GunBarrel Gauntlet: The Last Bronze II

09. The Cage Duel.

                Transvestite ring girls winked their long butterfly lashes at the crowds gathering outside the cage, strutting around the perimeter with numbered boards and bad wigs. The cage itself was a tall barrel made from vertical wielded slats that afforded a view between the inch gaps, the upper deck reserved for the ranking gang members.

It gave Blue Tattoo gloating pleasure to look down on the contestants as they were led in through a hinged gate. Jelly Brains posed for the excited audience yelling through the cage, wheeling beside himself a light frame cycle that had cleaver blades projecting from the handlebars and a jousting lance fixed onto the front. He was no stranger to violence, the metal scalp sutures keeping the back of his head together caught the reflection of flaming torches nearby.

Next came the Lion, accompanying a similar vehicle like Jelly Brain's. Before fitting a helmet over his visage, the Nomad glared at Blue Tattoo and the others in the club seats, saddling the stunt bike as he prepared for the duel.

Liu ran out of the hands of her captors, climbing up a pole in the centre of the structure in time to avoid the snapping jaws of hungry dogs, straining on the chain leashes of the handler whom had just entered the ring. Flexing under her weight as she shifted her grip, it was only a matter of time before she would tire and fall to become the next meal for the barking animals.

"Take your positions!" The MC ordered.

High pitched engines revved, and the kennel master backed away toward the gate with leashes still in hand, exiting with the ring girls and any other handlers to leave three remaining occupants besides the dogs within; Jelly Brains, Liu, and the one they called The Lion.

"Go!" Came the shrieking signal.

Both cycles began to circle the pit, trying to gain enough speed without entangling each other, hugging the incline to lift themselves from the ground and ride horizontally against the wall of the cage.

The Lion was the first to leave the ground, propelled up the walls by centrifugal force as the world became a blurring replay of the cage spinning faster and faster. Moving in the opposite direction, his opponent mounted the heights and passed him in a rushing loop just below his elevation.

Unclipping the leashes of the dogs by reaching through the cage bars, the hounds scrambled to the base of the centre pole to harass the terrified girl that was desperately clinging on. The rapid movement and noise of the stunt bikes made her dizzy when she looked away from the snapping predators below, palm sweat slipping on the pipe.

The two duelling motorcycles arced toward each other, a breath's distance from collision until they tore through the other side of their trajectories, handlebar blades sparking on contact. On the next pass the Nomad's jacket sleeve was slashed, blood drops curling up in the dry earth of the pit as they absorbed into the ground.

Taking both hand off the grips to raise them in triumph, Jelly Brains garnered the adoration of the spectators. The Legend they called the Lion was mortal after all, and if he fell they would be the storyteller's of his demise, witnesses to the rider that had finally closed the Lion's jaws.

* * *

With all eyes enthralled at the expectation of carnage, the Irishman had found an opportunity to discreetly leave the spectacle, slinking away back toward the abattoir buildings to find a way to escape Dogtown.