Breathing in, breathing out, in, and out. That was the first and most important lesson Sifu Jerrin had taught Skye Dumas when he was five years old and came to Monsieur Van Dam Charm School. Fourteen years of tutoring and training, and still it all came back to breathing in and out. Skye tried to wait patiently for the gate to open and the fight to begin. Waiting was always the hardest part. He had started stretching out and warming up over an hour ago, but to calm himself he performed one more slow repetition of Salutation of the Sun.
Anxiety would do nothing for him out in the arena; focus was key. In he breathed, and then out, with perfectly controlled breaths. He could hear Sifu Jerrin's voice in his head, "In combat, as in life, the only aspect you have control over is yourself. To control the situation, the control of self must be absolute." Nothing about himself, not even his breathing, can be allowed to leave his control. Breath controls the flow of energy through the body. Breath that is focused leads to a body that is focused; clumsy breathing leads to a clumsy body.
He must be focused for this fight. Skye had fought in many of this format, but not at this level. Never had he been in a professional fight before. There was little chance he would be standing at the end, but to win a 30UKOFFA (Thirty-man-Unarmed-Knock-Out-Free-For-All) his first pro match would be amazing. It would help ensure he would get into one of the better stables.
His mother had made it perfectly clear that she had no intention of starting her own stable. Her hope was that, after the first fight, she might be able to make a small profit on the cost of putting him through charm school by selling him to the highest bidder. First, that would require him to do well his first fight. Second, he will have to present himself well to the potential bidders when he is introduced to them at the ball. Then, no effort could be spared to present him well on the auction block. Who knows, perhaps he might capture the heart of a wealthy mistress who will decide to buy him outright herself. That was all further down the road. For now, he needed to focus, and breathe.
A few more minutes passed, and Skye heard the anthem of the planet Ishtar playing out in the arena. Not long now; his fight was the opening act. The anthem came to an end, his gate slid open, and sunlight poured in followed by the roar of the women in the crowd. He stepped up the ramp and stood on his mark in the meticulously raked sand outside his doorway. As the door behind him slid shut, he studied his opponents stepping out of their own doorways around the circumference of the arena. Most of them would be rookies or other relative unknowns in this fight; no one would be paying much attention to any particular one at the beginning. He could wave to the crowd if he won; for now his opponents received his attention.
The first detail that jumped out at him was that the average size of his opponents was larger than he was used to. No one of them was the biggest he had ever faced, but the average size of the men on the field was more than he was accustomed to. By a quick visual scan, only two looked smaller than Skye. Welcome to the big time. It did look like he had one of the more creative stylists of the bunch. About a quarter of his opponents had basic buzz cuts, and another quarter had shaved their heads entirely (most likely in imitation of the World Champion who had managed to remain undefeated for over three years: Oric Dis). Fortunately; his gravity defying, free flowing ebon locks wouldn't be a disadvantage as long as he could see through them. Grabbing or pulling an opponent’s hair carried one of the more severe penalties that stopped short of criminal prosecution. Once again he heard Sifu Jerrin’s voice, "If you accidentally rupture an inner organ that is forgivable, but if you ever want to be in the good fights, do not touch the hair."
None of them would have any advantage from equipment. Unarmed meant that they walked in wearing a threadlet. It was just enough fabric to contain their manhood and nothing else. It was designed to ensure that, even if you took it off and attempted to use the thin string that held it on as a garrote to choke an opponent, it would tear and you would be penalized for corrupting the younger ladies in the stands. The uniform for the games helped ensure they were fair, and helped ensure the ladies in the stands or watching from home could ogle all the eye candy they wanted. "Give the women a good enough show," Sifu Jerrin had often said, "And you can lose every battle, but still be a star." Not that his fight was likely to be watched by many from home. These weren’t a major games, and large free-for-alls were primarily used to warm up the live crowd and to sort the potential arena stars. Winning one could still be impressive, though.
He was shorter and of slighter build than almost all of his opponents. In a free for all battle, that was a mixed blessing. Those looking to take out obvious threats early would ignore him, but opponents looking for an easy early KO would target him. If you want to win a big free-for-all like this, endurance was everything. You want to keep yourself fresh while your opponents wear each other out. Also, the crowd is more likely to remember impressive maneuvers later in the battle, when there are fewer men conscious on the sands.
Only five had their skin dyed with a stable's symbol and colors. All the rest had the same black font as Skye, just declaring their number in the fight on their chest and back. He was number thirteen.
