle, he strode through the gate.
It slammed closed behind him.
“Fuck,” Oro hissed, glaring at the stone wall at his back. He was in a dark antechamber, lit by a single candle burning on a stand to one side. Ahead lay a short tunnel, with a light at the other end and two warrior-clad statues on either side. “Barely through the door and I’m already dead, huh?” he sneered at the tunnel, thumping his bat against his shoulder. “Alright. Let’s see what Hell is like, then...”
“Welcome, Champion!” a loud, reverberating female voice made him almost jump out of his skin, seeming to speak from every surface of the room at once.
The Rabbit scanned the room with his bat held out in front of him like a pointer. “The fuck are you?!” he barked, not appreciating the start she’d given him one bit.
“I am The Gauntlet,” the voice answered entirely too cheerfully, “You will be tested within my walls. Succeed, and your rewards shall be great! Fail, and your soul shall join with my halls!”
“Peachy,” he grunted with a roll of his eyes, regarding the statues guarding the tunnel with fresh suspicion, “So I become a decoration if I die? Heh...at least there’s a memorial, I guess.”
“You will become a test,” the voice corrected, “Today, I shall pit you against one of your own kind, for a Champion must be able to hold his own at the least.”
Oro quirked a brow at that. “’My own kind’?” he asked, but the disembodied voice seemed to have said all it was inclined to. From the far end of the tunnel, a faint growling began to rumble. Thumping his bat on his shoulder one more time, Oro determinedly marched down the short hall.
It opened into an arena. The floor was covered in thick sand, broken here and there by large rocks clearly laid for the sole purpose of breaking up the even terrain. The stands crowning the high walls were silent and empty, and yet it still felt like there were thousands of eyes watching him. Prowling about the far side of the arena, growling and barking in challenge, was a feral wolf the size of a bear.
“Oh...fuck...,” Oro whispered to himself as soon as he saw it. There was an intelligence in those eyes easily a match for his, and perhaps even more cunning. He could swear it smiled when it saw him emerge from the tunnel, showing all its sharp, yellow teeth. It howled, and the sound shook his chest, as whatever invisible chain had been keeping it on the far side of the arena seemed to release, and the massive beast began charging in his direction. “How the fuck is this ‘my own kind’?!” the Rabbit growled, running hastily for the nearest rock and taking his bat in both hands. Again, only silence answered.
The beast came around the side of the rock with teeth snapping. Oro brought his bat around as hard as he could, hoping to at least bloody the creature’s nose and make it harder for the animal to tell where he was. He missed his target, instead catching one of the oversize fangs and rocking the tooth in its socket. The wolf yelped and snapped at him, nearly taking his arm off at the elbow before he could withdraw his extended hands. The Rabbit danced with it briefly, battering its snout as it tried to bite him in two and he carefully worked his way around the rock toward the open center of the arena. As soon as he had room to run, he bolted. Even on four legs, the massive beast had difficulty keeping pace with the light-footed Rabbit.
A footrace in an enclosed space was meaningless, though. Oro scanned the perimeter of the arena desperately, finding only walls and (doubtlessly locked) iron gates all around. “Fuck, this environment is useless,” he growled to himself, not daring to slow down. The Rabbit turned toward another spur of rock, with a low edge slanted toward him and a much higher edge reaching out toward the empty stands. “Let’s see how you like my little party-trick,” he huffed as he reached the high edge, spinning to face the wolf already charging up the rocky slope toward him.
Oro took one step, and it adjusted its stride, prepared to bound off the edge it expected him to leap from. This was no brute beast. It was thinking, anticipating his escape routes. But it never saw him coming. Not really. Following that one, balancing step, distance seemed to become a fiction Oro ignored for the moment, and before the wolf realized he was in range the bat came up hard into its chin, followed by Oro’s toes against its throat. The fang he’d loosened earlier flew free as the creature’s jaws snapped violently shut above his head, but its momentum carried it right on into the Rabbit, knocking him onto his back underneath it. Oro tucked both feet against its ribs and kicked as hard as he could with his back against the rock.
He didn’t get as much lift as he might have liked, but the wolf lurched sideways, its front paws scrabbling on the stone, and tumbled off the spur to land on its side in the sand with a heavy thud. Surprised, stung, and struggling to breathe, the beast snarled in fury but took a moment to shake the stars from its eyes and align its windpipe again. Oro landed right on its snout, slamming it hard between the ears with his bat. The beast howled and shook its head furiously, tossing the Rabbit against the rock. Now it was Oro’s vision that swam with stars, but even between those he could clearly see a gaping maw and wide throat coming to claim his face.
