Prologue

(a.k.a Epilogue for Part I)

"My, this is interesting."

"Indeed it is…"

"Well, you know what to do."

"Aff."

Gunnar flashed a heartless smile as he drew his knife and advanced onto the field. He turned back and gave a slight nod to his superior before looking back to his quarry. Sigurd stood alone on the field before him, clad only in a jumpsuit and boots, as usual; this time, he had not even a knife.

"Freebirth," Gunnar muttered at an almost in audible level. "Time to show you who the real Warrior is…"

Sigurd narrowed his eyes a little and took a half step back. His fingers curled down while his palms remained open, making his hands into paws rather than fists. He was about to cement his stance by sliding his right foot back somewhat, but Gunnar interrupted with a fist. Sigurd leaned back on his right leg, narrowly avoiding the first blow, but failed to escape a brush to the ribs from his opponent's knee. He twisted away from the force, turning his body parallel to Gunnar and drove the heel of his palm into the man's temple.

"Surat!" Gunnar exclaimed as he hit the ground, fair bit dizzy from the particular blow.

He scrambled to his feet but could not stand before he was hit again in the temple. Rather than fight the impact this time, he rolled onto his back and swung his foot up at Sigurd's chest. A dull thwack signaled that his boot had made contact with some bone, but Sigurd did not take time to be phased by it. Instead, he snaked sharply and grabbed Gunnar's ankle, then gave a rough twist, forcing the Clansman to turn.

Rather than sparing himself the pain of resistance, Gunnar took the hard route and turned the opposite direction that his ankle was being turned, and grazed the side of his other boot along Sigurd's jaw. To avoid a head injury, Sigurd had released his grip in time to take nothing more than a cut; he rolled back under the momentum and onto his feet.

Before Sigurd could truly recover, Gunnar tried to swipe his feet out from under him.

'Predictable,' Sigurd thought, as he dodged the attack and countered by driving his heel into Gunnar's breastbone.

Sigurd drew back before the man could grab hold of his foot, and was greeted in short order by a series of fists. He darted forward, driving his own fist hard into Gunnar's stomach as his other hand, folded like a paw, barked the man in the temple again. He turned, almost spinning, past the MechWarrior's retaliation and jabbed his elbow into the man's spine. Gunnar lurched back, then forward, in quick succession and grabbed Sigurd by the arm, pulling him to the ground. Unwilling to follow, Sigurd twisted, compressed his hand, and slid it cleanly through Gunnar's hold.

The Warrior looked surprised the instant he realized he was digging his fingers into air and not flesh, and was met with an equally unpleasant surprise as Sigurd grabbed his fist. The freeborn's surprisingly strong fingers bit down into his skin, with nails digging in like claws; Gunnar felt the skin break and blood leak from his knuckles. The other hand, now a set of claws as well, swiped at his face and a surprisingly sharp knee dug into his side. He laughed as Sigurd struck him, noting that the man had his arms crossed and one leg off the ground, while he himself was standing in a rather stable position. A grin spread across Gunnar's face as he started to bring his own knee up.

Suddenly, his smiled melted into a concoction of shock and pain. Everything seemed to slow as fire leapt across his gut, flowed by a gush of hot, cold liquid. Another painful band on his cheek instantly followed the first stripe and a hard, blunt club of flesh and bone slammed into his stomach. When time caught its breath again, he was on the ground with his face pressed against the dirt and an immense weight on his arms and spine. He tried to jerk his head, but a sharp thorn of pain dug in under the side of his jaw the instant he moved.

"Pathetic…" Sigurd muttered around the makeshift knife in his teeth, as he shifted his weight to dig his knee down harder into Gunnar's back. He put a more secure grip on the Warrior's wrists, burrowing his fingers into the flesh, and took the shiv's hilt with his other hand.

Gunnar panted hard, trying to expand his lungs far enough to breathe under the other man's weight. "You… freebirth!" he gasped. "You… you were armed!" He coughed and tried to struggle, but only met with more pain in the pressure point at his jaw line.

