THE HARDEST LESSON

by Maximillian von Fischgeist

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Chapter One - Stranger In A Strange Land

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Rebecca Welsh felt more than a little ridiculous. She had traveled a thousand miles on little more than her thumb to be here, and now she was sneaking around like a skittish mouse, afraid of the cat she was sure was lurking behind every corner. At least she knew her way around this place; she’d been here six months before. The backstage mazes of this arena smelled the same as they did then, a strange mix of sweat and perfume. Last time, Becky had had free reign in these hallways. She had been a contestant in the Rumble Rose tournament then. Now, she was a trespasser, working hard to evade the security, which seemed a hell of a lot tighter and more prevalent this time around. Maybe she just hadn’t noticed it when she didn’t have to contend with it.

Anyway, she had her story all planned out in case someone stopped her. She was just an innocent kid who wandered in looking for an autograph, not knowing she wasn’t supposed to be here unattended. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be recognized in case it was the same staff. She had ditched the red dye, allowing her hair to return to its natural blonde. She was also dressed more modestly, in jeans and a t-shirt, with a sweater tied around her waist. Surely no one would make her as the flamboyant Candy Cane.

Since the end of the first Rumble Rose tournament, Becky had headed back home disappointed, but determined to put her life back on track and live what she had left of her youth to its fullest. She quit her band and used the summer to catch up on the school she had missed to fight in the tournament. She had also made some new friends and was considering trying out for the cheerleading squad when school started up again. But when Miss Spencer didn’t show up on the first day of school, an alarm went off somewhere in the back of Becky’s head. She remembered her teacher’s last match in the tournament and wondered if it had been the cause of Miss Spencer’s disappearance. When the advertisements for a new, more spectacular Rumble Rose tournament started popping up, Becky had a hunch where she might be found.

Now, back in these hallways echoing with so many bad memories, Becky thought about the tournament. Though she hadn’t won, in hindsight she was amazed that she made it as far as she did. It was Miss Spencer who had finally taken her down, literally thumping a lesson into her thick skull. After Miss Spencer had beaten her, she was quick to make amends, even offering to win the prize money for her after learning that Becky had entered the tournament for the unexpectedly noble cause of saving the struggling orphanage where she was raised. But nobody had counted on Lady X. The crowd had thought it all to be theatrics, of course, but none of the women in the tournament doubted upon seeing it that Anesthesia’s morbid cyborg was anything but a killing machine. Miss Spencer fought the monster valiantly, but...

Becky shook her head, as if it was that easy to dispel the memory. She suddenly grew angry, considering Anesthesia’s escape of punishment for all that she had done. The Lady X debacle had backfired, of course, when Reiko Hinomoto finally defeated the beast and won the title belt, but the promoters of the tournament quickly scrambled to use the spectacle for financial gain. There were no reprisals, no lawsuits, and Anesthesia went free while Miss Spencer went to the hospital. Apparently, the tournament had been such a resounding success that the promoters immediately went about organizing a new one. And Becky was sure Miss Spencer was here.

Becky’s musing stopped when she spotted a door up ahead, cracked open just enough for her to catch a glimpse of blonde hair. She crept up to the doorway and peered in. It was a dressing room, complete with vanity desk and a wardrobe rack stuffed with gaudy costumes. She saw Miss Spencer leaning back in a chair, her back to the door. Becky could only see her from the shoulders up. They were bare, but that’s not what brought Becky’s heart lurching up into her throat. Standing behind Miss Spencer, massaging her shoulders, bent slightly and murmuring through smiling lips into her ear was Anesthesia!

Becky couldn’t stifle a small gasp. She started to pull away from the doorway when a heavy hand came down on her shoulder. “Whaddya think yer doin’, girlie?” came a gruff voice with no weight of intelligence behind it. The hand gripped her shoulder tightly and whipped her around so that she came face to face with one of the most bizarre sights she had ever encountered. The big, puffy, hairy hand belonged to a large man whose once athletic physique had taken more than a few steps toward flabbiness. He wore unflatteringly tight black leather pants. Becky wished he was wearing a shirt, but no such luck. His hairy chest and belly were in full gross display, like a neanderthal man in a museum. But what made the specimen especially grotesque was his face, round and mean... and painted up like a clown from some kid’s worst nightmare. His painted lips spoke again. “The mistress ain’t to be bothered, got it?”

