"The human body is amazing in its ability to recover," the woman said. "When a woman is injured, a bullet is often the easiest solution," Ms. Helene said, "But we don't always have to take the easiest solution as the best. Sometimes allowing an entertainer to live is a useful option."

"A bullet works," Hallie said, remembering the string of exciting dispatches she had witnessed. “Why deny an audience the thrill of an extra killing when its so easily done?"

"Some of our weapons are designed to permit recovery from the damage they do for the visual stimulation of the gamblers," Ms. Helene said, "as long as the fighters know that they can absorb a bit of pain for the good of the organization, and get on with the fight. If we can heal them to save a special skill, its sometimes worthwhile."

"I think you're setting me up for some news," Hallie said. "Have you got an assignment in mind for me?"

"Yes, but it will require you spend the next three weeks getting in shape for this particular sport. Let me show you how this one works. It's not a new sport for us, but it is incredibly entertaining, with proper training." She took a long briefcase from under her desk and opened it. Hallie stood up to see what she had. It was a photograph of a rusty iron implement.

"The idea for these weapons came from an ancient torture tool found in a torture chamber, now a museum, in the Castle in Prague. During medieval times people were imprisoned, and to control them this device, fitted to a long pole, was placed on either side of the neck over the shoulders, and the man using it could jerk it forward, digging the hooks into the shoulder meat of the prisoner. We've adapted the idea to make weapons for some of our fighting women to wear in the ring in a special competition to grasp her enemy and move her around by her meat. It's a simple but lovely idea when you think of it. I love it.

"These are worn on your arms," she said, lifting a pair of implements out of the case. “Their inspiration came from the ancient torture implement in the photo.” They were quite simple, when explained to Hallie, who was enthralled at the idea and listened attentively. There were two strong elasticized armbands, one to go around the arm just below the elbow and the other around the wrist. When pulled on there was a ¼ inch steel rod that ran between them along the back of the arm. The ridges along the back of the rod allowed the wearer to use her arm to scrape and gouge flesh with a sliding motion.

After the attachment to the ring on the back of the wrist band the steel rod divided, like the ancient fork did, and the two branches passed through small rings on the end of a wooden dowel held in the fist of the wearer. The two parts of the rod extended five inches past the fist on either side of it, then each part split again into curved two-inch hooks, so that there were four hooks for each arm.

"These are kewl!" Hallie said.

"Cool," Ms. Helene said. "They are used to grip your opponent, and because this model doesn't have barbs, can be released easily. They are very sharp on the end, much sharper than the crude iron original in the medieval torture chamber, but they are not sharp on the sides, so they make only puncture wounds. We have another model with larger hooks that are barbed and have a sharp inner edge, so that when pulled it will slice, and removed it will rip your opponent’s meat. These only puncture, so that the wound will bleed for great visuals, but the weapon can't be used to rip muscle, so healing is virtually ensured.

"Then what's the point?" Hallie asked.

"The strategy is to use these to keep your opponent hugged in close and control her. Here's how the real damage is done." She reached into the case and brought out another pair of devices, these quite a bit smaller. "This goes on your shoe, around the foot. You get one for each foot, and as you can see they are quite different. One has another puncture weapon, two inches long, which can damage the legs or any part of your opponent you can get at with a kick to give her a puncture wound, just as the arm weapons do. The one that goes on the other shoe is for killing."

"Wow!" Hallie said as she saw the other device. It securely fastened to a shoe. On it was a short gutting hook, only two inches long, otherwise similar to a carpet hook used for ripping carpet. It arched up from the toe of the shoe, then curved downward, with the tip and lower edge sharpened, appearing to be an evil claw, which in fact it was.

"This weapon will rip her wide open, given the right pressure," Ms. Helene explained unnecessarily. "It is quite short so that it won't rip intestines or organs, just the outer meat of her sides or belly, and is used to open her by ripping her bacon. We have revised an earlier weapon, and it has tested well when we tried it on humans."

"I'd keep the bitch wearing one of those really close to me so she couldn't get the gutting hook on her foot into my belly!" Hallie said. She saw how effective the blade could be on the foot of a skilled fighter.

