The cholo moved in a curve, much like a speed meter’s hand, looking relaxed. From left to right, and back again. He was holding his arms differently. He’d moved his leg once, as if to kick, but Hagen managed to step back. How does one fight such an opponent in the first place? He wouldn’t even let Mike get close enough to throw a punch.
Hagen kept noticing his arms were getting tense and trying to relax. That way he’d get tired out before any action could even begin! He told himself to get a grip.
If I manage to survive this, I’ll definitely ask Wei Ming to teach me all about kicks, he thought, dodging another feint of Gonzalo’s.
However, had Hagen been better familiar with kickboxing, he would have noticed Gonzalo’s many mistakes—he would leave himself open and fail to move his pelvis forward as he kicked. Hagen had no idea about any of that. He was under the impression that his opponent’s technique had been phenomenal. He kept feeling Gonzalo’s eyes staring right at the bridge of his nose, like a sniper rifle with a laser sight. As for Hagen, he tried to focus on his opponent’s arms or legs for fear of missing the beginning of an attack.
Gonzalo took two fast steps, turned around, and delivered the long-expected kick. But he didn’t aim for the head, going for the lower part of Mike’s body instead.
Hagen barely managed to stay on his feet. A surge of pain flared up in the middle of his left thigh, spreading all across his body. Everything went blurry. Hagen automatically threw a punch, without even being aware of his actions, and tried to hold back the tears. After all, Gonzalo wasn’t defending himself at all during that moment. It was just for a second, but a counterattack would take Hagen even less time...
His fist whooshed through the air. Gonzalo had already been out of attack range.
The announcer’s voice sounded as if it were coming from a basement:
“Ladies and gentlemen! Now we can see that Mikey the Crybaby wears that nickname for a good reason. Those tears of defeat... The poor guy...” The noise drowned out all the other words of false compassion.
Hagen couldn’t quite fathom whether the noise came from the crowd or from inside his skull.
He rubbed his face with his glove. The flash of pain did in fact make him cry, even though he’d been telling himself this time would be different. Yet he could see the system message quite clearly through his tears.
Damage received: 4500 (Thigh Kick)
Left leg damaged: –100 HP every minute
Warning! You have less that 40% HP left!
You’re advised to end the fight at once and seek medical help!
Gonzalo was already feeling victorious. He kept bowing in every direction, holding his arms in the air. The audience yelled back in support. Two girls, looking equally hot and wearing identical tight tops managed to worm their way through the crowd toward the fence to be closer to Gonzalo, blowing him kisses.
Hagen wiped away his tears and turned around, trying to find Lexie. He saw the girl watching the fighters with concern, but this time she was clearly concerned about Hagen. She held her hands to her mouth to make herself sound louder, shouting,
“Mike, stop! Get away from the ring!”
Gonzalo assumed his jumping stance, swinging and shifting from one foot to another. He no longer looked caring or compassionate—his face showed nothing but a wish to humiliate the opponent. Gonzalo would also do it in the most painful manner. That’s how it had seemed to Mike, anyway.
“Stop it, quit! You’ve already lost!” That was Lexie’s voice behind his back. Come to think of it, that could clearly have been a hallucination.
“Give up, bro,” Gonzalo whispered, advancing toward Hagen.
Mike shook his head. He didn’t need any hints or any interface to realize that he could handle the pain from a kick—some painkillers, perhaps, or a visit to a doctor later. But the pain of humiliation would follow him for life. To leave the ring now, while still on his feet, would be the ultimate acknowledgment of defeat, and his shame would follow him forever.
Hagen was aware of it better than anybody. His entire life had been a series of humiliations. His every childhood defeat amounted to him leaving the ring, real or imaginary. He would run away from his school in tears, begging his bullies to stop hitting him. He would desert the playground weeping when some rough kids would pour a bag of garbage over his head. He’d try to keep as far away from “dangerous” neighborhoods as possible, barely managing to hold his tears inside.