Becky quickly regained her composure and sized up the man. He was big, sure, but his body had seen better days (much better days). Probably hits hard, she thought, but takes a long time doing it. She could take him, she was sure of it. She almost shuddered, though, at the thought of touching him. She put on as sweet a smile as she could manage and affected what she hoped was an innocent look in her large, green eyes. “Oh, I - uh - I d-didn’t know!” she sputtered. “I think I got lost somewhere.”

The clown jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Scram, kid.”

“R-right,” she squeaked. She turned as if to leave and gave herself a silent count of 2. Then she whirled around, thrusting out her elbow to catch him in the throat. He was fast, though, faster than she had anticipated. He moved quickly to one side and her blow landed on the brick wall. She cried out in pain and the clown gave her no time to recover. He crouched and snatched her left leg in his strong hands. With a growl, he wrenched the leg in a vicious twist. Becky went down hard, her tail smacking the concrete. The impact sent a shock racing up her spine. The clown’s hands squeezed her leg, his nails digging into her flesh, and she knew she had less than a second to do something, anything. And so she did the first thing that popped into her head. Concentrating all her strength into her free leg, she unleashed it in a mighty kick to his groin. A deep groan rumbled in his chest as he released her leg and doubled over, clutching at his groin in agony. Becky hopped to her feet and circled around him, kicking his legs out from under him. He fell to his knees and, from behind, she wrapped her arms around his throat, catching him in a vicelike sleeper hold and pushing his face into the concrete.

A sharp crack startled Becky, and she snapped her head up to the doorway, where the sound had come from. Her jaw dropped wide open and she was unable to prevent her arms from going limp. She forgot all about the clown. Framed in the doorway was Miss Spencer, but not the Miss Spencer she knew. She was (barely) wearing a freakish red dominatrix costume, complete with riding crop, which she tapped intermittently against the door frame. Her outfit showed more flesh than not. Sharp, stilletto heels gave her an extra few inches of height which somehow lent her an air of menace. A patch covered her right eye, and the other eye - blue, crystalline - glared down at the grappling fighters with cold amusement. Her pink lips spread into a poisonous smile. “If you’re quite finished playing around, Sebastian, perhaps you might make yourself useful and get me some cigarettes?” Her cruel voice chilled Becky’s blood, stopped its flow in her veins.

Having been released by Becky, the clown got to his feet with a groan. His shoulders slumped and when he spoke his voice was nervous, pathetic. “I-I was... This girl, she--”

Miss Spencer cut him off with another loud crack of her whip against the door frame. She sighed impatiently. “You know how I hate to repeat myself.”

The clown hung his head. “Yes, ma’am - I mean Mistress! Right away, Mistress.” He shuffled off, his movement stiff. He wouldn’t soon forget Becky’s kick.

Becky stood up, still gaping at Miss Spencer - no, the stranger! - in front of her. She could only manage one whispered word: “Teach?”

Miss Spencer wet her lips with a flash of her pink tongue. “I wondered when I’d see you again, Miss Welsh,” she said, the malign smile still haunting her face. “You haven’t lost your touch, I see. Poor Sebastian isn’t going to be very happy with you.”

Before Becky could think of something to say, Anesthesia appeared beside Miss Spencer. She swept her gaze slowly over Becky from head to toe and back and gave her an exaggerated look of disappointment. “My, my, what happened to you, dear? You used to be so cute.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes at Becky before turning to Miss Spencer. Anesthesia brought her hand up and gave her a small teasing caress on the shoulder. “I was just leaving anyway, darling.” Miss Spencer never took her gaze off Becky, who shuddered with revulsion at the scene. With a quiet chuckle, Anesthesia turned and sauntered down the hallway.

Miss Spencer motioned for Becky to enter her dressing room and closed the door once they were inside. Becky felt her cheeks go suddenly hot with anger. She stepped up to Miss Spencer and did her best to look her in the face (being shorter and fighting against the extra height of her teacher’s heels, she had to look up a bit, which didn’t help, but she was too upset to let that stop her). “What the hell’s wrong with you, Miss Spencer? What’s with that Halloween costume and that whip? How come you didn’t show up at school last week? And who the hell is that freak in the clown makeup? AND WHY WHY WHY ARE YOU LETTING THAT CREEPY NURSE WHO WANTED TO KILL US ALL MAKE KISSY FACES AT YOU!”

