Chapter One-

It was about 11.30pm on a Friday night. We had all been out on the streets for a few hours by now. My mate Chris got a text on his phone from some of the other boys saying they were gonna have a little comp down by the reservoir near the estate. Needless to say, we dropped what we were doing and headed over to the rez. You could tell something was going down. There were heaps of parked cars and a ton of people hanging around. School was set to come back the following Monday, making it the last weekend of the holidays so there were plenty of kids out partaking in a healthy bit of substance abuse and as soon as one of them heard about a fighting tournament, there was bound to be a couple hundred of us turn up.

All the boys wanting to be tough would put there names down, but as soon as the first fight started, half of them would pull out. As me, Chris and Ryan walked up to put our names down I saw at least 5 kids look at us and leave the queue to sign up. I didn't blame them: We were big boys. About to start senior year, the tree of us had been professional fighters for two years and brawlers for a few years before that. Being the holidays a lot of the fighters in our grade had slackened off, but we had taken the spare time to go into a serious training regime: Full on raw-egg shit. We were jogging at dawn, weights till lunch and a good sparring session to finish. So yeah, we were looking pretty intimidating I would imagine. The kids I really felt sorry for were the ones too proud or too drunk to leave the line.

"Name?" asked the dude with a clipboard.

"Owen Finch" I said. Clipboard nodded and jerked his head. I walked over to where the fighters were waiting. I knew most of them from school or from the gym. There would have been easily about 30 or 40 of us. After a while when they had about 50 names down they decided to get started.

"Alright, alright, shut the fuck up. Everyone listen up over here." A dude in a tank top with a shaved head was standing on top of a car yelling with his hands cupped around his mouth. "Welcome to the blood rez." The crowd laughed. "Fuck! Jeff I told you that was a shit name! Alright, welcome to the fight comp. were gonna be kicking this shit off with our first fight in just a moment after I quickly go over a couple of ground rules. This is gonna be your basic cage fight without a cage. No biting, no eye gouging and especially no groin strikes. When your opponent is unable to defend themselves or has submitted you must stop fighting immediately. And last but not least, kick some ass. Let's go!"

The crowd cheered as Tank-top pointed to two random fighters and jerked his thumb.

"You and You, get out there on the mats." Two fighters walked over to the mats.

"Touch gloves, fight." The line about the gloves was just an expression, in this town we fight bare-knuckle. Some fighters had gone to the trouble to put some tape on their knuckles or wrap their fists up with a thin layer of cloth but usually we just went for it. One of the important parts of training is to find a nice brick wall or a rock or even a tree and do a few minutes of knuckle toughening. Me, Chris and Ryan all by now had a few serious calluses on our fists to compliment the nice thick layer of toughened skin. Chris liked to do this thing he read about on the internet involving a bucket of water and some gasoline.

I had roughly calculated that with 50 people I would have to go in about 5 or 6 fights to win. I got called out into the second fight after the first one ended with a knee to the face. The guy had lost a few teeth. I was paired up with a tough looking black guy who I knew from school. The kid could take one hell of a punch but he was a boxer at heart. I didn't have to worry about any tricky head kicks or foot-work or too great a knowledge of submissions from this guy. He had a set of guns on him but nothing I couldn't match.

I took a deep breath and touched knuckles. After we both stepped back, the guy lunged at me with a big right hook. I moved back a little bit and he windmilled in with the left. I moved my head back and it flew past in front of my face. As he started the next punch, he flicked his foot out and tapped me on the shin with it. I looked down to see what was going on and was rewarded with a gigantic haymaker to the ear. My head whipped to the right and my vision went a little foggy. I saw the next one coming from the corner of my eye and blocked it with my fore-arm.

I had to do something or he would just keep driving me back. When his next oversized fist came flying towards me, I ducked under it and drove my shoulder into the guy. I picked him up, took another step forwards and drove him into the ground taking care to make sure my shoulder drove the wind out of him. I reared up, put a knee on his chest and landed two strong right punches into his face. I took the cheek bone so I didn't have to break his nose. He pulled his arms up to cover his face. I grabbed his wrists closest to me, flung my other leg around over his head and held his hand down onto my chest. He was in an arm bar. I pushed my hips up to put some pressure on his elbow joint so that he would tap out. Fuck I hate it when they get stubborn. I applied a little more pressure.

"Don't make me break it!" I said. He finally tapped. I let go and we stood up.

Tank top came over, grabbed my hand and held it up in the air.

