CLANG! clatter
The sound of two metal swords striking the cool tiled floor of the arena. Gasps and cheers from the surrounding audience, the sounds bouncing off of the cloth roof barring the heat of the twin suns above.
A slow-motion video played from the hovering screens showing that Rook had managed to deftly wrap the flexible steel of his rapier around the claymore of his opponent and cast it aside with a flick of his wrist. But a sudden jolt from his opponents strong arms sent his own sword flying as well.
Rook ran to retrieve his sword from its resting place on the tile. His innate agility, the lightness of his rapier, he would reach his opponent before they would even hope to reach their heavy claymore. Tale as old as time.
But as he reached for the pistol grip, he felt a presence upon him. He’d assumed his opponent would go for their sword as well. They always did.
But not this one.
Despite their weight, they sailed through the air above Rook, the hands that once wielded that two-handed sword were now clenched into massive fists. The face of his opponent, red with rage. One of the fists closed the distance between it and Rook’s face.
He had never experienced this before.
“Wha-”
Rook sat up with a jolt and a gasp, a hand over his heart. He looked down at his heaving chest, and as always, he was fine.
“Oof, looks like you got clocked good there, buddy.” Came a nearby voice, echoing off of the aviary-shaped marble walls.
The Inbetween - a labyrinth for lost souls, a respite for found souls, and dwelling for demi-gods, demons and degenerates. All manner of spaces were here - a haunted grove for moaning specters, a floating void for the existentials, a twisted maze of apartment buildings for the low-rent crowd, a laundromat for those ghostly sheets.
But none as rowdy, lively, and with as many unanswered questions as The Cage.
Frequented by Rook’s - well, what could they possibly be? Despite their similarly-pointed faces and shared fondness for keeping their hair long, they weren’t blood relatives (except for the ones that were), they hadn’t known each other in fleshdom (except for the ones that did), and none of them could seem to leave (except for the one who could - Rook, with his glowing skin and lack of a ghostly aura that marked him as still being tied to the flesh of the living). But here they all were, together in one place, and it was here that Rook always awoke when he’d taken things a bit too far. Or didn’t dodge fast enough. Or pissed off the wrong person. Or didn’t read the warning label.
So long as his heart remained un-pierced, he presumed. But then what would happen? Would he end up Caged as well? Or did a worse fate await him?
“That’s a real shiner,” said the guitarist as he handed a bag of frozen peas to Rook and took a seat on the stone floor next to him.
He held the cold bag in his hand for a second. He was mentally still in the arena, taking an up-close look at his opponent’s fist. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“Like this,” and the guitarist held the bag up to Rook’s bruised eye.
And all of a sudden Rook realized the pain in his eye socket. He inhaled sharply through his teeth, “Ahh! What happened?” He clutched the soothing cold bag to his face.
“You got decked, pal.”
“Huh??”
“So hard it killed you, apparently.” The guitarist shrugged, “Nothing to worry about, you probably really messed them up, I’ll bet they’ll be in a hospital bed begging for death after what you probably did to them.”
Rook stared blankly at him with his good eye.
“…You did clobber them, right?”
“What, with…?” and Rook held up a fist.
The guitarist looked at the loose way Rook held his fist, the way he tucked his thumb under his fingers, his unmarked knuckles. The guitarist’s face twisted into horrified realization.
‘Fuck,’ he thought. ‘This guy’s never decked anyone before.’
His arm around Rook’s bare shoulder, the guitarist shouted to the rest of the flock in The Cage, “Listen up! This one who claims to be the greatest fighter in the universe has never been in a bareknuckle rough-and-tumble fistfight.”
A hush fell over them and all pointed faces now pointed at Rook, the only sound coming from the chains dangling from the ceiling.
He dropped the bag of frozen peas from his face and rolled his eyes. His deathwound was healing rapidly in The Inbetween, and his eye was already opening again. Rook’s voice, dripping with annoyance, fought against the silence, “I’m a swordfighter. You can’t cut your opponents with fists.”
“Of course you’re a swordfighter, we’re all good with a blade, right boys?” And at this, all in the gaggle raised some kind of blade: short swords, bastard swords, curved swords, laser swords, underhanded daggers. The guitarist even put away his own switchblade back into his back pocket, and made a balled fist instead. “But not a single one of us can deny the siren call of the skeletal vibrations of one’s knuckles connecting with some poor sap’s jawbone. What makes your situation so weird is that you’re such a vain asshole about it - we all are, so I say that with only love and respect, shine on my liege - but surely someone got pissed off and tried to clock you at least once before?”
“Well yeah.”
“And?”
“I drew my sword,” and Rook reached for the hilt of his rapier at his right hip, finding the sword gone, as it always was when he came to this place.
“Right, The Inbetween isn’t interested in material things like your sword.”
- “And his shirt too, apparently,” came a voice from the flock.
