Sugar And The Champion

Sugar was bored.

And Sugar being bored was a delicious recipe for delectable disaster…

It was Friday, and she wanted to do something. Anything. School was out for the weekend. What she really wanted to do was hunt, but she was not really sure if that was wise. Besides, she had no one specifically scheduled on her calendar. However, her blood was up, and the lust to kill was upon her. To make matters worse, this particular weekend, she was without oversight. Unlike most teenagers, Sugar felt more at ease with the structure and supervision X and certain others provided.

Of late, X was increasingly giving her more freedom and rein. Allowing her to roam the City, and do as she pleased. It never stopped him from chiding her about her missteps or mistakes, but he was definitely shepherding her from beneath his wing. That left her weekend open and clear, as there were no specific targets on her docket at present.

Unfortunately, everyone who provided a stopgap for her darker urges were either out of town, or otherwise engaged…but she was so bored.

She would have to make other plans. This was Lost Peaks. There was always something or someone to do in Lost Peaks. Problem was, almost all of her close friends it seemed were busy. On her own Sugar tended to find trouble, or maybe it just found her.

Whatever…

She didn’t want to go home. The warehouse was empty. X was away on business. Ms. Crump had her hands full with all the new charges with which Sugar was supplying her. She was now the de facto head mistress of an orphanage for lost girls. Sugar supposed she could go to the converted hotel where Crump was warehousing the girls, but collective gaze of those hollow-eyed lasses, who looked on her with a worshipful adoration, was almost torture to Sugar. It was like looking into a reflection of her soul.

Sugar tried to focus, but her insides were itching.

Sugar hated being alone. There was nothing to distract her. Being alone meant her only company were the lusts raging inside her.

To slay or to fuck, that was the question which throbbed in her mind when the lights went out. She always wanted to fuck, but the urge to kill was surging like tsunami. If she did not get a hold of herself, it would drowned out all else until the desire for mayhem was sated.

She wanted to hunt, but the more she thought about, the more she was sure there was no wisdom in that course. Yet The Itch was burning rather incessantly, and that could lead to a bloody catastrophe… literally. How she wished somebody were there to distract her from certain stygian thoughts.

She needed someone to rein her in, and keep her straight. X, Ms. Crump, Jimmy, Killer, her friends from school, somebody… She hated being alone.

But no one was around.

Well, almost no one.

Lu was working on a project, and wanted to focus. Sugar was always excellent at drawing Lumina away from her focus, so Lu politely asked if she could opt out of any of this Friday night’s activities. Otherwise Sugar would have would have been over at the Mechanic’s house, pestering Lu and her father. She liked Iggy very much. However, Professor Mechanic had been much more lucid of late, and that meant he thought relations with Sugar were no longer appropriate. No longer lost in the miasma of his thoughts, and cloistered in his lab, Iggy was trying to be a dutiful father, and paying much more attention to his daughter. That was how it should be, but it left Sugar somewhat the odd girl out. She wasn’t angry at the two because of it, but it did leave her feeling a mite shiftless and out of sorts.

Zen was out.

One of Zen’s brothers had just had a child, and the family was celebrating in the small town south of Lost Peaks where said brother resided. The Family Gunn took events like a birth very seriously. Sugar thought it was all kinds of silly, but in a way she envied the Gunn’s solidarity. They had offered to take her along, but she declined. She again felt so out of place at their religious meetings, especially if they were outside the City. Saints in Lost Peaks accepted Sugar’s eccentric peccadillos, like her almost complete lack of modesty in dress and comportment. Down in Zion territory, that would not be the case.

All the rest of the Riders were out of town on an away game. Rucker could have kept her occupied, and out of trouble, but alas, her big teddy bear was gone too.

She would have welcomed anybody, but especially Lu, Zen, or Rucker.

Of all her friends, that only left one.

The new girl, Nasti.

Sugar liked Nasti well enough, except…they were a little too alike in some ways. There was a distinct possibility that hanging with Nasti would only fuel Sugar’s desire to paint the City red, on way or another.

Nasti had made the most of her first week at Dark Peak Prep. From the moment Amity confronted Nastika Quixotis, and they launched into a catfight that only ended when the Head Master was en route, causing everybody split to the four winds in a rush. Everyone that is, but Sugar. She stayed to hassle the good Doctor, as she always did.

The fight was a stalemate, but the wickedly scathing affair acted like trumpet had sounded, announcing Nasti was in the house. In the next few days, Nasti had collected her own little click in rapid order, coming in the forms of a trio of little strumpets with rhyming monikers, Moxy, Roxy, and Foxy.

Moxy, an ivory skinned Asian with heritage out of Cathay, was quite slim, but still exotically sexy. Her submissive attitude lent her to being a convenient pump for any boy popular enough to keep her relevant in the school hierarchy. Roxy was a caramel colored mulatto girl, with curves like a Le Mans race course, and penchant for using them to their full effect, and often. Foxy was a tall, athletic, overly bronzed, platinum blonde, with startling green eyes, and full lips just born to suck cock, and she was known for just such a specialty, among other salacious abilities.

In a clickishly stratified institution like Dark Peak Prep, Sugar found it strange that those three hadn’t found each other sooner, but it seemed that they needed the catalyst of Nasti to finally come together in one tart-tastic package.

It definitely had been a busy week for Nasti since her explosive Monday arrival on campus. After her knockdown drag-out with Amity, the Crystal Peak Academy Reject had been a magnet for the disaffected and odd men out in Dark Peak’s halls.

It had been a rough year for Amity so far, what with Sugar’s appearance in school on the first day, and then Nasti’s arrival as new brand new second rival, and to Amity’s dismay, it seemed that her two rivals not only tolerated each other, but got on well. Nasti was tough as hardened leather, and looked the part in all her punk regalia, but she still was an undeniably beautiful girl. Her hair color seemed to change daily as did the contacts she wore in her eyes. Tattoos and body mods seemed to shift on Nasti constantly on her skin. The threads of Nasti’s goth-punk look were as vacillating as any other affectation about her. Sugar had the distinct feeling that Nasti did her best to camouflage her beauty for some reason.

That didn’t mean that she didn’t use her pulchritude to her advantage. Nasti had in her one week acquired quite a rep. Not only for being a chick you didn’t want to cross, but as a bit of a wanton as well. When it came to sex, similarly to Sugar, she thought very much like a male. If she saw a fellah that did the trick for her, then she’d fuck him. There had been at least six lucky boys that got to sample Nasti’s charms during her inaugural week at Dark Peak Prep, and that was only the ones that Sugar knew about. She was sure there were more. Roxy, Moxy, and Foxy obviously followed suit, but they each had a preexisting reputation for such behavior before Nasti’s arrival anyway. Amity was already calling Nasti’s click the Slut Squad, which Nasti seemed to take pride in, rather than be offended; much to Amity’s frustration and chagrin.

Nasti did not govern her sexual urges at all, unlike Sugar. However, Sugar knew the depths to which she could sink, if she were unchecked, and as uninhibited as Nasti was being, concerning sexual matters, the new girl was not even a sputtering spark to the supernova burning in Sugar.

Casual observers would have said that Sugar and Nasti were kindred spirits, but in fundamental motives the two girls were quite different. Nasti did things to rebel, like any other pugnacious teenager. Sugar had some of that stripe in her, but her intense focus was what kept her from flying apart. Nasti took all her concentrated focus to find new ways to be outrageous. Sugar never needed to try to be edgy and extreme. She just was. Sugar was everything Nasti was trying desperately to be, without any effort at all.

Nasti was bad, and cool, and hot, but Sugar was something else entirely. One might think that would have rankled Nasti, but it seemed not to bother her at all. There was no competition between them…at least not yet. Who knew how their relationship would evolve? Nasti could tell in her essence that Sugar was not to be trifled with, at least until she could be weighed and measured for potential threats. To Nasti, Sugar, as she was to most everyone, was an enigma, and that made the cocky punk girl cautious and respectful of the petitely exquisite, little blond.

Not so however with Amity. Nasti knew full well who and what Amity was, as Nasti had been queen bee of The Color click over at Crystal Peak Academy. Nasti knew the game between them. Their fight on Nasti’s first day had ended in a draw, but had set a precedent. In the microcosm of Dark Peak High, Nasti was a force with which to be reckoned.

After a week, she had collected the core of her click, with the Trollop Trio, and a cadre of boys that would bow and scrape for them at their beck and call, if they continued to dole out the pussy on a regular basis. That ol’ reciprocity rule. Dig?

Yes, Nasti was more blatant than Amity in this comportment, but she knew her game. Besides, she was starting to build her power base from scratch. Going to the lowest common denominator in such machinations is the easiest way to secure one’s position. There are consequences to these specific actions, but they can be overcome, once said position is firmly cemented. But beyond that, Nasti simply just loved to fuck! So a little reputation, in that regard, didn’t bother her in the least bit.

To the chagrin of Ammon Auric, in a capricious gambit, Sugar had included Nasti in the Riders’ select group, and Nasti had proceeded to test Sugar by giving her a minor slight of disrespect, just to see her reaction. Sugar’s response, or lack thereof, surprised Nasti. She also noted that Sugar completely ignored most shit thrown her way by just about anyone in school. It was as if Sugar was beyond the juvenile games of adolescence. If Nasti had been honest, it unnerved the hell out of her.

However, Sugar had taken an early affinity to Nasti, simply because of the girl’s innate chutzpah, and basically demanded, in her irresistible way that the boys, and Lu make her a Rider. Sugar discerned that Nasti was thoroughly impressed by the gesture, but Nasti had tried her damnest to act cool and nonchalant.In truth, though Nasti would never have admitted it, but she was very flattered and pleased that Sugar had nominated her to be a Rider.

Then Nasti had pushed her own welcome with all the Riders, but most pointedly with Sugar, when she went ahead and brought in the Trollop Trio to the clubhouse. Ammon, to say the least, was very put out. Nasti felt she had to assert a certain dominance; that she was beholden to no one, so the inclusion her posse in her membership without consulting the rest of the Riders had been her way of saying, “Fuck you! You don’t own me!” If Nasti had been a guy, Sugar was sure he would have punched her in the face. The subversive side of Sugar’s nature would have liked to see that fight.

The whole ploy was a calculated risk. Nasti knew she was sticking a finger in Ammon Auric’s eye, and that could backfire big time, but she was telling them she was a bitch, but she wasn’t their bitch.

Ammon reacted as she expected, but she was sure she could handle him. The boy was not the type to play hardball with a girl over something like she had done, so she just stuck her chin out belligerently and dared him to do something, to which he just fumed futilely. Nasti kind of expected Sugar to bristle some at her action, but Sugar seemed to ignore the Trio’s addition in the Riders, and Ammon’s impotent howling as a matter of course. All of which made Ammon even more grumpy.

The only thing Nasti saw Sugar do was wrap her arms gently around Ammon’s neck, pressing her body to his, which made Ammon melt, and at the same time look very uncomfortable, then she whispered something in his ear. At that Ammon quieted down, but was nowhere near mollified, as he sulked constantly for the next two days until the team left for the road game. It seemed even vaunted Ammon Auric was relative putty in Sugar’s hands. Impressive.

The other Riders were noncommittal on the subject, waiting to see how the matter shook out before showing their hands. Cowards, thought Sugar, but what was done was done. But she was sure the other boys weren’t to distraught, as the inclusion of a bevy of pretty girls is always welcome to a group of adolescent males.

Even though Sugar was glad she nominated Nasti to be a Rider, she too was a hair hesitant about the inclusion of her Trio of toadies. The little sluts were nice enough, but just a bit vapid. Very pretty though, but Sugar’s concern stemmed from whether or not the Trio could keep their mouths shut about the club house.

She was not alone. Ammon was still furious, and at Sugar as well for bringing in Nasti, but then again Ammon was a worrywart in any case. The rest of the Riders showed equal, but quiet trepidation when Nasti showed up with the three girls in the Den, though Nasti assured them all that the girls would keep silent. Sugar was sure that Nasti had threatened them with extreme bodily harm if they peeped a word of the secret place, but Sugar had had a little talk with each of them privately, just in case.

If they were frightened of Nasti, then now they were goddamn terrified of Sugar. Sugar could do that to people if she put her mind to it. But still Sugar worried that the silly girls would blab without thinking. It was not that they were completely stupid, but that that they were just thoughtless teenagers, and those were always a security risk, but in the end she held her tongue and just ignored the whole incident.

However, Nasti herself was not sure what to make of Sugar’s overall reaction. She felt that Sugar was merely tolerating her defiance, as Nasti had not yet done anything to merit true retaliation. This tepid indifference threw Nasti off balance. She had been prepared for some kind of posturing, and the like, but Sugar’s complete apathy on the matter gave Nasti pause. Nasti had the distinct feeling she was trapped in a cage with a very well fed predator, and everything was copacetic until that predator got hungry again. Sugar had not been pushed too far yet. Which was a good thing, as Nasti was not at all sure she wanted to test Sugar any further, by crossing some invisible line in the sand. Nasti was not even sure where that line was, and that made her very cautious indeed.

What Nasti was sure of, was that if she messed with Sugar’s bosom friends, IE Lu, Zen, or Ruck, then Nasti could definitely expect retaliation. Of what kind she was not clear, but Nasti would hold off for a while before probing Sugar’s limits again. Best build up a smidge of trust before she tried to widen her sphere of influence.

Sugar had of course discerned all of this, and taken it all in stride. The politics of Dark Peak Prep were literally child’s play to her. In an odd way, it even endeared Nasti to her. The girl wasn’t an idiot, definitely had guts, and she walked the walk. Sugar supposed could roll with that.

Nasti was glad of that. For all her bravado, Nasti was sure she did not want to cross Sugar too far. Sugar had a heavy rep. In the high school scene of Lost Peaks, it was a far reaching rep. All the elite clicks of the diverse private schools around the Claims of Lost Peaks; The Color over at Crystal Peak Academy; The Caldron down at the Flame Peak Institutional; The Crust up at Frost Peak Superior, The Cut at Eagle Peak Charter, The Corona at Sun Peak Selective, The Clouds at Sky Peak Monitorial, The Core at Star Peak Foundational, and of course The Cream at Dark Peak Preparatory, had heard all about what Sugar had done to Amity on the first day of class.

Sugar’s exploits at Dark Peak were becoming legend, and were closely monitored by the other elite clicks at the rival schools in the City. Even kids in the public schools had heard of her. Sugar may not have known it, but her rep was quite wide spread among the peers of her age across the great metropolis.

Though Sugar had restrained herself, for the most part, from sexual activity in school, Sugar’s rep for being a freaknik for the coitus went before her like a virus. Every boy thought he had a shot at her goodie-goods, but there was a caveat to that assumption.

Now males say they dream of a girl with an appetite for sex a great as theirs, but what if that need in the female exceeds theirs by many fold. When face to face with Sugar, her ambient sexuality extremely intimidated almost all males, young or old. The small girl’s wanton, hungry grin, coupled with her ice blue eyes flashing like cold fire, made them weak in the knees, clench their stomach, and loose the balls to ask the fateful question. Would she or wouldn’t she do the do with them?

She could see that question in almost every male’s eyes, and a majority of females. Because she knew herself, and her own inclinations, she used this forwardly aggressive trick as a defense. The aura of her sexual predator persona excited most others, but scared the shit out of them at the same time. Only a very few had the guts to approach her, and get the first line out. Those that fought passed their fear, well, they were either worthy of a little taste of the good stuff, or the kind of shitheads that deserved a proper lesson in manners.

If they were pushy, obnoxious, rudely aggressive, or the like, she’d ignore them as if they did not even exist, and if they persisted she’d teach them what an irritation they were to her.

It was a type of litmus test.

Now if they were gentlemen…well, that was a different matter. But few of those there were to proposition her. If all those boys and men had only known… All they had to do was ask the question politely and directly, in some manner similar to the following.

“Excuse me, but would you please have sex with me?”

And Sis-Boom-Bah! Rah-Rah-Rah! She would drag them into the closest closet or wherever they liked, draw them between her legs, and she would take them briefly to paradise. Sadly, for most, they never knew that one simple secret into her good graces.

If they had, she might never have gotten anything done except constant fucking.

Though her actions did not match her desire, her rep did. Fabricated stories about her abounded as the boys’ over active libidinous imagination got the better of them. This fueled girl-talk in either female contempt, envy, or outright admiration of Sugar, and the stories and tales of her exploits ran wild, and grew to epic proportions.

Sugar didn’t care. The Truth about her was far more obscene and depraved in any event. If the Truth had ever floated on the grapevine it would have fried people’s synapses. But even Sugar didn’t know the whole Truth. The whole Truth was still hidden, lurking in the darkness like an unknown monster, just waiting to be found.

The Real Truth haunted Sugar, teased her with mental and emotion agony, because she did not know why she was what she was. Why she hade been formed. Her eidetic remembrances held only traces of her brief life before she was immersed in filth and horror. Shadows passing through hazy slivers of light; mere flashes of things never understood, unfathomable impressions never fully realized and forever lost.

Her perfect memory tormented her, for it remembered all, but as her mind in those formative days had not fully matured; thus these remembrances were disjointed, and constantly morphed and twisted in maddeningly random patterns, like the thoughts of schizophrenic stuck spinning in a centrifuge. All her senses of that time were meshed, blurred, and wrapped one upon another, as sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste merged into a quagmire of fetid thought.

And so she tucked those memories away deep, because they were too painful, too much like staring into the abyss with only the hollow vacuum of Nothingness to turn to for relief.

The Nothingness Of Being Sugar.

Married to the need for Vengeance…

Still her boredom crept in, making her restless, and she looked out of the warehouse windows at the City, and mused on what dark diversions she could find there to alleviate the tedium. Yet she her better nature wanted a companion to distract her, and maybe minimize the damage, and that just left Nasti, even though she might be more curse than cure.

And so as the weekend rolled in, even though she had the nagging yen to hunt, there was just no defined prey to seek. Still Lost Peaks was Lost Peaks, and always full of deserving victims, and the City called out to her. So, she could go on a fishing expedition and see what she trolled up from the muck, or...there was Nasti.

So that Friday night, as a last resort, Sugar did called Nasti, and asked if she was going out, and what do you know? She was. Who knew?

Nasti and the Trio were going to an underground fighting arena out on Steam Isle. These particular fights were no legally sanctioned matches. No, they were no-holds-barred, meat grinding, skull busting, pit fights, where people could very easily die, and often did.

Sugar really wasn’t very interested, as to her these fighters were nothing but amateurs, but she was bored, so… Whatever. It was either that, or roaming the City’s streets aimlessly, and maybe hitting a club. There wasn’t a club in the City that would not let her in. She was the kind of eye candy such places would pay top dollar to just be seen in their joint. And as always Sugar could get into The Source with no trouble, as she and Slick Jimmy were on a first name basis. Now come on; how many girls got to call him Uncle Jimmy, and not be directly related to him?

But for some reason she did not want to divulge that particular secret to Nasti. They didn’t know each other well enough. The fact that Sugar was well acquainted with Lost Peaks’ First Son would elicit questions she was not ready to answer with Nasti and her posse. She thought about going to the Source alone, but she was unsure what X would say about such an action. And there was the little matter that Jimmy was almost uncontrollably attractive to Sugar, and he was one of the few males she was not completely positive she could control. Jimmy made her feel out of control in many ways, and that was…disconcerting.

And that was not even mentioning a possible visit to Killer Kadillak’s Cathedral; his famous-cum-infamous casino and brothel. Not to be monotonous, but Sugar had quite the intense attraction to Killer as well, though with him she was in control, but she got the feeling that X and Killer had come to an understanding concerning her. Killer was always very respectful towards her; the perfect gentleman, never even broaching pimping her out, and that was remarkable, considering he was the premier procurer in all of Lost Peaks. Be that as it may, she was certain Killer would have welcomed her into his establishment with open arms, but again, Sugar was pretty sure given her proclivities, that hanging out in a brothel was a very bad idea.

Maybe hitting The Source or The Cathedral would be another night… In any event, just roaming the City was a good way to get into trouble, as Sugar’s mind too often wandered into dark corners for general diversion. And in Lost Peaks there were so very many deep dark corners, and even darker diversions.

So underground fighting it was to be, at least for that evening.

Nasti was quartered at the school’s dorms. Nasti was on her Family’s shit list, and thus she was staying in their form of a dog house. Despite all her family’s vast wealth, they were not even shelling out for private accommodations. They gave her one command. Graduate from Dark Peak Prep, or be completely cut off. Other than that she could do whatever she liked, as long as she kept a low profile.

Nasti didn’t give a fuck. However, Nasti did intent on graduating. After that she had no clue. She thought her Family was, for the most part, a cluster-fuck of pretentious shits that had absolutely no style whatsoever. The Quixotis had been trying to put forth a viable candidate to make a run for the Union Presidency for years, and Nasti just didn’t fit the mold they were trying to portray as a Family. Officially, she was one of her Family’s bohemian eccentrics. Unofficially, she was a black sheep embarrassment.

Getting kicked out of Crystal Peak Academy had been a last straw. Beforehand, She had been kicked out of Eagle Peak Charter in her home Claim of Capital Bluff during her Freshman year. Something about pissing on the Headmistress from the stage rigging during a school assembly. After her dismissal from Crystal Peak, she was given a very small allowance, at least paltry for one of the inner members of the Great Houses, and supposedly restricted to the Dark Peak campus. Nasti, of course, said bollocks to that, and snuck out almost every night, but what did the Family expect? She still had possession of her own car, and the use of the Family’s limo service. So much for strictures.

In any event, that specific night, she and the Trio were taking their salacious show on the road to the southern island of Hourglass Lake, the grungy industrial hub, of Steam Isle. Of all the Claims, Steam Isle was by far the most blue-collar. Fully seventy percent of the population of the Claim worked in the geothermal power plants on the island. Steam Isle’s turbines were the electrical dynamos that lit the blazing lights of Lost Peaks, as more geysers spouted on Steam Isle than anywhere else in the Valley. Once harnessed, the geysers were a seeming unlimited supply of electricity for the teeming life of Lost Peaks.

But like any other Claim in the City, there was a bustling nightlife on Steam Isle. The Claim specialized in sporting events. Scattered around the Isle, built into the scenic chasms and ravines between the island’s rocky heights there were multiple arenas and stadiums for the different sports being proffered, but where Nasti and the Trio, and now Sugar, were going was not above ground. No, in was beneath one of the gargantuan power plants, deep in the earth. One of City’s dirty, little secrets.

The gladiatorial games of Lost Peaks. They happened all over the City in different venues and configurations, and down in The Deeps, the fights were always to the death, fought by the desperate denizens who lived there, or the truly fanatical and adrenalin addicted junkies who ventured below to test their metal, but the Steam Isle Pit was the big time, with all the attending prestige, and a big purse for each tournament won.

All Lost Ones knew of the Steam Isle fights. If you lived long enough in the City, you were bound to hear about them, but hearing about them, and getting in to see them live were two very different things. The brutal tournaments were highly illegal by state and federal law, but that never stopped any moneymaking endeavor from happening in Lost Peaks before.

Oh, and there was definitely money to be made. The streaming live, crystal clear XHD directcasts over the supernet alone was a multibillion dollar operation. And that didn’t include the betting, nor the merchandising. The fights were watched worldwide, and for those who avidly followed them, the long time survivors were big stars.

There was a new champion however. They called him Kid Dragon, a half white, half yellow breed from across the ocean. He was undefeated is sixty-four matches as he worked up through the ranks, and had successfully defended his title another twelve times in the last month. The Kid, as they called him for short, was the odds on favorite to be in the main event against the other most favored tournament fighter, a beast of a man, enigmatically and hubristically known as Godsmasher.

Godsmasher, as well can be imagined, was a titan of a man; standing six foot ten inches, and looked like he was cast of blackened bronze. He had decimated opponents, in his thirty-six fights, killing seven, and maiming or crippling for life thirteen others.

Kid Dragon had killed no one, but none of his seventy-six fights had gone even to the minute mark, before he either incapacitated or submitted his opponents.

This would be The Kid’s twentieth tournament. To survive a tournament and move up in rank you had to battle in four fights in one night. Other lower echelon tournaments were held on other days of the week, but Friday was Championship night. The supposed best of the best.

Fights did not have rounds or rules. A fight ended when one fighter declared himself clear winner because the other fighter was unable to continue, or had quit outright. The latter was not a good move by the way. Crowds did not like quitters. Fighters were more likely to die outside the Pit if they quit, than inside the Pit if they were incapacitated. In any case, it was more favorable to die with honor in the Pit, then to live a coward for eternity; or that least that’s how fans saw it.

Sugar had never seen such a spectacle. She had seen combat, but never organized bloodsport, but to her even the term bloodsport was ridiculous. These fools did not know the real meaning of bloodsport in her book.

Only once before had Sugar been to Steam Isle. It was not a Claim X frequented often, and there was little to recommend it to Sugar. She had been meaning to come and lay out nude on the black sand beaches of the Isle, but never got around to it. If they stayed through the night maybe Sugar could talk Nasti and the girls into a visit to the beach in the morning before they headed back to Far Plains.

As previously inferred, to get into the fights, you had to know Somebody, or have a shit load of money. Sugar knew several Somebodies, but she was not inclined to drop those names in Nasti’s company. Again, Sugar didn’t know the girl and her entourage all that well. Luckily, Nasti was a Quixotis. A child of one of the Great Houses got a free pass anywhere in the City, even in a rival Family’s Claim, and all her friends were piggybacked in with her.

The truth was, Sugar didn’t have to know anybody. She just had to show her face. It wasn’t a famous face, but there was no one like Sugar, both in appearance and presence. X had taught her a technique. A mind trick, if you will. Bluntly, it went like this, believe you belonged, and others would follow suit, almost blindly. Couple that attitude with Sugar’s mind-bending pulchritude, and no one ever stood in her way when she put her mind to it. Her beauty and aura were a skeleton key into anywhere she wanted to go. She moved as if she owned the entire City, and doors just sprang open before her. People simply thought she was Somebody and acted accordingly.

