Chapter 13 #2
"Keep talking, omega," Thad said, bored, like this whole thing was just a minor inconvenience he was being forced to handle. "I'm tired of your fucking attitude, so I hope this will be a good lesson for you."
Ryan put five minutes on the clock and let us know there'd be another five-minute round if no one had won. Then we'd move onto one more set of fights for the day.
"Ready! And... fight!" Ryan called out.
The class cheered, and Ben wasted no time darting directly to Thad's side of the mat and launching a punch at his face. Thad managed to block it, but not the kick Ben sent to his stomach immediately after.
"One!" Ben shouted, pumping a fist into the air. A few students cheered, but the rest were quiet, probably too afraid of the wrath of the Elites to cheer for Ben.
Thad grunted and fell back a few steps, but he recovered quickly and ran at Ben.
They exchanged punches and kicks, both moving swiftly around the mat and effectively blocking one another from scoring another point.
Then Ben dropped low and kicked Thad's legs out from under him, and he quickly pounced on top of him.
He reared his fist back and managed to deliver a hard punch straight into Thad's perfect cheekbone.
"That's two, Ryan!" I shouted. Ryan had been keeping an eye on Dani's fight, which was about to be over as Dani was straddling Genevieve on the floor and yanking her by her hair, demanding a yield. He looked back to us and acknowledged Ben's hit. One more to go.
Thad kicked Ben off of him, and Ben rolled across the mat. Before he could get to his feet, Thad flashed behind him with lightning speed, sending a hard kick straight into his back.
"Fuck. Get up Ben!" I urged.
"That's one for me, Ryan!" Thad called out as Ben staggered and fell, but then he gracefully rolled to his feet and shook off the hit.
Ben no longer looked like he was having fun. I figured he was hoping for a perfect three-to-nothing sweep, so now he was pissed that Thad had managed to get a hit on him.
They charged each other, then several minutes ticked by as they danced gracefully around each other, punching and blocking, kicking and moving.
Ben's training was top-notch, and he looked like a pro out there, but Thad was no slouch and was keeping up.
My guess was the Elites and their crew had been trained at some point by the pack enforcers, as would be common in any wolf pack, but especially one of this size.
"Time, round one!" Ryan yelled. "One minute rest then you'll have one more five-minute round!"
Ben ambled back into my corner, looking loose and riled up. I squirted some water into his mouth with my water bottle and dabbed the sweat off of his brow with my towel. I was rocking this fight coach thing.
"You've got this, Benji," I said. "Just one more solid hit. Let's make it a good one."
"No way, Magic," he replied, grinning at me. "I'm pissed now—it's going to be total submission or blood."
"Fuck. I love it. Make it happen."
As the clock timer approached zero, I stole a look over to Thad's side of the mat. He was deep in whispered conversation with the other two stooges, who were all looking slightly less cocky and slightly more concerned with how this had all played out so far.
"Time's up! Fight!" Ryan shouted.
This time, Thad made the first charge toward Ben. He managed to catch him around his middle in a hard football tackle, and they both went to the floor. Ben got both feet between his body and Thad's and launched Thad off of him, but not before Thad was able to slam his elbow straight into Ben's jaw.
"We're tied two-to-two!" Ryan called out over the cheers of the students.
Ben and Thad both rose to their feet and circled each other slowly, looking murderous. Ryan, finally catching on that maybe this pairing was not the greatest idea, was looking a bit nervous over on his perch in between the two mats.
"Steady, you two!" he called to them. "Just one final hit, no need to kill anyone!"
That apparently only served to push them both over the edge, and they ran at each other again, colliding in the center of the mat.
Ben was a bit faster this time, and he stepped slightly out of the way, using Thad's momentum to throw him off balance.
Ben then swung himself behind Thad and latched onto his back, toppling them both and landing hard on the mat.
Ben crowded his slightly bigger body right on top of Thad, and he looped one arm around Thad's neck while using the other to wrench Thad's left arm up behind his back. He stuck a knee into Thad's lower back to hold him down.
"Submit, James," Ben growled into Thad's neck. "Submit before I break your fucking arm."
