Chapter 12 #2
Both Mayhem and I nodded, bumping our gloved fists together and returning to our respective corners.
Unlike some of the other fighters competing tonight, I hadn’t fought Mayhem before, but I’d watched him in the ring before.
A worthy opponent, he was fast. It was his strongest attribute, actually.
But, much like his name suggested, Mayhem was all, well, Mayhem.
As soon as the referee blew his whistle, he would strike out, a mass of swinging limbs.
Shock and awe meant to confuse me, to keep me busy blocking his strikes.
A few would land, but what he was really counting on was me being too discombobulated to form an attack of my own.
It wasn’t the worst of strategies, but it certainly wasn’t the best of strategies, either.
A shrill whistle rang through the factory, and just as predicted, Mayhem came out of the gate, all fists of fury without any coordination.
Circling the ring, I backed up, holding up my arms to block the punches that came close, which weren’t many.
Three trips around the ring and Mayhem was already beginning to turn into stagnation.
When Mayhem’s next punch failed to hit its mark, I took the opportunity to launch an assault of my own, landing a direct hit to his nose—or where his nose should be behind his mask.
Rattled, he stumbled back, giving me a few more precious seconds to land another blow to his flank.
A kidney shot he would feel for the next few weeks.
But for now, the adrenaline coursing through Mayhem’s veins kept him on his feet.
The pain would be an aftertaste he would contend with later.
Mayhem threw another cacophony of blows, the last of which landed against my shoulder. Something I learned about Mayhem: dude’s punches were like a flesh-covered battering ram, knocking me back into the ropes.
Gasps with some embedded cheers resounded around the ring when he landed another hit to my forearm, which I’d been able to throw up just in time to avoid being clocked in the head.
Okay, play time’s over, asshole.
Another missed punch heralded an opportunity for me to regain my footing, striking Mayhem in the chest and briefly knocking the wind out of him.
He gasped, stumbling back even further from me, throwing him off his game and opening himself up for my knuckles to meet his jaw.
That hit would have been enough to knock most average humans on their ass, but Mayhem must have been built from adamantium straight from the pages of a Marvel comic.
In obvious pain and a shake of the head, the bastard stayed on his feet, preparing to lunge at me once more.
He’d weakened, like a hurricane shortly after making landfall.
His energy had peaked, but he was still lethal, and he intended to prove that by making a rallying cry toward me.
With blitzes that were far less coordinated than they had been only moments ago, I dodged his first blow and was almost a victim of a direct hit on his second attempt when Mayhem’s faltering recovery time allowed me to take advantage of his disadvantage.
Although he managed to dodge a hit intended for his head, I was able to catch his flank in the same place I’d struck him before. Mayhem doubled over, folding like a deck of cards. This was it; my opportunity to wrap this fight up with a nice bow and deliver a first-round win to my team.
Still clutching his side, Mayhem wasn’t paying attention to me when I strode over to where he was standing off-center of the middle of the ring, raising my fist and drawing it back, thrusting it forward and—stopping in mid-air.
What the actual fuck? Was that Ever?
Fucking Peter, Paul, and Mary on a zipline, it was her. And was she holding up a sign that read Caught you, Motherfucker with a smirk across her face that would be adorable if not for the fact that it appeared to be insinuating that she was celebrating a victory over me.
I’ll be damned, she was, and it was. Bravo. Brav-oh, shit. Did she know who I was? Did she—Before I could have a fraction of a second to decipher what had happened, my head was propelled backwards by an unseen force striking me in the side of my face.
In cartoons, when a character is struck over the head, there’s often this depiction of stars, like a blow to the cerebral cortex somehow briefly opens up an astral plane to the human eye. After that hit from Mayhem, I can say from experience that the same happens in the non-cartoon world, too.
I ambled backwards, my awkward footsteps falling in time to the collective gasps from the audience while I struggled to maintain my senses.
From my peripheral, I caught Mayhem’s form barreling toward me, ready to put this fight to bed.
It was bad enough to lose a match and even worse to get your ass kicked in front of the woman you hoped would still want to bang you after your public humiliation.
Not tonight, Satan.
In the words of one Taylor Swift, I had just begun to shake it off and regain my composure when the steel doors to the building were kicked open and the last people anyone in the joint wanted to see filtered into the building.
“Police! Everybody, put your hands up.”