He got his bat between the teeth before they could close, just far enough back to spare his head. With much regret, he sacrificed the weapon in favor of withdrawing both arms and head from between the jaws as the wood splintered and cracked. The wolf crushed it between his teeth, spitting the splinters at him as Oro turned to make a hasty retreat.
“AUGH! FUCK!! FUCK!!!” the Rabbit screamed. The wolf had snagged one if his long ears as it trailed in his wake, catching nearly a quarter of the sensitive membrane in its teeth. Oro wouldn’t let it catch the rest of him, though. Even when the teeth gnashed down hard. Even when the wolf wrenched its head to the side, trying to yank him off-balance. Even when he lost that part of his ear, Oro kept his eyes on the goal he’d already picked out in the sand.
He twisted and skid to a stop, crouching low and glaring at the wolf with hate so hot it could evaporate the tears attempting to blur his vision. His ear scattered droplets of blood with each twitch as it tried to shake off the burning sensation in the end that no longer existed, and he could swear the wolf taunted him by chewing on that little bit of flesh while it met his glare. “Fucking bastard,” he promised in a soft, surprisingly even tone as he clenched the wolf’s lost fang in his fist, “You’ll pay for that.”
The wolf began prowling a large circle around him, and Oro matched it step-for-step, holding its former fang like a knife. Although one could argue the beast had gained ground by destroying his weapon, the beast itself had grown more cautious. The line between predator and prey had become blurred. This Rabbit was nothing to trifle with. It barked at him, as if testing his nerves. Only Oro’s wounded ear twitched, tossing blood on its nose contemptuously. “Damn straight, ‘my own kind’,” the Rabbit was muttering to himself, having changed his opinion of the voice’s words from before, “Fucking savage animal! Come on! One of us is gonna eat well tonight!”
He planted his feet and drew back the hand with the fang. The wolf bared its teeth with its head low and squared its shoulders. As if a pistol had fired to signal the start of the race, they both charged...and Oro vanished.
The wolf snapped down blindly, hoping to catch or intercept him. It had seen this trick only once, and did not fully understand it yet. But it had the right idea, Oro had to give it that. His technique wasn’t magic...at least, he didn’t think so. He had to adjust something in his head to narrow his focus down to just the few feet in front of his eyes, it was true, but mostly he had to pay careful attention to his feet and his balance. If he didn’t trip over himself, for the space of about six steps, he could move with the kind of speed the concept of “rabbit” embodied.
The concept of “wolf” was too slow. Behind its chin, below its neck, it felt the sting of its own fang pierce its throat. It turned aside, and Oro used the extra space to follow up the stab with a kick, driving the embedded tooth through the neck like a bullet. The creature wheezed, unable to draw a reliable breath through the gaping hole in its windpipe. Oro threw himself against the side of its head, grabbing a fistful of its ear in one hand and a fistful of its muzzle in the other. Even the wolf felt a shudder of both shock and fear run through its spine as the spiteful Rabbit bit its cheek, just below the eye. It couldn’t shake him. It raked its claws across his back, and he answered by kicking its throat again and taking another bite, this time out of its lower eye-lid. Only the bad angle was keeping him from burrowing directly into its eye.
The beast didn’t have much time to be horrified beyond that. Its balance failed, and it fell on its side. Its eyes glossed over. It stopped even attempting to breathe.
Oro plopped his tail down in the sand beside the dead beast, huffing for breath. He couldn’t even bother to be surprised when the body winked out of existence, and a violet crystal about the size of his palm fell into the sand in its stead. “Yeah...you better...fuck off,” the Rabbit spat between breaths, reluctantly heaving himself to his feet and collecting the gem. “Fucking RPG shit,” he reiterated, stuffing the sparkly rock into his pocket. The glint of something else sitting in the sand nearby excited him much more. In the place where the beast’s broken fang had last fallen lay a long knife. Its blade was some strange yellow-red metal he had never seen before, and the hilt was wrapped in something like blue ivory.
“Well fought, Champion!” the voice of The Gauntlet announced, nearly causing him to drop the knife. Oro scowled as the portcullis barring a nearby gate lifted. “That way lies your escape...but a single challenge does not a gauntlet make,” she warned. From behind the gate came grunts and growls and squeals of a horde of lesser animals, frenzied and aggressive and looking for an outsider to tear limb from limb.
