by Rowan Casey
When Dellacroix came in again, Jessie feigned going right and then landed a solid body kick that rocked the other woman back on her heels, just to show her she wasn’t going to be some kind of pushover, promoting several cheers from the audience. Apparently Dellacroix wasn’t the only one with fans out there, which made Jessie smile.
She let Dellacroix chase her around the ring a few times, staying just out of reach, trying to coax her into lashing out with a wild punch that Jessie could then use to her advantage, but the other woman was too disciplined a fighter to fall for it.
Deciding to go on the offensive, Jessie lashed out with a head kick, hoping to catch her opponent by surprise by suddenly going on the offensive. Dellacroix ducked beneath the blow and shot in on Jessie at the same time, ending up with the two of them in a clinch against the cage with Dellacroix landing a series of body blows to Jessie’s already bruised ribs. Jessie fought back with repeated knee strikes to her opponent’s thigh, which forced her to back off in short order.
Jessie used the opportunity to get back into the center of the ring, away from the cage, wanting to protect her ability to maneuver. It turned out to be the wrong move, for Dellacroix used the extra space to get inside her guard, toss her over her hip, and crash down atop her on the mat.
That was the last place Jessie wanted to be. She knew her ground game wasn’t as good as her opponent’s and was worried that the other woman would use the advantage she’d just gained to end the match before it had really begun. To prevent that from happening, Jessie wrapped her arms around Dellacroix’s back, holding her tight to her chest, preventing her from rearing up over her and pounding her into oblivion.
The strategy worked; after some frustrated effort Dellacroix eventually fought loose and got to her feet, not wanting to waste all of her energy this early in the match. Jessie took advantage of the move to get back to her feet and the two of them began circling each other again, looking for the next opportunity, the next opening.
When Dellacroix sent a lazy high kick in her direction seconds later, Jessie used the opportunity to deliver a straight right to the other woman’s face. When she moved to follow up on it, however, Dellacroix parried with an inside leg kick that tripped Jessie up and forced her to somersault back to her feet, robbing her of the opportunity to press her advantage.
The bell rang seconds later, signaling the end of the first round and sending both fighters back to their corners.
Art was there the moment Jessie dropped onto her stool.
“Nice work, Jessie, nice work. She might be a point ahead, hard to say.”
A point ahead? Jessie thought. Given that she hadn’t had a professional level fight in nearly three years, she’d take that any day of the week!
“You good?” Art asked, as he held the water bottle for her.
Jessie nodded, too intent on sucking down enough of the cool liquid to get her through the next round to say anything.
“All right, get out there and do your thing. Stay on your feet; don’t let her take you to the ground. We don’t want you fighting this thing on your back, you hear?”
She heard.
The bell rang and she surged to her feet, determined to take this round.
Grimm sat a few rows back from the edge of the ring, watching the fight with interest. He’d arranged the fight for one reason and one reason only, to see how Noble dealt with the unexpected. Would she hold up under pressure or not? It was all a test, though not necessarily of her fighting ability.
Still, he thought she had done well in the first round. Maybe not enough to put it on her side of the scorecard but certainly better than most here expected. She’d survived the first round. Now it was time to see what she was made of.
As he watched the two fighters exchange blows, it looked to him like Dellacroix was taking things more cautiously this round. Apparently, the first round had taught her to respect Jessie’s striking ability. She wasn’t as willing to close with her opponent and was spending more time trying to draw Jessie into overextending herself. Jessie, on the other hand, was more willing to press the issue and was able to land more blows and earn more points through the first half of the round as a result.
Grimm decided the time had come to take things to the next level.
Raising his right hand, he sketched a complicated symbol in the air in front of him. To his trained eye the sigil glowed with arcane light but he knew those seated around him wouldn’t be able to see it, no matter how hard they tried. Their paradigm of reality didn’t have room for the mystic arts and as a result, their minds refused to accept anything that might support the idea that magic was real. They’d find some clever way to rationalize what they were seeing and go home convinced that they’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. It was one of the reasons he’d managed to make a career out of using magic so openly; no one in their right mind would ever dream that he was telling the truth when he said his tricks were not illusions at all but magic. Real, actual magic of the rarest sort.
Grimm had learned to hide in plain sight.
But he wasn’t the only one.
There were other beings out there, dangerous ones, who had learned to hide their true selves as well.
Grimm should know; he was about to reveal one.
He waited until he had a clear view of Dellacroix and then pointed directly at her and said, “Revelare!”
The sigil Grimm had sketched in the air shot forward seemingly under its own power, traveling as straight and as true as an arrow down the path he’d indicated with his finger, and struck Dellacroix full in the face. There was a brief flash of power and then, its purpose served, the sigil disappeared as swiftly as it had come into existence.
The damage, however, was already done.
Jessie spun to her right, blocking Dellacroix’s attempt to land a roundhouse kick, and then let her momentum carry her all the way around, putting her in position to deliver a hammer fist to the left side of Dellacroix’s face. The blow rocked the other woman momentarily, but she recovered quickly, dancing back out of range before Jessie could do further damage.
