Street Cultivation, page 6
Instead of trying to take him out, Uncle Alan stalked sideways, glowering. Rick moved to the side as well, keeping distance between them and considering his options.
He had been right not to try to throw his uncle. Most people viewed western-style pit fighters as brutes who could only punch, but he'd grown up seeing the matches, so he knew the truth: they were very good at grappling. Such a contest would pit his strength directly against his uncle's, which would be the one way he would certainly lose the match. Better to keep him at a distance, where his footwork and skill could bridge the gap.
That gap wasn't as large as he'd expected, though. He estimated that his uncle only had a generation rate of about 31,000 lucrim. Most of it seemed to be invested in an offensive core, so he was definitely dangerous, but he had plenty of openings.
To his surprise, his uncle raised a hand and his aura focused into a ball. It gathered slowly enough that Rick was able to leap aside, and a moment later the sphere of aura flashed out, exploding against the opposite wall. His uncle had been hiding something like that?
Rick was too poor to afford any special techniques or trump cards. But that didn't mean he had no advantages. Now that he had a feel for his uncle's strength, he began advancing more aggressively.
Ducking underneath another aura sphere, he moved in and struck several times at his uncle's face. Light blows, just testing him, and they all bounced harmlessly off his defensive block. That was just bait, since his opponent soon saw his chance and punched at his side.
Uncle Alan's fist connected and Rick winced at the pain... but he only winced. It didn't hurt as badly as the blow from the Birthrighter, and his defenses had grown stronger since then. For just a moment, his uncle looked astonished, never having expected that someone much weaker than him could have such a strong defensive core.
Then Rick's elbow collided with his nose. This time, he didn't hold anything back.
The blow broke his uncle's nose and snapped his neck back, knocking him off his feet. As his uncle hit the ground, Rick didn't let up, kicking at his side again. This blow dealt more damage than his light jabs as he felt his uncle's defensive aura give way. That one would hurt the next morning.
His uncle writhed and clutched his side... but he was faking it. Rick backed off and kept his guard up, preparing for the next round.
"You little shit..." Uncle Alan crawled to his feet, roughly swiping at the blood pouring from his nose. It ran into his teeth, making them a gruesome sight as he clenched his jaw. "You're gonna regret this. I'll beat the shit out of you until you're begging me not to do anything worse than breaking your nose."
"You talk a good talk, Uncle." Rick faked a smile at him and saw the other man's rage.
It wasn't enough to prompt him into another wild charge, though. Instead his uncle raised a hand and gathered another sphere of his aura, except this one didn't fire at him, just spun in place above his hand. A moment later it burst into flames, the power within it increasing substantially.
"It's too late to surrender, boy. You're going to burn."
But as dangerous as the attack was, Rick just kept smiling. When the sphere flew out at him, he leapt away from it, easily avoiding the attack as well as the small explosion that followed.
Of course, that had always been a feint. As soon as he landed near the wall, he saw that his uncle had already released another flaming sphere. There was no way he could dodge this one, but that had never been the plan.
Instead Rick grabbed his chair off the floor and swung it directly at the approaching sphere.
A few flames licked his hands as the two collided, but the chair deflected the explosion away from him. Good, that part had been a risk. But he'd noticed that the room had taken absolutely no damage from their fight, so he'd been willing to bet that the firm reinforced the furniture as well. He risked a glance at the lawyer and saw that the man was perusing papers, apparently entirely ignoring their battle.
"That's a cheap trick." Uncle Alan created a sphere on either side of him, the flames growing more intense. "But it's not going to work again. You can't dodge forever, and then I'm going to burn all that attitude out of you."
"You're wrong." As dangerous as the spheres looked, Rick saw them for what they really were: desperation. His uncle might be strong, but he was usually desperate for money and running low on lucrim. Normally Rick was in equally dire straits, but at the moment he actually had more stamina than his uncle. Everything so far had been an effort to beat him quickly or intimidate him into surrendering.
