The story It Ends in the East is being written with the combined efforts my friend D and I. While we are both contributing to the plot she handles most of the writing and I edit and post the story for her. We also created a tumblr page where we'll be posting all of our reference pictures and character information.

blog/itendsintheeast

- M

Chapter One

Trulyn's fist connected with her opponent, she could feel the girl's jaw dislocate as her knuckles smashed into her face. Trulyn watched as the light left the girl's eyes, she was knocked out and her body fell limp to the floor, a long slow trail of blood leaked from her nose to the floor. As she surveyed the filthy warehouse basement that served as the mock arena she was hyper aware of everything that was happening around her, she could smell the sweat and the blood, her ears pounded at the constant base of voices from the crowd. The girl stared into oblivion, her arms frozen in place as if she thought she was still in the fight, unfortunately for her it was all over; Trulyn was still the undefeated champion of the female's underground fighting ring.

"That's it ladies and gentlemen!" The announcer's voice took over and Trulyn was snapped back into reality. The announcer walked proudly over to Trulyn's side and reached for her arm, lifting it high into the air. "Our champion Tru has held her spot once again!"

Trulyn watched as the rival team climbed into the ring to retrieve their fallen fighter, she analyzed all of their faces, most of them couldn't look her in the eye and Trulyn wondered if it was because of her two different colored eyes or if it was because that this girl was the one she was supposed to lose to. Either way Trulyn stayed perfectly still, watching them with unwavering eyes as they climbed back out of the ring and disappeared back into the shadows of the crowd. Trulyn sighed with a bit of annoyance; she would have to watch her back after she left the ring tonight.

Trulyn was led back to her dressing room by two large men posing as security, Tru had sized them both up months ago when she had first started, she had a better chance at defending herself then letting these two idiots try to fight for her, then again they hadn't been hired for their skills, just their looks alone. Trulyn enter her room and closed the door, locking it as softly as she could, Maxwell would be looking for her, he had cornered her earlier that day at the bar where Trulyn worked part time, and she had still been surprised he had found her. Trulyn had managed to live as far away as possible from the fighting ring as she could to keep a low profile and Maxwell had just strolled in off the street. He was warning her to lose to his fighter; he had invested a large amount in her and was determined to scare Trulyn into giving the fight. Trulyn never took threats lightly but she wasn't going to just throw a fight because someone threatened her to. The girl had walked into the ring cocky and that had immediately pissed her off, the fight didn't even last the first round.

Trulyn kept her eye on the door and her hearing sharp as she cleaned herself off, throwing on her regular clothes and checking the door every few seconds as she did. She checked her face in the mirror, her dark brown and light blue eyes stared back at her with a primal look that almost scared her. She smiled to herself suddenly; well if they wanted a fight tonight she was ready. Trulyn let her long, wavy black hair down and fluffed it a bit. The tips of her hair brushed against her elbows and she flicked her head to the side to get at a knot that had worked itself into the small hairs at the back of her neck. After she was content with the way she looked, Trulyn headed back for the door, unlocked it and stepped out. The two men peered down at her in unison and Trulyn gave them both a nod as she went her own way after being paid. The underground ring had already been cleared, all that was left was a single man cleaning up the worst of the trash that was lying about, the sound of beer bottles and cans clinked and echoed out of the darkness. The smell of sweat hung in the air like a low hanging cloud and Trulyn found herself trying not to gag on it as she made her way out. She hopped up the stairs, taking four or more at a time and opened the heavy double doors into the cold night air. The cool wind whipped her hair around and sent a cool shiver down her spine. It was a clear night and the fresh air was more than welcoming, Trulyn breathed in deeply a few times and enjoyed it.

"I wonder where they're at," Trulyn whispered to herself as she let out a long sigh, she could faintly smell the lingering hints of that disgusting cologne that Maxwell had been wearing. She remembered how it had smelt earlier that day when he had leaned in close to her, it was too strong and overwhelmed the whole area making Trulyn wrinkle her nose as it burnt her nostrils.

They were sitting in wait for her, Trulyn just didn't know how many of them there were so she decided to act natural and start walking, if they wanted to confront her then they had to make the first move. She walked confidently down the alley way, the night sky was clear of clouds and the stars were shining bright, the moon was full and casting shadows from the buildings that lined the sides of the alley like labyrinth walls. Stray cats went slinking into the shadows as Trulyn approached, her boots hardly making a sound as she walked down the pavement. She glanced around herself at the surroundings, there were no ways out besides going straight, and all the emergency ladders were hanging just out of reach tantalizing right below the second story. The sudden puff of chilled breath in the night air caught Trulyn's attention and she turned to see a tall man materialize in front of her at the opening ahead, then another appeared beside him, then another. She could smell Maxwell before she could see him but she knew he was behind his goonies. He clapped loudly, the two tallest ones making way for him, there he stood clapping slowly at her with a sour smile on his face.

"I gotta hand it to you doll, you made short work of my girl but," Maxwell spoke as he took off his sunglasses that Trulyn suspected were cheap knock offs. "I didn't expect you to be so stupid as to ignore my warning."

