The Mysterious Demon

-Blake-

“Again.”

Hit.

“Again.”

Hit.

“Last one.”

A huge crash echoed the training room as I finished boxing practice with Xavier. I let out a breath and finally got to relax my stance, taking off the gloves on my hands. I was finally getting used to the regime that Xavier had created for me. My breath was more stable at the end and my stamina had built up a lot now.

“Want some water?” Xavier offered, going into the mini-fridge.

I nodded and thanked him once I caught the bottle he threw at me.

I had been spending a lot more time here training ever since the incident with Dominic occurred. I was determined to be able to protect her better but not only that, if we were to have a family in the future then I’d want to protect them as well. Although, at the moment, I don’t think Dominic wants to go through that anymore.

“You have to stop fighting with anger.” Xavier suddenly says, leaning against his desk. I looked back at him a little confused which made him carry on explaining. “I know you’ve been through rough patches lately but don’t fight with anger. You have to let that go.” My shoulders dropped when he said that. I hadn’t realised I made it so obvious.

I tried looking back at Xavier’s expression to see him looking at me with understanding but he was as stern as always. “Fighting angry will distract you and blind you from being able to read people’s movements properly.”

“You speak as if it’s from experience,” I say and he scoffs.

“There’s nothing for me to be angry about, I’m one of the most feared fighters in history!” I rolled my eyes at his pride but his eyes then stopped gleaming and he looked away with a straight face for a moment. “But,” he continues, “The only time I did let my anger out on the ring was when Dominic was defeated.”

His face held a look of annoyance now and even I felt tense. “That prick. The lack of respect he had and the way he treated Dominic was infuriating. I gave him a good punch to the face but he was looking for a fight.” I watched him hold his fist, possibly trying to calm down.

“Why don’t you give him one? It’s not like he’s not around.”

“Because I can’t look at his face without boiling with rage and if we were to fight, I’d be more focused on trying to smash his head in rather than looking at what he’s going to hit me with.” He suddenly started walking up to me and then put a hand on my shoulder, grip hard enough to threaten to break it. “That’s why you’re going to do it instead.”

My eyes widened at his words. “What?” I asked, almost breathless.

“I’ve watched the guy fight for years now and taught you in confidence that you can be the one to fuck him up.”

For some reason when he said that, I felt motivated. I could feel my blood pumping around that little bit faster. I was excited.

“So, Beast, are you in?”

His eyes were gleaming again, a smirk plastered on his face and I couldn’t help but reflect that.

“I’m in.”

We fist-bumped each other and he walked towards his desk again, taking out a clip-bored and sliding it against the table for me to see. I walked towards it and looked at a list of names, all of which were street fighters.

“Then it’s time to sign up for a fight.”

—

-Dominic-

I’ve been away from home for a while. The face-offs were in a month and that’s usually the busiest time for us so I’ve been all around the state at each of my locations making sure everything was going as planned and we were still striving. It had been difficult for a while but we were starting to boom again, meaning that I could rest assured for a little while longer.

When I did get back home and to Xavier’s branch though, I stood by the entrance in surprise. This branch was usually the slowest in terms of business at night, mostly because of the King, so seeing a whole line to the entrance was quite surprising.

The only reason I was here was that I knew Blake had been spending more time here recently and so I wanted to go home with him tonight. Plus, I needed to check on updates with Xavier, now more than ever.

I walked towards the back entrance, the guard glancing at me and letting me inside without hesitance and inside it seemed more packed than it was outside and for the first time in a long time, the room was filled with noise.

My ears perked in excitement at the cheers that would be enough to deafen you. My heart starts racing. As I walk around a grin settles on my face, seeing so many fighters and spectators, here again, brought me back to my past and the days I loved so much.

“BEAST! BEAST! BEAST! BEAST!”

People chanted repeatedly, and although this wasn’t a street fighter name I knew, something about it felt familiar. It was then when I finally turned to the ring and saw him.

His stance was strong and determined, fists colliding with his opponents face, breaking their jaw but he doesn’t stop. Instead, he wastes no time in swinging around and kicking his foot against the guy’s rib, giving him no time to recover or hit him back.

“Blake,”

His name softly left my lips. He had left me in awe.

I then suddenly felt an arm wrap around my shoulders. I knew who it was already, “Impressive, isn’t it?” Xavier asked and I nodded positively, unable to rip my eyes away from the fight in front of me. “I wasn’t sure about him at first, but Demon, I think I’ve learnt to trust in your judgement. Blake is a really good guy, but also,” He leaned in close to my ear and finished, “A really good fighter.”

