by Simon Archer
“Done deal!” I all but cheered. “Let’s get this started.”
“Buuuuut… for each round I win,” Barth said slowly, putting a gloved hand to his chest, “you have to do an extra set of jump rope exercises. The whole gambit.”
“The whole gambit?” I stopped bouncing around and stilled. “Come on, Barth, you know I’m not good at those.”
“Running in place, double jumps, and crisscrosses.” Barth ticked off each of the exercises. “This is how you will get better… or just beat me, and then you won’t have to do them.”
“Wait,” I paused, thinking through his words. “What about special moves? Does Gerry’s illusion let you do that?”
“No,” Barth answered. “We’ll work on that part later. For now, we want to get the basics down. We need to get them ingrained in you so that they become second nature. After all, you technically don’t have a special move to rely on. It’s all gonna be an illusion.”
I nodded in understanding. Then, I raised my gloves and hunched ever so slightly. “Let’s go.”
“Ding!” Gerry said in a higher pitch than normal from his place on the sidelines.
Thrown off by the vocal ding, rather than an actual one from a bell, I glanced over at the gnome with disbelief all over my face. “Really?”
“I told you,” Gerry said with a shrug, “the illusion only works on sight.”
The first hit came on my left side, connecting right below my eye. I dodged out of the way and growled out at Barth.
“What the hell?” I protested, skirting away from my opponent. “I didn’t know we started.”
“Match starts when the bell does,” Barth scolded as he took another swipe at me. “Don’t think too much about it, Rico.”
I swerved my neck to get my head out of the way. After the initial jabs, Barth backed off like Warpin would, assessing rather than attacking. I was good and angry, especially with my left eye throbbing like it was. He’s got in a clean punch, something solid and hard when I hadn’t been looking. It was a cheap shot, and we both knew it.
So I started for him, intent on hitting Barth back. I wound up for a left jab, but Barth lowered himself out of the way. He spun back, and I reached out for another jab, to meet only air. He was too far from me now, and I aimed to keep it that way for a moment, hoping he would come at me. Hoping I could anticipate it.
The whole situation was surreal. My brain knew I was fighting Barth, not the half-giant, but there was something about seeing him right in front of me, sweating and flinching and punching, that tricked my mind. Suddenly, I was in the ring where I had always wanted to be, fighting one of the greatest competitors of the generation.
Desire surged through me, and I channeled it into another jab from the left side. Warpin was still far away, still looking at me with contemplative eyes. I saw the decision in the flex of his shoulder muscles as he pulled back. I raised my gloves, my forearms protecting my face. My block was a second too late, my elbows too wide.
Warpin snuck a blow in, jutting my chin back into my skull. He bent his elbow and came at me again with the same arm. The swipe knocked my arms farther apart, giving him a larger target to strike. I worked quickly to bring them back together when Warpin’s other fist plowed into my nose.
The cold glove caught my bottom lip as he swung downward, and I tasted the flat fabric. I sniffed, and a zinging sensation rode all the way up to my brain. It registered the pain in my face before alerting me to the side jab that slammed into my left side.
I maneuvered backward, hoping to clear myself of Warpin’s relentless blows when a final one, the last in his combo, connected with my face in the same spot as before. Blood broke free and spilled down onto my lip. I closed my eyes and opened them again, seeing stars. I lowered my head, brought my elbows in close, and placed my gloves against my forehead. The block felt futile, especially after Warpin annihilated me with such a well-timed combination.
Still, I protected myself as best I could. He didn’t land another punch on me until Gerry’s makeshift bell dinged again. The round was over, and there was no doubt I had lost.
“One extra set,” Warpin hissed. The voice brought me back out of the illusion and into the training. Barth tsked with a smirk and headed back to his corner.
In the second round, I didn’t fall victim to the effects of Gerry’s illusion. Barth kept shouting directions at me which were meant to be helpful but only ended up distracting me long enough so he could get another damaging blow in.
“Where are your legs?”
“Why is all your weight on your front foot?”
“Tuck in your elbows!”
“Focus on my head or my breadbasket! You’re alternating too much between the two.”
“Do you know basic anatomy?”
“Watch the belt! Watch the belt!”
“Get out of your head, Rico!”
I screamed in pure frustration and swung my right arm up to wallop Barth on the ear. I connected, and the shock radiated up my arm. The hit felt great, and I raised my arm to do it again, but I left my stomach vulnerable to a lowered Barth, who seized the opening. He socked me right in the gut, and I careened backward. I took a wild swipe at him, almost a lazy swing.
“What the hell was that?” Barth called, shouting over the ringing in my ears.
He leaned into my imbalance and punched my forehead. My arms were too busy flailing to block properly. When I tried to catch my footing, Barth wound up his right arm and slammed it down into my face. My head whipped about, my vision blackening. I felt the ground before I saw it.
Dust bloomed around me as I collided with the floor. It smelt of must and horse shit.
“What the hell was that?” Barth shouted, his voice sounding like a tidal wave of noise.
“Ding, ding, ding,” Gerry said faintly from somewhere very far away.
“That was embarrassing,” Barth critiqued.
