LOSS System: Last Store Standing

Valkyrie’s face hardened at Scar’s words. In the fading light, the black engine grease smeared across one side of her face made her look even more threatening.

“Don’t forget who’s in charge,” she said. “My decisions aren’t yours to question.”

Silence fell over the group. Jagger stood nearby with one hand covering his injured eyes, his breathing still uneven, while Mort remained farther back with the heavy chain hanging from his hand.

Scar did not back down. Instead, he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Valkyrie asked.

Scar looked at her from beneath his battered helmet. “Me. I’m laughing at myself for following you this far.”

Valkyrie slowly wrapped a hand around the handle of her road-sign cleaver, but Scar continued as if he had not noticed.

“I should’ve figured it out sooner. As far as you’re concerned, people only matter as long as they’re useful.”

His laughter faded.

“So what happens when the rest of us stop being useful? Do you leave us behind like Barak?”

Valkyrie started toward him, her scrap-metal armor clanking with every step.

“You’re turning against me?”

Scar grinned. “I’m trying to stay alive.”

Valkyrie answered with her blade.

She swung the road-sign cleaver in a brutal sideways arc, the heavy slab of steel tearing through the air. Scar dropped low and slipped past it. The blade skimmed his shoulder before crashing into the sand and throwing up a spray of dirt and broken stone.

His twin serrated sickles flashed into view.

Scar stayed low and moved quickly, circling Valkyrie instead of meeting her strength head-on. One sickle tested the gaps between her armor plates while the other swept toward the areas left exposed.

Valkyrie roared and slammed the cleaver down again. Scar twisted out of the way, then dragged one sickle across the rubber padding on her arm with a harsh scrape.

“You’re asking to die,” Valkyrie growled.

“You forced me into this!”

She charged again, but Scar slipped past the descending blade and hooked his other sickle toward her knee. Valkyrie had to step back, her scrap armor rattling around her.

Within a few exchanges, Scar’s speed had begun to give him control of the fight. He stayed just beyond the reach of Valkyrie’s cleaver, forcing her to turn again and again while he searched for another opening.

Then, as Scar slipped toward her blind side, a heavy chain whipped in from the edge of his vision.

He threw himself backward. The chain passed inches from his chest, and the iron weight at its end buried itself in the sand with a heavy thud.

Scar landed in a crouch and fixed his eyes on Mort.

“You’re taking her side too?”

Mort stepped between him and Valkyrie, the heavy chain held ready in his hands. “She saved my life.”

“Good,” Scar said with a humorless smile. “Very good.”

He came at them again.

Facing both Mort and Valkyrie, Scar quickly lost the advantage his speed had given him. Mort’s chain repeatedly cut off his path, forcing him back whenever he tried to slip around Valkyrie’s heavy cleaver.

But something was wrong.

Mort was holding Scar back, not trying to kill him. Whenever Valkyrie found an opening for a killing blow, the chain seemed to get in her way as often as it blocked Scar.

Valkyrie noticed too.

“What are you doing?” she snapped. “Kill him.”

Mort held his ground but did not answer.

“I said kill him!”

A poisoned short spear suddenly thrust in from the side, aimed at Mort’s wrist. Mort pulled the chain back to protect himself, giving Scar the opening he needed to slip away.

Valkyrie turned toward the attacker.

“Jagger.”

Jagger stood with one hand still covering his injured eyes, breathing hard. He gave her no answer.

That was answer enough.

Scar attacked again, and this time Jagger joined him. The four of them crashed together in a violent tangle of steel. Valkyrie’s armor clanged beneath the blows, Mort’s chain swept back and forth between both sides, and Jagger’s short spear darted through every opening he could find. Scar stayed low, his twin sickles flashing near the ground as he searched for gaps in Valkyrie’s armor.

Jagger struck whenever Valkyrie committed her weight to the cleaver, while Scar kept circling beyond the reach of her heaviest swings. Yet Mort remained between them, using his chain to keep Scar and Jagger from landing a fatal blow without helping Valkyrie finish either of them.

The fight wore on until Mort finally drove Scar back with a sweep of the chain. At the same moment, Valkyrie struck Jagger with the flat of her cleaver and sent him staggering across the sand.

Scar saw the opening and made his decision.

“Go!”

Jagger did not hesitate. The two of them broke away and disappeared between the dunes.

Valkyrie started after Scar and Jagger, but Mort swept his chain across her path and forced her to stop.

She turned on him. “You’re stopping me?”

Mort drew the chain back. “You saved my life once. I stepped in today to repay that debt—not to help you kill them.”

“You’re safe now,” he continued calmly. “We’re even.”

Then he turned away. “You’re on your own.”

Valkyrie stood behind him, gripping her cleaver so tightly that her knuckles strained against the handle.

“You too?” she said through clenched teeth. “I saved your life.”

Mort kept walking.

Valkyrie’s voice rose behind him.

“Then I’ll take it back!”

She charged.

Mort heard the heavy footsteps too late. He twisted around and threw up his chain, barely catching the cleaver before it struck his chest. The impact drove him backward, and Valkyrie followed it with the full weight of her armored body, slamming into him before he could recover.

Mort staggered. Valkyrie stepped in and drove her knee into his stomach, folding him over with a sharp grunt.

She gave him no time to breathe.

Valkyrie gripped the cleaver with both hands and brought it down toward Mort’s shoulder. Mort threw out his chain, barely catching the blade and dragging it off course. The cleaver crashed into the rocky ground beside him, scattering chips of stone.

She came at him again, breathing hard, her eyes wild.

“You’re all the same,” she said. “You all deserve to die.”

Mort clutched his stomach and backed away, dragging the chain through the sand. Before he could answer, a low growl rolled across the wasteland.

Both of them turned.

A pair of dark animal eyes watched from behind a low dune.

The Crag Lynx had followed them.

Valkyrie stared at it, the hatred in her expression giving way to something almost feverish.

“You…”

Mort saw the change in her and immediately understood what she was about to do.

“Valkyrie, don’t—”

“This is all because of you!”

She charged the Crag Lynx with a furious roar, swinging the road-sign cleaver down with both hands.

The Crag Lynx sprang aside.

Its massive body moved with startling ease, slipping past the blade like a shadow sliding down the dune. Before Valkyrie could recover, it had already circled to her side.

She spun and swung again, but the cleaver cut through nothing but sand.

The Crag Lynx moved in and out of reach without making a sound. Whenever Valkyrie attacked, it slipped away at the last possible moment. Whenever she tried to steady herself, it darted close enough to force her into another wild swing.

Mort forced himself upright and watched her stumble through the sand, roaring at an enemy she could not touch.

She had completely lost her mind.

The Crag Lynx was not fighting her.

It was playing with her.

Mort had seen enough. Still clutching his stomach, he turned and dragged himself away while Valkyrie’s screams and the beast’s low growls followed him across the wasteland.

He had no idea how long he kept moving. Pain surged through his abdomen with every step, and his injured left leg grew heavier until he could barely lift it. The last of the daylight faded, leaving the wasteland blurred and indistinct around him.

Then his leg gave out.

Mort crashed into the sand and tried to push himself back up, but his arms no longer had the strength.

As darkness closed over his vision, he caught a glimpse of a crude settlement ahead. Someone had spotted him. Two figures were already running in his direction.

One of them looked familiar.

Mort tried to focus on the approaching face, but the wasteland disappeared into darkness before he could recognize it.