Round 1 Action

The Tournament

Round 1 Blake Ezor (offense) vs Julie Amore (defense)

1-25-2035

"What are they screaming about?" Julie Amore asked nervously.

Her guide glanced at her with a concerned expression. "The jungles, Ma'am, they are filled with life. These are not the foliage you'll find in Los Angeles." He glanced at his donkey to make sure it wasn't straying from the trail, no danger of that given the growls and screams coming from all around them, and then looked at her again. "I mean no disrespect, of course."

"None taken." Julie sighed. She had slept maybe two hours the past two nights and hadn't been able to keep much food down. It was hot as hell here and the bugs were driving her insane. But worse was the feeling that something had been stalking them, toying with them.

"Are you sure you can continue?" Her guide asked. "You are pale and withdrawn."

She wondered how many guides in this godforsaken country used words like 'foliage' and 'withdrawn' ... even in their own language. "I'm okay. I'll feel better when we reach the plantation. I usually deliver packages and messages inside the states, but this one was considered too important to risk a lesser carrier delivering it."

"Of course. I've tried to make the pace easy for you."

"I'll be fine." Julie lied. Actually, she didn't feel like she'd ever be fine again. The deep sense of foreboding that had not left her for two days was getting stronger the closer they got to the Ezor Plantation. Would she really be okay when she reached it?

Either way, at least half of this godawful trip would be over. True, she still had to get back, but half over was almost over. That's what her Mom used to say, anyway.

They passed a village at noon. It didn't really deserve village status, it was just a collection of worn huts, maybe twenty in number. The huts were made of tree stalks tied together with branded rope. She could see no windows. Julie wondered how hot the huts got, and why they wouldn't have windows cut into them.

The guide's donkey stopped suddenly, and Julie immediately saw why. A dead body was laid out just beyond the last hut. One old man was examining it. Several other bedraggled people stood several feet away, looking pale themselves and frightened.

Julie felt for her revolver and was relieved to feel its comforting weight in her backpack.

The old man stood, giving Julie more of a view of the body than she wanted. During her ten year career with The Organization, she'd seen maybe a dozen violently killed people, including one messy shotgun wound that had shoved the victims intestines out of his back, but all that was dwarfed by this. Julie could only tell this had been a young girl because of her long black hair. She was lying on her back but Julie could see the girl's backbone ... that was how much of the poor girl's stomach had been ripped from her body. Her breasts were gone, as if they were tasty morsels the killer couldn't help but sample. The rest of the upper body remained except for one lung, which had been savagely torn from the body.

Blood coated the insect infested body, and none of her clothes remained. Julie finally looked away before she could see if the girl had been violated before or after. She really didn't want to know.

Julie couldn't stop herself, she leaned to her left and was violently sick, without even getting down from her donkey. After she was finished, it occurred to her to wonder about her violation thoughts. This HAD been an animal, right? There couldn't be a human responsible for this atrocity, could there? No human could inflict this kind of damage on another. It wasn't possible.

They were passing the body now. The old man was speaking with the others, and one word stood out among the others. Pramrick. It was repeated several times and each time it was said in a hushed tone.

"What the hell happened here?" Julie called to her guide.

"Quiet!" The man snapped in a shaky tone. His pace had picked up, and soon the 'village' was behind them. They were surrounded by jungle again.

About an hour later, the guide stopped to water their donkeys. When he was doing Julie's steed, he whispered to her. "We're going to be going at a faster pace now. Look straight ahead, don't turn your head, and for heaven's sake, don't speak a word." Bold terror was written on her guide's face in indelible ink. "I don't care what you hear or see, or what you think you hear or see, or even what you hoped like hell you didn't hear or see, don't slow down. Don't stray from the trail. And if you stop, I'm leaving you behind. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" His trembling fingers wiped the bowl her donkey had finished drinking from and returned it to his pack.

"What is this?"

"Shut up and do what I say! Okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he rushed back to his donkey.

Julie didn't press the issue. The only time she'd seen someone more terrified was when she'd had to question a snitch. That had been terror well justified.

The next two hours were pure hell for Julie. Three times she heard the sound of a woman screaming as if the most horrible things were happening to her. It was a hideous song of desperation and pain.

There were other sounds. A deep growling that seemed to come from right beside her. On that occasion, her donkey almost threw her, and Julie herself nearly jumped out of her skin. That prompted a horrid giggling that resembled that a demented child makes while it tears the wings off a fly. Another time there was a pig squealing as if it were being slaughtered slowly. Several times Julie heard muttering that she could almost but not quite understand. She kept her eyes straight ahead. Even when something twice something plucked at her jersey.

