Harry groggily took stock of his surroundings just as the Korban stomped up, lifted up its immense foot, and brought it down square on Harry’s chest, giving him the sensation of involuntary defibrillation. Harry watched as the foot lifted up again and noted two large hexagonal depressions in them. The part of his brain that had earlier marveled at the physiology of the Korba recognized these as the places where the body would take in water; they would have to be at least that large to grow the body as quickly as it did.
The rest of Harry’s brain told that part to shut the hell up and move, because that foot was coming down again. Harry groaned and rolled, and bounced a little as the impact of the foot on the floor where Harry had just been caused everything to vibrate. Harry crawled away and then scrambled to his feet, narrowly missing a kick that would have sent him into a wall.
The Korban lumbered after Harry, swinging at him as the crowd cheered. The alien was quick because its size allowed it to cover distance quickly, but as it swung at Harry, he realized that its attacks were slower than they were before. There was too much inertia going on here for the Korban to turn on a dime or make quick strikes. Harry suspected that when two Korba fought in this round, they basically stood in the middle of the gym and beat the hell out of each other until one of them collapsed. That strategy wouldn’t work here. Harry thought back on the first round, where the smaller Korba’s size was an advantage—size and the fact it knew its way around a bongka. Now the situations were reversed; Harry’s smaller size could work to his advantage, and the Korban, in this size, wouldn’t know how to fight something smaller.
Let’s test that, Harry thought, and suddenly ran at the Korba. The Korba took a mighty swing at Harry; Harry ducked it, got in close, and jammed an elbow into the Korban’s midsection. Whereupon he discovered to his dismay that thanks to their engorgement, hitting the Korban’s plates was just like punching concrete.
Oops, Harry thought, and then screamed as the Korban grabbed him by his hair and lifted him. Harry caught hold of the arm lifting him so his scalp wouldn’t tear off. The Korban commenced punching him in the ribs, cracking a few more. Through the pain, Harry levered himself on the Korban’s arm and kicked upward, jamming his big toe into the Korban’s snout; clearly it was the one body part of the Korban’s that Harry was having luck with today. The Korban howled and dropped Harry; he flopped down and thudded to the floor on his back. Before he could roll away the Korban stamped on his chest like a piston, once, twice, three times.
Harry felt a sickening stab. He was reasonably sure he had a punctured lung. The Korban stamped again, forcing fluid out of Harry’s mouth. Definitely a punctured lung, he thought.
The Korban raised his foot again and this time aimed for Harry’s head, taking a moment to perfect his aim.
Harry reached up and grabbed the top of the Korban’s foot with his left hand; with his right he formed his fingers into a point and jammed them into one of the hexagonal depressions as hard as he could. As he did, Harry could feel something tear: the fleshy valve that closed to keep the water inside the Korban. It tore, and a spray of warm water pushed out of the Korban’s foot and splashed over Harry.
The Korban offered an unspeakably horrible scream as the unexpected pain obliterated any other focus and tried to shake Harry off. Harry hung on, jamming his fingers further into the valve. He wrapped his left arm around the Korban’s lower leg and squeezed, juicing the Korban. Water sprayed on the floor. The Korban hopped, frantically attempting to dislodge Harry, and slipped on the disgorged liquid. It fell backward, causing the entire floor to quake. Harry switched positions and now started pushing on the leg from the bottom, forcing even more water out of it; he could actually see the leg deflating. The Korban howled and writhed; he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Harry figured that if the judges had any brains at all, they would have to call the round any second now.
Harry looked over to Schmidt. Schmidt looked at him with something akin to raw terror on his face. It took Harry a minute to figure out why.
Oh, right, Harry thought to himself. I’m supposed to lose.
Harry sighed and stopped juicing the Korban, letting the leg go. The Korban, still in pain, eventually sat up and looked at Harry, with a look that Harry could only imagine was complete confusion. Harry walked over and knelt down into the Korban’s face.
“You have no idea how much it kills me to do this,” Harry said, reached out to the Korban’s face and made a grabbing motion. Then he stuck his thumb out from between his index and middle fingers and showed it to the Korban. The Korban stared at him, non-comprehending.
“Look,” Harry said. “I got your nose.”
The Korban swung a haymaker straight into Harry’s temple, and the lights went out.
*
“That’s really not the way we expected you to do that,” Schmidt said.
From his bunk, Harry tried very hard not to grimace. Facial expressions hurt. “You asked me to keep it close, and you asked me to lose,” he said, moving his jaw as little as humanly possible.
“Yes,” Schmidt said. “But we didn’t think you’d make it so obvious.”