Hi. It's a really weird hour and I should be sleeping but I wanted to bring you, dear reader, the second chapter of this tale as soon as I could. I've heard from several of you that you're really digging this, so, hopefully, this will keep the momentum going.

Once again, a big thanks to jojoDO, and, also, my writing crew for being so supportive.

A quick note here: the words "combat" and "perversion" appear in this chapter, but they're actually French, not English. So, yeah.

Anyway! Onward~

It was several weeks later when King let out a pained yelp as she landed flat on her ass on the hard concrete behind the closed boutique. She hastily got back on her feet and blocked the straight jab that her opponent — a grubby man who had initially arrived in a fedora and smelled more and more like onions the longer the fight went on — aimed directly at her nose.

Angered that this disgusting man and her previous challenger had tried to very deliberately damage her face, King doubled down on her attacks: She hit Grubby with a one-two combination and followed up with a swift push kick that knocked him back. Then, she dashed forward and struck with a jumping kick that finally took him down; he hit the ground and immediately started wiping copious amounts of blood from his nose, which she had made extra sure to target.

"The winner! King!"

King pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and threw it down at Grubby.

"Asshole," she panted before placing her hands on her knees. She shut her eyes as she tried to steady her breathing, which was heavy not because the fight had been a challenge, but because after working a long, hectic shift and then fighting two strangers back to back, she was tired.

And, lately, she was almost always tired. Not only had she been brawling regularly since discovering the little underground setup, but business at the bar — where she started working full-time — had picked up almost exponentially, making up for the miserable stretch that got her into street fighting in the first place. And though a nagging voice in the back of her mind constantly reminded her that her luck was bound to run out if she didn't stop while she was ahead, she couldn't bring herself to retire because, in addition to the money being pretty damn good, she was able to take her turbulent emotions out on the idiots who dared to underestimate her.

Although bordering on exhausted, the bartender turned her attention to the crowd, where several onlookers were cheering while others were grumbling as they placed their money in the small hat not too far from where she was standing.

"Who's next?!" King yelled out to the bystanders. When no one said anything, she hastily stooped to claim her cash, relieved that she could go "home" and crash. She quickly counted out the money (seven-hundred sixty-two?!), pocketed it, and moved to bring herself up to her full height. However, she abruptly found herself sprawled on the ground as a stinging pain shot through the left side of her jaw. Quickly, she placed a hand where the cheap shot landed and winced: She could tell by the feel of it that it was already puffy. How the hell was she going to explain a mouse on her face without revealing that she had been fighting? Pissed, she gritted her teeth and looked up at her attacker, whom she recognized immediately.

"Remember me, you bitch?!"

The Frenchwoman narrowed her eyes while glaring at the man who, last she knew, was a member of a gang called the Black Cats and (unironically?!) called Dimples. She never thought she'd see him again after what she did to him at L'Amour the previous year: exacted revenge for an attempted sexual assault and took his job as the establishment's bouncer.

"You!?" She responded angrily.
"Oh, so you do remember!"
"How could I possibly forget such a charming fellow?" King dryly responded while standing up. She dusted herself off and raised her eyebrows. "I'm going to assume that you're looking for some kind of epic payback for that time I kicked your ass, right?"
"First, I'm gonna beat you," Dimples spat, ignoring the question yet answering all the same, "and then I'm gonna fuc —"

King interrupted the lowly mook with a flashy backflip kick that took him down immediately.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't hear you!"

The bartender stood over Dimples and glowered at him with an intensity that made some of the onlookers nervous. Face bloody and eyes glassy, he was being helped into a sitting position by a man in a rumpled business suit who had rushed over almost the second he went down. King briefly watched the scene play out as she recalled her first meeting with Dimples and friends, where he and his buddy held her down in a parking lot and tried to do unspeakable things after their boss, a man named Jack whom she would later encounter in the Syndicate, beat her senseless in a fight and left her with his cohorts as if she were nothing more than trash. Enraged by the horrible memory, King quickly brought her foot down on the incapacitated thug's manhood for the second time in her life, putting as much force behind the stomp as possible. The action jarred Dimples completely awake; he screamed — a horrible sound that was, as cliché as it was, music to King's ears — before breaking into hysterical sobs.

"I thought you liked it when dumb cunts like me fought back?!"

Triumphant against Dimples once more, King drew in a very deep breath, then took her leave, satisfied with her handiwork but also at a loss as to how she would explain her facial injury (which fucking hurt!) to the people in her life.

###

"Qu'est-il arrivé à ton visage?!"

The question aimed at King the following morning was curt and lacked any genuine concern, which summed up almost every interaction she had with her aunt, Maddy. The young woman brought a hand up to the sore spot where Dimples hit her and grimaced. Somehow not swollen, the small area had turned a terrible-looking shade of lavender that would require at least three buckets of concealer to hide even slightly.