Oro bared his own teeth in a feral grin and firmed up his grip on the knife. “Your level design’s all fucked up, lady,” he growled as he started jogging for the exit, “You’re supposed to send the trash mobs first and save the boss for last...”
There were dozens. Possibly hundreds. He really hoped there weren’t thousands. He was tired going in, and fending off so many was exhausting. They kept pouring into the hall as fast as he could kill or cripple them, emerging from side-doors along the hall. Oro didn’t so much fight as plow through their ranks: running, jumping, weaving, kicking where he could, baring his knife against the larger species. His goal was to progress down the hall, toward the light at the far end which he presumed was his exit. He couldn’t kill every creature inside it, but he’d cut down a good portion of them.
The dogs were mostly an annoyance. The boars were a more serious problem. The stags were almost a relief despite their size. When the bulls appeared, and the first bear came lumbering into sight behind them, Oro ducked into one of the side-rooms the stags had emerged from and slammed the door closed behind him, backing slowly away from it as the wood banged and buckled under a horned barrage. The Rabbit was breathless and exhausted. Despite the situation, he plopped his tail down on the floor with his back against the wall for a breather, tipping his head back and closing his eyes briefly. He could smell the blood soaked into his clothes. Some of it was his. He could feel the burn of open wounds, mostly around his legs. He was tired now...very tired...
“Is this how it ends?” he asked. Well...he didn’t ask, but it was definitely asked with his voice. Oro peeked an eye open and looked over his shoulder. What he’d thought was a wall was actually a rough curtain covering a much smoother surface. Oro reached over his shoulder and pulled the cloth down, tossing it aside. Beneath it was a mirror made of some glass-smooth stone as black as a starless night. He figured obsidian. More significantly, the reflection it cast of him was all wrong. That was his face, but not the expression he was making right now. The body was older, too, even if it matched his general build, and the fur was as red as the blood in his clothes right now. That Rabbit had a sword on his belt.
“Is this how it ends?” the reflection asked with his voice again, sneering at him like it was daring him to answer in the affirmative, “Alone, in a forgotten hole, to a bunch of dumb fusking animals?”
“Fuck you,” Oro hissed, slamming his fist back against the mirror spitefully. To his surprise, it cracked...and through the small gap, his hand found the hilt of that sword. Pulling it back through the hole, Oro was presented with a bat instead. The stain was the color of cut flesh, the grain lines a dark, angry scarlet, and he could swear the wood was breathing in his hand. Oro got to his feet, turning to face the mirror fully.
The crack had mended itself. His reflection wasn’t even pretending to imitate his movements now. It also stood, looking at him sternly, but nodded approvingly. “Fusk ‘em all,” it growled, “We’ll go to Hell when we’re damn well ready, and not a minute before. Right?”
“Right,” Oro agreed, tucking the knife into his pocket and thumping his new weapon in his hands. A sense of eagerness was spreading from it through his hands, and his strength seemed to be coming back.
“Go now,” the reflection urged, nodding toward the door behind him, “Feed Gorgorond. Let none stop you...except that girl. Eat the world for her.” Nayeli called for him from somewhere beyond the mirror’s edge, and the reflection turned and faded from view.
“Right,” Oro repeated, more softly this time, as he turned on the door like he intended to murder the very wood that was just beginning to splinter under the assault of the horns on the other side. “Let’s eat the whole fucking world...”
“Well that was quick,” Organa remarked what felt like hours later, as the Rabbit emerged from the same summoned gate through which he’d entered, “And rough, by the look of you.”
“Yeah,” Oro agreed with a tired nod of his head, his walk a little unsteady now, “You can definitely die the first time.” He sat down in the dirt, laying his new bat across his knees, and pulled an unmarked, wooden box out of the pocket of his hoodie. It barely fit inside the stretchy fabric, and had caused the knife to punch a hole in the pocket, but he figured this thing would have to be replaced after today anyway. “Is this stuff for real?” he huffed, opening the box to show her the thick stack of cash bills neatly tucked inside, “I’m not going to get busted for a fucking counterfeit when I try to spend it, am I?”
The ghost looked almost as surprised to see them as he’d been to find the box sitting in front of the gate as he was leaving. “Now that I think about it,” the spectral Fennec mused, “My champions always returned with coin stamped according to local mint. I don’t know how kings these days control currency, but I’m confident whatever The Gauntlet generated will be taken as authentic.”
“Good,” the Rabbit grunted, carefully stuffing the box back into his pocket, “Let’s go. I’m fucking hungry.”