Strangely, Sugar hardly ever used her trick. Her face usually sufficed. Any red blooded, straight male would practically kiss her feet, and let her do anything or go anywhere she felt like going. She never made a big deal about it, but some girls in her near vicinity often shot eyes at her, as if they were fighting the desire to dive screeching at her and tear her to shreds. Usually, these malevolent looks came from the other beauties in the room, and most often they were rich and famous.

This was one of the major reasons Sugar found most females so taxing. She hated running competition with them. In reality, none of them were competition at all; they were simply just annoying, with all their snide and snarky comments said just behind her back, and sometimes right to her face. X had firmly told her to refrain from braining such imbecilic twits, and though he said nothing about slapping the shit out of them, she was sure it was implied. So she ignored them, and smiled her scintillatingly Cheshire grin back at their own proffered, grimacing, crocodile smiles, which of course infuriated them even more.

One might find it contradictory, but even after all the horrors certain males had perpetrated upon her in the past, Sugar still generally preferred the company of the masculine sex to her own gender. They were more predictable, and far more direct in their communication. You knew where you stood with most males, good or bad. Females were always angling with two faces, playing one friend off another. Everything they said had two meanings, and whatever Sugar said to them would be twisted, then blasted back at her. That’s why she was so direct if she actually spoke to another female. If everything was out in the open, it was much harder to fuck Sugar over behind her back.

There were exceptions.

Sugar loved Lumina. Sweet Lu never played games. In her way, she was like Sugar, as she only said what she meant, although it was in her quiet way. However, unlike Sugar, Lu was always very, very kind, almost to a fault. Sugar could definitively attest in all sincerity that she had never encountered a more giving, honest person than Lumina Mechanic. Sugar found it perplexing that more people could not readily see those attributes in lovely Lu-Lu.

Sugar figured she liked Nasti for a similar reason. Conversely, Nasti was anything but sweet, though she was just as straight up with people. If she didn’t like you she’d let you know it, and likewise you’d know it if she dug you. Nasti did not bullshit. She was a stand up chick. Sugar knew however that Nasti was cunning minx. She was not vapid and oblivious like her Trio of sycophants. Nasti could play the game if she had to, but she liked to rewrite the rules according to Nasti’s Law. Maybe that was also part of why Sugar liked her, but did not quite trust her.

But still, Sugar was sure that hanging with Nasti would never be dull. More than likely the two of them would compete to see who could be the most outrageous. If it came down to that, Sugar would win hand down, no contest, but that was not really her objective, though almost certainly Nasti would think it was. Sugar could tell that the new girl was still trying to figure her out. Nasti was constantly observing Sugar, analyzing and cataloging her every move and syllable for later reference.

Nasti still saw Sugar as competition, but as of yet still held a great deal of respect for Sugar. Sugar wondered hypothetically what Nasti would think and do if she knew the Truth about Sugar’s past. Would the girl loose or gain respect for Sugar. Sugar was not sure. Maybe that was another reason why Sugar liked Nasti. She hadn’t quite figured everything out about her either. But then again, maybe Sugar just liked Nasti because she surely was hot lil’ piece of ass, and as ever that old burning lust inside Sugar wanted to fuck the spunky-punky, rich girl.

Whatever the reason, Nasti, her Trio, and Sugar, showed up at the entrance of the Ordinal Grand Geothermal Hub #13, a little after 10:30 PM. The huge facility was set deep in the picturesque mountains of the island’s interior. Once off Hourglass Lake’s Far Plains to Steam Isle ferry, it took Sugar a full hour and fifteen minutes to get there using the surface streets and roads, as she had not wanted to get lost in the maze of Steam Isle’s SuperSub. So finally, Sugar rode in on her rumbling chopper the fenced parking area of the plant. Her bike of the moment was a blood red Big Dog K-9 chopper, with gold chrome and a demonic mural of an intricate hellscape painted across its tank and fenders. It was quite the badass scooter. Of course X never would never buy a sissified motorcycle of any sort.

Sugar parked the bike in an out of the way spot, and swung of the bike with practiced ease, then stowed her little purse, which held her phone, ID, credit card, cash, and keys, in a compartment under the seat. Being with Nasti, she would need none of it. Nasti was of one of the Great Houses, so everything would be carte blanche.

Sugar she touched the softly glowing white gem in the Ankh pendant at her neck to remotely arm the bike’s security defenses. Iggy’s sweet modifications to her jewelry had such nifty little applications once she programmed them. Now the bike was armed, whoever tried to touch her chopper was in for a brutally nasty shock. Literally.

As Sugar was walking away from her ride, Nasti and the Trio arrived in of all fuckin’ vehicles, a convertible, candied fuchsia Astin-Martin. Her license plates read FUKUDIK.

Subtle, Sugar thought.

Of course, Sugar herself was about as subtle as a supernova.

Sugar, per her immodest usual, was dressed only on an extremely short microskirt, over a tiny g-string, finished by a minimal triangle bikini top, and high heels, plus her signature ankh jewelry of course. However, her apparel scintillated with hundreds of glittering crystals, which were woven into the golden thread of her outfit’s fabric, and crusted on her matching shoes. It was a lavishly garish and suitably outrageous look for anywhere save the inside of a high end strip club, or of course Lost Peaks proper, but that monstrous mother, Lost Peaks, saw riotous things everyday that were far more risqué and extravagant than lil’ ol’ Sugar.

Someone like Nasti could afford a similar get-up that employed investment grade diamonds instead of crystals. In fact, she probably could drape herself in a multilayered Grecian gown made of such opulence, if she so chose.

Nasti, for all her faults, was not that tastelessly profligate. At least not in her extravagance. She was shocking though. On that particular evening, her hair was a clashing riot of electric blue, radioactive green, and toxic orange, and it was styled very much like a troll doll with his dick in a light socket. She finished her face with a violent purple lipstick, scarlet eye shadow, and a vermillion padparadscha stud in her nose. If that weren’t enough, she was wearing contacts that had fiery holographic death heads imprinted on them, a razor blade earrings, complete with a blood-like lacquer painted on their edges, an evil looking spiked dog collar, a black, rubber demi-bra that left her pierced nipples exposed, with little tinkling bells hanging from them, and a black leather microskirt that was easily as short as Sugar’s, that had Fuck Puppy written across it’s rear, in bold hot pink letters. She strutted on 8 inch platform heels, over ripped fishnet stockings, which matched the fingerless gloves on her arms, and, oh, she wore no underwear. Sugar was sure there was a tinkling little bell suspend from Nasti’s clit as well.

Of the five girls, Nasti easily out slutted the others in the wardrobe department.

Nasti looked over at where Sugar’s chopper was parked, then nodded at Sugar.

“Killer bike. Say how many kinds of bikes do you have anyway? You never ride the same one twice.”

“Yes, I do. You haven’t known me long enough. My dad collects them.”

“Cool. What’s your dad do?”

“Drug smuggler.” Sugar said with a completely straight face.

“Growth industry. Good call, on your dad’s part.”

Sugar thought Nasti was joking just as much as she was, though both of their faces were completely straight.

“Nice tags.” Sugar nodded to the license plates on the almost glowing Astin-Martin.

“Like those? I wasn’t sure I could get them past the fuckin’ DMV, but bing, bang, bong, they came in the mail. Little victories, you know?”

Foxy was looking at the plates as they talked about them.

“What does Foo-kud-ick mean?” She asked looking thoroughly confused as she sounded out the word.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about it, Effy.”

“Um, okay.” Foxy complied.

Nasti called the Trio by the first letter in their names, and added the E sound on the end of the consonant, thus Effy for Foxy, Emmy for Moxy, Arri for Roxy. Sugar thought the whole renaming of the little bimbos was ridiculous, but then the Trio themselves were just a little ridiculous.

All three of the Trio were dressed as if they were going clubbing. In Lost Peaks, that meant a girl wore a little less than the girls in a gentlemen’s club anywhere else.

Sugar always thought that “gentlemen’s club” was a misnomer. Nudie bar was so much more apropos, not to mention truthful. Given the Trio’s hotness quotient, and their open attitude toward all things sexual, they fit right in nasty, ol’ Lost Peaks, to say nothing of strip clubs in general.

Roxy was decked out in Kelly green, while Moxy was in deep blue, and Foxy was in cherry red, making them all brightly hued party favors, with matching perma-grins and incessant giggles, as they flounced along. Sugar had to admit, they were tasty looking, and they were obviously rarin’ to party until they couldn’t walk straight. With Nasti as their leader that night, that was exactly what it looked like was going to happen.

Sugar was actually a tad amazed at how fast Nasti had gathered her little naughty click. You could say one thing for the girl, Nasti worked quick. If Sugar had thought about it, she might have seen a parallel with her own self regarding Lu and the Riders.

Sugar surveyed the surroundings, taking in the plant, and other patrons coming to see the fights. The power plant was owned and operated by the Ordinal Family, as were all of the power plants across the island. The Ordinals had an unsavory reputation for being ruthless and Machiavellian, even amongst their own large clan. The Family had patented a chemical process that used the steam of the island to provide a pleasant scent to the entire Valley; even in Magma Downs, at the foot of the sulfurous Flame Peak. For that service, each of the other Claims paid House Ordinal a annual fee. The other Great Houses thought it a small price to pay to keep the entire Valley’s air crystal clear and fresh.

However, two decades back, the Family’s Patriarch at the time use the process to try and drug the populace, which would addict them and make them more compliant and open to suggestion at the same time. The Patriarch’s machinations were of course discovered, and mysteriously the man was never heard of again. The government censured and sanctioned the Family, and scrutinized their every financial dealing for a decade. The Federal government also installed air quality sensors across the City to insure that nothing of the sort could ever occur again.

The other service the House Ordinal and Steam Isle provide was monitoring and regulating the volcanic carbon monoxide build up at the bottom of Hourglass Lake that could destroy the entire Valley if it ever erupted. This was just another threat from the leviathan super volcano under the Valley of Lost Peaks that Lost Ones lived with every day. The service was again provided to the other Claims for a nominal yearly fee, and everyone agreed that it was a bargain.

The five girls stood in the parking lot of the Ordinal power plant, and looked up at the three, concrete, twelve-hundred foot, behemoth steam stacks, towering above the grounds. The industrial monoliths would have been impressive, if it hadn’t been for the fact that every Claim had dozens, if not hundreds of buildings and structures at least three times the stacks height. They did live in Lost Peaks after all. What was a bit awe inspiring were the huge billows of steam coursing out of their tops, making vast, hazy columns slanted by the breeze into the night sky, as they were infused with the silvery light of the waxing crescent moon until they dissipated slowly into the firmament ten thousand feet up.

The whole island had such steaming columns rising above it as there were fifty-eight such facilities doting the rocky terrain of Steam Isle. And thus the name was very apropos.

Sugar paused to admire the beauty of the sight. She wondered if anyone else saw the majesty in such a mundane thing as rising steam. She bet people who lived on the island never even gave the stacks or their billows a second thought. It was the same everywhere in Lost Peaks. The Lost Ones were so surrounded by beauty, grandeur, and riches, that such things became commonplace, and thus for the greater part, forgotten and invisible.

But then Lost Peaks always had a way of skewing one’s perspective.

They walked toward Gate Lock 35, and found the line. Nasti ignored the queue, and went straight up to the gate’s entrance, where stood six burly guards, and a ramrod thin, ostensible ticket taker, though there were no tickets to the event. It was a card swipe affair. You had either paid earlier, or you were shit out of luck…unless you happen to have ridiculously high credit, or a ten pound bar of 24 carat bullion in your back pocket. Then you might find a spot in the cheap seats.

The seven men were extremely accommodating to the five females. All the fellahs were grinning at them trying to catch the eye of one of the girls. The Trio was oblivious to them, giggling inanely at nothing, in their excitement at the anticipated night’s activities. Nasti was congenial, but aloof. She was a Quixoitis. She did not fraternize with the plebs…at least not in public. Sugar fleetingly favored them all with her best ditzy smile as she moved her body past them at a good clip, strutting in an overly exaggerated sashay, not even waiting for Nasti to finish swiping the card. All seven were staring after her as she walked inside.

Nasti swiped her card, and she and the Trio followed Sugar inside, and they were on their way into the deep interior of the plant. As they went through Gate Lock 35, all eyes in the crowd followed Sugar, but she was used to that, and ignored all the males trying desperately to get her attention. She actually was doing her best to make the Trio a Quartet, by acting as fluffy and flighty as Foxy, Moxy, and Roxy, She wondered if she should change her name for the night to Soxy, or Loxy, or something equally idiotic, then Nasti could call her Essy or Elly or whatever to make the transformation complete. Maybe she would just call herself Xoxy, then Sugar could go by Exxy. Might as well be cheeky, if you’re going to be totally stupid.

Contrary to what her behavior might be exuding, on that night Sugar was trying to be inconspicuous. Well, as inconspicuous as Sugar could ever be, at any rate. It might seem as if that feat was an impossibility for Sugar to accomplish, given her bearing and visage, but at the end of the night all any of the boys would be able to tell you about Sugar was something similar to the following, “There was this super hot fluff brained chick at the fights last night. Shit, I wish I could have got her digits. She fuckin’ didn’t even see me! Dude, but she was so muthafuckin’ fine!” but not much else would they recall, including her height, hair, eye, or skin color. That was another technique which was accomplished in part by moving her body in such a manner that males and a certain amount of females would pay very close heed to her motion, and little attention to her identifying particulars. The other portions of the technique were forcible producing an extra amount of pheromones, and keeping her head moving, and shifting angles, as to never give onlookers a straight view of her face. Her pheromones tended to addled the perceptions of most people within her proximity.

However, there were those not entirely effected by the technique, however. The women who were not completely enthralled by her gyrations would have isolated snapshots Sugar’s eyes, or lips, or another specific characteristic burned into their brains; a visceral reaction fueled by an almost hateful jealousy of her, and ironically leaving them with a lingering latent attraction to her, though very few could give a complete description. Strangely enough, Sugar even had an effect on gay men, as they always appreciated her esthetics, but their attraction to her was not nearly as strong, thus their minds were not utterly muddled as were the brains of straight males, but the technique had a fair effect on them as well. It was not perfect, but nothing ever is, right?.

Sugar was not sure why she was keeping on the down low as it were. Maybe it was all of X’s harping on her not to make a scene. X hated how much attention she drew. But Sugar would have had to wear a burka to hide what she looked like, and that was not in her disposition. Even if she down played every sensual aspect of her constitution she would have drawn eyes to her, so X devised this particular form of misdirection to minimized identification. It was not perfect, but after Sugar learned and applied the technique, she found it was, at least in part, effective.

Sugar had found it useful on several occasions. That day at the fights she was feeling the need to go unrecognized and incognito. Guys would still paw and fawn at her, which she did not mind. However, this was a new environment. That made Sugar institute almost instinctual precautions and countermeasures in case the shit hit the fan. Sugar’s usual method of not being identified entailed her eliminating all witnesses.

If it came to that, she was not sure if she could kill every one at the factory. It might be fun to try, but imprudent, and Sugar was anything but stupid. Besides, something inside her made her balk at killing indiscriminately. She liked to have a solid reason to snuff someone, not just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sugar supposed she could always give herself a justifiable excuse for whacking a bystander, but it still nettled her sensibilities of balance. Sugar was all about balance. Sugar had to keep balance. After all, she skipped along a razor thin tightrope over the black swirling abyss of insanity.

Sugar, of course, was not worried or scared, but she smelled blood and death in the air, and it whetted her appetite. Sugar had a sense about such things, even though obviously they were attending a highly dangerous bloodsport competition. Tonight someone was going to die. She wondered who and by whose hands. Most of all she wondered if she was going to do any killing. There would always be opportunities. She felt like killing, but then again, a bit of our girl Sugar always felt like killing.

There was a second set of doors after a lengthy walk down a series of corridors and staircases. At the second entrance, were two more hulking brutes acting as guards. Most of the time these types did their best to ignore pretty girls, as they were distractions from looking like hard-asses, but when these five hotties came strutting at them, they became almost servile. Sugar was just the finest of a very fine group of chicks. These fellows were just like any testosterone pumped goons, thus fully susceptible to a sweet set of tits and ass, let alone four such top quality packages, not to mention Sugar, one of the most gorgeous and sexy skirts they would ever likely see.

They did however inform the girls that beyond that point all forms of person communications would be, such as cell phones, and other recording devices, would be jammed from sending a signal out of the arena to prevent a pirate signal from broadcasting the fights and anything else that occurred in the place. That was standard at any venue in Lost Peaks though, so the Sugar, Nasti, and the Trio just nodded and moved on inside.

Nasti felt she was the leader of the group, and Sugar was willing to let her take that roll, but even as Sugar tried to melt into the click, she had a certain aura of presence that was difficult to dim. She had allowed Nasti to lead the way after they passed the ticket taker, but the technique she was using drew all eyes as it fogged minds. Sugar was sure that Nasti would think that Sugar was behaving provocatively to gain everyone’s attention. That was bound to piss Nasti off

This was why Sugar hated hanging with females. Nasti was cool, but all the attention that was going to be lavished on Sugar, just because she was Sugar, was going to get to Nasti eventually. Nasti was used to being the queen bee. The young Quixotis was an alpha female of her set, but Sugar was The Alpha Female.

Friction between them would be inevitable, of that Sugar was sure, but for now she and Nasti could enjoy each other’s company. Sugar wished Lu were there. Lumina didn’t care if Sugar took the spotlight. Lumina liked the fact that Sugar drew attention away from her. Some might say that Sugar just enjoyed having someone around her that did not run competition with her, but Lumina could have blazed like a sun if she just wanted to turn the corner on her wallflower status. She didn’t.

Sugar loved Lumina because not only was she a good heart, but she was also brilliant. Both her parents were geniuses in their fields, and Lumina was a solid piece of their stock. Lumina was what the Prophet call a Child Of Light. There was something special about Lu, Sugar could feel it, she just couldn’t describe what she felt. All she could say was being around Lumina calmed Sugar just a little. Sugar could talk to Lumina about anything…well, almost anything. Zen and Ruck had a similar effect on her. On this Friday night, Sugar was far more guarded around these girls, mostly because her lusts were boiling, and Nasti and the Trio did nothing to quell her extreme polarities.

Sugar could smell the blood in the air. She could taste it. This was a place of violence. A place of death. The funk of adrenalin, testosterone, fear, victory, and just plain sweat, not to mention sex, was seeped into the brick and mortar, but more than anything was the residual stench of blood and offal, powerfully fragrant, even through the cleaning agents that had been used to try and mask it, and the smell was turning Sugar on. She focused on her breathing, sinking into the Nothingness, and blocking out external stimuli. That always helped…a little.

There was a roaring sound ahead. The sonic din of thousands of howling voices.

Hold on. Here we go.

The arena was big. It could hold maybe twenty-five thousand. Tiers of stadium seating looked down on the circular Pit where the combatants faced off. The place was full. There was a fight going on; the last bout of the first round of the tournament. As Sugar saw it, they were two relative novices, just clubbing away at each other. Pitiful. The mob was loving it, because they were both bleeding profusely. Sugar had to admit they both could take a punch.

Nasti had ringside seats. Each Great House had a private section, so the quintet was ushered right next to the Pit. The floor of the Pit was not even, save for a sandy area at the very center. Away from the center sand, it was a jungle of varying levels and surfaces, designed to test the speed, strength, and agility of combatants of different size. Fights between combatants were not classed by weight. If you entered the Pit you must defeat the opponent facing you, regardless of how much disparity there was in weight between you.

If you stepped into the Pit you better be ready to fuck somebody’s shit up, or get fucked up. No two ways about it. The two idiots fought on as the girls took their seats. They were definitely fucking each other’s shit up pretty well with their clumsy pummeling.

Sugar was thoroughly unimpressed. To her, they looked like they were moving in very slow motion. Boring. The Trio was squealing in excited revulsion, as blood spewed from the fighters mouths as they hammered away at each other.

Nasti looked at Sugar.

“These guys suck.”

Sugar couldn’t argue with that.

Nasti wasn’t done. She leaned over the edge of The Pit, and started hurling insults at the fighters.

“I’ve seen better wrestling in the girls’ shower, bitches!”

Now Sugar wanted to see that fight. Hey, but then who wouldn’t?

“Hey, you nancy-boy fucks, why don’t you slap each other around with your limp dicks!” She practically shrieked at the two bloodied men.

That actually seemed to get their attention.

“Shit! I could kick both your asses at the same time with just my tits!”

Sugar was not sure how that was possible, but the visualizing it was interesting.

One of the fighters shook his fist at her.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!”

It was at that moment the other fighter saw his chance, and threw a haymaker right at the protesting man’s chin. Sugar was sure she heard his jaw break. He fell and his opponent was on top of him, hitting repeatedly until he was sure the dude was out. Oh, he was out alright, and probably in a coma. Sugar could care less.

“What a fuckin’ IDIOT!” Nasti snapped. “Didn’t his mama teach him never to take his eyes off the guy who’s trying to take his head off?”

Sage wisdom, Sugar thought, but she was still bored. While Sugar looked around at the cheering mob in mild curiosity, Nasti had just slammed down two shots of raspberry-pomegranate flavored Everclear. If she was crazy sober, Sugar wondered what she was like boozed up. The Trio had each popped some Ecstasy, which should make them even more slutty than usual.

Sugar never got fucked up on any substance. Nothing. X never drank or took drugs. He always said the mind must be sharper than any blade, and drugs of any sort dulled that edge. Sugar took that to heart. In truth, she knew herself, and feared what she would become if alcohol or drugs ever gave her the excuse to really let go of her inhibitions. Besides, even without said substances, she was crazier than a hundred Nastis.

“Booooo!” Screamed Nasti. “You sucker-punching jizz wad!”

“Fuck you, you sloppy twat!” The victor shot back, tearing off his glove and throwing it at her. Sugar snagged it out of the air, and whizzed it back to him, smacking him right in the nose, knocking him back on his ass. The mob roared with laughter. And cheered, as Sugar took a half bow.

The felled fighter literally had his nose bloodied, as the glove had left a scratch across the top of the bridge of his proboscis. Wiping the blood from his face, he regained his feet, spitting mad, and surged toward the wall howling profanity at the girls. In his wrath, he scaled up the wall, trying to get at them, swearing at Nasti while she swore back at him.

Security was also surging rapidly toward the Quixotis private box, but the fighter would reach the lip of The Pit well before they arrived. As he pulled himself up to the edge of the railing, Nasti rained down blows on his head, screeching back at him. The Trio looked terrified, and stood bunched together holding onto each other. Nasti was game with no retreat in her, that much was clear, but the fighter was too strong and shoved her back, swearing at her.

Just as he came over the railing Sugar pounced forward, and gave him what looked like a little shove, and he toppled back over the railing, landing on his head. The crowd gave a collective “Ooooow!” as the fighter’s limp body lay motionless on the slanted surface beneath the wall. Sugar could see he was still breathing, but the big dipshit probably had a fractured skull, and would be in a coma for a couple of weeks.

Not to mention that he had attacked a member of a Great House, and a teenage female to add insult to injury. After he got out of the hospital, then Family would probably put out a hit on the moron, just on general principles. Peons don’t fuck with the Great Houses in Lost Peaks.

Served the schmuck right for attacking teenage girls, even if they were boisterously obnoxious. The crowd didn’t care, after their initial sympathizing ooooow, they laughed at the fighter, then cheered the girls for their chutzpah.

Sugar and the girls had missed the first round of fights, and thus missed seeing Kid Dragon and his first opponent in their early action, but there were still more than half a dozen fights left to see. The next round of tournament fights were to the start almost immediately, leading up to the final championship match. Godsmasher and the Champion, Kid Dragon, would have to fight two more fights that night to reach this championship round, so they could finally square off. So in essence, Kid Dragon had four title defenses before his night was done, and Godsmasher had two other contenders to deal with before the final fight.

For most of the spectators, it looked to be a good night of fights, as the other three fighters were supposedly none too shabby as combatants. The victor who was now in a coma would have to be replaced with another fighter. Probably a good thing for him as he was scheduled to face The Kid next, and he was already somewhat worse for wear, even before Sugar pushed him off the wall. Everyone was sure that the last fight would be Kid Dragon versus Godsmasher, but one never knew, and all the odds would be in the toilet if just one lucky punch took either fighter out.

Sugar bet the odds on the victor of the previous fight getting knocked out by being shoved off the pit skirt railing would have been astronomical. She mused on what they would be if she stepped into the ring as a fighter. Fuck! She was bored. She was distractedly pondering jumping in the Pit to amuse herself. Maybe doing so would relieve her malaise of the moment. Did she just have to go sign up, or what? Maybe she could just slip past the Pit entrance, and take on both fighters at once. That at least would make the fight a bit fairer for the hapless meatheads.

The smell of the place was having an effect on her. Her teeth were aching to fight; to kill, and the urge was growing stronger by the second. Either that, or she wanted to fuck, and keep fucking until she exhausted herself. That infernal Itch was increasing moment by moment as well. All thoughts of keeping a low profile were rapidly evaporating in the heat of her lusting polarities.

Ah, but why hide her bloody light under a bushel?

Her eyes grew far more predatory, and darted around the arena, analyzing her environs. She looked down at the Pit, at its central sand, ringed by uneven surfaces, and its four entrances gates. She could just leap the wall into the Pit… She looked at the splatters of blood dotting the inside of the Pit here and there. She could show these assholes what fighting really was. She could shred these fucksticks. Literally. She wanted to tear them apart. Stupid muthafuckers!

Sugar caught herself. Her mind was racing, and she was breathing quicker, looking for a way into the Pit. A way into the fight. A way to shed blood. It was ridiculous, but she wanted to hurt something, or…fuck something. Bad. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The eyes watching her as she took that breath had their own breath taken away as her body arched back, and gave a little shudder as she brought her lusts under a semblance of control.

