Pie Box 1

by George Saoulidis

  “Yeah! It’s not much, but it’s there. The training pitch doesn’t give us the customer data for that, they keep them and cross-sell other streams as well. Some fans like to just watch these matches instead of the tournament, we call them milk juggers.”

  “How imaginative,” Hector drolled. “I see. So, everything is an income stream.”

  “Pretty much, yeah!” Tony nodded, way too excited. “And now that I’m on the other side and we’re the ones making the money, it’s so exciting! I get to see the girls up close, I get to watch the premium content, and I get paid on top!” Tony took a deep breath of the training pitch’s air. The place smelled like sweat and cheap liquor, Hector had been trying to ignore it for a while now. Then Tony said solemnly, “This is the best job in the world.”

  The girls went through a few drills. Hector felt nice and content. This insane idea of having his own team was starting to take shape. He had a nice buzz going, the girls were becoming a team, Tony was doing online promotion and whatever the fuck else he was doing, and the stench of the place had created a patina inside his nostrils and he could barely detect it any more.

  It was aaall goood.

  The he heard some noise, and a man came in the training pitch, surrounded by his own girls. No, scratch that, a man in a suit, that looked like a lion.

  “Tony, did you spike my drink or something?” he asked, checking out the milky liquid.

  “Hm?” Tony tore his attention away from his laptop, looked around, and then went, “Ohhh... This can’t be good.”

  DROP ONE HUNDRED TWO

  “Troy,” the lion-man growled, yes, growled and sat on the table next to them, unbuttoning his jacket.

  Hector blinked and looked him up and down. He was a tall and powerful man, at Canvas’ level, and he was dressed in what was certainly a 5000 euro suit, if not more. And he looked like a lion. It was clearly augmentations, but they were of the expensive kind. Hair in a blond-orange mane, green eyes that looked animal-like but they weren’t vertical slits, and patches of hair on his fingers.

  “Um...” Hector was at a loss for words. “How am I supposed to call you? Lion-man?”

  “Close. I’m Leontarius,” he said, looking smug. The girls around him went towards the locker-room. One stayed, and Hector could swear she looked familiar. She had a crooked spine that made her walk weird, but other than that, she looked thin and very well-trained, like Cherry.

  “Okay... What do you want, Leontarius?”

  “Just the exclusive use of these training grounds for the rest of the day. And until the qualifier rounds,” Leontarius said simply, giving a bored shrug.

  “What? No, we’re training here now. We got here first.” Hector was really pissed at the disrespect he was getting right now.

  “It’s just business. You are a new owner and have your own little team to train, but so do I.” His voice was rumbling.

  Hector glanced at the new team getting ready. They were putting on protective pads and Boobcam gear. His own team was going on with their training, but Pickle kept glancing their way and looking worried.

  Nope, she wasn’t glancing at the men. She was staring at the woman with the crooked spine.

  And she was staring back with hate.

  “No, Leontarius, as I said, we’ve booked this for five hours.”

  He chuckled, his enormous chest going up and down. “Oh, we’re gonna have fun, you and I. No, you have not. I just spoke to the owner, and he was very glad to offer me the grounds. He likes the team, you see. It’s always good to have friends in high places, and he understands that.”

  “Which team is that?” Hector asked.

  Tony coughed beside him.

  “What? I don’t fucking know,” he told his friend. Turning back to Leontarius, “So? I own the Pies, and you...”

  “The Beasties.” Leontarius said it with a casual grunt, the same way a commentator would.

  Hector jerked his head back. “Oh. So you... are the one Pickle injured,” he said, turning to the woman.

  She waited for a long moment, then Leontarius waved his hand as if giving permission to speak. “Yes, your fucking Pickle tart did this to me,” she hissed, seething with hate.

  Hector was taken aback by this outburst. “I... I’m sorry, I wanna say Gorgo?”

  “Gorgon, yes,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “Gorgon. I’m sorry. Your career was ruined. It’s a dangerous sport, I don’t like that aspect of it myself,” he said, sincerely.

