Okay so I lied when I said it would be a long time before another chapter; I had a lot of time on my hands yesterday - but it will
probably be a while from now. I had a ton of fun writing this chapter - fighting scenes are a lot of fun - and I hope you have as much (if not more) fun reading it than I did writing it! Please please please don't forget to review!
And with those words, the black man launched himself at the younger girl, knocking her to the ground. Sin sucked in a sharp breath; the beginning of the fight and she was already on the ground, that was a bad sign. "Get up get up get up," he whispered under his breath, and Spider tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
"Just watch," he said quietly, and Sin nodded. They turned their gaze back to the pit as the man pounded his fist into the girl's face - or would have, had she not rolled out from underneath him with a knee to his ribs and an elbow to his throat. She hopped to her feet and slammed her foot into the back of his head before he could recover, smashing his face into the wall of the pit. She stepped back warily, her knees bent and her arms up, watching his still form as the crowd began to chant, counting down from ten. When they got to six he twitched, before rolling onto his back. He didn't stand up and Sin hoped dearly that he wasn't imagining the faint rising and falling of his chest.
The crowd screamed "One, WINNER!" and the girl grinned, raising her fist.
"And it's another win for Skullfinger! Perhaps one of our most skilled Fighters, I don't think any of us really doubted this outcome - not after last week's incredible performance - but I think I speak for all of us when I say this one was over much quicker than expected!" The woman from atop the wall cried out over the crowd. Sin had to commend her spectacular projecting; she wasn't speaking into a microphone of any sort.
As the woman spoke, two boys dropped into the pit and grabbed Whirlwind's unconscious body, his face covered in blood, and hauled him over the edge. Sin hoped they were taking him to some sort of medical facility, or were at least going to patch him up themselves.
Skullfinger, however, remained in the pit. This didn't seem to escape the notice of the commentator, who said loudly, "Now the question remains, folks; who will challenge Skullfinger? It looks like she's ready for another round. Are there any here tonight brave enough to take her on? Or foolish enough?"
Sin found that he rather disliked the look on the commentator's face as she searched the crowd. It was too hungry, too… manipulative. Rather like she was watching pawns on a chessboard, wondering which one she should move. The more Sin stared at her, the more uncomfortable he felt. Her long black hair looked too shiny, her lips too red, her skin too pale. As her eyes searched the crowd they met Sin's, and he swallowed thickly. They stared at each other, their gaze not shifting, and Sin wanted to run, to hide behind Spider, to leave the Fights and never come back - but he couldn't move. He was a deer in headlights, too frightened to leave… frozen and forced to stare into those hungry eyes.
Finally Sin felt someone walk past him, shoving his shoulder slightly, enough that he was pushed forward and broke the woman's gaze. "You alright?" Spider asked quietly, a concerned frown on his face. "You look a little pale. Was the Fight too much? Do you need to go -"
Sin shook his head. "No, no, I'm fine. Just… it was kind of sudden, that's all." Spider nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed as if he didn't quite believe Sin, but he didn't push the issue.
The commentator spoke again and as she did, Sin made sure not to look at her. He stared straight down into the pit. "Well, it looks like we don't have any volunteering challengers. I guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way." The crowd began hollering, mostly in boisterous cheer, a few in protest. Skullfinger grinned maliciously and surveyed the audience.
"We have to leave," Spider said suddenly, and he yanked Sin back from the edge of the pit. "We have to go, now."
"What? Why? What does old-fashioned way mean? Wha -" he could finish his sentence as when Spider dragged him backwards he lost his footing, falling to the dirt ground. Sin scrambled to his feet but the gap between him and Spider closed, people stepping between them.
"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Sin muttered wildly, trying to shove his way through. He had barely moved by the time he felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun around to meet the icey blue eyes of Skullfinger.
"Leaving so soon?" She asked sweetly. "You're a little young to be here, aren't you? I mean, I saw you with Spider, but that retarded fuckstick doesn't know what he's doing. So I think you need a little dose of reality, and why you shouldn't try to play with the big kids before you're ready, hm?"
It was almost surreal. A fifteen-year-old was giving him a lecture on being too young to street fight. If Sin had been anything but terrified he would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation. As it was, he just gulped and looked down.
"Are you deaf, kid?" She asked, no longer feigning sweetness. When he didn't answer she just chuckled and turned to the commentator. "Well, Elena, it looks like I've chosen my opponent! I'm about to teach this squirt why coming here isn't a carnival show."
The commentator - Elena, smirked, before yelling out, "And we have our next match! It's recurring champion Skullfinger, who's won thirteen out of fourteen Fights, against a new young man who seems to have found his way out of the nursery." Despite his situation, Sin bristled slightly. He wasn't that young! He was ten for God's sake!' Elena turned his gaze back to Sin, but her eyes didn't meet his in the same freakish way. In fact, this time she seemed like a perfectly normal older teenager. "Do you have a name, kid?" She asked, and the crowd fell relatively quiet.
"You're going in that pit whether you speak or not, kid," a young man to Sin's left whispered greasily. "Try to have a little dignity."
Assassin forced himself not to shake from fear and drew himself up to his full height. "Assassin," he said as loudly and as firmly as he could. "My name is Assassin."
There was a beat of silence before the entire courtyard erupted into laughter and jeering. Sin took the time the commotion gave him to look around frantically for Spider, but the older boy was nowhere to be seen. Sin couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach at being abandoned so quickly, but he quickly shook off the feeling; Spider was probably just stuck somewhere in the crowd.
"Alright then," Elena called out, clearly amused. "Recurring champion Skullfinger, who's won thirteen out of fourteen matches, against new boy 'Assassin'!" With those words the opening around the pit started to close as people moved forward, shoving Sin closer and closer to the opening of the pit. Skullfinger leapt elegantly into the pit and turned around to face Sin, her arms crossed and a cruel smirk pulling at her lips.