It was at that instant the mob roared, as Godsmasher and his opponent, Thurbin Hellion entered the Pit. Sugar opened her eyes, and gazed almost haughtily upon the two fighters. Godsmasher looked and moved like he was formed out of molten obsidian. The man was so black, that except for the sheen of sweat, along with the white if his eyes, his teeth, and the palms and soles of his hands and feet, he appeared as a great ink spot had entered the Pit. Hellion was blonde and bronzed, and powerful in frame, but nothing like the 6’10” Nubian Godsmasher. He was a walking colossus chiseled out of basalt and ebony. He was extraordinary to look at, but Sugar was otherwise not intimidated. She still itched to jump the railing and hammer into both them, but her will was steeled, as her icy blue eyes cast her sultry stare upon them. Her nostrils flared slightly as the two fighters faced off, and mob howled.

A gong bashed and the fight commenced.

It was over relatively quick. Hellion, though a heavily muscled man of about 6’3”, who might have been impressive except for the fact that after landing very few ineffectual punches on Godsmasher in the first few minutes of the fight, his hulking opponent got a solid hold of him, and hurled him across the Pit like a cod at market, where he smashed into the outer ring wall, and slid limp and bloody to the floor of the arena. The man’s face was a mess, the bones in the right side of his features looked shattered. He’d at least need reconstructive surgery. His shoulder looked dislocated, and his arm broken, but Sugar could see he still drew breath. Goddamn pitiful.

As Godsmasher, the huge behemoth of a black man, rippling with muscle, roared and raised his hands in victory above his head, Sugar shook her head, and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Boring. People actually paid to watch these idiots bang away at each other? Wasted coin, that’s what that was.

As soon as Hellion’s battered form was dragged out one of the entrances, and Godsmasher stalked through the opposite entrance, two other combatants entered the Pit through other two entrances. One was tall at 6’6” and lanky, with ginger hair, and muscles like drawn cords. Scars crisscrossed his torso and limbs. He had seen a lot of action somewhere, and it had not been pretty. His name was Beltorn Triverton, and he moved like a soldier, all angles and precision. Any normal person should have been terrified of the guy. Sugar though he was a yawn.

Across from him was Haagat Bin Hasim. This fellow was Semitic, but oddly seemed to be all limbs. His torso was rather short, but he was tall at 6’4”. There was not an ounce of fat on him. In fact, he looked almost emaciated, he moved with an odd uneven and unpredictable gate.

The gong crashed, and the two circled each other. It turned out to be a much longer fight than the last one. Triverton liked to hammer his opponents, but Bin Hasim was very slippery, and hard to hit. As the fight wore on Triverton was becoming visibly irritated that he was landing so few punches, while Bin Hasim picked away at him with flicking jabs that bloodied up Triverton, but only pissed him off more. Finally a flurry of Triverton’s punches landed on Bin Hasim, but the long limbs wrapped up Triverton and threw him to the ground, wrapping Triverton in a leg triangle around the neck. It look as if that was it, but Triverton did something rather impressive, he powered Bin Hasim off the ground even while held in the triangle and slammed Bin Hasim down. You could see it was done right then and there, but Triverton pummeled the man with about a dozen more shots to make sure he was out, and maybe to vent his frustration from earlier. Who knows? In any event, Triverton won, but he had taken a bit of a beating.

As soon as those two were cleared out, the next two appeared through the other doors. This time there was a South Sea Islander on one side and a Latino on the other. The Islander was Ka’aha Muafuatuanoho, but everybody called him Big Ka-Mua, and he was by far the biggest competitor of the night. He was comparable to Rucker, but far heavier. A 7 footer, and over five hundred pounds, he was a mountain of meat. He was covered in tribal tattoos and looked utterly ferocious. Sugar had to admit, he was a big son of a bitch, and for a man his size he moved surprisingly light on his feet, but she found him more amusing than frightening.

The Latino was maybe 6’1”, but he looked like he was carved out of mahogany, and tattooed almost as much as his Islander opponent, though his ink was far more gang affiliated than tribal. He moved more agilely on his feet than any competitor so far, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his toes, his hands like pistons when he punched and elbowed, followed by vicious snapping kicks and knees.. This vato could hit you fifteen times in a second, and you’d feel every one. His name Ventano Gracas, but they called him Tiburon.

Their fight was a game of cat and mouse. Tiburon kept to sticking and moving, punching at the huge man’s midsection, and kicking at his legs to soften him up. Meanwhile Ka-Mua tried his damnedest to lay hands on the Latino, but Tiburon was very, very fast, and in top condition. Kamua was very winded after five minutes, and Tiburon was pounding away on him with impunity. But Tiburon got careless, and as he came in to again deliver a flurry of punches, Ka-Mua got him with a monster swipe and sent the Latino flying. Tiburon was dazed, and Ka-Mua saw his chance, and he descended on Tiburon like an avalanche, looking to finish the fight, but he was moving slow in his exhaustion, and as Ka-Mua dove sluggishly to ground and pound the Latino into submission, Tiburon struck out from his back desperately with his right foot, catching Ka-Mua right on the chin, and BING! It was lights out. But the huge Islander fell, collapsing right on top of Tiberon like mudslide. Tiburon struggled weakly out from under the fallen gigantor, and wobbling, raised his hand in triumph. He had survived, but Ka-Mua had knocked him near silly, and he was still unsteady on his legs, as he exited the Pit. It took eight men to drag Ka-Mua out of the arena. He was a real big boy.

Then the last pair of the second round stepped into the Pit.

You couldn’t imagine two more different individuals.

On one side was massive squat brute that was so hairy he looked like he was covered in a greasy fur leotard. His name was Atanicus Firth, and he was a monster of a man at 6’6’ and weighing in at over four hundred pounds. Firth had a layer of fat on him, but he was obviously stacked with hundreds of pounds of bulging sinew, and a bad attitude to match. Firth was grinning malevolently across the space at his opponent. He was also the replacement fighter for the one Sugar had toppled off the railing.

Opposite this hulk of a man was a small, thin fellow by comparison. He was at most 5’10”, and weighed barely 160 lbs. He was dressed in a pair light weight, wide-legged, silvery, silk breaches, and a matching button down top with a Mandarin collar. His hands and feet were bare. His mix of oriental and occidental blood was very apparent in his features; blue-black hair, warm amber skin, a sharp nose, and a heavy brow ridge over startling gray eyes. Not only that, he was surprisingly handsome for a fighter. In contrast to Firth, the man was placid, almost serene, and his motion was fluid and graceful, yet totally focused.

This was Kid Dragon, and upon sight of him Sugar took immediate notice.

This man was a cut above the rest. This one had real talent.

The gong sounded and Firth set himself and rushed The Kid, then pulled up short before smashing into him. The man had seen Kid Dragon fight and knew enough not to be too impetuous. He grabbed at The Kid, who was seemingly there one moment and gone the next. Firth was grasping at thin air, The Kid like quicksilver flowed around to the right of the much bigger man. Firth was fast for a big man though. He swung a back fist at The Kid and barely missed as the more agile fighter leaped straight up into the air. The momentum of Firth’s whiffing strike swung his body to his right, where upon he received a descending knee from The Kid full in the face. Firth staggered back, his face bloody, as his nose and upper lip were split wide and gushing. Then The Kid struck so fast that only Sugar saw the move. It was beautiful in a prosaically pristine manner; full of form and power, but from Sugar’s vantage, very little style.

The Kid struck with his fingertips at the throat, solar plexus, and groin. It didn’t even look like The Kid had hit the huge Firth effectively, but Firth’s arms dropped to his side lifelessly. Kid Dragon turned from him, and Firth fell face forward, with a heavy thud, lights out cold.

The fight had taken less than nine seconds.

It happened so fast, that the raucous cheer was cut short in confusion. There was collective “HUH?” from the mob, then whispering, and then booing as the crowd began hurling various detritus at the fallen form of Firth in their anger at his utter incompetence. Kid Dragon however did not even raise his hands. He just calmly walked from The Pit, as attendants struggled in their attempt to retrieve Firth while dodging thrown bottles and chairs, among other assorted offal. One drunken sot was even attempting to piss on him from over the rail. Sugar had to admit the guy was good at distance.

She was impressed with The Kid. The Champion was not entirely unskilled. His style was still a bit boring for her taste. Like watching a martial arts exhibition. Some people found kata profound in the discipline of its essence, but Sugar had done thousands of hours of kata, pattern, and form, but it wasn’t until she began to weave the hundreds of patterns and styles into her own personal matrix of motion that her erotically deadly style took shape and life.

It was certain that The Kid was a master of his motion, but his movement to her eye seemed stolid and uninspired. He was good though. He’d be a challenge. Well, a diversion from the normal cretins at least. She wondered if he was worth killing. She’d have to dig beneath the surface. No satisfaction in offing a solid citizen, after all. Then again, she could always find a reason to blood-let if she rooted around long enough. Well, almost always.

Sugar was losing her grip on rational thought and action, though she struggled to remain composed and apathetic.

Nasti was throwing a champagne bottle as the arena crew dragged Firth out the opposite exit. She barely missed him, as the bottle smashed into the side of the doorframe.

“You big, hairy, cocksucker! They aught to grind you into dog food, cause you ain’t worth shit!” She shrieked at the unconscious Firth. Nasti was well on her way to getting completely hammered. She seemed to be quite the nasty drunk, but then that was to be expected, Sugar supposed.

“Come on, Sugar! Bottoms up!” She tried hand Sugar a pilsner full of what looked like whiskey. Sugar shook her head slightly, begging off.

“What?! You’re not drinkin’ with us?!”

“I drove.”

“So what?! Come back in my limo.”

“My dad would kill me if I left his bike here.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m a real bummer.”

“Yeah, fuck you, bitch!” Nasti said grinning goofily.

“You might want to slow down or you won’t remember which way you came in.”

“That’s what I got you for, cunny.”

Sugar hadn’t been called that in a long time. Strangely, there was a tiny portion of Sugar that wanted to ripe out Nasti’s throat, but for the most part, Nasti just amused Sugar. Nasti was a bit of an idiot when she was sloshed, but then who wasn’t?

There was a lull until the next round fights. The Pit Arena took on an atmosphere of a club, as music was pumped up, and the micro bikini clad dancers began writhing to the sound, as they spun around their poles. There was food, and booze, and drugs and sex everywhere. This was Lost Peaks in its decadence. Sugar sat back and waited, as the other girls danced about provocatively. Normally, Sugar would have joined them, but she was preoccupied. She wanted to engage Kid Dragon; one way or the other.

It was not that she didn’t want to fuck. She did. The Kid excited her, but at the moment, she wasn’t sure whether to kiss him, or kick him, or both.

Of a sudden, a young man about eighteen appeared next to the Quixotus Box, seemingly materializing out of orgiastic crowd. Backing him were two very pretty girls, raven haired identical twins. The boy spoke rather sneeringly to Nasti, as he and his flanking females stepped boldly into the box like they own it.

“Well, how do, Nastika? I see you’re in true form tonight.”

Nasti focused her eyes on the boy, and a look of revulsion entered her expression.

“Oh, shit! Who let you out of your cage?” Nasti turned to Sugar and the Trio, and said inebriatedly while pointing rather vaguely at the boy. “This asshole is (burp) – excuse me – Civilus Ordinal.” She point off handedly at the two twins. “Those are his bitch sisters, Druanna and Drusilla Ordinal, better known as the Raven Twins, and his personal familial playthings. Civvy thinks he’s hot shit on a stick. He’ll wanna’ fuck you. Guaranteed. You’re welcome to him, that is if you really want syphilis, I mean Civilus.”

“Charming as ever, Nastika.”

“Yeah, and fuck you too. Get the fuck out of my box.”

Civilus smirked at the not-so-unintended double entendre.

“Technically, dear Nastika, every box in here is my family’s.”

“Yeah, well, technically fuck you.”

The Trio giggled at the mention of his name. Sugar didn’t know who he was, but the Trio obviously did. She knew his surname. Everybody knew that name, especially on Steam Isle, as it was the Family’s Claim.

Civilus ignored Nasti’s last barb, and looked at Sugar, at which point, Nasti sniffed at him dismissively, and turned her back on him, just as several males with model good looks, and physiques to rival Olympic athletes arrived on the other side of the box. The Trio squealed in delight, as the fellows came into the box. These were the arena’s beefcake entertainers. They could be used for hedonistic purposes by any of the patrons present, and it looked as if Nasti and the Trio were going to partake of their proffered wares.

That left Sugar to face the attention of Civilus, and his pretty little twin bookends. He was very direct in his appraisal of her with his eyes. She could tell he was used to getting what he wanted, and what he wanted presently was Sugar. Get in line, buddy…

“And who might you be?” He asked in half-leer.

Sugar knew this boy would remember her face. There was no way to shift his attention without flashing her boobs, and that would cause more complications than it alleviated. Such is life.

He wasn’t unhandsome. Rather the contrary, he was the epitome of handsome. Not like Orion’s model good looks, but darker, rawer in charisma. His hair was stylishly quaffed, and jet black, which contrasted with his milky skin. His eyes were deep set, and dark and brooding, and there was an arrogance that permeated not only his visage, but his whole frame and movement. It was an integral part of his character, and without a swagger and any bravado, he oozed a confidence born of privilege and old wealth.

He was dressed in a silk suit, that had a silvery sheen to it. His clothes looked to cost more than the yearly income of most of the population of the Union.

At his back were the ravishing raven twins, who had skin just like his, and looked very similar in countenance to Civilus, almost as if they were his siblings or cousins, but the way the fawning about him, and hanging on his words, with adoring, mooning eyes, you would think he was their paramour. There was a very distinct incestuous vibe between the three of them. However, they regarded everyone else with eyes of ice, including Sugar.

They were wearing very short, matching mini-dresses, designed with strategically placed and very sexy cut-outs, revealing a significant amount of flesh on each girl. The material of their outfits actually looked like molten chrome was poured on their bodies, and adhered to their skin where it touched.

Sugar, for her part, favored the twins with her best smoldering gaze, that spoke of both raw sexuality and an eminent violence. Though both girls were taller than her, Sugar was satisfied to see they both visibly quailed, and almost flinched when she laid the full weight of her crackling blue eyes upon them. They, in trepidation, eased themselves just behind Civilus, using him as a shield. They could sense when they were over matched, but that did not curb their snobbery one iota.

If Civilus noticed any of this, he made no moment of it, and continued to wait for Sugar’s reply, as the girl looked him up and down in evaluation.

Sugar’s eyes narrowed, but she smiled pleasantly.

“They call me Sugar. Sugar Lightspeed.”

Civilus smirked.

“Sugar, eh? And who might They be?”

Sugar tilted her head in a flirty way, replying.

“Oh, you know Them. Everybody does.”

“Yes, but They’re not just anybody, you know?”

Sugar found the banter prosaic, but she was willing to play along for the time being.

“Certainly. Everybody who is anybody, knows who They are.”

“So…Who…Are…You?” He asked in his pointed way.

“Oh, just a girl trying to make her way in dirty ol’ Doomtown.”

“And you go to Dark Peak Prep?”

“That’s what my school jacket says, bucko.”

“So it does. So it does.”

She waited a brief pause for him to say more, but it seemed as if he thought she should be impressed by his very presence and interest in her. Considering who he was, that wasn’t surprising, However, she was anything but interested in him in anyway, excepting her general state of constant sexual arousal, but she could mitigate that effectively enough to ignore him, which she promptly did, pointedly looking out at the empty arena again.

Behind Sugar, Nasti and the Trio had gradated from fellating their boytoys to full on fucking them, but they were only doing as many other spectators were doing all across the perimeter seating of the vast arena. The Beefcake Brigade were all very well endowed, and good at their job. That’s what they were paid for after all. Nasti and the Trio soon had as many pistoning phalluses inside their convulsing orifices as they could handle.

Sugar just ignored the noise and fury in the box, and all around her for that matter. She was barely acknowledging Civilus’ presence anymore, as she stared out at the empty arena, as if awaiting the next round of fights was the sole reason she was there. In actuality, she was attempting to rein in her urges to indulge her ravening lusts.

Civilus continued to ignore Nasti, the Trio, and their lascivious activities, and sidled in close to Sugar’s side.

“My friends call me Civ. Would you like to be one of my friends?”

Sugar just shrugged noncommittally. Civilus leaned in closer.

“Lightspeed. That name is unfamiliar to me. Are you perhaps one of the nouveau riche, recently established in the city?”

Without looking him, she answered.

“No, born and raised, a Lost One to the core.”

“Then to whose Family are you connected?”

“None, that I’m aware of. I and my father are islands unto ourselves.”

“Then how is it that you run with Ammon Auric and his crew?”

So he did know who she was after all, she thought.

“You’ve been misinformed, Civvy ol’ boy.” She looked at him nonchalantly out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t run with them. They try and keep up with me.” And again she looked away. Sugar could feel Civilus was growing bolder. She should cut him off before he did anything at all. It was not wise to entangle one’s self with members of a Great House, especially if they obviously had a low opinion of you, and weren’t likely to change it.

Civilus had a smug curl to his lips as he queried.

“So, I take it that you are not intimidated by who I am.”

He was very close to her, pressing against her. She could feel his erection throbbing into her side through his slacks. A part of her wanted him to continue, even though she knew it could not end well.

“You take it correctly,” She responded in a bored voice.

Civilus snorted a breath of a laugh, though it had just an edge of the sinister. Without permission he traced a finger down her cheek, to her neck, and down her back as he said.

“You intrigue me, Sugar Lightspeed. You are a virtual nobody, a lower class pleb; fundamentally a street urchin that has somehow been raised by the Gods to walk the boulevards and halls of Olympus, and yet you act as if all your betters are beneath you.”

She should have stopped him right there, but she didn’t. She wanted him to continue. At least it broke the boredom.

His hand was now resting on Sugar’s barely microskirted ass. Sugar didn’t flinch, of course, nor did she object, she just acted as if it weren’t there.

“I do? I hadn’t noticed.” She replied airily.

His tone took on a slightly harder edge, though it was still amused.

“I think that you are either ignorant or insolent, and probably both, and in both cases you are in need of rigorous instruction pertaining to the proper order of things.”

At this point he slipped his hand beneath her skirt, and in between the cheeks of her derriere, and roughly pushed aside her g-string, and abruptly shoved the middle finger of his left hand in her pussy, and lifted upwards, trying to make her squeal. In anticipation of that reaction, she disappointed him.

She felt her pussy lubricate itself involuntarily. She could control her wetness, but didn’t want to, thus still she didn’t stop him, even though he had gone too far, and she knew he’d have to pay for it. She wanted him to penetrate her, fuck her hard, and then she wanted to proceed onto the next cock, and the next, until she had fucked them all, but another part of her wanted him to proceed so she had a reason to punish him, humiliate him for the sin of his presumptive conceit.

The raven twins had stepped close too, and were now crowding her back and left side, pressing their bodies against her, and groping at her breasts and loins, seemingly boxing Sugar in. They were Civilus’ lil’ helpers, fully complicit in his pubescent machinations.

She knew what was coming. She could have stopped it before it happened, but that sexual beast inside Sugar wanted it, and overran her good sense.

His voice was now gruff yet oily, as he murmured in her ear.

“I like the look of you, Sugar. As you can see, my younger sisters here, Drusa and Druna, do too. You’re in my house now, slattern. So I am going to make you mine. You are going to be The Color’s bitch from now on.”

The Color was Crystal Peak Academy’s elite click, and a long time rival of Dark Peak Prep’s The Cream. It would be a coup for The Color to claim Sugar as their own property, but Civilus and his click had no idea what they were trying to attempt.

But try they did anyway…

He wormed his index finger inside of her along side his middle finger, as he continued. Even as his words steadily needled her in irritation, she arched a little at his intrusion.

“Tonight, you are going over to my box, and you’ll be the happy little service animal for my friends and I. You’re going to be the fuckpig plaything of whoever I say. Yes, and we’re going to fuck you in your every orifice all night long.”

As he said this last bit, he now had his four fingers passed his knuckles, as if he were trying to fist-fuck her inside her vaginal canal, and was only stopped from doing so because he was callously ramming his thumb into her anus. Using this grip, he was lifting her lower half clear of the floor as he brutally shook her hips, grasping her perineum, twisting and punching his hand in and out of her.

Sugar shuddered. She like being penetrated, being filled, and manhandled roughly. She craved it maddeningly, but his sentiments were bring out her rage, even as she reveled in the feeling of his violation.

“We’re going to use you like you’ve never dreamed in your wildest nightmares. When we’re done with you, you’ll be so loose, we’ll be able to fist you front and back simultaneously, you nasty Deeps-slut. By the end of tonight, I promise, you will know your proper place in the grand scheme of things, Miss Tiny Little Lightspeed.”

His voice by the end his short diatribe was clipped and cruel, his eyes glinting maliciously, as he harshly fucked his fingers and thumb in and out of her nether region. His sisters were breathing hissing moans and mews as they wrapped Sugar in their flesh, feeling what their brother was doing to her. They could hear his dirty talk, and it was apparent that all of what he was doing and saying was turning them on to no end.

Even in her rising sexual madness, wanting to prolong the stimulation to her loins, she was boiling inside at his arrogant temerity and presumptive possession of her, but also she was angry with herself. She made a mistake. She shouldn’t have let it get this far, but it was too late now. Her rationality was slipping. She knew it, but her control on her lust and rage was slipping away from her like trying to grasp water.

However, Civilus would never have known such was the case by looking at her icy eyes as they smoldered. Sugar merely turned her head slowly to him, and her hot gaze, though sexy as ever, said she was thoroughly indifferent to him. In fact, her expression said without words.

“Well, is that it?”

It was at this moment that Nasti finally noticed Sugar being accosted by the three young Ordinals heirs.

“Hey, asshole! You and your bitch sisters get off my fuckin’ friend! She under my protection!” Nasti snapped furiously, as she extricated her newly ravished self from a pile of writhing, humping beefcake. She looked a sight, with her hair and make-up all mussed, with clothes askew or missing from the attentions of her fuckers.

She stood spitting mad, her pretty yet mauled tits hanging out, and her puffy reddish pussy and asshole saturated with a mixture of her juice and copious amounts of semen running down her legs and dripping onto the floor of the private box. The Trio were in a similar state, save the fact that they were still copulatorily engaged with their respective boytoys.

Civilus’ head snapped toward Nasti, and he rasped viciously, as his sister whirled around like synchronized hissing cats, and bared their fangs at her, in support of their brother.

“Stay the fuck out of this, Nastika! This cunt is not of the Houses, and so she is fair game! And remember, you are in my domain now, Quixotis cunt!”

Nasti did not have an ounce of back down in her though.

“I don’t give a fuck where we are! Back the fuck off her, or I’ll tear your fuckin’ eyes out, and replace them with your balls! Besides, you know this box is sovereign Quixotis territory, you snivelin’ asscheese!”

Nasti was set and crouched now, ready to spring. Suddenly eyes in all directions were turning to watch what was happening in the Quixotis box. Members of two of the Great Houses of Lost Peaks were squaring off in public. This did not happen often, even among their youth. The pictures and video off personal recorders alone would be worth millions.

Civilus’ face was twisted in a snarl, but he still had not removed his fingers from Sugar’s pussy and ass. She was his possession now, and he intended to keep her.

Sugar thought it rather nice of Nasti to defend her. She was not sure the Quixotis girl did it out of friendship, or sheer tenacious pride that the Ordinal prince had invaded her space, but it was a nice gesture all the same. Normally, this kind of attention that Ordinal siblings were giving her would have been most welcome, and a part of her was thrilling ecstatically about it, but Sugar liked none of the attitude of the House’s whelps, nor those all too familiar words Civilus had spoken to her.

She was out of control of her emotions, but in complete control of her body’s faculties. Or maybe she wasn’t. She didn’t know anymore. Fuck or Kill; Sugar’s constant dilemma of urges were spinning inside of her round and round, like two buzzsaw dervishes ricocheting about her psyche as she edged toward madness. A killing fever had been upon her brow before, but now that was building to a icy resolve as Civilus’ words fell upon her ears, even as her ardor screamed to fuck these siblings, and anybody else around her. The one thing she did know, despite her urge to copulate; she did not like this boy one little iota.

That thought won out over all others. And so…

Sugar spoke up, and suddenly all eyes were on her solely. Speaking to Nasti, she said crisply, but with a smile.

“You’re assistance, sweetie, is much appreciated, but I can handle the likes of our Mr. Ordinal. Civvy here, spoke of a lesson he wished to teach me. Well, I have a lesson for him as well,” She looked at Civilus. “Shall I demonstrate?”

It was a rhetorical question that left all present at a loss for words. Nasti still was crouched defiantly in all her just-fucked glory, but she was peering into Sugar’s frigid cold eyes, and was suddenly burned by the fire raging there. Nasti had never seen eyes like those, just on the edge of insanity, but with such a laser sharp focus.

Sugar looked into the eyes of Civilus, and she knew he did not see the danger yet. He was blinded by his own lust for her. She knew lust. She was tasting it at that very moment. She was, in reality, lust incarnate. His assault on her body was paltry, but it was like a spark falling on a fuse to a truckload of TNT. Oh, she had known far worse in her younger days, and had seen even worse violations perpetrated on others, even unto death, but as her lusts for fucking and death warred, without thought to consequence, Sugar acted.

The attitude of Civilus reminded her of the mentality of many of her former abusers. If Civilus would do this to her, he would do it to others. People less prepared for such an assault, but yet far better in soul than Sugar. People like Lumina. Pure sweet Lumina. And Civilus and his ilk would not care what they destroyed in a person, or how they harmed a soul.

Civilus was not the most evil of souls, but he had started down a path to monsterhood. Sugar’s furious emotions debated in a split instant whether he was to be destroyed or spared to see if he might turn from his downward spiral. She looked into his eyes. Those arrogant lusting eyes, and she saw deep down fear, and ignorance, and hurt of a neglected child.

