You need to know that you’re in for the fight of your life.

You will be shown,

How I’ve become indestructible!

– “Indestructible” Disturbed

CAT AND MOUSE GAME

“Random opponent – accepted, random battle arena – accepted, here’s my gear and avatar, let’s get this done, I got stuff to do,” said the male with the short brown hair who was trying the hurry the Judges up to go over his gear.

Mr. Bad Kitty changed things around and went with an urban camouflage theme. For this fight he wore tiger stripe camo pants and jacket, with attached bandoleers of additional ammo.

He took a few random grenades (fragmentation, WP, and flash-bang) and a small bag full of cashews. As usual, he was as impatient as ever, as the Judges took their time.

The only items he submitted was the heavily modified P90 (which make it look like a weapon from some sci-fi movie), and three hundred rounds of magic enhanced (two types) ammo. The ammo and weapon took up all three slots. The Judges thoroughly went over everything carefully.

He tapped his foot impatiently as the Judge held the key aloft and the random arena was selected.

***

When the scene came into focus, it was a slightly overcast night at the Jefferson Davis Hospital. The buzz of the street lamps broke the silence of the otherwise still night.

“Scary hospital, this arena is new,” he told his battle avatar, a large black storm crow.

The readout on the billboard had his symbol (the face of a grinning alley cat) and read 777, and Anna Lee’s symbol that read 777.

He was standing at the entrance of the hospital and moved towards the entrance doors, not wanting to be caught out in the open. Mr. Bad Kitty closed his eyes and concentrated. The storm crow created a mental readout in the corner of his eye of Anna’s symbol, a green circle symbolizing her battle avatar, and 777HP. Three checks indicated her three unknown magic items.

“So what do we know about this Anna Lee character?” he mentally communicated with the crow.

“She had 2 victories and zero defeats,” it said as it jumped off his shoulder and took flight.

“Shit, I hate fighting newbies. What do we know so far?” he asked Crow again, moving against the door and peeking inside with a small mirror he had in his hand.

“We know that you should have researched her before the battle,” Crow replied.

“You’re worse the Goldilocks. Began your battle field analysis and give me tactical updates every 30 seconds,” he said, then cursing himself for not doing proper research.

His 67 victories and 0 losses were the result of careful research and planning. He would tailor his combat style to become the opponent’s natural enemy. His current arena partner began to chastise him for being sloppy in his recent fights.

He tried to justify his bout of laziness on the fact the opponents they faced were defeated so fast he didn’t have time to employ the carefully planned tactics. He refused to research his opponents the amount of research time and fight time was too disproportional. Both he and Goldilocks knew it was him be lazy.

He punched the window to the front door of the Jefferson Davis Hospital and listened for reaction. Inside he heard a little girl giggling down the hall.

The flash bang grenade was immediately tossed inside and went off with a loud pop. Instead of going through the door, he crashed through a window near the front entrance.

“Battle report update 00:34,” his storm crow said to him mentally, “Opponent #68 – battle avatar: Porcupine, items used by #68 – UNKNOWN. Target removed herself from observation. Subject used Dark Visage reducing all visual, ranged and melee strike ability to hit, and normal detection signatures reduced by 50%. This suggests she uses elements of dark and shadow of level 2 or higher.”

“I hate those annoying invisible opponents,” he cursed under his breath. “Storm Crow, summon a storm or at least a fog, if I can’t see her, I’ll reduce her visibility, too.”

Crow flew high into the sky, and started to circle around the clouds. The inside of the hospital had little if any ambient light. He checked around the corner his weapon raised in the air, where he looked, he would turn his weapon.

The nature of the close quarters and limited fighting space required fast reflexes and simple efforts such as raising and lowering a weapon could take off milliseconds from hitting a potential target. The hall way had a receptionist desk, and tattered chair. He heard a little girl’s foot falls from around the corner. He activated one of the five abilities allowed to be stacked in the arena. All his senses increased tenfold. He began to trail the echoing footsteps.

