* * *

“While the other arenas are exploding into violence, let’s take a look over at the tidal pools, where our last five girls have begun their explorations. Unlike previous arenas, it’s natural hazards that are likely to be more trouble than manufactured ones here. The slick rock of the arena doesn’t make for great traps, but it’s wonderful for slipping and getting hurt – and, of course, the tides come in and roll out pretty quickly. Let’s see how the girls are doing.”

An aerial camera zooms down, picking out a flash of red against the dark grey rocks. It catches a middle eastern woman in her late twenties, fairly tall and of average weight, with her hair tied back into a very short ponytail that covered only her neck, and with her C-cup breasts covered by her red bikini. “Zahida hails from Afghanistan, where she’s built a home and lived there since her husband’s death in the last war. Money’s running out, though, and the local government is planning to seize her assets for non-payment of taxes – and bribes. With a choice between the street and probable death, Zahida’s taking the brave choice. If she does die, she’s leaving her cash to her mother.” Zahida has climbed up for a moment, and is now descending from the exposed upper cliffs to the winding pathways at the base. She starts across the bottom quickly, looking up every few seconds in case Shen Lee has spotted her.

Instead, turning a corner, she comes face to face with another contestant, a waifish African girl not more than twenty-two, with large surprised eyes and long, braided hair, wearing a pale yellow dress. “Wait!” She says quickly, seeing the instant distrust in Zahida’s eyes. She looks back and forth, and then smiles. “I’m Naledi. I met you on the plane.”

Zahida watches Naledi suspiciously. “Yes.” She agrees, keeping close to the cliff wall. “And?”

“And I think we should work together, just for a little while.” Naledi holds up her hands quickly. “None of the other girls will be!” She says quickly. “We can work together to the last pylon, avoid traps and help each other out. Either way, our others will get a payoff, and if a hunter gets close, we can split and he’ll only get one of us.”

Zahida doesn’t look convinced, but she slowly nods. She and Naledi start off to the west. “That’ll be a mistake, sports fans. Zahida’s right to be suspicious – Naledi, who incidentally hails from South Africa, is a bit of an odd duck. See, she’s fallen head over heels with Saul DeLasse, over in the carnival area, and wants to be a part of his exquisitely painful art. She’s hoping to act as a traitor for him, leading other girls to his clutches. Of course… she’s in the wrong arena, so let’s see if she can survive the tidal pools, before we see if Saul’s interested in her unorthodox offer.”

Meanwhile, a Korean woman, twenty-five years old, with hair tending towards lanky, stick-thin and slightly malnourished but with perfectly round tiny breasts, is sticking to high ground, trying to cross a rocky bridge between two cliffs. Her white dress, already starting to look dirty, is riding up over her thin hips as she inches her way forwards on her hands and knees, whimpering as she tries not to look down. “Mi-Young is looking a little out of her depth, isn’t she? This little vixen hails from Seoul, South Korea, where she was living the exciting life of a homeless beggar, making ends meet as best she could. I get the feeling that the recruiter who suggested Babehunt to her played up the money and played down, well… this.”

Far below Mi-Young, another woman looks up, then shivers and keeps walking, quickly taking a side turn to avoid being within eyeshot of whomever is up above. She is a curvaceous Arabic woman, in her mid-twenties, with her jet-black hair tied into a braid that coils down her back. Her breasts and hips are large, and her muscles are noticeable even under the pale grey dress that she wears, but she seems extremely worried and jumpy, flinching at the slightest movement and sound. “Inaya hails from Egypt, where she lives with her brother and is currently looking for a husband. Sadly, her dear brother has need of a new liver, and the family can’t afford it. Isn’t it nice to see a girl willing to die for her brother? I’m just tearing up. I hope she gets somewhere.”

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, our Babequest Special Babe of the Year! You’re just going to jump out of your seats with shock, I promise you.” The camera cuts to a young woman with dyed-blonde hair, dark makeup, and a nice tan, wearing a black bikini that seems to sparkle in the sun. She is entirely focused on her goals, carefully crossing a tidal cliff and paying very little attention to her surroundings. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are lucky enough to have with us Haley Pike, the noted pop signer and actress. Well… formerly noted, anyway. Miss Pike’s latest single, ‘Inside Your Dreams’, debuted at #98 on the charts last month, and her personal fortunes are plummeting. Well, a wise man once said that once you’ve been famous, you can never go back, and we all know what the best way to revive music sales are – the death of the artist. And if she does win, well… that’s the sort of death-defying attitude that the kids of today just love.”