Not wanting to be shoved unceremoniously onto his face, Sin jumped down after her - not quite as elegantly, but not exactly clumsily either. He breathed in slowly through his nose and tried to remember everything Spider had taught him about going up against more skilled opponents.
"Let the Fight begin!" Elena yelled. Cheers began to erupt as Sin met Skullfinger's eyes, Spider's words from their first ever training session buzzing in his mind.
'Always watch your opponent's eyes. The eyes are what will give their next move away - if you watch their body you won't know what they're doing until it's almost too late. Watch their eyes."
Sin breathed in deeply and waited. From the way she had baited and moved in the previous match, Skullfinger's technique tended to be 'wait to be attacked and then turn their strength against them'. So he wouldn't attack first. He would force her too.
Sin didn't move his gaze from Skullfinger's eyes, taking his last chance to breathe slowly and deeply. He tried to soothe the thundering beat of his heart.
There was a bit of an awkward pause, as Skullfinger had clearly expected him to make the first move. He waited and saw her eyes twitch almost imperceptibly to the left and he stepped quickly to the right, just in time to dodge out of the way of a low kick that would have sent him sprawling. He took advantage of her being slightly off-balance to twist his hips and punch her ribs as hard as he could. He bent and then straightened his legs as he did so, adding enough power to send her staggering to the other side of the pit.
She clutched her side and turned back to face him, a cruel grin on her lips. "You've got guts, kid, and you pack a mean punch, I'll give you that… but that -"
Before she could finish her sentence, she brought her foot up into the side of his knee, collapsing his legs and sending him into a pile on the floor. His heart pounded inside his chest and he rolled to the side as her foot came down a hairsbreadth from his head. He tried to scramble to his feet but was too slow and Skullfinger's foot came down hard on his chest, knocking the air from his lungs and holding him down on the ground.
He drew in a laboring breath as she smirked at him. "Didn't Mommy ever tell you not to -"
This time it was Sin who moved while she spoke, wrapping his arms around her legs and striking his fists into the backs of her knees. She let out a strangled yell and her legs folded, collapsing onto her knees on either side of Sin's body.
Before she could recuperate from her shock, Sin slammed his open palm into her forehead, knocking it back, and punched the top of her throat as hard as his barely-ten-year-old fists would allow. A choked sound escaped Skullfinger's body as her hands grasped at her throat. Sin took the opportunity to shove her off and scramble to his feet.
His breath was ragged as he stared down at the girl and realised the crowd had begun counting. They reached six when Skullfinger pulled herself to her feet. "You'll pay for that," she spat venomously. Her eyes were dark and as Sin watched, they glanced left. He jumped to his right - straight into her right cross. She had faked the eye twitch and sent Sin sprawling backward, holding his right cheek. Before he could recover, she brought her foot up to pummel his stomach. He grasped for her foot but she just shoved him against the wall of the pit, grabbing his wrists with one hand and forcing them up above his head.
"Sorry kid," she sneered, "Looks like your light is about to go out." He tried to kick up but her body was keeping his legs still, and she was much stronger than him, he couldn't move his arms. He could only watch in terror as she drew back her arm, knowing that the next punch she would land would crash into his temple with enough force to knock him unconscious. He refused to shut his eyes, not wanting to give her the satisfaction - so he watched, almost as if life was in slow motion, as her fist came closer and closer and closer, eventually hitting him and - he blinked in utter confusion.
"What the hell?" Skullfinger said, staring at her fist in puzzlement. Her fist had come into contact with Sin's temple, yes, but it hadn't knocked him unconscious - it hadn't even hurt. It had bounced off of his skull.
Skullfinger had evidently shook it off as a hallucination, because her eyes held the same haughty confidence as she drew her fist back once more. However, during the confusion she had let go of Sin's wrists.
Before her fist could reach his head again, he shoved her shoulders, putting all of his panic from the past few minutes into the push. He had expected her to stumble back a step or two and then catch herself… but she didn't. She didn't stumble at all - she flew backwards into the other side of the pit, her head slamming against the wall. She fell to the ground and didn't move.
The crowd started chanting, but Sin couldn't hear them. There was a loud buzzing in his ears and his hands were shaking. "Please, please, please," he begged silently, not quite knowing who he was begging. He knelt down beside Skullfinger and breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the girl's chest rising and falling.
The crowd's volume almost doubled and he finally registered what they were saying.
"ONE!" They screamed at an unprecedented volume, and Sin felt a hand on her shoulder. His head whipped up and he saw Spider standing over his kneeling form. Spider's left eye was blackened and a purplish bruise ran down the side of his jaw.
"Come on, Sin," he murmured, hauling Sin to his feet. "Let's go home."
"And the first defeat of champion Skullfinger in weeks!" Elena's voice bellowed over the crowd. "Defeated by the youngest Fighter in our history, Assassin wins! I don't think anybody saw this coming, folks, what a surprising turn!"
A woman who looked a little like Shade, but with brilliant blue hair and much sharper features, hauled him out of the pit, with Spider pushing him. She clapped him on the shoulder and said lowly, in a faint American accent, "You did good, kid. If you ever want to talk to somebody who knows why what happened happened, contact me." She slipped him a small card and the crowd parted to let him through.
He just walked numbly out of the courtyard, Spider's hand on his back guiding him. As they left the threshold the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he turned his head to see Elena watching him. Her smile looked even hungrier than before, and again he felt his body freeze up.
"Move, Sin," Spider whispered, but he couldn't. He was frozen, staring into those terrible eyes - and then she looked away and Sin breathed a sigh of heavy relief. He stumbled forward away from the Fights, his feet moving without him really registering them.