Hoggish's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Hoggish walked the road toward the arena with the golden mic tucked in his jumpsuit. His chihuahua rode his shoulder. The relic hunter's words still rang in his head. But a new sound followed him now. Footsteps behind him, matching his own. He stopped. The footsteps stopped. Someone was trailing him, and had been for miles. He turned fast. A green figure ducked behind a boulder. Sneakers with three stripes. A bucket hat. Hoggish knew those fins and that grin. Gill Waverly. His old rival stepped out, hands raised, false smile stretched over sharp little teeth. "Long time, tall one," Gill said. His gills flexed. "Word's out. The golden mic is real, and you got it." He crept closer. "I lost the silver one. But this one? This one I want." He circled, the same way he always did before he grabbed what wasn't his. "Hand it over. Save us both the trouble." "You already tried to take a mic from me," Hoggish said. "It went dark in both our hands. Remember?" Gill's smile twitched. "That was the silver. This one's different." He lunged. Hoggish spun away. The chihuahua yelped and clung tight. Gill grabbed for the mic and caught the end. For a second they both held it, straining. The gold went cold and still in Hoggish's grip. No hum. No power. Just metal. Gill laughed. "See? It don't care who holds it." But Hoggish remembered a bigger truth now. The mic didn't shine for force. It shone for what was real. He stopped pulling. He let his side of it go loose and looked Gill in the eye. "You've been chasing my stuff since the swamp," Hoggish said, quiet. "Because you never found your own thing to say." The words weren't a rhyme. They were just true. Gill's grip loosened. His grin fell. In that gap, Hoggish lifted the mic clean out of the water-dweller's hand and spoke into it soft. He rapped about the long road, the dog on his shoulder, the fear he still carried toward the arena. The gold woke and hummed hot. Light spilled from the H on its body. Gill stumbled back, shielding his eyes. "Stop," he said. "Stop it." Hoggish lowered the mic. The hum faded. Gill stood there, empty-handed, shrinking under a power he could never grab. "You can't steal this," Hoggish said. "You have to earn it." Gill's fins drooped. He backed away, then turned and ran, sneakers slapping the dirt. He was gone. Hoggish let out a breath. He'd kept the mic. But Gill's talk had spread the word. If a beaten rival came this far to steal it, then everyone at the arena already knew. The relic hunter would be there. So would others he'd never met. Hoggish looked down the road toward the graffiti-covered arena on the horizon, its lights already burning. He wasn't walking in as an unknown. He was walking in as the target.