Time’s running out, Jessie reminded herself as she moved to pursue. If she wanted that extra five grand in prize money, she was going to have to put her opponent down and she was going to have to do it soon. The round was almost over!
Jessie closed the distance, engaging Dellacroix in another series of blows, pushing forward relentlessly and forcing Dellacroix back against the cage where her options to defend herself were limited.
Dellacroix got her arms up, protecting her face, so Jessie went to work on her body, pounding Dellacroix’s midsection with punch after punch, relentlessly wearing her down, one blow at a time.
Unable to escape the incoming attacks, Dellacroix did what any smart fighter would do. When Jessie came in close for the next blow, Dellacroix pulled her into a clinch, grabbing one of Jessie’s arms with her own and holding her tight.
Jessie responded with a series of knee strikes, hammering Dellacroix’s left leg, knowing she could only hold the clinch for so long in the face of such an onslaught. She stared the other woman in the face, watching for that moment when she would break.
It never came.
While Jessie looked on, Dellacroix’s human visage seemed to grow translucent, revealing another face lurking there beneath her own. This one was decidedly more feral, with a forward-thrusting jaw, long sharp teeth, and two slits in the front of its face where Dellacroix’s nose formerly had been. Where Dellacroix’s eyes were brown, this creature’s eyes burned with a crimson hue.
The creature must have recognized that Jessie could see it for what it was, for in the next moment it smiled with a kind of savage glee and leaned in close so it could be heard over the shouting of the crowd.
“I’m going to rip the flesh from your bones, Knight!” the Dellacroix-thing told her.
Jessie, predictably, freaked out.
“Fuck!” she shouted and jerked backwards, trying to get away fro
m whatever-the-hell-it-was, and in doing so played directly into the creature’s hands.
As soon as some space opened between them, the Dellacroix-thing whipped its right arm around in a powerful elbow strike that caught Jessie across the face.
In her shock and horror, the blow caught Jessie completely by surprise and it rocked her head backward, staggering her.
Quick as a cat, the Dellaroix-thing leaped forward, throwing a right-left-right combination that connected with each blow, futher disorienting Jessie. A spinning roundhouse kick followed and to those in attendance, it looked like Jessie might be finished. She stumbled away from her opponent, out into the center of the ring, and the referee followed, watching her face closely, wanting to be certain that she was still aware enough of her surroundings to continue the fight.
Jessie, meanwhile, was fighting desperately to stay conscious. Her legs were weak and her vision was starting to grey out at the edges, but she knew a follow-up strike was coming, might even be on its way already as far as she knew, and she had to be ready for it when it arrived.
She was vulnerable; she knew that.
If their positions were reversed, Jessie would be setting herself up to deliver the final coup de grace and she fully expected her opponent to be doing the same.
Jessie struggled desperately, trying to keep her balance while at the same time clear the fog from her mind, knowing that if she lost this fight she’d lose more than just an exhibition match, she’d lose any chance of ever turning her life around. She didn’t understand how, but she knew instinctively that her success or failure here tonight would determine the path her life would take. It made no logical sense – she knew that – but she was convinced it was true, just the same.
The rational side of her mind was screaming at her that it was all just another hallucination, that what she’d seen and heard were just another incidence of her mind playing tricks on her, but in the end it really didn’t matter either way. She had to stay conscious; her future literally depended on it!
The thing she’d seen lurking beneath Dellacroix’s façade flashed through her mind and the resulting burst of adrenaline that rushed through her system in response helped her keep the darkness at bay for another few seconds.
Those seconds were enough to save her.
In that moment of distress, Jessie felt something shift deep inside.
Where a second before she’d been exhausted, literally at the end of her rope and desperate for a way out, in the next she felt a newfound strength surge through her as another presence rose up from somewhere deep inside and took control, filling her thoughts with a sense of calm surety and her limbs with a savage power that was electrifying in its intensity. Jessie didn’t have any other way of describing it; it was as if some previously unknown warrior side of her soul suddenly woke up and took over the driver’s seat, directing her actions with an almost preternatural instinct.
Jessie watched as if from outside of herself as the Dellacroix-thing rushed forward toward her dazed and stumbling form, pivoting on the ball of her foot at the last second and swinging her leg up and around in what should have been a devastating heel kick designed to finish Jessie off once and for all.
As that heel kick descended, Jessie surged into action, guided by that presence inside her. She spun ninety degrees, letting that kick pass harmlessly through the space she’d been standing in a moment before, and followed it with a right jab of her own that struck her opponent square in the nose.
Blood flew as Dellacroix stumbled backward.
Jessie strode forward, every action crystal clear in her mind as if she was seeing it all like a chess game laid out before her, move by move, and followed her jab with a right flying side kick that caught her opponent in the gut, doubling her over.
The crowd was on its feet, cheering and shouting, but Jessie barely heard them. She was too busy listening to that guiding voice from deep inside, the one that was at that very moment telling her that Dellacroix’s seeming defenselessness after Jessie’s last kick was nothing more than a scam to bring her in closer.
