"Bringing in the silver, boy?" A gruff, elderly man asked as he approached the red headed lad. Perrault was his name. One of
Isak's many underlings, from what Urchin understood. He was here to supervise the
event and make sure everything went smoothly for his boss.
"Gettin' plenty on the bets," Urchin told him.
"It's gettin' folks to sign up what's the problem. Nobody wants ta go up against the Fist. Just signed up a couple a few minutes ago. A big ol' drunk guy what signed up on a dare or summin'. An' the other one's a kinda weaselly lookin' guy what looks like 'e ain't never been in a fight in 'is life. Didn't smell a drop of alcohol on 'is breath, so no idea what 'is game is. Guess 'e could get lucky an' just dodge the drunk guy until 'e topples over though," Urchin joked.
It was a shame really, Urchin could tell just by looking that Perrault could probably have taken on each and every one of them in his prime, but the old mercenary was retired, his glory days long since passed.
"Any trouble?" Perrault asked.
"Couple of idiots tryin' ta start a fight outside the ring, but Mute booted 'em out... Oh, speak o' the devil," the lad commented as Mute walked over to him.
"Hey there Mute. Ya wanna place a bet?" he asked conversationally, but after watching Mute's hand gestures with some confusion, he soon realized that this wasn't his intention.
"What? Ya wanna sign up? Mute, are ya sure? That Fist is a mean ol' bastard. I 'eard 'e bit a guy's ear off the last time." Still, Mute seemed undeterred by the boy's warning.
"Okay, if yer sure. Miss Eile should be able ta 'eal ya up if ya get 'urt too bad, but I dunno if she can reattach ears an' fingers, so watch yerself, okay?" he warned the mute. While he was usually happy to stand in the front row and get splattered as the blood went flying, he didn't want to see his friend getting hurt.
Speaking of friends, here came another one.
"Queenie!" the boy declared happily upon seeing
Samara, wrapping his arms around the woman in a friendly hug.
"Nice ta see ya again 'gain! 'Ow ya been since the big job? Ya seen any more o' Baby Cakes?" the lad joked, of course referring to Finnegan. The two had seemed rather infatuated with each other from what he could recall.
Urchin looked a little surprised by the question.
"What, ya signin' up too?" Urchin asked, a little surprised, but quite excited by the idea also. After everything she'd accomplished during the big drug heist, watching Samara fight in a ring should be a sight to behold.
"Yeah, yeah, fist's only. No weapons, no magic, other than that, everything goes. Can get pretty bloody in there, but we got a real good healer on standby."
The boy then looked down at his little notepad that he was using to take bets and sign up fighters. While he couldn't read or write, the boy had made a few little drawings and tallies that only he himself could understand, drawing a set of closed lips in his list of fighters to represent Mute, and an eye with some nice long eyelashes to indicate Samara, since she had such pretty blue eyes. He'd easily be able to remember her from that.
"Hey, ya know what, it's great that ya two signed up together! Means yer gonna be fightin' each other after the next round. You two okay with that?" Mute vs Samara. That'd be a fun fight to see!
"Hey, hey!" shouted the muscle-bound human, raising one of his powerful limbs to wave at the chatting pair. "I see that the two of you arrived early."
And yet another familiar face arrived on the scene, which Urchin was more than happy to see. "Beef Cakes, yer here too?" he asked excitedly. "Well bugger me, we got a little reunion party goin' on 'ere tonight! 'Ow about after the fightin's all done, the winner 'as ta buy everyone a drink with all that shiny prize money?" the boy suggested, assuming of course that one of the three was the winner.
"This is where I sign up, correct?" Diedrick sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, threatening to ruin his hamfistedly designed ponytail. "Never been good with this whole paperwork thing."
"Well, o' course yer signin' up, big guy. I pity the poor bugger what's gotta fight you in the first round," the boy joked, goodnaturedly punching Diedrick on the arm (though considering the size of his muscles, the man probably couldn't even feel it.
"Hey, I know, I should pair ya up with the weaselly little guy, just ta watch 'im piss 'imself when 'e gets a look at ya."
"Hey-o! Sign me up, please and thank you!"
And yet even another friendly face arrived on the scene.
"Oh, hey, it's you!" Urchin stated happily as he saw Mortimer's face.
"Remember me? We met back at the docks! Ya gave me some coins an' I showed ya 'round the place... Hell, I think I even told ya 'bout the fights goin' on down 'ere. Must be why ya came, 'eh? Sure, I can sign ya up! Hey, meet all my friends. Perrault, Mute, Queenie, Didi, this 'ere is..." And then his mind drew a blank.
"Wait, what was it again? I can't remember. Did I get yer name last time?" True to his nature, the boy had spent hours talking to the man without even having the forethought to ask what his name was.
"Well, anyways, I'll sign ya up right away. Lemme just see who you'll be fightin'..." he said as he looked down at his little book of scribbles, but was quickly distracted as Perrault made his way towards the fighting ring.
"Oh, hang on, I'll tell ya later. Look, the first fight's about ta start!" Urchin declared excitedly as Perrault headed over to the ring.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" the old mercenary called out with his booming voice carrying across the room.
