Yeah, this was a long time coming. My only excuse is that I'm a lazy shit who procrastinates on even things they enjoy. Anyways, hope you enjoy.


The inside of the giant warehouse was brightly lit, and quite spacious. The whole building had been emptied of any crates or other cargo that might have been stored in there during the day, leaving room to make several large square fighting rings down the length of the warehouse. The floor around them was filled with people from all the gangs in the city, most of them chattering excitedly amongst themselves as they awaited the start of the night's activities. There was a walkway set above their heads, that ran round the edges of the building. Although the view from up top would be undoubtedly better, there were less people up there for some reason, and most of them better dressed than those down below on the ground floor.

Yang had a good look at the rings as they walked in, the small group mixing in with the crowds of loud people eagerly shifting around, the reek of spirits and other alcohol starting to rise up in the air. At least she could say for certain that this was a lot cleaner than the basement of Junior's club. Especially with fresh sea air wafting in from the rest of the docks outside, the tinge of salt helping to mask the smell of tobacco and booze that was beginning to waft around.

Still looking around as Junior led the way to a guarded stairway leading up the walkway, the blonde was forced into an abrupt halt by the larger man pausing before the first stair, Miltia a couple of steps up before him and Melanie waiting beside Yang.

"This is where we part ways until your round is over." Junior informed his contender as her violet gaze swung his way. Both his hands were at the base of his neck, fidgeting with his tie as he sought to remove any little crinkles in the material he had already spent ages fixing before even leaving his house this night. "There should be a guy wearing a bear head round here that'll direct you to where your match will be." He gave a nod out towards the crowd on the ground floor.

"Shouldn't be too long then." Yang replied with a shrug of her shoulders, her face stuck in a bored expression despite the butterflies dancing around in the pit of her stomach. This was what she did best, bash the hell out of anyone that stood in between her and her pay. So why did she feel so anxious about being here?

Ah, right, the deal with those police officers.

Perhaps it was best then that they wanted to save putting a wire on her until the next round of matches. Masking her feelings wasn't a skill that Yang was particularly adept at, and having actual proof that she was a spy for the police on her would have only made her nerves worse this night. And who knew how long it would take for someone to question her why then.

Junior looked back up the stairs, spying an older version of himself, complete white hair and beard, glancing his way from a small group of people. A couple of others joined in looking the same direction he was, a tall muscle-bound man in a suit and a pair of black wolf ears poking out of his similarly coloured hair, and a woman whose dark hair was pulled to one side where it flowed down in waves over one shoulder and onto her red dress.

"Just remember, I'm counting on you to at least make it past the preliminaries." He continued, breaking off his gaze to look back to her. "We need this, if only to make us look better in the eyes of other people round town." With a pat to his tie's knot, he stopped his fidgeting, straightening up as he tried to steel himself for the socialising that was imminent. "I will not stand to stay at the bottom of the ladder any more."

Barely waiting for Yang to give a nod of acknowledgement back in response, he turned away and started to head up the stairs, his bodyguards in tow as he headed towards the older man now waiting for him. Watching after him long enough to see the pair exchange a firm handshake, the blonde also turned away to start her search for the man with the bear head.

That didn't take long, the man in question turning out to be on the other side of the warehouse, other people that looked ready to fight pressed around him as he made ticks with a pencil on a clipboard of names. The bear head in question looked to have been ripped straight from the outfit of a theme park mascot, a large fluffy head with small round ears. The man underneath was probably wearing it in order to be easily seen across the building, a plan that had worked given the people queuing up en masse near him to get signed up for their matches.

Pushing her way through the crowded lane between two of the rings, Yang forced her way up to join those waiting to be checked off. Given that a large chunk of them were buff and thickly built men, she almost wound up squashed a few times as she tried to weave through the gaps and to the bear man, but she eventually managed to pop out in front of the crowd. Noticing her, the man tapped his pencil against the paper, the costume head bobbing back and forth as he turned to face her.

"Name?" He bluntly inquired, not having time to waste with any pleasantries. Not when he was expected to get about a hundred fighters all sorted out and all set to throw down with each other.

"Uh, Yang Xiao Long." She answered back, placing her hands on her hips as she watched his pencil drift down the paper. There must have been a lot of names on that clipboard, given that it took him a minute to find where she had been placed.

"Ah, the 'dragon'." He mentioned her nickname as he made a tick next to her spot. "You'll be in the third ring from the right when the matches start, and the third group to start, so be ready for when the bell goes."

Well, that was all settled. And there was nothing else left to do other than to psych herself up for when they started, and to eye the competition. Raising her arms up to cross them behind her head as she moved away from the man, Yang shifted them from side to side as she mused on how she might take down her unknown opponents, feeling a few pops along her spine as she stretched.