And he was done with that. That would invalidate all his training and even his victory over Goretsky. Lexie might eventually choose someone else, but not because he would have revealed himself as a weakling.
Hagen shook himself into focus, forgetting about the pain—or, rather, suppressing his fear. His sights were set on Gonzalo.
This time his attention didn’t wander—he kept looking at the opponent’s face. His point of focus was the teardrop tattoo under Gonzalo’s eye.
The attack took a fraction of a second. Gonzalo’s second low kick found its mark—the same thigh. The system no longer warned Mike about the necessity to visit the doctor.
Damage received: 2500 (Thigh Kick)
Left leg damaged: –150 HP every minute
He felt pain again, but he just proceeded to push the irritating mouthguard out of his mouth with his finger. His vision remained clear. Crybaby must have wept somewhere inside, but Hagen still registered the fact that the second kick was not as strong as the first. Gonzalo must have been tired—or he’d gotten careless, ready for an easy victory. He was hardly showing any mercy for his opponent, kicking the same place that had hurt once again. And this time he stayed open for a bit longer. He must have deemed Hagen unable to counter his attacks in any way.
Gonzalo raised his fists over his head again in a triumphant gesture. The girls kept on blowing kisses, but the cholo only had eyes for Lexie, who was smiling back at him, no less.
He turned toward Mike abruptly, deciding to knock him out with a punch rather than a low kick to make a better impression. Hagen tried to block him. He was almost successful. Nevertheless, Gonzalo’s fist managed to reach his face, although dealing little damage this time.
Damage received: 500 points (Jaw Punch)
“What was that?” Gonzalo looked surprised and tried his favorite low kick again.
Hagen just leaped back, paying no attention to the crowd laughing.
“Hey, bro, this ain’t no game of catch,” Gonzalo laughed, advancing. “I’d been thinking all that crybaby image was just pretense, but it looks like it isn’t. You cowardly shithead. What were you thinking, anyway? The ring is no place for you!”
* * *
WHAT ENSUED was a scene from Hagen’s visions of cowardly horror: he could see a fist in slo-mo, smashing into a jaw, the crooked mouth spitting out blood, the shape of the face deforming, and more blood trickling from the smashed-up lips. Some of the teeth must have gotten knocked out. He could imagine bits of enamel scratching the throat.
But the fighter on the receiving end of the punch was Gonzalo, not him.
The very instant he kicked Hagen in the thigh, Mike’s fist met him. Gonzalo didn’t manage to dodge. The punch threw him back a few feet. He fell and slid all across the ring, with only the ropes stopping the movement of the body. The knocked-out fighter was out cold, right next to the two hot girls that had been blowing kisses at him and asking him to “call later,” their intentions perfectly clear.
Hagen’s breath was heavy. He was looking at the system message instead of his opponent.
A Bout of Rage (10 seconds)
+5 to all stats
Another system message flashed up, as the crowd went silent for a moment.
Damage dealt: 23800 points (Head Punch)
The block has been overridden
He didn’t react at all to the announcer jumping into the ring and giving triumphant yells, running circles around the winner. Then he grabbed Hagen by the hand and raised it above his head.
The
hall was dark. The crowd started to rage. It was only then that Hagen realized the spotlight glare had been painfully intense, and the light would somehow make it impossible for him to see the hall.
Fighting in front of the crowd wasn’t so scary, after all. The key thing was to ignore it.
He felt euphoric after the level up and froze, reluctant to show any signs of it to the public. System messages kept on scrolling down in front of his eyes but Mike kept on re-reading the main message in amazement. It just wouldn’t go away, waiting patiently for him.
Hagen felt something pushed into his nose. He finally focused his eyes. The system message disappeared.
The announcer—who had, of course, been taller than Hagen—was hanging over him and sticking a microphone into his face, clearly expecting a response.
“W-what?” Mike asked him back.
“-ha! Your bafflement tells us volumes! That’s the best answer ever!”