  It was time for her to be taken aback. She eyed him for a long moment. She finally seemed to come to a decision. “Doesn’t matter. I will wipe the floor with your little sluts in the qualifiers.”

  “What? How?” Hector said.

  “I’m coaching our new team,” Gorgon said, presenting them as they came out of the locker rooms. “The Snarlies, junior team to the Beasties.”

  Hector indeed noticed that they were all young, barely 20 years old, and they all had a touch of augmentations here and there that served no purpose other than to make them seem more feral. Cat ears, a furry tail, claws, slitted eyes. “Oh, for fucks’ sake!” he exclaimed.

  Tony was drooling over the new team. “What? They look good.”

  “Furries! I fucking hate furries!” Hector said loudly. He admitted to himself it was the ouzo talking.

  That got an angry growl from Leontarius and Gorgon.

  “Oh, suck it!” Hector waved them away. “Bunch of weirdos.”

  Gorgon waddled in front of him. “Vacate our training grounds.”

  Hector stood up. He was never gonna beat a woman, but he wasn’t gonna hesitate to intimidate one. “No. My team is already in there, you’ll have to wait for your turn.” He pointed at Leontarius. “And you, don’t you have like a million euro or something? Why did you come in this shithole to train your shiny new team?”

  “Hey...” The training ground’s employee complained from across the room.

  Leontarius didn’t stand, but he was imposing nonetheless. He just smirked and showed pointy canines.

  Tony shuffled in his seat. “Um... It may have been my fault.”

  “How’s that?” Hector spun towards him. He steadied himself with his hands. He definitely had a couple more ouzo shots than he should have.

  “My marketing campaign? I bet they saw it and came straight here,” Tony winced.

  Hector turned to the weirdos. “Seriously? Don’t you have something better to do? I don’t know, sniff each other’s butts or something?”

  Leontarius stood this time and buttoned his jacket. He growled, “One of your pack, hurt one of mine. This... is how we sort it out.”

  “Fine!” Hector said, throwing his arms up in the air. He ignored the dozen texts he got in his veil from Pickle and shushed her loudly from across the training grounds. “Since you’re here, and we are here, I challenge you to a friendly match. The Pies vs the Snarlies, match starting in fifteen minutes, to give your girls time to warm up. We wouldn’t want any sprains now, do we? Whoever wins, gets to train in this shithole.”

  “Hey!” the employee complained again.

  Leontarius offered his strong, furry-fingered hand in a handshake. “Deal,” he grunted.

  DROP ONE HUNDRED THREE

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Pickle angrywhispered at him in a corner at the locker room.

  Hector wisely stayed out of her reach. “It’s one match. You got this.”

  “Hector, we barely had thirty minutes of training together. We don’t even have a team yet, let alone one to try and win a match with! This isn’t the Underground, those were veteran athletes, Hector. We can’t win this. You fucking drunkard and your big mouth.”

  “Pickle.”

  “What?”

  “I had three drinks. You’ve seen me down at least ten while making a set of armour. Did you really think I would get drunk and mess this up?”

  She wasn’t so sure now. “No... So you just, what? Acted drunk?”

 
“Pickle... I let him think he had the upper hand. This is a typical gang-style fight for territory. He wasn’t gonna leave us alone, not with personal beef like that. Leontarius was just gonna wave his wad of money around and bother us every day. We’d let them train first, then we’d come and find one Snarly occupying the field. Or, they’d repaint the place. Or, bring in exterminators. They’d drag this out as long as they could, and we don’t have time to spare. And we’d make a plea to the Cyberpink authority, and they’d investigate, and weeks would pass us by, until the time of the qualifiers, which would find us unprepared. Right?”

  “Well... Yeah, pretty much.”

  “But now, we’ve whipped out our dicks and measured them. That’s... me and him, I’m not implying you have one.”

  Pickle just tapped her foot.

  “The match is witnessed by people, here and online. He can’t back out from this.”

  Realisation dawned on Pickle, and she felt something weird towards the man she just wanted to punch a few seconds ago. “Yeah, I guess...”

