Fight Night with @nogodsnoheroes

[forrestertailor]

Prizefighting went one of two ways, for Luka. First, he could take the fight seriously and attempt a good show despite his enormous strength by toying with his opponent for a few rounds and then finishing them off decidedly after the bell, usually at the top of the fourth or fifth round. It was a tough business, not because of any real risk of harm but because his strength and ability to walk off nearly any injury made him a very conspicuous fighter. He had to sell pain and disorientation in a way he did not real, and often got wrapped up in his performance enough to lose sight of his real objective: Beating the snot out of his opponent for large sums of money.

The second option was altogether easier: Rig the fight. Few were the fighters who looked up at his seven foot, musclebound self, and thought they had a fair chance in a brawl. So why not fake it? Both fighters would perform, toss each other around and see how they could best hurt one another without injury, before one of them wheedled out a victory. Then they split the money and disappeared. It was altogether easier and left far fewer questions. Even if they were made for charlatans they were then both culpable, instead of strange questions being asked as to why just one fighter had been holding himself back.

Seeing the woman across the ring from him tonight, with a severe, animal look in her eyes and no apparent interest in talking things out, Luka guessed tonight would go the hard way.

He shrugged off his satin robe, hung it on the post behind him and sat watching the woman in the opposite corner of the ring. Worrying over fighting women didn't concern him, only the worry that he would be up against someone slighter than him and punching down at that. If he wasn't careful there could be serious trouble right away, and if the match was over too quickly he might be made for the sneak thief he occasionally was.

Hands wrapped, glasses stewed away, in his undershirt and trousers Luka rose when the ref grumblingly summoned the fighters to the center of the ring. He tapped his knuckles on his opponent's and inclined his head towards her, hoping for fruit at the end of his olive branch as he said:

"Let's have a good clean fight, uh?"

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[nogodsnoheroes]

Organised fights weren't usually Bethan's speed. They had referees, for one thing, and usually it wasn't considered good practice to grab your opponent's hair and smash their head repeatedly against the floor. More importantly, people saw her in this kind of fight, and there was an unfortunate chance that, if she got in too much of a mess, they would start asking why she didn't go to the hospital. Or trying to take her to one.

But the money was good, and her family did keep telling her she should get out more. And it wasn't like they could get on her back for putting herself at risk. Not when she had been hearing her father and her uncle try to outdo each other with cage-match stories for her whole life.

She didn't have a satin robe - perhaps unsurprisingly, given how much she generally looked like she'd never seen satin in her life. She just shucked off her leather jacket, pushing up the sleeves of her faded blue sweater, and took a moment to check the tape on her knuckles before crossing over to the centre of the ring.

Despite being tall for a woman, Bethan was pretty used to feeling small. It came with the territory - she might be tall, but all the men in her family were well over six foot and most were built - to use her mother's terms - like brick shithouses. Still, the guy in the ring was extreme - there had to be a full foot's height between her and him, not to mention the weight difference.

If this fucker pins you, it's over. So... better not let him bring his weight to bear, then.

She rapped her knuckles against his, looking up at him with hard blue eyes, her lip curled a little.

"Get fucked, asshole." Olive branches had never really been her speciality.

[forrestertailor]

Bethan heard a gasp that turns to an affronted huff at the olive branch wilting and then burning as she turned back to her corner. Luka retreated and held onto the post in his corner, stretching his hamstring with the other hand while they waited for the bell.

The ref grumbled something to their backs, waved his hands loosely and ducked under the ropes and away to the darkness at the bar. This was not a club that cared enough to impose rules on its fighters: They were to keep it interesting and reserve the action for the intervals between bells. Winner would leave with lots of cash in a nondescript envelope and the good graces of the hard boys and wiseguys who were getting chatty and drunk ringside.

The bell sang and Luka turned, bringing his hands up and lowering his head between them. He squinted at Bethan and closeed, throwing out slow punch from the edge of his reach to see how she moves.

[nogodsnoheroes]

There were two ways she could play this. The first one was to fight the way she normally did as the Bandit: chaotic, disorganised, and with no consideration to anything other than getting the other person incapacitated (and preferably unconscious) as soon as possible. But that didn't make for much of a show, and while she didn't much care what the idiots outside the ring thought, she did need to make rent. No point giving them a reason to stiff her.