"That takes a lot of dexterity and strength. Conditioning is critical, and requires an intense training regime. Do you think you're mentally ready to do the training necessary for a kill with these?"

"You bet I am!" she said. Hallie was surprised when she heard herself say that. In a very short time she had undergone an incredible change in attitude. She couldn't believe she was going to get to use these on another woman. She was now being given a real kill assignment. She'd be the main event on the card! They were going to put her into a real fight to the death!

Hallie took one of the arm mounted hook devices and put her hand through the larger band. She pulled it up her arm then put her hand through the smaller band. It was a tight fit, but was slightly stretchable, so that she got her hand through it and grasped the wooden dowel in her fist. The four small hooks were very sharp, and she imagined digging them into the flesh of another woman.

"I love these!" she said. She realized her opponent would be armed with the same weapons, and realized she would take many deep punctures, but also knew they would not be life threatening and would heal. "It's just a matter of keeping totally focused," she said, "ignoring her hooks in me, like the other girl using her hooks digging into me wouldn't be a distraction."

"That's right, Hallie, you've got the right idea. I'm putting you onto the card for three weeks from tonight. We'll have you fight here in Chicago, while gamblers will still remember your last fight here."

"That was my only fight," Hallie said. She had been kept busy but had not been put into combat, and resented that.

"Well, lets invent some battles you have been in for the record, lets say in the London and Moscow casinos. How about 2 kills in each?"

"I'd rather have the fights," she said. "I don't like lies about my abilities. It's not fair to me or to the gamblers."

"When did you become concerned with fair? The gamblers all want to believe whatever we tell them, and the extra history boosts the gambling. That's the business we're in, and what we have to encourage them to place the large bets, no matter what it takes."

"Have you got an opponent in mind for me?"

"As a matter of fact I have," Ms. Helene said, smiling. "How would you like to get back in the ring with your first opponent, Vivian?"

"Hell yes!" she said. "I'd really love to do that bitch!"

"Good for you, Hallie," Ms. Helene Brazier said. "Like you, she has been busy since your fight. Her activity has been in training, and in the ring."

"She's had fights?" Hallie asked, incredulous.

"Indeed she has, in fact she's had three fights with these devices, and she has done very well."

"Doing very well is not an option," Hallie said. "As I understand it, with these things you either gut your opponent or get gutted."

"That's an accurate summation, and she has earned three kills with these. She has become quite a good fighter. You picked her and can take credit for bringing us such a good bet producer. I’m offering you the chance to complete her fight career by providing her the only escape clause."

'Holy Shit!' Hallie thought to herself, 'three fights and three kills behind her already! All of them were with these things. The husband thief bitch really turned out to be a fighter!' "I've only had that one fight," she said, "and no kills. Why haven't I been getting more fights?"

"We've been grooming you to do some very special things for us, and you have been progressing very well," Ms. Helene said. "We have a new idea for increasing the level of gambling on fights, and want you to help us with the project. Do you think you might be interested?"

Hallie was cautious in her response. "What do you have in mind?"

"Something very innovative. A set of back to back fights. Posted as a single event."

"How would that work?"

"When you fight Vivian, the winner would face another opponent, immediately!"

"You mean a fresh fighter would come into the ring after I beat her, even if I'm wounded?"

"Exactly. You will remember you also nominated your boss, the lady who so unfairly fired you, Miss Wendy Watson."

"Have you got her too? Is she going to be a Business Woman now?" This idea excited her. That filthy bitch belonged on the losing end of a death fight if anyone did. She was a bit stocky, and would make a great fighter with the right motivation, like saving her smutty ass.

"Wendy is here, and she has some ring experience, with two fights under her belt, including a ring kill. Her kill was with an ice pick - it was quite creative; she and her opponent entered the ring with their arms bound behind their backs, and each with the stout wooden handle of their ice pick jammed into her rectum, so that the spike stuck out of their bums like a hornet's stinger! She took some deep puncture wounds, and also got some damage from her opponent's spike heeled kicking shoes, but she is healing well.

During her kill fight she got her ice pick into the body of her opponent several times, driving it in deep by using her weight. She got her opponent down and sat on her, driving her ice pick into the woman’s big left breast, and effected her kill by putting her full weight to bear drove it down into the screaming lady's heart. Her opponent was a woman she knew that worked out at the same gym.

