Survival of the Fittest Part 1: The Invitation
An underground competition is discovered after Becca is given an invitation from a shady source. The beginning to new adventures?
This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters are of legal and consenting age, likewise if you are reading this story you should be of legal age in your respective country.
Prologue:
In the year 2225AD technology has advanced to such a level that deep diving is no longer the realm of the rich and famous. Handheld portable devices now rivalled the supercomputers of the great space race era thanks to advancements in quantum technology. Interplanetary travel was as common as across country flights, even quicker with quantum folding or subspace travel.
The number of “Connected” individuals outnumbered the “Naturalists” by at least one hundred to one, the greater portion of earth’s population had some form of connection to the online world. Classic movies such as The Matrix and Ready Player One had become a reality, where people could almost spend their entire lives online in virtual worlds.
While it was possible for brain death to occur due to online death, with all the safeties and guards built into the technology this was an exceptionally rare case. However minor injuries were still a possibility, as The Matrix posited, the brain is powerful enough that if you were punched in the virtual world and your brain was given enough information, your body would bruise in the real world.
Likewise as some had also found that what worked for pain, also worked for pleasure. The standard Halo device, a sort of electronic collar worn around the neck which integrated into the access port at the base of the wearer’s neck both allowed for remote access to real world machinery as well as deep diving to varying degrees.
General everyday use of the Halo allowed for augmented reality without the need for bulky headwear or even glasses. One step further and the user would be in the top level of a dive, where virtual online meetings were done in remote person, saving companies on the need to travel to other countries or planets just to have a face to face meeting.
A full deep dive would completely immobilize the user’s body in the real world for their own safety, this would also allow additional sensory information to be passed on, providing a more realistic experience. Thanks to “Suggestive Programming” the workload of environments was primarily handled by the user’s brain, requiring much less computing power to generate realistic environments. The better the programming, the more vivid the world was, much like reading a book and letting your imagination provide the imagery, sounds and even tastes.
Becca was just finishing her latest “Dirty Dungeon” run and heading back into town to sell her loot she’d scored from her solo run. Walking a little bit funny thanks to that damned last handsy tentacle boss, she wondered if she should set the threshold on her custom sensitivity settings back a bit. But then again, she wasn’t getting as much of a thrill from these dungeons anymore, at most they just got her a bit worked up and she would have to sort herself out in the real world later anyway.
“Psst, hey Becca. C’mere, want to show you summin!” a soft raspy voice called out from the alleyway she’d just passed.
With a sigh and and slumping of her shoulders, Becca didn’t even turn around to face the voice. “What do you want Rat?” she asked with no small amount of annoyance in her voice.
“Oi, are you gonna c’mere or nawt? I got summin good for you, you dozy bint” Rat huffed at her from the entryway to the alleyway.
Grumbling as she turned on her heel and headed over to the short scrawny and pale figure hiding in the shadows, Becca took one step into the gloom and gave another annoyed “What?” at him.
“Ai noticed you been banging on in this here game a lot lately and I figured you was tough enough for something a bit more, how do you say…excoiting?” The ugly little man with yellowing teeth said with glee, clapping his misshapen hands together before rubbing them excitedly together.
“Not interested…” Becca started to say, but was cut short by Rat holding up a data window with a data bit showing the letters “SotF” emblazoned on them. Becca wasn’t new to the seedy underworld of deep diving, she’d heard rumours of this illegal fighting ring. They’d gotten a lot of attention from authorities due to their death battles in which fighters used to fight to the death in arenas. But after nearly getting caught, they’d decided on another approach to make money.
Becca snatched the data window from Rat’s grubby little hands and tossed him a gold coin for his troubles, tucking the data bit away for later reading as she headed back on her trails to cash out for the evening. Rat’s voice following her steps with a raspy “I knew you was gonna be interested!”
Later that evening as Becca sat soaking in her bathtub, she activated the augmented reality on her Halo to read the data bit for SotF. It appeared their new format was rather lucrative due to it being completely anonymous, there was no “Reflection of Self” images allowed, players would create an online animalistic persona. There were different tiers of competitions, ranging from novice all the way up to sponsored championships, all of which were watchable if people knew where to look.