"I never said I was unarmed," quipped Sigurd. He now held the knife in his left hand with the thumb of the same hooked into his opponent's flesh. "You fool… For disliking me so greatly, you seem to trust me a great deal."

"I… will not… make that mistake again…"

"Good." Sigurd released his hold on Gunnar's wrists and stood quickly.

The instant he was on his feet, however, the Warrior turned and slugged him in the jaw savagely. Sigurd replied by grabbing the man's throat and then pressed the shiv against the skin over his jugular. In what was the best decision he had made all day, (and maybe even his life), Gunnar remained perfectly still.

"Idiot!" Sigurd scoffed, holding his neck firmly. "I told you that I was going to show you how InnerSphere forces fight, quiaff? What makes you think for a second that any mercenary--any regular unit, for that matter--would hesitate to draw a blade on you, hm?! You had better stop trusting your enemies so much, or you will be dead very soon. I count at least five times during that match I could have killed you with ease, because you assumed I was unarmed." He pushed Gunnar away roughly and cuffed him in reprimand for striking after he was released.

The MechWarrior's green eyes steeled, as he pressed his hand down over the cut on his stomach. It was about fifteen centimeters long, but barely broke the surface; only the crispness of the cut caused it to bleed so profusely. The slice running across his cheek was not even half as long, and barely bled at all. Both could have been much deeper, considering the construction of Sigurd's shiv.

He bit his lip and looked down at the ground, still fuming, but also rather ashamed. If he could not defeat someone who had no real intention of killing him, he would never survive against anyone who wanted him dead.

"You violated the parameters of the fight. That was dishonorable."

"That is how the InnerSphere fights. Honor is never part of the equation," Sigurd replied, as he grabbed a towel for himself and then tossed one to Gunnar.

'I cut that one close. It is and probably always will be dangerous for me to challenge trueborns. Well, better I knock him down a peg than someone who means it,' he thought. Then with a chuckle, 'At least I finally got to punch him.' The abtakha gave him a little bit of a smile in truce. "You put up a good fight."

Gunnar coughed, as if he had choked a little on something. "Do not patronize me," he growled, as he pressed the towel to his abdomen. He frowned a little and looked back up at Sigurd. "You could have dug deeper."

"And disembowel a throthkin in a mere spar? Neg. We are short on personnel as it is." Sigurd smirked a little and gave a brief salute to Akela, who was still standing at the edge of the "ring". "Speaking of which, I had best be going."

"Tardiness is rather frowned upon," the Star Colonel mused, still chuckling a little over the fight. He looked back at Gunnar and grinned. "Better hope he only makes MechWarrior, quiaff?"

---

Orii smiled as he maneuvered his 'Mech out into the circle of equals. His throthkin were suspicious of the newcomer, but he had no fear. The abtakha was nothing but a worthless freebirth. Even Clan freeborns were inferior to a trueborn like him, so a man from the InnerSphere was certainly nothing to fear. To believe the man was not dangerous was a foolish assumption that he would not make, but he knew the freebirth was not nearly so great a threat as the others made him seem.

He had seen the look of surprise and the faint glimmer of fear in his starmates' eyes when they heard that the bondsman was granted a Trial. They had all heard the rumors about this deadly freebirth. To think that trueborn Warriors would even listen to such overblown rumors, much less take them seriously was disgusting. After he made sure this man was truly dead, he was going to have a little discussion with them.

"Enemy detected."

The computer's normally annoying message was music to his ears this day. A lone Kit Fox appeared on his radar. He grinned as he marched out to meet the light 'Mech. His Storm Crow prime boasted two ER large lasers, and four ER mediums; the large lasers alone would be enough to melt off the little Fox's already damaged arms.

As Orii crested the hill in the center of the Circle of Equals, he was met with a splash of blue electricity. The PPC burst danced across the metal frame of his Storm Crow's canopy. Part of the plexiglass warped with the heat of the lightning bolt and seemed to drip down towards him for a moment, before hardening again. Orii immediately returned fire with one of his large lasers, while he tried to recover from the unexpected attack and get his sensors back in working order.

