Black Market Merchant

There was a moment of silence that settled throughout the crowd. From Golems sudden explosive attack, to the swift decapitating victory of Queen; the crowd was momentarily stunned. Then the arena burst into a cacophony of deafening shouts and cheers that the very rafters shook!

Queen let out a heavy sigh and lowered her sword until its tip rested on the crumbling stage. Murmuring she said, "Release Armament." Then she raised her balled fist above her signaling her victory to all. The settling, swirling dust mixed with the lighting to create a rather surreal affect adding to her stellar finishing pose.

Though she was knocked down by Benny protecting her, Hanna managed to see the outcome. Tears welled up in her eyes as a feeling of mixed relief and remorse enveloped her. Killing was never something she had ever considered doing. Yet when she saw Aunt Lisa kill Golem, it felt good to her. Why?

Then Hanna remembered that her parent’s real killer was still in the Arena! “I need to tell her now, before he leaves!”

Benny sat up off the two ladies and Hanna wriggled free out from under him. She dashed towards the stage before Benny could stop her and ran up to a collapsed portion that let her get under the fence. She scrambled up the hole and stopped to lean halfway out on to the stage.

"Aunt Lisa!" Hanna called out urgently. "Aunt Lisa!" A bit louder that her voice faltered some and this time Lisa heard her.

Turning to look at her, Lisa shouted back. "What is it?"

The noise of the crowd was really making speech hard. The referee had managed to get up after being knocked over by Golems blast and he was heading towards Lisa for the Announcer to commemorate the victory.

Hanna tried shouting again, but they were just too far apart and there was no time to explain. In a fit of desperation Hanna pointed violently towards where Martinez was sitting. Lisa quickly looked his direction and saw him. His yellow tank top was all she recalled of him and immediately knew what Hanna was trying to tell her.

Right then the referee grabbed her hand and raised it again as the Announcer relayed her official win to everyone. Then they rotated once so all the crowd could see her. Lisa had a cool smile on display for the viewers sake. Then she stopped rotating with the referee to face Martinez's booth. Raising her sword up she pointed it right at him.

In that brief moment Lisa thought, “Now I can see your face. You won’t get away now!”

…

Martinez was fuming! "How in the h*** did he just die! There should have been no way this total nobody could have beat one of our best men. Ah, so much money was lost." Martinez stomped over to the wall and smashed a hole right through its porcelain siding with his foot.

"Yo, like chill boss." Branch said flinching as a bit of porcelain hit his exposed shoulder. "Here, smoke this it'll calm you right away!"

Martinez glared at the smoking object in Branch's out stretch hand. "I don't want that crap!" He then smacked it out of his hand, and it landed on the carpet clear across the room. Martinez then went back towards the railing to look angrily at Queen.

Leaving the railing and slightly puzzled by Martinez's reaction, Branch slowly got down on his knees and gingerly picked up the cigar. He took a big puff from it as he stood back up. "No need to waste it man."

Jackson looked away from the sad state of drug loving Branch and focused on Martinez. A shiver shot through him as he saw Martinez with one of the angriest expressions, he had ever seen on the boss’s face. Ernest saw it too and took a step back from him.

"B-Boss, what's wrong?" Ernest asked tentatively.

"That b**** is mocking us!" Martinez answered spitting with rage and pointing down at Queen.

The two lieutenants looked back at the stage to see that Queen was indeed pointing her sword right at them and giving a confident smirk. Then after the referee let go of Queens other hand, she drew a line across her own neck with her thumb. She then mouthed the words, "You are next!"

"What is she getting at?!" Martinez scoffed. "Does she think that she is going to try and take us on or something? I have half a mind to do it right now."

Ernest gave a nervous chuckle. "Naw Boss, she probably just pumped about her win. She is just showing off. Come on, just ignore her."

"Ernest is right." A new voice in the room spoke. It was a tall, bearded man that was walking into the booth with two vicious looking muzzled dogs. The man pushed up the brim of his cowboy hat as he spoke again. "It's a dog-eat-dog world after all. Only the strongest survive, but we should definitely put her in her place at some point. This lone she-wolf is definitely a dangerous one."

"Ah, there you go speaking in that stupid lingo, Rodney." Martinez said shaking his head to look away from Queen. He let out a big sigh and the angry expression on his face subsided slightly. "You are right though. I doubt she would be interested in joining us. Especially since she killed one of us."

He then turned to Jackson who was still watching Queen. "Jackson, get the triplets prepared to fight. Get the Queen to fight them. I do not care what you offer her. I just want her dead!"

Jackson stood up from his seat. "You got it Boss. No one can beat them in a one verse three situation." Jackson then turned to leave the room. It was probably best to act immediately on Martinez’s orders considering how angry he was now.

