Emma Swan had dreamt of this moment for years. Ever since she joined her Mixed Martial Arts gym, 'Believe', she felt a new sense of purpose. She still could not believe that she was about to enter the fight cage of 'Venus Fighting Championship', the biggest All-Female Fighting Championship in the United States of America. Not only was she participating in one of the fights, she was fighting the title fight for the Flyweight category.
Despite the excitement, Emma was nervous as her competition is an undefeated crowd favourite, Regina Mills. They called her 'The Queen of the Cage' or 'The Queen' for short. She had an impressive record of fifteen wins, eight Knockouts, five submissions, and two by decision. She had been fighting for ten years and had participated in Venus FC since its inception three years ago.
In contrast, Emma had only fought three cage MMA fights on a small scale in California and four Muay Thai fights held by her gym. The blonde had only lost once while fighting with an injury. She had sustained a fractured joint in her elbow during training and had lied that she had fully healed. It was her first cage fight and she did not want to forfeit from that fight. Her ill-advised decision caused her to further injure her elbow and lose the fight.
The young fighter enjoyed fighting. She trained almost every single day for at least three hours each day. Her best friend and roommate, Lily, teased that she practically lived at that gym. After all, it was Lily Page who introduced Emma to a world of Mixed Martial Arts and that changed both of their lives for the better.
Before living in a tiny apartment in Outer Mission, San Francisco, both Emma and Lily had been living on the streets of Tenderloin. Emma ran away from her foster family at the age of seventeen to follow her boyfriend Neal Cassidy to go on tour across America with his band 'The Henchmen'. They were a death metal band that spent more time shooting up heroin than actually practising their music.
Neal and his band often got kicked out of the clubs they were scheduled to perform in for trashing up the place or picking fights with the patrons. They would steal or break into houses to get money to fund their addiction.
One day, Neal was caught breaking into an old man's home. He did not know that there was somebody in the house. The old man had a shotgun and shot him dead on the spot while he was trying to flee from the scene.
Emma had been devastated when she found out about it. To make matters worse, the band she was travelling with only let her stick around because of her boyfriend and now with him dead, they abandoned her in San Francisco with no money, no lodging and a heroin addiction.
Lily was the same age as Emma and had been on the street for months before meeting the blonde. She spotted Emma passed out under a bridge where other junkies lived and gave her some water. The two of them had been inseparable since.
The two ladies turned tricks to make money to buy more drugs. This continued for almost a year until one day, while Lily was on a high, one of the other junkies tried to have his way with the young brunette. Emma was with a 'John' at that time so Lily had been on her own. Thankfully, the blonde was only gone for a short while and was on her way back to their tent when she saw the man trying to undress the semi-conscious brunette. Long story short, Emma punched the man in his face, giving him a broken nose and he quickly fled.
The two girls swore off drugs from then on but it wasn't an easy feat. They found that it was easier to turn tricks when they were high. They ended up moving to a different part of the city, keeping away from the cesspool of addicts that littered the streets. They tried finding proper work but the heroin withdrawal had been hell. Determined to turn their lives around, the two girls stood by each other's side. They collected tin cans and glass bottles to sell to the recycling centres.
One day, while looking for recyclables, Lily came across a gym that offered free self-defence classes as a youth outreach programme. Emma and Lily attended the class and before they knew it, they found that the gym had literally saved their lives. They were able to defend themselves out on the streets, and now with more confidence, luck seemed to finally turn around for them.
When an opening in the maintenance department opened up at the gym, both girls got employed there to maintain the gym equipment and clean the gym after each class. Finally, after several months, they managed to rent a small apartment with two other youths who were also members of the gym.
When Emma was at work, she would spend the day observing the moves taught during the classes and practised them on her own after everybody had left. One of the trainers, Killian Jones, noticed Emma doing this and offered to train her personally. He noticed that she picked up on new techniques very quickly, and seeing that she had a natural talent for Muay Thai, he convinced the gym owner, David Nolan, to let Emma join the classes for free and train her as a fighter representing the gym.
Speaking of Killian, he walked up to Emma as she was deep in thought, and smiled as he recognised that her familiar pre-match-game-face was on as she stared solemnly into the distance. Killian smiled at Emma as he helped her with her hand wrap. He felt so proud of the blonde's achievements. The young twenty-four year old trained in Muay Thai with a black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu was Believe's first MMA fighter solely produced by the gym. The other fighters had represented other gyms prior to joining Believe. It was a testimony to Killian's skills as a trainer and Believe's support system every time Emma won, and it proved Killian right to have so much faith in her every time, even when she didn't win. With Emma's determination, everyone knew she would bounce back and win again the next time around.
Happy with the hand wrap, Killian patted both of Emma's knuckles indicating he was done.
"Thanks, Kill!" the blonde said to her coach.
"Nervous?" Killian asked.
Emma nodded her head yes. She wished that Lily could have come along to Miami to see her fight but alas, the gym could not afford to pay for Lily's flight to join them. In the changing room were a couple of the other trainers from the gym, David and some gym members who volunteered to be part of the team's crew. All of them had to pay for the trip.
