I don’t get to celebrate my victory. Almost immediately, a lance of pain spikes into my shoulder. Shit. I forgot to keep track of the second one. I yank my spear back out of the first man’s twitching body, leaving him to choke on his blood or whatever. I highly doubt he’s recovering any time soon.

  His friend has an ugly snarl plastered to his face, mask pulled down to reveal sharp features and a crooked nose, a scar slashing across his chin. He clearly has not gotten the chance to shave, because the rest of his lower face is covered in a thick stubble that makes the crevice of skin stick out like a sore thumb.

  It doesn’t matter that he stands a head taller than me. It doesn’t matter that he’s wielding two gleaming daggers, one already coated in blood. My blood.

  I feel like some outdated Star Wars joke: for the love of all things holy, give me space! I practically scream it out. I need to steady myself, think strategically about this. Time slows down, the dregs of my adrenaline mixing with desperation as I think through my situation.

  Chin-Scar is standing on the stairs (and still is taller than me); I’m at the entryway to the pulpit. The new angle of attack again limits my maneuverability, the stairway only jutting off the platform before making a sharp turn for the rest of the journey.

  I really hate the idea that comes to mind. Still, if I bend my knees to absorb the impact, the risk is minimal. The height from the platform to the floor is maybe two meters, a bit more. I can make that jump. There should be some stuff left in the shelves of the pulpit, to use as projectiles.

  A flash of movement catches my eye, and I lean back, the edge of his dagger just missing my chest by a hair. He doesn’t give me room to recover, keeping the pressure. I bring my offhand back up to guard my neck, leaving my stomach open. He takes the bait, the next blow going straight for my side.

  That is a mistake. The instant he commits to his attack, my hand snaps back to the spear, pivoting it with my body so the tip now faces out of the pulpit. I take his jab with gritted teeth, too focused to even think about the pain.

  I take a large step back, into the pulpit. I lower my stance, right arm brandishing the spear while my left reaches behind me for the shelf that lines the structure, feeling around for something, anything.

  My prayer is answered, in the form of something heavy, metallic, and suspiciously chalice-shaped. I’m sure Father Edwin will forgive me. Chin-Scar reaches the entrance to the platform, turning to face me again, and I hurl the communion cup at his face. He dodges easily, but it’s enough to catch him off guard. I follow it up with the next thing my hand grabs, and the next, and the next. The communion bowl clatters to the ground somewhere behind him, joined by a microphone and a lighter. The latter two I throw almost simultaneously, coupling the assault with a light jab of my spear to try and distract him.

  It doesn’t work to that end, but it does make him lean backwards just enough to put his forehead on the path of the microphone, by pure dumb luck. I don’t press the advantage further, taking his momentary daze as an opportunity to throw my spear over the railing, quickly followed by myself—only pausing to grab the last thing on the shelf first, without so much as a glance to see what it is.

  Even falling into a crouch from this low height isn’t enough to fully negate the impact. Still, I scramble back to my feet, already lunging for my spear a half-stride away from where I landed.

  The sound of creaking wood is all the warning I get. On instinct, I brandish my spear towards the origin of the sound: directly above me.

  I look away just in time to hear a wet thunk and feel something viscous spatter my cheek. I lurch forward, my one arm unprepared for the sudden weight. What the fuck?

  This bastard… did he just throw his teammate’s limp body down first as a fucking decoy?

  The sound of boots hitting the ground a couple strides away from me is all the answer I need. My spear is useless now, given I can’t even hold it upright. I toss it to the side and pull out the last item from the pulpit, risking a look to see what it is.

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  Thankfully, it’s easily recognizable—and actually useful. A holoscreen. A woefully old model, but one I’m familiar with enough to know how it works. It’s a compact, boxy thing that looks like the cross-guard of a sword, squashed lengthwise, the ends flicking up on either side. It has a padded handle along its length on the bottom. In the center, there’s a single large circular button lined on either side by a row of smaller controls. The ON button, nice and simple.

  I press it, and the two sides shoot out like a lightsaber, making for a steel rod roughly the length of my forearm. My reach advantage is all but gone, but this is better than nothing.