  “Was there another training pitch we could afford? No. So, either way, it’s worth going all in. Plus, I believe in you.”

  Pickle felt her eyes tear up and she looked away, faking a routine check of her protective pads. “It’s still a bad plan.”

  “It’s all we got,” he shrugged.

  They had a nice moment right there. It was the perfect time for things to be said. Things she wanted to say and was too much of a coward to do so. Things she wasn’t sure herself, things she needed to get off off her chest. This might have been the perfect time, the only time.

  And then her nemesis ruined it.

  “Hey,” Gorgon shouted from the field. “Are you coming to get creampied or what?”

  Pickle let her head hang. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you name the team.”

  DROP ONE HUNDRED FOUR

  The Pies heard the first stone and they charged forward. Patty’s strategy was that they would simply try and overwhelm them at first, trying to score, or at the very least, keep them pinned down.

  It did not go well.

  The more practised Snarlies had three of her team pinned within seconds. Longswords, q-tips clashed. Pickle held her ground with her trusty sword and shield, but it wasn’t enough.

  The first round went to the Snarlies. Panting, they went back into lines and she met glances with Cherry and Bobo. They could see it too, it was obvious in their expressions. They were seriously outmatched.

  Pickle gritted her teeth and looked at Gorgon. No. She wasn’t going to lose, no matter what the odds.

  She’d just have to get creative.

  The stone struck one after another, and the Pies made three steps forward and simply held their line, after the command of Pickle. The Snarlies became disoriented at that, bumping on each other, even making the Boob LEDs flash by themselves.

  Cadena was covering with her chain’s reach, and the Snarlie’s qwik couldn’t get close to the q-tips.

  It kinda worked, for a few seconds. Then it all broke apart as the Snarlies finally got their shit together and adjusted their attacks, taking out Pie enforcers one by one.

  Then they scored, again.

  Bobo groaned loudly in frustration, and it was a sentiment that travelled to the rest of the girls. Pickle gave a play and waited. She tried to calm herself. This was just a friendly match, it didn’t matter. Not really. Sure, it was a pissing contest, but Pickle wasn’t prideful like that. Her team was dressed in dubiously washed gear that barely covered up anything critical on their bodies, the weapons were all ready to break down and the referee was just a cheap AI. Nobody was really watching, just Hector, and Gorgon, and Leontarius, and Tony. And some random guys who just tuned in to see sweaty boobs bouncing around. Yet, she could feel her blood pumping. Dammit, she really wanted to win this.

  “It’s okay, no big deal,” Pickle assured her team. “This is just a friendly match, it’s good training.”

  The girls nodded and mumbled something in agreement. There were elder-care homes with more rowdiness than this current lot.

  She got a message from Tony in her veil. It showed the live view count.

  Stunned, she turned to the visitors’ lounge. “Seventeen thousand viewers?” she blurted out, not quite believing it.

  Tony raised two excited thumbs up, and then went back to his regular soda-fuelled manipulation of the digital world.

  “Fuck!” Pickle muttered under her breath. So many. She met the gaze of Cherry. Yup, she was floored too. “Okay, this match might be popular with the fans, it’s pre-season, they have nothing better to watch,” Pickle said non-chalantly, trying to convince herself too.

  Dainty Feet cheered and clapped her hands like a silly girl. She let her q-tip fall on the floor. “Ooh, never had so many fans before!” She ran out of the field.

  “Hey! Dainty Feet, get your damn butt back in here!” Pickle yelled after her, but she was gone inside the locker-room.

  “What’s up, losing team-members already?” Gorgon taunted from the side of the field.

  “No, just hold on a bit,” Pickle waved her away.

  “You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Gorgon said, crossing her arms. The gesture looked weird with her crooked spine, as if she was posing for a snarly photoshoot.

  Dainty Feet came back holding a marker. She giggled, then wrote something on her breasts. Pickle looked at the monitors, her Boobcam showed an upside-down username. “It’s for my fans!” Dainty Feet said, bouncing up and down. “Subscribe, my lovelies!” she announced to the universe with a ballerina’s salute.

