Chapter 39: Ultimatum

"Rick?" Melissa's voice was quiet and frightened. "Somebody just b-broke down the door... blew it off the hinges. I'm hiding, but I can see him in the entrance..."

For a time, Rick couldn't say anything. The phone almost slipped out of his hand as he stared at Mike, who kept watching him with that same smug look on his face. But he heard the desperation in his sister's voice and couldn't let himself stay silent. "Melissa, I'm sorry. This is my fault. Just stay there and things will be okay."

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Please. I'll talk to you soon."

When his sister went silent, Rick lowered the phone, though he kept the call going just in case. Then he looked up at Mike, staring directly into the smug bastard's eyes. The Birthrighter looked pleased with himself, not cruel, so he could hope that this was only a threat.

As his fear for Melissa faded, Rick found it replaced with rage. It burned coldly within him, not changing his expression in the slightest. He was at a disadvantage now, so he needed to wait for a better opportunity. But simply letting this go was no longer an option.

"I wouldn't have had to do this," Mike said, "if you didn't act like a little bitch. You should be grateful that this is all I'm doing. There was a time when I could have killed you for what you did to me, but I'll settle for humiliating you and making sure you never fight again."

"Just give me that." Rick took the legal document and began looking over it. Most of it was unsurprising, the challenge terms that everyone knew well. But the limits... instead of going until a fall or first blood, the match would continue until surrender or unconsciousness. Someone could deal permanent injuries under terms like that. Of course, the match would likely not be fair, so a brutal beating would only happen if Rick lost.

"I tried to remove the surrendering part, to keep you from being a little coward again, but the lawyers said it was legally required." Mike wiggled his phone and smirked. "But you know what will happen if you don't fight to the end."

"I accept the terms - if you call off your goon."

"Fine, fine." Smug in his victory, Mike tapped another message. After a while, he heard Melissa let out a sigh of relief. Though the threat still hung over them, Rick was fairly certain that Mike had only intended an empty threat and wouldn't push it further.

But that left Rick with little choice. The most he could do was buy a little time, which he needed to do given the date on the paper. "This will interfere with the tournament, which I can't cancel."

"Fine, move it after." Mike shrugged scornfully. "It doesn't matter how long you delay, it's going to end up the same."

According to the terms, he couldn't delay the date more than a month, so Rick put the challenge off as much as he could. He bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood, then pressed it down onto the document. Immediately Mike snatched the paper from him, grinning. "Signed and sealed! You're not getting out of this one, you bastard!"

"I'll see you there, and I'll fight to the end." Rick wanted to glare at Mike, but knew it was a better tactic to look cowed for now. "Just don't hurt my sister."

"Believe me, you're the only one I want to hurt." With that, Mike and his friend strutted away, clearly viewing this as a victory. Rick stood in the street, watching them go.

Now he was backed into a corner, so he had no choice. Feeling as much fury as he currently did, he wanted nothing more than to go to the match and pay Mike back for this. That would be difficult, likely impossible, yet those cold flames felt as though they could burn anything.

"Rick?" His sister's voice was distant until he brought the phone to his ear. "God, Rick, I'm so sorry about this..."

"It isn't your fault. He was going to force me into this one way or another."

"Can he really do this? Threatening someone is illegal, can't we just turn him in or something?"

Truthfully, he hadn't considered that. Rick thought about it for a moment, but it wasn't really a choice. "No, it wouldn't do any good. The combat sects occasionally kill people and have the authorities look away, and a company like Maguire Incorporated is even bigger than most of them. They can get away with this, at least as far as the law is concerned." Not as far as he was concerned.

"Well... get home soon, okay?" Melissa took a slow, shuddering breath, then forcibly lightened her tone. "Wow, he really did a number on our door. These hinges are... yeah, that's not getting fixed. Think we can get the landlord to fix it?"

"I think combat damage isn't covered by our lease, and even if he did, it would take him a month. If he's in a hurry."

"Guess we'll have to buy another door, then. You know, I have absolutely no idea how much those cost."

"Neither do I, but I suppose we'll find out." Talking about petty details with his sister helped him come down from the intensity of the confrontation, at least a little. Rick and Melissa stayed on the line, by unspoken agreement moving to talking about anything other than the threat. They'd see each other shortly, but they needed to talk.

When he reached the parking lot outside their apartment, his eyes were immediately drawn to their door. It looked like Melissa had propped the door up in the frame, but it was obviously in bad shape. Suddenly Rick felt heavy and mounting all the stairs to the apartment seemed impossible.

"Fuck, man." One of the methheads loitering by the base of the stairs gave him an odd look. "Crazy fucking shit man. Whatever's going on with you, real sorry about it, mmkay?"

"Uh, thanks." Was that a display of solidarity from the local methheads? Rick gave him a weak smile and the man shuffled away, presumably to smoke meth. The strangeness of it broke Rick out of his funk and he took the stairs several at a time, hurrying to his apartment.

