Esmeralda von Krauss is walking the mean streets of Tokyo with D and Minerva on either side of her. She walks by street vendors with a smile as she smokes her Egyptian cigarette through an ornate foot long holder.
Esmeralda von Krauss: A gauntlet match for the Puroresu plate. How divine, dahlings. Who am I facing again?
Minerva: You are facing Aiden Merric, Steve Awesome, and a member of the Donzig-Gun.
Esmeralda von Krauss: A member of the Donzig-gun? Do we know which member of their organization will be in the ring to face us, dahling?
D: Donzig himself will come to the ring to avenge the loss that he had suffered at your hands.
Esmeralda stops in her tracks and cocks her head when she looks at D. S smile begins to form across her face, but it contains no mirth.
Esmeralda von Krauss: Then, I can put the madman in his place again. I have defeated him once. I will do so again.
Minerva: What about Aiden Merric and Steve Awesome. You have some history with Steve Awesome.
D: Like trying to steal his sperm?
Esmeralda sighs, flicking ashes onto the ground.
Esmeralda von Krauss: I had thought that with the looks that Steve Awesome had and the way that he carried himself that he would be a good man to give me a child. I have since discovered that he is a buffoon. He is barely capable of taking care of himself, much less take care of anyone else. I mean…I would still be the one taking care of my child, but I would have liked that the father had some kind of role. Thinking that Steve Awesome would be a prime father was pure fallacy on my part. I will not make such a mistake again. I will go into this match as an enemy of Steve Awesome and will demolish him in the ring as quick as I can to be able to get onto the next opponent.
Esmeralda keeps walking, but she flicks her cigarette butt in a random direction so that it falls into the wok of a street vendor. He curses at her in Japanese, but Esmeralda only chuckles.
Esmeralda von Krauss: Curses do not have an effect on me, dahling. I am already cursed.
The Japanese man continues to berate Esmeralda as they pass him by. He is cleaning his wok out of the now contaminated food and giving it away for free to the homeless dregs that have no money.
Esmeralda sets a fresh cigarette into her foot long holder and lights it up, taking a drag in with a smile.
Esmeralda von Krauss: Aiden Merric? He is the little hunter from Australia? Has a sidekick follow him around to sort of diminish his ineptitude? He took the beast’s sideburns as I recall, leaving a little scar on either side of his head to go with his other battle scars. It’s not that I care for Tarrasque’s well being. He was attached to Marcus and now belongs to my husband. Aiden will find in me a monster that he cannot hunt and capture. I am of his worst nightmares given flesh. He will be lucky if he survives the encounter with me to be able to go on to compete against the others in later shows. Aiden is no threat to me as much as he is a boon. He will try his best against the others and weaken them, and himself, so I can sweep in and clean things up.
Minerva: What if the other members of the Donzig-Zgun seek to interfere in the match to help their master win the last plate?
Esmeralda von Krauss: I will have my clowns at ringside. They will not interfere on my behalf, but they will block the interference of other people. We will find out how Donzig really feels about poor, little Sinclair once Hehehe and Hahaha get ahold of her. Will the event take him out of the match or will he ignore the blatant attack upon a girl that has obviously fallen for him. Only Donzig himself seems ignorant of the girl’s affections.
A young man catches up with the trio, he stops to put his hand on a building to be able to catch his breath. He is one of the Einherjar, but Esmeralda does not remember his name for the life of her.
Esmeralda von Krauss: What is it, little one?
Young man: Mistress! There is an alert that went out. I’m surprised that you didn’t get it.
Esmeralda frowns and looks at her smart phone. Indeed, she had set it to silence without knowing that she had done it and she has missed several calls and texts. Instead of taking the time to go through them right now, she looks to the young man.
Esmeralda von Krauss: What is the meaning of this?
Young man: A force has begun an assault upon your security buildings in Bankhead. They mean to breach the secure corridor and bring down the server farm!
Esmeralda von Krauss: No…
Esmeralda places a hand on the shoulders of D and Minerva.
Esmeralda von Krauss: I can’t leave here. I will need the two of you to go to Bankhead as quick as possible to stop whatever is threatening Bankhead.
D: We will stop them.
Minerva: You can count on it.
In a blink of an eye, the two are gone and speeding their way toward the local airport.
Esmeralda von Krauss: I will not be denied this final plate after losing my last one. This gauntlet match will be mine to conquer.
Young man: Has anyone told you that you talk way too much?
Esmeralda blinks, taken aback by the disrespect from one of her underlings. He is one her her underlings isn’t he?
Esmeralda von Krauss: You are not with the Einherjar. I suppose the threat to Bankhead is not real either.
Young man: Oh it will be. A trap has been set for your followers to kill them. You will die here.
The young man laughs maliciously, growing larger as he laughs with his skin straining against the building muscles until they tear away. The young man is no young man, but an undead monstrosity known as an ecorche. It towers over Esmeralda and reaches for her with both claws to do a rend attack that will skin her alive if it hits.
[img src=”
Esmeralda does a backflip kick to strike the eight and a half foot, 600 pound monster in the chest to kick herself away from its reach. The kick itself does no damage to the creature.
She reaches for an upholstery needle and hurls it at the monstrosity, but it bounces off of the packed tight muscles of the undead creature.
Esmeralda backs into a tight alleyway between two buildings, the ecorche still on her tail.
She darts at the creature, jumping to the wall and using her momentum to run along it until she leaps from the wall and into a forward flip kick to the side of the ecorchie’s head that seems to do a little harm to it. However, it catches her by the legs and swings her around. It releases her and she flies through a second story window.
At the very least, the creature will have to figure out a way to get into the building and then to find her. Right?
Esmeralda is very much horrified as the creature leaps through the window, giving her no relief from the combat. He breaks the window sill and part of the building around him as he comes through.
Esmeralda gets up and runs from the bedroom and through a kitchen and out through a door to the apartment with the creature hot on her feels. She sees an elevator with people on it and rushes for it, but the door closes in her face. She opens the neighboring door and in a snap decision, goes up.
In a few minutes, Esmeralda is on the roof with the ecorchie close behind her. She stands by the door to the roof and waits for the undead monster to come to it so that she can slam the door with all of her might, hitting the creature and knocking it down several flights of stairs.
She makes a beeline for the edge of the roof and leaps through the air to land on the rooftop of the neighboring building. She laments not keeping one of the swords from the Kharnival that would trap out of control monsters, but they needed it more. Or so she had thought.
The ecorchie bursts through the door on the other building and sees Esmeralda on the other building. It makes it’s way across the roof at a high speed to be able to make the jump to continue it’s assault on Esmeralda.
To be continued…
