Mark felt his neck nearly come off as the glove hit him, thoughts coming sparingly from what seemed like a mountain striking him in the temple. I need to dodge or he’ll have me out before I even know what happened. He thought to himself, barely moving underneath another swing from the man opposite of him.
Mark had always been an adequate fighter, built more sturdy than most, the fact that his body was just under the threshold for someone touched by magic made it so he was nearly always at the peak of fitness regardless of training or practice, doing both had only put him in the top percentages of what was allowed in any legal sport ring, whether that was soccer or MMA. Standing at just 5’9 a lot of the people who got into the ring with him tended to think that the fact they had a few inches on him meant he’d be easy to put down, only learning mid way through the fight that he hit harder than some of the people twice his size. With his muscles and bones denser than average and his skin only slightly weaker than leather, anyone who got in the ring with him quickly learned that they’d need more than size or speed to beat him in a fight. This helped with boxing, or high school as he had found out when some stupid kid brought a Rak’na from his fathers workshop that broke out of its cage in the cafeteria, roughly the size of a rat most people underestimate how fast they are, or don’t understand that ‘slightly venomous’ doesn’t mean ‘completely harmless. It had attacked six different kids with its teeth before he’d managed to get his hands on it and shove it back into its cage. Luckily for him his strengthened skin made it too difficult for the beast to bite him, unluckily for him it also got him the name of ‘Rat Wrangler’ for the rest of the year.
Regardless of his stronger body though, his appearance was practically the same as anyone else. There were plenty of humans who weren't so lucky however. Some people had horns, other bright blue or red skin, others had issues that made it impossible for them to even have children due to their mutations.
Mark was lucky in the fact that he looked entirely normal from an outside point of view, short dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, an almost straight nose that fit relatively well on his round head. Even with the amount of hits he'd taken over the years he was beyond blessed by the fact that on top of the slightly enhanced stats his body possessed he was also capable of minor regeneration. Always useful after a tough fight in the ring when he was practically stumbling home concussed.
Another thing that helped with the fights was getting into fitness at a younger age. It had been practically a guarantee due to his father being a soldier and his mother being a doctor that he would be active. However putting on muscle was very difficult since his metabolism was more than double the average persons, meaning to even put on a bit of muscle he had to eat pounds of meat almost daily to see any remarkable improvement. His effort over the years however paid off, while his body still looked rather average, not racking an eight pack or any kind of implants that had gotten popular over the last decade, his strength was through the roof. Deadlift of two hundred pounds at fifteen and almost double that at the age of twenty. Morning runs with his father followed with gym at school, classes, spending lunch in the fitness room and after school spending most of his days lifting weights had barely added any mass to his body, but had definitely had the intended effect. Along with nutritional tips and other help from his mother.
Altered's don't get sick if they are missing certain required nutrients like normal human's do, they get worse. Their powers can become unstable, their mental faculties can degrade, there were reportedly cases of Altered's even going ballistic if they went too long without eating foods touched by magic. The research had shown that the latent magic inside the body almost acted like an organ, and like all organs it needed to be powered by something. In this case it was magic, and organs tend to fail if they aren't fed. While most would assume that would just cause their magic to fade and return to normalcy, the Altered's involved tended to go on rampages or die long before they lost their abilities.
Getting into sports was practically a no brainer for Mark, his body was unaltered enough to be allowed into sports with other unaltered, but just boosted enough that he was able to use it to his advantage, some might call it cheating but anyone can have a natural gift for something at birth that others might view it as cheating, a mutation is no different. Fighting was an easy choice, it got the blood pumping, adrenaline running through the body as everything else besides the other person across from you faded out of reality, it was the closest thing to magic he’d ever feel and it felt good.
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He’s focusing on his side more, I only hit him once there, must’ve done more damage than I thought. I realized as my opponent's body was slumping over slightly, not enough for most to notice but enough for me. Dodge the next swing, hit him once, then go for his jaw. As the next swing of his opponent came for his head he ducked before hitting him with a heavy right jab into his ribs, the small gasp of breath and grunt were the only answer to the hit. I was right, Assuming that the hit might have given him time to breathe Mark tried to back up to clear his still ringing ears. Fucker hits harder than an ox, and he's fast too. Unfortunately for him the second he tried to back up his opponent rushed him again and swung faster than he thought possible. Blocking two more punches before a third hit him in the stomach causing Mark to realize something off.