“Battle analyses update 00:53: the deepness of the footfalls suggests subject #68 weighs less than 60lbs.” the crow said mentally.

Mr. Bad Kitty stepped on debris crunching it underfoot. He looked down at the debris and cursed himself for not being quieter. Crouching down low, he tossed a few empty cashew shells behind him and in front of him.

“Revaluation 00:55: Subject #68 sounds like she is running, but is not stepping on debris. Target is most likely using some kind of auditory illusion. Upgrade target’s elemental ability to level 5 shadow and level 3 earth.” Crow said.

Previously, his battle avatar was a shadow, but was recently changed to a big black storm crow to reflect his new nature. He trained it to primary concentrate on instant battle field analysis, pattern recognition, communication no matter where he was at, and a meager few in any combat abilities.

Many of the new combatants concentrated on deploying brute force rather than thinking their way through a problem. While the storm crow had less intelligence and wisdom then he did, it could point out things he might miss during the heat of a combat situation. Thus it reinforced the old adage “two heads are better than one.”

Through the flickering of the florescent lights he carefully followed the foot falls. From down the hall, a ghostly image of a red-eyed shadow beast slowly moved towards him. He fired off a 5-round burst, going through the monster.

Kitty then switched the selector switch of his weapon to shot-gun, and sprayed 20 rounds in multiple directions, while hugging against the wall for protection. The monster disappeared. A door down the hall eerily creaked as it moved back and forth as if someone ran in.

He reached behind him and pulled out one of four of his claymore mines. He opened up a nearby door and placed the mine at ground level and aimed its targeting laser about 4 feet off the ground. Once the landmine was set, it couldn’t be deactivated till it went off.

“Shit,” he cursed himself, “How tall is Anna?”

He gave a mental update request to his Crow as it gave another posting, “You should have asked her before the fight, dummy. Update 01:01: Subject currently fights in only 2 dimensions.”

“Good call,” he told the storm crow mentally.

He concentrated and pushed energy to his feet; as he did a 1-armed hand stand his feet sticking into the air. With a push of his arm he launched himself into the air, his feet sticking to ceiling. He then focused a sphere around him as the gravitational forces around in the bubble and now down was up and up was down.

Mr. Bad Kitty was now fighting upside down and fighting in all 3 dimensions. He picked up the pace as he made it to the door way, where the girl had scurried into. He could still hear her voice inside. Pulling out a white phosphorus grenade and tossed it inside.

One bang latter and the entire room was on fire, phosphorus began to burn and melt away the MRI machine inside. The readout being broadcasted to Kitty read Anna 777HP.

“Tricky little girl,” he said to himself.

As he moved he set up the remaining three claymores on the ceiling near the light fixtures. The lasers triggering devices pointed down at the floor. As Mr. Bad Kitty moved on top of the ceiling he checked the doors to determine if someone was hiding inside, while his battle avatar gave him 30 second updates.

At the two minute mark, it announced that it had completed the preparation for the storm. A light mist began to fill the outside air. Mr. Bad Kitty had finished clearing the first and second floor and was moving up to the third floor. He had destroyed two more shadow-like monsters.

“Update 02:01: Subject #68 is channeling powers and abilities through windup mice. This suggests that #68 is a 100% distance fighter and has 0% melee skills. Upgrading threat level to 2 out of 5,” stated the storm crow.

When Mr. Bad Kitty slowly made his way to the fourth floor, his storm crow announced her location.

“Subject #68 is located on the roof of the hospital near the air conditioning system.”

“How certain are you?”

“Her shadow field is causing displacement of the water vapor in the air. Also detected, windup mice are fleeing location through the shadows and traveling through air ducts and piping to various floors.”

Kitty concentrated and stacked a third magical skill to his five limit total. He added blood detection to the senses, combining the elemental ability of darkness and water, and powered it up to its peak level of 5 to counter the shadow shield.