Children of privilege are no different than the spawn of low born. Most of what they will become is laid upon the parenting they receive. Maybe. Just maybe there was a chance for him…

Sugar wanted so badly you kill him, or fuck him, or both, and do the same with his sisters as well, but that would set in motion a chain of events, either way. But alas, events were already out of control for Sugar. Behind Sugar’s icy hot eyes, a thousand scenarios played at once, and all of them ended in disaster, but she was almost beyond caring. Kill, Fuck, or what?… Sugar could see herself ripping Civilus’ pulsing heart from his egotistical chest, and her blood-mad demon howled for her to do so, but then Nasti would see what she was. She’d have to go too, and the Trio, and everybody else. Sugar would have to kill everyone. A domino effect, but it was something she wanted to do. Kill and keep on killing. A horrible selfish lust for blood and death. Sugar saw so clearly, and wanted it so badly, tasting the blood in her mouth like sweet wine.

She made her decision. Or maybe it was a reaction.

She gave Civilus his demonstration, by clamping down the muscles of her vagina and anus, as well as those of her buttocks and thighs. Like the rest of her body, Sugar had complete control of that intimate region just as effectively as every other part of her superlatively trained musculature and sinew.

Civilus blanched as his fingers and hand were suddenly crushed in what seemed to him like a hydraulic vice. Sugar made a slight ripple of a shrug with her body, and Drusa and Druna were flung away from her form to the floor in front of Nasti. Civilus’ whole body was racked with a torturous shuddering, as Sugar crushed his fingers and hand. Before Civilus could even make the attempt to extricate his compressed hand from her crushing orifices, Sugar rotated her hips in a whipping twist, and she felt as much as heard the bones in his fingers, hand, and wrist pop and snap as they broke, and tendons and ligaments strained and tore.

While his face stretched in agony, Civilus fell to his knees at Sugar’s side, next to the guard rail, as she rotated her hips a few more times, breaking and crushing his hand further. His quivering, combined with her arousal, actually gave Sugar an orgasm, but the only evidence of her climax was a quick intake of breath through her gritted teeth, and then she shrugged it off. She had to get back in control! Both of herself and the situation.

Civilus was whimpering when she released her vaginal and anal grips on his hand, and it slipped from within her. He was holding his left forearm, in his right hand, and quivering. His left hand did not look twisted or crushed, but he could not move his fingers or wrist, and he was staring his hand, then up at Sugar herself, as if he could not quite comprehend what had happened.

His lip was trembling with rage as he spat.

“You fucking cunt! Look what you did to my hand!”

Sugar merely smiled at him, tilting her head sardonically.

“You’re one who put it in there, bucko.”

Then she turned and hopped up to sit on the hand rail, regarding Civilus, and his two sisters, not to mention, Nasti and The Trio, and anyone else watching.

“I going to have you killed for this!” Civilus grated, hold up his non-functioning left hand. “Nobody does such a thing to an Ord-“

Sugar still balanced on the rail, reach out rapidly with her legs, and caught his neck between the instep of her left foot, and the spiked heel of her right, which she placed jammed right against his carotid artery. Still smiling, she shushed him, as she suddenly held his complete attention.

“I’d hold my tongue about now, Civvy ol’ boy,” She leveled her most sultry, yet deadly gaze at him then, still holding his neck firmly in her feet’s grasp, and continued.

Sugar noted security moving toward them from several directions. It didn’t really concern her, but that little bit of her that was still rational told her to try and be at least somewhat prudent, and not let the situation degenerate into an all out bloodbath, no matter how much her demon cajoled her to do otherwise.

She motioned with her thumbs at the approaching teams.

“Call them off, and tell them to go away, or I’ll pop your head like a zit, trust fund baby.”

Civilus nearly screamed at the security.

“Back off! Just-just leave. I don’t need your help!”

Sugar favored him with an indulgent smile.

“Good boy. Now… Civilus, has anyone ever told you that your parents gave you a name that sounds suspiciously like a venereal disease? I wonder why they did that? Maybe being saddled with such putrid handle is the reason you turned out to be such a miserable piece of shit. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I really want to kill you.”

Sugar was still smiling, but it was not reaching her eyes. They looked cold and full of fury. Civilus was seeing the danger now. What she told Civilus was the truth. She was a nanometer away from killing him. There was a roaring in her ears, and red was filling her vision, but she hung onto the last vestiges of her sanity tenaciously. If she lost complete control now, it would all be over as her world spiraled out of order, as she descended into insanity. She had to find a way to expel her rage without causing utter carnage all around her.

Nasti was staring at Sugar wide eyed, and for all her substance abuse, and partying that night, she appeared suddenly stone cold sober. Even the Trio and their fuckers had stopped mid-fuckathon, and were staring at her like she was a baby dragon breathing fire at them. In a way, maybe she was.

One thing was for sure. The next school day, she would have to answer a lot of questions, and she was not sure what answers she could give to explain herself and her actions. Maybe she should just ignore this whole incident as if it never happened, and let them think what they like, gossip be damned. But that still did not alleviate how she was feeling at that particular second. Sugar paused a moment looking them over, and took a deep breath.

Breathe. Focus. Calm.

Except it was not working. Civilus’ hateful words were still ringing in her ears, and the Itch to ram her heel into his throat was so delectably tempting.

Suddenly the trumps sounded the beginning of the next round of fights, and behind Sugar, Godsmasher and Beltorn Triverton entered the arena at opposite sides of The Pit, but nobody seemed to be watching them, as all eyes were on the scene in the Quixotis box at that moment.

“I know you think I’m joking, but I’m not just saying that as figure of speech. I truly want to rip you head from your shoulders, and hand it you before you fall over, but… I’m going to just give you a break, if you’ll pardon the pun, and let you off with a warning. Don’t ever try to fuck with me again. Are we seeing eye to eye on the matter?”

Civilus nodded carefully, considering the placement of her heel, but the emotion of it was emphatic.

“Nifty, but I don’t think you’re getting it yet.”

Sugar, was still regarding Civilus speculatively. Regardless of what she just told the Ordinal, Sugar was seething inside, her demon was screaming to get out and go on a rampage, and her control was slipping. Her rational mind was losing ground to her bloodthirsty emotions. The world was turning red, and she wanted to play in the madness. In this state, she could only think of one alternative.

She stretched her neck, as if trying to stretch out a kink, and straighten a nagging twist, all while balancing herself on the rail, and holding Civilus trapped between her feet.

Still grinning sexily, but with that deadly air about her, she cooed.

“See, Civvy, you’ve got my blood up. I need to blow off some steam before I explode. Seeing as who you are, you should know all about what happens when steam explodes, but just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m going to give you a refresher course in your education. I want you to remember this particular lesson the next time your think about imposing your will on someone you deem inferior, or ever think to threatening me again. Now, observe, Son and Daughters of Ordinal.”

Part of her mind was telling her that this was also a mistake that only compounded the first, but her mind was no longer listening to reason. Sugar was no longer thinking, but acting. She had to do something or fly apart at the seams, and in that storm she would shred everyone around her. Better expend her pent up aggression on those who might actually survive it.

Thus, she released Civilus from her pedal grasp, and with a flip backwards, she rolled herself into The Pit, and fell the fifteen feet, to land skidding on the slanted perimeter of the fighting zone’s outer surface. When she rolled back and dropped into The Pit, the watching crowd gave a collective gasp, followed by a confused chatter when Sugar landed safely on The Pit’s floor.

Godsmasher and Triverton had been confused as to why no one was cheering them, or even looking at them when they entered the arena. This was usually a time for posturing and preening before their opponent and the crowd, as their names and stats were heralded, but the announcer had not even made a sound yet, and all they got was the automated trumpets. Now they were just waiting for the great gong to sound the start of the match, when Sugar landed in The Pit, and proceeded to head to the center sand of the fighting zone. Both fighters suddenly had their curiosities piqued, and slowly, each eying the other, moved forward to see what was the deal with this tiny girl that had invaded their battle space.

As she reached the center sand, she slipped off her heels, and placed them carefully on the stone of the platform nearest her, then padded daintily across the fine, packed sand. She walked right up to them, and both men towered over her by at least a foot and several inches. The crowd surrounding The Pit had gone silent, as all were straining to hear what was being said between the combatants and their female interloper. Even the announcer was silent, as they all watched the confrontation about to take place in the fighting zone. This tiny girl had the audacity to assault one of the young heirs to a Great House, and in their Claim no less; seemingly showing no fear of reprisal whatsoever. She had to be crazy, but crazy or no, everyone in the place wanted to see what she would do next.

Neither fighter had seen what had taken place above, so had no clue as to why she was in their space, but they were about to find out.

Triverton was a tall Texican, so lean he looked cut from cream colored stone. His bright copper hair shown brilliantly in the arena lights. He must have still believed himself a bit of a southern gentleman, because he actually tipped his head to Sugar in greeting. Godsmasher, towering like a benighted titan, just stared her down taciturnly as she finally stood before them.

Triverton opened his mouth first, and drawled in a twangy voice.

“Lil’ girl, whut’er ya’ doin’ in’ear?”

Sugar put her hands on her hips, and again blew a stray hair out of her face as she took a gander at both of them up close, then she grinned that sexy, deadly grin of hers.

“Ya’ll was borin’ me up there. I thought I’d come down here and get me some action. Think you can give it to me?”

At any other time, they might have thought she was propositioning them to fuck her, but by the way she moved, and the look in her eyes, both men could tell another predator, and they knew she was there for bloodsport.

Godsmasher sneered and scoffed derisively. Sugar had not heard him speak before, so when he spoke, she was mildly surprised to hear that though he was one of the blackest men she had ever seen, he spoke with a thick Cossack accent, in an also surprisingly soft sibilant tone.

“Why hugh’ ‘maess weet’ my ‘veektory, leetell’ slit. Leaff’ before hugh’ make me ‘irreetate.”

Sugar gave the huge man a sly expression, and said in a curious voice.

“Hmm? What’s that you were gruntin’, ya’ big, black incompetent?”

Godsmasher bristled and snarled at her words, but held his ground for the moment, spiting a curse at her in Russian.

Sugar just smiled indulgently at the two of them as two of the portals opened from perpendicular sides in relation to those from which the first fighters had entered, and in walked Tiburon and Kid Dragon.

Tiburon strode briskly toward the group, but Kid Dragon seemed to glide toward them even faster. The Kid motion was another evidence that he was far more skilled than any of the others, for Sugar knew what it took to master that particular type of locomotion. The crowd above murmured in a hushed tone at this new turn of events as the last two combatants entered the zone.

In The Pit, battle royales were strictly forbidden for upper echelon fights. Full melee was too dangerous, to unpredictable to waste elite fighters in such a fray, but the hardcore fans could always dream. It looked like such a dream could actually come true. Except for the odd inclusion of a certain naughty, little girl. But maybe she would make it even more interesting. Among the crowd, bets began to take place as to what would happen next. None of them would have ever laid odds on the following series of events, nor would have anyone placed the bets.

Tiburon was tattooed over most of his deep, ruddy brown body. There was a story written there upon him, but as to the meaning of it, Sugar could not make head nor tail as to what it told, save for the obvious gang and prison ink scrawled here and there upon his skin. Around his eyes Tiburon had so many tears illustrated, that the Latino almost wept ink, and showed evidence that he was a killer many times over.

Both of the new arrivals were shorter men than the other fighters, especially Kid Dragon, but both were still much taller than Sugar, and easily outweighed her, by at the very least 70 pounds.

As they reached a safe distance from the other two fighters respectively, Tiburon shifted about, looking from face to face with intense, feral energy. The Kid looked serene and totally at ease. Tiburon and Triverton had recovered nicely from their scrapes and bangs in their previous fights. Godsmasher looked as if no one had touched him, let alone hurt him, though that wasn’t the case. Kid Dragon had not had a finger laid upon him all night, and from what Nasti told Sugar, The Kid had never had anyone be able to lay a hand on him; no holds, no strikes, no nothing.

Tiburon talked like he fought, in a machinegun fast delivery, with a slightly Chicano accent.

“What ‘de hell, ez’ going own’ here? What are ‘jou doing, chica? Get out of ‘De Pit! What are ‘jou ‘tinking, guapacita?”

Triverton interjected.

“The lil’ lady here wants t’ fight,” He said, his eyes scanning back and forth from opponent to opponent.

“Que?! ‘Jou loco, Chica?! Deed’ I fuck ‘jou, an’ forget ‘jou, o’ sumting’? Who ‘jou wan’ to fight, eh?”

Sugar’s smile had never left her face, in fact it had gotten, if anything, even more bright and ebullient than before.

“I don’t know any of you. I’m just bored, and I want to fight, all of you!”

The truth was, she looked more like she wanted to fuck them, and a part of her did. Point of fact, she actually licked her lips in anticipation, all of which held the four men’s attention wrapped, for one reason or another.

Tiburon continued cajoling her.

“Are ‘jou on sumting’, chica? Dees’ ez’ no game we mens play!”

Godsmasher looked on her with utter distain, as if she were muck on his shoes, but said nothing. Kid Dragon’s eyes were curious, but he remained silent as well. That left Triverton to put in his two cents.

“Tibber’s right, lil’ lady. You best get yer’ lil’ hind end back up in the seats. I don’ know if this’s a dare, or you’s trippin’ hard, but it’s time to skedaddle, missy.”

Sugar still grinning ear to pretty little ear, replied in a deliberately slow cadence.

“I know this isn’t a game. Tell you what… You’re prize fighters, aren’t you? If you can beat me; any one of you, or all of you combined, you get a prize, all of you do.”

Finally, Godsmasher spoke up again.

“An’ ‘fhut would dees’ prize be, leetell’ cunt?”

“Just that, ugly. Me. You beat me, you can have me; to do with me whatever you want me to do, say for a week. I’ll even be your locker room, communal pumpfuck, for all the fighters in the whole damned stable. How does that sound, boys?”

The audience heard her offer, and that set off a furious frenzy of betting and other speculation in the stands. Now to those who were from outside Lost Peaks, the thought of an establishment allowing such an occurrence to take place would seem impossible, but stranger things happened in Doomtown all the time, and Lost Ones learned to roll with a new development, and even enjoy the bizarre circus of it all.

Triverton’s eyes narrowed, and he expressed what everyone watching in the arena was thinking.

“You serious, lil’ lady?”

“As a massive coronary,” Sugar replied, her smile never leaving her lips. As she said that, she saw the physical change come over three of the four of the fighters, as they suddenly looked very interested, and the burning light of lust filled their eyes, but for the first time, Kid Dragon’s eyes and expression changed to a slight grimace of distaste. Sugar caught the look, and wondered if The Kid might be gay.

Tiburon was grinning now, and said with a leer.

“’Jou ez’ loco, guapacita, but if you wan’ I take ‘jou down nice an’ gentle, ‘hokay, chica?”

Triverton shifted slightly, and dipped his head, almost in a aw-shucks sort of way.

“Lil’ Lady, I ain’t never had me a filly’s fine as you. I’m in. Like Tibber said. I’ll be easy on ya’.”

Godsmasher face was the most malevolent, and he asked in his whisperish voice.

“An’ ‘fhut ‘eef I keell hugh’, hugh’ stupeed’ slut?”

Triverton looked steely eyed at Godsmasher and rasped.

“You kill her, an’ bus’ my chance at that fine-ass pussy, I’ll put a bullet in yer’ shit black cranium ‘fore ya’ leave the joint, boy!”

“Hugh’ll try. Boot’ I maint’ ‘fhen I’s fucks her, ‘fhut ‘eef I keel her ‘den? She ‘ees ‘berry smoll’, an my cock ‘ees ‘berry, - How hugh’ say? – huge.”

Sugar bark a laugh gaily, and said.

“I’ll take my chances, black Boris. My boyfriend is bigger than you, and packed way more heat than you ever will, and I’m just dandy with him.”

Godsmasher’s face screwed up in a scowl at her insult, but the lust never left his eyes.

“Su’ be ‘et, tainy’ whore. I shall spleet’ hugh’ like firewood, an ‘ ‘den we see ‘eef hugh’ laugh.”

Sugar gave him her best smolder, and shot back.

“Bring it on, Gutbuster. Then it’s settled. We fight. Ding-muthafuckin’-Ding!”

Whether Godsmasher understood her jib or not was lost, when Kid Dragon spoke up. His voice was surprisingly resonant and smooth.

“I will not fight this child. Especially not for such stakes. There is no honor in this.”

Sugar swiveled her head to regard him curiously, her eyes heavy lidded and sultry.

“So you don’t want a piece of me? Do I not…” She looked down at herself, and slowly smoothed her hands over her body, from her breasts, down to her hips to rest on her thighs.”…appeal to you?”

She noticed what her action did to the other three, not to mention many in the crowd above. There was an audible collective, groaning sigh as she did her thing.

The Kid straightened almost regally, and replied.

“On the contrary. I find you most comely, but it is the circumstance I find egregious. I will not be party to your abuse at the hands of ruffians such as inhabit this place, nor will I fight you for the reason only to sully your virtue.”

Sugar was a little frustrated at this pass. It was The Kid that she wished most to confront. It was he, that first caught her eye, and dredge up the desire to do battle. Not these other rank amateurs. Given enough time she could convince him with her sexuality to do just about anything, but time was short, and she was very impatient at that moment to burn a few thousand calories of pent up rage. Since he was of a stronger will than the others, she’d have to convince him by another avenue. She had an inkling that he knew that she was more than just the little piece of fluffery that she appeared. Maybe that was her in. Maybe with Kid Dragon it was all about the challenge.

In the back of Sugar’s mind, her reason was screaming that this whole line of action was madness, but said madness had caged her reason, and she was barreling forward at breakneck speed, hellfire bent for lusty leather.

Sugar sounded lucid and all too reasonable though, as she presented her proposition to The Kid. Well, reasonable for the situation, in any event.

“Firstly, you inhabit this place. Are you a ruffian too? Secondly, my virtue has long since been tainted by the debauch of Lost Peaks. And thirdly, what say, I beat yon three ruffians, and then we have a match one on one, for honor’s sake alone. In said instance, if you beat me, I am yours to dispose of as you see fit. The others will have no claim on me, or my person. You are The Champion after all, and rank has it’s privileges. I know that you know I am a worthy opponent. Like recognizes like. What say ye, Champion Dragon?”

Kid Dragon’s cat eyes were inscrutable, but after a pause of deliberation, he nodded, with the caveat.

“For honor alone.”

The Kid looked at the other three, and intoned.

“When thou joinest battle, ‘tis best not to think with thy loins.”

With that line of sage advice he turned from them, gliding a distance away from the other four persons in The Pit, and took a seat on a raised ledge, with his back to the wall, near the portal from which he entered. He settled into a lotus position, as if meditating, but his eyes never left the foursome at the center sand of the arena.

Sugar watched him go for a span, but her attention then riveted back upon her three opponents. She held no real animosity for Tiburon and Triverton, other than they were meat for her grinder. At another time and place, she could have been very friendly to either or both of them, but such was not the present case. Much to their future sorrow. Godsmasher on the other hand was a bully. She didn’t get real evil of off him, but he was definitely an asshole. The kind that needed a comeuppance.

Sugar knew she had enflamed their ardor, and they were doing just as The Kid had counseled them not to do. They were thinking with their dicks. Even if they were fully focused, Sugar would have felt little fear from this trio of fighters. As skilled as they were compared to the layman, they just weren’t in Sugar’s caliber, but they were enough to burn off some malignant excess energy.

The mob above was starting to get raucous, as the unexpected turn of events took root in their minds. Most of them thought Sugar was just some crazy, yet super hot bitch looking for an extravagant way to introduce herself to the stable of fighters, so she could get herself gangfucked all week. Gladiator groupies have been common throughout the ages, but this was a novel method of getting backstage at a coliseum. No one actually believed she was going to even land a punch or a kick. Maybe a bite or a scratch, as they subdued her, but nothing more. Of course, her gangfucking would be captured and recorded for the viewers pleasure as well, and that thought titillated the audience no end.

As tiny as she was, Sugar was still the most ravishing creature any in attendance had ever seen, and the kinky idea of such a small and gorgeous female taking on the three brutal fighters in a gangbang, coupled with the illicit thrill of a huge black beast of a man taking his pleasure in the charms of a very tiny white girl, had a certain segment of the viewing population gnashing at their collective bit to see her used and abused as soon as she was laid low, and laid hard and long afterward. It was obvious that this little event was certain to up viewership, not to mention video sales of the highlights. Thus, no one tried to stop it from going down. No, they all welcomed it.

Boy, were they in for a muthafuckin’ shocker…

Sugar looked up, and called out.

“Yo’ DJ, gimme a beat, heavy on the bass. Something sexy n’ funky; a dirty n’ sticky jam to grind my hips to. You feelin’ me?”

Sugar did her best to sound like Slick Jimmy when she asked for tunes to accompany her. She did a pretty good impression of him, for a girl. Some even laughed in the audience when they recognized the Jimmy’s rhythm and personal patois.

Suddenly music started to bump, and Sugar wasn’t sure if it was coincidence, serendipity, or the DJ had been somehow told who she was, but when the sounds began to pump, Trick Daddy’s Sugar (Gimme Some) was what thumped out over the arena.

Aw man I got a sweet tooth, can you dig it?

After this one you gon’ need a root canal then.

I love sugar all of it

This one for all the clean, decent women.

Lay it on me girl!

Pay Close Attention!

Sugar nodded her head in time to the music in approval, and twitched her hips as she spun and moved away from the three other combatants in the center sand. Then she whirled sensually, flipping her skirt up cheekily in the process, and then motioned them with a finger to bring it on.

Somebody in a control room perceived that an agreement had been reached between those on the center sand, and Sugar was ready to rumble, so whoever it was rang the gong for the contest to begin.

Immediately, Godsmasher came for her. That miffed Sugar. She wanted to save him for last. Well, she’d have to do something about that.

Though in her conscious mind she didn’t intend to kill any of them, she intended to punish Godsmasher, simply for being such a prick. Her death demon was screaming at her to kill them all, but she was fighting it down. Her general distain for the bloodsport practiced in the arena made her want to keep the participants alive so they could tell the tale of what they learned from her; humiliation at the hands of a true Mistress of Death.

Within her mind other motivations warred in conflict. Rationality was gone, relegated to an impotent corner of her psyche; to try and restore order in vain. Sugar was horny, she wanted to fuck, and the thought of being the plaything of a group of virile alpha males for a week didn’t sound that terrible to her. A part of her even lobbied for her to throw the match so she could indulge in that debauchery.

Another wanted to terrify everyone by killing these fools in the arena as quickly and horrifically as possible. This portion of her could see Civilus mewling and sniveling in terror as she stalked toward him in the aftermath of her butchery.

On an even deeper level than that, the most crazed part of her demon spun like a dynamo in a shrieking whine for her to just kill everyone, but her other deep demon howled for her to fuck everyone. Their war always seemed to balance each other, and her consciousness, though by no means rational, could skip along the mine strewn no man’s land in between the warring forces inside her.

It was a lucid madness that took her. Civilus’ slight and words faded from her as she was lost in the joy and freedom of battle. She could do with these idiots as she willed. Their lives and wellbeing, not to mention their egos were all in her grasp to crush or caress as she chose. She liked that feeling of power. When she was young, she had always felt so powerless, but the skills and knowledge X had imparted to her had given her power beyond the ken of most of Humanity. What she knew she lacked in moments of more calm reflection, was the wisdom to use her power prudently.

The Prophet had warned her of this temptation, but here she was, indulging in her desires anyway. Another part of her, a small quiet part of her, buried even farther away than her rational mind, wept for her and the costs of her impetuous ignorance. Some would have called this part of her being her long lost innocence… But what do those people know anyway?

Godsmasher really must have wanted to fuck Sugar, because as soon as the brassy tone shivered across The Pit, he dove toward her, black and raging as a pyroclastic cloud off an exploding volcano.

She put that sugar on my tongue.

She’s gonna’

Gimme’ gimme’ some.

She put it right there on my tongue. (Sweet Sweet, Lover Lover.)

Right there on my tongue. (She turns me on, like no other.)

His great hands reached for her, but found nothing as she slipped just beyond his grasp. He blinked. That was impossible! There was no way she could move that fast! Then he received a backhand slapped from seemingly nowhere that felt like he was hit with a sledgehammer. Godsmasher had been struck by some of the best in the business, and had never even been rocked, but now he was reeling, and just struggling to keep his feet, as stars exploded in his suddenly gauzy head. He stumbled and crashed to his knees, shaking his head groggily to clear the cobwebs.

Right heeeah’

Cuz’ baby, if I bite you

I bet you like it.

Sugar had leaped back and delivered her afterthought of a blow just as a reflex. After which she ignored the staggered Godsmasher.

Triverton and Tiburon were not far behind inky black man, but what they incredulously saw Sugar do to Godsmasher, did not really register with them until they were in the midst of the melee with her, and already committed to a course from which they could not back out. Sugar, as they had been cryptically warned by Kid Dragon, was not what she appeared.

The crowd above did not really understand what had happened to Godsmasher either. It had looked to be nothing more than a fly-swat that Sugar had given to him, but they could never know what was contained in that blow. Sugar saw in a nanosecond, the vibrations of force and fluctuations of movement contained within the hurtling juggernaut of Godsmasher as he strived to reach her and claim her body as his own.

Angles, trajectory, momentum, balance, positions of body and limbs of both he and herself were calculated in an instant, and combined with her understanding of human anatomy, and the flows and ebbs of energy within the body, when she struck, even only with a faction of her speed and power, it was devastating. In the mere slap, all she was did was hit a pressure point full of nerves in his face with a knuckle, that redirected energy in his system, and sent a message to Godsmasher’s brain to begin the process of shutting down. She could have done far worse, and still might, but what she did do at that moment was show the colossus that he was not nearly as invincible as he thought he was.

Sugar noted out of the corner of her eye, The Kid sitting placidly, observing and studying her. Good. They’d be on a level playing field of understanding. The Kid had seen the move. She could feel the subtle vibration of admiration from him, but no one else in the arena perceived the intricacies of nuance that she employed. It was their little secret.

French Vanilla's a hell of a flavor for me,

With strawberries, two cherries and whipped cream.