I rolled over onto my back as the room spun back into focus. The glamorous arena disappeared and left us with the ramshackle barn. The illusion faded, taking my confidence with it. I fought poorly, and we all knew it.
“Oh, Walden, Barth,” Gerry said with a low whistle. “If this is your plan to make history, you might want to rethink it.”
“That wasn’t his best,” Barth snarled. “Not by a long shot.”
Suddenly, the elf popped into view, standing over me with a menacing expression. I blinked several times, trying to rid my vision of the three versions of Barth.
“What. The. Hell. Was. That?” Barth drew out each word, never lowering his volume.
“Shit,” I muttered through a swelling lip.
“Damn right, it was shit.” Barth knocked his own head with a glove. “What happened to all of that knowledge, huh? You’re supposed to be this super fan and know all about the technique of boxing. I didn’t see technique there. I saw slop.”
“You told me not to think about it so much,” I argued.
“I didn’t say to completely lose your mind, did I?” Barth snapped back. “Where was the guy from the bar?”
“I…” I coughed, and my ribs stung painfully. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you better find him before you get back in this ring again,” Barth said as he stomped his foot. “You’ve got some serious training to do. I should not be able to get you near a knockout by round three.”
“No,” I said as I shook my head. I had to stop because that made my vision fuzzy again. “No, that was pathetic.”
“At least you know it.” Barth sighed, his voice finally going back to a normal volume. “Rico, this isn’t going to work if you can’t even get the basics down. They will eat you alive. You can’t go off on raw talent and blind punches. It won’t work.”
I knew this. Every word he said to me made absolute sense, and I wanted to punish myself for acting the fool. I’d let Barth’s taunts get to me and completely overestimated whether I could do this at all. These were supernatural beings with magical enhancements that
I would never have. I was a man with nothing more than his own two fists.
And those fists had failed me today. I felt that deep in my gut as I wheezed on the dirt floor. My trainer still standing over me, fuming, and he had every right to be mad. I’d embarrassed him and myself.
However, instead of shoving my failure further down my throat, Barth let me lie there. As if he knew what was going on in my head. That I was mentally beating myself as badly, if not worse, than he had done to me physically. I lifted my head ever so slightly to see the elf slide through the weak ropes and take his gloves off.
“You owe me three extra sets of jump rope exercises,” he reminded me. “And I swear to Walden that if I see you eat a single one of that lady’s pastries, I will obliterate you till you’re the size of Gerry.”
“Hey!” the gnome protested, clearly offended. “I’m tall for my race, thank you very much.”
“Yes, Barth,” I said with a groan.
“Rest up,” he commanded. “Train. Push yourself until you puke, I don’t care. Whatever it takes so that you don’t look like that next week when we get back in here.”
The elf didn’t say anymore. I heard the barn door slam shut as he left me staring at the wooden ceiling with my own doubt and pain.
12
Sleep eluded me that night. My thoughts swirled around the training session with Barth and Gerry. I’d performed abysmally, and we all knew it. While I managed to land a couple of blows on him, Barth had the jump on me the whole match.
I wracked my brain, trying to find the answer to all of my mistakes. Part of me wanted to blame the illusion, with the large arena and the realistic fighter pounding on me. I knew that wasn’t a valid excuse because that’s how the matches were going to be. Gerry and Barth were trying to prepare me for how it actually was in the ring.
It took me longer than I cared to admit to get my injured body and ego off the floor of the barn. Eventually, Graham came and licked my wounds. It was comforting but also a signal that we had to start on the afternoon work. I half-assed around the farm, doing what I could while in pain.
I reexamined my confidence and realized that if I wanted this as much as I thought I did, I had to put in the effort. I couldn’t hop into the ring and expect everything to fall into place. I had to apply the same discipline that I did with the farm chores or with my obsessive knowledge about the MFL to my workout. To all aspects of training.
After I finished working around the farm, I holed up in my room. We got Gerry situated a couple of days prior, so there weren’t any duties to complete as a host. With the farm chores done for the day, I had the time to wallow in my poor performance and self-pity.
Except when, in the middle of the night while I was still wide awake, my stomach reminded me that my moping had cost me dinner. I poked at my swollen eye and lip before assessing the three bruised ribs along my left side. Flashes of pain surged through my body each time I touched the wounded areas. I promptly decided to leave the injuries alone for the night. I would reapply the healing herbs and cooling agents in the morning.
For now, I focused on my howling stomach. The way it growled, you would have thought I had been stranded on an island for days, rather than just gone without something other than eggs and meat.
My tongue craved something sweet. It tingled with the prospect of sugar and bread and hell, an ale. I figured I earned a cheat day since I’d already done so poorly, the progress of the day was already long gone.
I made my way downstairs and paused when I saw a light flickering in the lower crack of the kitchen door. I paused briefly, wondering if I had left a torch blazing or if one of my unintentional house guests had done it.
Then I remembered Deity was one of those guests, and my heart stopped. Could she be in there? She said she normally baked in the morning, but here it was, the middle of the night and a light was on in the kitchen.
Doing the only thing I could think of, I knocked on my own kitchen door.
