Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2014 23:01:25 GMT -8
They tell us that we're not supposed to think ill of our guests, but when the hardened ridge of keratin that, somewhere back on the evolutionary tree used to be a hoof hits you in the face, it's hard not to think of the Kind as the result of some hillbilly goat fucker knocking up his four-legged lover.
"Son of a BITCH!" I screamed, noting with some satisfaction that the blow had done at least as much damage to its fist as it did my face. For the third time in as many minutes, I silently thanked the tech that had decided my batch needed the reinforced brow ridge. I had one hell of a cut, but no cracked skull and no concussion. I was hardheaded before the ridge manifested; now I could headbutt this dude's grandpa into the ground before the troll under the bridge ever got a crack at him.
The Kind pugilist glared at me with those creepy rectangular pupils. He (or she, you never could tell until they needed to piss) looked like a goat someone had taught to walk on its hind legs shortly before introducing it to the joys of steroids and weightlifting. Its legs were short and stumpy, powerfully muscled but more at home on a cliff face than in a boxing ring. Its chest looked like something a cooper would put together, had they been in the mood to cover their barrels with mottled gray-white fur. The arms were the most noticeably humanoid feature, and rippled with muscle and veins barely concealed beneath the much thinner fur coat there. The head, a standard goat head on a thickly muscled neck, completed the picture. The only aberrations were the hands. The hooves split into two large, armored overfingers that closed over the more delicate true fingers. The true fingers were dexterous to the extreme, but fragile. The overfingers were what allowed this bastard to get away with punching me unscathed. Heh. At least, they had until now.
"My wrist," it bleated, clearly in pain. "You broke it."
"Well there's a fucking tragedy," I snarled in reply. "No one told you to punch me in the face, numbnuts."
The epithet hit home, apparently, because the Kind bares its- his teeth. For some obscure reason, all males of the warrior class are gelded at birth, a point that adolescents didn't take kindly to a mere combatant like me pointing out.
"I will lick the salt from your bones, human."
Did I mention they go nuts for salt? Earth to Old MacDonald, you should have wrapped it before you tapped it.
"Cool story, bro." I yawned for dramatic effect. "Corporal Yost would happily lend you some balls if you can't find enough on your own to try."
Yost, a scrawny redhead who might have been fourteen or fifteen, grabbed her crotch in challenge from her seat on the bench outside the ring. Natural humans of any age were rare in the HDF, much less females. It was said that she was born a girl because the physical manifestation of her nutsack would tear a hole in reality.
The Kind bellowed in incoherent rage and charged, his horns aimed at my midsection. Rules be damned, he was going for the kill. I grinned, flashing teeth that were the dull gray that came from using a much sturdier building block than calcium to get the job done. If that was how he wanted to play...
Despite the stumpy legs, the Kind cleared the distance between us in a single bound, counting on speed and surprise.
Poor bastard.
I could count the blood vessels in his eyes before he could clear a third of the distance. Before he had a chance to react, I had grabbed him by his wickedly curved horns. The bastard was heavy and had a shit ton of momentum on his side, but I didn't need to stop him. I just needed to steady his skull as I brought mine down in a vicious headbutt. The impact was sickeningly loud, even in the rowdy gym. I could tell that my normally invulnerable brain had been concussed, but as bad as I had it, the Kind had it worse. He collapsed to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut, twitching as his frazzled brain tried frantically to reassert control of a body that no longer obeyed its commands.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't try to steal my pudding."
And with that, the darkness that had been creeping at the edges of my vision swallowed me, and I fell face-first onto the mat.
"Son of a BITCH!" I screamed, noting with some satisfaction that the blow had done at least as much damage to its fist as it did my face. For the third time in as many minutes, I silently thanked the tech that had decided my batch needed the reinforced brow ridge. I had one hell of a cut, but no cracked skull and no concussion. I was hardheaded before the ridge manifested; now I could headbutt this dude's grandpa into the ground before the troll under the bridge ever got a crack at him.
The Kind pugilist glared at me with those creepy rectangular pupils. He (or she, you never could tell until they needed to piss) looked like a goat someone had taught to walk on its hind legs shortly before introducing it to the joys of steroids and weightlifting. Its legs were short and stumpy, powerfully muscled but more at home on a cliff face than in a boxing ring. Its chest looked like something a cooper would put together, had they been in the mood to cover their barrels with mottled gray-white fur. The arms were the most noticeably humanoid feature, and rippled with muscle and veins barely concealed beneath the much thinner fur coat there. The head, a standard goat head on a thickly muscled neck, completed the picture. The only aberrations were the hands. The hooves split into two large, armored overfingers that closed over the more delicate true fingers. The true fingers were dexterous to the extreme, but fragile. The overfingers were what allowed this bastard to get away with punching me unscathed. Heh. At least, they had until now.
"My wrist," it bleated, clearly in pain. "You broke it."
"Well there's a fucking tragedy," I snarled in reply. "No one told you to punch me in the face, numbnuts."
The epithet hit home, apparently, because the Kind bares its- his teeth. For some obscure reason, all males of the warrior class are gelded at birth, a point that adolescents didn't take kindly to a mere combatant like me pointing out.
"I will lick the salt from your bones, human."
Did I mention they go nuts for salt? Earth to Old MacDonald, you should have wrapped it before you tapped it.
"Cool story, bro." I yawned for dramatic effect. "Corporal Yost would happily lend you some balls if you can't find enough on your own to try."
Yost, a scrawny redhead who might have been fourteen or fifteen, grabbed her crotch in challenge from her seat on the bench outside the ring. Natural humans of any age were rare in the HDF, much less females. It was said that she was born a girl because the physical manifestation of her nutsack would tear a hole in reality.
The Kind bellowed in incoherent rage and charged, his horns aimed at my midsection. Rules be damned, he was going for the kill. I grinned, flashing teeth that were the dull gray that came from using a much sturdier building block than calcium to get the job done. If that was how he wanted to play...
Despite the stumpy legs, the Kind cleared the distance between us in a single bound, counting on speed and surprise.
Poor bastard.
I could count the blood vessels in his eyes before he could clear a third of the distance. Before he had a chance to react, I had grabbed him by his wickedly curved horns. The bastard was heavy and had a shit ton of momentum on his side, but I didn't need to stop him. I just needed to steady his skull as I brought mine down in a vicious headbutt. The impact was sickeningly loud, even in the rowdy gym. I could tell that my normally invulnerable brain had been concussed, but as bad as I had it, the Kind had it worse. He collapsed to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut, twitching as his frazzled brain tried frantically to reassert control of a body that no longer obeyed its commands.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't try to steal my pudding."
And with that, the darkness that had been creeping at the edges of my vision swallowed me, and I fell face-first onto the mat.