November 1998

Despite the cold weather Levi was running around the park not far from his apartment. "Aye, Levi!" A voice cried out as Levi continued to jog around the field. Levi cursed silently between breaths, he knew he should have spent the pocket change to take the bus to the park in the nicer part of the city.

"What pop?" He grunted, coming to a stop in front of Pop.

"Whatcha doin' out of school?" He asked noisily.

"Doesn't matter." Levi replied shortly.

"Well if you're free, it does." Pop grinned at him.

Pop wasn't strictly speaking a gangster. He didn't deal drugs or mug people. He was however the chief entertainer for all the gangsters and drug dealers around. You needed a DJ, a hooker or a boxing match you went to Pop. Which almost meant you couldn't just say no to him. "So what if I am." He offered warily.

"Got a fight night coming up this weekend, care to join? Winner's split the pot." Pop smiled widely and spread his arms. "A guy like you got a real chance at it. Few hundred for 30 minutes of your Friday night." He pinched him.

It wouldn't just be 30 minutes of his Friday night. He hadn't trained or fought in a while, he grimaced. He could use the money, he hadn't worked since the summer and Kenny didn't exactly give him an allowance or anything. It beat trying to get a job somewhere; the money he stashed aside from the moving company ran out he had worked for last summer.

"Fine, need somewhere to train a little bit though." He sighed, crossing his arms.

Pop clapped him on the shoulder. "Leo's is all yours. He'll know the details of where you gotta be Friday."

Hanji ducked into the classroom her math teacher had told her to go to make up for the test she had missed yesterday because of the fight. "Hi, I'm here to take a test for Mrs. Kimitch's class."

"Ah yes, take a seat. We're waiting for a few others before you guys can start." The teacher told her.

She sat diagonally from a blonde girl who was looking at some notes. "Don't suppose you understand quadratics?" She asked dryly.

Hanji nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay at them. Want help?"

"It might be a little late for me." she laughed, "But sure."

Hanji tried to give her a crash course on the quadratic formula in the ten minutes they had before the teacher handed out their tests. The test wasn't that hard for her. Math wasn't her favorite class but it was rules based meaning that as long as you knew the rules you knew how to do every problem. She finished pretty easily and spent the rest of the time idly wondering what Levi was up to outside of school.

The bell rang and she got up to leave. "Thanks for trying to help me." The blonde told her as they exited the classroom. "I'm Nanaba by the way."

"Hanji, and no problem. If you want help you can ask me. I don't mind but I'm not amazing at math either."

"Clearly better than me." She laughed. "What period do you have Mrs. Kimitch?"

"4th."

"Ah before me. If you don't mind, I'd seriously appreciate the help. I'll buy you coffee or something if you want."

Hanji nodded. "Sure, I don't mind."

"Thanks! I really gotta get my grade up. I'm on the track team and Coach makes us run a mile extra for each letter below an A. I think I might die if I have to do another 3 miles after practice."

Levi walked into Leo's gym. It was mostly deserted being the middle of the day. "We're close!"

"Pop says you're open for me, old man." Levi called back.

"Levi, what you doin' here boy?" Leo squinted at him. Leo was in his mid forties but looked like he was going on sixty. He blamed his time in the Marines for it.

"Got a fight on Friday." He shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"Take your hands out of your pockets boy and stand up straight, boy." He snapped at him. Levi resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the old man's military habits but he did as he was told. Despite his eyesight and limp, the old man could still beat the pants off guys half his age in the ring. "You' fight for 48th crew," he sniffed. "Alright, alright just don't– eh what am I saying you never make a mess." He waved him off and hobbled back to his office.

Levi sighed and got to work. This was not what he wanted to be doing but at least he was getting paid and away from Kenny. It was rare that he wouldn't even consider what was going on in school, but his mind wandered to what Furlan and Hanji. She had been fine last night after the fight. He hadn't brought it up though, part of him wished he had or at least reassured her. He punched that bag, he hadn't hit Floch hard enough.

"This is not Fair!" Cenzie screeched, throwing down her control as her boyfriend Abel and Moblit high five. It was Friday night and Abel had invited her, Moblit and Cenzie out to an arcade for video games and pizza.

"How?!" He shot back at her.

"Intentionally kicking her to–" Hanji's argument was cut off by an indignant.

