One of the PT men got in my way and I dismantled him. I didn’t have time to dick around with these chumps when there was a real enemy to fight. I stepped into the clumsy swing and drove my forearm and all my mass into him so hard that he went spiraling over a table. Another of the black polo-shirted Hunters had gotten between us, so the giant simply picked him up and tossed him over the sushi bar, not even bothering to slow his pace. We met in the middle and proceeded to beat the crap out of each other.

He was fast for a big man, and so was I, but he had a reach advantage, so I had to keep moving to stay ahead of him. I wasn’t used to being the smaller and lighter fighter. We locked up on each other as we hit the far end of the buffet, both of us throwing knees and elbows. Between the two of us we probably weighed close to seven hundred pounds, and the furniture broke around us like someone had turned loose a herd of enraged wildebeests. I didn’t realize we’d gone too far until my shoulder hit the cold glass of the restaurant’s bubble. The glass cracked.

I caught my boot against the railing, heaved the giant back, and managed to hit him with a staggering overhand right. That slowed him down.

“Lacoco! Stop! Z! Owen! What the heck? Quit hitting that Newbie!” Milo was running our way, just ahead of a bunch of casino security and a Las Vegas police officer. “You’re on the same team!”

The giant must not have heard Milo’s words, because he bellowed, launched himself into me, caught me around the waist, and we hit the interior window. The glass shattered around us and then we were falling, briefly. We hit water, but it wasn’t particularly deep, because right after the water came tile. And the tile was very hard.

Groaning, I lay there, flat on my back in half a foot of water, covered in sparkling shards, the wind knocked out of me, staring up at the hole in the buffet’s glass wall one story above, as cold water from a dragon-headed fountain spit on us. The giant was on his side next to me. He had a few nasty cuts on his face and arms from the glass. I probably didn’t look much better. I realized then that his not-quite-in-the-same-direction eye was fake, because it had popped out and was sitting at the bottom of the pool between us.

A huge crowd of gamblers and shoppers were standing there, gaping at us. Many of them started taking pictures.

At least the fall had finally knocked the fight out of him. The giant looked over at the MHI Happy Face on my tattered shirt with his good eye and groaned.

“Jason Lacoco?” I gasped.

“Uh-huh…”