The only way Emma could even participate in the championship was to raise funds. The gym members went around the neighbourhood and approached businesses to be sponsors for Emma. Not many agreed but the ones that did were mostly small businesses who were touched by Emma's story and knew how the gym had helped keep the youths off the streets. In turn, their logos were printed on Emma's fight attire. There was barely enough room on her white trunks to fit the strange logos of Mom & Pop shops and the like.
Emma's fight kit was made up of her personal white sports bra and the sponsored trunks. David Nolan had gifted her a white silk hooded robe for the match which had the Believe logo embroidered on the back along with her fighter name. Emma was very touched by this gesture. David had been kind of a father figure to her, so she hoped to make him proud by winning the match.
Her fighter name 'The Saviour' was coined by Lily. She explained that Emma had saved her life. She had also inspired so many other youths in their neighbourhood to have hope that things could be better for them. A significant number of youth drug addicts had managed to drop the addiction through all the help she gave during her volunteering at the outreach programme.
"Want to practice on the pads?" Killian asked
"Nah. It's okay. Think I'll just do some shadow boxing to warm up." Emma stood up and got on the mat in the middle of the changing room. She bounced on her toes alternating from left foot to right foot practising some of her knockout combinations. She carried on punching and kicking in the air at the same time making sure to not tire herself out.
Emma took off her robe and did some stretches. She wanted to make sure that she won some fight bonus money to give back to the gym's youth programme. That was the only reason she agreed on such a high publicity fight.
The blonde was in the middle of her stretches when she heard the announcement that the event had started. There were ten matches that night and Emma's fight with Regina was the final match of the night.
She could feel butterflies forming in her belly. Emma stood back up and practised more of the combos.
On the other side of the stadium, Emma's competition, Regina Mills, sat watching the match on the TV screen in the changing room that was slightly bigger to that of the blonde's. Being an undefeated champion that participated in all of Venus FC's high profile fights had warranted her some perks as her entourage was a lot bigger.
The brunette had been fighting since joining her High School's Girls Wrestling team. Cora Mills, Regina's mother, saw potential in Regina's interest in fighting and sent her only daughter to a prestigious Muay Thai training school in Thailand for four years.
She trained with a renowned Muay Thai Master Instructor and part of her training included at least a hundred roundhouse kicks to banana trees each day. Her training had been hell but it paid off, making her the strongest female MMA fighter in the United States.
Her beautiful looks and muscular physique had earned her many deals in Hollywood action movie cameos, sponsorship deals with sports gears and the occasional appearance on the cover of sports magazines. She had garnered celebrity status and had helped create a large following for female MMA athletes in a male-dominated sport.
Venus FC was very dependent on Regina's involvement in their brand to draw in crowds and when she was not scheduled to fight for the night, Regina would provide her inputs on how the fighters performed on sports channels covering the event.
However, not all of her publicity had been positive. The previous year, there had been rumours going around that Regina had used performance-enhancing drugs in her last match. The rumours had been disproved with several tests resulting in a negative result for doping but the accusations still persisted.
Regina had gone away from the spotlight as she chose to take a break from fighting. Which was why this fight was so unique. It came out of nowhere and it was a fight with a newcomer. Fans were happy to see Regina Mills back in the cage again however other fans were suspicious of her sudden change of heart.
In reality, the brunette had no say in the matter. Her manager, Robert Gold, had booked the fight at her mother's request. Cora had feared that if Regina was away from the spotlight for too long, she would lose relevance in the fighting world.
Regina only had a short chance at taking a break from training to travel to various countries and see the world. The brunette was sure that the only reason her mother had wanted Regina to fight so much was so that she could spend the prize money.
Nevertheless, Regina was curious as to who Emma Swan was and how she got to be part of this huge fight. The brunette was used to fighting women who were already well known in the MMA world.
Regina only had one chance to meet Emma face to face and that was during the weigh in. She remembered staring into green eyes while posing for publicity pictures. Those eyes looked like they had suffered through a lot which made Regina intrigued to learn more about her.
"Regina! You'll be up in a couple of hours. Go do some pad work!" Mr Gold instructed his best fighter.
Regina stripped out of her black robe revealing a tight black T-shirt and red MMA trunks. Her attire did not have many sponsor logos and the biggest in sports products rush to have their logo worn by the great fighter. On the front of her T-shirt was a printed logo of 'Dragon Claws' which was the gym she was representing.
Dragon Claws was a well-known gym which trained the best fighters around the world. Regina had been training with them for over ten years. Her talent was spotted when she was undergoing training in Thailand. Regina suspected that her mother had arranged the whole thing because Dragon Claws only scout within the US.
The brunette stood in front of her trainer, Graham Humbert and practised her knockout moves. Regina liked sparring with Graham. He was able to match up to her speed and he always made sure to challenge her agility.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother and Mr Gold talking. It was never a good sign to see those two having secret conversations. Regina could sense that they were scheming something big.
The brunette turned her focus back to her training and delivered a strong left hook that almost sent Graham flying.