"Your attention, please! The first match of the first night of our very first tournament is about to begin!" This announcement caused a huge cheer to erupt across the room, Urchin of course joining in himself, loving a good fight as much as the next uncultured street rat.
"Our first competitor, a stranger traveled here from far away Elbion, I give you, Abdel Khalid!" It was then that the rather small, slender, weaselly looking man that Urchin had described before entered the ring. The man had long back hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, with a rather long and thin, rather rat-like face. As Urchin had said, the man looked like he'd never been in a fight in his life. The crowd really didn't seem sure what to make of him. At first, his entrance to the ring was met with silence, shortly followed by a scattering of boos as it seemed that the people had identified the contestant least likely to win.
"And his opponent, ladies and gentlemen, one of your very own! A sailor and smuggler from right here in the Shallows, I give you, William Shoar!" A loud cheer went out across the room before the man even entered the ring. Clearly he had a good deal of friends and associates already in the audience. A chant of 'Billy! Billy!' was cried out as the man made his way towards the ring. As he climbed over the ropes though, the drunken man stumbled and fell flat on his face, causing a loud roar of laughter from the audience. He took it in stride though, quickly getting to his feet and lifting his arms high in the air, waving to his friends, causing them to cheer for him once more.
Well, this fight certainly looked like it would be over soon. Drunk as good old Billy might be, he was considerably taller and stronger than the little man he was fighting against. It didn't look like poor Abdel stood much of a chance.
"You both know the rules. No weapons, no magic. Anything else goes!" the crowd cheered once more at the emphasis on
anything. It looked like everyone here tonight had come in hopes of some particularly bloody fights.
"On my signal!" Perrault cried, standing in the middle of the ring and lifting his arm high up in the air, giving the competitors and the audience a nice long pause of anticipation before finally lowering his arm.
"Fight!"
As expected, Billy made the first move, charging his little opponent and pinning the man against the ropes. The fight didn't quite go as expected though, as Abdel quickly grabbed hold of his opponents arms, digging his long nails in to the point that they actually drew blood. Rather than take it like a man, Billy actually released him grip on Abdel and stumbled away, a surprisingly large amount of blood dripping from his arms for such small scratches.
The tables then swiftly turned as Abdel quickly attacked the drunken man with a serious of swift and painful martial arts attacks, bombarding him with kick after punch after kick. Billy's response was shockingly pathetic. With each blow that hit, the man screamed as if in complete agony, though there was no way that Abdel could've put much weight behind any of those attacks. This went on until the poor sailor couldn't take anymore, and simply charged his opponent like a mad bull, tackling him and attempting to throw him out of the ring. Once he had Abdel in his grasp though, the smaller man assaulted Billy with a serious of quick slaps and punches to his back and face, that actually caused Billy to collapse to the ground before he even made it to the other side of the ring. Crawling out from under the bigger man, Abdul adopted a fighting stance, waiting for Billy to get up once more, but to everybody's shock, the man stayed on the ground, raising an arm in surrender.
"I give, I give!" he cried out, causing a series of mixed reactions from the audience. Some cheered for the winner, others booed to see their favorite lose and the fight over so quickly, and some were simply stunned to silence upon seeing such an unexpected result.
"William Shoar surrenders! Abdel Khalid is the winner!" Perrault declared to the rather confused audience.
"It just goes to show ladies and gentlemen, you can never judge a fight on appearances alone. Congratulations Abdel! William, maybe take it easy on the ale before you get in the ring again!" he joked, causing the audience to laugh loudly, putting the crowd in a good mood once again.
Abdel Khalid exited the ring with barely more than a bruise to show for it. Billy Shoar on the other hand was in a very bad state. He didn't walk from the ring, he crawled from it, climbing underneath the ropes and looking like he could move.
"Ah, come on big guy," Urchin said, moving forward to help the guy to his feet.
"Dun make such a big ol' fuss. The guy barely touched ya, can't 'urt that bad," but upon taking a closer look at the man's arms, he could see that it did indeed hurt that bad, and worse.
"Uh... Perrault!" he called up to the old mercenary.
"Perrault, get down 'ere!"
Leaping down from his place inside the ring, Perrault looked down on the ring with little concern.
"What is it, boy? Can't you see the crowd's eager for the next fight?"
"Look!" Urchin said, holding up poor Billy's arm.
"It's still bleedin'! Loads! Bleedin' wun stop... An' look at the marks where the guy punched 'im. They're all real red an' blistered an' nasty. Looks almost like... Burns. Can a guy really do that with just a punch?"
Perrault inspected the man's injuries and shook his head with concern.
"It's possible. I've gotten worse than that on the battle field. But a little guy like that, using just his fists. No, I wouldn't think so. I saw the punches he threw. Hits like that shouldn't be able to cause that kind of damage."
Damn. The first match of opening night and it looked like they already had a cheater. But what could they do? Everyone had watched the fight and certainly no one had seen the man cheating. He'd had no firebolts burning in his fists or lightning shooting from his finger tips. And like Perrault had said, a man doing this kind of damage with his fists alone wasn't impossible. How exactly did they prove that he had cheated. "Go get Mr Isak," the little Urchin suggested, to which Perrault immediately left. "An' find Miss Eile!" the boy called after him. "This guy needs healin' bad!"
