D12 ♚ { Aram McConnelly } ♚ DONE ♚ CBD2

By my sixth fight I realized Irvine was pulling something.

"Again?" I asked, dragging out the word in high-pitched whine while he took a hard drag on a cigar as fat as my wrist. 

"Leonie's a good fighter," he reasoned, standing behind the punching bag I was tenderizing, working on my combinations. Left hook, right jab, right jab, cross, left hook... "A bit slow, maybe..."

"'A bit?'" I snorted, dealing out a liver shot that, on an opponent composed of prayers and pulses as opposed to cotton and leather, could've sent someone to an emergency room. Two more counterpunches and another clean liver shot like that could send them six feet under in sixty seconds.

"Hey now, don't you get cocky on me, Girly. Check your footwork..." he said, giving me a light kick on the ankles before continuing on, "She's a bit slow, but she's hefty. Can take a hit like a tank and just as hard to bring down... I seem to remember you have yet to knock her out ye--"

"Because you're senile and old,"  I panted back,  trying to draw a breath on paper-thin lungs, shooting out blows at the bag like it owed me something golden, "I've never lost to her, neither."

"So I guess this 'senile old man' is good for something, then, ain't he?" he chuckled, giving the bag a hard shove at me and taking a seat on a metal bench by the gym's practice ring. 

"Irvine, I've been fighting the same three girls for two months," I said, plopping down next to him and grabbing the plastic bottle of water on the ground. I let a swig fill my mouth, held it in there for a moment, rinsing it about the nooks and crevices in my mouth before swallowing. It's a habit. In the ring it isn't nearly as refreshing as having a wave of cool douse your weary aches and stresses. Those thirty seconds in the corner, you're so mindful of the gash above your eye, drowning the world in a sea of hazy crimson you can't stop and smell the roses when the thorns are drawing blood. You're thirsty, but not the type of irritating need quenched by a shot of water or sugared down energy ox piss. You've got a taste of your blood that ignites a hunger for theirs. And your knuckles can break and your ribs can snap and half your face can contort to something gruesome out of a horror novel, but your fists won't stop screaming-- from the moment that first bell rings-- for you to carve up that son of a bitch's face like lovers' names in a tree.

"And you've been undefeated for the past two months, we've got a good system. Don't fight it--"

"--I want to move up a weight class." I bit him off mid-sentence, watching him close his eyes in fatigue and holding his head in his hands.

"Synopsis? No."

"But why? It's boring now! I know Leonie, Thelma, and Yuri's fighting styles like the back of my hand. Last week against Thelma couldn't even be considered a fight and you know it. I knocked out that asshole in the second round and she was asleep before she even hit the floor, BAM!" I laughed, bobbing left and right and faking the undercut to the nose that sent Thelma sleeping. "Look Irvine, I know I can put on the weight. Watch, all beef and whey for the next three weeks I can do it. Then you can actually get me some matches where those sorry sons of bitches might actually be able to land a hit on me--"

"No, Girly." he moaned from behind his hands.

"Why not? How much until the next weight class? Twenty... thirty pounds? I can do it. We can even start having weekend training sessions too--"

"You can't move up a weight class because there's nothin' to move up to."

"...what?"

And he drew his head from his hand and looked over at me, his eyes worn from years of raising would-be contenders to webbed-fingered amateurs who let the titles slip through their fingers. His eyes had a weak spark in the recesses of green; fire that caught when hope reacted with the wind but died when each of his proteges failed to go the distance.

"There's only three girls who fight here. You can't go up a weight class because you're in the only ladies' fighting league there is. A four-woman fighting league. I'm sorry, Girly, but it's the truth."

"...
...
...
...
...

...so let me fight the boys."

"Glory and gore go hand in hand
That's why we're making headlines
You could try and take us 
But victory's contagious"
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