"Name?" He was talking to another fighter now that had pushed up to the front, giving a quick twirl of the pencil round one finger as he waited for an answer. Idly, the blonde brawler glanced back to who had come after her, doing a double take almost immediately.

"Blake. Blake Belladona." The dark haired girl that had been in the basement of Junior's club answered promptly, the pair of cat ears poised on top of her head swivelling around to take in all the noise around her. Her face was a blank slate as amber eyes slowly came to look Yang's way. As the bear man continued to knock more names off his list and tell people where to go, the girls stared at each other, Blake's tail drifting behind her as Yang's arms slowly lowered back down.

"You..." It came out barely more than a mumble from the blonde's lips, a thought that had slipped out through her mouth instead. "You were at the club the night before, weren't you?"

The attempt at starting up a conversation seemed to fall flat, the only response that Yang seemed to earn being a flick of one feline ear as Blake attempted to walk straight past her. A rough hand grabbing at her shoulder gave her reason to pause and look back.

"Hey, come on." Yang spoke in a jovial tone, and had a grin to match, but the flicker of irritation in her eyes hinted at her real feelings of being brushed off. "Just because you were only there to check out the competition, doesn't mean we can't at least talk a little." It would certainly give her something to do while waiting for that bell the guy mentioned to go off.

It was amazing how little it took for that almost half lidded gaze of the faunus to narrow into a glare, eyebrows barely shifting as one hand reaching up to the one on her shoulder.

"No." Blake said as she removed the blonde's hand, a firm grip around the wrist. "I don't care about being friendly. Not when we're all here just to fight." With the hand now held several inches in the air away from her, the faunus girl dropped Yang's wrist. "I don't bother talking with people that are bound to wind up with my fist in their face. If you even make it that far."

Before either of them could talk any further, speakers set into the walls around the warehouse crackled into life, the loud recording of a bell strike booming through it. The chatter of the mass of people around them stopped, dozens taking off in all directions as the cue for the contenders to get to their squares echoed around the building. Some guy pushed himself through the gap between them as he rushed to his position, giving the faunus the perfect opportunity to vanish while Yang's line of sight was broken. Glancing around, the blonde eventually spotted her walking off to the opposite end of the warehouse, flitting through the people also headed that way.

"...What's up her ass?" Yang mumbled to herself once Blake had disappeared amongst the crowds. "I only tried to be friendly." Wait, what was she doing standing around and grumbling for? She was supposed to be at her ring and ready to fight!

With so many others with the same idea in mind, another tough struggle of squashing through narrow gaps between people was ahead, angry shouts and smacks of fists into flesh already ringing out from the first match underway. Reaching the ring she was assigned to, Yang was just in time to hear a cheer from the walkway above roar as one man was sent sailing over the ropes and into the crowd watching on the ground floor, taking a pair of audience members down with him amidst others screaming and rushing to get out of the way. A full blown melee was underway with the ten fighters that had been thrown into the first fight, and at least three were down by the time the blonde grabbed onto a pole set in the corner of her ring to haul herself up onto the edge of the platform to see better.

With everyone scrambling to attack the first person they locked eyes onto, the first match was nothing more than pure chaos. At a guess, maybe that was due to the fact that most of the brawlers were little more than thugs who had been thrown into the tournament for the first time to be little more than cannon fodder. Didn't matter to the crowd, who rejoiced in each twist that took place as the ten contenders punched, kicked, or head butted each other in a desperate struggle for victory.

But as the fight dwindled to its inevitable end, it was one man who had hung back out of the way while the others had been quick to waste their energy on each other that wound up taking the match. All it took was weaving and ducking to avoid any hits, and then a quick grab of the other last fighter standing's collar from behind to throw him bodily out of the ring. A few boos went up from the crowd at the cowardly display, but they were barely heard over the cheers over the result of the first match, some even chanting the man's name. But even with the victor just made clear for the first ring, that bell recording boomed again, sending the next ring off into their brawl.

Glancing up to the walkways above, the blonde scanned the few well dressed individuals above for where Junior and his bodyguards had gone. She spotted him leaning on the guard rail with his arms, fists clenching and unclenching as he watched the next brawl taking place, neither a smile nor a frown on his face as the muscles in his jaws would make themselves known every interval or so. He was flanked by two of the other members that Yang had seen before, the faunus man, and the woman. The wolf faunus was grinning broadly as he watched those in the ring below smack each other around, but there was only the barest trace of a smirk on the woman's lips, giving little outward sign of what her thoughts could be.

The second match lasted longer than the one that had kicked the night off, but it was only a matter of minutes before only one was left standing in the ring, and that recording rang out through the crackly speakers. Jumping over the ropes and into the actual ring, Yang was a bundle of tension, raring to lash out at the other nine that had made their way in as well. Just her luck, every one of them were guys, little more than buffed up goons. Whether or not they would be like those in the first ring though, was something that she was going to have to find out.

