He had been happy when Natasha pulled the top coin from the cup, saying, "You, Phelan are the hunter. How will you hunt?"

He turned to Edick and smiled broadly. "I will hunt augmented."

He had expected that to give the Elemental trouble, but the huge man shrugged it off as if Phelan had demanded water-pistols at twenty paces. Phelan knew Edick had won all his previous Bloodrights and had opted to fight barehanded against his foes. He'd killed an aerospace pilot in his first fight, and put the two Mech Warriors he faced since then in the hospital. Instead of becoming nervous about the first fight where he would be at a severe disadvantage, Edick smiled calmly. "We will fight in the Camelot Industrial Park on Lothan."

The instant Phelan saw the site Edick had selected for the battle, he knew the man had some good advisors. Buildings both large and small made up the modern industrial center, all fabricated from similar building materials that turned the park into a glittering world of steel and mirrors. At the ilKhan's command, the whole facility was evacuated in preparation for the battle. Somewhere inside that looking-glass labyrinth an Elemental waited for Phelan.

The dying sun filled all the mirror faces with blood.

Phelan switched his scanner from vislight to infrared, then immediately popped it back before it burned his eyes out. The heat reflected by the mirrors made using IR useless. As nearly as Phelan could figure, Edick had taken up residence in the big building to his left. By running from floor to floor, or possibly just bashing his way through interior walls, the Elemental was managing to shoot his small laser at Phelan from the safety of cover.

Another Mech Warrior might have burrowed straight into the building, but Phelan was not of a mind to do that. He knew Edick was counting on his reluctance to do wholesale property, damage while defending himself. For Phelan, however, his reluctance to wade into a building came from its being the only obvious solution to the problem and because he was not entirely comfortable with the 'Mech he piloted.

Though the free selection of venue was supposed to make up for any advantage gained by the winner of the coin selection, the Clans took other steps to ensure that the Bloodright battles were approximately fair. Thus Phelan was issued a Mercuryfor his fight with Edick, rather than being able to use his Wolfhound.The light 'Mech was well-known for its reconnaissance ability, but its weaponry was only slightly better than what an Elemental had. None of the 'Mech's weapons could put Edick down with one shot, which was precisely why they had assigned him this BattleMech.

"All I have are lasers, which aren't useful against these damned mirrored buildings! I'd give my right arm for a simple machine gun so I could shoot out these windows." When he balled his fists reflexively, the Mercury'smechanical hands aped the movement.

The buildings surrounding him rose up to a full ten stories, or three times his height. Their metal content, both in building materials and equipment, made magscan useless. Sunlight made IR scanning equally impotent. Phelan concentrated on vislight, but he knew the chances of his spotting whatever little openings Edick was using to shoot at him were impossible. As long as the man remained in the building, he had Phelan at a disadvantage.

Phelan flipped a switch on his command console to shunt his microphone to the 'Mech's external speakers. "Come out and play, Edick."

"Come in and get me, Phelan," a voice echoed back out through the glass canyon.

The gloating in Edick's voice kept Phelan from pounding a fist through the building's wall and following it with the Mercury'sbulk. "If I could just ...," he started to mumble, then stopped as he caught the echo of the words from outside. In a millisecond, fear he'd betrayed himself washed over him, then an idea hit him and he laughed.

"Yeah, might just work."

He opened his mike and flipped his external speakers on again. He increased the gain of the mike and boosted the output on the external speakers. Feedback built into a shrieking crescendo that set his teeth buzzing. He snapped his helmet's speakers off and pushed the external volume control all the way to maximum.

All around him, accompanied by the feedback's banshee wail, the buildings' mirrored walls shivered and buckled. In a diamond rain, the whole wall fragmented and fell to the ground. The deadly hail poured over his Mercury,but Phelan ignored it and concentrated on the building hiding Edick. What had only been a silver reflection seconds before became offices and hallways, with the telltale signs of an Elemental's haphazard progress through the building. It reminded Phelan of an exterminator's cutaway view of a house infested by rats. It was as though his surprise tactic had caught a big rat smack dab in the middle of the fifth floor.

The Mercury'sright arm came up and the medium laser built into its forearm flashed to life. It hit Edick dead-center while the Elemental seemed to be trying to wave him off. Phelan wondered at the man's audacity and prepared for a second shot. "It's over, Edick."

Suddenly the world exploded. A boiling, vaporous sheet of yellow flame instantly engulfed the whole building. Edick's form remained visible for a second as a black silhouette, then it vanished in the inferno. The Shockwave hit the Mercury,knocking it back into the building behind it. The 'Mech stumbled, driving its head and shoulders down through the lower three floors of the building.

Phelan braced for the impact with the ground by pressing his neurohelmeted head back into the command couch's headrest. He hit hard, momentarily stunned, then found himself looking up the shaft of an atrium extending up the center of the building. He rotated the Mercury's,chin down, giving him a view back through the hole he'd made.

The burning building sagged toward him.

The Mercury'sheels slammed down, buckling the ferrocrete foundation. The legs extended to their full length, ramming the Mercury'supper body through the other side of the building that trapped it. Its arms reached up and back in a clawing motion that dragged the BattleMech half-clear of its prison. Another powerful shove from its legs kicked it all the way clear of the building.

Flipping his 'Mech prone, Phelan gathered its hands and feet beneath it and stood. He steadied the 'Mech as another explosion shook the area. Spinning about, he saw the burning building smash down into the one that had trapped him. Heavily damaged by his coring of the lower section, that building shuddered, then slowly flopped over to bury its blazing companion.

Off in the distance Phelan saw the strobing red and blue lights of a civilian fire company coming to prevent the fire from spreading. Phelan dropped the Mercuryto one knee and used the 'Mech's right hand to scrape away debris clogging the roadway. He stared deep into the flames of Edick's pyre and shook his head.

"You died for a Bloodname, Edick. We, the Clans, pride ourselves on being superior to the citizens of the Inner Sphere, but I wonder if a people that could cause all this destruction in the name of vanity can ever be considered civilized."

* * *

Phelan hit the freeze-frame button on the holovid viewer. "See, right there on his small laser?" The MechWarrior pointed to a blurry black cone surrounding the muzzle of Edick's small laser. "That looks like a rubber gasket of some sort. He poked a small hole in one of the windows, pressed the laser and gasket to it, and was able to shoot at me."

Natasha smiled coldly. "Edick shatters the gas main in the building and lets it fill with natural gas. He's already cut power to the building so a random spark won't set his trap off. The gasket lets him use the laser without starting the fire."