The best things are the wet dreams,

And uh, the rest is just a flick without a sex scene.

But in regard to Triverton and Tiburon, the secret was out. She saw the subtle shift in their movement, just as they came in range of her hands and feet, as they realized she wasn’t just a little piece of eye candy. They were just beginning to take her seriously. Like all the rest of the fighters, save The Kid, they seemed to Sugar to be moving in extreme slow motion. She had time to analyze both of their approaches and styles as they came at her.

So if you game for it,

I came for it.

I got a thing for ya

That I can't ignore.

She could have killed both of them on their first lunges, but she kind of liked these two. Tiburon had just joked with her, and Triverton had been down right concerned for her, and almost schoolboyish in his desire for her. She thought that very cute. Regardless of what her slayer demon was screaming, she didn’t really want to hurt these boys. She might even want to visit them later as they recuperated.

Tiburon punched and kicked much faster than Triverton, and his body movement was more reactive, but Triverton had better integral balance. Once the Texican set himself, his strikes and throws would have far more impact than the Latino’s.

She put that sugar

on my tongue, tongue.

Yippie Yippie, Yum Yum!

Goodie goodie gum drop!

Put me in a tongue lock!

Did it till my body went numb, numb!

Laid her on her back, back!

Turned her round, gave her bottom a smack, smack!

Not that either of them would be able to land a strike on Sugar. She was always shifting fluidly, twisting, bending, spinning, with an amazing, sinuous flexibility, and always with the rhythm of the music, so that their punches and kicks were so close they just skipped across her soft flesh tantalizingly, but never found their mark. She even had time to trail her fingers across their skins, and where she did, Sugar left burning welt lines to leave her mark.

In the heat of battle neither of them noticed these red, raised, finger kisses until after the first split second flurry of missed strikes by both men. Sugar danced away from them, still smiling her deadly grin, and circled them, skipping, leaping, flipping, and just plain frolicking to the music.

As she passed the prostrate Godsmasher, as he was just getting his bearings back and beginning to rise, she delivered another glancing bitchslap to the back of his head, dazing him once more, and sending him face first into the sand again. She circled them twice, seemingly floating on a cushion of air, she moved so light and quickly. Both standing men, and the surrounding audience were astounded at how fast on her feet the little girl was.

“Naw-naw! Na-naw-naw! You can’t catch me, boys!” She crowed, and made moose horns at Triverton and Tiburon while she stuck out her tongue.

Sweetie you look so incredible!

So delicious and so damn edible!

All I need is some honey or syrup

With a lil' butter to rub down all your curves.

Then she stopped, blew a kiss to them, and beckoned with her index finger seductively to come at her again. The two men stared at her, then looked at each other and grimaced simultaneously, as they saw, and then suddenly felt anew, the welts which her caressing fingers had lashed across both their forms. They both had the inkling that they were in way over their heads, but they couldn’t back down now. They had their pride, and at the very least, the crowd wouldn’t stand for it.

So they both marched toward her determinedly, as men on a suicide mission. When they reached her that was when she started hopping around like she was on her bed, and to toss them about like they were her favorite stuffed animals. As her mercurial nature swung about within mere seconds, at this point in the fight, though the combat was actually quite banal for her, she was having a lot of fun just playing with them, teasing them. The rather juvenile behavior she was displaying was actually quelling her bloodlust somewhat. She wasn’t even thinking of hurting them anymore, at least not severely.

She actually was feeling much more randy towards them as the fight progressed. She wondered what the crowd would do it she just knocked them all a bit silly, and then jumped their bones for good measure, and fucked them all into submission.

But that was just a stray electron of a thought in the whirling galaxy that was Sugar’s super heated brain. There was still Kid Dragon to attend to, and he was much more of a pull to her than these three. So, alas for the trio of fighters, she never put into action that random, lascivious notion.

So supper time, that'll hold me up.

I might choke myself if I don't slow it up, but

Honey, you look like a honeydew melon

Or strawberry with the whipped cream filling.

Thus she was she was dancing around them in time to Trick Daddy, Cee-Lo, and Ludacris, and chucking them about like throw pillows, as they repeatedly tried to grab her. Just to taunt them, she would actually let them find purchase on her body, giving them a little taste of her flesh before flinging each one away again, to have them skid a few meters away, as they rolled back to their feet, and charged again. None of the throws was meant to injure them, but as they continued their concerted attack, even with the high level of cardio training they had, they were quickly getting winded.

Godsmasher, meanwhile had shakily regained his feet, but was blearily looking around, and rubbing the back of his head as he tried to reorient himself. Sugar flitted passed him, and poked him in the stomach with a tap, and down he went again, as she knocked the wind from him.

After being thrown again, and scrambling back to their feet, both Tiburon and Triverton were sucking air and wheezing, bent over and holding their knees, as they regarded the waiting Sugar as she paced a few yards way, sashaying on her bare feet in between them in the middle of the center sand.

“Well, come on, boys. Don’t you want to sample some of this?” She asked, as she patted her ass. “Or are you all pussied out?”

She smirked, and arched her eyebrow challengingly at Triverton, then swiveled her head to favor Tiburon with same expression. That look must have had the desired effect, because they both rushed her from opposite sides. Both fighters were breathing like bellows, as they came within reach of her, but she shot up straight in the air, higher than anyone could ever expected a girl her size to jump, flying several feet above the two men as they crashed into each other.

It was a solid brutal collision, and did more damage to both men than anything Sugar had done to them personally. They tangled together with force and mutually clothes-lined each other like some ridiculous professional wresting pratfall, but this laid both men out on the sand ear to ear, as they fell stunned to the ground with a thud.

From above Sugar landed on top of them, a bare foot on each of their chests.

The crowd above The Pit groaned for Tiburon and Triverton, as she stood on them, looking down at their barely conscious faces. From their vantage, if they had been more cognizant, they could have seen right up her skirt, and when she crouched down on top of them, they got a close-up of her g-string clad cunny, which was actually quite wet. She pulled aside her tiny panty, so her bald pussy was bared to them.

She patted their faces and cooed conciliatorily.

“See, I was all slicked up for you. That’s what you could have had for a whole week. But, um, I like you to, so maybe I’ll come visit you when you’re feeling more chipper.”

She gave them a little moue, covered her pretty pussy back up, and said.

“Night-night.”

With that she tapped their foreheads sharply with her middle fingers, and they went to sleep like wink. Still squatting on top of them, she looked over her shoulder at Godsmasher, who was finally gaining his feet again. She flipped backward off Triverton and Tiburon, and handspringed toward the last of the trio. She ended her gymnastic advance with a twisting flip that landed her right in front of Godsmasher facing him, her body in a sensuous S-curve, fingers raking through her thick blond hair. She looked up at his woozy ebony face, pursing her lips prettily, as she regarded him scornfully.

She put that sugar on my tongue.

She’s gonna’

Gimme’ gimme’ some.

She put it right there on my tongue. (Sweet Sweet, Lover Lover.)

Right there on my tongue. (She turns me on, like no other.)

Whatever speed Godsmasher had at the beginning of the fight, Sugar’s three slaps had knocked it clean out of him, but he was still trying to fight. Before he could even raise his arm to strike at her, her fingers left hand sniped out and hit the nerve cluster in his right shoulder, and then with her right she jabbed his left shoulder, effectively making his arms useless. Two similar strikes landed on his hip joints, and his legs collapsed under him, but as he reached his knees, Sugar caught his chin between the thumb and index finger of her right hand and held him up with seeming ease in a kneeling position.

She was not smiling. In fact, she was gazing in his eyes rather sadly.

Softly she murmured only for Godsmasher’s ears alone.

“It’s not nice to be a bully,” She cocked her head at him. “I was going to cripple you for the rest of your life, but then I realized that would make me no better than you, and I want you to realize, I’m fighting down the tempting urge to slay you very painfully right now. So, I want you to remember that I spared you when you feel like acting like an unmitigated asshole in the future. I held your life in my hands. Remember that when you hold another’s in yours. Do you understand?”

Through shaking lips, Godsmasher answered, his eyes terrified.

“Yes, ‘Meestress.”

Sugar with eyes like flinty ice, nodded.

“Good boy.”

Then she tapped his forehead as she had the others, and then laid the suddenly unconscious Godsmasher down on the sand rather gently, then as an afterthought, she patted his face rather fondly.

“There may be hope for you yet.”

She put it right there on my tongue. (Sweet Sweet, Lover Lover.)

Right there on my tongue. (She turns me on, like no other.)

The Trick Daddy’s song ended as she turned to look over at where Kid Dragon sat serenely. Her grin was back, and she walked with a sumptuous gait toward him, eroticism oozing out of her every pore.

The crowd was actually silent as the song faded out. What she had done to Godsmasher was unbelievable, and the mob’s gestalt mind was boggled by the event. He hadn’t stood a chance against her. None of them had. No one watching could fathom it possible that this tiny girl had laid low three elite fighters, seemingly while dancing to her favorite jam. She didn’t even seem to be sweating.

She stopped a few yards away from The Kid, looking at him with her smoldering icy eyes, and asked.

“You ready for the main event, Champion Dragon?”

He arose from lotus position like smoke.

“Do you need another song, or can you move to your own rhythm?”

“You’ll find out. I intent to make sweet chin music with you, bub?”

She grinned, and surprisingly he grinned right back.

As he came onto the center sand, he asked.

“I have never seen a style quite like yours. Who is your teacher?”

Still smiling impishly, she shot back.

“Why? Do you need a new one?”

“I only wish to pay my respects. Your Master’s pupil is very accomplished for one so young.”

“I’ll pass on your regards.”

“Do. You might also pass along to your Master that he needs to reinforce your inhibition control, for it is the only glaring weakness I see in you.”

Sugar felt as if he had slapped her. She was surprised his admonition stung her feelings so. The real reason was because he saw right through her facade to a fundamental truth that lay within her being. Suddenly she was filled with an irrational rage greater than any she had felt before that night. A rage akin to the wrath she felt for her ex-Masters, and it was directed toward this serenely smug bastard who had cut through all of her bullshit like a knife and laid her open.

At least that’s how Sugar saw it through the red haze of her anger. Any thought of taking it easy on the Champion vanished with his seemingly gentle reprimand.

Sugar was going to kill this man.

She would show him control.

The demon of her bloodlust was now calling the shots.

But on the outside she was still the sex kitten with the razor edges, smiling just on the edgy of being maniacally fuck-crazy.

They had moved to the center of the sand. The other three fighters still lay strewn about the floor, but Sugar and Kid Dragon ignored them as if they didn’t exist, eying only each other, like the two apex predators they were, cautiously circling each other.

Sugar saw at once, The Kid would not be easy. He was moving differently from the previous match she watched him fight. He too had been only using a fraction of his capabilities, just like she had done with the previous three fighters.

Despite being called The Kid, the man had at least fifteen years experience on her, and he was a Master in his own right. Kid Dragon could have been an elite assassin, if he had chosen that path, maybe even a Herseman. Sugar could feel the vibrations coming off him, and saw his aura start to radiate brighter, and all of it told her one immutable fact.

This fight would come down to one mistake, and it then would be over. There would be no recovering from a landed strike, but then that was how all confrontations were between the superlative practitioners of the art ended. The best need no second chances.

“Ready?” Kid Dragon asked politely.

Smiling with cold fury, Sugar replied.

“I’ve just been waiting for you to say when, Kid.”

No one rang a gong. No one could have guess how fast the fray would start.

One second they were standing looking at each, The Kid smiling his serene smile, and Sugar grinning devilishly, then faster than a blink they were moving in a blur.

No one watching could even tell what was going on they were moving so fast. This fight was not about blocks, strikes, or throws. It was about the quest for one opening in a defense that was all about avoidance and redirecting energy and momentum. The first landed strike would be an incapacitating blow. Any perceived delivered blows that did not end the fight, were somehow redirected force, and shunted in another path.

A master could take a blow if he or she could channel that force somewhere else. Thus such false blows were not considered true solid strikes. If a solid blow from a master did land, there would be no time for recovery, because the intended effect of the blow, whether to stun, cripple, or deal death would happen from that delivered strike.

In this realm of combat, there was no such thing as an iron jaw, or an ability to take massive punishment. There was only the master who saw the mistake in the defense of the other master first and struck through that opening.

Their struggle ranged all over The Pit’s terrain. Both of them moved like acrobatic wraiths, with feline speed and grace, as their forms intermingled with repeated lightning fast attempted strikes from each of them, and counter redirection of limbs and bodies as the strikes were avoided. They broke apart and came together again so fast that it actually looked like they were dancing together in a rather intimate fashion, as they twisted and twined around one another, hands and feet, elbows and knees barely missing their marks, as limbs shifted along each other lengths, bodies shifting and contorting faster than the normal eye could follow.

Such energetic interactions have an ebb and flow. When a thrown force does not find its intended impact, and has to follow another path or be lost, leaving the striker open to counter attack. Flips, twists, spins, leaps, dives, rolls, bends, ducks, all while never quite breaking contact with the other opponent, as they sense the vibration and power of the next move. It was a chess match at hyperspeed, and it was like no battle the fans of the bloodsport arena had ever seen, or could truly understand.

Sugar, for all her cold rage and laser focus, could not land the blow she desired. Kid Dragon was a master. He was pristinely perfect. His balance, his speed, his power, his very vibrations told her he was her equal, and that only inflamed her rage further. It also meant he had more strength than she did, just by the sheer fact that he had more mass. However, she was just a tiny fraction faster than him. Not enough to do real damage. Not even enough to leave welts like she had on the other three fellows. All she could do was caress him lightly with her fingertips as he passed by her. For all his skill and precision, he could not do the same to her, but she could tell, as could he, that he could out last her. He had more endurance, plain and simple. A fight such as they fought used massive amounts of energy, and he had more reserves than her. If this went on much longer she would slow just a small increment, and then it would be over, because that would be all The Kid needed to win.

She knew he would not hurt her. It was not his way. He‘d just stun her, and lay her low. That only made her more angry, more determined to destroy him as her death demon screamed in all its hubris that to lose in such a manner would be the ultimate humiliation.

Her other demon had other ideas. The Kid was an Alpha Male of the highest caliber, and Sugar’s instinct to mate with him was screaming on the other side of her fractured psyche. She should let him win. Let him claim her as his prize.

But her Fuck Demon was not in control. It never was in combat. It was just a nagging voice she had learned to tune out until the bloodletting was through. Ironically, it was her fuck demon that was that was her edge.

As her insistent fucklust flared up intensely, her bloodlust was subsumed, if only for an instant, but an instant was all she needed to feel something very basic within Kid Dragon.

As her fingertips brushed over his skin, she received a vibration that was unmistakably emanating from him. It had not effected his aura yet, but Sugar knew it was true. The Kid was enjoying her touch. In fact, he was thrilled by it as hard as he was trying to fight his arousal. His body was betraying him. He wanted her.

In that moment Sugar knew she had his number; if only she could use this knowledge to her advantage before she began to tire. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed his reaction before, and suddenly she realized it. Her rage had blinded her senses to his subtle pleasure at her brief grazes. If she had felt it before, this would have been a much faster fight.

The Kid had not been lying when he told her he found her attractive. He most certainly did. Much more than he let on, or wanted her to know, because it left him with a weakness. It is far easier to give pleasure, than to cause pain. It only takes the lightest of touches to begin to draw focus and energy. Eventually as intensity increases, pleasure and pain can be mixed, but during a fight such as they waged, it was all about balance, not pleasure or pain.

She knew how to draw his focus and throw his balance off. Imbalance him only a fraction, and he’d be lost. She knew the technique that would be his undoing. Yes, she knew every nuance of this particular art all to well, and it had nothing to do with the killing arts.

Such a technique would never work on Sugar. She lived every second of every minute of every day existing in the state of being she was going to force upon The Kid. The state of being highly aroused.

Currently, Kid Dragon was fighting his ardor. He was fighting it better than any man she had ever met, with the exceptions of X and the Prophet. For some reason those two, though they were heterosexual, seemed to be immune to her charms. Not so with The Kid, but he had excellent control of his physiology. Sugar could change that.

But did she have enough time. She could feel her reserves depleting rapidly, but Sugar knew now it would only take a few more passes in the right spots to do the trick.

She stopped trying to hit him, and conserved her energy. She knew before that none of his blows were killing strikes. In her rage, she had not taken advantage of that fact. She could predict to some degree what he would do, and where he would try to hit her. Again her rage had betrayed her.

It was much easier to caress him. To tantalize him. To enflame him. A stroke to the small of his back, to his neck, to his belly, to his inner thighs, and then she felt as much as saw his imbalance shift through his frame.

The Kid did not see his danger until he was too far gone. His harmonic balance slipped, and suddenly it was gone. His body was receiving conflicting signals. Sex and violence mixed all the time in the minds of rapists and serial killers, but most of them could never be elite assassins. Sex can be a violent act, but it is only driven to one conclusion; climax. A fight has a climax of a different sort, even though subduing one participant is still the main objective. The Kid’s mind did not mix sex and violence at all. It was foreign to his very nature. Thus when a his body responded very sexually and very naturally to her gentle intimate touches, in a very evident manner, his whole body mechanics were knocked complete out of whack.

So, sped by her expert touch, blood coursed its way through his body to one select point and filled to tumescence, and did so very quickly. Once his phallic response was complete his movement was thrown utterly out of balance, and from that moment he was at her mercy.

Just imagine trying to run with a full, raging hard-on. Yeah. Then take that thought and insert it into the toughest fight of your life. Uh-huh. Balance has taken a powder.

The Kid’s kinetics were all over the place, at least to Sugar expert eyes. The Champion still could have taken any of the would-be challengers to the title that night, even so encumbered, but Sugar was far beyond those novices. Sugar’s fuck demon noted rather approvingly that The Kid was fairly well endowed. With his balance gone, it made Sugar’s grabbing hold of his erection just that much easier for her, and access the nerve bundle at it’s base.

His reaction was immediate and instinctual. He tried to protect his genitals, and she had already anticipated his action. She delivered a blow to his heart.

But surprisingly to Sugar herself, it was not a killing blow. She held back, and it just made his heart skip a beat as the air exploded from his lungs. She grabbed his neck, swung him around by cock and collar, and threw him into the middle of the center sand, then leaped to follow the arching path of The Kid’s body so she landed on top of him, straddling his form, only a fraction of a second after he landed on his back on the packed sand of The Pit.

Her wrath was still raging, but so was her lust. She wanted his life essence in both ways. His erection was still rampant, and she wanted to fuck him as much as kill him. In her madness, she thought maybe she could do both. She was fully mad now, ignoring all the training and council X, The Prophet, Ms, Crump, or anyone else had ever taught her. The maelstrom of her abysmal insanity was tearing around inside her, and running amok, but in the heart of every storm is a eye of calm, no matter how small it is.

She was an instant from tearing open the wrapping on his package, and impaling herself on it, as she delivered the killing coup de grace, then riding his last vigor to rapture, when a innocent whisper of a lucid thought welled up from deep inside her core, and shimmered through her mind like a crystal thread, ringing with a clear tone that even in its softness it cut right through her madness.

“You had him. His life was yours. Why did you hold back?” A tiny child-like part of her mind asked herself.

She was looking in his eyes when she thought this. He had not lost consciousness yet, and he was looking up at her. He could see her wrath. He could see her lust. He could see her madness. In his eyes there was no hatred, no fear, no anger starring back at her. Then she saw what lay there in his eyes through all his distress.

Admiration and Respect, but mostly Pity.

And his eyes stabbed into hers.

And her rage screamed, gnashing its bloody fangs.

And her lust writhed, squirming futilely in desperate need.

And her madness…dimmed.

And suddenly through all of it she saw herself and her actions clearly, maybe for the first time that night, and inwardly she shuddered.

Kid Dragon was a rare thing in Lost Peaks. A good man.

And she had almost killed him in a horrible and humiliating way, for no other reason than she had start the night out bored, and let events escalate until her lusts and madness almost overwhelmed her. She felt mortified.

She did not often feel so. She looked around at the arena. Then she heard it. The crowd was chanting for her to finish it. Not just to finish The Kid, but to kill him. Their fight had touched something primal in the mob’s belly, and they wanted to taste blood that night. They wanted death to put in an appearance.

Her death demon had spread to the crowd, but truthfully she knew they always wanted blood and killing. Carnage was why they came.

Sugar suddenly felt sick, and very drained and exhausted, but still very, very achingly angry. However, she saw through clear eyes now. This time she was furious with herself.

She had made a huge, colossal mistake. She had revealed herself. The mob, and all who subscribed to the broadcast feed knew her to be more than just some slutty schoolgirl strumpet. She had defeated one of the best fighters ever to step into The Pit. She had shown the world what she was, and even if she killed everyone in the arena to cover it up, no matter how good it would feel to shed their wretched blood, the dark genie was out of the bottle.

The ramifications of this were horrific to her. She had just shattered her world, but worse, she had shattered X’s world. The very person whom she loved more than any other, she had opened his life up to scrutiny. People would not forget her. How could they? And there would be questions about who she was, and where she came from, and how she learned to be such a fighter.

And all of that would lead straight to X, destroying his secret life, his precious anonymity, and expose him to his enemies on both sides of the law. It could even cost her beloved X his life.

She realized how stupid she had been, and cursed herself, even as she desperately tried to find a way out of her predicament. For all Sugar’s intellect, she could perceive no exit strategy, not even damage control, from the course she had gone down in her madness.

If she had opened just herself up to the world, she would not have cared, but her father? That was a different matter entirely. She owed everything she had become to him. He was her savior, her mentor, her rock, her solace, her Daddy. He represented everything precious to her, and she had left him open to the invading light from which he ever retreated into the cover of darkness. He was a creature of the deepest night, and now she had left him to bake and sizzle in the heat of the desert sun.

There sitting atop The Kid’s warm belly as he began to get back his breath, she starred around at the bright lights of the arena, and the swelling cacophony of the crowd’s roar, and began to rock in her despondency at what she had done. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t fix what she had broken. Life would never be the same. People would know her face, and X would leave her because she had not listened to him.

She knew the last part was not rational. She knew her Daddy would stand by her no matter what, but it was an old fear, and the very inkling of it gave her a near all consuming panic. That old dread of being alone cackled at her from out of the darkness, and so she rocked in stark terror of it, mounted on The Kid in the center of The Pit, oblivious to him, shutting out the mob and its howling, clasping her hands to her chest instinctively, and finding her golden Ankh crafted by the mad Professor Mechanic.

She clung to her special piece of jewelry like life preserver, gripping it tightly in the knotted fingers of both her hands. She had almost lost her sanity to her lust for death and sex, and now she felt she might lose her mind to fear, for all now seemed like blackness. Her mind raced down different possible solutions only to have them dead end in the same outcome. Again her reason started to slip as the terror of being abandoned stole her mind and squeezed her heart.

She rocked back and forth, holding her Ankh, and whispering to herself, almost in prayer that she could find a way back, but a cold bleak despair was filling her, building to an unbearable threshold. It felt like a cold heavy dark star had taken up residence inside her, and nothing could save her from the abyss. She wanted to weep, and give into the darkness and fade away, but still she sought a way out.

And so she did pray.

She prayed for help and guidance.

For knowledge and wisdom of what to do.

But most of all, Sugar prayed for a miracle.

To Whom she did not know.

Just to Whoever was listening.

And she got no perceptible answer.

Then she got mad, even as she supplicated herself.

Thus, holding her golden Ankh with its great glowing gem, she screamed to the Heavens and Hells, to all levels, realms, and spheres of existence, with all her force of focused will, and with every iota of fervor she possessed in her soul, she released into the Universe her appeal.

“PLEASE!!!”

Inside her something pent up like a ball of incandescent, iridescent light, that even as her greatest despair descended upon her, had built and built as she strived for a hoped solution, and it blasted out with her plea. Sugar experienced for the briefest instant the sentience of something unimaginably vast, and she felt more than heard a rushing surge, and then a great WHOOSH! It was as if she were the center of a massive gravity well, and she had just pulsed out a wave of enigmatic energy into the over-reality around her. Lights seemed to flicker in her head, and her world trembled, and she felt euphorically dizzy, as the Universe spun madly around her, and the world faded to blackness.

Then there was light. Light and warmth. Sugar felt like she was floating. Floating in light and nothingness. She felt apart from her body, yet still connected. Then she began to feel something else. Others. Others moving in the light. So close but still indistinct and hidden. She reached to touch them in every direction, but she could not seem to find them. There was something familiar about them, but she could not place what it was.

They were everywhere and nowhere. She tried to call out to them, but her voice did not seem to carry beyond her own mind, as if her voice could only rebound on itself in this place. It frustrated her. She felt bound in a singularity, alone in utter isolation, yet surrounded by life uncountable; as if she were swimming in a vortex of which she was the crux, and from which she could never escape.

There was no pain, but there was no joy. There was nothing. Nothing at all, but herself. What she was, and she did not want to face herself, but here, she could not escape from herself. She wondered if this was Hell.

Then from nowhere and nothing, there was Something. Someone. Someone so familiar her senses, and every iota of her being screamed she should know this Being, but Who and What It was, was only a blank.

Then the Being spoke to her. She did not hear a voice. She only felt the meaning. Suddenly the universe became so clear it hurt her mind. It was clarity so pure she could not understand the depth and breadth of all its meaning. It was like trying to condense all of creation into a single subatomic particle; packing every last wave, string, dimension, membrane into one primal point. It was total agony, even as it was complete ecstasy. She wanted to run toward and away from it as fast as she could at the very same time, and it was tearing her apart.

Then the Being who was there, in around, and through her, uttered another feeling and it was over. She longed for it to return, but was terrified that it would. Her soul trembled from the experience, not knowing even what it was, or what any of it meant.

Then the Being spoke again. The meaning was love. Love like she never dreamed was possible, yet for which she always yearned, and never really knew it. There was endless power in this love. So strong it held all of everything together. And it too was unknowable to her in all its extent. It filled her to bursting until she felt light like the fire of a star beaming from her, and she was sure she would be consumed by it.