“Hmm...that’s not the weapon you went in with, is it?” the ghost seemed more interested in his bat than his condition as he got reluctantly back to his feet. “And what other treasures did you find?”
“I got a fucking big gem, and a pretty knife,” he grunted, patting the stuffed pocket of his hoodie without attempting to pull anything out of it again. Waving the bat in her general direction as he started walking, Oro explained, “This is ‘Gorgorond’, I think. It’s fucking sick. I hit things and it cuts through them, but like a chainsaw. Like it’s fucking chewing through, really fast.”
The ghost chuckled. “A weapon befitting you, I’d say. That was a profitable run.”
“Sure,” he answered tiredly. It was a long, slow walk...and Oro was honestly beginning to wonder if he’d make it all the way without passing out. His legs burned. The adrenaline had been spent, leaving him keenly aware of just how many scratches and bites had been taken out of him. Most annoyingly, his ear stung fiercely. But he managed to stagger all the way back to the Hope house before fainting inside the door.
Oro awoke to a roiling grumble in his belly, like he hadn’t eaten in days. The last thing he remembered was getting through the door, suffering a sudden dizzy spell, and was pretty sure he’d fallen flat on his face on the other side. Now he was on his back, lying on something soft and warm, and not smelling like blood from head to foot.
“Oh! Hey, he’s awake!” Sarahi called as the Rabbit peeked one eye open to find her curled up on the floor beside the couch. Nayeli and Mrs. Hope appeared almost instantly, coming out the door of their room.
“The fuck are you doing here?” the grumpy Rabbit asked the Sha'khari, pressing a palm to his forehead as something inside it started pounding with a desperate desire to get out.
“That’s my question,” his foster-sister answered, sitting down beside his knees and pulling his hand away so she could check his temperature with her own hand, “You weren’t at the Swordbright’s when we got back from our run, so Sarahi came home with me, thinking we’d find you taking a nap or something.”
“I guess being passed out inside the door counts,” Sarahi frowned, seeming a little offended, “But you have some explaining to do about the rest.” She waved a hand over the whole of his body in general, stretched out on the couch in nothing but a pair of clean boxers and a blanket to cover it. They had stripped him of his bloody clothes, and spent a good portion of the first-aid supplies cleaning and bandaging his wounds. Even the torn tip of his ear had been soaked in ointment and wrapped.
Mrs. Hope interrupted, patting his head gently, “Before that...how much does it hurt? We were just trying to decide whether or not to take you to the hospital,” she admitted, a measure of guilt obvious on her face, “I am so sorry I didn’t hear you come home. I was sound asleep after—”
Oro shook his head and took a slow, deep breath, feeling it travel all the way through his chest. “I’m hungry,” he declared at last, “Other than that, I’m one big, dull ache. Nothing broken. I didn’t bleed out before you got to me, so I’ll be fine.”
The girls looked at each other, a little dubious of that assessment, but took it to mean he didn’t need more urgent treatment. “Well, that’s a relief,” Nayeli sighed, patting his leg very gently, “Now tell us what happened. And where those came from.” She pointed to the bat, the knife, the gem, and the box laid out on the carpet by the far wall.
“...I’m hungry,” the Rabbit repeated, patting his own belly firmly, making an empty pop like some kind of drum, “I’ll tell you everything around a sandwich and chips...and an apple...and—”
Mrs. Hope was already headed for the kitchen. “I’ll see what we have,” she promised, and returned after a few minutes with a small tv-tray piled high with snack foods and a thick sandwich.
Oro took half the sandwich in a single bite, chewing hurriedly. “Gah...gods forgotten,” he huffed after managing to swallow it, “Bread and cheese never tasted so good...” Stuffing the other half in his mouth, he started to get up while still chewing it...and was immediately pushed back down by Sarahi and Nayeli, both giving him stern looks. “Fahn,” he sighed around his mouthful, pointing across the room to his rewards, “Bing tha bauth.”
Still frowning, Sarahi trotted over and fetched the box...and the knife and gem while she was at it...and brought them to him. Oro immediately handed the box off to Mrs. Hope. “That’s yours. I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I kept it. And whatever I did probably wouldn’t be anything responsible,” he admitted.
She quirked a curious brow...and all three gasped when she opened the lid. Leafing over the top edges with a fingertip, the Lioness began counting quickly, her eyes growing larger as she went. They weren’t small bills. “Oro,” Mrs. Hope asked slowly, in as calm a tone as she could manage, “Where did you get this? There’s...more than a year...of my usual earnings in here.”
