Something Worth Fighting For
Chapter 1: Blood, Sweat and Tears

First and foremonst, I would like to thank my lovely Beta, DS! You're awsome and thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how you saved me and this story! haha!:D

I would like to say thank you to anyone who happens to stumble upon this story and manages to read through it all...and hopefully like it! haha! now, just for some common knowledge on the history of this story, the inspiration for this story was drawn from my new favorite movie "The Fighter" and another boxing series that i am totally in love with at the moment. It is also drawn from the lives of boxers and what they have to go through everyday. I'm a total boxing junky so...yeah. I've never written a FF story before-even though i've read like every awsome story on here- so i beg of you all to go lightly on me and REVIEW please! thanks you guys!

I hope you all like it!

and here we go...

Edward Mason

One of the verb usages for the word whore is to seek that which is immoral, idolatrous, etc.

Doing what I 'do' and being what I 'am' fits almost perfectly in that description. On top of that perfect description, I abuse my body to horrible extents and use other people for the one thing that makes this shitty world go round: money. So in a sense, I am a whore. A whore that was not forced into my line of work, but went willingly to earn nothing else but money, NOT the pleasure, satisfaction or the rush of being fucked over and over again, but the money. Then again, what good whore do you know that goes into that kind of business for the pleasure, satisfaction or rush for anyone other than the good paying customer?

I had idolized the others who took on this sort of profession before I had, as did many other boys my age did and still do today. Little did we know what the pictures of the men we idolized laminated onto trading cards, covering TV channels, plastered on billboards and posters that hung on our walls had to go through every day to get into and out of the profession they chose alive. They were our heroes and idols for one reason, but should have been for an utterly different one.

The gloves my heroes wore daily were symbols to the poor kids of New Jersey. Myself included. They were a symbol of the men who were just like us and made it out of the streets and into the lap of luxury, not that we didn't know that living big came with a cost. We all know living big and small, like we did, came with a price.

But now that I know better, those gloves meant something a lot different to me. They meant that blood, sweat and tears would not only be shed but would be trapped in the stitching of the vinyl of these horrendous tools. They meant you would either eat or starve tonight. They meant life or death and sometimes they meant you would rise or fall and for most…it was fall.

I could remember growing up watching the biggest idols in the world on TV every Sunday night; Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Joe Frazier…you name them I knew everything about them.

I knew how many belts they earned and for what division, I knew how many blows they could throw and in how many minutes, I knew signature moves, weights and divisions. I had thrown myself into the world of boxing at an early age as if addicted to the sport. If I were an addict, though, I probably would have been to rehab a few time. I mean, even bad addicts have shorts periods of sobriety, but me, never. I did everything in my power to understand how a boxer ticked and why they did what they did, although, behind every obsession was a relaying reason, right?

My reason wasn't because I grew up in Jersey. It wasn't because I grew up poor either. It was because boxing was my vice. In stead of watching the fights that went on between my parents about money, or work and watching the blood, sweat and tears be shed there, I watched it go on in rings where the blood, sweat and tears were welcomed and not tuned out.

These men showed that determination, no matter how hard something was, would lead you to the very top. They showed that whatever kept you motivated had to be something that was worth fighting for, and when you did fight for it, you fight with everything your body, mind, heart and soul has. You make sure that whatever keeps you motivated is worth shedding blood, sweat and tears and will make you stand stronger even after you've fallen.

My family was just that motivation for me.

Ever since I could remember, we hadn't been even close to wealthy. We had enough for groceries and a two bedroom house on the north side of New Jersey, which wasn't saying much because living on the north side of Jersey wasn't exactly living the good life. My father was a factory worker and worked sixty hours a week, while my mother was a nurse, working eighty hours a week, leaving me and my younger sister, Alice, to fend for ourselves most of our lives.

I could easily remember playing in the enormous concrete sewage ditches that had been emptied for almost thirty years because we didn't have parks around and even though Alice was the type of little girl who wanted-deserved- the beautiful dolls and Barbie's you saw in stores, we couldn't afford them and we both needed some form of entertainment when cartoons or boxing matches weren't on.

Even as a kid, I took Alice with me everywhere because leaving her at home alone was never an option in Jersey, especially the part of town we lived in. I took care of my sister my whole life, the best I could but sometimes it came to blows as we got older.

I'm not gunna lie and say my sister wasn't an attractive girl, with her long black hair, tiny frame and green eyes that matched my own, because when it came to my family, we were all attractive-just dirt poor. As I got older, Alice did too, causing guys to look at her more often and most of the time in New York, guys aren't so subtle about coming on to girls. My little sister would come up crying to me sometimes, telling me how a guy had grabbed her in such a way that made her feel dirty and cheap, and I would let the guy know how I felt about it, in a not so subtle way.

I got kicked out of more than one school for fighting, yeah, but if it hadn't been for my rough patches through my teen years, I would have never met my first real mentor and father figure; Carlisle Cullen.

I had been walking home from school one day (after getting into a fight with some guy about bumping into me in the hallway with my backpack digging into my shoulders from all the books I had in there, when I passed by a building I had never noticed before that day. Usually I kept my head down when I walked home from school, trying not to look anyone in the eye and keep my senses on edge in case anyone tried to jump me on the way home. It happened all the time in my part of the city, so I knew better and tried to stay invisible and aware.

Boxer's Ring, the large, blue painted, brick wall read in huge, white cursive letters. Below read the phone number and the name of the owner. It piqued my interest at the name. Knowing how to fight in Jersey was a skill that would be well used around here.

I hesitated for a moment, calculating whether or not Alice would be home safely by now, and decided to finally just go in. As I walked through the heavy, metal doors that led into the Boxer's Ring I felt my heart start to speed up and gradually climb from my chest, up into my throat.