The E configuration Kit Fox was not something he had expected. Unlike the prime Kit Fox, which had only one long-range weapon, this variant had an ER PPC and a rack of ATM 3's, along with an ER small laser to gnaw on anything that got too close. Both of its harder hitting weapons out-ranged the large lasers Orii carried by at least 100 meters, which meant he had to get uncomfortably close to the small 'Mech. With this in mind, Orii charged ahead to hunt down the meddlesome tod fox.

As he stomped over the hill, still trying to find his opponent on his scrambled sensors, a flurry of blazing warheads collided with his left side. He torso-twisted to face the source of the kamikaze drones and clicked the trigger. Four glowing green beams pierced the air and bored a hole into the armor on the left torso of the Kit Fox. He turned his 'Mech to line up with the torso and pushed his throttle hard, making a beeline for the Fox. With blood in the air and his large lasers recycled, he darted closer and lowered his targeting reticule over the gash he had just made. The hole bled sparks and molten ferro-fibrous mixed with coolant, and part of the internal structure was visible. A single shot and he could puncture the framework. He squeezed the trigger and two fat beams barreled out of his guns.

There was a sudden blast of black, smoggy smoke and fire like a portal to hell, as the E configuration rocketed into the air on its jumpjets. The laser beams Orii had fired were wasted on the wall behind the Kit Fox, but his medium lasers had recycled. The heat in his cockpit was intense and the computer was now warning him of the temperature. One more shot was all it would take. Then he would have the time to flush some coolant and let the heat dissipate. He squeezed the trigger again at the descending Kit Fox, but a flurry of ATMs smashed into the blunt, rounded nose of his Storm Crow. Unprepared, and standing on an incline, he was rocked backwards a little and the green arrows of energy sheered the left arm of the Kit Fox at its shoulder. The ATMs were removed from his opponent's arsenal, now. The good luck turned bad, however, when the flaming appendage landed at his feet like a warhead itself and exploded. As he was rocked again by the ammo explosion, a wave of fire engulfed him. Flames licked at the plexiglass canopy of the Storm Crow like greedy demons.

"Heat level: critical. Shutdown imminent," warned the computer.

Orii grit his teeth as he slammed down on the coolant release and tried to force his 'Mech back into balance. He was as second too late, however. The console went dark, and the unresponsive machine crashed to the sand, sending up a spray of beige particles into the fire that still raged on his 'Mech. He could see the sand grains turning to little greenish glass droplets of glass on the canopy. Through the flames, he could see the Kit Fox lower its right arm into line with the center torso of his Storm Crow. A glowing sprite jumped out of the muzzle and ravaged the melting armor further. He could see a large gash in the armor where the ATMs had clawed open the ferro-fibrous.

For a moment, the Kit Fox paced back and forth, strafing the fallen chassis like an animal inspecting a carcass, but it never fired. Orii punched the start-up, and the console flickered on but immediately died again. The Kit Fox took two quick steps back and readied its remaining gun, taking a defensive stance in front of the Storm Crow.

The last PPC shot must have damaged some circuitry, preventing a correct startup. Orii kept trying to revive his 'Mech, but got only the same result. For a brief instant, he did manage to catch a reading of the heat level. It was still too high to allow him to start up the 'Mech again, and his coolant was empty.

He growled angrily, chiding himself, as the Kit Fox took a cautious step forward. Hopefully, the 55-ton 'Mech could weather its smaller adversary's attacks until the heat returned to a safe level. His eyes drifted downwards to the gash in his center-torso armor again. The Kit Fox trotted over to his right side and leaned its snub nose down to inspect the armor, as well. It seemed to twitch a little, which was rather odd and subtle movement for a 'Mech, then drew closer. Orii could almost see the pilot and 'Mech grinning from ear to ear

It had found the wound.