They were in fact taken together, along with several others. Both were highly competitive, and although they were friends, it didn’t take us long to get them to willingly take part in the Black Widow sport. Wendy is perfectly suited to these claw weapons. We will have her ready as your second opponent, or in the off chance you should lose, as Vivian's next opponent."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence!" Hallie said. She knew she could take them both, one at a time or together. They were cunts, not fighters. All they knew how to do was fuck married men. Other women’s husbands.

"We are always prepared for any eventuality, and you don't have a ring kill to your credit yet. Let's see how well you do at this. First we'll have to get you in shape for these weapons, and trained to use them." Hallie was suddenly feeling very anxious. She was starting to experience a well known side effect of the stream of drugs used on girls regularly to manage their attitude. Ms. Helene Brazier was constantly aware of the symptoms in the girls and women she supervised, and made a prompt intervention.

"Time for us to get at it then, don't you think?" Hallie nodded in agreement. "You have been in a custom development program, and your progress has been excellent," she said. "Now it's time to whip you into shape to handle the rigors of using these enhancements." She stood, her chain rattling on her chair as she moved, and walked to the door.

The unexpected part of the training was the use of an ancient torture device, an accurate reproduction of the one in the photo Ms. Helene had shown her, which was both simple and elegant in its design. It consisted of a pole not unlike an oversized rake handle, with a two-pronged fork, the prongs 9 inches apart. The ends split into two, and rolled into sharp curved hooks on the ends, exactly like the claw weapons, but narrower, to enable earlier healing.

Sheila used the device to condition the women in her charge to receiving puncture wounds, using the handle to keep them at bay so that the trained fighters could not retaliate. The points were long enough to dig severely into their naked meat, but only to a depth of ¾ of an inch, not deep enough to completely perforate the muscle.

Sheila used the bizarre torture implement on their sides and backs, but primarily she used it in the style suggested by its design: she pushed the tongs on either side of the subject woman's neck so that she could dig the barbs into the back of their shoulders while using their neck to hold them back. By moving the handle up and down she could vary the place of back puncture, digging it in with a jerk then quickly pushing it away to withdraw the hooks from their punctured meat.

The ladies screamed at the violent abuse they were subjected to, but realized it was for their own good, when they would have to face an adversary with double the stabbing power on her fists, and while taking the hooks into their back continue to be aggressive while under this kind of brutal attack. The training was to build character in the fighters.

The trainer also gave the girls perforation wounds on their arms, buttocks and the back of their legs, just to get them fully primed. She even dug the barbs between ribs, hooking a rib and pulling, which was what the girls saw happening to others on the videos of real fights. For her own enjoyment she thrust the weapon between their legs and twisted it, digging it into either their buttocks or their inner thighs. It was tough work, but somebody had to do it.

It would never do to risk infection, so before they began a session and immediately after, the girls and the weapon were dipped into a bath of alcohol, which after training was far more painful than the invasion of their conditioned meat by the sharp points of the training tool. The alcohol also reduced bleeding, so that the girls were not weakened, allowing them to resume weight training. Because the alcohol was also very dehydrating, their dip in it was immediately followed by a cream rubdown.

This part of the training suddenly ended with ten days to go before the fight, to allow for complete healing of the narrow puncture wounds before the women entered the death-fight ring. There should be no sign of injury or scars when they entered the D-Ring. What continued was the conditioning, which was critical to the effective use of such technical weapons. Strength, flexibility and endurance were the focus of her physical training, and Hallie loved it.

The other and most exciting part of their training was the two days each girl had in a small room with an unarmed middle-aged woman. They were fitted with their weapons so that they could practice using them on a human target. When she took her for the first such session Ms. Helene explained to Hallie that this woman, naked but with the hair, makeup and bearing of a wealthy upper middle class lady, had been picked up at a taxi stand outside the Chicago Opera House.

The cab driver was one of the D-Ring recruitment technicians. His job was simply to operate the taxi, a stolen vehicle with fake licence plates and painted to resemble a cab in the Yellow fleet, and to pick up someone provided him by the man acting like a doorman, a man also on the recruiting team. The woman's identification, which was safely confiscated along with her clothing, showed her to be 46 years old.

