No Flesh Shall Be Spared

coloring gave her face a constant aspect of extreme rage. With her chest and shoulders heaving from her exertions, her muscles danced beneath her grue-coated skin.

Standing there covered in blood and sweat she looked—in a word—magnificent.

Cleese had given up trying to decide if throwing in with her was a good idea. When she lay beneath him, it seemed like the best idea he’d ever heard. When she wasn’t, he still thought it might be good to have someone there watching his back, especially someone who just might be his physical equal. It’d been a long time since he’d trusted someone enough to do that.

So, without much thought, he decided to give it a go.

In for a penny… in for a pound.

Having made the decision to leave together only made the tableau being played out before him that much harder to sit through. Watching her, surrounded by these lethal creatures, he only wanted to protect her, to keep her safe, to get her the hell out of that Pit. But he knew, like it or not, his only choice was to let this play out. If one of The League’s premier fighters suddenly cancelled a match—a televised match—it might make the powers-that-be suspicious. And, if they were to get away without complication, their disappearance had to be kept quiet. Otherwise, who knew the lengths these fucks would go to in order to keep them here. They’d already done some pretty fucked up things to drive their ratings up. He could only imagine the kind of shit they’d pull to keep them both in the Pit, earning revenue. So, with a kiss and a whispered prayer, he’d watched her walk down the gangway and out onto the sand.

He didn’t like it, not one bit.

But she’d made it clear it was her intent to go through with the match and there wasn’t much he could say or do to stop her. Besides… They both knew she was a skilled fighter and had done this shit a thousand times before. She wasn’t stupid. She’d do the right thing, make it through the match, and they’d be scott-free.

Still… the compulsion to step in and take the risk for her was maddening.

He looked up from his reverie as motion from inside the Pit caught his eye and returned his attention to the match. From over her shoulder, Chikara drew the katana which rested in the ornate scabbard—which she called a 'saya'—she kept lashed across her back. With a flash of gleaming sliver, she drew the blade and slashed it across the space in front of her. The old man’s head separated from his shoulders and bounced like a ball across the sand. With a flick of her wrist, she expertly whipped the sword around in a tight circle and dislodged any blood and tissue from its metal with centrifugal force. She turned and expertly slid the sword back into place.

Across the pit, the final UD of the round (a comic book geek-looking Asian kid with a Moe Howard haircut and a massive gunshot wound to the throat) was weakly pawing at the sides of the Pit, oblivious to the imminent danger that was now stalking across the sand toward him. Chikara came up behind him, delivered a lightning fast, straight blast of punches to the dead kid’s kidneys, and then leveled him with a reverse wheel kick. The kid was unceremoniously slapped to the ground. She stood over him and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling the kid’s head back. A flurry of hacking knife hands to his already damaged the throat and he was soon drowning in a cascade of his own blood.

Once more, Chikara reached back for the katana. She was going to make more of a show of things, but she knew that she’d need to make this quick since the round was undoubtedly almost over and another would soon begin; one that would bring a fresh crop of UDs. As her fingers touched the handle of the weapon, she heard the buzzer go off.

Cleese winced when he heard that. He knew better than anyone that having any number of UDs hold over from one round to the other wasn’t good. It did nothing but add to the already daunting numbers the fighter faced; especially this late in the match. It meant that she’d be beginning the new round at a disadvantage.

As the spindles turned, he felt their vibrations through his hands which were pressed firmly against the glass.

~ * ~

 'Whoa, John, this could be a real problem for Chikara. She has a holdover and she’s going up against four fresh UDs.'

'Indeed… she is certainly going to have her work cut out for her.'

~ * ~

Almost immediately, Cleese sensed that something wasn’t right. In fact, from the looks of things, something was very wrong. From his vantage point, it was difficult to take in the whole of the Pit, but he instinctively knew that it simply looked too crowded out there. He could see Chikara and the leftover UD. He could see the new UDs staggering out of the spindles. Still, it just looked too damn populated out there.

~ * ~

 'Hey, hold on a second there, John…'

'I see it too, Bob. I count the leftover UD, the… one, two, three, four new UDs, but… there are three additional…'

'John, I’ve just heard from our handlers who, as many of our fans know, are the people whose job it is to load the combatants into the spindles for every round. They tell me that there seems to have been an equipment malfunction that’s released a few extra UDs onto the sand.'

'Well, someone’s job is going to be on the line, eh Bob?'

'I’m not sure about that, John. When you’re dealing with things as dangerous as the Undead, sometimes mistakes happen. Now, normally, something like this would mean The League putting a stop to the match, but with Chikara out there on the sand, a few extra opponents should only mean a few more kills.'

~ * ~

Chikara heard the UDs before she saw them only because the commotion they made coming out of the spindles was louder than she’d expected. She drew her katana and quickly removed the Asian kid’s head just below the jaw line. She turned and crouched in order to get a better idea of where everybody was, drawing her blade before her. Once she got a look, she felt her heart sink.

There were too many of them!

Far too many…

'Fu-' she whispered softly under her breath.

~ * ~

 '-uck!’ Cleese shouted as he turned and looked toward one of the cameramen. 'Get her the fuck out of there!'

The man poked his head out from behind the camera meekly and stared. He nervously looked from right to left as if confused and then went back to looking through his viewfinder. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to be any help. Cleese maneuvered around the guy and the camera and took off toward the Pit at a dead sprint.

~ * ~

Chikara brought her sword in front of her, using its sharp edge as a shield. The first of the dead (a middle-aged nun wearing a blood-spattered habit that was torn, half-exposing one of her breasts) had reached her, its fingers lightly pulling at the tip of the blade. With two clean strikes, the nun’s arms fell to the sand, lopped off at the elbows. Another lateral slash and, from either the fighter’s momentum or her upper body strength or both, the dead thing before her was cut cleanly in half.

Stepping back, she took stock on the rest of her opposition. It was bad, but not that bad. She’d trained for worse. Bolstering her confidence, she dug her feet into the sand and waded into the fray.

Cleese could barely see Chikara’s body through the press of UDs gathered around her as he ran toward the Pit’s hatch. He was able to just make out the silvery flashes of her sword through the glass, but the bulk of her body remained obscured from view. Abruptly, she broke free and stumbled into view.

He skidded to a stop and pressed against the transparent wall. Through the glass, he could tell something had gone wrong; very, very wrong. Cleese could see numerous scratches across her midriff, her hair was mussed and she’d taken some blows to the shoulders that were already starting to bruise. It also appeared as if she was favoring her left arm. With the way she was protecting the limb, she may have sustained either a pulled bicep or, worst case scenario, a sprained or fractured forearm. From the looks of things, the UDs had pawed her up pretty good, but she still seemed capable of defending herself.

One of the things (a girl in her late teens, wearing a dirty prom dress with what looked like a knife wound in the middle of her chest) came up on her nine. As she turned to address her, Cleese