As soon as you walked in the smell of vinyl, leather, sweat and heat filled your nostrils. The entire inside of the square cut building was made of concrete; the walls, the floors, and even a few benches that seemed to be molded into the floor below my old and worn out sneakers. There was equipment I had never seen before lining every single inch of wall available and right smack in the middle of it all, was a boxing ring.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, with four large red posts wrapped in padding to keep you from knocking into it too hard and each connected by three, white, elastic cords that could swing you back into an opponent easily. The blue box beneath raised the ring off the floor a good four feet off the ground and read Property of Boxer's Ring on the side where the steps that allowed you to walk up to the box was displayed.

What had captured me the most was the two men brawling right in the middle of that ring. I couldn't see their faces, due to the position their hands were held in to shield from any blows being thrown at them but as I watched their entrancing circling I knew right then and there that this was what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be.

The blonde man lunged forward at the darker male with such grace and fluidity that I gasped as he threw six or seven blows within seconds, causing his competitor to fall back into the cords, and gripping onto them for support. The blonde male was the winner with out a doubt. They laughed loudly at something one of them had said as they pulled off their gloves with ease and the blonde male helped the other to his feet, patting him graciously on the back, neither holding grudges towards one another at all. As they hopped down from the large box of the boxing ring the darker male left to what I presumed was the showers through a large blue push through door. The blonde male grabbed a fluffy white towel and water bottle before noticing me.

As he looked up from taking a swig of his water, he stopped dead in his tracks, a few feet away from me now. At first, I thought he was going to kick me out for trespassing or something and I really wouldn't have cared, seeing boxing like that, all up close and personal was the most magical thing in my life. He didn't kick me out, though. He smiled down at me and placed a hand on his hip, taking another swig of water.

"You come here to take lessons?" the stranger asked. He set down his water bottle and was now using the towel to wipe off the sweat that poured from his face.

All I could do was stare up at the man in awe, trying to take him all in. I couldn't exactly find my mouth…or words at the moment.

"Huh?" I finally managed to struggle out. He chuckled and threw the towel in the same place he had put his water bottle down.

"What's your name, kid?" he asked in a gentle tone as he looked over me in an assessing manner. Not something you'd expect form such a great fighter.

"E-Edward." I stuttered out. "Edward Mason." I said with a bit more confidence and tried adjusting my heavy backpack into a better position on my shoulders. Something caught his eye and soon he was grinning ear to ear.

"Well, Edward, do you know how to fight?" he asked as his eyes bored into my own. It was a question that about half the population of my high school knew the answer to.

"Yeah. I guess." I shrugged casually, as I tried to remain as calm as possible. His grin grew wider.

"You have bruises on your knuckles." he said taking a step forward and plied my hands away from my backpack strap.

"Yeah," I cleared my throat nervously as he looked over my purple and blue knuckles from the fight earlier today.

"Well," he sighed and reached behind him to grab something off the self above his head. "Why'd you fight the guy?" he asked, not looking me in the eye. Instead, he opened a bottle of something that smelled foul and poured it onto my knuckles.

I hissed in pain and tried to retract my hand from him, but his grip was firm. He soon began wrapping my hand in something soft and sturdy. It was some sort of blue spongy tape first and then another sturdier and much more stable white tape over that.

"I've got a little sister." I said moving my hand after he let it go, for me to examine. I flexed my wrist and wiggled it around a little noticing it felt much better. I heard the stranger, who had just fixed my hand, give another low chuckle. I looked up to see him smiling down at me.

"That's a good reason," he offered at me and sighed while shaking his head. As he looked back at me I could see something in his eyes and face begin to change.

"You want to learn how to fight, for real?" he asked, leaning in to stare at me eagerly.

Yes! I wanted to scream. More than anything! But I knew I couldn't afford it. Even if I had a job, I still had to wait until my next birthday until I could even apply for a stupid job at Burger King.

I looked down at my shoes that were basically falling apart and adjusted my backpack again for the millionth time.

"Money is…tight right now," I shifted my gaze back to the floor. "I can't afford it." I mumbled, kicking an invisible rock in shame.

"I didn't ask for money, son." Carlisle stated.

My eyes immediately shot up to stare into his serious ones. He really wasn't asking for anything?

"I asked if you want to learn how to really fight. Not just some jungle gym brawl," he said rolling his eyes at the last sentence. I could feel my heart drop to my stomach in an instant and my mouth bubbled out my answer before I could find my brain.

"More than anything!" I had blathered out. It was true. My whole life I had spent countless weekends watching boxing matches between the most famous boxers of our time and now I was being offered a chance to possibly be one, someday.

Sometimes I think of what might have happened if I hadn't of walked into Carlisle's gym that day after school. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had just kept my eyes down and stayed invisible and aware. I wonder if I would have been noticed in anything else other than boxing-maybe academics or something like that. And I wonder if I would have gone to college rather than fought my first big match in Madison Square Garden. I wonder weather or not I would have been able to get my family out of that house on the north side of Jersey and where we would be today and honestly I don't think it would have happened.

So for right now, if it meant giving my family, a safe place to live, keeping food on the table and diamonds on my baby sister's ears-I wouldn't mind being a whore. Not for one second, because they are my motivation. My family is the one thing that makes me get up when I want to stay down. They are the one thing that makes the camera flashes, the blood, the sweat, the tears and the pains and the joys of being a number three lightweight boxer in the world right now, well worth it.

I do everything I do for my family and I will never give up.

My name is Edward Mason.

I am the number three boxer, lightweight division, in the world and I came to win.

I hope you guys liked it!

BPOV next...

Review pleaseee!:D