Her tirade having spent itself, Becky breathed hard and looked at Miss Spencer, who had calmly - uncaringly, actually - waited it out. She blinked languidly and moved past Becky to sit in the chair at her vanity table. She crossed her legs and regarded Becky coolly. “First, you will treat me with the respect that I deserve. You will not bark at me like some raving, rabid dog. You will not raise your voice at me ever again. Second, you will call me by the proper title. I am to be addressed as Mistress.” She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them oppositely. “I shall allow for the oversight this once.” Her blue eye went icy and her face hardened. “But do not make the mistake again.”

Becky couldn’t believe her ears, her eyes, anything. Her head ached with confusion. She felt ill.

Mistress Spencer fondled her riding crop, her fingers moving over it with a perverse delicacy. “Now, to answer your questions.” Demonstrating her mind’s knack for logic, she tackled the questions one at a time, having filed them in neat order in her head. “One: What the hell is wrong with me? Absolutely nothing. I have simply come to realize who I truly am.”

Becky opened her mouth to make a retort, but Mistress Spencer continued.

“Two: What’s with the Halloween costume?” She shot Becky a conspiriatorial glance. “To employ an old cliché, if you’ve got it, honey, flaunt it. When you fought in the first tournament, you had the same instinct. The less you have to hide, the more free you are to be yourself. You might say I’ve taken a page from your book.”

Becky shook her head slowly. “It ain’t my book you’ve been reading, lady. More like something from the Marquis de Sade.”

Mistress Spencer’s eyebrows went up. Something of the old Miss Spencer started to creep into her face before it was killed by the return of the sinister smile. “An historic reference, Miss Welsh? I’m surprised. Can it be that you learned something from me after all?”

Becky moved toward Mistress Spencer, who tensed and closed her fist over the whip. Becky stopped in her tracks, unsure what the older woman was capable of, but she went ahead with what she had to say. “I’ve learned a lot from you, Miss Spencer! You taught me that friends are the most important thing we’ll ever have. You taught me that when a friend needs help, you do everything you have to - and then some - to help her!”

Mistress Spencer relaxed. “Oh.” The word was said with such bored contempt that Becky couldn’t help a shiver. She crossed her arms, hugging her chest to keep herself warm, to keep her heart from stopping.

Mistress Spencer sighed and continued. “Three: How come - bad grammar, young lady; we’ll have to work on that - I didn’t attend the beginning of the school year?” The smile returned to her face. “There are more important arenas of learning than a classroom. Some lessons must be learned by force.” Her brow constricted and her uncovered eye glazed over as she was seized by a memory. Becky knew what she was thinking of and was possessed by the sudden urge to grab Miss Spencer and hug her tightly, make her see all this nonsense for what it was. But Mistress Spencer snapped out of her reverie and shot her gaze at Becky. “You remember my final match in the last tournament.” It wasn’t a question. “I thought I was so smart. I had beaten all my opponents, including you, Miss Welsh. Lady X was just one more student in need of an education.” Mistress Spencer rubbed her neck in remembered pain. “And when she - it - did... what it did to me...” She stopped a moment. Becky felt her own heart pumping in her chest, her eyes begin to sting with the genesis of tears. She remembered the fight. She remembered Miss Spencer lying on her stomach on the mat, tears streaming down her face, her cries of surrender ignored by Lady X, who was twisting Miss Spencer’s legs impossibly over her back. The awful popping sound of Miss Spencer’s knee exploding was something that Becky would never forget, never forgive. Mistress Spencer found her voice again, breaking the momentary silence. “As I lay there, broken, defeated, humiliated, I vowed - even as the tears poured from my eyes - that no one would ever hold power over me again. I would never again be weak.” She locked her icy gaze onto Becky’s. “Never.”

“But--” Becky didn’t get any further before Mistress Spencer cut her off.

