A dark-skinned man with single tribal marks on both cheeks and in grey fighting shorts hums the "Rocky Theme" as
He wraps white fighting bands around his hands.
He pulls out an eviction notice from his pocket and sighs.
"Soon this'll all be over, " he thinks to himself.
The room is completely silent save for the intermittent static coming from a tv showing a fight taking place in a steel cage betwen two men, one is dark skinned in gold shorts and has dreadlocks, he's on his knees, holding the other in a headlock; another dark skinned man, bald and wearing black shorts, he jabs his with foe who tries to tighten his hold but eventually lets go to guard against the strikes.
They immediately get to their feet, arms up to guard, and the bald man runs toward his foe just as the man in the locker room smiles.
"This may actually be fun."
He rolls onto the floor, doing pushups while watching the match unfold.
The bald man, catching his breath, observes his opponent, noticing him clutching his right arm and wincing. He squats down, then rushes forward and swings a jab at his face. He deflects it with his left hand, but before he can counter, the bald man throws sand in his face, making his opponent guard with both hands. The bald man doesn't hesitate and starts to pummel him.
"shaabaash, shikaar"
The man says as he struggles to guard and remove the sand from his eyes
His opponent throws blows and jabs at his face, battering both arms as he guards and struggles to stay on his feet.
The crowd cheers aloud as his strikes become more and more vicious; however, with a loud bang that echoes through the building, they become silent.
A large pool of blood stains the mat with the bald man lying in it, facedown.
The man in gold gets up, and the circular tattoo on his wrist glows a deep blue colour, then fades.
The referee carefully avoids the blood on the mat as he observes the fighters.
He rushes forward and swings his leg at his foe's chest, catching the leg with his own.
"The conditions are almost met." He thinks that with a tattoo of two circles joined by a single line on his shoulder, the tattoo glows blue, and a strong scent of burning wood emanates from him.
The sound of the crowd around him is mute to him. he turns to his right and sees the referee counting backwards from ten, slamming the mat with each number.
He winces as he rolls onto his stomach and slowly stands back up. He raises his arms to guard as his opponent in black shorts and golden gloves smiles as he moves in closer and throws a punch at him.
He evades by going under the fist, and at the right moment, he punches his opponent in the chest, causing him to stagger backwards and raise his arms to guard.
"Almost there..."
The crowd cheers are even louder, but the man still cannot hear anything except his own heartbeat and breaths because he's wearing earplugs, his opponent charges at him and launches a jab at his face, he endures the blow as his head bobs backwards.
"Gotcha!"
Suddenly,, his eyes glow a blue aura, and the entire environment becomes invisible except for the mat beneath him and his opponent, who becomes a white silhouette with red circles around his jaw, left arm and chest.
As he falls back, he grabs his opponent's outstretched left arm before he pulls it, he rotates his waist and throws him onto the mat.
He kneels on his chest and attacks, punching his face as he tries to guard, but multiple times he can land multiple hits. His opponent, through the beatings,, smiles as he thinks to himself.
"Conditions have been met." He thinks to himself
Suddenly, a loud bang makes the beatings stop, and the man in blue quakes as he looks down at the bullet hole in his chest.
He tries to raise his arm to strike again, but two more bullets perforate his chest and splashes of blood now on the mat as well as his opponent, and he falls over.
His opponent gets and with a smug grin, he raises his fist showing a tattoo of two circles joined by three lines. And his wounds, glowing a blue aura, then fade.
He spits on his unconscious foe, and he tucks his hands into the waistband of his shorts with his chest out as the crowd cheers louder than before.
The referee in a white striped shirt and trousers holds the man's hand up and asks:
"Who wants to step into the ring with the 'Gravedigger to claim his title?!"
He waits for a response as the crowd goes silent, as some men in black suits put the opponent's dead body in a black bag and carry him away.
"I didn't think so!"
In the locker room,
A man in a black suit and a fadora enters the room. Kun stands up, a dark skinned man, bald and with a lean, muscular build.
He smirks and leaves for the stage.
Their roars and chanting "Gravedigger" start up again. The lights go off, and the walkway from the locker room to the stage lights up just as the announcer starts to speak:
"Ladies and gentlemen...the moment you've all been waiting for...!
The final match of the night where the unstoppable force meets the immovable object...! The unnamed fighter who has zero losses that clawed his way to the finals against the reigning champion...! Weighing in at one hundred and thirty-two pounds of deadly accuracy, the "charmer of death himself....Kunle the Mamba!!!!"
The crowd collectively boos him and throw empty cans and tomatoes at the cage despite this he smiles with his hands sitting in the waistbands, he takes a deep breath amd walks up to the mat, in comparison to his opponent, he is shorter, had less muscle mass but more scars on himself.