"Was that one of those guys by the stairs?" Melissa asked through the phone.

"Yeah, apparently people saw the Birthrighter break the door."

"It was pretty loud, so I'm not surprised. Not that they did anything. I mean, not with somebody that dangerous..."

Finally Rick arrived, moving the door out of the way with his free hand. He found Melissa on the other side, waiting for him. They stood there for a while, both still holding their phones to their ears uselessly, then they leapt to embrace one another.

"God, that was awful." Melissa pressed her forehead hard against his chest and gripped him tighter. "When he broke the door down I had no idea what was going on and I was just..."

"Don't worry, it's over now." He wanted to comfort her, but his mood darkened. 'They have what they want."

"Yes, I heard." She pulled back and drew him into the apartment, staring into his eyes seriously. "So you don't have any choice but to fight him? When does the challenge happen?"

"Barely two weeks after the end of the multi-tier event. So I need to get through that without getting too injured, because I doubt I'll get any help once Granny Whitney gets what she wants."

"But... can you beat him? Not that I don't believe in you, bro, but they're Birthrighters with over 100,000 lucrim, right? And won't his father just hand him a bunch more power to make sure he wins?"

Rick considered the question as they sat down. "I hope that last part won't happen. I met Mike's father very briefly when I gave the core back, and he seemed a bit irritated at his son. Though this challenge must have gotten his support, for it to happen at all, I don't know if he's fully invested in it. I hope not, because if he does go all-in, then I don't have a chance."

"But even so, that's a really huge gap in lucrim..."

"It is, yeah. But fighting him one on one in a formal challenge is better than him ambushing me at any time with his friends helping. The smart thing to do would be to let him beat me until he's satisfied. If I focused on defense until then, I could probably avoid permanent injury." Rick took a deep breath, forcibly relaxing his fists. "But I want to win."

Melissa hugged him tightly. "I don't know what the right thing to do is. Your life is most important, so I don't want you to risk yourself at all. I hate the idea of people like him being able to just walk over us, so...    I'd love to see you beat the shit out of him."

"Language, language."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "So it becomes wholesome to wish terrible violence on somebody if I say 'beat the poopy out of him'?"

"Yes, that's very wholesome." The absurdity of it made him finally smile, which let most of the tension ease from him. It didn't improve the facts of the situation, but he couldn't face those facts if he was still wrapped up in emotions. "Let's go get this door fixed before too many bugs come in. I'll try to come up with a plan while we work on it."

The mundane activity gave him something to do with his hands and took his mind off his new problem, for at least a little while. Time was precious, but rushing into things would accomplish nothing. He needed to remain calm and use the days he had efficiently.

Currently he had about a month before the multi-tier match, then two weeks after that before the challenge. Focusing on them one at a time was simply not an option, which meant he'd need to split his attention. Life would be easier if he could devote himself entirely to a series of individual goals, but that wasn't how life worked - he should count himself lucky if he didn't run into several brand new problems before the challenge fight.

But how was he going to fight someone with as much power as Mike? There was no magical solution that would transform him and no medicine that could grant him that much power. He could make progress in his remaining time, but he couldn't depend on that.

Once they had the door roughly repaired and made calls about getting a replacement, Rick pulled up his profile to consider his options.

[Name: Rick Hunter

Ether Tier: 17th

Ether Score: 229

Lucrim Generation: 27,650

Effective Rate:    21,636

Current Lucrim: 2408]

[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

Foundation: 3050 (Lv IV)

Offensive Lucore: 4700 (Lv III)

Defensive Lucore: 8400 (Lv VI)

Bunyan's Step: 3950 (Lv II)

Graham's Stake: 5500 (Lv II)

Aura Leech: -3554 (Stage II)

Aura Leech: -2460 (Stage I)

Tracking Bond: 100 (Lv XIII)

Gross Lucrim: 27,650

Net Lucrim: 21,636]

For a moment the sheer size of the lucrim gap depressed him, but he pushed past that by remembering what Emily had said. What mattered was how much of their power they had invested and how well they had invested it. He did have useful assets to bring to the fight, and he could strengthen them, particularly if he focused on combat cores instead of Graham's Stake.

Mike was certainly going to enter the match fully charged. Thanks to extra money from the fights, Rick could afford enough philosopher's elixir and serum to do the same. Endurance would be key, because his only chance was to make his opponent exhaust himself.

If so, he needed to get rid of the aura leeches. Rick seriously considered whether or not that was a good idea, because it would lead to more lucrima damage and might have lower returns than focusing on combat. Yet he knew there were drugs to deal with that and Granny Whitney might even give him some before the tournament, so he would have to take the chance. Getting the leeches out of him would greatly improve his stamina.

He had one major advantage: he was very familiar with fighting opponents more powerful than him. His opponent was doing this for the sake of his ego, while Rick was doing it to survive. That was an edge that Mike could never purchase.

Yet that might not be enough. Rick moved from thinking about what was reasonable to what was possible, no matter how desperate...