“But the question is… where is our hunter? Shen’s been off-camera for the last little while, so he’s got to be following someone… I wonder who.”

The camera pans across to a lowered pool, at the bottom of which a golden pylon glitters. “Hope he finds them soon. Mi-Young, Zahida, and Naledi are all closing in on the pylon, only an hour into the match. Is Shen losing his touch?”

Mi-Young, having slipped close to the pylon by virtue of keeping herself pressed against her pillar, sees her objective, and looks around for a crossing point. Just ahead of her, she spots a likely climb down to the pylon’s location, and starts to once again inch slowly across the pylon. As she does, the camera pans down… to a figure pressed upside-down against the stone bridge, directly opposite where the girl is climbing. As she inches forwards, he silently reaches to the rock, detaching a metal manacle that has been pressed up out of sight, and revealing that it is connected to a chain looped around the rock. The chain begins to fall down. “Now that is cunning. Unable to set many traps, Lee has instead taken the time to drill some restraints across the pools, letting him move subtly when he needs to.” Lee reaches up, just as silently, and as Mi-Young’s thin ankle starts to rise, the manacle snaps shut on it. The girl reacts with a shriek, starting to shuffle forwards as she flails back at the sudden pressure on her leg. As she does, Lee swings around with impressive acrobatics, landing on the ledge straddling the girl with an extra pair of manacles in hand. Mi-Young squirms under his grip as he grabs her wrists, pulling her and arching her back as he expertly locks the manacle to one wrist, then loops it around the chain on her leg before locking it to the other. In moments, three of Mi-Young’s four limbs are hog-tied together, leaving her helpless on the narrow stone bridge with a killer sitting on her. “No…” She gasps out, tears in her eyes. Shen ignores her, standing up and looking down at his prize, and then reaches under the bridge again, pulling out a twenty-pound weight on a short chain, attached to another manacle. Mi-Young’s eyes go wide.

“No, please!” She begs, realizing what is about to happen. “I’ll…” Whatever she was about to offer is lost. Shen attaches the final manacle, and easily pushes the weight off the bridge. Mi-Young, off-balance and frail, follows a moment later. Shen keeps hold of the dress, which tears away and leaves the girl to her fate. Unfortunately for her, Shen has judged his distance, and set his chains, well. Mi-Young falls only eight feet before the chains catch her, and screams as both of her legs are instantly dislocated. The weight on the chain then starts to pull it loose, and the girl falls with a series of agonizing, shuddering jerks, until the chain finally reaches its end. The girl is now suspended, with the weight on her one foot just on the surface of the now two-inch deep water of the tidal pool, and her other leg forced into a vertical split pointing straight up. Her body is twisted into a painful contortion by her arms, forced behind her back and up her rising leg and looking to be on the verge of dislocation themselves, and her head is almost upside-down at a painful angle. She whimpers, vision swimming, and struggles vainly to move her arms down or pull her body up.

“Much better.” The two words are whispered from behind her, and she tries to twist to see who spoke – unsurprisingly, it is Shen, who took a slightly more leisurely route down, arriving while she was struggling not to pass out. His pants are open, revealing his nine-inch cock, and he steps up to Mi-Young’s painfully stretched pussy with a very slight smile. She screams again as he rams into her, the agony spiking through her legs and causing her to pass out again. Shen continues to fuck her, clearly enjoying her agonized whimpers even while unconscious.

It is the splash of water that wakes her, as a sudden wave touches her forehead. Mi-Young’s eyes blink open, to find that the tide is coming in, and has risen up to her knee – and her hair. Shen is still standing there, and as she becomes aware of what’s happening, he begins to leisurely fuck her asshole. He takes his time, as the water rises. Upside down, she tries to curl her body, but her arms are too strained. The water splashes across her eyes as Shen’s cock forces its way inside her. She begins to cough as waves send salt water spraying up her nose, and her struggles redouble, but the pain causes her to black out again, just for a moment. She is breathing through her mouth, trying to force out words between her screams, and takes a mouthful of water for her troubles. As she tries to spit it out, she gets another, and soon her head is underwater, leaving Shen waist-deep in the ocean and her mostly below the waterline. He continues, cumming inside her as her muscles clench and spasm and her thrashing finally goes still. Then, stepping back, he leaves his trophy to hang and moves on for the next.