Those times it didn't feel like a twig caught in her clothes either. It didn't feel like a hand either. Strangely enough, it seemed like a paw. But no animal could all the way up to her shoulder while she rode the donkey.

Neither time provoked Julie into turning around. She kept her eyes on the trail.

Soon after the second incident, she saw an opening ahead. The trail was emerging from the jungle to a cleared out area. This would be the Ezor estate.

"Thank God." Julie muttered, and then gasped as if she had blundered by speaking.

Her guide glanced around, looking very much relieved. "It's okay. I'm sorry if I was too harsh earlier, but it was for your own good."

She nodded but didn't trust herself to speak even with his assurance.

The clearing was a full mile in diameter. The mansion dominated this end of it, and blocked out most of the cocaine fields that made up most of the clearing. It was just as well, the less Julie saw of this operation the better.

A tall stocky man met them as they were dismounting. He was wearing brown work pants and a gray jersey. Sandals, looking worn and filthy, adorned his feet. His hair was jet black and silky. His black eyes tracked them restlessly, as if he they weren't quite enough to keep his attention. "Staying over this time, Cherez?" The man asked Julie's guide. His voice was a rolling baratone. For some reason, it reminded Julie of what would come out of a slinky cat. The kind of cat that left you presents on the doorstep after a night of hunting.

Her guide gulped audibly. If Julie wasn't mortally terrified herself, she would have been amused by this sound. "Ah - no, we'll be heading back right after Miss Amore makes her delivery."

Julie had already removed the slim metal lockbox from her backpack and was holding it in her left hand. This was a pretext to have her backpack slung down on her right hip and her right hand hovering over the pistol concealed within.

"Have a safe return trip, my friend." He lifted his right hand, seemed to have just noticed something caught in his right index fingernail, and plucked the tiny piece of fabric out from under his nail. It was a tiny swatch of brown material. The exact same shade as Julie's jersey.

Unable to help herself, Julie looked around at her right arm and noticed several holes that size ... right where she had felt the plucking in the jungle. She returned her gaze to the tall man and found him staring at her with hungry black eyes. When she met his gaze, he smiled.

"T - t- thanks." Cherez stuttered. He forced a cough. "Um, I think I'm coming down with something."

"Yes?" Their greeter was staring holes in Julie but addressing her guide. "Perhaps I could look at you before you leave? I fancy myself familiar with medicine."

"I'd dread troubling you in such a manner, Mr. Turk. I'll be fine." Her guide said quickly.

Mr. Turk nodded, finally removed his awful gaze from Julie, and turned towards the mansion. "This way, Miss Amore."

She followed dutifully.

Turk led her into the mansion and up a set of wooden hand carved steps. On the second floor the door he led her to was immediately to the right of the stairs. "Master Ezor will receive you in the library in one hour. I thought you might enjoy a room to rest and refresh yourself until then."

"That was very thoughtful of you, thanks."

He smiled, a cold bitter thing of a facial expression, and turned away. "I'll come for you in one hour."

The hour passed too quickly. Julie had just showered and changed when the knock came, but in reality she spent forever in the shower just trying to get two days worth of jungle funk out of her hair and off her body.

Julie was wearing her other pair of think dungarees and a loose blouse. She had transferred her pistol to her belt and wore her blouse out so it would cover the weapon. She carried her lockbox in her left hand to keep her right hand free.

Turk led her to the massive, opulent library. Hard bound books, many of them looking centuries old, lined three walls. The fourth wall was filled with floor to ceiling windows. There were no shutters or blinds to keep any of the light out, so the room was filled with natural sunlight.

The only furniture in the vast room were a gathering of easy chairs near the window wall and a rolltop desk to the left of the double doors that had admitted Julie.

Turk closed the doors and stood in front of them. They were the only doors leading to or from this room, so she was trapped in here unless she felt like jumping through the plate glass windows.

Blake Ezor, master of this house and several miles surrounding it, rose from the farthest easy chair. He had been sipping from a crystal glass filled with a red gold liquid. As he got up, he set the glass on an armrest and started walking towards her.

Julie found that to face Master Ezor, she had to have her back to Turk. That made her very nervous.

Master Ezor stopped next to the closest easy chair to her, which happened to also have its back to Turk and the doors leading out, and waved a hand over it. "Sit." He said in an ice cold voice. It was a command that could not be denied, no matter how much having her back to the creepy Turk made her.

When she had complied, Ezor stood over her and held his left hand out. Each finger was encircled by a diamond ring that looked worth more than she made in a decade.

Julie stared at his hand uncomprehendingly.

"Your employer called me this morning. He was most anxious to know if you had arrived, if you had made your delivery." Ezor told her.

Now she understood his hand. Cursing her stupidity, Julie handed him the waterproofed and locked metal box.