There was absolutely no killing allowed, eliminations were done in one of three ways. Failure to Connect or Premature Disconnect, if a player was not able to connect to the arena on time or simply bugged out of their own accord was the first. The second was an environmental elimination, such things as traps or AI in the arena that could eliminate a player. Finally the last form was player elimination, each player had three strikes before being eliminated. These strikes took the form of “La petite mort”, or the little death. Players would fight one another with the ultimate goal of making their opponent climax. The loser lost a strike, while the winner either restored a strike if they were down one, or if at max strikes they could select a perk or special ability.
In each match there were sponsors of a sort, players could get a direct sponsor for performing acts in the matches, but this usually only occurred once a player had gotten enough of a following. There were also match contracts that any player could earn by doing requested acts, usually the prize money for these acts was a lot higher up in the higher tier games.
The requirement for no “Reflection of Self” avatars ensured that players would remain anonymous, likewise using an anthropomorphic character allowed the tournament to skirt current legislation and laws regarding virtual rape and abuse by claiming the players were not actually human. This was also achieved by a very specific backdoor method of connecting which allowed the tournament to adjust sensitivity settings beyond what was regulated normally.
Being a programmer and world builder herself, Becca did know a thing or two about what was required to gain access to the tournament. Looking through the code contained in the data bit, it looked as though whomever had designed this thing knew what they were doing as they’d managed to lock down exactly the right sensory feeds to heighten the pleasure while dulling pain to more tolerable levels so that even someone that had no skill fighting like Becca had would be able to compete on a level playing field. Likewise the connection algorithm did an outstanding job of hopping between servers without dropping the link so it would be practically untraceable by unwanted parties.
The last section of the data bit was a locked file that required Becca to verify her age, within the section there were two links. The first one was an invitation to watch a live broadcast in two days time, the second link was the activation process to make the adjustments to her Halo and connect to the tournament servers through a secure site to site encrypted connection.
The next two days passed agonizingly slowly, even the heavy amount of work she had to get through did not distract Becca from the thought of watching her first tournament. But eventually as daytime faded and dusk set in, Becca disconnected from her company network and closed all the blinds and curtains in her small apartment. Laying back on her bed, she engaged the augmented reality on her Halo to open the link to the tournament and was met with the expected warnings. What she was not expecting however was a request to verify her identity again, along with a brief psych evaluation by an online AI. But she supposed considering what she was about to see, the tournament organizers did not want anyone whom could not handle the idea of rape or righting to get beyond this point and cause potential problems for them. Once she’d passed the basic psych evaluation she was linked to a page showing the contestants for this match which happened to be the final of the first Quarter of Year championships, the finals being a sudden death one strike match.
This year there were only four finalists, three females and one male contestants. Becca smirked to herself at the thought, it seemed the girls were kicking ass this quarter. Clicking on each person’s profile would give a brief breakdown of the player’s stats and abilities. Looking at the numbers it looked as though only two of the four actually stood a chance of winning this thing, given the prize money up for grabs Becca guessed they would be giving it their all. Hell, if she was at that level of gameplay she could quit her job and just compete.
The top two players appeared to by Fyre and Grimm, Fyre looked to be some sort of tigress judging by the small portrait on her stat screen, while Grimm looked to be like a wolf or maybe a husky. Becca wasn’t really good with animals, but the tiger stripes on Fyre meant even she could spot a tiger from a mile away.
Just as she was about to look more at the other two players a countdown began with a request for Becca to allow second level dive, which she accepted and was ported into a black room where she was floating weightlessly. As the counter reached zero Becca found herself dropped down into the arena, floating a few feet above the ground. With a mere thought she found she could fly around and watch different fights as they occurred.
The first person she spotted was Fyre as she dropped into the arena, but as Becca flew over to watch her, the tigress vanished before her eyes. “Stealth is an ability?” Becca thought to herself, just when she noticed an odd see through blur moving not far from where Fyre had vanished. “Aah, how very classic Predator of them” she laughed to herself as she watched the shape stalk deeper into ruined buildings.