"Wrong? You think I'm going to take that from a little shit who can't even make it in real fights?"
His uncle hurled both spheres in quick succession and Rick avoided them as best he could. Though he felt a bit scorched, he was still uninjured. More importantly, when his uncle created two more spheres, his control faltered a bit. He was sweating and gasping for breath now, but his eyes still raged.
"You won't win, Uncle." Rick tried not to look smug, since he was sincere: better to end this without injuring anyone and leaving vendettas behind. "You think you can wear me out first, but that isn't going to happen. You should admit you've lost."
"Never!" His uncle hurled the spheres, but his movements had slowed down even more.
Instead of dodging to the side, Rick leapt toward the spheres, passing between them before they could explode.
Suddenly he was within his opponent's guard and his uncle was too tired to counter-attack. Rick staggered him with a punch to the injured spot on his side. Dodged to the side of the predictable haymaker. Dealt a kick to the back of his uncle's leg, making him drop, then lunged straight in with an elbow to the side of his head.
Rick jumped back as his uncle fell, expecting the large man to explode with force and burst from the floor. Yet to his surprise, Uncle Alan lay where he fell. His face was bloody and his eyes were unfocused. Beyond the damage he had suffered, it looked as though he couldn't believe that he had been defeated.
For a while, Rick couldn't believe it either. The adults in his life who were fighters had always seemed unstoppable to him when he was young. And though his uncle had been stronger than him... a generation rate of just 31,000 lucrim was nothing special. For the first time, when Rick looked at his uncle he felt only disgust and a bit of pity.
"If you're all quite done, may we continue?" The lawyer looked up from his papers as if the fight had been nothing more than a bathroom break. "Bring a chair over here and do try not to break it when you do."
The chair didn't seem to have taken any damage from its use in the fight, but Rick still seethed at the insult as he set it up in front of the desk. To the lawyer, both of them probably looked like impoverished brutes squabbling over loose change. Refusing to care about the other man's judgment, Rick just sat down and waited to receive what he was owed.
"This concludes the ritual challenge, and clearly you are the victor. Therefore you will take possession of both Birthright Cores. We would recommend you absorb them immediately and we can help facilitate that process if you like."
Rick stared at the two cores, but they had never been for him. The offer was tempting for Melissa, however, because he wasn't sure if she had the strength to absorb them unaided. "How much would that cost?"
"Oh, it's part of the overall fee. Which your relative will be paying, by the way. When the one who issues the challenge is also the loser, they're required to pay all legal costs for both parties. Provides a disincentive for spurious challenges, you see."
"Right, I understand. But what I'm wondering is if you could implant the cores in someone else?"
"Our gratis service only covers services for you today, but the cores are yours to do with as you wish. You can give them to anyone you want, or use them as paperweights for all I care."
"The person I have in mind is also a-"
Sighing, the lawyer waved his words aside. "We can figure out the details later. First we need to finish bestowing your parents' assets."
Rick stared at the lawyer. "They have more? But you said their property was taken... and surely they didn't have more cores."
"No, they did not. Before they died, your parents took on a number of significant debts, primarily in lucrim." Still with the same flat smile on his face, the lawyer reached down into his briefcase. "Those debts are not discharged by their deaths. As the inheritor of their estate, their debts are yours as well."
"But... you said their belongings were sold to cover them..."
"Some of them."
His hands rose and Rick was already jumping to his feet even before he saw it. The lawyer held a ghostly blue lump in his hands that began to writhe from his fingers. An aura leech. Though Rick had never seen one in person, he'd seen enough of them in cheap crime dramas to know what it could do, and that he needed to get away as soon as possible.
Yet he barely made it two steps to the door before he suddenly found himself slammed back against the wall. The lawyer calmly held him there with one hand, not displaying any visible aura, but radiating overwhelming strength.