“Question number four: Who is the clown?” She shrugged and stated very matter of factly, “He is my slave.” She looked again at Becky to see her reaction. Becky tried not to give one, but she knew that shock was written all over her face. Mistress Spencer went on. “And, finally, five: Why Anesthesia? Well, that one does require some explaining, doesn’t it?” Mistress Spencer rose to her feet and went to the rack holding a dozen costumes. She spoke while absently running her fingers along them. “After my time in the hospital, after I came to realize my true identity, my true purpose, Anesthesia came to me. This new tournament was being organized as a team event. She knew that she would have a hard time finding someone to partner with, and rightly so. But, in my convalescence, I came to know what makes a woman like that tick. I came to know what it means to have an unpopular purpose and carry on anyway.” She turned to Becky, a cold fire burning in her eye. “I came to know that when everything one ever trusted fails and ceases to make sense, it is up to oneself to make sense out of the world, to force the world to come to terms with one’s view of how it should be.” She shrugged, moving back toward the vanity table. “Of course, Anesthesia is not to be trusted. Trust, like fear, is a crutch valued by fools. A stupid, desperate weakness clung to by pets and slaves. I don’t trust - or fear - Anesthesia. But we have been a good team so far. We are undefeated.” She put her hand on the riding crop on the table, stroking it vulgarly. “And we are undefeatable. Our last match was so deliciously perfect.” Mistress Spencer turned her gloating gaze to Becky. “So elegantly brutal. The poor Mongolian girl had to be carried out of the arena on a stretcher.”

Becky knew she must have been talking about Aigle, a strange girl to be sure, but not deserving of whatever Mistress Spencer and Anesthesia had done to her. Her anger returned. “Aigle? What did you do to her?”

Mistress Spencer leaned over her vanity table and looked in the mirror, analyzing herself from every angle. Her voice was far off, unconcerned. “The girl is backward, obviously retarded. Her kind should be dealt with firmly, before we all become tainted by them.” Totally self absorbed, she pursed her lips and frowned at her reflection, apparently noticing something she didn’t like.

Becky was beside herself with anger. “Who the hell do you think you are! You were on that stretcher yourself--”

But Becky’s rant was interrupted by a knock at the door. Mistress Spencer sighed and went to door, opening it. It was the clown, Sebastian, returning from his errand. Mistress Spencer turned her back on him and sat down in her chair, crossing her legs, waiting. Sebastian fumbled about her vanity table a moment and finally found a shiny black cigarette holder. He fitted a cigarette into the holder and dropped to his knees, oh so gingerly placing the cigarette holder between Mistress Spencer’s lips. Becky watched in disgust as Sebastian lit the cigarette and Mistress Spencer inhaled deeply. She blew the smoke out through her nose and caressed the clown’s hairy chest with her foot, the way one might with a dog. As if satisfied with his reward, Sebastian got to his feet and left the room, leaving the women alone again.

Becky couldn’t hold back anymore. She was disgusted by the clown, by everything her teacher had said, by the lewd outfit that displayed her flesh so cheaply. She lunged at Miss Spencer and grabbed her shoulders. “You’re coming home with me, Miss Spencer! You’re gonna forget all this bullshit and you’re gonna come home and you’re gonna be your old self and you’re gonna be a good person again and you’re gonna be my teacher and you’re gonna drop all this nonsense and you’re gonna come home and you’re gonna like it...” Becky dropped to her knees, blinking at her tears, trying to hold them in.

Mistress Spencer pushed her away with her foot. Becky fell backward onto her rear as Mistress Spencer stood up, eyeing her with contempt. “No, Miss Welsh. I’m through talking to you. You now have the option of leaving on your own or being thrown out on your... ear.”

Becky sniffled, finally getting a hold of herself and stifling her tears. She rose to her feet. It was suddenly clear what she had to do. She fixed a piercing glare at the stranger in front of her. “If you won’t drop this and come back willingly, I’ll have to drop you and make you come back. Where do I sign up?”

Mistress Spencer’s face was beset by surprise for the first time in this meeting. She chuckled, but Becky didn’t budge. A smirk still pulling at her lips, Mistress Spencer nodded. “Alright. I’m sure I can pull a few strings to get you into the tournament. The Mongolian barbarian’s partner needs some help anyway.” The smile drained from Mistress Spencer’s face, leaving it mean and predatory. She reached up and brushed one of Becky’s blonde pigtails. “But if you plan to see your nineteenth birthday, missy, I suggest you drop the goody goody routine. This tournament is not about a simple prize.” She stared hard into Becky’s eyes. “It’s about how much you’re willing to sacrifice to win.”