“It’s legal,” he assured her, knowing full well what her first concern was likely to be, but was forced to add, “I wouldn’t quite call it ‘legit’, but legal.”
He told them everything then...in between stuffing his face with what seemed like half the pantry, of course. He told them about following the freshmen, and the ritual, and the ghost. He told them about his bargain, and how he would be “paid”. He told them about summoning The Gauntlet, and the ordeal he’d gone through inside. He only had to gesture to the rewards he’d brought back out. “And plenty more where that came from,” he finished, setting the empty tray aside and leaning back on the couch, “If what she says is true, there’ll be even more next time. You can quit that tail-suck job finally. Or at least the side-gig.”
None of them said anything for a long minute. They’d barely said a word since he started his story. It was so outlandish, even for Oro, that they might have reasonably feared he had finally snapped...if the proof wasn’t sitting in the floor in front of them. After a few uneasy minutes, Mrs. Hope closed the box again and set it back by the other treasures he’d retrieved. “If you thought I’d be happy to hear you risked your life to pay our bills for a year, you are a very stupid boy,” she told him softly, “But I know you’re not, so you won’t be surprised to hear I am appalled, and there must not be a ‘next time’. Not for a year, or five years, or ten years worth of salary. You could have died,” she stressed, “And that would have been much harder on all of us than all the years of my work combined. I don’t even dislike my job, aside from the hours.”
The Rabbit sighed. She was right: he knew full well she wouldn’t actually be happy with this. But for a man of his abilities and temperament...options were slim. “I’m fucking worthless to you otherwise,” he growled, “Just soaking up your money and kindness. If I do die, you’d still be better off. Hell, you’d only miss me for—”
The sense of being struck across the face hit him hard, even though the blow never fell. Nayeli managed to catch herself with her hand still in the air. The wounded look in her eyes, though, delivered a far greater impact than her palm ever could. “So...selfish...,” she whispered with a quiver in her voice, then stood up and marched off to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Oro winced inside. Then he winced outwardly, as Sarahi made no effort at self-restraint and left a clear hand-print on his cheek. “Nayeli...,” she called, trotting off after the Lioness and cautiously slipping into the room with her, closing the door rather more gently behind them.
“...I think you know you deserved that,” Mrs. Hope admonished more gently after the younger pair had left, though even her typically patient smile had been replaced by a hurt frown. “You have reason to distance yourself, even from ‘family’. I have never blamed you for it. But you’re not just a line-item in the budget, you know. We took you in because Nayeli was worried about you, and what would become of you. And that was before we knew you so well.” The older Lioness reached out to pat his knee, restraining her own sniffles. “Well...before I knew you so well, anyway. I think now that my daughter must have seen who you could be a long time ago. I’ve caught glimpses of it since then...and I can see the attraction,” she chuckled, trying to put back her usual, light-hearted face. “Now, since ‘generous’ is not a word I would ever have used to describe you, I’m a little shocked by how hard you’re trying. And I’m grateful. Really. But please, please don’t undervalue yourself like that again. Not for all the money in the world.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead, then went to check on her daughter, and give him some space to think about what had just happened.
“They are good people,” Organa remarked from the stone that had been strung as a necklace around his neck.
“I told you so,” the Rabbit sighed, staring down at the box of cash hopelessly. It might as well just be a solid block of wood for all he cared about it at the moment. Not for the first time since coming to this house, Oro felt like dirt under their heels...felt that even dirt was more worthy of their kindness and patience than he had been. “Any chance you know a ritual to turn a man into an animal? I could at least be cuddly as a pet, even if I was angry.”
The Fennec shook her head. “I know only that such a spell exists in the world. I never found it, myself.”
Limits of a Champion
“I swear,” Sarahi vowed as she and Oro walked their old route to her home after school, “If it were anyone else, I’d call you cracked and cut ties with you.” It had been a week since his little foray into The Gauntlet...and she was still mad about it.
The Rabbit rolled his eyes. “Look, you don’t have to believe me. I get how crazy it sounds.”
“It’s not about believing you,” the Sha'khari snarled, “The ghost, the gate, the treasure...I believe all that, much as I’d like to think you were making it up. It’s that cavalier attitude you have about dying. And worse—,” she rounded on him, “Do you really think Mrs. Hope wouldn’t care? That Nayeli wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t care?! I have never been so insulted...and that’s including the day you rejected me. Oooo,” she was getting angrier the more she talked about it. That had been the pattern this week. She knew by now that she shouldn’t, but she’d had trouble thinking about almost anything else since they found him half-dead in the doorway that afternoon. “I cannot begin to tell you how much that bothers me, Oro. I can only imagine how Nayeli and her mom feel.”