How the hell is he moving so fas-
Before the thought had even finished a fourth hit nearly lifted him off the ground and across the ring
Fucker has a twitch implant. Mark realized as he rolled across the floor of the pit before stopping a few inches from the corner post.
While implants in normal sports were mostly illegal, some of them were allowed in the instances of health issues, can't ban someone for using a pacemaker or a flesh-cloned arm they lost in an industrial accident or you risk a lawsuit from angry fighters who needed to get a redone patch of skull or brain implant after years of abuse. Unfortunately this also resulted in people finding other uses for them, like the Vamani’s Muscle Reattachment implant, originally just meant for those who lost portions of muscles from surgeries or injuries, a lot of people figured out you could use them to massively increase speed and strength, and with the implant being entirely biological the only way to find out if someone had it was to check their medical records or for them to undergo medical scanning, which didn’t help much if the person got it black market. Or if the person was fighting in a ring that didn’t have mandatory scanning. Mark thought to himself as he tried to pick himself off the ground where he’d landed.
Why the hell is he going so far as to use a goddamn implant, he already knows he's going to win.
Either way, the cheating bastard will fold me in two if I let him hit me like that again. Mark thought to himself, standing to his full height with his hands up to his chest in a blocking position. His opponent, as he kept calling them as he couldn’t quite remember what his name was, was easily six foot three and two hundred and fifty pounds. The man looked more like an Olympian than an underground boxer, and was capable of just as many feats.
Walking slowly towards him, almost relaxed, the man had a large grin over his face as he advanced, Mark could just barely make out the sound of people yelling and cheering, with a small amount booing, whether this was over the obviously boosted strength or the fact they might of bet on him he couldn’t tell.
“You should just throw in son, I'm gonna break you like a bitch if you don’t.” the man said as he advanced, without responding Mark slowly began retreating around the ring in case the man rushed him again. My fuckin’ body is barely listening to me after that one, need to end this fast. Fucker isn't pulling his punches, even in a rigged game. I just have to win the first round, he should go down easy after that first showing, I hope.
And with that silent prayer he put himself back in the fight entirely, hunching himself over and rushing his opponent as fast as he could, his opponent possibly sensing his desperation, or mocking him thinking the fight was already over, laughed before using the Twitch implant in an attempt to throw a barely observable right hook. Deciding what would most likely be something he regretted later, he shifted his right shoulder back slightly and took the hit directly, while also delivering a hard right hook to the man's face. The effect was immediate, for both of them. While Mark was sure his shoulder had been dislocated he had delivered the punch to the man’s temple dead on. As Mark was screaming internally over the pain from his shoulder the man had quickly lost his footing after the hit and fallen.
Stay down for the love of god please stay down! Mark prayed to himself as he placed his gloved hand over his shoulder, the man, while obviously having felt the blow, didn't follow his prayers, instead slowly getting up while the crowd cheered thunderously around them.
“Bastard, you’re gonna regret that!” The man slurred out as he slowly got back up, except the second he was off his knees Mark had already prepared another, slightly less powerful punch to the side of his skull. As the man fell a second time it was obvious he had successfully knocked him down completely, and the crowd roared in approval a second time in a row.
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First round done, go down the next two rounds and call it a day
-
The whole place was a mess, if I was being quite honest. Ever since the crack downs on ‘Altered Humans’ that had been occurring ever since the invasion governments across the world had increased their control over their citizens, as my father used to say “all governments may be designed to serve the people, but all governments desire their people to serve them”. After the martial laws and crackdowns during the invasion the government hadn’t been entirely willing to let its new power go, meaning massive swathes of the country now had a few options; be ruled by tyrants or rise against them.
This had been made even more dangerous when humans infected with the magical residue from the invaders had altered many of them. Instead of going in to contain a few unruly citizens here and there the United Lands were suddenly swamped by people throwing fireballs instead of molotovs, freezing vehicles and the soldiers inside of them instead of protesting, waging a full on civil war against their own government. While many would tote them around as “freedom fighters” the bleak truth was that altered humans tended to be altered inside of their own minds as well, sociopathy was more common in Altered humans by almost thirty percent, psychopathy by just under fifty, and when you tell a violent psychopath that they can’t eat at their favorite restaurant you might normally just get a beaten officer and a quick trip to the jail, however you get massive casualties when that person has the ability to throw trucks or burn down an entire police station on a whim. Let alone when you attempt to wrap them in chains and execute them and their families.
