“Mai Xiao, Guild Master General Yue Fei, please step forward with your seconds,” the major domo’s voice was really starting to grate. It was as if the man didn’t have any other to speak than in a solemn, almost plodding manner.

“Here we go, you okay?” whispered Dakota as they walked towards the officious little man.

“I’m fine,” Mai said, feeling anything but. She didn’t know why, but this fight was completely different to any other she’d entered into. Before it had been to save others, to save herself, to survive. But this, this was to persuade a city to save itself from an existential threat that it didn’t even know existed. “I’m not going to kill him.”

“Why the fuck not?” hissed Dakota, stopping short and pulling Mai back. “He’s going to be doing all he can to make sure he kills you!”

“And he’s too valuable an asset to lose!” Mai tugged her arm free from Dakota’s grip. “We lose someone like that, and the city suffers. I don’t want that to happen. I need our people to have someone like him offering his training and advice.”

“Is there a problem?” asked the major domo. Yue Fei and his second had already joined him, and the crowd of onlookers was muttering.

“None at all. Just discussing a point of order with my second,” Mai said, plastering what she hoped looked like a genuine smile across her face.

“Well, then,” he huffed as they joined them. “We are here today to settle a request for a petition. First blood or death. If Mai Xiao injures or kills General Yue Fei, then the petition will be granted. If Yue Fei injures or kills Mai Xiao then the petition will be considered void.”

Mai looked over at Yue Fei. He was wearing a light suit of ballistic armour, perfect for deflecting kinetic attacks, whilst retaining a good level of mobility. It probably had some stealth capabilities as well considering that he was wearing it for a hunting duel.

Wonder how well it’ll stand up to a tri-barrel laser? Mai tried not to smile at the thought. Bob and the rebels had agreed to keep the existence of the weapon a secret until after the duel. Bob had been especially delighted since it would give Mai a chance to demonstrate the capabilities of the weapon in combat. If she won, he stood to make a lot of money very quickly

“Do either of you wish to withdraw from this combat, with their honour intact?”

“No,” Yue Fei said. He seemed relaxed, the only sign of any stress being the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He’d clearly done this many times before and had learned to control the outward signs of fear.

“No,” she replied, playing it as cool as she could.

“It has been agreed that the duel will go ahead. The contestants will retire to their starting points. Upon my signal, the duel will commence and will only cease once the conditions have met.”

Yue Fei held out his hand. Mai took it and they shook.

*

“Right, I’ve got to leave you,” Dakota pulled Mai in for a hard hug, squeezing the air from her friend’s lungs. “Good luck. Don’t take risks. If you need to kill him, bloody well kill him.”

Mai squeezed back, then gave her friend a peck on the cheek.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. You’ll see. We’ll have this city eating out of the palm of our hand.”

“And then all you have to do is deal with Yen Ching,” laughed Dakota as she released Mai and walked away.

All I have to do is deal with Yen Ching, thought Mai. The rebel council had been furious at her unilateral decision to speak with the Guilds. They’d been even angrier at the size of the bribe she’d paid for her audience. Still, they couldn’t protest too loudly as the power that this agreement would give the rebels would see them quickly rising to prominence in the city. And give them what they wanted, the factions broken.

As she waited for the major domo’s signal, she realised that one of the reasons that the rebel council might be so angry was because they hadn’t’ expected her to succeed.

The bastards don’t want to go back to the upper city. They’re happy with what they have in Nether City!

A flare burst into life, the duel was on.

Mai moved swiftly along an alleyway, crouched down so that she didn’t expose herself as she passed windows and doors. Filled with rubbish, it gave her good concealment, whilst also serving to slow her progress down.

Coming to a large dumpster, she tucked herself in behind it and launched a drone. The conditions of the duel hadn’t specified that they couldn’t use them, and she was determined to grab any advantage she could against such a seasoned warrior as Yue Fei.

If she had any understanding of the man, he wouldn’t be moving through the duel’s arena, but would most likely look for a spot with gave a good line of sight, but which also wasn’t one of the highest areas.

Positioning oneself in a high area had its advantages. Good line of sight, easy to defend against someone working their way up stairs and ladders, and hard to pin point if the shooter knew their craft.

However, Yue Fei was a man of logic. He would assume that someone such as Mai, essentially a skilled civilian, would immediately make for such a position.

Not today, she thought as her drone whizzed above the arena. There were three buildings which were high enough to dominate the arena, as well as a couple of towers over in the public park. All of them gave good lines of sight, and all of them were also in line with each other. None of those, too obvious.