If Rick had been fully charged and fresh, he might have been able to strike back or struggle away. But having exhausted so much of his strength against his uncle, and still feeling his burns, it was simply impossible. This opponent was stronger than anyone he'd ever faced, without any obvious weaknesses. To make matters worse, he had the law on his side.
"This isn't fair," Rick said, glaring at the lawyer. "If you had told me their assets included lucrim debts..."
"Yes, we've had difficulty getting anyone to accept estates under such conditions, and one of our core duties is to ensure the repayment of such debts." The lawyer shrugged and raised the leech. "This will only hurt at first."
With that, the lawyer set the leech on his chest over his heart.
It bit down and cold pain lanced through Rick's chest. He managed to choke back his scream, his body thrashing uselessly against the wall. Worse than the pain was that he could immediately feel the leech draining his strength.
Even as he watched in horror, it sank down into his chest, merging with his lucrima. He knew that it would stay there, draining his power until the debt was repaid, but at that moment all he could feel was terror. Not just that an alien being was burrowing into his soul, but that it would stay there, robbing him of the strength he desperately needed to survive and help provide for his sister.
Yet just when he started to think that he had come to grips with his new reality, he saw that the briefcase was floating into the air. The lawyer gave him a false apologetic smile and reached into it again, pulling out another ghostly leech.
"Apologies for the discomfort, but your parents acquired several different debts before they passed..."
Rick struggled with all the strength he had left, but it was too late. When the creature latched onto him, the world slipped away and he fell into the darkness. With his last thoughts he cursed his parents, then there was nothing left.
Chapter 8: Aura Leeches
Pain reminded Rick that he was still alive. For a while he just lay there, not sure how he felt about that.
But no, he had too many obligations to give up. Struggling to open his eyes, Rick found himself staring at a sterile white ceiling. He sat up and discovered that he lay in a room that reminded him of a hospital, but without most of the equipment. Just two beds.
Uncle Alan lay in the other bed. It seemed that he'd been given minimal medical treatment, but he still looked pretty rough. Rick stared at him, unsure how to feel. He might have experienced a bit of lingering pride if not for the ache in his chest.
He felt absolutely terrible. Though he couldn't sense the leeches squirming around inside his soul, he knew they were there, and he definitely felt them draining away his strength. How bad was it? He realized that since all of this was perfectly legal, it would probably be listed in the usual app. Finding his phone lying beside him, he brought up his profile:
[Name: Rick Hunter
Ether Tier: 18th
Ether Score: 152
Lucrim Generation: 20,602
Effective Rate: 11,102
Current Lucrim: 2071]
He groaned when he saw his basic profile. Though he'd finally passed 20,000 lucrim for his generation rate, the "effective rate" represented his strength minus the leeches' draining effect. All told, he was even weaker than before. Worse, his ether score had been downgraded, placing any advantages from reaching 200 firmly out of reach.
Except that the numbers didn't add up properly. The fight against Uncle Alan had probably strengthened him a little, but not that much. Rick pulled up his portfolio, afraid that he already knew what he was going to see...
[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio
Foundation: 8150 (Lv II)
Offensive Lucore: 3550 (Lv II)
Defensive Lucore: 6050 (Lv IV)
Birthright Core: 1944 (Lv I)
Birthright Core: 1108 (Lv I)
Aura Leech: -5000 (Stage II)
Aura Leech: -3000 (Stage I)
Aura Leech: -1500 (Stage III)
Golden Lucore: 10 (N/A)
Gross Lucrim: 20,602
Net Lucrim: 11,102]
His portfolio had reorganized itself to measure his weakened state, and the aura leeches were a horrible mark against him, but the worst part was confirming his suspicions: he'd already been implanted with both Birthright cores.
For a long time Rick just stared at the screen. Where did he go from here? Giving up wasn't an option, but having his hopes be crushed so thoroughly left him floundering. He wasn't even sure how they could make ends meet, with such a large drop in his generation rate. This was all he'd bought with his limited strength?
Before he could find any answers, the door opened and a young man in hospital scrubs stepped in. He gave a quick smile that Rick couldn't return.