“Yeah, well, you do a pretty good impression,” the Rabbit huffed.
Sarahi told herself not to slap him again. She’d already done that twice this week, and was frankly starting to wonder if he wasn’t just a little bit masochistic. The fact that he was still walking her home every day reassured her that he at least wasn’t holding it against her, whether he quite understood how she felt or not.
“Look, I promised to tell you the next time I get the crazy idea to run that thing again,” Oro reminded her, “If you think I’m afraid to follow-through on that, you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to. I don’t care what anyone thinks: if I decide to go, I’ll go, and not even you can stop me. So I will tell you, whether you like it or not. Get over it until then.”
She appreciated his honesty. And she really, really hated it sometimes. He had basically warned her it was a matter of when, not if, in spite of everything. And he seemed surprised that she was worried. Sarahi told herself not to slap him again...again.
“...On a related note,” she sighed, trying to change the subject at least a little, “You should definitely get your own phone. You know Mrs. Hope can afford it now, and—”
His ears twitched. Organa had started saying something while Sarahi was talking, and he was trying to make out both at once without letting on to Sarahi that he was distracted. That got a lot easier (or a lot harder, depending on how he looked at it) when she was cut off mid-sentence. The sidewalk had disappeared. The town had disappeared. It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t in the place he had been a few steps ago, and what he’d been hearing was Organa summoning her champion.
“Fuck, that’s disorienting,” the Rabbit growled, pulling his hood up over his ears and dashing toward the sound of the Fennec’s voice. He was near to her circle of stones.
“...not the only one taking precautions,” the Fennec was telling someone in a strained voice, as though forcing the words through pain. He caught sight of them through the trees: a female Dalmatian had Organa by the throat, somehow holding the ghost in her gloved hands. Oro cranked up his speed to a full sprint while Organa continued with a surprising amount of confidence: “While you were shopping for magic in foreign lands, I found a champion...,” she smiled.
She saw him coming, but too late to dodge. Oro hit like a wrecking ball, kicking right through Organa’s ethereal form to send the Dalmatian sprawling backward. He’d probably cracked one of her ribs, if he didn’t break it outright, and was surprised that she hadn’t screamed in pain or surprise either one. Then again, he was also surprised to find Gorgorond suddenly in his grip despite having left the bat at home that morning, so he decided to just assume it was going to be a surprising afternoon and roll with it.
“Fuck off,” Oro growled bluntly, leveling his bat at the Dalmatian.
“Funny, I was about to tell you the same thing,” answered a voice to his left. Another Dalmatian stepped out from behind a tree, his fists wrapped in sports tape with some kind of weird calligraphy on it. He was lean, well-defined, and his stance suggested he had some formal training. But Oro’s bigger concern was the other male approaching from his right: a big, muscle-bound Doberman with a bat of his own, also wrapped in that calligraphy. “If you thought we’d let her do this alone, you’re the idiot.”
“Don’t worry,” Organa assured him quietly, guessing at least part of his concern, “The writing is apparently a ‘talisman’ that lets them touch me. It doesn’t mean a thing to you.”
“How the fuck can they see you?” he hissed over his shoulder, “And what are they ‘doing’?” But he didn’t have time to get an answer before he had to decide which skull to crack first. He opted for the other weapon on the field, knowing he could take a hit from a fist, even a trained one, better than a bat. Luckily for him, the Doberman’s strategy seemed to be to overwhelm him with sheer size and strength. The bat came down in a hard overhead swing meant to crush any defense Oro put up, and maybe break his collarbone in the process. The Rabbit smirked at his opponent’s apparent concern for the aftermath of his strike.
Gorgorond hit the bat hard. A flash and clap like thunder were followed by the smell of ozone, surprising both combatants: the Doberman at the Rabbit’s strength, and the Rabbit that his bat hadn’t eaten through his enemy’s. The Doberman’s bat had cracked, but there was an obvious scorch-mark on Gorgorond as well. They exchanged a couple more swings, to similar effect, as Oro worked his way around the Doberman’s side, forcing the Dalmation to chase him.
“Why are you protecting that wi—!” the spotted Dog started to ask as he maneuvered close enough for a strike, hemming Oro in between him and his partner. His question was cut short as Oro unexpectedly finished closing that gap in the blink of an eye, kicking him hard enough to launch him back several feet before spinning to face the Doberman once again.
