Fell Champions

Sami was really going to do it. Otter, probably more than anyone else in the world, knew exactly when Sami committed to a course of action, and more importantly, that once she did, she rarely backed down. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and enough arrogance to think she was right even when a roomful of people were telling her she was wrong.

 

“No,” Otter said, stepping between Sami and Paul.

 

Boy, did she ever not want to be doing this. Not only because Paul was a shit bag with no redeeming qualities, but because Sami was a living nightmare in close quarters combat. Otter suspected she might be the only player currently with a Pact, but that mattered for dick all this close, not when Sami had a sword. 

 

“It has to be done,” she said, as if murdering a man were perfectly reasonable.

 

“And I’m telling you no. We don’t do that. We’re not going to descend to this… this… this idiocy unless we’re forced to.”

 

“He went for my weapon. What do you think he was planning to do with it, once he had it? And you know him. Everyone does. His pride will never allow for this kind of public defeat. If I don’t kill him now, he’s tomorrow’s problem. No, better to get it over with now.”

 

Otter bit her lip. More than half of her Will was gone. Her Tenacity was depleted, and waiting on recharge, and who knew how long that’d take. This wasn’t a fight she could win. Not even on a good day, and this wasn’t looking like a good day.

 

And then Rua was between them. Her posture was lazy, relaxed. Sami wasn’t a tall woman, but still she towered over her. And Rua wasn’t armed.

 

So why the hell did it look like she didn’t think she was in danger?

 

“Go attend to the idiot before he bleeds out,” Rua said. “I’ll cover this.”

 

Otter wanted to argue, to warn Rua she didn’t know what she was stepping into. But Rua was right. Paul had been bleeding for a while. He didn’t have the time for arguments.

 

She ducked away, getting to his side, used her Thread of the Scourge as a tourniquet, commanding the thin rope to wrap around his wrist tightly, and with a twist of her hand, forced it into a tight knot. 

 

“Someone… someone get his hand.”

 

“I’ll do it,” Pandemona said, using it as a quick excuse to be away from Sami’s ire, and retreated into the aisles to go looking for where it fell.

 

“How do you do that?” Sami said. “The magic?”

 

Rua shot Otter with a sharp look. Otter looked between the two helplessly, and instead checked over Paul’s shoulder wound. He’d ripped out the dagger in his second attack, which only had led to more bleeding, but it didn’t look too deep. She ripped at his shirt, and staunched the wound as best she could. She wasn’t a medic or anything, but she’d watched enough hospital dramas to do a bad impersonation of one.

 

Sami’s fingers were drumming ever harder on her sword’s pommel, a beat to war. 

 

Rua’s head tilted to the side. “If this is how you treat your own, I can only imagine how you’ll treat the people of my world.”

 

That stopped Sami’s drumming. 

 

“Are… are you an NPC?”

 

“Does that suddenly make me more easy to kill?”

 

Sami frowned, and then said to Otter, “Is she a pet? Is that what this is?”

 

Otter snorted. “Not yet, she’s not. I mean, uh….”

 

“That makes her less interesting. A shame.” 

 

Her grip changed on her sword, and she moved to draw, but Rua slapped her down on the sword and forced it back into its scabbard.

 

“Are you a creature of pride, too?” Rua asked. “Will you hold a grudge when I beat you in front of your compatriots?”

 

Sami tried to draw her sword again, but Rua’s hand didn’t let up, keeping it sheathed with minimal effort. She moved back, her feet gliding in a hasty retreat, but Rua followed her, not missing a beat. Sami pivoted, but Rua moved with her, as if knowing how she’d move before she did.

 

“By your logic,” Rua said, “I should start killing you all, here and now. You look like a threat to my people. So if I begin pruning weeds now, I avoid problems tomorrow. If this is the extent of your abilities, it wouldn’t even be an effort. There’s only a hundred of you.”

 

Sami shot Otter a startled look, as if pleading for help.

 

Otter raised up her hands defensively, before remembering she was supposed to be applying steady pressure to Paul’s wound. “Hey, don’t look at me, you started this.”

 

“I think a lesson is in order,” Rua said. “If compassion doesn’t ease your hand from murder, then I guess fear will have to do. But at the very least, I’ll spare your precious pride.”

 

Rua stepped back, her hand coming away from Sami’s hilt. The sword was unsheathed in an instant, but Rua didn’t seem to particularly mind. Instead, she snapped her fingers, and a black dome encircled the area, enclosing the four of them in a dome twenty feet across.

 

Sami’s eyes darted around nervously. The light from outside was blocked out, but there were no additional shadows, no obscurement of anything inside the sphere itself.

 

“What is this?” she asked.

 

“I’m merely blocking the truth of events from everyone else. For your benefit. You won’t want them seeing this.”

 

Sami had trained for years in both kendo and fencing when she was a kid. She’d been schooled in three different martial arts, in lieu of any actual parenting being done. It was apparently easier to just dump her at a dojo and then pick her up later than it was dealing with her at home.