Then the Being spoke, and she knew that all of this was over, and she would be leaving, not even knowing what it meant, or remembering anything but a residual of emotion. An emotion that was an Answer that she would never recall.

The light grew so bright until it blotted out all reason and thought, and descending darkness took its place, wiping all memory of this visionary dream.

There was a rush, accompanied by a strange mix of comfort and confusion. There was something she should remember, but it was lost. Something so very important, but it was gone. Gone where none could reach.

She awoke atop the warm, slowly breathing chest of Kid Dragon, laying with her arms around him. When she realized that she had swooned, and where she was, she sat up with a start, then looked down at The Kid. He lay under her with a peaceful dreamy expression on his handsome face, but was completely unconscious. He actually had a slight smile on his lips.

Suddenly, Sugar was very, very fond of the man. She could find not even a scintilla of anger toward him anymore. In fact, all she wanted to do to him now was hug him, and make love him until he couldn’t see straight. Not fuck him, but love him. She found she now had only great affection for the Champion.

Technically, she guessed she was the new Champion, but she cared nothing for such accolades. She ran her fingers over his chest, relishing the feel of his skin. She might have mated with him right there, but she noted for the first time that the light of The Pit was much more dim that it had been before she had passed out.

She had fainted. That was very odd. Fainting was not like Sugar at all. She wondered briefly if she was ill, but she felt fine. Despite feeling a little tired, she actually felt very good. One could almost say beatific. Almost. She was still Sugar after all was said and done.

She looked around her, and beheld a bewildering scene. All the bright lights of the arena were out, and only the emergency lights were on. She could see the shadowed crowd milling about in the stands above, but even in the dim lighting, Sugar could see their faces. They all seemed confused, even frightened, as if they did not know what was going on.

The confusion she knew, as Sugar was mystified as to what had happened when she lost consciousness. She was a little chagrined about that, but it was of no moment, as she also felt almost as serene as The Kid looked beneath her. Sugar could not say why, but all the dark despair she experienced before had fled her, and she felt sure that everything would be alright.

She could not explain why, but she felt a sense of wellbeing. She also suddenly wanted to split from The Pit as quickly as she could. She gazed down at Kid Dragon. She did not want to leave him there, at the mercy of the mob. She felt too much warmth for the Champion to do that to him. The crowd was notoriously vicious to the loser of a match, especially if that person had lost them money, and it was sure that The Kid had lost a lot of people much gold when he fell at Sugar’s hands.

Sugar still felt a bit giddy and weak, but was not too frail to stand, nor to bodily pick up The Kid, and sling him across her shoulders. As the crowd milled around in the semi-darkness, Sugar headed for the exit from which the Champion had entered. She touched the access pad and the portal slid open, and with The Kid upon her shoulders like a yoke, she slipped through the door into the dark interior.

Inside, there was a short spur that ended on a much larger hallway. The gloomy illumination was sporadic from one emergency light to the next, causing shadows to cast long and deep in the corridor. Sugar was not sure where she was going, and was just following her nose.

She wanted to keep The Kid with her, as a part of her was still intending to bed him when she found a quiet comfortable corner to do the deed. Another part of her just liked the nearness of him, the feel of his warmth, and the smell of his scent. Now, that her lust had simmered down a little she found she was liking the man more and more. She was surprised how solid he was for being so light. The man did not seem to have any fat on him at all. Sugar did not mind fat on a man, but a fit tabernacle was always a plus. It usually meant a man could last for hours when coupling. Stamina was always a good thing.

Sugar had not gone far when she felt someone coming. It was not only by aura, but scent as well. It was a man. He had a very idiosyncratic odor. However, she perceived his aura first. It was a very bad aura; distinct, singular, and memorable. Sugar had moment of astonishment. The shadow of this certain individual loomed up out of the darkness. The man, silhouetted by an emergency light behind him, approached Sugar, as she was burdened with Kid Dragon. This man stopped a short distance from her, and hailed her.

“That was some display you put on out there, girly.”

Sugar stopped. For an instant she was very wary, almost involuntarily so. This man’s aura, the sound of him, his scent coughed up a visceral reminiscence inside of her. She gently set down The Kid, making sure that his head was protected as she laid him to the side of the hallway.

The man was still standing obscured in the shadows. There was a darkness blackening the tone of his speech; an endless avarice tingeing his voice, as he continued speaking to her.

“So the question arises as to where were you going with The Kid? Possibly were you going to take his head as a trophy?” The man seem more serious than joking.

Sugar languorously approached the man.

“No. I was saving him from the mob,” She informed him, her voice once again full of sultry sex.

The man’s tone was wry, as he responded.

“How gallant of you, missy,” He paused. “I would love have a sit down with you. Talk business. You have a great future in the fight game,” His tone was like a great cat licking its chops.

“I do?” She asked innocently.

“Oh yes. You were quite the surprise to everyone. It’s been a night of surprises, what with this earthquake, and all the facility’s systems getting fried by some electric surge. The whole place is in lockdown until we can sort things out.” There was no small irritation in his voice as he talked of the act of the nature that had disrupted his business.

“Really? I was wondering what happened,” It was her turn to pause. She still could not see his face. She wanted to see his face. Badly. “And who might I be speaking to?”

Still hidden by shadows the man replied, filled with undisguised, condescending pride, as if she should be awed by the mere utterance of his name..

“Ranford Ordinal. I run this facility, both the plant and the arena.”

“Ordinal.” Sugar said noncommittally, tilting her head in speculation.

He chuckled.

“Oh yes. I saw the altercation with Civilus and the Twins. No need to worry. I was actually rather amused by it all, though I’m sure Civvy would not say the same.”

She stepped closer to him, seeking the identifying edges of his features, but he was still obscured by contrasting light and darkness.

“So am I to understand that I do not have to expect any reprisals from you?” Her voice was impishly coy, very like a little girl after she had been bad. She could smell his lust rising, as it wafted off him like a cloud of charged pheromones. He wanted her. He wanted her very badly. She could use that, but then she always did. As to her question, he replied in an amused tone.

“Not from me. I can’t speak for Civilus, or his parents.”

She took another step closer to him, her hands behind her, her bosom thrust forward, her face near vapidity, lips parted, wanting to taste a new experience.

“Mm-hmm, and how are you related to them?” She wondered blithely.

She felt him shift, almost in discomfiture. She was having the desired effect on the man. She knew he would have an erection if she touched him. That was good. Less blood to the brain made a man sloppy.

“Third cousin. Our branches of the family are not really on the best of terms, but as they are the head of the clan, we have to be civil to them at family gatherings. Actually, most of the extended family will take great glee in watching what you did to the Brat Apparent. I would expect that you’ll have to watch your back from now on, especially when visiting Steam Isle.”

When he spoke of his extended family, there was obvious distaste in his voice, but it also was conspiratorial, as if he was being naughty by talking to an outsider about Family matters.

“Good thing then that I don’t frequent the Isle all that often, huh?”

“Oh, I think you might be here more often than before, once I show you how much you can make as a fighter.”

“Not really what I intend with my life. Tonight was just… a diversion.”

He man barked out a laugh.

“Girly, with your look and talent you could be the biggest thing to hit the sport since…ever! There has not been a decent female fighter in years, and almost to a woman they look like Bigfoot’s little sisters. You, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. We could make billions in merchandising alone. Come to my office, and we can sit down and talk details. The Unions will flow like water.”

“I don’t suppose it could hurt to just talk, but I’m not committing to anything until I talk to my father, and of course a lawyer.”

“Very astute, missy. I’m just speaking in what-ifs here. If you like what I put on the table then we can move forward from there.”

“What about The Kid?”

“What about him? He’s old news. You’re the new and improved Champion.”

“No, I meant, we just can’t leave him here.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you really care what happens to him. You just handed his ass to him out there. Besides, no one will bother him. He’s still one bad motherfucker after all. Tell you what, I’ll send someone round to see to him, soon as we get to my office, all right?”

“Fine. Give me a sec.”

She crouched by The Kid’s form, and straightened his hair with a smoothing hand, then kissed his inert lips, and whispered in his ear.

“That was just for luck, hot stuff. I’m going to have a lil’ tête-à-tête with your former employer.”

She rose and turned her head toward the looming shadow of the man, and said.

“Lead the way.”

Ranford walked down the hallway with Sugar in tow for about thirty paces when they came to a doorway, and the Ordinal man shouldered his way into the chamber beyond. They entered a place of chaos.

It was the broadcast control room for the arena, and the place was a shambles. Computers, view screens, lights, and anything electrical, or with circuit board had apparently been shorted out so badly that fires had started in everything. When Ranford had said they were fried, he meant literally. The fires were out now, and everything was covered in retardant foam, but smoke lingered in the air, and the different technicians, in the dim emergency lighting, were stumbling about the room, looking at the disaster with wide, blinking, uncomprehending eyes.

The light was only a little better in this room than out in the corridor, but it was the first time Sugar had received a good look at Ranford Ordinal.

The man was below average height, though still taller than Sugar, with dark eyes and hair, with gray filling in his sidewalls. He had a look of a man prone to degenerative excess. It was obvious the man was exceedingly wealthy, as he was dressed in a dark suit that cost as much as a nice mid-range car, and arrogance was etched into the lines of his forty-something face like the stamp of entitlement.

Sugar smiled a very pleased grin.

Ranford looked at the jumbled disarray that his control room had become, and grimaced slightly, then smiled perfunctorily at Sugar when he saw her smiling at him, but almost immediately his face return to a scowl of irritation.

“Heads will roll for this debacle. It is good thing I took precautions long before this, or this might have been a much costlier night for me.”

“Precautions?” Sugar queried curiously.

“Oh, I am very careful man, missy. A man in my position has to be. Follow me.”

He lead her across the room to an huge steel portal that looked for all the world like a bank vault door. Just before he reached it, one of the distracted technicians bumped into the Ordinal. That is when the head man exploded.

Ranford slapped the man hard and snarled.

“Get out of my way, you cretin. You’re fired. In fact, all of you are! Get out of my sight! Leave! You’re all fired!”

Every man and woman in the room looked on, even further in shock, and just stood stock still.

“I said get the fuck out! I’m going in my office now, and I’m calling the guard, and telling them to gut-shoot anyone who is still in this room!”

Suddenly there was a mad scramble for the door as everyone bolted to escape. Ranford ignored the exodus, and turned back to the vault door. It had a retinal scan, a voice print, and DNA sampler to gain access to his office. Actually, for all that, it went faster than one might expect, but still, the security was way overkill for just an office that normally would just need a deadbolt and a steel frame.

Either Ranford was a paranoid, or had something to hide, or both.

The massive door slowly slid silently back on hissing hydraulics, and revealed another corridor. Automatically the lights in the corridor flickered on, and Ranford, smiling, motioned with his arm for Sugar to enter his personal domain. She returned his smile, with a slow little purse of her lips.

Sugar went down the hall, followed by the Ordinal, his eyes glued hungrily to the swing of her backside. The hall was full of security measures. Sugar could feel them, but the sensors recognized Ranford, so nothing happened. If the Ordinal had not been there, the corridor would have been a blazing death trap for any normal person. Sugar could have dealt with the security, but she would have had to perform quite the frenetic dance to deactivate or destroy all the hidden, deadly precautions installed in that hall, and in her wearied condition that would be precarious.

At the end of the corridor stood another steel door that hissed at their approach, and slid out of the way into the wall. Beyond that door was Ranford’s office. It was a sumptuous affair. The man certainly enjoyed his luxurious amenities. For a fight promoter, there was virtually nothing in his office to suggest what was his business outside his inner sanctum. His desk was a huge, heavy hardwood piece of furniture, carved and polished, backed by a great black leather, rolling chair.

There were gold fixtures and gem crusted lamps, and other treasures strewn about the office, used as common place items, such as a pen worth more than many men would make in twenty years of labor, for the simple fact that it was encased in solid intricately carved platinum, and topped with a diamond ten carats large, of perfect clarity, cut, and color.

Only a member of a Great Claim House could afford to adorn their environment with such trinkets, and Ranford had many of them in his private domain at the plant. As opulent as this room was, it was nothing compared to the head of a Great Claim Family. In the high echelons of Lost Peaks society, he was on the bottom rung, and Ranford knew it. It rankled him that he actually had to work, such as it was. Sugar could see his discontent behind the Ordinal’s eyes. Over the years it had bred a wide streak of vicious cruelty in the man that he barely held in check.

The office was more an apartment than a simple administrative chamber. More than likely, Ranford had another office elsewhere in the plant to conduct official business of the facilities daily operation. This was a safe room as much as an office, and it was deep under the plant. Sugar was sure there was an escape route out of this place into The Deeps. The Elite always had their bolt holes, secret passages, and escape plans ready. Often they had been laid down by their progenitors, and many had been forgotten altogether.

Off the office were sleeping quarters, a bath, and a kitchen area with a bar. There was also an area for entertaining. Fireplace, couches, and chairs, with several low tables. It was in many ways a swinging playboy’s bachelor pad, built of materials so expensive as to stagger most peoples imagination. Sugar was rather unimpressed. She had seen Slick Jimmy’s abode, and compared to that mind-boggling residence and surrounding demesne, Ranford’s little lair made him look like a paper tiger.

Ranford ushered her into his office, then ignored his desk and literally threw himself into a couch, and regarded Sugar with eyes that devoured her. He obviously wanted her, but he still had business to discuss. He also knew that she was not just some little trollop that could be bullied, or coerced into spreading her legs for him. He had to be respectful of her, for he was well aware of how dangerous she was.

Sugar settled languorously into the couch on its opposite end, and regarded Ranford right back, through sultry lidded eyes.

“So…” Sugar began. “You said you had a proposition for me.”

She laid back against the pillows at her end of the couch, and drew her knees up and then parted them, giving Ranford a direct view of her barely covered panty clad pussy, smoothing her hands down her breasts, belly, hips, and finally idly stroking her inner thighs. She could see his breath visibly quicken, his eyes mesmerized, as he answered her. He cleared his thoat of the quiver he felt there, and licking his lips he said.

“Quite. As I said, you put on a fabulous show out there tonight. I wish to have you repeat that performance many times over. It could be of lucrative advantage to us both.”

Her every movement was slow and sensual, tempting him with subtle movements, even as the open invitation lay revealed before him, but her voice though husky was distant in reply.

“I’m not really that kind of fighter, Mr. Ordinal.”

He was just on the edge of restlessness, but his eyes were intent.

“Please, call me Ranford, and I beg to differ. I have never seen a fighter quite like you before, but you definitely could be the greatest draw The Pit has ever seen.”

Still lazily stroking her thigh with her left hand, she checked the nails of her right, then fanned her fingers in front of her, as if simply amusing herself during a tiresome situation.

“I don’t think you understand me. Such contests actually are rather tedious to me. The Kid was the only real competition you had to challenge me with, and well, I’ve got his number now.”

Ranford shifted in his seat, and leaned forward for emphasis.

“I can find others, trust me.”

“I doubt it,” Sugar sniffed.

He favored her with a piercing gaze.

“Look, missy, despite, or better said, because of that power surge that destroyed all the systems in this facility, not to mention all recorded copies of your adventure tonight, save the one here in my shielded back-up servers, this will be one of the most talked about fights in history. You did something that was seemingly impossible. Most will think it was fixed. I’m in for a shit storm if you don’t follow it up, and prove it wasn’t a hoax.”

The fingers of her left hand brushed across the outline in her panties of her labia, while a finger of her right hand found her right nipple, and swirled around it.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not really interested in fighting in The Pit again. It was just a…one night stand. I guess everybody who saw it just got lucky tonight.”

The Ordinal eyes hardened. The man really was used to getting what he wanted, and if he didn’t, people under him suffered greatly.

“I really can’t just let you walk. You do know that I can reward you very handsomely for your cooperation and efforts.”

Sugar just continued lazily stroking herself, and breathed unconcernedly.

“I’m sure you can, but I’m not really interested in money either.”

Even though he was trying to convince her, he was inching closer to her in his need to ravish her, and his quiet voice was just on the edge of a growl.

“I’m trying to be accommodating here, girl. You do know who I am. My family and contacts can make life for you and those you care about very difficult here; not only here in Lost Peaks, but anywhere you go on the globe.”

Sugar looked up at him with an amused little smile, as she now was circling a finger on top of her clitoris through the material of her g-string.

“Why, Mr. Ordinal, are you threatening me?”

He peered at her with glaring eyes, just off a leer.

“No, child. I’m merely pointing out the obvious.”

Sugar bite her lower lip like a naughty child and asked coyly.

“What if I told you that I wasn’t scared of you, or your…observations?”

Ranford chewed on her words, and chuckled forebodingly .

“Then I’d say you were a silly little fool.”

Sugar arched her back with a shuddering little breath, as she bite her lower lip harder, still stroking her hard little clit, and purred with half lidded eyes.

“Well, I am but a sweet, innocent, young ingénue, after all.”

The Ordinal snort derisively, but his eyes never left the spot where her fingers touched her pussy.

“Young, I’ll grant, but sweet and innocent? That’s a stretch.”

Sugar rolled her neck indolently, and gave her body a serpentine twist.

“Perhaps, but I could use a good stretch. However, this is Lost Peaks, so no one can be truly innocent here, no? Nevertheless, I have no interest in any negotiations with you concerning subsequent bouts.”

Anger flared behind his eyes at being further defied, but his ire was infused with such lust as he rarely felt in business dealings. He was losing control, but he was almost beyond caring. How he wanted this girl. He wanted to do with her all the very, very nasty things he loved to do with his playthings. Doing so would ruin his opportunities with her as a fighter, and cost him hundreds of millions of Unions, but the temptation of her was pushing him very close to his limits to resist.

He grated at her, his teeth clenched, his face twisted in a terrible sneer.

“Oh, you will do as your told, child. One way or another.”

Sugar only spread her legs wider, and pulled aside her tiny undergarment, so that he had an unobstructed view of her feminine flower as it glistened with her profuse nectar, and she continued her self-ministrations with skin to skin contact.

Her voice was breathy and lush as she replied.

“I think not. I didn’t come here to strike a deal.”

Ranford looked like a hound straining at a leash, as he asked.

“But then why did you come at all?”

Sugar then favored him with her smoldering, yet so very icy, predatory gaze.

“Amusement, what else?”

His eyes alternated from her sex to her eyes and back again, the fingers of his hands close to seizuring with an unholy need to grab her and force her to do his will. Force her to perform all the ugly, filthy acts that he demanded of his other playthings. To defile and degrade her, as he used her up completely, but he knew she was not like the disposable flesh so readily found and bought down in The Deeps and across The City. She was dangerous beyond any fighter he had ever encountered, but he was not without his lethal resources either. He was husky and menacing in response.

“You think you are playing with me, girl? Of course I know I can’t take you down in a fight, but do you think me so daft as to not have counter measures to protect me here in my office? I have dangerous men come in here everyday. Some never leave here alive. There are well over a score of automated devices trained on you right now. If you even twitch, you’ll just be so many sliced, blasted, and fried fragments of flesh. The minute you walked through the vault door you were mine to do with as I pleased.”

Without stopping her masturbatory activities, she queried through closed eyes, in the most unconcerned tone.

“Oh really, and what do you have planned for me?”

She opened her eyes dreamily, and dipped the index and middle fingers of both hands in her cunny, and the ring and pinky fingers into her rectum, and she stretched both openings wide, while thumbing her clit from both sides, and giving Ranford an intimate portrait of her recesses. Ranford was breathing rapidly in his lust by then, and there were tremors in his body as he said in a vicious attitude.

“First, I’m going to break you totally; use you for my pleasure. Then you’re going to fight in The Pit until I think it is the most advantageous time for you to lose. Then as per your agreement with Godsmasher and the others, you will serve as the fighting roster’s fuckdoll for as long as I see fit. After that we shall see what becomes of you.”

Wetness from her vaginal cleft was leaking down into her anal ring as she fucked her fingers in and out of her tight little orifices, and she breathed her verbal riposte between pleasure filled pants.

“Well, you seem to have me over a barrel. I guess I should be shaking like a lil’ Chihuahua right now, huh?”

How he wanted to touch her, fuck her, and do so many other sickening things to her, but he was still wary of her, and with good reason. If he got too close to her, even with all his defenses, she could kill him before the systems could react. However, he knew he had her, if he was just patient, and kept his distance, at least for the time being. There would be plenty of time later to do all the terrible things he had planned for her. He, of course, would have to find her family, and have them erased, or maybe used as a further lever to break her. By the time he was done with this young cunt she would beg him to command her, to service him however he pleased. He would hold her mind in thrall before the end.

“You should have taken my earlier offer. It would have been much more agreeable to you, but now we’ll do it the hard way, but I rather wanted it to go that route.”

With those words, Sugar with a shudder, her fingers pumping into her gushing nether regions, her thumbs pinching her rosy, throbbing clitty, her eyes fluttering in unrestrained ecstasy, came hard, her body giving little spasming jerks, and her juices flowed out of her to puddle profusely on the couch. Ranford could only sit and watched the sexual spectacle, mesmerized into silence. Unashamed of the mess she made, Sugar had held his eyes through her entire climax, and as she let her breath relax, she said just above a whisper.

“I thought as much. You asked me before why I came here, and I told you for my own amusement.”

Even in his lust, Ranford’s eyes narrowed, as he felt a subtle shift occur in Sugar.

“Yes, what’s your point?”

Sugar, still with her legs wide, was gently stroking her clit, with her right hand, as she pulled her left up arm behind her tousled head of hair, and again did a writhing little stretch of her torso, her icy hot eyes boring holes in him.

“I didn’t tell you how I intended to amuse myself, and you just assumed that I came here to yank your chain a bit, and then blow, but that wasn’t my plan in the slightest.”

Ranford was no idiot. This girl was not fazed at all by his threats. She was either crazy, or very self assured. He didn’t know which one was worse, but he had not been so excited by a female in a very long while. She was the most sexual creature he had ever encountered, and knowing that she could easily kill him made him all the more eager to break her. Now the trick was getting her right where he wanted her; under the pressure of his thumb. He thought he’d had her, but he was beginning to experience the fluttering fringe of a feeling he rarely had with those under him. Anxious, and even that added to his excitement.

This girl was very hard to read, even though she seemed to wear her motives like neon marquees. Maybe he should just have his defenses shred her. It would be the prudent thing to do, but he wanted her, and she seemed to be only to happy to offer herself to him. He knew her overt sexuality was a ruse. A stratagem in the game of chess she was playing with him. A misdirection, but even as he knew she was tempting him, he still felt himself being pulled to rush at her, and fuck her until she screamed for mercy.

“So…what? You just came here intending to fuck me, or something?”

She licked her fingers, seeming to savor the flavor of herself, and giggled a little as she explained.

“Not really. See, Ranny, you’re a happy accident. A serendipitous event. You see, Ranford, you and I have met before. In fact, we are intimately acquainted.”

The Ordinal stopped, feeling a strange chill run through him, and looked even more intently at Sugar, suddenly searching her features. There was something tickling his brain, just outside the reach of his memory. The chill became a prickling that went up the back of his neck, as her grin widened, and as she stretched her legs very wide, pulling them back behind her shoulders, and laid her head on her crossed calves. The position showcased her extreme flexibility, as she comfortably rested on her back upon the couch, looking at him as if his intimidation did not shake her one little smidgen.

But he was cool when he asked.

“I’m blanking. Refresh my memory. I’m sure I’d remember a girl like you if I met her.”

Sugar patted her bald pussy, and spread her labia open, offering its silken recess to him; daring him to come within range of her. She looked up and away, as if remembering, then return that singular gaze of hers to his face, so full of promise and danger simultaneously.

“It’s been some years. I was…less experienced then.”

Ranford paused before responding, as if almost grasping something, but having it slip through his fingers. He shook his head, and made a tsking sound.

“Come now, little peaches, you’re no older than fourteen by the look of you.”

A sly grin crossed her features, as she stroked the backs of her creamy smooth and very toned thighs.

“Fourteen, forty, or four. What’s the difference to somebody like you? I know you. I’m special that way.”

Ranford stiffened slightly, and his eyes widened, as Sugar nodded indulgently.

“I know what you like. It’s just has to be warm and wriggling.”

He opened his mouth and said in disbelief.

“You-“

“Shh, I’m telling you a story now.” Sugar cut him off, waging her index finger at him. “Once there was a little girl. She was Special. Or so they said, and many people wanted to get to know her, because she was so Special. So, she was introduced to a long line of individuals who taught her just what it meant to be Special. Early on she learned to adapt to different tastes and demands placed on her by sundry fellows. After a time, she met a man. This man like to have things his way. He was an angry man. And he took his anger out on the people around him. Even on the little girl, but she never received the full measure of his wrath. No, but she saw many others suffer and pay the ultimate price under his hand. He took great pleasure in showing the little girl just how Special she was day after day, in his own cruelly unique way. Then one day the little girl was taken away, and she never saw the man again…until about ten minutes ago.”

Ranford’s eyes were now wary, but he still felt relatively safe, knowing his security defenses were locked onto Sugar. Thus he responded with only a mildly surprised tone.

“So you’re The Special, eh?”

Sugar slowly unfolded from her very explicit position, her eyes locked on his, as the predator crept into her expression with a dark sort of glee.

“That’s what the critters in your set tell me.”

The fact that she was The Special made the conquest of this girl all the more enticing. The Special had been a haunting sprite in his dreams for well over a decade. He found himself leaning forward even further, his eyes bright with a new feverish intent.

“You know, you’re quite the mystery, missy.”

She cocked her head curiously, and asked almost innocently.

“Really? How so?”

Ranford felt like he was leaning out over a precipice, and he was not normally a risk taker, but she was a prize he thought forever lost to him, and now he wanted her more than ever. Oh, the things he would do to her. Before, she had not been old enough to understand the gravity of which he was capable, but now she fully comprehended his intentions, and breaking her would be such a pleasure; such a devilish treat.

He wanted her to know how pleased he was that she had at last fallen into his clutches once more, and with no restrictions placed upon him. He wanted her to realize just what was in store for her.