"Fuck you!" Thad shouted. He tried to shift out of Ben's grasp, but he quickly found he was stuck under Ben's massive frame.
“Tsk, I think you know it’s going to be me who fucks you, baby," Ben said, then he laughed and yanked his arm harder. Thad yelped in pain.
"One minute, gentlemen!"
Ben yanked again.
"Fuck! Fuck, fine!" Thad yelled.
"Fuck fine what?" Ben taunted.
"I yield!"
"Good boy," Ben purred. He finally released Thad from his iron grip, but not before he gave him a nice long lick up the side of his face.
Oh my Moon, BENJAMIN!
Thad rolled away from him then turned to face him, rage consuming his normally calm demeanor.
Knox and Mason had jumped onto the mat, too, looking like they were about three seconds from pounding Ben's face in.
I dashed out onto the mat and ran to Ben's side, ready to fuck up anyone about to take a cheap shot at my brother.
The crowd cheered, ready for some unsanctioned bloodletting.
"Okay, okay!" Ryan shouted as he hurried out onto the mat and jumped into the middle of the fray. He faced the Elites. "You three, step off and go cool off." Then he turned to us. "And you! Maybe try to be a less... obnoxious winner next time, Mr. Fortune?"
"Not possible, Ryan.” Ben grinned. "I want Monroe next."
"That's never happening."
"You're no fun, Coach."
Ryan stepped back out to the space in between the mats. He grabbed his clipboard and eyed his list. "Alright, once everyone has calmed down, I'd like to see Vargas and Hamilton on the boys mat, and Miss Parker and Miss Fortune on the girls’ side."
I barked out a very loud laugh, and Ben was right behind me, almost doubled over he was laughing so hard.
Did my birthday come early? Damn, thank you, Ryan.
He's clearly lost his mind, though. I mean, if he thought Ben and Thad were bad....
The class was cheering now. Nikka was already on the mat, looking very confident and very excited at the prospect of kicking my ass in front of her beloved.
Her long, sleek dark hair was in a ponytail, and her gym shirt was tied in a knot so that a strip of her tiny waist showed above her too-small gym shorts.
Knox had a smirk on his face, his big head probably enjoying the fact that everyone thought two girls were about to get into a catfight over the rights to his dick.
Mason looked kind of horrified, and Thad was sulking next to Mason, glasses back on, arms crossed, with a purple bruise blooming on his cheek.
I ambled over to my corner of the mat with Ben behind me now in the coach's role. He checked my wraps, then held my hands and looked me in the eyes.
"Listen to me, Magic," he said, uncharacteristically serious for a second. "As much fun as I had dancing around with Thad all of that time and then pulling out a win at the last second, I want you to get in there and ruin her in the first thirty seconds."
"Ugh, no fun, Ben," I whined.
"I know, but hear me out. You need to shut her up.
It's not about showboating—that's what she's been doing ever since the first day of school.
Parading around with Monroe, the obnoxious name calling, the bullshit questions in your Shifter History class—it's all her loudly trying to prove she's everything and you're nothing.
But you don't have to go to those lengths to show that she's wrong.
You're a confident, no bullshit, powerful female, and I want you to get out there and end her like it was an afterthought.
You give no fucks about any of it, and everyone's going to know it after today. "
Ben and my dad should start a podcast where they just record themselves giving pep talks. They both had a knack for saying exactly the right thing to push my confidence to the max and get my head right for an ass kicking.
I nodded to him, gave him a double fist bump, then turned to face my opponent.
I whipped my shirt off over my head and stood there in my shiny black sports bra, which covered all of my parts and then some in the front but had a bunch of thin crisscrossing straps across my back, showing off my muscle tone.
I did this both as an intimidation move and because it was one less thing Nikka could grab on my body.
Some wolf whistles (literally) rang out around the gym. Ben smacked my ass as I stepped forward.
Nikka rolled her eyes. "I see we didn't check our skank card at the door. Nice try, but I'm into dudes."
I just smiled at her, and she huffed.
Ryan stepped back into his spot between the mats, having made sure the two boys were ready to go.