The leaders of the government at the time learned this lesson in a brutal way when seven months after the government had begun rounding up Altereds, they were almost entirely slaughtered by a single Altered with a blood feud after his own families execution. Rylan Orlando Curk had been written into most of the history books as a hero for the act, being the person who removed the corrupt heads of state that were executing its own citizens along with a dozen other things that never saw the light of day. However unofficially the man had been a violent drug addict before the assassination, and didn't get much better before he died a few weeks later in a bombing during the initial unrest after the attack. "History is always written by the victors" and all that.
After this the people that took their place realized that attempting to reign tyrannically over a bunch of monsters that could blend in with them perfectly and attack at any point while also being capable of ending their entire army was probably both bad optics and a bad idea in general. After a vast majority of their power was stripped the government had been doing its best over the last half century to regrow its power, as it seems a century or so is all it takes for governments and people alive to decide to make the same bad mistakes as they had before. The most recent actions had been the government forcing everyone even slightly Altered to be registered, Mark included, with yearly mandatory doctor and psychologist appointments to determine whether or not they were a risk.
And while personally I never saw an issue with that as I don’t think someone with the ability to kill hundreds should be allowed to wander freely if they develop a mental disease, such as dementia or schizophrenia, and then end up nuking a charity function because the large crowd and massive amounts of noise give them a panic attack. The many groups centered around Altered freedom groups fought against these vehemently believing it to be the government trying to crack down on their freedoms. ‘Altereds are people, not firearms, why do we have to register anywhere?’ and all that.
Couple this with the fact that there's been a recent recession due to resource shortages, food shortages, and random attacks from Altered animals almost daily and you have a country in hard times doing hard things to survive. Certain types of foods are more expensive than gold, caviar went from something you could get in a tin at the supermarket to something that even the rich only eat once in a while, while things like weapons infused with magic became almost as common as the average firearm. With this came corporations and small businesses alike capitalizing on magic, Magic doors replacing even the most advanced electrical or technological systems that are controlled by the latent mana in almost everyone nowadays, food stalls that sell meat from altered animals that is more healthy and nutritional than unaltered foods, plants growing dozens of times their normal sizes such as watermelons that are sold in chunks now more often than not, Etcetera etcetera.
If someone with a death wish or was sufficiently powerful they could wander into the thick of the wilderness and probably come back with a truck full of food within the hour, with how quickly and violently plants grow in the more magic dense areas of the world.
Of course it doesn’t matter how common food is if it's dangerous to gather it, farms are regularly attacked by beasts, livestock have a tendency to spontaneously gain abilities and escape their pens, if not outright slaughter the farmer coming in to butcher them. As a result most farms and cattle raising land is guarded so heavily by soldiers and Altered troops that they more resemble military bases than anything else. This resulted in food shortages, and if you can’t feed your citizens they’ll be less inclined to risk their lives for other things, such as mining steel and other materials to make homes and other necessary equipment for Cities to survive.
Of course there are bright sides, due to the more common usage of magic in all things, and its relative safety, medical care is practically a thing of the past. If you’re lucky enough to be related to someone who is Altered with healing capabilities they can fix your broken spine without ever leaving your bedroom, or a doctor capable of reattaching limbs in less time it took you to lose it in the first place. Travel was ironically made simple, teleportation while expensive and usually only used by the rich for security reasons made getting emergency supplies from one place to another as easy as snapping your fingers, while planes simply don’t crash anymore because even if a flock of Altered birds attack it, the runes and materials infused with magic can simply blow right through them, and even if the science behind it fails the magic can land the plane all on its own. This also transferred over to vehicles, medical equipment, anything made of anything could be as durable as tungsten and last a thousand times longer.