“Come in!” Deity called from the other side.
I closed my eyes and said a silent curse. Then I winced from the pain in my eyes and lip. Fiercely reminded of my injuries, I decided I couldn’t have Deity see me like this. I had no reasonable explanation as to why I would be so bruised and beaten. My stomach would have to wait until morning. Probably late morning.
Just as I made up my mind to turn around and head back upstairs, the kitchen door swung open. Deity stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other on the doorframe. The firelight behind her outlined her curvy figure and cast her face in shadow.
Mine, however, was thrust in the spotlight as the light shined right into my eyes. I squinted a little and raised a hand to shield my eyes.
“Oh, Walden!” Deity put a hand to her chest. “Rico. What happened to you?”
There was no getting out of it now. She’d seen me, injuries and all. I didn’t have an answer for her, other than the truth. I wasn’t too keen on Deity knowing about our training sessions still, but it was becoming too hard to hide it from her.
Before I could concoct any sort of reply, truth or lie, Deity took me by the hand. Shivers rocketed up my arm, and I nearly pulled away at the shock of it. But her warmth soothed my rough skin, and the sensation surprised me so vehemently, it brought an instant smile to my face.
“Come into the light so I can see you better,” she said as she dragged me forward.
I was a large man and could have easily resisted her, but I decided that in order to remain holding her hand, I needed to follow her. So, Deity led me into the kitchen light. She sat me down at the table and took my face into both of her hands. She turned me one way and then the other, her hazel eyes gazing seriously over my wounds.
“It’s not that bad,” I said.
“Not that bad?” Deity replied skeptically. “You look like a raccoon. Did you break your nose?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I think so.”
“Wait here,” Deity commanded. I found myself not wanting to be anywhere else in the world, so I remained in the chair and watched her fluttered about the kitchen like she owned it.
I realized then, that in a way she did. I hadn’t truly been in here since I’d offered her the space. The room was different. There were assorted pans in various shapes that I didn’t recognize right away. Ingredients spread about the counters, in glass jars with messy labels. There was a ceramic vase that contained a rolling pin, a whisk, and other utensils.
“It looks good in here,” I commented vaguely.
“It’s a mess,” Deity claimed as she pulled two jars out of the lineup. She walked back to me and set the jars and a small bowl on the table. “Kind of like your face.”
“Was that an insult?” I asked, unsure.
Deity giggled. “Kind of. I just can’t believe how you did that. Did one of the animals hurt you for something?”
“No,” I said even though I debating saying yes because Barth was kind of an animal. I shook my head absently, knowing that even that was a stretch.
“Then what happened?” Deity wondered as she dipped something orange from one of the jars into the bowl.
“I was in a fight,” I answered, unable to think of anything else.
“Again?” Deity looked alarmed. “Is someone after you or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I assured her. Her look of concern pierced my heart, and I wanted to get it off her face as quickly as I could. “I did it to myself.”
“Wait,” Deity said as she leaned her weight to one side and put a hand on her hip. “You got into a fight… with yourself?”
“No,” I groaned. “I’m not making sense.”
“No, you’re not,” Deity chuckled. “Look, you don’t have to tell me what happened, okay? If you’re not in danger, then I don’t really care. It’s your business. I just… I don’t know, seeing you all beat up like that was a shock.”
I sat dumbfounded at this woman as she mashed up weird aromatic spices in her mortar and pestle. I watc
hed her hands wrap around the stone. Her muscles flexed as she pushed down. She stood on her tiptoes to get a better angle. A strand of her multi-colored hair fell down into her face, but Deity kept working in spite of the defiant strand.
“I’m training to fight,” I said.
Deity stopped moving. “Fight what?”
“For the MFL,” I told her. “That’s why I am all beat up. I was training with Barth, and I got my ass handed to me.”
“I’ll say,” Deity muttered. Realizing that she had truly insulted me, she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”
“It’s okay.” I reached out and removed her hand from her mouth. I slid my hand down her arm until I could loop her fingers through mine. “I know I look bad, and you should know why.”
“You really didn’t have to tell me,” Deity said softly.
“I know,” I replied with a lopsided smile. “That’s exactly why I wanted to tell you. Because I knew you wouldn’t judge me.”
“I’m not about that,” Deity said, matching my smirk. She slipped her hand out of mine, not unkindly but simply so she could go back to crushing the herbs. “So you are training to fight? That’s great if it’s what you want to do.”
“It is,” I answered truthfully.
Something about saying it aloud to someone other than Barth or Gerry made the whole thing seem real. It solidified that desire, like an official decree. I had told Deity this is what I was doing, so I couldn’t back down now. I really had to do it now.
“Well,” Deity said with a sigh. “Good for you then. I hope all of this pain is worth it.”
“It will be,” I said. “Well, I hope so.”
“Let’s see if we can’t make you feel a little better, huh?” Deity offered.
She pinched a white, flat piece of something out of one jar. Deity held it out for me. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.”
I did as I was told, closing my eyes for good measure. A flaky but tough square landed on my tongue. Bitterness spread along my taste buds, and my face flinched in disgust.