And then she spotted a small hillock, shaded by a copse of trees. It was in the garden of the Farmers Guild. Keeping her drone high, she zoomed in as much as she could. It was perfect. Just high enough to be able to keep an eye on all of the high points in the arena, and yet low enough to appear unviable.

Clever bastard will be there, I’m certain of it.

She kept the drone hovering, circling around the hillock until she finally saw a shadow that didn’t quite match the others. Pulling the drone back, she marked the hillock on her minimap, then set a guideline which would enable her to approach from the rear.

Smiling, she set off.

Getting to the hillock probed to be trickier than she had initially thought. It was positioned in such a way that many of the streets were visible from the top. Uncertain as to which way the Yue Fei would be looking and unable to spot whether he too had a drone up, Mai was forced to literally crawl at some points.

Sweat ran down her face freely, and her breathing came in short pants as she shook the lactic acid from her limbs. She was seriously beginning to reconsider not killing him just for what she was having to go through.

Easing herself up, she tested a door, turning the handle carefully and pushing it open. As soon as it was wide enough for her to fit through, she entered, closing the door just as carefully behind her. The building she was in offered a good view of the hillock at ground level, but she had to make her way up to the third storey if she was going to be able to get a good angle on the top, and wear she thought Yue Fei was.

Placing her feet on either side of the stairs to prevent them from creaking, she edged her way up the stairs, pausing every few seconds to listen. So close to her goal, she was desperate to avoid giving the Guild Master any warning.

Poking her head up as she reached the top of the stairs she noticed a window directly facing the landing. Whilst she didn’t have a good view of the hillock’s top, she could tell that if Yue Wei was scoping in this direction that he would be able to see her if she rose more than a couple of feet.

Dropping to her belly, she crawled up the last few steps, then crawled onto the landing, tucking herself in against the window’s wall before crawling to the next flight of stairs. Keeping herself against the far wall, she crawled up the next flight of stairs.

Repeating the process at the next landing had her close to exhaustion, the tension and constant flood of adrenalin pushing her body to extremes it had never experienced.

One storey left. Just one.

By the time she was at the top of the final flight, she was done. Lying against the wall, chest heaving, arms and legs burning, she shakily pulled out a protein bar and took a bit. She didn’t need to replace much bio-mass, but desperately needed the energy the sugar and carbs in the bar would give her.

Although by the time the carbs kick in, this should be all over.

She had two options, there was a room to her left, and a room to her right. The one to the left was nearest and she rejected it for that exact same reason. If Yue Fei was scoping the building, he would have further to scope to the right, than he would to the left if he was moving between landing windows and the room windows.

Sighing, she crawled along the landing floor, opened the door, and moved through into what she saw was a nicely appointed bedroom. Two windows looked out over the hillock, both fortunately out of sight of the door.

A large bed dominated the middle of the room. Mai crawled around it to the far side away from the windows. Resting her back against it, she popped another drone up and used it to look at the windows facing the hillock. Both gave a good line of sight, and from her position from behind the bed, she would be able to shoot whilst keeping herself well hidden from Yue Fei.

Grimacing, she created the tri-barrel SMG, adding a sniper scope to its upper mount. It looked out of place but would give her better visibility and clearer shot.

Maybe I should have tried this weapon out before deciding to use it, she thought ruefully. Still, it was too late for second thoughts. She’d agreed with Bob that she would use it against Yue Fei, and she’d seen that he was wearing ballistic armour. Knowing Yue Fei was of a relatively high level meant that she could be certain the armour would be designed to defat most kinetic-based attacks, or at least blunt their effect. She couldn’t afford to take a shot that didn’t wound him as he would be able to get a shot back and wound her.

Tri-barrel it is, she placed the weapon on the bed, using the mattress to prop it. Grabbing a pillow she placed that under the barrel, bracing it and dropping her body weight to angle it up at the hill rather than raising it.

Panning the scope across the top of the hillock, she laid her reticle over the spot she thought she had seen the out of place shadow. With a command, she sent her drone back out to the landing.

Hovering it just below the window she took a nerve-steadying breath, then sent the drone crashing through the window.

A shot rang out, the muzzle flash just to the right of where she thought Yue Fei was. Shifting her aim slightly, she fired. The tri-barrel screamed, all three barrels spinning so rapidly they blurred, light strobing out in a near continuous stream.

HIT! 50%

BURN @0.5% PER SECOND

PANIC

PINNED

Another flare rose into the air and the major domo’s monotone filled the arena.

“First blood has been made! Mai Xiao is the victor!”

Cheers filled the arena as the onlookers voiced their approval. Sagging back down against the bed, Mai covered her face and gently wept.