"Winner!" he yelled. I held my other arm up as well, soaking up the crowd's cheers. I still had a ringing in my ear and I could see that my opponent's eye and cheekbone on the right side were starting to swell up. He would have a spectacular black eye in the morning.

There were a few more fights; Ryan beat the crap out of an Asian dude from the gym and Chris lost a really tough match with an Irish guy from school with a fondness for uppercuts. The first lot of matches was over. Exactly half the fighters had been weeded out and it was mostly just the skilled guys left. My first fight had pretty much been a given against a much less skilled opponent who's only claim to fame was that he had been getting into fights since pre-school. So long as he wasn't shamed enough to go and get all of his aboriginal cousins I was never in much danger from him. I was up first for the next round with a 6ft kick boxer named Louis. Louis had been in the year above me at school but now he was finished. We got along alright and I had trained with him a couple of times, but you know what they say: You can be best friends outside of the ring but as soon as you step into it, your goal is to kill each other… within the rules of course.

We touched gloves and stepped back. As soon as those gloves touch you have both acknowledged that you are ready to fight. All thoughts of friendship are gone. There is only you and them and only one of you can win the match. We squared off: Slowly circling around each other. Stepping in and out, watching each other's every move. Louis began the motion for a leg kick. I put my knee up to check it but at the last moment he pulled in, circled around and came at me with a spinning back-fist. I dodged it by millimetres. Before he could regain his guard I lashed out with a quick left jab, followed with a right cross that soared right through his guard and took him on the nose. Instead of pulling my fist back in, I grabbed his outside shoulder and pulled him in to a knee. He dropped his hands to block the knee and so while his hands were lowered I swung my left elbow into the side of his head. It made a nice satisfying connection with the side of his head and I felt him slacken as the shock went through his body. I pushed his head down, held onto it with both my hands and brought my knee up at his face a few times but he defended with his arms, absorbing the shock with his forearms.

When my next knee came up, he pivoted his elbow so that it corked my thigh. Then he wrapped his arms around under my knee and picked me up. Oh shit, I thought, this is gonna hurt. He stepped forwards and drove me backwards into the ground. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck and held his head into my chest to try and stop him rearing up and getting a clean punch in, but this can be hard when you've just been slammed. He overpowered me and reared up. I took the initiative and punched him in the face from underneath but punches are weaker when you've got no room behind you to get a good wind up. The best I could do was a jab. At least my legs were wrapped around his body to stop him getting the top mount.

A strong punch smashed down on my right eye. fuck, that's gonna look bad tomorrow. When I saw the sequel coming, I got ready. I palmed his punch to the inside so it was running across my body, then I slipped my foot up to the back of his neck. He could tell that I was preparing for a triangle choke so he leant back. I changed my mind on the triangle choke and brought my foot around the front of his body. I planted it on his chest and kicked him backwards with all the power I could muster. He didn't go flying back off me so much as I shot forwards away from him. We got to our feet and squared up again. He had a small cut from where I had elbowed him and I had bloodied his nose a little with my right cross. I had a black eye coming on and being slammed didn't tickle.

He came at me with a leg kick which connected and I landed punch as he was pulling away. As he darted forwards to make his next move I lashed out with a front kick. As he stumbled back I darted forwards and landed one of my most powerful leg kicks. He threw a clumsy uppercut but it connected none the less and I stumbled back. He came to follow through with a punch that had a wind up on it the size of Beijing but I slipped it out to the side, threw my arm across his throat on the way past and wrapped him up into a standing rear-naked choke.

Luis wasn't stupid. He knew what he could get out of and he knew when he was beaten. He also wasn't a strong believer in being choked into unconsciousness for no reason. But he also knew when the rear naked choke that he was in was sloppy and why it was often not a good idea to do them standing up. Luis was taller than me by about six or seven inches. I was up on tippy toes to have my arms around his throat properly. He threw his weight forwards, reached between his own legs, wrapped his arms around my ankles and pulled them back up between his legs and fell over backwards with me beneath him. My grip slackened severely mostly due to the fact that I had just been slammed with eighty-ninety kilo's of Spanish kick boxer on top of me. He went to twist around so he was facing me but I dug my hooks in, grabbed at his arms and held him down. I tried to slip my arm back around his neck but he pinned his chin down to his chest. I used my other arm to punch him in the side of the head a few times and then slipped my arm up under his chin and locked my choke back in.

After a few seconds Luis tapped out. I released him and we stood up. We shook hands and nodded to each other as Tank-top came down and held my arm up.

"Winner!" he yelled to the crowd circled around.