  “It’s upside down, dummy,” Cherry said to her.

  Dainty Feet looked down at her boobs, then at the monitors. The username was DaintyFeetMagic, written upside down across her upper breasts. Yup, she seemed to realise then that the stream was upside down, not from her point-of-view. She shrugged, “Oh well, my lovelies will figure it out. They’re so smart!” she giggled.

  Pickle, Cherry and Bobo groaned loudly. Cadena just shook her head and gripped her chain a little better. “Can we start again?”

  “Yes!” Dainty Feet said, excited.

  “Finally!” Gorgon snarled.

  But this time, Pickle had an idea.

  They weren’t ahead in score. Not even close. But Pickle adjusted her strategy as she saw new data in each bout. She got the Pies in a circle. “Their enforcer on the left is hesitant to get injured,” she whispered at the Pies.

  “Ah dinnae ken, perhaps she has a photoshoot pleinned?” Bobo shrugged.

  “Good call! Let’s get her bruised up, mess up her play,” Pickle commanded.

  “Hey, ah umnae gonna do hatchet work,” Bobo said, raising a hand. “We’ve discussed this, aye?”

  “No, nothing serious. Let’s just give her some hickeys,” Cherry said, grinning and scrunching up her nose in a naughty expression. “Can you handle that?”

  Bobo snorted and spun her q-tip in a circle. “Hickeys? Sure, lass. I can do gentle.”

  They charged, and the Snarlies’ enforcer got ganged up. She was a very pretty little thing, that had ruined her face with cat augmentations. Bobo delivered a perfect double-strike from each end of the q-tip, straight at her abdominal area. The enforcer folded in half and held her stomach.

  “Ouch!” Pickle sucked in air through her teeth. Yup, Bobo was definitely a good choice for the team. “Good job, Bobo.”

  The next round, they scored! The vain Snarlie was too pre-occupied with the blotching bruise at her side, and Cherry managed to grab the scull and make a run for it, backed up of course by Pickle and Cadena.

  “Yes!” Hector said, standing up. “Score!”

  Pickle smiled. She knew he was faking the whole I’m-drunk-and-excited thing, but it still made her feel good. She gathered the Pies in a circle and switched up the play yet again. “Okay, this is happening, so let’s keep pushing. Cherry, their Qwik is faster than you.”

  “No she’s not!” Cherry compl
ained.

  “I know, but in this match, she certainly does seem to,” Pickle said.

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night...” Cherry complained. She blew a raspberry. “All right, I’ll be faster.”

  “And Cadena?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re barely walking out there. What’s up with you?”

  Cadena sucked air through her teeth. “You see, I’ve got this rash, and I’m worried that I need to see a doctor...” She gestured at her crotch.

  Pickle raised a hand. “Gods, stop. I don’t wanna know more, and neither do the thousands of fans watching, jeez. Okay, then stand still with legs apart and cover up your space, or whatever.”

  “Okay...” Cadena winced and rubbed her cooch.

  They scored again. They were excited, high-fiving each other and looking focused. This might have been just a friendly match, but they were taking it seriously. Except Dainty Feet, who was fixated on her growing subscriber numbers. It seemed that the fans really did manage to figure out her username.

  It was supposed to be a friendly match. Cadena was the first one to bleed. She got a longsword to the face and spat out a misty red cloud.

  Things deteriorated after that.

  It became a blur of weapon swings, frantic blocks, parries and dodges. The flimsy training equipment broke under the beating, half the girls were either sporting barely any protection or they had just discarded the broken pieces. The employee was arguing with the two owners somewhere on Pickle’s left, but she didn’t care. She was focused on the match, and the score, which was horrid. There was no fucking way in Hades they’d win this. Even Athena herself couldn’t win without a minimum of a group behind her, and Pickle knew deep down she had done her best, but she wasn’t gonna allow herself to become complacent. Cherry was worn out, dashing and weaving between the Snarlies, stealing the skull under their pompous nosejobs. Bobo had become feared and awed, the enemy team was going out of their way to avoid her, and Pickle could see Gorgon sending the ones that messed up to block her.