“Well, as you are probably aware, no one really knew your owner. Everyone on the circuit knew it was someone with a lot of juice, but not even those of us in the Families knew to whom you belonged. When The Beast was assassinated everyone knew you were with him. We all figured you died as well, and your existence was covered up. Or you were killed by him, and he was sanctioned by your owner because of it. But we all knew you had disappeared from the circuit after that asshole was snuffed, and ruined our chances of ever getting our hands on you again. You know, before he died, I had tried for years to get you back. Even as young as you were, you were quite addictive. As you recall, I am no respecter of age, sex, or race. I like everybody, so to speak, and I still find you as intoxicating as ever. My peers and I spent many an hour discussing you, even after you vanished. I always lamented that I couldn’t have had just one more time with you, and look, here you are. For me, you were always the one who got away, but then you got away from a lot of us, didn’t you?”

She favored him with a knowing little smile, and answered in that sultry voice of hers.

“So it would seem, but then again, I can never quite escape any of you, now can I?”

She was showing absolutely no fear of him, and it infuriated him as it enflamed his dark desires. After the demonic things she had witnessed him perform, she should be terrified of him, but it was he that was feeling the inkling of fear. A voice of reason was screaming at him, that this girl was far more dangerous than just a pit fighter, but his pride and lust overrode his better judgment, and suppressed those survival instincts best heeded. Thus, he continued.

“True, very true, but it seems that you won’t dodge me this time.”

She ignored the last part, still seemingly luxuriating in the afterglow of her recent orgasm. But with only a minor curiosity, she asked.

“Was I the only one of your playthings to elude your final grasp?”

His aspect was so sinister now that it was practically toxic, as an evil grin curled his face in a twist.

“As matter of fact, you were, but that was part of the contract. I’m not foolish enough to brave having a Guild hit put on my head, just so I can satisfy an urge. No matter how tempting that desire might be. But now-”

She cut him off rather crisply, her own eyes becoming suddenly intense, though her actions spoke nothing of her swiftly focus attention.

“Yes. The Guild hit.”

The girl knew of The Guild. In fact her eyes appeared to sharpen significantly at the mention of its name. Ranford felt that chill again, only much stronger. He hoped never to cross The Guild. Hoped they never had reason to even discuss his existence, but he could tell that this girl wanted information concerning The Guild. Then she was truly a stupid child, his ego sneered, but that panicking voice he suppressed asked frantically why this girl seemingly had no fear of The Guild.

Why would this girl want to know of the world’s deadliest death dealers? He didn’t really know anything, just conjecture spoken in hushed conspiratorial voices, even after the excessive malaise of a bloody good orgy, and way too much overindulgence in recreational substances.

“They say it was one of the Hearsemen; that even The Guild had to hire out to breach The Beast’s defenses,” A thought then occurred to him. “Was it?”

Sugar look at him, revealing nothing, with a poker face a professional gambler would kill to have in his arsenal.

“How should I know? I’m just a silly, lil’ girl, after all.”

The Ordinal gave a little skeptical huff, and all but rolled his eyes, then he paused as something just occurred to him. A revelation, and it excited him as much as it frightened him. He had snared a prize that would make him legend in his select little click. He chuckled with sudden pleasure and self satisfaction.

“Don’t be coquettish. We on the circuit knew somebody was after us. It’s you isn’t it?”

Sugar just eyed him, speculatively, but said nothing. Ranford continued.

“You’ve left such a trail of bodies behind you. All of us have been on alert for the killers, but it’s just you, isn’t it? I saw what you did out there tonight. You didn’t even break a sweat until you fought The Kid. You know, I never expected one of the little ones would be such a predatory cunt, but then you never broke. That’s why we loved you so. You hated us. We saw it in your eyes, but you loved the fucking, even from an early stage of your training. Oh yes, you loved it, just like you love it now.”

It was Sugar who rolled her eyes, and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.

“You know, you talk a lot. You always did. Even when you were snuff-fucking someone.”

Another thought burst on Ranford’s mind. One that gave a startling shot of creeping dread coursing through him all anew. He looked at her, eyes widening again, but this time in trepidations awe.

“A Hearsemen took you, didn’t he. Took you as his own, and trained you, and you paid him with all the tricks we taught you.”

Sugar pursed her lips, and shrugged. The man might be a human shit stain, but he was perceptive. She thought she should set him straight on a couple of things.

“Yes, and no. He’s nothing like you. You were one of my masters. He’s my father.”

Ranford gave her his snorting sneer again, even as the fear grew inside of her. The Special had become an Hearseman’s Apprentice! He should call down all his defenses, and run, as far and as fast as his money and connections could take him, but despite all the evidence he had seen that night, she looked so delicate, so innocuous, so Special, and he wanted her, and the prestige he would gain by having her. Not to mention the pleasure he would take from her before he ended her life in the most macabre way he could devise. He was grinning at her with vicious eyes, fighting his gathering terror, and preparing his offensive.

“Liar. He’s your sugar daddy perhaps, but look at you. No one could resist you for long. We made you that way. That was in the contract too, but you know that, don’t you? Was the Hearseman your owner all along? Who was he? Which one? Surely not The Paladin. That pious priss would never…or would he? Or were you the one who made The Evangelist break his vows to The Church? Or was it The Scythe? They say he has an odd sense of humor. Did you amuse him? Or was it The Ronin, the most enigmatic of all the Hearsemen. They say the darkness follows and surrounds him. Maybe your sexual light brightened his day?”

Sugar had heard all that before, though thinking of herself as the light that brightened X’s day was a new concept for her, and oddly enough it had come out of one of the worst of her recollection’s worst. Somehow that seemed profoundly ironic.

She was still smiling with a disconcerting lack of concern when she said.

“You do love the sound of your own voice.”

Ranford was starting to get truly aggravated by her attitude, as his fear swelled. He’d have to act, but he didn’t want to harm her too much. He had so much planned for her. He did have entrapment exigencies, but triggering them might not work on her. He was not sure of what she as capable, and he did not want to die as much as he wanted to possess her. Those two conflicting drives were causing him to stall in indecision. All he did know was that he was getting frustrated by the lack of any fear in her, and growled almost petulantly.

“You will tell me. You’re mine now. I own you, and I will break you this time.”

She looked at him in mock pity, and spoke to him as she would a naughty child.

“Tell me, Ranny baby, do I look worried? I’m not the lil’ girl you once knew. If I was trained by a Hearseman, do you think that I’d be frightened by the likes of a sniveling snit of shit such as lil’ ol’ you?”

Fear and anger now flared together. Ranford was on the edge of action, but Sugar looked as cool and serene as an uber-aroused sex kitten ever could, and that drove the Ordinal crazy. He wanted to strangle her and fuck while he was doing it. He had done such to others before. He was torn by his depraved desires, and his better sense, causing him to spit a rather impotent invective.

“You always were an uppity bitch, even as a toddler.”

He was actual reaching for her, and all she did was look at him with an amused though mildly disgusted expression on her gorgeous visage. She sighed.

“Maybe I was. That doesn’t really matter now, does it? Ranny, you really are such a disappointment. I really thought you’d be a steelier adversary.”

At that statement, he looked like he had been slapped, and stammered slightly in indignation, but Sugar continued before he could get anything coherent out.

“Alright, I’m going to be very nice and tell you how the rest of your night is going to go down, so at least you’ll think you’ll have a fighting chance. So you better make your move quick, because time’s a wastin’.”

His eyes goggled at her, quivering in his eyes sockets, as he looked for a way to have his cake and eat it as well. For all his preparations, he had never thought of a scenario such as this, where he wanted his prey alive and unharmed, but whom he had let get so close to him. He could now palpably feel the lethal danger coming off her in waves, though she still appeared as sexy and aroused, yet somehow delightfully ingenuous as ever. Maybe even more so, and that could be a very bad sign. Sugar’s grin was even playful, as she moved on.

“See, Ranny, despite all your security, I’m going to take a little time here with you, and ask you a few questions, which I know you will answer truthfully, and after you give up all your secrets, and much, much more, I’m going to torture you to death in the most messy, and agonizing way my psychotic imagination can think up, and I have a pretty damn exotic imagination.”

Again, she paused to give him a chance to make a move, or respond, but he was caught in the hell of his vacillation. Sugar mewed as sigh of resignation, and then stretched a bit again, as if readying for sleep, and said almost conciliatorily.

“You’re right about one thing, you scatological twist of sickness. In part, you made me the way I am, and you have only yourself to blame for what is about to happen to you.”

She was now gazing at him in a come hither way, with those burning, ice blue eyes of hers full of dread promise. Ranford looked upon her with a mixture of lust and fear, with diverse anatomical parts of him tingling for different reasons. He wanted so very much to possess her once again, but he had the niggling feeling he was trapped and cornered with rabid wolverine, despite all he had done to ensconce and buttress his defenses.

She still was not making a move against him. She was just laying there legs spread, labia glistening with her dew, as she touched herself, and staring at him with those terrifying, yet oh so maddening eyes. He had to fight the overwhelming urge to pounce on her. His hands twitched as he desired to reach out and lay hold of her, and fuck her as he choked the life out of her perfect body, watching the life fade in those eyes as he took his pleasure, and sated the ravening beast inside him.

But for the first time, he saw that same kind of creature staring back at him, only so much more so, and it thrilled him even more as fear coursed its way through his system. He could smell the scent of her sex, and he was enflamed by it, despite all his other instincts shrieking at him to flee as fast and soon as possible.

And thus she snared him.

She could feel the security systems trained on her. For most any regular soul on the planet, the Ordinal would have had the person dead to rights, but Sugar was not such fodder. She could hear the movement of mechanized servos, and minute heat of lasers as their beams locked on her, and the myriad vibrations of electromagnetic wavelengths, along with seeing their auras. Her senses of taste and smell added information as well, in the positional detection of each security weapon and defense. She had known from the first time she entered the chamber where all the dangers to her person were hiding.

Normally, even without her own special Professor Mechanic-crafted weapons and defenses, she could deal with these paltry gizmos. Her father had imparted to her many techniques in the evasion and destruction of such devices, but still it would require her to perform physical and mental feats which few other people in the world could accomplish, and she had just fought a rather taxing battle with The Kid. Despite her placid yet coquettish façade, she was very tired, and feeling in need of rest and sustenance, not to mention hydration.

She would have to make not even the tiniest mistake, and this time she was facing the cold precision of machines, but machines can be predicted even easier than the organic, if one were properly trained. However, there were thirty-six devices in the room, and all of them were state of the art. Even a third cousin in a Great Claim family could afford the best security money could buy. To a Hearseman, they would be nothing, and Sugar was very near their level, but she was quite fatigued, and her focus was spread as wide as her legs. She could hear X in her head saying ”Clear your mind,” but Ranford’s face was burning in her psyche like an infected scar of an old brand.

Despite her calm façade, her madness, an insanity nothing like that she felt earlier that night, throbbed agonizingly, her oldest wound reopened. The cold fire of deepest hatred filled her, even as she gave him her best kittenish expression, and preened invitingly for him. In that moment, she could die, but not before she killed him, and that would be fine. She could die happy with his stinking blood on her hands.

The blood of a monster whom she had witness kill dozens of others, of all ages and races. He had wanted to kill her, but his own judicious fear had held him in check, but the things she saw him do to his helpless victims had scarred her as much as if he had burned and cut her young flesh to mutilation like all the rest.

Ranford was one of the worst. Equal to The Beast. Equal to The Cardinal. Equal to the Sadenite. He was one of the Satanic Six that haunted her mind, and it was only the remembrance of those other two hell-spawn as yet left unpunished that finally riveted her focus.

She had work left to do. There was so much blood left yet to be spilt. Prey to slay. It was not yet her time. This was no time to get sloppy just because she was weary. The very fact that she was exhausted, X would say was evidence that she still had much to learn, and much more conditioning to harden and strengthen her constitution. And Sugar knew he would be right. As fabulously good as she was, she was not yet her father’s peer.

That alone suddenly crystallized her resolve.

First things first. Immobilize the target.

Before she received her handy-dandy panoply rings from sweet ol’ Iggy, she had kept slim stainless steel darts in her hair. Simple, balanced needles; not much more than something used for sewing. In her hands, Sugar could knit quite the net of death with them though, as well as less lethal reactions within the human body.

The trick was to not appear threatening to the security systems, nor to Ranford himself, or he might trigger them with a word. She could have leapt off the couch, and used the targeting systems against themselves as she evaded their fire, or she could have called up her own ordinance, and blasted away at the batteries that would immediately start shooting at her if she made any sudden moves.

All that would be a kick, but if she made one mistake in her drained condition, and her night would end along with her life. No, the key was to appear non-threatening, and fool the systems, not to mention Ranford, until it was far too late to stop her.

And so needles it was to be.

At that requested thought, her Ankh rings materialized two golden needles between her index and middle fingers. Sugar gave a distractingly sinuous stretch, as she had done several times before, and with imperceptible little flicks of her fingers, sent the needles zipping at Ranford. The security systems never even registered the attack, the projectiles were so minute, and her action so innocuous.

Other practitioners of the art might have used poison or a fast acting sedative on such needles, but Sugar needed no such compounds. She had only to hit the right nerves with her tiny instruments, and her target would immediately be paralyzed.

She didn’t miss.

Ranford didn’t even feel the twinges of the dual needles sinking into each side of his neck until he could not move to raise his hands to palpate their insertion. Now was a time of agonizing slowness for Sugar, but especially for Ranford. Sugar began to move toward him so gradually that it at first glance did not seem like she was moving at all, but inexorably she crept slower than a snail plowing through cold molasses; closer and closer to the Ordinal.

She had to be patient for this technique to work, but the absolute terror in the eyes of Ranford at his predicament was satisfaction enough to offset the tedium of moving so very leisurely. It took her maybe ten minutes to move five feet, but when she was done, she was right on top of him, mounted on his lap and facing him, and the security systems had not even registered her as a threat at any point, and now they couldn’t fire at her, as their bursts would be a proximity hazard to their master. Her lips were at his ear, and her fingers at the base of his neck as she now straddled him.

She pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms against his head, and ground her loins against his. She could feel his erection rising again even then. Her head, side to side with his, she gave him a few perfectly delivered, subtle taps with the index finger pad of her right hand to a rather sensitive pressure point that sent exquisitely horrific pain coursing through his nervous system, at which point Sugar whispered in his ear.

“How do you like them apples, chief? Now, I’m going to let you speak. You have a choice. Switch off all ya’ lil’ toys, Ranny, or I’ll leave ya’ like this permanently. Oh, and remember, Ranny, this is you’re last chance to have a crack at stoppin’ me. Man up, and roll the dice, bub, but you know if your lil’ robo-poppers shoot at me now, you’ll likely die, but hey, what’s life without a lil’ danger, huh?.”

Ranford’s eyes shifted in his sockets desperately, racking his agony filled mind for a way out of his torment without giving up his last defenses. Sugar slowly pulled back from his ear, and looked right into his eyes, her face coolly smiling, and then twisted the knife a bit more.

“It hurts, doesn’t it. The longer you wait the worse it will get, but I don’t mind waiting. Now you may be thinking that you can kill me by initiating the firing sequence. You are welcome to try. You may get me. I’m worn out after my tussle with The Kid, so you never know. It’s not likely, but there’s always a chance I’m lying, and I’m too frazzled to deal. For ol’ times sake, I’m givin’ you a last opportunity to break me. So…do you want to play chicken with me? I’m game, if you are.”

Sugar was looking him right in his eyes, her luscious lips just brushing his dry trembling ones. She smelled like heaven, as hell descended upon him, and her smile never left her face. It was the smile of a lover, full of anticipation, mischief, and sex. She just waited, rubbing her pussy on his hardened cock, as she gave him one last wicked lap dance. Sugar felt him take a breath to speak. Sugar readied herself.

“God’s Blood.” Ranford rasped out in exquisite desperation as the pain seemed to sear into his very core.

An interesting and somehow fateful code, Sugar mused in the split second after she discovered which code it was; then only the question remained of whether it was given to shut down or attack, and only a fraction of an instant to know which way the wind would blow. Sugar was poised to spring clear of the Ordinal, and to take down the security measures the hard way, if she had to.

Then Sugar heard the defenses powering down. She knew Ranford would be a coward in the end. He should have gambled. He should have ordered the machines to fire. It was a slim chance, but she was weakened by the previous bout. She might have died, and he most likely would have perished as well. However he might have taken her with him, but the Ordinal was more afraid of the death and pain he so readily meted out with relish to others. Of coarse he was only prolonging his life for an even worse fate, as he clung to his retched existence. Stupid really, but it pleased Sugar. His cowardice made it easier all the way around.

A monster and a coward. Tisk-tisk. Sugar would have felt no pity nor remorse at what she was about to do to the man in any event, but this confirmation of his character was just icing on the cake, for in her eyes he was less than dust, less the feces of the lowest orders.

Sugar immediately restored the speech block on Ranford. The icy hot smile had never left her face, as true to her word, she lessened the pain in him, but not all the way, then leapt off him. He watched her helplessly as she ranged around the chamber, and smashed each of his hidden automated weapons, as if she held at her command some eldritch telepathy that told her where they were placed.

When she was done, she turned back to him, and for the first time he saw what lurked in her eyes, he saw what she was. She had told him. She had warned him. He knew that look, that need, for it lived inside of him as well. There was an anticipatory glee in her eyes as she stalked toward him, and he wished more than anything that he could simply scream in terror, because the monster he helped created was now coming for him to do her very worst.

Sugar coaxed the next bit of information from the doomed Ranford; the location of his personal torture chamber she just knew was attached to the office by a secret door, and sure enough, given just the right encouragement, the Ordinal cough up the hidden latch that slid back a section of the bar, and lead down into another sublevel, where she found a dank and terrible room devoted to the torment of his victims. Poetic Justice demanded that she bring him down into his personal pit, and string him up in a play room of his own design.

Before she did however, she disrobed in front of the wide staring eyes of Ranford, and left her tiny garments neatly folded on the couch, as she hefted him over her slight shoulder and carried him down into his little death dungeon. Sugar didn’t want to ruin her outfit with blood and offal spatter. It was designer after all.

Once he was sufficiently trussed up, what happened in that room was what happened every time her death demon was fully unleashed. She made a bloody mess. The creativity of her cold fury was diabolic in her all consuming innovation. The Ordinal told her all his secrets, and all his Family’s secrets, and all he knew about those of the Circuit whom Sugar still sought.

Sugar learned of a list Ranford kept of all his victims, along with attending photographic documentation, with which he had amused himself in remembrance after the fact. He soon disclosed where he kept a stable of fresh meat for his continuing adventures in homicidal obscenity. She knew all his secrets exits, hidden passages, bolt holes, safe houses, and treasure stashes. He gave her access to all his monetary accounts. Finally, she learned the names of four more targets to add to her list, and a solid clue concerning the singular female, Sugar had long ago dubbed The Ogress, who supervised the transfer of Sugar from Master to Master. This was a woman for which Sugar had been seeking most fervently.

The Ordinal believed she was connected to The Guild, though why that would be the case, Sugar could not fathom, for The Guild only dealt in high end murder for hire, not human trafficking, but a lead was a lead. This and much more was revealed to Sugar when Ranford was allowed to speak.

Even after he had vomited up all his secrets, Sugar was not done with him. She had to give him in kind all that he had given to others, give him a taste of the hell to which she was sending him.

In general, modern Humanity of First World civilization is a squeamish bunch, unless something pushes them back to their animalistic origins, to the primal, feral urges of fight or flight. Humans eat meat all the time, but most in the “civilized” world forgets the slaughterhouse where their meat is killed and cut. Humans are predators, despite being omnivorous. All predators have to kill, to tear and rip flesh, and then devour to survive, but even prey can kill when pushed. Humans are the only species that will kill, simply just to kill, but conversely many humans believe they couldn’t kill, that they are above it, but they just haven’t been pushed just so.

Sugar long ago had been pushed too far, and a barrier that most humans have in place within them was broken inside her. Most of the time she shored up that breach on the ocean of blood and wrath within her as best she could, but when presented with one of those individuals that destroyed those barriers inside her to begin with, the dam on all her violence and hatred fueled wrath not only broke anew, but evaporated and blasted out like a fire hose of burning acid death.

At times like this, she killed everything and everyone around her target, just so she could spend her quality time with her ex-master alone. Well, not everyone. Sugar’s still small voice had a hidden strength to stay her hand when it deemed someone above her retribution. Only innocents escaped her wrath, but the only innocents in the houses of her targets were usually their victims.

Sugar knew she would not discover any of Ranford’s newest victims there, for by then he would have told her, and so she was completely free to play with her prey any way she saw fit, and oh did she play with him.

He had writhed and screamed his answers to her questions, then he eventually screamed for her to end it, as cut by cut, piece by piece, organ by organ she whittled him away on a red hot razor edge towards death, and his shrieking throes of anguish were a beatific symphony to her warped sensibilities.

This sort of torture and murder takes time, and it was in the wee hours of the morning before Ranford finally expired. Like all Sugar’s former masters with whom she had dealt her ultimate justice, she had left the Ordinal a gruesome piece of modern art.

To start with, she broke all the bones and joints in his limbs with pulverizing strikes, just as a warm up. After which she peeled back the anterior portion of his skin like an over ripe fruit, including his face, limbs, and genitals, followed by her filleting the muscle from the bones of his limbs, then she split his torso open from crotch to collar, spreading his ribs like some great, awful, gaping carnivorous flower, and casually removed important portions of his quivering guts, while he was still alive and aware of what was happening to him.

Little by little, his organs were harvested and strewn about his play room, until he was barely alive. Sugar knew how to prolong the life and consciousness of one of her targets for a much more protracted period than most might have believed was possible, as she knew ghastly techniques for just such occasions, and Sugar was not afraid to use them.

When the man’s mind finally blew out, as always happened sooner or later during such a session with Sugar, she ripped out his heart and crammed it in his rectum so rapidly, he was still slightly alive when it happened, and his pump was still beating feebly inside his colon, though he was probably no longer cognizant of this occurrence, but Sugar did not care. It was a matter of symbolism at that point.

She finished by literally tearing his head off his shoulders, taking it up to the office, and placing it in the center of his desk, like a calling card message that she had been there and left something very bad for the crime scene investigators and the coroner to clean up, or at least keep them busy for the next few days. Probably some poor janitor would be stuck with the job eventually.

In the end, as she promised, Ranford was a nightmare mess of a mangled corpse. The playroom was a crimson splatter of blood and viscera. And Sugar was in need of a shower as her naked body was painted crimson with the late Ordinal’s vital fluids. Sugar thought it was helpful that there was bathroom off the office, where she could clean herself up, but then there usually was at least a shower near a play room of the worst her targets. They tended to get as just as sullied as she did when they played.

She showered and decompressed. There was a bathtub, and she was tempted, but she just wanted to be clean. So a simple shower it was. She stood under the hot running water, and let its heat coarse down her tired body, as she pondered her actions and events of that night.

There was always a let down after a Master kill, as her madness quickly retreated, and sanity reasserted itself in her mind. It was then she had to face what she was, when the evidence of it was all over her, and she could not hide from the monster she was. With bloody footsteps, dripping claws, and gory maw her internal monster crept back into its dark cave deep in her psyche, and a lucid, morbidly musing Sugar was left to sort through the aftermath of her monster’s actions.

One of the things Ranford disclosed was the location of the footage of all the night’s proceedings before the power surge fried every electrical line and circuit in the facility. The recordings were stored on his personal laptop computer. After her shower, she rinse out her tiny g-string, as it was drenched in her pussy juice. She slid into the wet undergarment, and actually relished the cool on her heated loins. She dressed fully, wiped the place down, and took the laptop, slung over her shoulder in a carrying case, as a souvenir of the night. She went out of the office, out the vault door, and set the security, as the vault door shut with a boom. Ranford gave her all his codes too. It would be several days before anyone could get in the Ordinal’s office.

She went out into the control room, then out into the main corridor, and headed back the way she had previously come. The emergency lights were still on, but there was little sound of commotion now.

She was surprised to find the body of The Kid still laying in the alcove to the side of the corridor. He was still alive. She could hear his breathing and heartbeat as she approached him. She stooped and checked him over cursorily. No one had molested him, as far as she could ascertain. She wondered if she had tapped him too hard. She certainly had not meant to really hurt him after she got control of herself in The Pit.

As she picked him up, she reflected on the rollercoaster ride of emotion the night had been for her. X would not have approved. Part of her felt shame about that, and another part was more than a little pugnacious. X wasn’t here. X wouldn’t have approved of the whole night in general. X was a stodgy wet blanket that was always restricting her fun. With an internal growl at herself, Sugar mentally slapped that aspect of her psyche back in line, and remonstrated it severely. Never question the word of her father. He only deserved love and respect, because that was everything he had given to her. He only desired the very best for her, and so her sullen id went and sulked in a dark corner of her mind.

Sugar looked down at Kid Dragon. He should have been awake by now. She hoped that she had not truly incapacitated him in her madness, and she just had blocked it out. Such a thing would have been a first for her, for upon review, she seemed to recall all her waking memories of the night.

She carried him down the corridor, until she found a door, and slipped inside. It was a trainer’s room, with therapeutic equipment, and medical supplies. There was a permanent massage table mounted into the floor on the right side of the chamber near the back. She went to it and hefted him onto it, checking him over again; this time in more detail. She was getting a little frustrated, because she could not find anything wrong with him, other than he remained unconscious. She did not want to force him wake, as that might do systematic damage to him, if she had really injured him more than she thought she had.

She ran her fingers over his body, double, then triple checking him over. She felt excited by her inspection, but she restrained herself. As she trailed her fingertips over his inert form, she breathed in his male scent, and she sensed it as virile, powerful, and erotic. As before, she found him an alpha male of the highest caliber.

What she didn’t find was a reason that he should still be unconscious.