The next few fights got a little bit brutal: A few broken noses and a couple of chipped or missing teeth. Almost all of the fighter's knuckles had been opened up and there wasn't anybody who didn't have a black eye or a cut on their face somewhere. Ryan had taken a knee to the face which had opened up his eye brow pretty badly. He was still in the competition though: He had retaliated to the knee with a punch to the guts and then an elbow right to the sweet spot on the jaw. The other guy was out cold.

Round three was about to begin. It was about 12.30 at night. There were only 12 fighters left. I got paired up with a heavily tattooed guy who I had never seen before, but I had watched him TKO two different people tonight. There were two fights before mine and then Ryan's fight. I took the opportunity to go take a piss. I was relieved to see that it wasn't red: I had been slammed a few too many times tonight for my liking. By the time I got back the first fight was still going.

One guy had the other guy in a clinch and was throwing knees. After a few attempts it didn't look like any were going to get through so he pivoted and swung the guy around, sticking a foot out to trip him and took the fight to the ground. The guy on the bottom managed to roll the other guy over and get a dominant position in side control where he threw a few knees into the guys ribs before reaching across the guy and performing a figure 4, which is basically where you grab the wrist, slip a hand underneath, grab your own wrist and bending the guys arm in a direction where it isn't supposed to bend until they tap-out. The second fight didn't go for too long, it was between two guys from one of the other high schools, victory by choke submission.

Now it was time for me and Tattoo's to step onto the mats. We touched gloves and the fight was on. I swung a left-right hook combo, and then followed in with a leg kick. He dodged both the punches but the kick caught him a little bit. I stepped back and he darted forwards with a punch that I had to block and then a leg kick of his own.

I darted back, letting the foot pass but then darted forwards while his foot was still off the ground and shoved him back with a front kick. He stumbled backwards and I lunged forwards with a punch. The punch connected with the bridge of his nose, bloodying it but not breaking it. He swung up with a big hook that took me by surprise. I ducked under it, and while I was ducked down he brought up the knee. I managed to get my head out of the way (a knee to the bottom of the jaw and I wouldn't have too many teeth left.) but it still took me in the shoulder.

I let out a gasp of pain before coming up with a rage-fuelled uppercut that missed by inches. He punched me in my exposed ribs. I guess it just goes to show that you can't let anger take over in a fight. I landed another leg kick and then dodged a right hook before he swung a brutal roundhouse at my ribs. I absorbed the strike with my arm. He came back with another roundhouse and I sacrificed my ribs in order to wrap his foot up. I caught the kick under my arm and kicked out his other leg. He was on the ground and I was holding his foot so I used the same leg to knee him in the hamstring twice and then kick him in the ribs.

People might say that kicking someone when they're down is cheap, but if it's not a crotch shot, an eye gouge or a bite, its allowed. I stepped back and waited for him to get up, but when he was halfway there, I roundhouse kicked him in the side of the head. There was an audible cringe from the crowd as 'old mate tattoos' hit the mats, out cold.

"Jesus Owen, well I guess that's one way of doing it…" said the referee.

"Winner!" he announced.

"Ha ha ha, That was cold man. That was ice cold." said Ryan as I arrived back in the waiting area.

"It's a cruel sport. Besides, I've been getting submissions all night. I wanted to show these people that I can bang with the best of them." I said with a smile.

"Well I think they know now…" Ryan nodded.

"You're up bro, kick that clown's ass." I said.

"I'm fighting Tom from school." said Ryan.

"Well beat the shit out of Tom from school. There are no friends on the mats from when those gloves touch, you know that." I said.

Ryan and Tom touched gloves. The fight's highlights consisted of Ryan throwing the first punch across Tom's brow. A little bit of blood spattered but at this time of the night it was just as likely to be from Ryan's knuckles, Tom threw an elbow and it opened up a little cut on Ryan's cheek bone. Somewhere along the line the fight went to the ground with Tom on top, He landed a few good hits to Ryan's head and it looked like it was going to be all over but Ryan managed to roll Tom over and get in a few good hits before Tom kicked him off. The fight ended with Tom at the receiving end of a barrage of right hooks to the jaw.

"Fucking good form mate, couldn't have done it better myself." I said.

"He was giving me the shits, what can I say." laughed Ryan.

"You kneed him in the guts and punched him in the jaw like 8 times. The ref was getting ready to pull you off him." I laughed.

Tank top and his buddies were getting ready to divide the remainder of us up into pairs for the next fight when people started to panic and run for their cars. That's when I heard the sound in the distance: Police sirens.