"You're awake, huh? We completely finished the process and you took it well, so you're free to go whenever you like."
"I didn't want the cores implanted."
The man's smile wavered and he shrugged. "I'm sorry about that, but I can only do what the sheet tells me."
"Those were for my sister. She's sick."
"That's tragic, but..." The man picked up a clipboard from beside his bed and ran his eyes over it, wincing. "Bluntly, man, you need it more than she does. Without the increase in generation rate, those leeches would be doing a serious number on you."
Rick felt a surge of anger and rose to his feet, only to halt at a twinge of pain. He clutched his chest, breathing heavily. "This... is just how it is now, huh?"
"Well, at least for a while. I know it's not much comfort, but you can work those off. Once they've absorbed enough, they'll automatically detach and then you can get rid of them."
Right, once he just paid off a debt of almost 10,000 lucrim. Except the debt was actually much more than 10,000 lucrim as a currency - Rick tried to ransack his memory for information on how exactly such debts worked and couldn't remember. Uncle Frank had always told him to avoid demonic bonds and leech debts, so he hadn't thought it mattered. Yet now he didn't have a choice.
At that moment, his other uncle let out a curse. Uncle Alan lurched up to a sitting position, muttering more curses under his breath.
When he saw Rick, however, he let out a malicious chuckle. "Didn't go as well as you thought, did it, boy? Guess I should be thanking you for putting in so much work to beat me. I really dodged a punch there."
"Alan..." Rick wanted to hit him again, but outside of a formal challenge, that would be assault. He could have mocked his uncle for losing or rubbed it in, except that he felt only bitterness. "Do you know how sick Melissa is? You talk about family, but she's the one who will suffer from this."
"You're not family. You're going to end up just like Frank, thinking you're too good for us. Getting involved with even worse shit." Alan stood up and glared at him, but when Rick didn't back down, he hesitated.
"Umm..." The nurse glanced between the two of them awkwardly. "Listen, can you deal with this stuff somewhere else? Since we finished everything, Mr. Hunter, you're free to go."
Uncle Alan scoffed, though he couldn't entirely hide the fact that he was the one to back down first. "Fine. Enjoy your leeches, boy."
"Ah, I didn't mean you." The young man stepped into his path. "There's still the matter of paying for the legal fees, the formal challenge, and the medical treatment. As the firm would have disclosed to you, we do need you to balance those accounts before you go - the total comes to just under 13,000 lucrim, how would you like to pay?"
"I..." Uncle Alan looked extremely nervous for a moment, then tried to push through. But the nurse simply struck him on the chest with an open palm and he immediately crumpled to the ground.
"Then I'm afraid you have a debt as well. Hold still while I set everything up." With that, the man looked up at Rick and gave him the same smile - it still seemed honestly friendly, but Rick's blood ran cold. "You can go, Mr. Hunter. Have a nice day."
Rick left the building as quickly as possible. On his way out, he heard his uncle cry out in pain and guessed that an aura leech was being applied to him as well. If his uncle was so desperate to drive all the way from the trailer park to steal a few small cores, then he was likely in poor shape. Having another drain on his lucrima... well, he wasn't likely to be a problem for a long time.
Though seeing his uncle get what was coming to him could have been satisfying, Rick was just reminded of what the lawyer had said. The law firms didn't care about fairness, they just wanted to keep everyone in the lower tiers of society constantly paying off debts so they could never rise up. His uncle might have gotten the slightly worse end of the stick, but...
Yes, that was cold comfort compared to the new reality Rick had inherited. Such large negative numbers... he needed to read up on how exactly aura leeches worked, but he just felt exhausted. Far too tired to run, but now he definitely couldn't afford a cab.
But his uncle's words reminded him of his other uncle. While he headed down the sidewalk, Rick dialed Uncle Frank's number. As usual he only went to voicemail, and even though he should have expected it, he still found himself not sure what to say.
