beardo vs. Fortuna
"Turn over your weapons!" barked the guard at the entrance to the arena, clutching his plasma rifle tightly.
beardo snorted derisively, but complied. His weapons included his rifle slung over his back for long-range bushwhacking, his trusty revolver by his side for close-quarters combat, his sheath knife for the occasional bout of hacking and slashing, and a few sticks of dynamite in an explosives bag for the rare situation that called for more heavy-duty firepower. His gear was primitive in this world of power armor and energy weapons, but he was proud to still fight the way his forefathers did hundreds of years ago.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" This was the announcer as beardo made his way into the arena. "I present to you our challenger, the legendary desperado, the courageous cowboy...beardo! But consider beardo, and consider him well. What can a gunslinger hope to sling when he no longer has his gun?"
The gathered crowd, roughly twenty or so onlookers, tittered at this.
"I'll sling you to the ground if you don't shut up and start this fight," growled beardo. "Show me your champion."
The announcer seemed surprised. "Very well, then. I give you our champion, the roughest around, the toughest around...Fortuna!"
A young man sprang into the arena from the other side and gave what beardo could only suppose was his battle cry. Everything about this man was scrawny except for his biceps, which bulged in a grotesque, disconcerting way. With a slightly higher medicine level, beardo could have recognized that this supposed muscular development was actually impossible, even with the aid of technology or drugs. Nobody could have such powerful biceps while the rest of their body remained so scrawny. As it was, he only thought, not incorrectly, that Fortuna looked an enormous fool.
The announcer hastily leaped back from the arena. "Fight!"
With a roar, Fortuna charged at beardo, who simply jumped aside and watched as the man with fat arms fell on his face. Fortuna angrily climbed to his feet, but now beardo was on the offensive, and delivered a swift jab to his face. Fortuna swung wildly in response, but beardo ducked under the blow and riposted with another punch to the stomach. This was followed by a boot to the back sending Fortuna to the ground once again.
Fortuna kept on swinging, but his meaty arms couldn't find their target. beardo was no martial artist, and had no experience with sophisticated fighting styles beyond one encounter with a old drunken kung fu master who had stolen his beer money in San Francisco, but he was proficient in good old fisticuffs. It was no challenge to him to avoid Fortuna's clumsy attacks and wear him down with quick jabs.
"Just body slam him, Fortuna!" shouted the announcer, clearly frustrated. "You've got the mass!"
Dodging Fortuna's entire body at such short range was harder than dodging one arm, and this time he made contact with beardo, knocking him off his feet as he plowed into him. beardo lay on the ground, briefly stunned, with Fortuna straddling him.
"How the turntables!" bellowed Fortuna as he began to furiously pound at beardo.
beardo raised his arms to block the barrage of heavy punches. As the fat arms loomed menacingly over his head, beardo (keenly perceptive, like all gunslingers) picked up on something unusual. Fortuna's arms didn't seem entirely solid the way muscle was. Instead, something was shifting under the skin, like his arms were two great balloons.
On an impulse, beardo seized one of the arms and bit into it. He regretted it immediately, as the skin tore open and a dark, goopy oil-like substance began pouring out. Spitting frantically to make sure he hadn't been poisoned, he then grabbed the arm and bashed into the ground to make the hole wider. The substance was flowing out rapidly now.
Fortuna writhed on the ground, howling in pain. beardo strode over to his other arm and brought his boot down upon it as hard as he could. The arm ruptured open like the other and the dark oil poured out once more.
The audience murmured in confusion and disgust. The sight and smell was revolting, and as the flow receded, it soon became clear that Fortuna was scrawny all over and had apparently injected that substance into his arms to make himself look muscular. It hadn't quite worked. If beardo had been more knowledgeable in science, he might have recognized it as synthol, an oil used by some Pre-War athletes to similarly fake muscle definition. But he didn't need to know what it was to know that Fortuna was a fraud, and also in no condition to fight any longer.
beardo approached the announcer. "So much for your champion. I want the prize money now."
The announcer scowled at him. "That's a bold demand for what you just pulled. A dirty trick if I ever saw one."
"And injecting his arms with that shit
wasn't a dirty trick? None of this would have happened if your so-called champion could actually fight worth a damn. Now give me the money."
"I don't think you're in any position to be giving orders, my cowboy friend," said the announcer smoothly, as the two guards slowly moved forward. "Not when you've already surrendered your weapons, putting you at something of a disadvantage to my men..."
Part of beardo wanted to attack. He could floor this man with a punch, then try to reach the guards. One of them would have have his weapons, and their bulky plasma rifles would be slow, both in their aiming and firing, to respond. But that way presented enormous risks, not just to him, but to the audience as well. It would be better to handle this nonviolently.
"Listen to me. You set this whole thing up as a competition for a reason. Beat your champion, get the money. If you just wanted to rob people, you wouldn't have bothered with an audience, a champion, or any of this. You wanted to offer people a chance to win. A unfair chance in an unfair competition, but still a chance. I won, and if you have any honor left, you'll respect that."
The announcer made a face. "Honor?"
"Yeah, honor. Every man has a code, even you."
With these wise words, the speech check was passed, and beardo earned 60 experience. The announcer reluctantly handed beardo a bag full of cash, and the guards relinquished his weapons to him. beardo donned his cowboy hat and strolled out of the arena, the crowd still enthusiastically cheering behind him.