The bell tolled, and the time for strategizing was over. Instead of waiting for an opponent to choose him he spotted a mid-sized opponent, number five, who didn't seem able to move too fast. He was thick around the mid-section, which meant easier to hit, but harder to shock his innards. With any luck, Skye could spend the next few minutes working him down without getting worn out himself, and not attract attention from anyone else until the sands had been depopulated some. He ran over to the thick bellied man and opened with a right back fist to the face that rebounded off the man’s forearm block to swing straight into a shot to the crotch. His fist connected solidly. Then Skye's left fist shot out for a jab to the throat. There was a moment of surprise as he realized the second and third blow had both landed, resulting in his opponent already going down.
Skye had little time to decide what to next; however, as one of the shaven headed men (number twenty-six) tried rushing him from behind. Luckily; the angle of the attacker's shadow gave his approach away in time for Skye to react. He dropped into a low stance with his left foot stretched out away from his the charge, to give maximum stability, and drove his right shoulder into the surprised man’s midsection while the assailant swung wildly at where Skye’s head had just been. As momentum carried the bald pugilist ever forward, Skye shoved upwards with his shoulder, flipping the man so that he upended halfway over to plant head first into the arena sands.
Before the bald man could react to his new situation, lying face down on the ground, Skye grabbed his foot and twisted, hard. He felt more than heard the tendons and ligaments snap as the crowd's screeching roar drowned out the sound. Whether it was the ankle, the knee, or both that had been disabled didn't really matter. What mattered was that it was repairable and the man was effectively out of the fight. As ever, Sifu Jerrin’s advice rang through Skye's skull, "Giving injuries that can't be easily fixed is always to be avoided in the arena. It can cost your Lady or stable money, and make it so you can't rely on the professional courtesy of others not doing the same to you." Really, with the state of medicine, as long as you stayed away from the brain and the heart, enough money could fix almost anything if the medic got to you in time. Scars left afterwards were a matter of taste.
Skye stepped away in a ready stance and surveyed the sands. There were five doors open with medics running out to take the critically injured out of the way to be treated. One team was coming for his first opponent; crushed windpipes tend to be high priority. The bald guy with the twisted leg would be rather low on the triage list. At least ten were out of the fight, and the other combatants were occupied with one another. He scanned for a favorable target.
In a free-for-all he couldn't just consider the one he was striking, because their opponent was also his opponent. The enemy of your enemy is also your enemy in a free-for-all. If you take someone out from behind, in all likelihood their current opponent will try to take you down as your only thank you. The best case scenario is to strike someone who is in the middle of finishing their opponent off. Failing that, the next best scenario is to find someone who is winning easily and hit them from behind, but just enough so that their current opponent has a chance; not hard enough to take them out, and not enough to be worth losing focus on their current target over. Let them fight each other; you just make sure that when they are done and one comes for you, they are as tired and bruised as possible.
Skye spotted a pair who had made the mistake of entering a grapple. Wrestling is all well and good if there are only two fighters on the field, otherwise it’s suicide. It leaves all parties involved vulnerable, and even if you disable the one you are grappling; disengaging, standing back up, and even pushing your unconscious foe off of you can all cost precious seconds that you would not be able to afford. He ran up and kicked the lower one of the downed pair in the soft part of the side with the ball of his right foot, then jumped into the air and slammed his left heel down on to the right side of the higher grapplers back, which of course transferred a not small part of the impact to the lower man. As often happens when an attack involves jumping, Skye was not able to keep his footing and fell, but he rolled with the fall back onto his feet. He was out of the way just in time, because two more saw the error of the wrestlers, and both of them had the colors of minor stables on their skins. They each kicked the two fools on the ground a couple of times, to ensure that they were out of the fight, before joining in melee with one another.
So far, Skye had been lucky, and the battle was going much faster than he had anticipated. Over half of the fighters were either unconscious, writhing on the ground, or somewhere in between. Two of those who had fallen were men from the stables. Somehow, he had not taken a single hit, and hadn't really had to exert himself either. Now, though, was where it would become less about luck and started getting tricky. While most of the men were injured at that time, those who were likely to go down easy were already down. The initial rush was over, most of the guys left would be thinking before they advanced. Most would be defensive now that they had lasted this long. Most would be thinking they have a real chance to win this if they played it smart.
The man dyed with red and black jagged swirls, who was charging straight at Skye, evidently did not think this way. He was at least in close competition for being the largest on the sands in this battle. Maybe he didn't have much endurance and wanted the battle over with as quickly as possible. Maybe he was in some sort of blind battle rage. Maybe he was big but not too bright. Whatever the reason, blood and spittle slathered from his bared teeth as, at the end of his sprint, he leaped at Skye with his rippling arms outstretched.