Walking down the hallway he angrily thought to himself. "That Queen wasn't joking around. She's definitely going to try and take you on Boss. If she pulls another rabbit out of her hat and beats the triplets, I don't think things are going to be in our favor."

Then he smiled visibly. "Wait, that's right, we have Titan. He could be let free again. Even if he destroyed half a neighborhood barehanded, we could always use him."

Jackson chuckled to himself at the thought of letting the gangs trump card free once again. It had taken the entire gang a week to tie Titan down long enough to restrain him. Whatever Inducement he had taken was definitely not supposed to have that effect. To this day Titans mind appeared gone.

“However, that would be a stupid idea to.” Jackson continued thinking. “Titan is a double edge blade, there is no way we can direct him to only go after Queen and not us too. I’ll just keep this idea on the back of my mind for now.”

…

Lisa watched as the men in the booth followed after Jackson left and disappeared from view. She turned her attention to the meaty head of Golem, still at her feet. Saul was looking dumbstruck through the fence at his fallen champion. Lisa casually kicked it towards him and turned to leave the stage without a backwards glance.

Hanna saw Golems head rolling and felt sick. Quickly she slid off the collapsed portion of the stage and walked back to her seat to calm down. Sitting down, she pulled her knees close to her chest and tried to forget about the mortifying scene she had witnessed. Yet all she could think to picture was the face of Martinez and her sadness slowly soured.

Sadie was the first to meet with Lisa as she came off stage. "Oh, my goodness! That was the most amazing fight I have ever seen in person! How were you able to move that fast? Are you hurt anywhere? How am I going to get other Fighters to challenge you now? You are too strong for Shadow League?!"

"Easy now Sadie!" Lisa said putting up her hands to calm the exuberant manager. "One question at a time." Lisa walked over to an empty seat and plopped down into it.

The crowd behind her kept trying to get her attention, but she paid them no mind. They couldn't get over the Arena wall separating the stands from the staging area. Her motive wasn't to earn fans after all, but to avenge Hanna’s parents.

Benny sat down next to Lisa and looked at her as if he could believe what he had witnessed. "Tell me one thing. How?"

"How?" Lisa repeated giving a playful glance at him. She looked down at her hands and he face darkened some. "That's a hard question to answer. The simple version is, I have been made to be powerful and I know how to be powerful."

"I'm not sure what you mean." Benny replied. Just then a bottle bounced off the back of his chair.

"I want my money back! You rigged the bet or something!" The voice of an angry came from the crowd behind them.

Hearing one of those he had bet against and that others were starting to call out similar protests, Benny was worried things might get out of hand. "But this isn't the time or place for this kind of talk. Come on let's get out of here." Benny said getting up to nudge Hanna to start moving.

Lisa grabbed a bottle of water left on the bench that had been given to her by the Arena staff and took a big gulp. Then she got up to follow Benny and continued to ignore the fans lining the hallway tunnel going back towards the lockers. Sadie patted Hanna's shoulder encouragingly as well and Hanna reluctantly got up to leave to follow after Lisa. They all then headed into the locker room where it was far quieter.

Lisa sat down on the floor near the door and finished the rest of her water in one go. The other three sat down on a bench nearby.

"So, I take it you got some good bets? Those fans sounded upset." Lisa asked Benny.

Benny nodded and reached inside his jacket. Inside was a pocket filled with cash. "You gave me three hundred dollars to be with. I tripled it. I even had some of my own money that I betted with too."

"So, nine hundred dollars?" Lisa said nodding with satisfaction. "Not a bad win. It's definitely better than nothing. Hopefully, I can get another shot at some easy money. Though this time I had to work fairly hard for my earnings."

"If you are calling that fight an easy win, then I would hate to consider what you deem a hard one!" Benny said shaking his head still in disbelief.

…

Zane was ecstatic! Lisa had actually won and in such a memorable fashion! The rest of the rich men with him we equally surprised and excited by what they saw.

"What a smashing performance!" Charles Goodman said shaking the armrest of his chair in giddy excitedly.

"It was indeed impressive, to say the least." Mr. Cline said rubbing his chin in thought.

"Impressive? No, it was way more than that. Normally you don't see a fight like that out in a nowhere place such as this. A true diamond in the rough, that Queen surely is." Rich Rotters said nodding profusely. Then he turned to Zane and asked, "What would it take for your boss to represent me in a Match Fight?"

"That's a good question." Mr. Cline chimed in. He then took out some money from his wallet and pulled out three crisp hundred dollar bills. "Please, do tell us."

Zane took the money from him carefully. These were the first real hundred dollar bills he had ever seen. Zane cleared his throat. "I-I am not sure. I could try introducing you to her, I guess. She can give you a proper answer then."

"Sounds good to me, boy!" McMathers replied speaking up for everyone. Then he slapped another three hundred dollars into Zane's hands. "Lead the way!"