Chain Gang All Stars

Their assigned preparation space was a soccer field that belonged to “the fucking Turnwain Titans,” Staxxx screamed when their van pulled in. Jerry, still in the same bad mood, didn’t speak much to them, but he opened the van’s storage so they could retrieve their weapons and a bundle of wooden practice staves.

Staxxx showed no sign of being tired although she and Thurwar had kept each other up into the early morning, as if they didn’t know they would soon be forced against each other. They’d loved each other deeply through the night, savored the taste of each other’s sweat. They’d woken up and tried to feel as though they were not afraid.

“Old rivals,” Staxxx explained now. She made an effort, as she always did, to keep the Chain’s morale up for the three hours of physical practice they had here before tomorrow’s fights. She and Thurwar knew what was coming, and the performance of normalcy was a welcome distraction. A perimeter had been set up and a smattering of reporters lined the outer edges of the soccer field, but the space was dominated by the soldier-police, at least thirty of them, all armored and ready.

“Rico, grab somebody else’s wood for once,” Staxxx said as Rico stared at the men. “But before that,” she continued as they pulled the weapons from the open compartment, “we have a special reveal today.” The Links—Sai, Randy, Ice Ice, and Thurwar—all waited as Staxxx pulled a sword in a gleaming red sheath from the van. Bad Water watched a little farther off and Gunny Puddles acted disinterested, though he was watching too.

“Rico, please step forward.” And Rico stepped up.

“Let it be known on this day, Rico Muerte graduated in the hearts and minds of the people from that guy with a golf club to the wielder of—I can’t pronounce the name, but this cool-ass blade.” The Links, even Gunny, gave a quick applause. “Get on your knees, Peanut.”

“Not a Peanut anymore!” Rico said. He got down on one knee.

“So as a member of the illustrious and renowned Angola-Hammond Chain, do you accept the responsibility to forever hold it down for the squad?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not an old lady, but okay.”

She pulled the blade from the sheath; it shined in the morning sun.

“Do you accept the Chain-Gang as family and promise to do your best not to harm another member of the gang?” She brought the blade down and let it rest on his right shoulder.

“Yes, m— I do?”

“Damn right you do. And do you vow to go out swinging, to do everything in your power to see High Freed?”

She brought the blade to his left shoulder.

“Fuck yes!”

“Then on this day I bestow upon thee, here in the land of the vile Titans, the blade called…”

“Sansupurittā,” Thurwar finished.

“Yes, that. I bestow it upon you, Vanier Rico Muerte Reyes. Do you accept?”

“I do,” Rico said.

Staxxx sheathed the blade and presented it with two hands to a still-kneeling Rico. All the Links cheered; most of them had had a similar moment, and they knew what it meant to be given a proper chance to survive.

Rico stood up. “Let’s fucking go!”

“All right, three cheers for the boy getting some hair on his chest,” Gunny Puddles said. “Now I’d like to get some work in before the sun goes down.”

A-Hamm walked into the sun-swept soccer field holding their hammers and scythes and blades and tridents and all types of ways to kill. They stretched and then did a few weaponed laps around the field. Thurwar had made sure that all of the A-Hamm Links understood the weight of their weapons, the literal weight of them, as they exercised, to simulate as close an approximation of the BattleGround as possible.

“Let’s go,” Thurwar said. And they all followed. Thurwar had created a work plan for each Link. She used BP to buy video clips of their opponents and scrutinized the film, for the ways they left their bodies vulnerable. The night before, she and Staxxx had also strategized about how to help Rico make it through the weekend against Rainfall Lolli, a Cusp who definitely had Reaper potential, and they tried to game-plan Randy Mac’s next bout, against Raven Ways.

They all made sure to treat Mac just as they always had during training that day, to laugh or sometimes not laugh at his jokes, to respect him casually and easily, as it was understood that these were the last days of his life.

And even as they knew that, Thurwar and Staxxx worked with each other because their next match would be as trying as any they’d seen. They could only spend so much worry on Mac.