Deciding that was going to be too annoying to watch for very long, she instead flew over to another entry point, soon finding another contestant she never got the name of. This was not Grimm apparently as she was looking down at what appeared to be sleek looking snake girl. Becca had heard of furries before but never quite understood the attraction before, at least until now. There was something hypnotic with how the snake girl slithered along, possessing no legs but having humanoid arms with a snakelike face and the hood of a cobra. Her scales along her back shone like rich polished emerald, a pearlescent sheen when the light caught her just right. Despite her size the snake girl made exceptionally little noise as she moved swiftly, wearing no clothing save for her pert scaled breasts covered in a metal brassier and a pair of iconic metal wristbands. Again Becca scoffed to herself as being a major nerd she recognized Wonder Woman’s wrist guards anywhere. It seemed there were also special items players could obtain for whatever reason.
Becca was rather entranced by the diamond patterns on this snake girl’s hood as it seemed to flare every time she stopped to flick her forked tongue out and taste the air. Briefly wondering if this was another ability players could get, or if this was just an animation tied to the player’s model. The way she seemed to change direction and head off with purpose seemed to indicate it was an active ability as the snake girl tracked something through the forest. After a few moments of stalking, Becca could see what she was stalking, just ahead of the snake was what looked to be a wolf, Grimm was busy stalking someone else and had not noticed he was also being hunted himself.
Off in the distance, moving swiftly between the trees was a slender feline of some sort running along the edge of the treeline. Grimm had risen up and was taking aim with a bow and arrow, but looking at the arrow it looked to be some form of trap with the bulbous tip. Slowly panning to the side as he tracked what looked to be like a cheetah female, drawing his string back taut and just about to fire when the snake struck.
Her long tail slithering up between Grimm’s feet, twitching on the ground a moment before with a sudden thwack she whipped it up between the wolfs legs. With a pained squeal Grimm dropped his bow in order to clutch at his aching balls, tears in his eyes as he doubled over and collapsed to the ground.
A musical laugh started as the snake slithered over the wolf, gripping his wrists and yanking them away from his crotch where her tail would wrap about them to pin them above his head. “Aww, what’s the matter puppy. Did mommy crack some eggs?” the snake girl mocked the wolf whom was still clearly in pain.
“Fuck you Selena! That was a cheap shot you whore!” Grimm growled out at the snake, snarling and trying to bite at her face.
“Don’t worry puppy, mommy will kiss it better” Selena replied with a sickly sweet mocking voice as she slithered around to face Grimm’s feet. Her delicate humanoid hands ripping away his loincloth to reveal a rather anatomically correct canine crotch, complete with sheath and fuzzy balls. Becca flew down to get a closer look and found she could land on the ground and walk around, kneeling beside the pair like some sort of invisible voyeur as Selena began to grope and caress Grimm despite his growls and protests telling her to fuck off.
“This must be the reason for the heightened pleasure setting” Becca though as she watched in awe as a very thick red canine cock began to slide free of Grimm’s sheath. Selena wasted no time in slithering her long forked tongue around his length as she cupped and rolled his balls in her palm. Clearly the wolf was not reacting fast enough for her yet so she upped the ante. Her lips met his tapered tip with a little kiss, pausing for a moment to listen to his gasp of pleasure which brought a sadistic smile to them. Her lips would part as she sunk her maw down over the impressive length of cock, quickly getting into a fast paced bobbing motion as she rather noisily sucked the wolf off. The sounds vivid enough to make Becca blush and she wasn’t even technically involved here. All the while as Selena worked his cock, Grimm would be struggling and writhing, trying to break free of her grasp to no avail. The way his hips started bucking off the ground and even the minute detail of his fuzzy orbs tucking up closer to his body, Selena knew she had him.
Though she would pause long enough to mock him one last time “This is payback for eliminating me last time by fucking my ass for that contract, asshole!” She hissed and went right back to sucking on his cock. With a howl and one last buck of his hips, Grimm let loose his climax and fired off thick ropes of sticky white cum into the snake’s mouth.
“Damn this programming is good” Becca thought as she could even smell the wolfs cum in the air while watching his defeated avatar pixelate and dissolve on the ground, followed by a loud buzzer and a flash across the sky stating that “Player Grimm : Eliminated by player”, to which Selena laughed and licked her lips. Her long forked tongue began flicking again as she searched for one of the other two remaining contestants, grinning as she caught the scent of someone and began to slither off towards them.