"I didn't kick her!"

"Your foot hit my leg!" Cenzie huffed.

"I barely touched you!"

"You made her drive off the map! Clearly affecting the outcome of the game!"

"You were beaten by the bots!"

They had been playing the new racing game girls vs boys. Hanji had beaten Moblit but she had lost to Abel, tying up 1-1. Cenzie unfortunately wasn't not as good a gamer as the rest of them. And even if Abel had clearly kicked to distract her, right after she had nearly passed him conveniently, Hanji knew Cenzie probably would have still lost.

It felt nice to relax like normal after last week. It felt like everyone had been looking at her or them really since the fight a few days ago. Floch was a bully; Moblit was hardly the only kid he picked on, but no one had fought him and won like Levi did. Floch had always been the one to win fights before or his buddies Nile and Boris would help. She got the feeling people were surprised Levi had intervened too, that's why everyone's eyes followed her. He wasn't friends with Moblit, or any one really other than Furlan and now her. People hadn't know that she guessed. Yeah, they talked in English class. They sat next to each other, but they mostly hung out after school and she hung out with Moblit and his friends in school. She wondered what he had been up to this week. Furlan had shrugged when she had asked yesterday saying he hadn't said anything to him. It would be nice to go back to their normal routine on monday.

Leo led him through a back alley and down a decrepit flight of stairs to a basement that had last been cleaned a decade ago. They walked past towers of junk and through a set of doors into a larger and cleaner room. The room was full, half of people and half of smoke from cigarettes and blunts alike. Levi stifled a cough as they came to a stop in front of Pop's table. "Leo, thank you so much for doin' this sir!" He cried at the older man.

"Yeah, yeah," Leo waved him off. "We're starting on time. Your fighter's not here or not ready, it's a forfeit." He warned the promoter. Leo had been talked into refereeing the match that night– good news for Levi and all the other fights they won't be killed, Leo would call a fair fight.

"Levi! Here," He threw him a blue t-shirt and head gear. "Your blue and headgear required tonight, can't have cops sniffing around cause a bunch of homeboys are bruised up."

He grimaced, there wasn't enough rubbing alcohol in the world to make this shit clean. He was fighting early and he was glad for it the sooner this was over the sooner he could go home and shower. The first fight was more or less two guys just standing there trading punches like some cartoon fight. The crowd egged them on, growing Ooo-ing every haymaker they threw and cheering when they landed.

Levi was fighting an older guy, but similar in size and build at least. Unlike the previous fight Levi came out fast pushing his opponent backward with a few jabs to create and judge distance. His opponent didn't know how to fight. He just jumped back taken aback by the speed of the match. He seemed to get angry as the crowd jeered his retreat. He threw a punch and that was all the space Levi needed to get inside and stun him with a cross to the jaw.

Leo stepped in and separated them. "Make it interesting." The old man warned him.

Levi stepped back to the center of the ring, groaning to himself. He would have to play with his opponent before finishing it. The dude practically pushed Leo out of the way on his way at Levi. He dodge the first three erredict punches and jabbed to give the guy something to think about. His opponent took the jab right to the chip and chipped Levi with a punch of his own that he was too slow to turn out of the way of. Enough of this, Levi thought. He hated it. He hated fighting for fuckers entertainment. He hated this disgusting basement filled with more disgusting people. He just wanted to go home now. He bobbed and weaved back inside the guy's guard and dropped him with a nasty uppercut knocking him out. He didn't wait for the match to be called. He walked back to his corner and ducked under the rope.

He changed shirts and cleaned up the best he could before setting out to find Pop. "Oi." He called to him. "Where's my money?"

"Great fight, great fight. My congratulations on your knockout!" Pop grinned at him. "The nights not over here, I'll grab you a beer. You can watch the rest of the cards. The best is yet to come!"

"Don't want to." Levi responded shortly. "Just give me my money and I'll get out of your hair. Don't want minors hanging around all of this after all."

"Come on Levi, don't be like that! Have some beer, food, girls?"

"No. Just give me $500 and I can leave." Levi scowled at the promoter.

Pop sighed. "Fine, here." He shoved a wad of cash towards him. "You know if you want to fight regularly I can hook you up. With the right training you could even get somewhere."

"I'm not interested." Levi threw over his shoulder as he turned and left the cesspit.