Jen had introduced Tamako to sports bras back on the first deck after learning that women just relied on their armor to hold their breasts in place while fighting. Jen had thought about selling them in their charm store, but they had just gotten too busy and she just dropped the idea.

Jen now watched as the crowd reacted in stages. First, they went insane as they watched “Tiny” start to take off her shirt and put it into her storage ring. Second, they laughed at the gambler when the system awarded “Tiny” the gold even though she still had some sort of covering over her breasts. Finally, as the crowd looked closer, there was quiet muttering before all hell broke loose as the gamblers went into betting frenzies.

Jen's heart ached with sadness and sympathy for her Tamako. The scars were everywhere. They covered her shoulders, arms down to the wrists, back, chest, stomach, and you could tell they continued on down past her waist under her pants.

Poker looked over at Jen in bewilderment, but Jen simply replied, “It’s Tamako's story to tell, and she wouldn't tell you if you asked.”

Poker nodded with understanding, but to avoid the uncomfortable feeling, he changed the subject, “Crap, look at all the new bets!” He started dancing a jig behind the podium chanting, “It’s raining money, it’s raining money!” Poker’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Jen started laughing and dancing him.

Their match was going to start in about two minutes, and Jen noticed Dicey staring hard at Tamako’s scars. Just as Jen was about to get offended, Dicey ran back inside the arena changing-room and came out with just 10 seconds on the clock. She had taken off her shirt and was wearing some kind of cloth tied around her breasts.

Jen felt foolish as she realized Dicey had been looking at the sports bra, and not Tamako’s scars. The crowd cheered with laughter as the creepy woman lost another 20 gold to her poorly worded gambling quest, but then someone hollered with some sort of sound magnification skill, “By the Seven Decks! Her tits are huge!”

Jen was looking at the little piece of cloth and armor around Dicey’s chest, when Tamako messaged her, “Damn, they are big! Mine are a much better size for fighting.”

Jen was trying to hold in the laughter with Poker standing right next to her, but then Dicey faced the direction of the man that hollered at her, gave the crowd a crazy middle finger (which apparently meant the same thing as back on Earth) and grabbed both her tits suggestively. The crowd roared with approval, and Jen busted out laughing as Poker blushed as red as a fire truck.

Poker just looked down at the Podium shaking his head, and said, “If you’re going to hang with her, you’re going to have to get used to attention. O.K. the match is starting, 3, 2, 1…”

Jen could sense that neither Dicey or Tamako were going to take it easy on the other, and you didn’t have to have a psych skill to tell they weren’t planning on dancing around the arena with delicate sword thrusts.

Dicey swung her axe, but this time Tamako ducked and twisted out of the way as her sword was shattered. She then threw the broken blade into Dicey’s face to give her time to draw a thick steel mace from her storage ring, that she was fairly confident would not shatter from an axe strike. The spear and shield were Tamako’s favorite weapon load-out, but she also knew that different situations required different weapons, and she had trained and fought with just about every weapon that was available on the First Deck.

Dicey wanted to crush “Tiny”, and activated her controlled rage skill. It was an upgrade from a berserker skill, because controlled rage gave her all the strength and pain numbing of the berserker skill, but it still allowed her to think.

Tamako was successfully using her mace to block the onslaught of what she thought was a berserker skill activation by Dicey, but then mid-swing, Dicey unexpectedly pulled a caltrop out her storage device and threw it right into Tamako’s face.

Tamako was unable to stop the swing of her own mace, which actually crushed Dicey’s arm holding the axe. Unfortunately, the caltrop went deep into her left cheek and eye.

The two women backed up from one another. Dicey was trying to recover her axe with her good arm, and Tamako pulled the barbed caltrop out her check and eye with a scream of pain. To the crowd’s delight, the caltrop tore out most of Tamako’s left cheek, forehead, and her entire left eye.

Jen wanted to run into the arena and help Tamako. Jen hated watching this, even if Tamako looked like someone else with her anonymous mask. This wasn’t like killing rapist and vampires. She liked Dicey and loved Tamako, Jen hated watching them hurting each other.

Tamako pulled a rag from her storage ring and was trying to keep the blood pouring from her forehead into her good eye, while wielding her mace with the other hand.

Dicey recovered her axe, but she didn’t have time to use a tourniquet on her smashed harm, and was hoping to finish Tamako off, before losing so much blood from her arm she bled out.

***

A little noble boy sitting in one of the box seats asked his mother, “How do they keep fighting through all the pain?”

His mother replied, “These fighters are nothing more than animals for our entertainment. Just like many animals, fighting brutes are too stupid to feel much pain when whipped or branded.”

The boy nodded his understanding to his mother, and said, “Is that why only noble families are allowed to rule most cities?”

“Exactly! Most people are nothing more than stupid animals and rely on us to guide them.”

***

Almost completely blinded from the blood pouring down into her one good eye, and with a serious injury to the left side of her entire face, Tamako was still able to stop Dicey’s first few attacks, but it wasn’t long before Dicey took Tamako’s head off with a one-armed swipe of her axe.

The crowd erupted in cheers and boos depending on if they won or loss their bets. There were also quite a few spectators that sat down and started drooling in their seats after receiving the euphoria they gambled for.

From behind Jen, she heard Sam’s voice as he said, “EYE could have told you something like this was going to happen.”