Becca floated up off the ground again and pursued the snake once more, following her as she stalked her prey, but after only another few moments there was another buzzer sound. Looking up she saw the display “Player Starr: Eliminated by player”, apparently Fyre had eliminated the cheetah girl somehow. Clearly Selena wasn’t happy about this as she heard the snake utter a single “Shit!” as she read the notice before heading onwards. Considering the skill Selena showed, Becca was curious how good this Fyre person was.
She wouldn’t have to wait long however as Selena came to the edge of the woods, staring down into the ruined buildings not far off, scanning the area where she had caught the tigress scent but there seemed to be no sign of her. Cautiously the snake moved in and crept up to the side of a building, waiting patiently to listen for any movement, only moving when she was satisfied there was none. Moving steadily deeper into the eerily quiet and dimly lit ruined structures, the only light coming from broken windows or holes in the ceilings and floors above. Even here Becca noted she could smell the damp of moss on the walls and fetid pools of water, along with a faint chill in the air of the more shaded areas.
Selena stopped every few moments to scent the air with her tongue, a little grin curling her lips as she seemed to have an idea of where Fyre was. Going extra slow as she rounded a corner into an empty hall with a large hole in the ceiling casting a ring of light on the black and white checkered pattern floor below, Selena paused briefly as she reached the edge of the light, looking around in confusion and scenting the air again. Clearly something was telling her Fyre should be right in front of her, but the room was empty. Slithering into the light and poking at the floor with her tail to test for traps, she found none. Hissing in frustration as she slowly turned around and scanned the shadows, looking for any sign of the tigress but finding none.
It was then Becca caught movement out the corner of her eye, up on the ceiling there was a see-through shape shifting and moving above Selena. Becca almost cried out to warn her before realizing she was just a voiceless spectator and couldn’t alert the snake to the impending danger. But it was too late anyway, Fyre made her move and dove down onto an unsuspecting Selena’s back, driving her hard into the ground with a sickening thud. With amazing speed Fyre slammed something down on each of Selena’s wrists before doing a backflip off of the snake to land over her tail, which she wrapped an odd looking chord around before tossing the other end over an exposed pipe in the ceiling. With her wrists pinned to the ground, Fyre yanked on the chord to lift the snake’s tail off the floor and removed all her leverage, also exposing the snake to the tigress attacks.
“Never thought this little earthworm would manage to eliminate Grimm, thanks for getting him out my way” The tigress purred to the snake with a voice that could make a deaf nun wet. Getting a better look at the tigress, Becca could understand why these avatars were so popular. The brilliant contrast of the orange fur and black stripes, combined with piercing blue feline eyes seemed to hit multiple senses at once. Nature told Becca to run away from the tiger before her, but those eyes and the voice beckoned her in, almost like a Siren song.
Becca’s heart skipped a beat as Fyre looked directly at her and winked, she wasn’t meant to see the viewers so how did she know Becca was there? Becca panicked and backed away for a moment, wary of the tigress and her unnatural powers of observation. However when Fyre’s head turned to face Selena’s exposed crotch, Becca was drawn in to get a better look. Leaning in so close she swear she could hear Fyre’s rough tongue rasp against the snakes exposed slit, the soft scales offering little protection from a rough tigress tongue. Strong striped paws gripped the snake’s hips as Fyre made out with Selena’s cunt. Becca guessed that seeing as this was the final, they’d probably jacked the pleasure sensors to the make to ensure a good show judging by how Selena was already whimpering and thrashing about. Fyre didn’t relent however, didn’t even stop to taunt the captured snake like Selena had taunted Grimm. The tigress dutifully lapped and suckled on the snake’s pussy until finally with a cry of pleasure Selena went limp, her belly glistening brilliantly with her expelled fluids in the light.
Fyre stood back with a grin as she watched Selena’s avatar pixelate and dissolve before her before the buzzer sounded and fireworks began exploding overhead. This time no text announcement was made, rather a classic deep gamer voice announced “Flawless victory! Fyre Wins!”
With a sudden whoosh and rushing sensation, feeling like she was being pulled backwards into her bed, Becca lay staring at a blinking green cursor on a black background. Her hand curiously slipped beneath her underwear as she traced a finger along her womanhood, finding herself rather slick to the touch.
“Damn, if I got this wet from watching the tournament, what will actually competing in one be like?” She wondered before opening the data bit again and looking at the second link with more than a little curiosity.