Rook didn’t mention that he often fought shirtless.
“So what do you do when you’re without your weapon?”
“I always have my sword.”
“Except now, of course.” And Rook didn’t have a good response to this. “Well, it’s about time you learn how to fight unarmed, because when you don’t have anything else, you can always rely on your knuckles. And hey, this is great timing, you showed up on the perfect day: Fistfight Friday!”
- “It’s Tuesday today,” came another voice from the flock.
And with that the guitarist whipped around and suckerpunched the Tuesday guy, who let out a cry and stumbled backwards into the crowd. They helped Tuesday to his feet before loudly declaring “FISTFIGHT FRIDAY!” and started shouting and throwing punches at each other.
Some of the passing ghosts and ghouls that normally tried to ignore the shenanigans of The Cage couldn’t help but stop and watch the scene as the birdmen wrestled each other to the ground, delivered jabs and chokeholds.
The guitarist turned back to Rook and made sure he wasn’t balling his thumbs into his fists again. “First thing you do, make two fists, hold them up to guard your face like this.” Rook hesitantly mimicked him, if only to do his best to avoid another black eye, but his half-hearted fists earned him a biff to the face, splitting open his cheekbone. The feeling of being hit in the face again shook him for a moment, but he readied himself once more, panting. “The position of your feet gives away where your punch is gonna come from and what side you’re currently weak on.” The guitarist managed to clip Rook’s jaw, slipping off the already trickling blood.
Taking the guitarist’s advice, Rook made threatening steps toward his opponent, catching the guitarist off-guard. His practice of tricky footwork on the fencing platform paid off in a bareknuckle brawl too. As he closed the gap, he switched his positioning around and landed a good surprise hook on the guitarist’s mouth, sending him backwards some steps. Rook’s corded wrists, accustomed to his strength training for fencing, were used to using his entire body from the outer edge of his right foot to the fingers of his left hand, and he found that landing a blow was as natural as thrusting the steel blade into the heart of his opponent.
“Agh - right. You’re a southpaw.” The guitarist’s hand came away from his mouth bloodied. He spat.
“Blood?” Rook asked in surprise. “How is it that you bleed? I thought you were all dead.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think the rules apply to us the same way.” The guitarist readied himself again. Smiling, bleeding, he declared, “They obviously don’t apply to you either!” He threw himself at Rook in a growing frenzy, lost in the sauce of his own blood.
Not even Rook’s practice in agility and tricky footwork could stop a wholeass dude from tackling him to the ground. He landed on his side with his bad eye, and the guitarist punched him in the other. An extended knuckle, and then a hard jab into Rook’s shoulder tried to stop him from making anymore surprise left hooks. But while the pain was searing, the knuckle missed its mark, and Rook punished him for it. A hard angled left hook connected to the jawbone, and the guitarist was thrown to the marble ground.
Rook stood, panting and bleeding and looked down at the guitarist, who was laughing.
Now the ghosts as well as the pointed faces were once again pointing their faces at Rook and the fight.
Rook straddled the guitarist, grabbed his shirt with one hand and punched him with the other. His laughing from his bleeding mouth became louder. “HIT ME!” The blood dripping from Rook’s face, his opponent’s desire for pain, his swollen eye, and the beginnings of the swelling of the other fueled his mania as he struck him again and again until his vision dimmed completely and was lost to the blind mutually consensual violence.
A campfire heated a broth as a hand with bruised knuckles gingerly stirred it.
Everyone was assisting with applying bandages, salves, and splints to one another and sharing swigs of rum.
Rook sat on the cool marble floor as the guitarist handed him another bag of frozen peas and a shot of rum. Rook simply leaned his head back and draped the bag over his nose to soothe his two swollen eyes. “What smells so good?”
A wry smile on his face, “We figured we’d make soup from all the defrosted bags of vegetables we’re using.” He held a cool bag to the bloodied half of his face that Rook found so irresistibly punchable. “I thought you’d have the knucklelust in you but I didn’t think you’d catch on so quickly.” He touched his glass to Rook’s and took a swig.
Rook rubbed his bloodied knuckles. He almost didn’t want to admit how good it felt, to let loose and let the body have as much fun as only his sword and swordarm usually did. Rook took his shot and the others cleaned and bandaged his hands before supper.
A replay of the previous fight showed on the floating screens - the slow motion kicked in as a massive fist connected with Rook’s skull, dislocating his neck and sending his entire body twisting several times to the ground. The announcer thrilled about Rook’s ASTONISHING COMEBACK and the REMATCH OF THE CENTURY but now it appears as though HISTORY IS ABOUT TO REPEAT ITSELF.
Once again the claymore and the rapier clattered to the tiled floor. The former claymore wielder turned fist wielder threw a punch, but this time Rook knew how to take it on the chin.
Panting with blood running down his face, Rook raised his fists in a readied stance.
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