All of it resembled a school theater show with kids playing scenes from prison life against a painted cardboard background.
Constrictor entered the lit part of the ring. He was a large guy of Cuban extraction—twice the size of Hagen or so, tattooed so heavily that whatever skin one could see amidst all that ink seemed almost unnaturally pale.
Constrictor stood in his corner of the ring, crossed his arms and froze, eyeballing Hagen with disdain.
Mike felt happy his mother could no longer see him. She’d have no business knowing anything about what her son Mikey was up to these days. Not only was he a prisoner, but he also fought heavily tattooed bruisers to earn his freedom. Come to think of it, he too was a tattooed bruiser now as compared to his former self.
Hagen climbed over the desks and took his place in the opposite corner of the makeshift ring. He examined the opponent’s stats to see what he’d have to face.
Luis “Constrictor” Gutiérrez
Age: 43
Level: 23
HP: 40,000
Defense: 70
Battles/victories: 249/248
Weight: 339 lbs
Height: 6’ 8”
Current status: Inmate serving a life term. Champion of the wooden ring.
“Defense? That’s something new. Dem?”
“It’s a very rare ability that some humans’ muscles have. It requires a heavy build and years of training,” Mike’s invisible helper replied.
“So it’s an armor of some sort?”
“You might put it this way. This so-called armor will absorb up to seventy percent of your attack.”
“Jumping St. Ian on a stick! Why do I have to find out about this stuff now?”
“It’s simple, dude. You’ve never encountered fighters like Constrictor before.”
“Can I punch through this armor of his?”
“Sure. Every punch that connects will lower it by a point or two.”
“That’s not much.”
“You know many moves, so combine them, and eventually you’ll see his armor isn’t that strong.”
“But what if...”
“Hey, get going already,” Blinky Palermo yelled from the darkness. “Ding dong! Ha-ha-ha!”
Constrictor uncrossed his arms at once. He spread them to the sides and advanced toward Hagen as if to give him a big bear hug.
Mike assumed his stance and threw the first punch. Constrictor dodged easily and kept on advancing.
The most important thing was to evade his grip. Hagen stepped back to the desks, observing his opponent’s manner. He’d never fought against him, and thus didn’t quite know what to expect. He’d heard enough about Constrictor’s victories, though. The big man would hug his enemies to near-death.
This is how Mike “Björn” Hagen’s final fight in the wooden ring began—without any long preamble, and almost prosaically.
* * *
AS HAGEN had suspected, the first minutes of the fight were nothing resembling a boxing bout or a fight. All he could do was try to evade his opponent’s steamroller onslaught. Constrictor’s taciturnity made him look even more surreal: he would just puff and mumble something like a gigantic sleeping baby.
The big man’s movements weren’t that fast, but he could make sudden and agile jumps and lunges, opening his arms to offer a deadly embrace like a transformer robot made of the world’s largest excavator. His enormous arms whooshed through the air. Getting caught between them would most likely cost one their health—or their life.
It was clear why no one could defeat this monster: since he was near-impervious to damage, you’d have to pound him for a real long time before he’d let you out of his embrace. No one had ever managed it as the Cuban would crush them faster.
Hagen tried to launch a few attacks only to retreat each time as it was too dangerous. He’d already encountered Constrictor’s type of fighter, even though grappling wasn’t a style used often in prison brawls. The inmates were normally reluctant to engage each other in a close embrace with others watching. This rare fighting style made Constrictor all the more dangerous.
Hagen concluded that such attempts to escape strangleholds would be precisely what all the fighters before him had attempted. Each one of them had lost as a result. Constrictor’s superhuman resistance to attacks made him capable of chasing his quarry around long enough to exhaust the other man completely. Hagen would eventually run out of stamina, too.
He’d need to find another strategy. Should he try to grapple as well? In case of Constrictor, it would be even more pointless than evading.
“Hey, this ain’t no Boston Marathon!” came a shout from the audience.
“That’s right,” Blinky Palermo chimed in. “Blueeyes, if I’d wanted to see you run, I’d have sent you to a watchdog training facility.”
“I’m not running anywhere, sir,” Hagen replied. “This is strategic maneuvering.”
“Stop maneuvering already. You’re beginning to get on my nerves.”
Hagen and Palermo had gotten used to exchanging words during fights. Hagen had even come to the conclusion that the warden was wise in his own way. The man was thoroughly evil, of course, and with a bunch of mental issues to boot (as if anyone normal would ever work as part of this system), but there was a certain balance in how he ran his prison. Those fond of fighting would fight—most of them, at least—confining their physical altercations to the wooden ring. But still, there was a lot less unregulated physical violence here than in other prisons. That’s why Palermo’s prison was considered the safest in the USA despite its maximum security status.
Hagen stopped retreating, concentrated, dived and gave the Cuban one of his signature uppercuts.
The Cuban didn’t just block the punch. He grabbed Hagen’s arm, twisted it, pulled him close and lowered his cannonball forehead. Their heads smashed into each other.
The yelling of the audience stopped instantly. Hagen heard his own skull crack, followed by a ringing sound.