"You know it's a little dark to be wearing sunglasses." Trulyn pointed out bluntly, scratching the back of her head.

"Excuse me?" Maxwell lifted an eyebrow at Trulyn, she shrugged her shoulders and dropped her hands to her side.

"You know with it being night and all," Trulyn paused and there was a long silence, "sunglasses."

"You sure have quite the nerve to be acting so cocky," Maxwell chuckled, cracking his knuckles.

"Oh so you're going to fight me now?" Trulyn smiled broadly at the little man, Maxwell was only an inch taller than her but she still found it easy to look down on him.

"Oh course not," Maxwell scoffed, his face twisted into disgust as he stared back at Trulyn.

"Oh well good 'cuz for a moment there I thought you wanted your ass beat too," Trulyn coughed to try to hide the laugh that had escaped her throat. "So what you're going to get your three butt buddies here to beat up a girl in a back alley? That's classy."

"You made me lose my money, I'm going to make sure you won't be able to come back to the ring for quite some time. Any last words before my men here beat you within an inch of your life?"

"You bet on the wrong bitch?" Trulyn shrugged.

Maxwell grit his teeth together and signaled to his men, the three of them stepped out in front of Maxwell and closed in on Trulyn. Trulyn hunched into her fighting stance and faced the men head on, three on one wasn't going to be fun but she wasn't going down without a fight. She saw the first one move out of the corner of her eye, he lunged and tried to grab Trulyn around the waist, she shot her fist up and connected with his throat. The man choked and took a step but before Trulyn could finish him with a kick a large hand reached out and threw her to the side. Trulyn looked up to see the second man raise his fist and slam it down at her, she was able to move her head quickly to avoid most of the damage but his two outer knuckles caught her cheek. Trulyn cringed and grunted as she kicked up with both of her feet, putting all of her body weight into her attack and knocked the man back.

Trulyn hunched into a boxing pose and cautiously looked between the three men, she could feel the thumping pain in her cheek but she ignored it as best as she could. The smallest man of the three lunged, a hand ready to grab Trulyn by the front of her shirt but she threw a kick up and connected with the man's jaw. Not wanting to waste any time, Trulyn threw a punch at his stomach and the man wheezed as the air left his lungs. Trulyn spun in her foot and let her heel hit the man's temple. He crumpled to the ground and didn't move again. Trulyn whipped her head to the side to face her next opponent but was too late and took a hard hit to her face. The force of the punch made her stumble and she fell back into the arms of the second man. He grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her, Trulyn let out a painful scream but stayed still. Maxwell's lips curled into a victorious grin as he walked up to where the man had Trulyn trapped and took Trulyn's chin in his hand. He took turns looking at Trulyn's brown and blue eye then sighed with a bit of a sad frown.

"Now see you could have avoided this if you had just lost your match tonight champ, but you just couldn't let it go could you?"

"Oh come on man, you think I was going to give up my undefeated title to some gangly hooker you got off the side of the street? That just looks bad on my part, plus she went into the ring way too cocky, I guess I just got a bit carried away."

Maxwell backhanded Trulyn, his hand left a stinging mark on her skin but Trulyn laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Dude who wears sunglasses at night? Like really, what? You thought that was going to intimidate me?" Trulyn slowly leveled her gaze with Maxwell and smiled with a dark amusement in her eyes. "Let me show you intimidating."

Trulyn snapped her lower body up with lightning speed and threw her legs over Maxwell's shoulder, twisting her legs with her body weight to throw him off balance and threw him to the ground. Trulyn's feet rotated and tapped the ground before she jumped up and angled her upper body forward while she kicked the man who had her arm right in the chest. He lost the grip on Trulyn and she tumbled forward, doing a front flip before jumping and rotating her body in the air to knock the second man in the head with a well-placed kick. The man hit the ground but Trulyn grabbed his shirt and slammed her fist into his face over and over again until there was blood pouring from his nose and busted lip. Something suddenly came over Trulyn, a primal urge to finish the men creeped into her mind and she stared into the man's eyes with an icy cold gaze void of pity. Trulyn turned to face Maxwell and his other goon and smiled before taking the man's head in her hands, ripping her grip to the side she felt a snap and the man became dead weight. She let his head slip from her grip and he tumbled to the ground, his body seizing in a blind attempt to figure out what had just happened even though his mind was already gone.

Maxwell stared speechless at Trulyn for only a second before his face twisted with rage and he was pointing at her but his voice and words were nothing more than a buzz in Trulyn's ears, she was stepping forward towards him, something was egging her on and as she got closer she could see the fear manifest in Maxwell's eyes but before she could get close to him the last remaining man jumped her and threw his body weight against her. The force of the blow knocked Trulyn out of the trance she was in and she shook her head and looked around, fully aware of her surroundings again. Her eyes fell on the dead body and her eyes widened in fear.

"Shit," Trulyn turned to see Maxwell, his face was red as he screamed at her but everything was happening so fast his words were a jumbled mess in her mind. Trulyn jumped to her feet before the last man could grab a hold of her and she turned and ran as fast as she could.