So that left option two. Before she'd ever been a real brawler, she'd learned to deal with her anger in her uncle's garage, with a punching bag and hand targets. Brawling was more of her habit, but she'd been a boxer first.

She ducked his first punch easily - it was obvious he wasn't really trying - and came back up with a sharp, precise jab at his jaw. She wasn't one for practice shots, even when she was looking to draw it out. She hit hard - not inhumanly hard, but she was stronger than she looked - and fast, and didn't wait to see whether it landed before darting back, both fists now raised in a surprisingly formal defensive stance.

"C'mon. Don't waste everyone's time with that weak-ass shit."

[forrestertailor]

Luka takes the shot to his jaw, his head clocked to one side. Unsurprisingly the woman with coarse manners and animal eyes hits like an engine piston. He winces and circles with her, both of them in a fighter's hunch.

"If you want time you should just throw the match." He said, speaking in a hiss as he came towards her. Another long left across her shoulder followed by a sharp right in the ribs. Bethan feels his knuckles lodge between her ribs before his big hand moves away, for a guy whose hands are like marble blocks he's not hitting as hard as he could. The shot thumps into her and there'll be an ice bath in her future but she can tell it could have been much worse. Closed now, she's got plenty of Luka to take a crack at. Looking up at him, he nods to her and turns his cheek, offering another hit where she popped him on the jaw.

[nogodsnoheroes]

The breath wheezes out of her, his knuckles - although he won't know this - matching remarkably closely to the scars between her ribs, hidden under her sweater. She sucks in a short gasp of breath, rolling back with the blow, her fists raised.

"I told you," she snaps, her voice a little taut from breathlessness, "go fuck yourself."

He's strong. She can feel that. Stronger than she is, for sure - she might be crazy, but she's not completely out of touch with her own limits. She's tough, but that doesn't mean she can match him blow for blow. Just like she can't crowd him out or try to wrestle him down - she just isn't bulky enough.

So, then: go for the eyes. So to speak. What she actually goes for is the gut, not with a punch but with a knee, abandoning boxing form entirely to bring her elbow up into his solar plexus. Let's see if you're tough, too.

Happy holidays! I'm back and I love how rabid Beathan is fr

[forrestertailor]

Luka takes the kneeshot with something akin to joy, a clear flash of excitement that his opponent is not only coarse but also ruthless. Then the elbow comes down, pincering his solar plexus. Bethan feels the muscles making up his abdomen squirm and then repel her as a wave of sickness rattles up from the pit of his stomach to the back of Luka's throat.

He takes her shoulder and pushed Bethan away, stumbling back himself and looking totally green. His head droops and he sways drunkenly, his hands up but loose and his cheeks and throat puffing and gulping to keep bile down. He huffed and slumped back into his fighter's crouch, loping forward slowly and swinging an elbow into her collarbones.

happy new year! enjoy a feral asshole.

[nogodsnoheroes]

She recognises that look, that momentary gleam of excitement. She's felt it herself, plenty of times - pretty much the only times she ever feels good, when the fighting's hard enough that she doesn't have to hold back even a little bit.

(Although she does still hold back, most of the time. Partly because murder is something they actually investigate, and if she's locked up, she'll lose what's left of her mind. Mostly because, along with cage-fighting and wrestling, one of the things her dad taught her that's really stuck with her is that there are some crimes you can't come back from.)

Either way, she's a little gratified by his response, and a lot gratified by seeing him double over. Not so tough, then, after all. She stumbles back a couple of steps, but he's more breathless than she is, and if she was in a real fight, this is where she'd push the advantage - keep him moving, keep him breathless, maybe get behind him and try to choke him out.

But this isn't a real fight, and the aim isn't to incapacitate him as quickly as possible. It's to make it last at least ten, fifteen minutes, and then she can take herself off the leash, and get paid.

He's slower this time, and it's easier to roll with the blow than to dodge it. She turns enough that his elbow glances back, towards her shoulder, rather than into her throat - but that's all, and she's grabbing for his arm at the same time, aiming to catch hold of him and use his own weight against him, as leverage when she swings her whole body-weight up at his kneecap.