They were both sophomores I didn't know, and they looked like nonathlete types that would half-ass their way through the five minutes, so the majority of the attention was on Nikka and me.
There wasn't a student in here who didn't know of the animosity that ran between the two of us, and they were itching for a show.
They were going to be disappointed.
"Ready!" Ryan shouted. I hopped on my toes, and Nikka lowered herself a little into a fighting stance. "Fight!"
I moved into the middle of the mat. Nikka stalked carefully toward me, fists up and ready. I watched the clock count down the first seconds of the fight.
We circled each other for the first ten seconds, then Nikka swung a punch at my face, which I blocked, then I quickly danced out of the way.
She followed with a pretty solid kick aimed at my side, and I blocked her again.
Fifteen seconds in.
She came at me with a swift two-punch combo, again trying to fuck up my face.
I blocked and dodged her again. Her form was decent, and the strength of her punches and kicks surprised me a little bit given how thin her human form was, but she wasn't going to be able to do that much damage even if she got a hit in. I evaded another few strikes.
"Come on, you stupid bitch!" she yelled at me. "Are you afraid to fight me? Afraid to get your ass kicked in front of the wolf you wish you were good enough for?"
Twenty seconds in.
The crowd cheered and groaned as apparently one of the boys had gotten a hard hit on the other. Nikka seized the moment she thought had distracted me to rush straight at me again, coming in fast with a fist aimed at my eye socket.
Twenty-five.
I squared up and looked like I was bracing myself for her hit—like she'd caught me momentarily off guard.
Instead, at the last second, with more speed than I'd shown in the opening seconds of this fight, I kicked my sneakered foot up high, like some Karate Kid shit, and just jammed my heel straight into her perfect little nose as she rushed toward me.
I felt a very satisfying crunch under my foot, and her head snapped back. I quickly bounced back to my corner as she tumbled backward onto the mat.
Thirty.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" she cried, holding both hands over her face.
I saw the blood seeping out from under her fingers, slowly dripping down her chin.
"You broke my nose, you dirty fucking whore!
" Dani and Madison ran out onto the mat to aide their leader; Knox moved closer to observe, looking concerned, but he didn't drop to her side to fuss over her like her friends did.
"First blood, Ryan!" I called, as Ben approached, smirking at me, and gave me another double fist-bump.
"That is what the fuck I am talking about!" he cheered.
Ryan appeared over the huddle of girls on the floor. He confirmed that I had indeed drawn first blood, then just looked my way and nodded. I may have been imagining it, but I thought I saw a little smile on his face.
Maybe our coach isn't as clueless as I thought he was.
"Alright, everyone!" Ryan shouted over the excited chatter of the class. "We've had an interesting and successful first day of hands-on combat. Be glad we all heal so quickly so that we don't need to worry about any long-lasting injuries from these little bouts."
He glanced down at Nikka, who was sitting up at this point, seething. She was no longer bleeding, but she had a little dried blood crusted around her nostrils, and her nose was still swollen and puffy. She'd be back to normal probably by tomorrow, if not earlier.
Knox and Mason finally approached her, crouching down to speak to her for a minute.
She grabbed Knox's hand, and he patted her back for a few seconds, whispering in her ear.
Mason looked my way and, you guessed it, glared at me.
Like I'd done something wrong by winning a fight that was set up and sanctioned by our teacher.
As Ben and I shuffled off to the locker rooms to shower and change for lunch, I pondered what Man Bun could possibly be pissed about.
It wasn't necessarily that I'd won the fight against Nikka—though I'm sure their world order would have been better preserved if I'd lost—but it was that I'd done it in a way that was probably pretty embarrassing for her.
In fact, it was probably only going to escalate things between us, rather than settling this so-called catfight we'd been having since the first day of school.
She'd claim it was a lucky shot—that I didn't really engage in the fight.
She would be gunning for me even more now, her desire to prove her superiority over Knox's supposedly perfect match only intensifying.
Mason was the peacekeeper, so this was just making his life harder.
I didn't exactly give a fuck.
Bring it on, bitch.