That’s some wicked head butt, he thought admiringly.
Damage received: 8,200 (Head Butt)
Attention! You’ve been knocked down!
Time until recuperation: 3... 2...
However, Constrictor didn’t stop there. He dragged Hagen toward him once again and threw him over his shoulder.
Falling onto the concrete floor of a prison workshop was not the same as landing on the soft floor of a ring. He received several system messages at once, all of them reporting damage. Hagen ignored them as he rolled away as fast as he could.
An enormous fist smashed into the floor right where Mike had been a split second ago.
Constrictor wailed, grabbing his damaged hand. It must have been the first distinct sound he’d made during the battle. Hagen rejoiced at the fact that it had been a yell of pain.
“Ice, bring over some ice!” Palermo shouted.
Constrictor was immediately given a bucket of ice. He shoved his hand in. So there was more to overcome than his inhuman strength—namely, the administration’s support of the other fighter.
It was painful and scary for Hagen to get back to his feet. It felt like every bone in his body had been shattered by his fall on the concrete floor. One of the messages read:
Pelvis bruised.
–10 HP every minute (for 25 minutes)
–2 Agility
“Sorry about hurting your pet, sir,” Hagen exhaled, rubbing the small of his back. “I promise it will go downhill from here.”
Billy Palermo just laughed, appreciating the joke.
“I am no one’s pet,” Constrictor roared, throwing the bucket of ice at Hagen.
A cold water and ice cube shower felt invigorating. Mike wiped his face.
Constrictor spread his arms and rushed toward Hagen again. The ring seemed to vibrate under the heavy gait of the angry giant, concrete or no concrete.
A feint to the left. Constrictor obediently dashed in the same direction. Hagen moved sharply to the right and t
hrew a punch at the Cuban’s open face with relish, as strong and as precise as he could make it.
Damage dealt: 1,560 points (Punch)
Defense is lowered to 69
Nothing to write home about. It felt as though Hagen had fallen all the way back to his initial level of strength.
He started to punch at random, throwing caution to the wind. Defense would still weaken little by little even if Constrictor managed to block an attack. It was a good sign.
Mike managed a few combos in a sequence, lowering the opponent’s Defense to 58. His most effective attacks came at moments when Constrictor would open his arms trying to grab Hagen who moved like a drop of quicksilver. That was when he’d punch the Cuban right in the face, lowering his Defense by two or three points with a single attack.
Hagen’s progress filled him with optimism. His opponent’s Defense was already at 44.
He intended to attack as fast, maintaining the same distance, but that turned out to be a mistake. Having received another punch on the chin, Constrictor didn’t even start back for a second. He just lunged forward and grabbed Hagen in his deadly stranglehold. The giant instantly assumed the par terre position, falling to one knee and squeezing.
“Don’t hurry too much to say goodbye to us all, Mikey,” a muffled voice from the audience said. “You’ll keep us company for a while longer.”
“I’ve studied this guy well by now,” Blinky Palermo replied. “Blueeyes will come up with something in a moment.”
“An extra bet says he’s done for!”
“Accepted.”
It took Hagen too long to realize he’d gotten overexcited and started to run out of steam. He should have taken a break and made Constrictor chase him around the ring for a while. Too late for that.
The big man’s enormous arms of steel held him tight as he tried to squeeze his way out and kept pummeling his opponent randomly. The system confirmed that the punches connected and that Constrictor’s Defense was already at 23. But the stranglehold felt just as tight.
Mike was reliving one of his childhood fears—a sleeping bag you couldn’t escape. Even if you managed to unzip it, a bully’s hand would push you back into the stuffy darkness.
Hagen had already said his goodbyes to the prison and all his fellow inmates. He was just a step away from freedom. It felt like an enormous injustice that a battle as important as this one would end in such a pathetic and embarrassing way. He railed at the thought of losing another couple of months. Moreover, if he failed to walk free now, he could kiss the UFC screening goodbye. The tournament would begin and end without him.
The system showed him all his injuries, then announced:
Warning! You have less that 40% HP left!
Hagen hadn’t seen that message in a while. He’d finished every last one of his recent fights in the wooden ring with more HP. No matter how hard he struggled or strained his body, there was no result. Constrictor’s immobile bulk seemed to have pinned him down in this position for eternity.
Hagen felt as if someone had unloaded a tank of liquid concrete right over him, which was setting quickly, denying him any chance of freedom—in every sense of the word.
But could it be that...?
Will to Live
+50 to Strength for 10 seconds.
Muscles and joints are capable of... one powerful throw...
Hagen skipped the description. He would often wonder about the logic of Augmented Reality! Platform in giving you a 10-second buff with a description it would take half that time to read.
It was enough for him to feel his body go hard as stone. Constrictor kept on pushing, but without any result.
The system buff made his muscles and bones hurt a lot less. By the sixth second Hagen started to squeeze out of the grip.
He thought back to the summer camp incident, imagining he was no longer suffocating in the damp darkness and stuffiness of the sleeping bag and that he’d managed to thrust his finger out through the zipper, opening it slowly but steadily. He took a breath of fresh air, followed by another.