Skye pivoted and ducked to the side, jabbing at the flying madman while evading his grasping hands. The crazed male landed in a crouch and immediately turned to lunge. Skye blocked for a hit, but the crimson and black swirled monstrosity wasn't trying for a hit, he was grabbing for his arms. He yanked Skye over to him, face to face. Skye saw the dozen burst blood vessels in his assailant’s eyes, turning the whites of his eyes more red than the color they are called after. He looked into those eyes and saw death. This man was not trying to disable. He was not trying to knock out. He was out for blood and to kill. The bloody teeth were bared again and he bit for Skies throat. Skye's free arm came up and he slammed it into the crazed man’s maw. Teeth sunk into his flesh, and searing pain shot through his arm, but the teeth could have been in his throat. The bloody teeth were not from being punched in the mouth, it was blood from those the man had already faced.
Men died in the arena, especially in the battles with weapons. The goal was almost always to disable, but even in unarmed matches, death sometimes happened. Fights to the death were rare, though. Unsanctioned death was always investigated and penalized; sometimes charges would even be raised depending on the investigation. Everyone knew that men were murderous beasts at heart, which was why they could not legally carry projectile or energy weapons on Ishtar. That was why they no longer had governmental privileges. That was why they were each required to have a Lady to oversee them, or become wards of the state.
Skye had never seen this, though. He had never looked into the eyes of one of his fellows and truly understood the unthinking slathering beast that everyone knew dwelt in the hearts of all men, just waiting to be set free. He saw and was horrified. The teeth were grinding deeper into the flesh of his left arm until they hit bone, his right arm was being crushed in a vice grip, and his left shoulder was being gripped by the madman's right claw until he was sure the thumb was separating the joint. Those eyes, those mad unthinking eyes, bored into his skull; they taunted him with the knowledge that this was inside him to: he was also one of these creatures.
Skye's feet swung back and forth, ramming into the crotch of his attacker, but the man was unphased. He tried kicking the gut, the knee, anywhere his feet could reach, but there was no response except for the seething rage in his captor's eyes. Skye's feet had not touched the ground since he had been bitten, but he reached a new level of fear as the madman began to run while still holding Skye in the air.
The wind was knocked out of Skye's lungs as the two slammed into the arena wall, and the deranged man he struggled against kept trying to run. Lances of pain shot through his arm as the teeth gnawed into it. Blood streamed down the man's chin and between them, coating both of their chests. Skye didn’t know how long they were there against the wall before something slammed into his captor, grabbed the cretin's windpipe, and squeezed. It continued for a little while longer, but slowly the madman's eyes rolled up, he passed out, and let go. Skye slid down the wall and stood facing one of the two men who had been fighting over the pair of grapplers. He was dyed in patterns of navy and burgundy. A fully mature man, he was probably a semi-retired fighter by his looks. He had more than a fair number of scars, and they all looked real.
The stable man looked at Skye for a second and asked, "Can you continue, or do you yield? You look in no state to fight."
Panting with pain, Skye replied after a short pause, "If you don't mind, I'd like to finish this. If I'm not going to win, I at least want to be unconscious when the winner is declared."
The man patterned in navy and burgundy laughed, "Then meet me at the midpoint, so we can square off and give you your wish."
They walked to the center of the arena, and Skye's head was starting to swim from the loss of blood. He held his focus though. He noticed that the older man was slightly limping; not with a limp of a new injury though. The older man moved as though the limp were a part of him. They squared off. The older man pulled his hands together in the sign of the crescent enclosed fist and bowed. That was a bow of definite respect for one’s opponent. Skye willed his mangled arm up and into the sign then bowed a few degrees deeper, despite the tidal waves of agony he managed to hold back from all his face but the eyes. A look of pleased surprise crept onto the older man's expression as he moved into a ready stance.
Skye knew that with how much blood he had lost (and was still losing) all that his opponent had to do, honorable as he seemed, was to wait for Skye to pass out. The young man made the first move. He advanced in a side stance that kept his injured arm behind him and tried to use the same maneuver he had bested his first opponent with. His back fist swung towards the old man's forehead, and after being blocked away swung for the sweet spot in the crotch; only to find the other hand waiting there in a block. Then the old man wrapped his foot around the back of Skye's advancing leg and gave an open palmed blow to the chest, thus knocking Skye over backwards.
Skye stopped himself as best he could by putting his good hand out for a one armed back-bend, but that left his back open to the old man's knee which sent Skye sprawling. He fell on his left arm, grinding sand into the wound and making him gasp in pain. Skye tried spinning on that side to swing his leg around for a sweep kick. Sand, however, is not conducive to such a maneuver, and he succeeded only at grinding even more grit into his wound while the old man was able to position himself for a solid kick.
Skye saw the foot swinging towards his face. His head resounded with pain, and the sun faded dark.
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