He moved to the general location where Crow said she was. He pulled out his specialized ammo (a mixture of shadow and fire rounds to pierce through any protective barriers such as the ceiling and to cause maximum damage) and loaded it into his weapon. Firing off 50 rounds into the ceiling as her HP dropped to 513. Her glowing form, which he saw through the ceiling he was standing on, took off running.

He continued to fire rounds off as it ripped through drywall and concrete of the hospital. She was taking hits, but it wasn’t fast enough. Her HP was 467 and dropping.

Her form giggled as she ran down the side of the building towards the ground floor. Kitty kicked opened the window to the patient’s room he was standing in and continued to fire at her. The blaze of the weapon’s muzzle flash glowed a bright orange against the backdrop of the night. She changed directions and took off around the corner while running down the side of the building.

Kitty flipped the triggering mechanism of his weapon to tracker-killer, sacrificing damage for auto-tracking rounds. The bullets turned the corner as he continued to hit her.

These rounds had a limited range so he jumped on the wall of the building and ran off at her. His gut knew she was going to run to a secondary location, which was almost certainly trapped.

A mouse popped out of her coo-coo clock that was strapped to her back, and raced towards Mr. Bad Kitty pick up on this fast traveling target and fired rounds into it. The rounds caused the windup mouse to explode before it was able to come within range.

Anna kicked open a window and ran into the first floor. The bullets tracked her, but Kitty stopped firing and reloaded his weapon with a fresh 100 round magazine. He changed the selector switch to full-auto.

Instead of landing on the floor, he landed on the ceiling. Anna stood there for a few seconds staring at him in confusion as he fired the fresh clip. She dove into a room avoiding most of the shots.

Her hit points clicked down to 342.

The sound of scuttling filled the hallway of the first floor. Kitty looked towards the direction of the sound as 80 plus mice rushing his position. The windup mice darted through the laser and trigged the claymore mines.

A roaring explosion caused a chain reaction and set off all of the mice bombs. The abrupt detonation rocked the hospital as the blast wave hit Mr. Bad Kitty. He dove towards the opposite doorway. Anna ran through avoiding most of the blast, but he took a 25HP deduction from the concussion.

Kitty shot out the window and jumped through. The building began to shake as the foundations give way. Anna turned the corner and stopped suddenly. Mr. Bad Kitty was waiting for her weapon raised as he blazed off the pure damage rounds at her.

Her HP dropped to 137.

Her shadow field protected her from most of the shots as she took off running in the opposite direction.

“Go my pet!” she screamed at her battle avatar.

The porcupine laid flat against the ground and fired off quills towards him. He nimbly dodged the quills as they flew past. His finger flipped the selector switch to single shot.

“Get rid of the nuisance,” he said to Crow.

The bird swooped down and scooped up the porcupine by its head and carried it into the sky. It was now human verses human, and avatar verses avatar.

Instead of running along Anna’s path, Mr. Bad Kitty ran up the side of the building that was in the final stages of collapse. Anna had two windup mice in her hand, ready to throw it at her opponent.

She hesitated and she saw him surfing down the collapsing rubble of the building on a door.

Two carefully aimed shots struck her in the chest and in the head as it brought her HP down to zero.

Mr. Bad Kitty did a flip in the air off the building and landed on his feet as the building finally collapsed. Dust and rubble were thrown everywhere.

The bill board showed his symbol and “WINNER!” next to his name.

***

He smiled and teleported home. Inside the cozy cottage Goldilocks was there waiting for him. Her eyes changed color to a light green as she watched him wipe the dust off his shoulders and arms.

She abandoned the little girl theme and went for a more elderly persona. Goldilocks kept her long golden blonde hair, but had braided it up and tied it up around in a bun, thus keeping it out of her face. While her long Mason blue with white trim dress covered up most of her body, it accented her curves.

Her battle avatar changed as well. A small sun brightly lit the main room of the cottage. She was pawing through a signed copy of “The Prince” by Machiavelli.

“Number 68 made me put forth effort today. One fight down, four to go,” Kitty told her.