When he said that I turned to face him but he pulled away from me and started walking towards the ring where Blake had made his finishing blow. It made my attention focus on him again as well as Xavier’s voice announcing,

“AND THE WINNER IS THE BEAST!”

Blake put a fist in the air in celebration, taking in the cheers of the crowd and as his eyes scanned around, they finally met my own and I was struck. His grin faltered for a moment but then I raised my own arm to match his own, grinning from ear to ear myself through the tears that threatened to fall. When he saw this, his happy expression was placed back onto his face and he continued to celebrate.

I walked towards Xavier’s office/training room after that, still able to hear the cheering going on outside but that didn’t bother me. Not long passed when Xavier and Blake both walked into the room as well, both of them laughing and happy. It pulled the strings of my heart a bit because it reminded me exactly of how Xavier and I would end our night of fighting, how we’d come in exhausted but all the more proud. I missed it.

When Blake saw me he ran towards me for a hug which I indulged in with open arms. As much as I missed it, this was Blake’s moment now and I couldn’t be any prouder for him. “You’re going to get blood on me, let go,” I laughed when he wouldn’t stop.

“I don’t care,” he says, and I could feel his smirk against my skin. He then comes in for a strong kiss, an electric feeling surging within me when he does until I begin to taste something warm and metallic in my mouth.

I pull away from him, chuckling but pretend to be in disgust, “Now I’ve got your blood in my mouth!” I exclaim but the taste was one I was all too familiar with. It flashes in my head, the number of times I’ve had holes in my cheeks, bleeding gums, ripped lips.

Blake spins me around and holds me from behind whilst saying, “And you love it.” To which I roll my eyes but don’t complain and instead hold a smile.

I expect Xavier to make a sarcastic comment towards us like he usually does, tell us to ‘calm down’ or ‘save it for when we get our own room’ but he doesn’t and when I look at him, he’s holding a smile of his own, warmth in his expression.

“What’s his training schedule?” I ask and Xavier takes out a sheet of paper, passing it to me.

“You might recognise it,” he says as I read over it to see it was pretty similar to mine a long time ago but it wasn’t as intense. Plus Blake didn’t have to be educated in between the training so I assumed it would be a bit easier. Regardless, looking at it, it made sense as to how Blake was able to become so strong in such a short amount of time.

From behind me, I feel Blake let out a sigh before saying, “I’m going to enter the face-offs, D,” I look up at him, unsure for a moment but decided that it wasn’t my place to take something like this away from him. I know the feeling of wanting to fight, to win, to compete. I nodded positively at him with a small smile. “That means I’ll be going against King,” he continues.

The name made me freeze. I start to remember how I was beaten, sliced at, how my identity was ripped from me. For a second I feared for Blake. I didn’t want to see him go through the same thing I did. I didn’t want him to be in pain like I was or want to give all this up after just finding it.

But when I looked into his eyes, I saw dedication. It was as if he was begging me to let him do this… and I couldn’t say no. “Okay,” I say which makes him grin down at me, kissing my cheek before pulling away from me.

I looked back down at his schedule in my hands and couldn’t help but furrow my eyebrows, especially after learning that Blake will be competing. “Something is missing isn’t there?” Xavier seemed to notice my expression so I sighed and explained.

“You’ve put a heavy focus on boxing which is usually the right way to go, but against King, I’d recommend kick-boxing to be your priority. The techniques he uses are centred around the krav maga martial arts which emphasise the use of your arms. It was developed for the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli security forces so it was no wonder it caught me off guard. Aside from kickboxing, taekwondo would be your best bet.”

As I say this I look up to find Xavier giving me a half proud half mischievous look. I raised an eyebrow at him which prompted him to say what he was thinking. “Then you better start training him.”

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He walks closer to until his face was close to mine. He must have realised by now that intimidating me with height was going to work but by closing in on distance, especially with how close he was now, I started to tense and he could see that. “You’re the only one who has experience fighting King and I know you’ve been analysing every second of you guys’ fight because you regret letting such a sick fuck get the best of you like that.” I sucked in a breath, knowing he was right.

For days and weeks after our fight, I used recordings to go over our movements, to look into his techniques, to figure out how he was fighting, how I could have avoided it, how I could have won. Despite that though, it just emphasised how much I didn’t.

“Train Blake to be the fighter you couldn’t be that night.”

I looked back at Blake, he was watching us intently. I didn’t know how much of this they had planned or for how long but he seemed just as shocked about me training him as I was. Yet, I knew that only I could have Blake win the fight in a month.

With that decision, I nod back at Xavier,

“Let’s do it.”