Sorry I'm slow! Been a busy bee over here. Feel free to throw the big guy around

[forrestertailor]

This coarse, wild thing tenderized his gut and then comes swinging at him, trying to use Luka for a jungle-gym. He straightens up, only to be pulled around with the woman all but grappling him to tie them both into a knot.

It will make a better show, the voice that sometimes has ideas says in the echo chamber of his skull, if he lets the girl have her way for a while.

Luka listens, locking his shoulder to give Bethan a strong ballast to hang from, and bending towards her weight when she goes for his other knee. His legs, usually unfailingly sturdy, buckle and Luka slips the target legs out from under him, falling after it with a thud. He lands on his side, taking the brunt of the fall on his shoulder.

Ringside, it's a clean hit and a great showing of Bethan's strength, from where Bethan stands there's a man on the mat below her who clearly knows how to fake a fight.

[nogodsnoheroes]

She notices. She notices him shift under her grip, movements that only make sense as a way to help her - the sort of movements her dad used to make when she was a little kid and he was teaching her to wrestle, way back before everything went to shit. She notices him roll to take the fall without hurting himself, even before he starts to fall at all.

She notices, and it pisses her off. It makes her feel like she's being patronised, like he's laughing at her. Like he doesn't take her seriously enough to think she's a threat. This sort of crap was fine when it was her dad play-fighting with her as a child, or even training with her as an adult, when they don't want to hurt each other - but here?

No. No, fuck that.

She follows him down to the mat, not trying to pin him - he's twice her size, she doesn't stand a chance of keeping him down that way - but mostly so she can bring her mouth close to his ear and hiss quietly enough for the crowd not to hear. "If you're gonna fight, fucking fight, dipshit. Don't fuck around."

Hello! Sorry I was away, hope you're down to continue!

[forrestertailor]

On his back Luka loses some of his menace. Down here he's a tumble of long limbs screwed into a broad body, if he stretches he's easily the size of a bearskin rug but he's just about as toothless. It's what he'd prefer people think of him.
"You can't have anything nice, can you?" He hisses back, knitting his brow. But the arm that swings a stone fist into her stomach doesn't hesitate and as the air is punched out of her Luka leans up, bashing the thickness of his forehead against hers. They meet with a bony 'whak!' and a hard red pulse rings through both their heads.
He shoves to the side, out from under her, and stands again.

sure, but life's got pretty crazy lately so i might not be super reliable with it

[nogodsnoheroes]

She reels back, catching herself on her elbows, and laughs - breathless, ragged, manic, but nonetheless loud, genuine laughter. You've got no idea how right you are, buddy.

She recovers faster than most would, but she's still staggering a little as she gets to her feet, her breath whooping in and out of her, spots of colour bursting in the corners of her vision. Not about to let a little thing like being winded stop her, she barely hesitates before launching herself at him again, her elbow jerking up to catch him in the throat, her other hand grabbing at his hair.

She's not laughing any more, but she is smiling, a feral baring of teeth that says that, in her own messed-up way, she's enjoying this. The adrenaline is pumping, and the pain and the anger pulse behind her temples, and she doesn't have anything to gain or anything to lose, and for the moment, nothing else matters but the flurry of blows she rains down blindly on his face and neck. The past doesn't matter, her own shitty life doesn't matter, the fear doesn't matter, even her family doesn't matter. The fight crowds everything else out of her mind, and that's exactly what she's after.

"Lucky hit," she tells him, once she has enough breath to do so, and in between a punch to the nose and a knee to the groin.

As soon as I replied I also went into the rock tumbler but I'm out, for now...

[forrestertailor]

A bell rings and an angel gets its wings, while bright white pain sparks up Luka's body. He saw the flash of joy on her face, felt it in her fists as she launches and starts mauling him. He turns his pretty face away from her dominant side, and takes the rest of his medicine. Until the crotch shot, at which point he lets out a howl and hooks her head and shoulder in one long arm. Locking them in a clench Luka tenderizes Bethan's stomach, crowding them together and using his strength to keep her away from his soft spots. He plays the marimba on her ribs and then unhooks his arm, throwing his own elbow into her cheekbone.

Like her, he's laughing in the closeness of the fight.