She moved forward, pretending to be so focused on ending the fight before the bell rang that she let her guard down on her left side.
The Dellacroix-thing took the bait; as Jessie came within reach, her opponent suddenly straightened up and threw a left cross designed to knock Jessie flat on her ass.
That blow never connected. Forewarned, Jessie ducked beneath it, stepping inside Dellacroix’s reach at the same time. As she came back up, she delivered a right upper cut that slammed into Dellacroix’s chin like a freight train, sending the other woman stumbling backward.
Looking on from his seat in the stands, Grimm watched Noble deliver that right uppercut and knew it was over even before Dellacroix’s body crashed to the canvas. He didn’t need his magic to know that the punch had landed right where Noble had intended and the way Dellacroix’s eyes rolled back in her head as a result of the blow told him all he needed to know about her ability to weather it. She was done; it was as simple as that.
He stood up and was moving for the exit even as Noble danced forward inside the ring, ready to pounce on her downed opponent and deliver some ground and pound to be certain of victory. She was waived off by the referee who called the fight upon realizing that Dellacroix wasn’t just down, but was out cold as well.
If he had any doubts about Noble’s ability to handle the punishing road ahead, they’d just been eliminated by her performance in the ring. Of course, he’d expected no less, but seeing the evidence with his own eyes was reassuring. He’d known the precise moment when her berserker spirit had revealed itself to her, had seen the flare of power through the arcane spectrum when she’d surrendered control to it, and was very pleased with how events had progressed from there.
The announcer’s voice cut through the excited babble of those in attendance, causing Grimm to pause and look back from his position in the exit doorway.
“Ladies and Gentlemen! The winner of tonight’s fight, coming two minutes and thirty-two seconds into the second round by knockout, is Jessie The Berserker Noble!”
Grimm nodded in approval as the announcer held Jessie hand aloft, but his expression was thoughtful.
Well done, Knight, but the true test is still to come.
As the audience erupted in applause, Grimm slipped out the door without a backward glance.
10
Pumped from her victory and still full of way too much adrenaline to sit still, Jessie paced nervously around the locker room, gloves off and hands unwrapped, wondering what came next. The big guy, Hautdesert, had been clear that she wasn’t supposed to throw the fight, but now that she’d won, and by knockout no less, she was starting to second guess that entire conversation.
Sure, he’d said not to throw the fight, but had he really meant it? she wondered. Or had it been one of those crazy mind fuck conversations where the other person says exactly the opposite of what they really mean and you’re supposed to just figure it out without them coming out and saying it?
She didn’t know and that’s what worried her. What if she’d just done exactly what they hadn’t wanted her to do?
And of course there was that craziness with Dellacroix. Now, in the aftermath of the fight, the idea that some vicious creature was lurking under Dellacroix’s skin seemed absurd. It had been another hallucination. She was certain of it. And now that she gave it some thought, she realized that there was a pattern to the hallucinations. They only seemed to occur when she was under considerable stress, like when she’d fought Hagland and again, tonight, in the ring facing Dellacroix. She wondered if there might be a physical reason for their increased frequency.
She was still mulling the question over in her mind when the door opened and a man she hadn’t seen in nearly four years stepped into the room.
Once, in what felt like another day and age, David Reardon had been her agent, manager, and fight promoter all rolled into one. He’d been in charge of getting h
er the fights that meant something career-wise and she’d managed to overlook the fact that he was a complete asshole because he was good at doing just that. Without his ability to ingratiate himself with the right people and to negotiate like a barracuda fighting for the last scrap of meat in an ocean of water, she never would have risen so far, so fast; of that she was certain.
In turn, she’d made him a lot of money and had certainly helped his profile as much as he had helped hers, but none of that had mattered one iota when she started having difficulties. At that point he treated her like he treated everyone else – as a mark to be had for whatever he could get - and their very public parting-of-ways had been ugly, to say the least.
He’d gained a bit of weight and his receding hairline had receded even further, but aside from that he looked pretty much the same as the day he’d told her to go to hell and then stormed out of her locker room following her loss during the title match.
How prophetic his words had turned out to be; she and Hell were intimately acquainted now.
“All hail the conquering hero!” Reardon said as he saw that she remembered him for who he was. “Quite the fight, I must say.”
While his words were complimentary, the tone of his voice was not and Jessie had little doubt that he was seething inside, despite the smile he carried on the outside.
“What do you want, Reardon?”
“Want? Why do I have to want something? Can’t I just come in to pay my respects to an old friend?”
“No. Because you always want something. That’s just who you are.”
“You wound me, Noble.”
“Say what you came her to say or fuck off, Reardon. I don’t have time for your shit.”
“Like I said, I just came by to say congratulations to an old friend. And to give you a little something to celebrate with. After all, that was quite a fight; you deserve a little celebration time, don’t you think?”
She opened her mouth to retort but Reardon wasn’t finished.