“It was about time,” Goldilocks said, “I got the research on the four battles.”

A chime went off in Kitty’s head as he received a message.

He checked the message:

YOU FUCKING CHEATER!

I WANT A GOD DAMN REMATCH.

IF YOU DON’T, I’M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE YOU CHEATED! – Anna Lee

“Hold on, I got someone who can’t find the caps lock key,” he said.

Goldilocks sighed, sat back down, and flipped through the book. Kitty sent her a reply. After a few seconds there was a knock at the door.

“We really need to upgrade our security,” Goldilocks muttered. “People find this place way too easily.”

“Come in!” Mr. Bad Kitty shouted towards the door.

Anna Lee stormed into the room, her fists were balled up and face was starting to turn purple with rage, skipping the color red.

“There is no way you should have won that battle!” she spat at him. “You fucked up my perfect record. I want a fucking rematch!”

He just calmly looked down at her.

“No,” he said plainly.

A black crow flew in from an adjoining room. Clutched in his beak was a manila folder. Crow landed on his shoulder and gave a half-assed caw. He took the folder from crow and tossed to her.

She caught it and opened it up. It was a complete readout of the battle. In the footnotes it gave out weakness and strength of each and every action made by Mr. Bad Kitty and Anna (starting from when she was detected).

At the end of the report it gave out three major mistakes and how to correct them. It also pointed out three items that were good, and how to counter them in the future. Anna’s rage subsided; he was giving her solutions to defeating him in a potential rematch.

“Why are you telling me how to defeat you?” she asked, stunned anyone would do this.

“It’s to prevent me from becoming too predictable.”

She continued to go over the report. Her mind quickly absorbing the information for fear that he was going to take it away from her. Suddenly a piece of information caught her eye.

“Why am I only considered a level 2 threat!?!?” she asked in agitation.

Goldilocks snickered.

“Even though you ran down the side of the building, the report suggests that you understand the three dimensional aspect of the battle arena. You failed to take full advantage of the fact the ceiling could be used as well. Furthermore, your mice only used the floor and part of the walls, thus you only think in 2.5 dimensions rather than in three. Might I suggest you employ coo-coo birds into your clock as well? If you need help making your clock tournament legal, I can assist you with this.”

Stunned and didn’t know what to say. Her enemy was giving her helpful advice. Goldilocks saw where he going with this, the same thing happened to her weeks ago, when Mr. Bad Kitty defeated her the arena.

“You have potential, kid. I like your style. I can see you being a top tier leader,” he said smiling at her, defusing her anger. “If you want there is a guild that could help you out.”

“I rather work alone, and I don’t like to rely on others to win,” she said.

He shrugged.

“Your mice don’t work alone to bring down an opponent, do they?” he asked.

Goldilocks stood up and walked over to her, while Anna’s mind was analyzing every possible angle of the conservation. She was trying to detect hints of trickery.

“Listen kid, he’s offering you an opportunity to join our team. We require a fifth person for our five-on-five team. This is a limited time offer. I know what you are going through, I was in the same boat you were in back in the day. We are not going to coddle you, or treat you like a baby. We will treat you as an equal,” Goldilocks said.

She recognized the look in her eyes. Goldilocks suspected that Anna came from a sheltered family that tried to protect her from every little thing in life. Yet at Astral Fight Club she was free from a mother hen and an overly protective father. She could take chances without fear of being micromanaged.

Crow cawed breaking her out of a trance she put herself in. Anna Lee looked into the eyes of Mr. Bad Kitty and Goldilocks, neither of them were hiding behind the walls of deceit and appeared to be completely honest with her. She was here to take calculated risks; this was just another gamble.

“I’ll accept!” she said happily. “When do we fight as a team?”

“Akuma and Whisper should be here shortly; they are finishing up their 2v2 battle together. I got a few friends who will be analyzing our fight and be critiquing our performance together.”

“Welcome to the Fischermen, kid,” Goldilocks said hugging her. “It’s time to rule the five-on-five battle tier.”