Well, at least one was, that was proven quickly as one young skinny guy sporting a blonde mohawk threw the first punch. It was a wild swing that was swiftly ducked under by the one he threw it at, a man sporting a handlebar moustache and burly enough to send the kid flying with a single shoulder charge. Slamming into the ropes back first, he had only a little time to wince in before another took the opportunity to rid an opponent from the match, lifting him up by the feet to topple over the edge and into the crowd.

Yang had her own problems to deal with as people scattered from where the kid landed, dropping into a duck as someone reached out to grab her by the shoulder. As he tried to recover, she surged forth with a right punch, her fist twisting from palm up to facing the ground as it launched to smack into his stomach and knock the wind from him. Buckling over, his moment of weakness soon drew attention from others, meaning Yang could dart back as two others came to pummel into him.

Reeling in the adrenaline pumping through her veins, sending her heart beat skyrocketing, the blonde ignored the slight sting of scraped skin along her knuckles as she took advantage of another fighter's distraction while circling round the ring. If she thought about it, this was just like every other fight she had done up to this night, except that she was facing more than one at a time. Swerving to avoid any blows, and honing in on any weak spots that would open up, except that there was little time for grandstanding with this many opponents around. Even while she knew she should be taking this seriously with so much riding on her making it past the preliminaries, a toothy grin broke out across her face without her knowing.

The group was thinning out quickly, or at least that's how it seemed to her. Soon, there was only her and two others left standing, all of their breathing noticeably more shallow than when they had begun. And all of them a lot more wary as they edged slowly around the ring, no one eager to throw the blow that would break their relative stalemate, even as the audience jeered for them to do anything, something. Yang could practically feel Junior's stare boring holes into the back of her neck from above. This was it, one misstep and it could all be over in an instant.

An inhale of air, and the tension snapped. The moustache man from before lunged at the other still in the ring, his target moving to defend himself as the blonde lurched in to execute a swift hit on the attacker. A fist crashed onto a raised forearm, forcing the defender up against the ropes near him. Moustache went to strike again, but failed to realise that winding his arm back left his face open for a swinging punch to come crashing right into that vulnerable nose of his.

Yang couldn't help but wince out of sympathy even as she felt cartilage crunch underneath her knuckles. He reeled backwards with a gurgled scream, bright red blood already streaming from the broken hunk of flesh on his face to splatter as drops across the platform's surface before two hands could clamp over the area. Which only left the rest of him exposed for even more beatings. Bouncing back on one foot, the blonde took a moment before diving right back in, laying out some rapid sets of jabs as she pushed him over to another side of the platform, her grin broadening as his back finally touched the ropes. And with him still trying to stop the gushing of blood, a nice strong right to his head was all that was needed to send him right over the top of the ropes.

A rush of elation was her reward for knocking out one of the last opponents. Until she gained a sharp reminder of the last one stuck in the ring with her. Sharp, as in the sting of a chunk of hair being yanked out from her scalp.

Some of the audience, those who had come to see her fight in Junior's club, grew quiet when they saw what had just happened, their jaws dropping open. All prior happiness flowed out of Yang even before she started to turn around to see what the last man had done, growing numb and cold inside even without having to see the long golden strands of hair left clenched in one of his hands, a failed attempted at trying to yank the blonde's head back in a dirty move. Those lavender irises stared at him as the colour sank into red, a sight that made him take a step backwards.


"That's enough!"

More blood splatter had joined that of the moustache man, the individual sprays only distinguishable by age having made the earlier ones lean to rust while the bright crimson of the man now lying unconscious on the platform lay over the top of it. The cry from the bear head man from earlier caused Yang to finally halt, midway through sending another blow to the already broken, bruised, and blood covered face of the guy who had dared to pull out her hair. The red slipped from her eyes as she came back to normal, and rose up from her knees.

Who knew how long she had been leaning over him on the floor, making sure to leave him a remind of every strand that had been yanked out. Long enough for the bell to have rung again without her hearing it in her lost state, and to have the ring next to hers already in their own brawl.

Giving a quick glance over herself at catching sight of some red on her arm, Yang was relieved to see none of the blood sprayed across her shirt and arms was that of her own. Not to mention, that with the unconscious and barely recognisable thug being dragged out of the ring by two others, she was the last one standing, the winner.

She looked up, knowing whom she would find staring right back at her.

And there he was. Junior was wearing the biggest grin she had ever seen on him. Like that of a kid that had been let loose in a candy shop and told that anything they picked out, would be bought for them.

Which was almost the same feeling Yang was having right now. This had only been the first step towards getting all the money she needed, but she didn't care right now. Not when that dream felt so in reach after so long of struggling in the dark. And no one was going to stand in her way.