The rich bitch was in good shape for someone her age, had a firm bosom, and displayed a haughty attitude. Hallie was impressed. She had a rich bitch to herself as a training partner, and on the afternoon of the second day with her would be allowed to use her foot blades to rip, gut alive and then kill the arrogant woman! Her mentors were now recognizing her as a serious cunt fighter!

The sessions with the captive wealthy woman were everything Hallie could have wanted. On the first morning she wore only one of her weapons, and in the fifteen minutes she was given she discovered how to place, jerk in, then jerk out the hooks. The woman fought to defend herself, but was neither as fit as Hallie nor armed, and she was left on her knees, screaming hysterically as she pissed on the floor at the end of the session. In the afternoon the woman was still bleeding from her morning wounds.

Clearly infection was not a concern, because before it could set in the wealthy cunt would be dead. The afternoon session was half an hour long, and Hallie practiced hugging the woman to herself, digging the weapons into her back and jerking them out while rubbing her vagina against the struggling and screaming woman's cleanly shaved pubic mound. This was far better than sex, and she had three big orgasms during the hot session!

During the training session on the second morning Hallie practiced flipping the nude woman around while keeping her from using her shapely and strong legs. It would never do to allow an enemy woman to use her legs and get her feet up to use her foot blade. Although this kidnapped wealthy mature bitch was unarmed, she struggled as if she had a chance to hurt Hallie, which made the exercise session more interesting. She did get in a painful shot when she slammed her knee up into Hallie’s cunt so hard the armed nude could feel her uterus jerk back inside her.

When she had the woman flipped so that she could mount her back, Hallie dug her sharp weapons into the woman's impressive breasts, belly and cheeks. The woman grabbed her head and pulled her hair, but by doing that she just helped to simulate real fight conditions. Hallie pressed her groin hard against the woman's buttocks and back as the bitch squirmed, and found it was a great way to control the cunt while keeping out of reach of her feet.

She also knew how difficult it would be to effect a kill from this angle. The hooks could puncture but not rip the bitch’s belly meat, and there was no way she could reach with her legs and twist her feet around to get at the bitch's exposed belly. The kill would have to be done from the front.

The woman saw the weapons on Hallie's high-heeled shoes when she entered for her final session with her after lunch. The wealthy captive summoned new strength, realizing how desperate her situation had become, and she put up a fight that was very useful in Hallie's training. To make the fight simulation more realistic, the woman had been given the powerful stimulant shot to enhance her resistance and incite aggression.

Hallie would only get a chance to use the shoe-mounted gutting blade on her training woman once before her real fight, and this was it. Hallie tried several ways to get her leg up without exercising the final blow, to give her as much experience as possible considering she was fighting a woman much older than her opponents who was also unarmed. She did kick the blade into the woman's cunt several times, and jerked it out at various angles, totally demolishing the wealthy lady's dong holster.

When she was at last ready she kicked the blade hard into the woman's lower belly in several places, then using her hooks deeply sunk in under the woman's shoulder blades, lifted herself up so she could get the blade into the woman's solar plexus just below the sternum, then in a powerful lift, was able to stand on it, bringing to bear her entire weight.

The result was as good as she anticipated when she had planned the move. The woman's eyes bulged as the blade sliced down through her tense bacon, ripping her down beside her navel until it finally reached her pelvic bone above her bleeding cunt. She was fully ripped. The powerful Mrs. Griswald J. Sears was now reduced to an opened bag of shapely flesh.

The big bitch's legs had, by reflex, braced to take Hallie's weight, and under the shock of being torn open down the front her legs slowly sagged, and she sunk to her knees. Hallie backed off her, jerking her shoe-blade free, and watched as the woman gradually bowed, leaned slowly forward, and they both watched, as did the room's cameras, as the woman's pink and purple viscera slowly slithered out of her, forming a steaming pile in the pool of her blood between her spread knees.

Hallie moved behind the kneeling bitch and dug her hooks repeatedly into the exposed neck, until she perforated a major artery which supplied blood to the brain, and her unarmed sparring partner, her first kill, toppled onto the heap of her own viscera.