"I'll give you a choice, a bullet to your brain or three to your heart."
Kunle doesn't respond, only staring at him and yawning with his mouth wide open.
"Freak." His opponent throws a punch which he slides under and returns a swift jab to his throat, causing him to stagger back and hold his throat.
The referee separates them and holds the microphone up to his face.
"You know the rules, you win by knockout, ringout or death and of course...."
He holds out the microphone to the audience, and they chant:
"Anything goes!!!"
He moves out of the way and shouts.
"Begin!"
Gravedigger immediately grabs Kun by the neck, raises his struggling body with one arm and slams him against the mat. He picks him up by his hair and throws him against the metal cage surrounding them.
Kun tries to get up when his opponent lands a powerful kick to his head, knocking him back to the mat and coughing up blood.
He grabs Kuns' throat and holds him up.
"Y...you k...kick like a girl."
Kun spits blood into Gravedigger's face, blocking his left eye which reduces his focus as he triest tomaintain his grip when Kun kicks his lower jaw allowing him to break free, as he lands, he sweeps his opponent's legs, forcing him into the mat and stomps him with the ball of his heel knocking him unconscious.
Kunle leans against the cage while the umpire starts to count backwards from ten. Kunle makes sure he's behind the umpire.
Suddenly, a loud bang can be heard as the umpire falls over with a bullet hole in his head.
He faces Kunle, trying to rub the blood out of his eyes, who races himself
Another loud band is heard, but the bullet just barely grazes Kun's shoulder.
He clutches his arm and thinks to himself.
"By maintaining my distance, I have an idea of how his 'bond' works. When he takes damage, he's able to fire at least two 'bullets' from that point. Since I put blood in his eye and stood behind the umpire, I was barely hit. But that won't work twice.
"You clever little snake," Gravedigger says as he stands back up.
"Can we wrap this up? My girl is watching, and we have dinner plans."
Gravedigger picks up the umpire's body and throws it at Kun. he rolls out of the way and runs around the edge of the ring and starts to unwrap his bandage.
"What's wrong? You're still keeping your distance."
Kunle smiles and spits blood on the floor.
"Nah, your BO is just really off-putting."
His opponent rushes towards him as he completely undoes the bandages with the inner aspects riddled with circles all joined by a single line.
He shows his opponent his exposed palms, both with circles on them and lines running down his arm to his abdomen, and a line from his feet also has lines running up his trousers and joining the circle.
They all glow and black fumes with a very strong scent of burning wood fill the entire building, including a man in a black trenchcoat who covers his nose as well as that of a little boy seated next to him.
Kunle's foe starts to choke as his vision fades to black, he rubs his eyes andwhen he opens them, he sees two black mambas circling around him, he tries to step out of the circle but with a strong hiss, one leaps forward and bites his arm just as the other bites his neck from behind, as he pulls it off the first one bites his hand.
He struggles to stand, and the crowd laughs as almost all of them can see that Kunle is sitting cross-legged as his opponent seems to be fighting in thin air, except for the man and the little boy.
He eventually falls to his knees as the little boy in the crowd exclaims:
"It's almost time...!" He says, standing and leaning forward as if to jump on the stage.
The smoke around kun gets thicker as both snakes disappear, Gravedigger struggles to compsose himself, trying to make a beave face.
He looks at his foe and prepares to attack again when he hears a loud hissing, his heart skips a beat as he turns around and is face to face with a snake that is so massive, its coiled body blocks his field of view. It was fully obstructing the lights in the stage.
Before he could respond, the snake opens its giant maw, exposing the human-sized fangs and devours him whole.
Later that evening, Kunle is in a white shirt and jeans. He counts money in an envelope and puts it in a bag,, and as he's about to leave, the man in the trenccoat and the little boy walk into the locker room.
"Show's over, I'm not taking any autographs."
The man takes off his hat, revealing his heterochromic hair.
"I actually came to congratulate you, my boy and also to offer you a...how you say business opportunity... "
He hands him a card with a stylised letter H in the back. Kunle notices two people standing behind him, a blond woman blushing and looking down and a little boy with herochromatic eyes, the left is yellow and the right is blue. He is hiding behind the man's leg while peeping out to see him.
"...Okay, maybe he wants an autograph."
Lio wakes up in a cold sweat on the king-sized bed. The lights are off, but the broken dining table and chairs are easily visible.
The bags were left at the entrance, and their clothes were mostly on the floor next to the table.
He rests his hand on Layla's head as she sleeps next to him, both of them covered with white sheets.
"I told you the table was a bad idea."
"You seemed to like it." She smiles in response.
"Did you have the same nightmare again?"
"No, this time was...different. "