"The push broom fell over and the handle hit me."
"So much for those excellent fighter-person reflexes of yours," King's uncle, Gary, spoke up from his place at the table, not even bothering to look away from his newspaper.

The Frenchwoman rolled her eyes but didn't respond to the comment, which was a clear attempt to get under her skin. Instead, she continued what she was doing: washing Jean's dishes, as the boy had left for school not even ten minutes prior and was unable to finish his breakfast. She gently scrubbed the cereal bowl in her hands and immediately caught sight of some light bruising on her knuckles, which she hadn't previously noticed. Frowning, she opened the dishwasher to load the bowl just as Maddy walked over and placed her empty coffee mug in the sink.

"Are you working today?" The older woman queried.
"I'm closing tonight," King answered as she absently grabbed the glass.
"What time?"
"Six."
"And what time will you be back?"
"I'm off at two, but then there's the drive back so maybe… three at the latest…?"

King strategically maneuvered the sponge she was using so that it, and the suds leaking from it, would help conceal her marked-up hand while she started to wash the ceramic coffee cup.

"I wish you wouldn't come in so late," Maddy complained while crossing her arms and leaning her back against the counter. "You make too much noise."

At that, King made a face. She was almost overly cautious whenever she entered the house late, practically moving at a snail's pace so as not to make too many sounds. It wasn't her problem that her aunt was a light sleeper.

"Sorry…?" She said instead of defending herself, because she didn't want to fight and was too drained to do so anyway.
"Are you working tomorrow, too?" The older woman probed. "It's the weekend, you know."
"I work weekends. You know that."
"Well, are you working all day?"
"No, but I promised Mary I'd go to lunch with her before my shift starts."

The two women fell silent then, but King sensed a subtle shift in the air that almost always came with an argument. Sure enough, she could see her aunt glaring at her from the corner of her eye.

"What?" She asked with a resigned sigh.
"You need to stop being so selfish," Maddy snapped as she straightened her posture.
"Selfish?!" King asked incredulously. "Because I have to work?!"
"No, because instead of spending time with and helping your brother, you're choosing to run around town with that cop!"
"One, she's not a cop anymore, she's a private investigator — get it right. Two, I spend time with and help Jean every single day! I don't mind it at all, but I do have a life outside of here! That said, his laundry is done, and any outstanding chores he can't handle on his own will be taken care of, so do me a favour and stop being such a raging —"
"Watch what you say to your aunt," Gary warned while folding his newspaper.
"Yes, Cécile! Watch what you say to me!"
"What are you going to do? Ground me? In case you forgot, I'm an adult!"
"An adult who made choices that got her arrested and put right back under our roof," Maddy pointed out, her tone nothing short of caustic.

It was a good point, though King couldn't help making an angry noise as she rinsed the mug and practically slammed it onto the dishwasher's top rack before closing the appliance door.

"You both suck," she grumbled while turning off the faucet.
"What did you just say?!"
"I said —" King snatched a nearby dish towel and dried her hands, wincing slightly as she accidentally pressed down on her knuckles a little too hard — "I wonder how I could ever repay your excessive kindness toward me."
"You know what, Cécile? We have been very kind to you but you've always spit on us with your —"
"Mon combat, perversion, bla bla bla," King interrupted while rolling her eyes. "And now you've been gracious enough to let me back into your home — which I do appreciate, by the way — but I've been nothing but trouble for you, and I'm a bad influence on Jean and I should be more whatever it is that I'm not being enough of this time. Do you have anything new to tell me, or are we done?"

Without waiting for an answer, the young woman tossed the towel on the counter (Maddy could hang it back up, damn it!) and stomped out of the kitchen, opening and closing her bruised fist as she returned to her room to get ready for the day.

…Jerks.

Alright! Soooooo~

* If you've been going here for a long time, then you should remember Dimples from A Profound Impact and then in R&D. If you haven't been going here, the abridged version is that Jack and two members of his gang (Dimples and a bloke who looked like a darker, dirty Iggy Pop) attacked Cécile after her shift at work ended. She beat the two dudes with ease but then lost to Jack, who left her with his guys. She was saved by a Good Samaritan. In R&D she encounters Dimples again, as he has been hired as the bouncer at L'Amour. It doesn't go well for him.

* Qu'est-il arrivé à ton visage = What happened to your face
* King's work schedule: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, with the fight nights she's attending being held on Thursdays and Sundays, so, yeah, this is Thursday night and Friday morning
* Mon combat, perversion, bla bla bla = My fighting, perversion, blah blah blah
* King's "perversion" refers to her being bi
* It's mentioned here that Mary is now a PI, and no longer a patrol officer for Southtown PD
* Just an FYI, Jean uses arm crutches or a wheelchair depending on the circumstances
* Did you read Silver Lining? King spent a night in jail after going to the cops about Big and the others.

Well, I think that closes the door on this chapter. Please come back next time for... uhhhh... stuff. You'll see.

Cheers~!