Unfortunately there are also recreational issues that cropped up, as stated before Altereds cant compete with non-Altereds, although the non-Altereds sports - such as soccer, baseball, hockey, anything really is losing more and more cash every year. It simply isn’t entertaining to watch baseline humans kick a ball when another human can launch it into the stratosphere with ease. Dueling sports have blown up over the years too. Which is how I got here. Since I'm just altered enough to not be baseline, but also not enough to seriously compete against the monsters on television it's difficult to try and go pro. Any reputable team or coach won’t take me, as the chances of me being able to even join the games are rather low if someone prominent makes a ruckus about me being ‘technically’ Altered, even if it's barely noticeable in the big picture.
However underground rings? The ones where as long as you aren’t breaking world records with a single swing or moving fast enough to break the sound barrier they don't care? You could fight every day without issues here, as long as you didn't cause problems for the pits or create dangerous enemies. Of course, the second one was always more difficult for Mark than the first. The pits were rife with gang members or those who were there to get initiated into a gang, meaning if you won a fight there was almost a fifty percent chance you just lost a gang member their respect, or one of the many other issues that came from fighting against gang members. Generally the best bet against someone who was obviously a part of a 'gang' was to just talk to the Pitmaster, get him to sort them out if they threaten you or ask for protection. Of course this also came with the issue that the 'protection' only went as far as you were useful to the Pitmaster, if you keep losing fights he needs you to win he might just sell you to the gang for some cash and wash his hands of you.
And of course the bigger problem, the Pitmaster can only really protect you on his territory. So if you live outside of it like Mark almost always did or don't trust gangs to make the smartest decision of following the rules of the Pits, then you just leave. None of the smaller gangs had the capability to really go out in another person's territory to hunt down some small fighter that beat one guy of theirs in a fight, they'd risk a gang war by operating on someone else's turf. Of course the fact most of them were too stupid to follow a car going straight, let alone track him throughout the city also helped.
There were enough Pits in the city to fight every day of the week without issues, even if the drive was almost an hour a day to some of them. Even if he had to lay low for a few months after a fight somewhere, by the time he was out of places to fight in the gang that he was hiding from would have either been wiped out by another or forgotten about him.
The Pitmaster here, a man who is known as ‘Slaughter Tooth Larrell’ after he took out a cage beast in a fight with its own knocked out tooth, hired me to play a few fights, barely win and then move up in the ranks. People tend to bet on the people with reputations, the ones who are bigger and seemingly pack more of a punch than the newbie who has only won 1-3 fights since arriving in their neck of the woods. It’s a dangerous and rather smart scam, as long as you don’t get caught. The people who come to these fights are all criminals by nature, or at the very least want to hang around criminals to seem tough. It doesn’t quite matter how strong you are if a dozen men armed with infused firearms or bombs, or just a more powerful Altered show up to recollect their winnings one way or the other.
However Larrell had a bigger idea, get someone near baseline, get them to win a bunch of fights on people bigger than him, then put someone only slightly larger than them in the ring and have them all bet on the up and coming champion. Then, once they all bet on the ‘obvious’ choice, have them take a fall. Its honestly an old trick, but it's one that's been making people like him a lot of money for much longer than any of us have been alive, so if it works it works.
Now the only issue with this whole game, is what happens if you knock someone down and they don’t get up? Put too much power into a punch and knock them out cold for an hour, or god forbid kill them, the match isn’t going to be put on hold until he wakes up, you just win the match at that point.
What happens when you fuck over a dangerous criminal, on Accident, and they lose tens of thousands of dollars?
-
Backing up into his own corner Mark leaned against the tetanus risk rod that acted as the corner pole. As he stood there Jeremiah the ‘referee’ for the fights in the pit went up to the man on the ground and tried to get him up by the shoulder for the next round. As he began checking on him he tried slapping him on the side of the face before worriedly looking over the railings of the ring, where the Pitmaster was sitting with his guests. Oh no Mark could feel dread filling his stomach as he realized he might have made a bigger mistake than he could handle.
I barely even hit him the second time, there's no way I completely knocked him out, right?
Jeremiah looked me in the eyes, and I knew he could see the panic in them, and shook the man a bit harder, before slapping him again. When he didn’t immediately get up he had two options, play it off as another win or keep trying and risk the crowd catching on and realizing that something was up.
So he did the only thing he could do
He made me the winner
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I GIVE YOU YOUR WINNER~, MONARCH!” Jeremiah looked at the crowd around him, spreading his arms around and announcing my victory, and my biggest mistake so far in my entire life