Chapter 1: Victory
Okies, this the first thing I've posted here, so please forgive me if I goof up here and there on certain things XD I just know I'll submit this wrong. Anywho, writing this just for fun, its sort of a prequel to my main story idea and introduces the family and background of a main character. Crits and reviews are welcome, but be gentle, I'm not the best writer in the world, I just thought this would be fun :D Enjoy!
The roar of the crowd drifted across the stadium, sharks cheering the loudest for their victory over the dolphin families. The match referee, a black and white banded sea snake, raised the right fin of the triumphant great white, announcing the win officially.
The ring was made of aged metal and Flexi-Kelp for the sides. The canvas floor had long since rotted, now replaced with synthetic whale skin. The stadium was cavernous, literally – a carved out underwater cave, stalactites dripping down from the ceiling and covered in all manner of coral, weed and barnacles. Eels marched up and down the stands, trying to flog seanuts and hotcods to sharks, dolphins and fish alike. It was the largest gathering in the stadium for years, a grudge match between the sharks and the dolphins.
"And the winner is – VINCENZIO!" the snake boomed into the microphone, the crowd roaring again, sharks waving their fins, bellowing chants and cheers. The young shark had set a new ocean record – fastest knockout of such a large competitor. A pilot whale was no easy opponent, growing to be the same size of a great white even at their smallest! But Vincenzio had knocked out the behemoth with a combo in the second round, winding him in the stomach and using his infamous 'Barracuda Bite' right hook to send him to the floor.
In a flurry of fins and toothy grins, the shark crowd rushed to the ringside to congratulate Vincenzio, the popping of champagne bottles all about the stadium. Two angel sharks presented him with the Heavyweight Champion belt, made from fine cowfish leather and adorned with the largest and most prized shells. He descended into the baying crowd, greeted by his manager, a tiny puffer-fish with bad fins, the flash of cameras lighting his menacing form for brief moments, the light glinting in his ghostly ice-blue eyes. Many sharks shook his fins, those who shook his right felt blessed or honoured in some way. From the corner of his eye, Vincenzio could see many sharks wrestling each other to get to the front, one of them a young great white father who'd brought his pup to see the fight. As he shoved and growled his way through, the pup nearly fell from his father's head! He held on tightly, a piece of paper gripped in his mouth, his father holding the pen.
"Can you – ugh! – sign this…for my son," the shark grumbled as he got a face-full of tailfin, pushing a leopard shark to the floor. Vincenzio had to stifle his laugh, he knew this shark was an up-and-coming member of the Mafia; he didn't want to put a fin wrong.
"Sure – what's your son's name?" Vincenzio reached for the paper in the pup's mouth.
"Frankie," the great white replied. He sounded about as excited to be meeting Vincenzio as the pup did. "You're his favourite fighter, he wants to be a boxer too."
Vincenzio smiled at Frankie, giving the pup a playful ruffle on his head as he gave the signed paper back to him. Frankie grabbed it immediately and stared at it in awe, his green eyes lighting up.
"It was a pleasure meetin' ya…er…what's your name?" Vincenzio asked the great white, extending his right fin.
"Lino," he replied smoothly, shaking Vincenzio's fin. Frankie excitedly wriggled about on Lino's head, nearly falling off again.
"Sorry to interrupt, but Vincenzio has a very busy schedule, very busy schedule," the puffer-fish interrupted, practically breaking the finshake and starting to usher the champion down the tunnel to the changing rooms. Vincenzio growled at his manager and had to just wave his goodbye to Lino and Frankie before swimming away, having to refuse any interviews and barge past camera-fish.
"There you go Frankie, happy now?" Lino looked up at his son.
"Yep! I can't believe you took me to meet him!" Frankie squealed in delight.
"Only the best for my son," Lino smiled. With that, the future Godfather made his way back to the stands to his friend Luca, a rather slippery octopus, also a new member to the Mafia.
Meanwhile, the dolphins had taken their defeat quite bitterly and although they had left the stadium quietly and quickly, they were already plotting Vincenzio's downfall. The pilot whale, named Bono, had to be helped from the ring, and was recovering in the changing rooms when a rather agitated bottlenose dolphin burst through the door, his larger beluga bodyguards flanking him closely. They saw to it that the press quickly filtered out of the room and stayed out.
The bottlenose gave Bono a firm hard slap to the face. "What was that! Are you trying to make me look bad, are you trying to lose me money?" he screeched and clicked. Dolphins, no matter how much they tried, could never reach a masculine tone of voice, sounding like they'd just inhaled a tanker of helium.
"Gee, I'm sorry boss…" Bono began.
"You were twice the size of him! And we'd analysed all of his matches for his moves, you knew what was coming," the dolphin screeched some more, pressing his beaked head against Bono's domed forehead.
"I know…I'm sorry...boss…" Bono stuttered nervously. The beluga's had started to come in a bit closer.
"Well, sorry just isn't good enough. You've lost me over a million clams tonight, Bono. Consider yourself dropped," the dolphin withdrew from Bono, almost snarling at him. The natural 'grin' in the dolphins jaw now looked evil as he looked down on the distraught fighter. He turned for the door.
Outside in the tunnel, the dolphin addressed his two bodyguards. "Make sure he ends up in a drift-net somewhere remote," he ordered, the beluga's grinning to each other. "I'm not as friendly as I look."