Undisclosed location somewhere in NY.
It had been a long night of blood, tears and supers; with money and favors changing hands on the outcome of each fight, sometimes on the outcome of each flurry of punches. The gathering was a degenerate den of money, power and dealers of all sorts of illegal merchandise assembled to watch the oldest gladiator sport, a bare knuckles anything goes fight.
Two rounds had ended with The Fox getting the worst of it but still managing to get in a few solid shots of her own. The Fox had been patient and clever making her opponent expend great quantities of energy and finally her patience was paying off as her opponent was wearing himself out and the crowd roared as The Fox moved into her opponent with very accurate jabs and straights, hooks and elbows. The man reeled a small amount to the left after a spinning back elbow clipped his temple and The Fox, thinking the fight was hers grabbed her adversary by the back of the head and, with great glee, applied her knee to his face; again, and again, and again. Her foe managed to block the last knee by the simple expedients of picking up the petite Russian and smashing her in to the concrete floor hard enough to crack it, knocking the wind out of The Fox momentarily. He knew The Fox was a canny and ruthless fighter, he’d seen it, and knew better than to give her any room to recover. Falling on his downed opponent he drove in heavy punches designed to do as much damage as possible before the round ended.
The Proprietor (no names on the job in case the Law showed up) of this little venue tonight looked around his kingdom and smiled, the money from this one show alone would see him living large for at least a year, people sure did love to see Supers beating on each other. The fight before had ended with one woman unconscious on the ground after being smashed face-first into the concrete floor 5 times by the other combatant, if that had happened to any other supers fighting tonight their head would’ve shattered like an egg by the third strike if not before. Now there was 5 roughly oval divots in the floor he’d have to have fixed, but that was alright, he’d be rolling in green before the night was out.
The Proprietor’s gaze fell on the current fight and he frowned, the man in the ring was a new comer but was skilled and he was laying out a beating on The Fox so that made him alright in his book. The Proprietor did NOT like The Fox. She though she was too good for him, the prissy little bitch. Sooner or later she’d slip and he’d show her, in a vary painful way, that he was not a man to be trifled with. He glared out at the combatants and a thought came to him. He felt a cruel smile tug at his lips as he watched ‘The Ice Bitch’ finally get the treatment she deserved. The Proprietor hands moved without looking away from the satisfying sight and reset the round-buzzer to add an extra 3 minuets to the round; nobody would notice and the crowd was eating it up.
The Fox, blocking and defending herself as best she could, was waiting for the timer to buzz. She didn’t know how long she had been down here eating shots that would have killed an average human. It has to buzz soon, oh dear god, it HAS to buzz soon. Her opponent landed a sold shot to her sternum. Something cracked. She couldn’t get any breath! The man stopped hitting her and stood.
Thank god, the round must have ended.
The ringing in her ears was loud and the mob of screaming people drowned out all other sound as she painfully stood to stumble half-blind over to the old wooden the stool in her corner, trying to Regen as much damage as possible.
When she looked up to lock eyes with her opponent she was surprised to see he was nowhere in the ring. Looking around she found him striding through the mass of people toward the Proprietor’s box, a set look on his face. The Proprietor with his little rat face and greasy hair looked puzzled and vaguely alarmed.
The hall quieted as the watching spectators realized there was a new drama unfolding before them. The man reached in to the box and grabbed the Proprietor around the neck in one hand and the round-buzzer in the other. The Proprietor struggled, beating at the man with his unimpressive fists, yelling and threatening but it did him no good as the man closed off his airway and begin retracting his arms. Dragging the Proprietor out of his box the man marched back through the milling throng with a happy smile on his face. He dragged the Proprietor to the ring and threw him over the thick dock chain to skid and roll across the concrete floor. The man set the buzzer down on his stool as he stepped over the chain; it had a little under two and a half minuets on the clock. The man then proceeded to beat the Proprietor to within an inch of his life, the crowd cheering all the way. The Fox’s favorite part was when the man wound up his right leg and soccer kicked the Proprietor straight in the groin.
The buzzer rang, the man stopped, dragged the Proprietor back to his box, sat him in his chair and then came back to the ring.
With a jaunty smile he asked. “Round 4?”
****
“Ok, THAT was awesome. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time”
Veronika Fox congratulated the man sometime later after the healer, a down and out drunk that had had a way too minor healing ability in Fox’s opinion, patched both of the combatants up.
The man had just slipped on his boots and was in the process of tying them “It’s all about the timing.” He explained with a shrug. “The situation required that someone to kick the shit out of the Proprietor, and as no one else was doing it…” A shrug. “It was the correct response; I didn’t kill him and I stopped when the clock ran out, so all’s well. Fucker messed with the timer and you just don’t do that, I don’t care if it is a pit-fight. If you have a clock, you have a clock, and that’s the end of it.”
“Well, it was a good fight, even if I did lose. What your name, fella. Think I’d spar with you some, you have some interesting moves.”
“No names, remember. But if you want to fight, come to Korman. I’ll find you.” No-name stood and walked to the rust begrimed and dented door with an absent wave over the shoulder. “Later.”
“Korman, huh?” Veronika asked the empty room after the man had gone.
****
9 days later the entire pit-fighting origination was raided. There were mass arrests including the many of New York’s wealthy and powerful in attendance. From weapons dealers and bookies to a senator and the clean up crew, all of them fell under the hammer of law and most of the trials didn’t last too long either with harsh punishments enacted evenly across the board. Only two people escaped the net of justice. One was the Crime Boss of the ring, the so called Proprietor, who disappeared a week before with not even a trace or single dirty dollar left behind. Second was one lone and mysterious fighter, The Fox. As fate would have it everything known of or speculated about the mysterious pit-fighter was shuffled off into a box and promptly lost, never to be seen again.