The changes in Hagen’s body were invisible to the audience, but Constrictor felt them. He grunted in surprise, feeling his victim turn into a monolith. He might as well have tried to wrestle with a statue.
Hagen pulled himself away in the ninth second, and threw Constrictor back by some six feet.
Blinky “Cloudy Eye” Palermo responded to this by uttering a stream of amazed invective. The rest of the audience did the same.
As Constrictor was rising from one knee, Hagen jumped to his feet, feeling his muscles weaken after the enormous effort involved in breaking free. He wobbled as he approached Constrictor. Still, his opponent would take a while to recuperate as well.
Hagen finished reading the buff’s description:
Muscles and joints are capable of an incredibly high resistance to crushing or stretching. You can only make one powerful throw.
–2 from all characteristics for 20 seconds after the throw.
–50% from all skills for 10 seconds.
So that was why he felt so weak. He wouldn’t be able to move normally or throw a strong punch for a while. And yet Constrictor was no longer in his former shape, either.
Hagen decided to attack before his skills and characteristics restored fully, which would take a few seconds. He could still attack, no matter how weakly.
So he carried on, alternating his kicks and punches until eventually he felt his strength return. He’d have to break through that damn Defense no matter what. After that, Constrictor would no longer be invincible and, just like any regular fighter, go down after a few good punches.
The Cuban’s Defense was at 2 now. That was an excellent result but Hagen could feel how weak his arms had become. He was approaching exhaustion. He needed a rest. And since there were no breaks in the wooden ring, he’d have to go on the defensive for a while.
Constrictor noticed him change his approach.
“Tired, are you? Well, I’m not!” he advanced toward Hagen confidently.
A second stranglehold would be the end of Mike. Still, the opponent was obviously lying. He was tired as well, sweating rivers, and his heavy panting could be heard clearly whenever the audience would fall silent for a moment.
Blinky Palermo noticed as much. “How about a break?”
Constrictor glanced at the warden hopefully.
That was the crucial moment. Mike couldn’t let his opponent rest, no matter how tired he might have been himself. After all, the bigger guy might restore his Defense.
Hagen spat on the floor. “I know why your pet has always been invincible. He’s had the invincible warden look out for him all the time.”
“Har har,” Palermo replied. “I get your hint. OK. No breaks; it’s even more fun like this.”
Constrictor looked dejected. His attacks became less persistent. Even the way he held his arms looked less confident. He still managed to grab Hagen’s arm, intending to give him another head butt, but Mike dodged it this time.
One, two, three, four, five. Every attack in the combo connected. The first two wiped away the rest of Constrictor’s Defense. Others got him in the jaw, the neck, and the stomach.
Constrictor whimpered as if he’d been insulted viciously and wantonly rather than punched. He kept gulping air with his open mouth but seemed to have trouble getting it down his lungs. He started to wave his fists about chaotically so as to get back at Hagen in any way he could, forgetting all about his technique. He even managed to get Hagen with one of his punches, inflicting a few thousand points of damage.
Mike felt a ringing in his head, which meant that the opponent’s next successful attack would result in another knockdown for him.
Hagen rushed Constrictor, clinching him to stop the murderous punches. His forehead pressed against the Cuban’s shoulder, Mike gave his opponent three jabs in the stomach.
The next thing he knew was that he was falling. His body no longer had anything to lean against. Constri
ctor fell onto his back. Hagen landed on top of him, but instantly tried to get to his feet in what had seemed a single fluid movement to him. He even assumed the stance, trying to defend himself against the counterattack.
But there was no one to attack him.
Blinky Palermo climbed into the ring, a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. He grabbed Mike by the hand, stepping over Constrictor’s immobile bulk.
“See this? That’s something, isn’t it? Suck it!” Blinky yelled. “You’ve all been had by Blueeyes! Or, rather, you’ve all been had by Blinky Palermo! Ha-ha-ha!”
All the yelling reached Mike through a roar in his head which kept getting louder, as if a jet was landing right next to him.
“Hey, Blueeyes, he’s still ready to continue! That’s against the protocol. You gotta finish the fight.”
Palermo led a very wobbly-legged Hagen to Constrictor who’d just gotten on all fours and looked like he’d been meaning to get off the floor. Hagen felt sullied, but if he intended to leave the prison, he would have to dance to Palermo’s fiddle. He felt particularly disgusted by the fact that this attitude would make every inmate resemble Trevor at the end of the day, no matter how tough a gangster they might be. Everyone was like Trevor to Blinky “Cotton Eye” Palermo—the inmates were his toys, always ready to do his bidding.
Hagen gave Constrictor as gentle and well-measured a punch as he could, holding him by his head. Then he placed his unconscious opponent on the concrete floor just as gingerly.
“Please stay where you are. Don’t try to rise. You’ve already lost.”
Hagen dismissed the victory message without reading it. That was hardly something to be proud of. Even though it had been a fair fight.
“We have a new champion!” Blinky shouted. He pressed his whisky glass into Hagen’s hand. Mike had to take a sip so as not to irritate the warden.
Level Up- The Knockout Page 39