  In the second it takes me to ready my new weapon, Chin-Scar has already closed the distance between us. I pivot, brandishing the holoscreen like a crowbar as I swing it low. My timing is just barely right, one hooked end catching the figure’s side. He doesn’t waver, but the low grunt I hear confirms that I have at least done some damage.

  I duck under his arm, narrowly missing a dagger. He’s sloppy. Not as sloppy as me, but enough that I can probably keep him at bay.

  He doesn’t give me an opening, a moment of reprieve. With every blow I dodge, I lose more ground, am forced back toward the pews. For every jab that misses, another catches my forearm or my side, leaving shallow but nonetheless dangerous rents in my flesh. Every strike doubles the pressure on me, leaves another opening in my defence to exploit. I need a breather.

  I need that reprieve, now!

  Second button to the right. We had this model holoscreen back in middle school. I thrust the rod towards his face, hand gripping the handle in the middle so that the length of the device is perpendicular to my arm, parallel to the ground. A soft click is all the warning the enemy gets. His eyes widen mid-lunge, as a concentrated, paper-thin sheet of dense mist suddenly materializes right in front of him.

  I adjust my angle, aiming directly for his eyes. He tries to abort his attack, but it is too late, his feet lacking any ground to pivot off. Realizing as much, he brings his arm to cover his face.

  Too slow.

  I hear him scream as the knife of water vapor catches him spot-on. I have maybe ten seconds before he can see again; holoscreens are vicious. It’s enough.

  He tries to slash at me again as I run past him to where his teammate lies still; I easily avoid the dagger, his aim abhorrent without hand-eye coordination. The holoscreen turned off and pocketed again, I grab the shaft of my spear with both hands, one foot on the body, and yank it out, trying not to look at the gore that spills out with it. I fail at the latter, to my dismay.

  Several strides away, the fallen’s teammate is still stumbling, one hand rubbing his eyes. I don’t give him time to recover; the instant my own weapon is free, I charge straight at him, letting the thud of my footsteps alert him of my approach. He turns in my direction, eyes still shut tight. I feint left, a single loud stop in that direction enough to focus him on a blow that never comes. Instead, I stay right where I am, letting him strike the air to my left, thus closing the distance for me. Then, I thrust my spear directly at his stomach.

  He lurches backward at the last second, narrowly avoiding being pierced right through his middle. Still, he doesn’t get away scott-free, the point of my weapon leaving a gash in his abdomen that paints the tip and most of the shaft red.

  My reward is a feral snarl, the man hunching over to cover his stomach with one hand. Even wounded, his retaliation is fast. With his other hand, he lashes out at my face. The blade catches me by surprise, but I flinch away from the movement. It is enough to avoid the brunt of the attack, though I am left with a stinging cut on the bridge of my nose for it.

  Still, I have the reach advantage now. Pulling back my spear, I swing it up in an arc that meets his arm, capitalizing on the momentum from his attack to slam the limb in the same direction. There’s a loud crack, followed by another howl. His arm is locked behind him at an unnatural angle that looks highly uncomfortable, the shoulder dislocated.

  Checkmate.

  In order to reset the joint, he’ll have to use his good arm—the one currently staunching the bleeding from his stomach. Either way, he’s incapacitated.

  There’s no point in waiting for him to find a creative third option, though. I strike again, this time to finish him off. I’m probably not strong or precise enough to get through his ribcage, but I can definitely do what I did to the first guy. I adjust my position so I’m face to contorted face with him, holding my spear low as I crouch, weapon angled up slightly to jab at his vitals from under the ribcage. This time should be even more effective than the last, with a clean shot, time to make it, and the wound already opened in his stomach.

  The spear strikes true, the muffled sounds of flesh and muscle tearing the only indication of my success. I feel it. The thudding of his heart, pounding through his entire body, rattling his bones, sending minute shockwaves down the shaft of my spear and back to my arms.

  Then, it stops and my spear does not. The tip punches clean through, grazing a rib on its way out the back of the corpse. Blood erupts through his mouth, his eyes going glassy and still.

  Even the first man I fought, I could tell myself his death was not my doing. That his partner was the one who killed him, by throwing him down to meet his end. That he would have died either way, that had it not been my spear, it would have been the floor. No one survives a wound that grievous and then survives being tossed around while wounded.

  Never before have I so utterly ended, so intimately understood another person.