Ezor took it with his left hand and removed a silver chain necklace from around his neck with his right. Dangling from the necklace was a key of the same color. He used the key to unlock the box. After studying the contents for a second, he nodded. "Excellent." He set the box on an chair next to Julie and turned back to look at her with his cold blue eyes.

Before Julie could say anything, such as "Oh, well, I guess I'll be going" there was a light ring. Ezor pulled a cell phone from his pocket and raised it to his ear. "Yes?"

The caller was one of those people who speak loudly when on the phone, and Julie could clearly hear him say, "Just wanted to let you know, Master Ezor, Cherez has just crossed the perimeter. He's off the grounds."

"Thank you. Watch him until he's a mile away to make sure he's clean."

"Yes sir."

Ezor disconnected and pocketed the phone. He saw Julie's expression and said, "it's just a precaution. We have no reason to suspect your guide is working against us. I make it a habit of not trusting anyone."

"There must be some kind of mistake." Julie gasped. "I'm supposed to go back with him! How am I going to get back to airfield to be picked up? It's twenty miles away!"

Julie noticed something odd while waiting for Ezor to reply. Some people were at the window wall now. At least a dozen. All of them were lined up in a row, facing into this room. Actually, they had their noses pressed against the glass, as if they wanted to make sure they saw something. Ezor was going to pitch a fit when he saw his servants peeking in on him like this. Julie kind of hoped so ... anything to distract him from her.

"That's a good question." Ezor replied easily. "I have a message from your employer." He pulled a digital voice recorder from his other pocket and pressed a button. The voice of her boss came through crystal clear. "Tell that bitch that I've known she was skimming from me for six months but I wanted to wait for just the right time to get her back!"

A cold chill like a bucket of water gushed through Julie. This was about as far from good as she could be. She wished she could see Turk, it was driving her crazy not being able to see him. But it didn't really matter, she knew he was behind her ready to try and kill her. She had one chance, and that was her pistol.

More people were at the window wall now. So many that she could no longer see the cocaine fields. All of them were grinning and eagerly pressing their noses to the windows so they could get a good look. And now she had a good idea what they were here to watch. Especially since Ezor had glanced over at the windows without any indication of being annoyed.

As Ezor turned back, Julie made her move. She flipped up her blouse and pulled her pistol out. But her hysteria was making her hands shake, and her terror had dampened her hands to the point that she almost lost her grip. As it was, this delay sealed her doom. Ezor was standing over her and slapping the gun from her hands. It clattered to the floor and scooted under the rolltop desk.

"Nice try." Master Ezor said viciously. Then, oddly, he turned away again, and took several steps towards the windows with the dozens of voyeurs looking in to see what was about to happen to her.

"This isn't fair!" Julie cried out. "Whatever my boss is paying you-."

"Turk?" Ezor said, cutting her off.

A low grunt from just behind Julie was the only answer. The grunt didn't sound human.

"Make her last as long as you can, eh? And don't worry about leaving a mess on the floor."

Julie tried to get up but something no longer human snatched her up and tossed her across the room. She slammed against the wall hard enough to break her right arm, before sliding to the floor next to the desk.

The gun!

Julie rolled onto her back and reached for the gun under the desk with her left hand. A black furred paw, razor fast and equipped with four wicked claws, shredded her hand with a single swipe.

Julie screamed.

"Beg me, little girl." It purred in a barely understandable voice. "Beg me to kill you quick!"

Before Julie finally died some time later, she was doing just that.

A shudder passed through the world...

Blake Ezor was awake and off his game bed before Julie finally opened her eyes. She awoke with a scream and lay there trembling until the medic on duty had given her a shot to calm her.

Blake was still in the room, talking with reporters, when Julie finally regained her senses enough to look around and spot him. "YOU! You fucking ASShole! There was no reason for that - that torture! You had won, just finish it!"

Blake spoke to her, but seemed to really be addressing the media interviewing him. "Let this be a lesson to you and everyone else in this Tournament! I came here to play! Keep that in mind before you think about stepping in the computer with me!" With a mischievous grin firmly on his face, he turned away from Julie and continued to speak with the reporters.

Julie burned holes in his back for a minute longer, before allowing the medic to help her up. But her look was as much one of fear and trauma as it was righteous anger.

Home

Gabrielle Sallor (offense) vs Kurt Shilling (defense)

Damien Johnson (offense) vs Kyle Devore (defense)

Katya Floski (offense) vs Kim Jong (defense)

Anne Layden (offense) vs Sissy Crydom (defense)

Harry Brown (offense) vs Eli Vaquez (defense)

Leo Rameriz (offense) vs Alyson Kerrigan (defense)

Max Fields (offense) vs Roland Windom (defense)

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