“I’m her champion,” the Rabbit growled, “It’s in the job description.” His next swing aimed for his opponent’s wrists instead of the warded bat. The Doberman responded by releasing his grip entirely and catching Oro’s bat mid-swing.
By the wince on his face, that stung more than he expected, but he had the weapon trapped, and the difference in their height allowed him to practically lift Oro off his feet if the Rabbit refused to let it go. “I hope the ‘champion’ brought a backup—wuff!” he hissed just as he started to pull, releasing the bat with a shake of his hands like it had bitten him. Judging by the red, raw skin of his palms, maybe it had. The fleshy-colored wood now carried two scarlet, hand-shaped stains.
Oro smirked. “That’s not a bad idea, but I think the one is enough for you,” he warned, leveling the bat at the now unarmed and injured Dog. “Last chance. Fuck off, all of you, before I get serious.”
Organa floated close to his back as the pair of Dalmatians began closing in again, and the Doberman forced his hands back into fists despite the pain. “Like Hell,” the big Dog growled, “I’ll die before I let that monster kill my niece.”
Oro swung at his knees. He side-stepped the swing, but not the foot that followed it, sweeping both legs out from under him, and Oro had the end of his bat resting on the Dog’s chest before he could roll away. “You want to spell that out for me?” Oro asked, standing over him like he had a sword to his chest. The sensation of his shirt being trapped in what felt like tiny teeth, all too ready to chew through it and right into his chest, kept the Doberman from making any more quick moves for the moment.
All three blinked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You don’t know what you’re defending?” the Doberman barked.
“A dead girl,” Oro answered without hesitation, “Who pays me. Probably a witch. I’m no historian. The fuck do you care?”
“That thing was the witch for which Witch-Mountain is named,” the female Dalmatian remarked surprisingly calmly, “And she intends to kill my nephew before he’s even left his mother’s womb.”
“You don’t even know which it is yet,” Organa chuckled smugly from behind Oro’s back.
“Like it matters!?” barked the male Dalmatian, “That’s my son, or daughter, you’re talking about! He’s not a hamburger!”
The Rabbit arched a brow and glanced over his shoulder at her. “‘S that true?”
The ghost shrugged noncommittally. “I feed on life-force to survive,” she reminded him, “The unborn are a rich source, without the will t—!!”
His bat caught her under her phantom ribs. A shock rippled through her, distorting her entire spectral form, and she screamed in pain. “HOW—?!” She was cut short again by another hit.
The Rabbit was gnashing his teeth, wringing his bat in both hands. “Your fucking ‘champion’,” he growled softly, ominously, as he clubbed her in the side again, knocking her spectral body flat on the ground, “Is a fucking foster brat,” he reminded her, emphasizing each statement with another clubbing as his voice slowly rose, “Whose own fucking parents couldn’t give a fuck if he lived or died, fuck how!” He took a moment to flat-out beat her, her screams growing a little weaker with each blow and her ghostly body more transparent. Had she been a living, breathing body...well, she wouldn’t be anymore by now. As it was, much to her horror though entirely unrealized by him, that monstrous weapon of his was even able to eat souls!
“Please...stop...,” the weakened spirit groaned, “Killing...yourself...” She was answered by a clap of the bat on her cheek. The nature of the spell on the oath binding them was such that if he failed to keep her spirit safe, he would die. Either he didn’t know, or he didn’t care. It was beyond believing that he didn’t know. He should be feeling every blow he dealt to her echoed in his own body.
“So when he sees actual fucking parents fucking fighting for their fucking kid’s life, and they don’t even know him yet,” he was practically roaring now, still emphasizing his rant with his bat, “You better fucking believe he’s on their side!”
Organa’s form, all but invisible now, melted and flowed into the stone around his neck, desperately seeking shelter from the rain of blows on her very existence. “Won’t...touch...it,” she promised faintly, “I...swear...”
The bat finally stopped rising. His breath was ragged now, and his mouth hung open with the effort of pulling each lungful of air. Somehow, he still found enough strength in them to spit a little more venom at her. “Fucking right you won’t,” the Rabbit panted, “And you’d better pray...to every forgotten god whose name you still know...that kid’s born kicking like a fucking Olympic soccer champ.” Taking a few deep breaths, he pulled himself fully upright again, with some effort, and scowled at the trio of Dogs watching wide-eyed and full of confusion. “I,” he growled at them, “Am Oro Ironheart. If it’s not a picture of health at birth...you come find me, and we’ll finish this.” His tone left no ambiguity about exactly what he would finish. “That said...we’re done here,” he dragged his bat back onto his shoulder with a light thump, doing his best to look action-ready again, “Now: Fuck. Off. Before I have to do my job again.”