The announcer turned around and shouted into the mic,
“Our hero should have called himself ‘Lucky Boy’ instead of ‘Crybaby’! This is clearly a freak victory. I realize many of you may think this fight is a sham. But take just one look at Killa. Do you think anyone could fake a knockout like that?
Mike threw a frightened glance into the corner of the ring where Gonzalo lay, doubled over as if suffering a stomach cramp. The guy in the red T-shirt, who’d acted as a doctor of sorts, was trying to turn him over onto his back. The other was waving a towel over him. They didn’t succeed, so the local ‘medic’ tried to pull his eyelids back, lowering his head to shout something into Gonzalo’s ear. The latter just kept nodding weakly, still doubled over and not letting anyone turn him over. He clearly had no idea of who these people might be, what had happened, or where he was.
The announcer kept on entertaining the audience. “Come on, fess it up—which one of you has placed a bet on Crybaby? Who’s a fat cat now?”
Hagen had started toward Gonzalo, but the announcer turned him around abruptly, pointing into the opposite direction. “The exit is over there, lad. Or would you like to stay for the next round? -ha! Let’s skip that. We’ve had enough surprises for today.”
Once he got Hagen to the ropes, he covered the microphone with his palm and whispered, “Wait for your money in the locker room. Well done, kid!”
The announcer turned back toward the audience, and laughed into the microphone in a strained manner,
“Indeed, Mikey the Crybaby has made a lot of us cry today. Give it to me straight: how many of you’ve placed your bets on Killa’s victory! I’m sure it was everybody!”
The booing of the disappointed crowd said it all.
Chapter 8. No Victories Without Defeats
I can offer you a battle you have no chance of winning... rather an anticlimax after what you’ve just survived.
Half Life
HAGEN SOMEHOW MANAGED to get himself entangled in the ropes again as he was leaving the ring. He’d headed for the place where he’d last seen Lexie, but there was no sign of her. Instead, he ran into the saintly-looking old man resembling a math teacher—the one that had been yelling so hard during the fight. He rushed toward Hagen and gave him a hug, holding him almost level to his stomach (the old man, like nearly everybody else, was taller than Hagen).
“Thank you, son! I placed a fifty-buck bet on you, just because you remind me of my grandson. And you’ve turned them into five grand!”
The old man was shaking a paper slip in front of his face. Mike somehow managed to wriggle himself out of the hug and headed for the locker room. As he was making his way toward it, some of the audience expressed their support, others booed, and others still simply stared at him with suspicion. A few of them must have seen him as a con artist in cahoots with the owners—someone helping them run a betting scam. Even Gonzalo’s sorry state left them unconvinced.
There’s a certain type of person that will look for conspiracies, scams, and swindles everywhere. He had met a lot of those at work—the very ones whose computers kept crashing all the time, and they would always blame it on the manufacturers, who had allegedly “programmed” their machines to be buggy. Whenever Hagen would tell them the defects in question were the users’ fault, they would waste no time proclaiming him another member of “the conspiracy.” Then they’d leave negative feedback on the DigiMart site, spouting invective and complaining about the “incompetence” of the staff.
Just like this time, when a bearded guy in a denim jacket blocked his way. “Hey, kid! Don’t you think I don’t know y’all are runnin’ a scam on us, huh?”
“Sorry, sir, what exactly do you mean?” It took Hagen a while to react—he’d been lost in thought.
“I mean your goddamn conspiracy! I can smell a rip-off from miles away! And I distinctly feel that this match smells like shit!”
“Sorry, sir, but you’re wrong there,” Mike muttered.
“Do you think anyone will buy you knocking Gonzalo out? Eh? A maggot like you?”
“You saw everything with your own eyes, didn’t you?”
“I ain’t seen nothin’ but a well-directed fake. We come here to watch real fighting, with none of that pro wrestling bullshit!”