 

Her father in particular had decided early on that so long as she was disciplined and busy, it was better than anything other kids her age were doing. Otter had always found hearing those stories a little sad. 

 

Later, Sami used those skills in Immortalized, and then Gallant Stand II. Real world experience had translated well in both, and she’d become an overnight sensation in the streaming sphere, much to her parents’ disapproval. 

 

“Rua, be careful,” Otter said.

 

Rua rolled her eyes, and then assumed a lazy fighting stance.

 

Sami changed her grip on her sword, and came at Rua with the flat of her blade, going for injury over kill. Apparently, she needn’t have bothered. Rua sidestepped the swing as if it were from a sloppy swordsman, and then leaned forward and flicked Sami’s nose.

 

Sami staggered back, not from pain but from surprise. She lifted a hand to her face, as if unsure of what had just happened, and before she could resume her posture again, Rua was inside of her guard and flicked both her ears.

 

Sami swung once, twice, thrice with her blade in short, controlled attacks that were more designed to hit her opponent with the pommel of her sword and her blade, but none connected, Rua just flowing away like the wind.

 

“Rua, stop,” Otter said in a strangled voice. “She’s proud, you’re just going to piss her off.”

 

“I know.”

 

“You need to take this seriously!” 

 

“I always take my sparring lessons seriously. She needs to understand.”

 

Sami repositioned herself, moving from stance to stance, trying to decide how to attack. Rua maintained her same lazy stance, watching carefully, but not moving in response.

 

Sami’s next attack pattern was one Otter had seen hundreds of times over. A downward cut, followed immediately by a cross slash, then a feint to the left. 

 

But as she feinted, Rua stepped into the attack, striking Sami’s wrist and causing her to drop her sword. And Otter suddenly realized how dangerous Rua was in a swordfight, and more importantly, why.

 

Rua knew when people were lying. That included not just spoken words, but body language, like feints. She could read attacks and intent naturally and with no effort. She didn’t need to interpret or guess or make split-second decisions for when to respond and when not to. She just knew.

 

Disarmed, Sami didn’t hesitate and switched to hand-to-hand. She was all about elbows and knees in close-quarters, and it normally worked out for her. This day, not so much. 

 

Rua didn’t completely dominate her. She did take a couple of hits. But it was also clear she wasn’t trying particularly hard, and it was in less than a couple of minutes that Sami was a ragged, panting and tired mess, with nothing to show for it except some blood dribbling down her own nose, and a few angry red spots from stinging blows across her body.

 

“He’s a danger to us,” Sami growled.

 

“The same could be said about you. About any of you.”

 

“I’m not the one running around attacking people.”

 

“You’re attacking me.”

 

That seemed to fluster Sami, a crack forming in her normally unbreakable facade. 

 

“She called me a ‘pet,’” Rua said to Otter. “And I don’t think the lesson is sticking like the way I want to. May I?”

 

Otter wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but said, “Uh, sure?”

 

Apparently she should have asked for clarification, because after the next clash of blows, Rua was seated on the bench, with Sami struggling but laid out across her lap, her arms pinned behind her back.

 

“Bind her, please,” Rua said.

 

There was something in Rua’s tone, something that normally wasn’t there. A level of steel and an edge to it sharp enough to cut. Otter didn’t question the order, she just summoned a Thread of the Scourge and used it to tie Sami’s arms, and then after a moment’s thought, also tied her legs together.

 

“Let me go,” Sami growled.

 

“No. You have a dangerous philosophy. I suspect all of your kind do. A mix of, ‘kill anything inconvenient to you’ and ‘only the strong survive.’ So, you’re the one who’s going to tell everyone not to go around murdering anyone and anything you encounter just because it’s easy.”

 

“Uh, I don’t think this is going to work,” Otter said. “She’s pretty stubborn. So I hear.”

 

“I’m trying to help you,” Sami said through clenched teeth. “If we don’t kill Paul now, he’ll try to get revenge. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and his pride’s been hurt.”

 

“And hasn’t yours, by now? I’ve humiliated you pretty thoroughly. Doesn’t that make you a threat to me, by your logic?”

 

Sami made a frustrated noise, but otherwise kept wisely silent.

 

“Are you going to leave him alone?”

 

“Yes, just let me go, and I’ll leave him alone.”

 

Otter winced. Poor Sami had no idea about Rua’s lie detection ability. 

 

Rua sighed theatrically, and then raised a hand and brought it down firmly on Sami’s ass. It wasn’t a gentle spank. It was a sharp clap, with enough jarring force that Otter swore she could feel it herself through her teeth. 

 

Sami hadn’t been expecting it, but she closed her mouth and made no sound. 

 

“You’re a godamn NPC,” Sami growled. “Let me go.”

 

Rua brought her hand down in five rapid smacks. “That is the last time you call me that. I’m not anyone’s pet, toy, or plaything. I am not part of your game. The only one having fun around here is your Holt.”