Whether they took him at his word or simply decided they’d encountered a variety of crazy they weren’t prepared for today, they nodded silently, and slowly backed away until they felt secure putting their backs to him. As soon as they were out of sight, Oro flopped onto the ground, curling up in a ball and hugging his own ribs. “Fuuuuuuuck,” he hissed, “You bitch witch! I told you no murder!”
“Except me, apparently,” she huffed back, recovering her strength a little more quickly than he was (although that was entirely due to the fact she was stealing it from him), “You really...would have killed me...and yourself as well.”
“Fuck yes, I would,” he growled, though his eyes were squeezed shut against the pain that didn’t actually seem to originate in his body, “What kind of fucking ‘champion’ lets a baby get killed, even by his boss? How in Hell would I even look Nayeli in the eye if I let that happen? Fuck you.”
“I wasn’t asking you to get your hands dirty,” she noted, “And we have a very serious problem if you won’t bring me lives to feed on or let me find them on my own.”
“We’ll find another way,” the Rabbit insisted, “There’s got to be another way. Not fucking kids. Babies, even? Fuck off.”
“Your vocabulary of obscenities is staggeringly limited,” the ghost sighed from inside her stone, “But...well, you’re not wrong. I do know a spell to generate life-force without feeding on the already living. But the process is slow, the materials are rare and expensive—or at least they were back in my day—and you will have to run The Gauntlet again for one of them. Are you sure that’s the road you wish to take?”
“Yeah,” he huffed, slowly relaxing as the pain began to ebb at last, “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll take that fucking Gauntlet over the alternative any day.”
She flowed out of the stone again, so that he could see her looking him over contemplatively. “You are very strange,” Organa declared, “And I don’t know whether I respect your resolve or want to see your nose cut off in spite for what you just did. But if that is your choice, so be it. Help me gather the materials while you prepare, and we’ll save The Gauntlet for last.”
“Great. Now I just have to explain to Sarahi why I fucking vanished in the middle of our walk,” he grumbled, “Give a guy some warning next time.”
She tilted her head side to side. “Probably not possible. You realize my life is in danger when I summon you across distance, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Oro grumbled, finished pulling himself together, and started the trek back down the mountain.
“Hey!” Nayeli greeted as he walked through the door, “Are you okay? Sarahi called and said you disappeared on her halfway home. It kind of scared her.”
“I’m fine,” he huffed, “Got called to do my job, that’s all. Gave the ghost Hell for it, too. Now I’m fucking hungry. I’ll call Sarahi after dinner.”
Nayeli, sitting on the couch with her homework spread out on her lap, gave him a concerned look. “Your job? You mean...‘champion’? Body-guard? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you all about it after dinner. Hungry,” he emphasized, heading into the bathroom to wash his hands before plowing them into whatever Nayeli had set out for them.
He was at it for quite a while. Long enough that Nayeli was becoming concerned, and was just about to go knock and ask if he was alright when he finally opened the door. His teeth were grit and his fists balled, like he wanted to punch someone but was restraining himself...something rare for him to attempt. “I know how this sounds, so don’t freak out. Just tell me if you can see this,” he growled, extending one of his hands toward her and opening his fist to show her his palm.
The young Lioness’ eyes went wide and she set her book aside. “Gods forgotten, Oro, is that blood?!”
“No,” he grunted, the tension in his shoulders melting in relief, “It’s my fur. Nobody got cut today, or even hurt...badly. There wasn’t any blood,” he assured her, casting a suspicious glare at the bat he’d instinctively tucked into the corner beside the front door as he walked through it. The clear handprints that Doberman had left on it were still there, seemingly engrained in the wood now. “I...I think Gorgorond stained me. It won’t wash off, so I wondered if it was really there. Guess I haven’t gone full fucking King MacLear yet, or whatever.” The memory of the scarlet-furred Rabbit he’d gotten the bat from flashed through his thoughts. Had that mirror been showing him his future...?
Nayeli arched a brow, running her fingers over his palm to confirm for herself. “You mean Macbeth? I think it was his wife that started hallucinating...” The fact that he wondered that about himself was far from reassuring to her.