Hagen had been so worn out he just walked on by without replying. The bearded guy’s behavior may have been aggressive, but he didn’t press it. After all, the “maggot” might target him next. And Gonzalo “Killa” Herrera’s flight from the ring to eternity had looked rather realistic.
Hagen heard the insults behind his back. They were followed by a barrage of soda straws and ice cubes.
Mike found it very odd. Didn’t he just win a fair fight in the ring? So what could possibly make him flee again—the way he fled the playground as a kid? And those bullying kids were after him again... Why would they hate him so much?
The other medic was waiting for him in the locker room. He was playing Clash of Clans on his phone, looking perfectly nonchalant and disinterested. Mike recognized the familiar sounds instantly. The medic was in no hurry to stop playing. He took his time finishing his raid on an enemy village and only then proceeded to put his phone away. “Are you OK, dude?”
“I am,” Hagen replied, falling down onto one of the benches.
All the battle exhilaration left him at once. It turned out that his thigh—the target of Killa’s signature low kicks—hurt like hell. The buzz in his head was real. So it wasn’t the crowd, after all, but rather the consequences of getting a blow to the side of his face. Even his gums were bleeding, scraped raw by that idiotic mouthguard.
It was only then that Hagen came to the realization that the way he’d walked through the crowd was anything but victorious. He’d been swaying from side to side and favoring one leg, and it must have seemed like bad acting to the audience. Little wonder they hated him. And it was all his own fault.
“Hey, you don’t look like you’re OK,” the medic said.
He took a bag of ice out of the coolbox, placing it over the bruise on Mike’s thigh. Hagen just gave it a cursory glance. The sight of the bruise, blue and blood red, steadily growing darker, horrified him.
The doctor examined Hagen’s face, looking bored and turning Mike’s head this way and that as if it were a football. The cold gloved fingers dug into his face. Hagen thought that being examined by a forensic pathologist might feel a lot like this.
“Hey, you’re a tough one, kid,” said the medic all of a sudden. “You’ve taken quite a thrashing, but you’re still holding up. Although... Had it been someone more experienced than Gonzalo, they would have been giving you first aid right there in the ring right now. Or you’d have been on your way to the emergency room. Those things happen often around here,” the medic shrugged.
Mike grunted. He had long noticed that people seemed to be prone to intimidating him. Not that there was any need for that—he’d already been intimidated by virtually everything. And pain had always been his greatest fear.
And yet. Did he really have it in him
to be able to “hold up?” Even though he did break into tears uncontrollably—just the way he had in his childhood.
“Isn’t Gonzalo an experienced fighter?” he enquired. “I mean, I saw the audience go wild about him.”
“Who, Killa? A lot of it is plain frontin’. I mean, he knows all those cholo moves and he has his tats, but do you know what’s funny about his background?”
“What?”
“He’s a kid from a respectable family. His parents came over from Seattle some ten years ago. His dad’s an attorney, and his mum’s head of some research lab, working for a cosmetics company. The one that owns the factory a few miles out of town, you know what I mean? Gonzalo is no fool, either. He’s a college graduate, although he hides it carefully from everyone. He opines that a true playa wouldn’t be seen dead anywhere near a college. Street cholo my ass. He grew up watching videos. Not in any gang or anything.”
The medic removed his hand. “You can hold the ice yourself,” he said. “I advise you to visit a hospital tomorrow and get an X-ray to make sure the bone isn’t cracked. The rest will heal on its own.”
He fell silent again, taking care of the abrasion on Hagen’s face. Mike could finally read the system message that he’d been forced to ignore earlier. He’d been in the ring, all beaten up, after all—barely managing to keep upright. Interface messages were hardly his priority. Apart from that, Hagen knew perfectly well what he would see, so he’d decided to enjoy the news later at his leisure.
Congratulations! You’ve defeated an opponent in a fair fight!
XP points received: 2 (twice the experience for your first victory over an opponent of a higher level).
Level Up- The Knockout Page 8