 

Otter was sure Rua’s lesson was supposed to be instructional, but she’d be a liar if she didn’t say it was doing something for her. She’d had Rua pinned as a sub, but apparently that wasn’t the case. She definitely had a praise kink, but she also didn’t tolerate anything resembling disrespect. 

 

“Here,” Otter said, scrambling to Rua’s side, a bit of mischief and more than some arousal in her heart. “She’ll respond better with this.”

 

Otter yanked Sami’s pants down to her mid-thigh, revealing her bare ass. Sami had a fairly athletic build, and it showed in her toned and sculpted rear. Rua looked down, and her cheeks flushed red, and she mouthed silent words of incredulity at Otter.

 

Sami began to thrash at her bonds. “I know it’s you, Mayumi. I’m not stupid, and only you’d be enough of a pervert to do this.”

 

“Who’s ‘Mayumi?’” Otter said with mock innocence. “I’m just Otter. Now hush and take your punishment.”

 

She placed a finger gently against Sami’s lips, and made a hushing noise. Sami looked absolutely furious, which was fair, but Otter’d had sex with that woman enough times in the past to know she was absolutely turned on, too. Otter gestured for Rua to go ahead, and after a brief moment’s hesitation, she spanked Sami again. The hit wasn’t nearly as hard as before, and Otter gave her an annoyed look, so Rua did it again, but firmer. 

 

Sami, to her credit, made no noise, and kept her eyes locked on Otter the entire time, which kind of made it even better.

 

“Do you have something to say to her?” Otter asked Rua.

 

Rua seemed in a trance which she had to visibly shake off. “Right. Are you… are you going to be a problem for us?”

 

“I wasn’t before,” Sami growled, “but now that I know who GrandTheftOtter is, you better–”

 

Smack!

 

Rua’s hand came down the hardest it had so far, and this time Sami yelped. Rua didn’t let up. Now that she’d gotten a reaction, she kept at it, peppering Sami with a series of hard smacks, alternating cheeks as she went.

 

Otter knelt by Sami so they were eye-to-eye, and ran a hand through her hair. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m sorry about how things ended. If I could do it over again differently, I would. I still love you, you know. I never stopped.”

 

Sami made a growling noise which quickly gave way to a high-pitched whine. Sami loved to dominate the people in her life, both in and out of the bedroom, but deep down, she’d always been a sub. It just took the right hand to get her there.

 

Otter met Rua’s eyes and said, “Remember the Dreamer.”

 

Rua nodded, and then brought her hand down one last time on Sami’s ass, but this time, it was gentle, rubbing away at the burn. She ran her fingertips softly along the flesh, barely grazing her flesh. 

 

“That’s it,” Rua cooed. “That’s my good girl. How much more do you think you can endure?”

 

Sami panted heavily, the beginnings of tears in her eyes, but she leaned into the touch. When Rua pulled her hand away, she whined pitifully. 

 

Rua gave her another smack. “I asked you a question.”

 

“Whatever… whatever you can give.”

 

“Whatever I can give? Which do you want?” She ran her hand softly down Sami’s flank, and then followed it up with a quick smack. Sami groaned. “Do you want it all? Are you that greedy?”

 

Sami shook her head and bit down on her lip to keep from answering. So, Otter learned back and ran a quick finger along Sami’s exposed pussy. She let out a quick groan and tried to move into it, but Otter withdrew her fingers, but held them up for Rua to see the light glistening on them. 

 

“What’s this?” Rua asked. “Are you enjoying yourself that much?”

 

When Sami didn’t immediately answer, Rua gave another smack, and then moved her own hand to stroke along Sami’s lower lips. Rua’s face was red with embarrassment the entire time, but her eyes were focused.

 

Sami groaned, and looked at Otter imploringly. 

 

“Tell her who she belongs to,” Otter said.

 

Rua gave a quick cough, but Sami answered for her, “Rua. Please. Just… finish it.”

 

Otter smirked. “You always were as much of a slut as me, no matter what you said.”

 

Sami let out a frustrated groan.

 

“I… I want you to say the whole thing,” Rua said. “Say who you belong to.”

 

“I’m yours,” Sami cried. “I belong to you. Are you happy? I’ll leave that fucker alone. I’ll do what you say. Just… just let me finish, please.”

 

The tears were actually flowing now, and Sami was working herself to a desperate pitch, thrusting herself backwards into Rua’s hand.

 

“You know, I can tell when people lie to me. And good little pet that you are, you’re going to remember this moment. So when I come calling, you’ll answer, won’t you?”

 

“Yes. Just please, please.”

 

Rua thrust her fingers into Sami, and pumped hard and fast. It didn’t take long. Sami went off like a firework, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and groaning incoherently. She slumped forward, but her whole body twitched as she came and came often. Still Rua worked at her, setting her off multiple times in rapid succession. 

 

Otter moved forward, her lips brushing against Sami’s. She wanted to say something. To gloat, or to apologize, or maybe to explain herself.

 

But then reality blurred, and Sami was gone, and Rua and Otter were back in the cabin in the swamp.