Abruptly, as she continued her inspection, she found something else. The Kid had developed a very prominent erection. Sugar was never one to be shy when addressing such occurrences. She covered it with her small hand, and gently squeezed his turgid manhood. Doing so, she felt him shudder in his stupor.

His brain may have been comatose, but his body was not completely unaware. A part of him was reacting to her touch with apparent ardor. The more she rubbed him, the harder and larger he became, and the more excited she got. She had been jonesing for sex the whole night, and after her recent bloody business was through, her fucklust had been rising. She tried to fight it, but now it was becoming stronger and stronger.

The next thing she knew, she found herself crouched low near his hardness, and extricated his rigid member from his breaches, examining it in its every ruddy, venous detail. She smelled it, letting his heady musk fill her olfactory. The scent was delicious to her, and her lips hovered over it, then as if just sampling a little flavor of it, her tongue flicked out and tasted him. As if a barrier had been broken she descended on his manhood, with wet, licking kisses, coating it liberally with her lubricating saliva, until as if almost famished she took him in her mouth, and suckled his crown, as she stroked the length of his shaft. She took more and more of him into her mouth, dancing her tongue around the ridges of his head and shaft. She made mewing sounds that were almost like a baby on a pacifier, as she gave into her overwhelming desires. Even in his insensate condition he groaned in bliss from the pleasure she bestowed upon him.

She was beyond stopping now. Beyond caring. Beyond anything but the quest for ecstasy. A burning singularity was bubbling up in her from below, and her breath increased with every urgent pang of that need. Holding the pulsing heat of his shaft in her mouth and hand, her head started to buzz, and a hot pink haze filled her vision as uncontrollable shivering tingles spread from the dripping folds of her loins, and coursed in tiny electrochemical bursts throughout her hypersexed body. Her lust took over completely, and her lucid mind went blank and numb, except to the sensations of the carnal flesh.

Though she loved the masculine taste of his proud member on her tongue, her body was crying out for more, keening to be filled and joined. Without thinking, irresistibly, she climbed on top of the massage table, swinging her leg over his body to straddle The Kid. Almost as if in a trance she pulled aside her g-string, and positioned the crown of his phallus against the entrance of her wet temple of Venus. Slowly, almost excruciatingly, she lowered herself down onto his tumescence, and his prong slipped inside her heat as slick as only Sugar’s sweet slit could be.

As they joined together, her breath shuddered as her most intimate channel was filled by his thickness, and Sugar began to ride him with abandon, grinding and rotating her hips against his, driving his length into her as deep as she could; feeling his pleasing girth stretch her vaginal tissues, as the ridge of his swollen phallic crown stimulated her as she moved. She writhed on top of him, mashing her clitoris against his pubic bone desperately, as she exposed her perky breasts , and lay on his chest, dragging her hard little nipples against him; rubbing the soft length of her body on the warm skin of his torso.

Oh, how she loved the feel of a stiff cock inside her pussy! Every time she allowed herself to give in to her fuck demon, all the sensations she fought to suppress hit her so hard it made her dizzy, so that she almost passed out in her excitement. When she was in sexual congress, in her madness, she swore she would never stop, and would just keep fucking until she died. It didn’t matter who was filling her recesses, or what they did to her. or how they used her; it only mattered that she lost herself in the ecstasy of the moment. That was the very reason she fought so hard against letting herself give in to her desire to debauch.

However, this time was slightly different. Her fucking was not just a way to escape herself. She actually liked this noble alpha of a man.

She kissed and licked the skin of his upper chest, neck, and face, her fingers gliding over his smooth, hard muscles, and running through his shiny black hair. His breath was increasing along with hers, even in his unconscious state. She was small, almost fragile, as she clung to his body, using him and his rigidity to sate her need.

There were times when she fucked almost viciously, biting and scratching in her ravenous passion. Fucking with such vigor and intensity; so hard that it hurt, and maybe that is what her ardor desired, to hurt herself and her partners, just so she felt the recklessness of being alive, but this instance was not such a case.

She was fucking The Kid, but even as she used her vaginal muscles to massage his hot, throbbing length and girth, she felt a very keen affection towards him. She wished he were awake, so she could see the light of desire for her glowing in his eyes, as she fucked him rapturously.

Sugar knew myriad techniques for pleasuring that almost defied physics, and entered the realm of the supernatural, but she was performing none such erotic gymnastics. No salacious tricks. No prurient skills. Just plain and simple congress, with another warm human being, but to her it felt sublime.

The aural vibrations emanating from him were perfect. They felt like waves of caressing fur fingers all over and inside her being. They made her feel so good just basking in the blush of them. She wondered to herself, wrapped in the miasma of the fondness she now felt for The Kid, how she could have ever wanted to hurt him, let along kill him, but kill him she would have in that psychotic moment, where her other lust ruled her fractured soul.

Now, she was giving into her opposing lust, but this was not just a fuck for fucking sake. She could control herself normally against such impulses. No, The Kid stirred feelings in her. Just like Iggy Mechanic, or Rucker, or Zen, or Zen’s father did. Feelings of caring and warmth, that were hard for her to deal with. Gentle emotions confused her, and almost immediately gave her the near overwhelming urge to be physical with the person of their causation.

Zen had begged her to refrain from giving him such attentions, but Rucker was the ready recipient of her form of tenderness. Even so, she worried that she was hurting him even then. What would he think if he knew she had fucked The Kid? He said he wouldn’t care, but she knew that wasn’t true. Rucker was hopelessly in love with her. She knew it, and a part of her ached for him, for she knew she could never give him all of her. Even though she loved him. In her way. She wasn’t sure if she was capable of that kind of love. The kind of love that sustained the Gunn’s family, even in the churning cesspool of Lost Peaks.

She felt that she could have a similar sort of love for Kid Dragon, as she had for Ruck or Iggy, if she was allowed the time to grow a familiarity. He had that feeling of substance that drew her. X had that feeling. Even though she knew, in his own way, he was as fucked up as she was, but there was a firmness to him. His word was his bond, and when he gave his love, he gave it forever, and completely.

She would have fucked X. She would have done anything for him, and welcomed anything he did to her. She still would. Whatever he wanted. However, even if her demons railed against the restraints he placed upon her, the angels of her constitution, blessed him, and worshiped him for the steady force he was in her life.

But recently there were times, she felt herself pulling away from X and his strictures. Not away from his love, but away from his method. Certain tenants of his teachings would always be a part of her, but she was not X, and the wicked world beckoned to her. Something was calling her out in the night. She thought it was her need for vengeance, but it was more than that, but what it was she could not say. Just an insidious whispering, tempting her to unleash the full maelstrom of her soul, and lose herself in the insanity.

She felt the tug of such madness almost constantly now, filling her to the bursting point with all the dark desires that haunted her.

And all the finer emotions of her core seemed further and further distant.

Love.

Trust.

Joy.

Hope.

Such ephemeral words.

Like so much drifting sweet smelling vapor that dissipates into the dark.

Joy and Pleasure are not necessarily the same things. They are akin, and so, since Joy always eluded her, when she did relent and let herself go, she took Pleasure with abandon, and dove into ecstasy, like at that moment when she copulated insistently with swooned The Kid.

She rode him relentlessly for a quarter of an hour, and brought herself to five marvelous climaxes, as she fucked him happily, just like that kid on Christmas morning with a new toy, and in the midst of the uneven copulation of their odd coupling she felt him begin to rouse from his coma.

He stirred dreamily; the pleasurable sensations of her body enveloping him, and his manhood. A rumbling groan of bliss bubbled up from deep within him as she ground herself on top of his half-conscious form. Sugar could feel something in him now, an aching urgency in his aura, that told her that he had not been with a female for a very long time, and that excited her all the more.

His eyes began to flutter, as they revolved under his eyelids, and his breathing came more rapid with panting breath, as if he were dreaming of the raptures of Nirvana in vivid visions that come before waking. She felt The Kid ecstatically shudder, and begin to move his hips into her with resolve, as his hands slid up her thighs to come to grip the svelte flesh at her slim waist. She leaned down and pressed herself to his chest, softly touching her lips to his, tasting him, and breathing in his heat. Her lips traced down his neck, as her hands explored him, and instinctually his did the same to her, until they were entangled in each other arms, as she drove him as deep as she could inside of her dripping interior.

He was now holding her small form to him tightly, and thrusting up into her with more and more force, as he built to his own blinding zenith. Skin on skin, saturated with the fluidity of sweat and need; hands searching and finding each erogenous landmarks, fingertips exploring in tactile sensation; hair tangled and gripped; chests heaving, breathing each others air; lips meshed upon another, and with neck and face, tongues swirling, and then tracing paths saliva, smooth and sweet; heat pulsing from body to body; blood pumping, coursing its way to flush and blush, and fill tissues with needful rigidity, as synapses fired in trillion bursts of ecstatic randomness, underlying an urgency mounting and pressing greater and greater.

Sugar could feel his need. Within him it was all consuming now. Oh yes, she definitely could tell he had long been without a feminine touch, but he had been celibate by choice, for he would have had no problem finding companions to lay with him. She had forced him out of his celibacy, but now that he was in the midst of their conjoining with her, he couldn’t have stopped even if he had wanted it to cease. As his mind came awake with his phallus jutting up deep inside her, the masculine desires he had repressed and denied himself came flooding up within him, irresistible and inexorable.

The slick friction of his turgid spear sheathed, unsheathed, then re-sheathed, over and over and over in the passage of her most intimate femininity, drove them higher and higher to find a summit unknown, as their fluids mixed from within and without, loins and mouths locked together, bodies held tenaciously, in blistering desire, as their two auras blended, then mutually suffused one another.

He suddenly pulled away from their kiss, pushing her up a little, and gazed wonderingly bemused at the perfection of her exquisite visage. His eyes suddenly focused and locked with her icy hot irises. In the dark depths of his eyes was, of coarse, ardor, but confusion as well. That was to be expected. It was also apparent that Sugar’s attentions were not unwelcome, as he continued to strive to bury his manhood deeper into her loins with every plunge. His eyes were searching hers, even as he renewed his efforts, almost as if he were seeking answers. Almost as if she were completely unknown to him. As if he didn’t know her face at all.

Somewhere in the back of her brain, she noted that his expression was odd, but thus engaged and distracted, she ignored it and strove vigorously to bring him to completion, even as orgasm after orgasm cascaded through her system. Sugar simply let go of any extraneous thoughts, and immersed herself in the sensory overload of their ardent conjoining; and reveled in the rapturous rush of endorphins cascading through her body and brain.

For her in that moment, there was nothing but sensuous sex; nothing but the feted fuck; nothing but unadulterated ecstasy. So she gave into the pure fiery nothingness of that climactic instant, and brought him with her. His arms grasped her torso, hands reaching up behind her, with clutching fingers gripping the locks of her long blond hair, pulling her to his chest as he reached his ultimate conclusion.

He stiffened his body to rigidity, and gave a series of convulsive shudders beneath her as he finally emptied his essence into Sugar’s personal temple of Aphrodite. For Kid Dragon it had indeed been a very long time in coming for such a release, and he came to fruition in a torrent. Her lips locked with his again, swirling tongues, breath, and saliva entwined, meshed and mixed, just as were the rest of their body parts and fluids. She felt the surging current of his erupting liquid passion fill her deep loins, and the intensity of it, at least for that evanescent flash of time, was an euphoric panacea to all her present ills and woes, bringing with it another quaking orgasm thundering through her small frame, with all its attendant blissful lightning shocks electrifying her physiology from her seething core to the very tips of her tingling extremities.

These were the snippets of existence for which she yearned; after her fuck-lust was sated, when she entered the realms of the gods, and lifted her partners with her. This was when the demon seed became divine, and all the sins of her bloodlust were wash away by wave after wave of celestial delights, where all the horrors she had experienced and created faded into far away hissing background static in the vast space of the cosmic expanse, and in that fleeting of twinklings, she was adrift in the long night of her little death.

But it never lasted.

It was transitory.

And yet, it was all she knew of peace.

And when it was gone, there was always a bittersweet emptiness. A wistful ache. A deep place that needed filling which had nothing to do with her hypersexed genitals, and everything to do with her neglected heart and lost soul.

In that moment, her eyes softened infinitely, and she was that little girl hoping against hope to see the bright light at the end of the long dark tunnel that was her life.

And then the gods wept as her icy hot eyes hardened back into their smolder, as the predator returned.

Few noted this ephemeral metamorphosis and regression when they took pleasure in her charms, but The Kid saw it, though he did not fully understand it. It was just another nuance of the puzzlement she presented to him.

They were both now coming down from their climaxes, wrapped in each other arms, their perspiration cooling, but still joined together. She was kissing him gently, and he her. There was still a bit of softness in her eyes when she looked at him, and as she drew back, he looked up at her and said in wonder.

“By all that’s Holy, you are so beautiful.”

A compliment. That was unexpected, but very nice.

“Thanks.” She replied with her grin. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He looked around at the training room.

“Wha-What am I doing here?”

“Well…You lost.”

“I did?” He asked in confusion. “I don’t remember,” He paused. “Tonight is a blur.”

“Um, actually it’s almost daybreak.”

She paused, and gathered her thoughts, then lifted herself off him, letting his shrinking member slip from her. She realized she probably needed another shower at that point. He definitely did. She gave him another peck on the lips, and leapt off the massage table. Looking back at him as she straightened her outfit, she continued.

“I should get going. Sorry about everything. It was a crazy night, and I guess I just went with the madness.”

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“Between me and you?” She actually managed to look a little sheepish. “I just needed distraction. You were my best option. I just didn’t mean for it to go so far. But I gotta’ say, you’re good. Real good.”

He actually preened some at her words, but seemed embarrassed at the same time.

“I, well, I don’t do this very often.”

She realized he was talking about the sex, and said.

“Could have fooled me. That was very impressive as well. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime, and we can entertain each other again.”

She slung the laptop case over her shoulder, and turned to go.

“Wait!” He almost yelped.

She looked back at him over her shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“I-I don’t even know your name.”

She smiled at him genuinely.

“Sugar. My name is Sugar.”

She was at the door when he said.

“I don know how to find you again.” He looked almost stricken as he said the words.

She gave him a rather pleased and demure little smile, at least for Sugar, and responded.

“You know Slick Jimmy? He knows how to find me. He’s my Uncle.”

With those words she slipped out the door before he could say anything else, and then she was running as fast as she could go. For some reason she felt the need to escape, before she did anything else disastrous. After all that had happened that night, she felt rather pleasant. She just did not want to screw that up by answering too many questions. Because she liked the guy, she probably would end up saying something stupid and too revealing, then have to kill The Kid for real.

As she ran, she was wondering to herself why she even gave Kid Dragon Jimmy’s name as an in. Involving Jimmy in the night’s activities was a foolish action on her part. Sugar had the feeling that The Kid was infatuated with her. In fact, she knew it. She could read it in his aura. Leaving him breadcrumbs to follow was ill advised, and possibly just down right cruel.

But she liked the man. He was…A Gentleman.

But she wasn’t a gentle woman. Far from it.

She sighed internally. The softer emotions confused her so much, and just always seems to make her sad. And so she fled the place as rapidly as her little feet could carry her.

As she went she noted that there seemed to have been a pitched battle in the corridors the higher she rose from the Arena. There was blood and debris everywhere by the time she reached the halls before the exit, and not just a few bodies. It looked like a riot had gone down. It was no wonder, with the place in lockdown.

It was easy to see that the mob had won, and tore open the doors to the place as it sought to flee. It seemed that without Ranford’s oversight, his troops had been overrun, and decimated. The bloody, mangle corpses of the facility’s security forces lay strewn all over, sometimes literally in pieces. The gate was completely blasted off its hinges, as Sugar reached the outside, and searched for her bike.

She wasn’t really worried that someone had stolen her ride, as it had nasty security measures of its own, but she hoped no one had trashed it somehow in all the chaos of the crowd’s exodus.

She found the bike unmolested, save for the electrocuted body of a man lying next to it. Thievery is such a bad habit. She kicked him away from the chopper, and noted that he was still alive. Alive, but seared medium well.

She deactivated the bike defenses, and jumped astride it, fired it up, and was off. It was predawn, just before the sun rose over the peaks. She thought she’d go see those black sand beaches on the north side of the island as the sun came up. Wash herself off in the waters of Hourglass Lake. Then she would go catch the ferry across to Far Plains. She wondered if there were any good places to eat down by the beach. She was famished.

She went to the beach, bought a towel from tourist shop, then walked out on the black sands, stripped down to nothing, and dove into the cold water of the lake, rinsing off the sweat of her fuck with The Kid. Then she just laid down on the towel, and enjoyed the sun for awhile, as other passersby on the beach, both male and female, young and old ogled her nakedness. She ignored them, and scanned the beach for food vendors. Eventually a Latino boy of about twelve, wearing only a pair of raggedy shorts, came around hawking shish kabobs of meat, chicken, fish, and vegetables. Sugar flagged him over, and his eyes about popped out of his head when he saw her.

It wasn’t that nudity was all that rare on the beach. On the contrary, this was Lost Peaks, and clothing was optional just about everywhere. But Sugar was who she was, and this young man was not immune to her charms anymore than were older males.

Sugar gave him a grin, and he looked like he was about to melt. She knew her effect on him, and that the little fellah had an immediate erection in his shorts. She contemplated just for an instant giving him the best tip of his young life, but unfortunately for the youthful vendor, she fought down her fuck demon ruthlessly, and took all eight of the kabobs, and four Sangria sodas he was holding.

She gave him twice the amount he asked for, and told him to keep the change. Then kissed him on the cheek for good measure, and said.

“You’re just too cute, you know that? Have a nice day, sweetie.”

The boy flushed so red it disappeared into his dark hairline. He obviously had no idea how to reply, so she just winked at him playfully, and bid him a good morning. With that he took off at a sprint, up away from the water, and she was sure he was going to find a hiding place to masturbate.

As she tucked into her first kabob, she chuckled a little at herself for being so naughty with the boy, but it wouldn’t hurt him.

When she finished her meal, she dressed, then rolled up her towel, and walked back toward her bike, giving the towel and the last unopened Sangria to a pretty little eight-year-old girl in a neon pink string bikini. The little girl just smiled and said thanks. She was obviously a tourist. Lost Ones would have been suspicious of such a gesture of generosity. This was Lost Peaks after all.

Sugar caught the ferry back to the Westside. On the boat she fished out her phone from the stowaway on the bike. When she turned it on she found she had quite a few messages, both in texts and calls. One from X. One from Zen. One from Ammon. Two from Rucker. One from Lu. And about twenty from Nasti.

It seemed that Nasti was in the riot after the earthquake, and was actually concerned as to what happened to Sugar. Nasti had called her in increasing frantic intervals. Considering they only met last week, Sugar found her behavior rather endearing. Sugar thought she had better call her back to let her know she was fine.

When she got her on the line this was how it went.

“Hey, Nasti.”

“Sugar! Where the fuck have you been?! I’ve been calling you all night!”

“Uh, I left my phone with my bike. Sorry.”

Nasti just seemed to ignore the excuse, and launched into her disjointed account of the previous night’s events.

“I don’t know what the fuck happened last night! Everything is just a complete fuckin’ blur. I remember going in the joint, and that’s about it, until the muthafuckin’ riot in the corridors. Shit! I thought you got killed! Me an’ the others got out okay. A few bumps and bruises, but nothin’ else. Amazing what you can get out of a group of guys, if you promise them unlimited cooze for a month. Thankfully most of them are in the hospital or dead. So, how the fuck did you get out?”

Sugar thought for a moment, then asked.

“You don’t remember anything about last night?”

“Not really. Neither do the girls, but we were pretty hammered. I don’t even know who fought who in the Arena? They said there was an earthquake, or some shit like that, but I don’t know. Everybody was just freakin’ the fuck out after it happened. It was a goddamn war zone down there.”

Well, if Nasti and the Trio didn’t remember any of her previous actions that night, she was not going to help them recall, but Sugar thought she owed Nasti some sort of explanation..

“Well, when I got separated from you guys, I just found a safe spot, and hunkered down until everything calmed down, then I just strolled out.”

“Fuckin’ Hell! You mean you left after everyone was gone?!”

“Yep.”

“God! The way people were talkin’ you have thought fuckin’ Flame Peak had blown again, and the whole goddamn Valley was going to be incinerated. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on, or what the fuck exactly happened. It was so dark down in the corridors, what with that shitty dim lighting, you could hardly tell who anybody was, and then security locked the place down, and started shoving people around, and it just got crazy ugly when the shooting started. Then things just spiraled out of fuckin’ control. I tell you, I’m never going out again to one of these underground gigs, without Family security watching my back.”

Nasti took a breath, and Sugar jumped in.

“Sounds like a good idea. You’re kind of a target, you know.”

“I am?”

“Sure. Daughter of a family head. Why wouldn’t you be?”

“Nobody touches the Families in Lost Peaks. Everybody knows that.”

“Maybe, but tell that to Hugh Eternal. Nobody is exempt from the caprices of ol’ Bloody Creeks.”

That gave Nasti pause for thought. Everybody knew about Huge Money, who used to run House Eternal’s affairs in Lost Peaks before Slick Jimmy took over. He had been Jimmy’s next oldest brother after Manny Love. Huge was a big as it got in Lost Peaks, and somebody took him out. In fact, somebody took out the whole House of Magnus. Doomtown did not play favorites, and She never played fair. One false move, boy and girls, and Lost Peaks would gut you like a fish, and throw you buttered up on the grill.

“Man, Sugar, sometimes you can be a real bummer, bitch. Lighten the fuck up! We all survived that shit! So, I say that’s a muthafuckin’ awesome Friday night!”

“Well, I suppose that is one way of looking at it.”

Sugar rolled her eyes to herself. Nasti would do what she would do, and who was Sugar to tell her different, since she was worse.

“Damn straight! So are you going out again tonight?”

“I’m considering my options. Ammon and the boys are coming back from the game today, so I’ll probably be hanging with them.”

Nasti made a disgusted sound.

“Why you wanna’ hang with that pious dickhead, along with that perpetual stick up his ass?”

“He not so bad.”

“Says you. But I have to admit, he hot as fuck, I’d bang the shit out of him, if I didn’t think he’d lecture me about propriety all through the entire fuck.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that would be an interesting conversation.”

“Fuck too right it would.”

Sugar could hear the grin in Nasti’s voice as she agreed with her.

“Well, if you are ready to party your panties off again tonight, or any other night, you just let me know, cause you my bitch now, girl.”

“Uh-huh, and you’re my lil’ ray of sunshine. Gotta’ go. Ferry’s coming in. Later, baby.”

“Kiss it, cunt.” With that Nasti made a smooching sound, and hung up.

Sugar was not sure when she would hang out solo with Nasti and the Trio again. Precedent had been set, and Sugar wasn’t quite ready for Act Two just yet. Maybe the Riders as a group could do something together, but that might have to wait until Nasti and Ammon got the measure of each other and settled into the new situation.

Who knew? They might actually end up fucking each other, but that would sure be some angry sex. Sugar had not told Nasti, but Lumina had finished her project, and she wanted to go do something fun. For Lu that usually meant shopping for a new novel, and then getting ice cream, or hot chocolate, or both, if she was feeling nutty.

Lumina was funny about books. She still loved the paper and bindings over a digital copy on a tablet. But then Lu was old fashion about a lot of things.

Zen would be home tonight with his family, and X would be back early Sunday morning.

Sugar had not been lying though when she said she was going to hang with Ammon, and the boys. She was, and she intended to drag Lu along with her. Besides, she wanted to see Rucker. As much as she enjoyed her dalliance with Kid Dragon, he was not, Ruck, her big brute of a teddy bear. She hoped Rucker never found out about her liaisons with certain other males, and females for that matter. She was loyal to Ruck, in her fashion, just not the traditional way. Still, she felt odd about the whole thing. Not guilty. Just pensive. She just did not want Rucker to get hurt. Feh. Caring about people was so…disturbing.

Sugar had something to do in the interim. Ranford had a cache of sex slaves, both young and older, he had stored in a bunker dungeon at his residence back on Steam Isle that needed tending to. She had to drop off her the bike at X’s warehouse, then get a large vehicle to transport them; A stretch limo sounded good. Then it was back to the island to collect them.

She called Ms. Crump to let her know there were probably soon going to be a few new additions to her orphanage. Sugar also gave her access to Ranford’s accounts, so she could shift all the funds to the orphanage’s off shore accounts, filling the coffers even fuller.

When she was finally in the back of the limo, she had time to relax. Her driver was a woman, and a handsome one at that, and wouldn’t you know, Sugar caught the tasty driver checking her out. Maybe if she had time… Sugar pushed down that thought.

She had changed into her school uniform, as was her usual modus operandi. Even if she wasn’t in school, she just like the ensemble. And just about everybody else who saw her seemed to appreciate it as well.

As Sugar traveled in the limo, through the underground freeways of the SuperSub, back to the ferry dock, she still had the late-but-not-lamented Ranford’s laptop with her, and she finally had the chance to take a gander at the footage of her fight stored on it. She watched the entire fight until the feed cut short when the arena’s were cameras shorted out.

Something very surprising and strange was recorded on that hard disk.

She watched herself praying atop The Kid, desperate for a miracle. She was holding her Ankh, and pleading to anything that would listen, when she swore she saw her Ankh flair for a split second with a burst of brilliant light and then the feed cut out. She watched the footage over and over, slowing it down to watch it frame by frame, and at the last frame, there indeed was a burst of light that seemed to emanate from her or the ankh, but it could have been a glitch or an artifact in the recording. It was hard to tell for sure.

But something was itching in the back of her mind that had nothing to do with her two demons. An earthquake. Amnesia in multiple people. Something very like a electromagnetic pulse frying everything in the facility. Something had happened at the Arena. Something unexpected. Something profound.

A miracle?

She didn’t know, but whatever happened, her prayer seemed to have been answered. As she looked down at the glowing white gem in her Ankh, and as the ferry left the dock to return to Steam Isle, no matter how she turned or twisted her review of the incident, Sugar had no idea what to think of that coincidentally serendipitous occurrence.