Troy was angry at Arson. She didn’t know why he left, or would even want to. It wasn’t until she was burdened with the whole of BlackHole that she understood that the pressures Arson faced may have been enough to make him run toward a new life.
She had to force herself to keep her thoughts aligned with reality. Arson was in love with his life and its many changes.
She’d seen him since he was a baby, and he’d always smiled. The smile he wore now though, made others smile. Made others change their minds, and even gain courage.
No, Troy knew something was wrong in her bones. Her best friend would have told her he was going to leave and she didn’t know why she knew it, but he was in trouble. She could feel it in her gut somehow.
The days passed and more situations occurred that she wished she could ask Arson to help her with. He’d become such a large part of her life that it wasn’t until he disappeared that she realized just how much she depended on him. For comfort. For advice, she even often found herself wishing he was old enough to ask her on a date.
“You don’t have time for dates Troy, you are a part of something bigger than yourself now.”
One of the things she was excited to share with Arson on his return, was Khalif’s growth. The young gang leader had not only been forced to step into his role as head of the bodyguards, he had also been forced to train with Troy in Arson’s place.
“There is no sparking way you will ever convince me that you have tried to hit Arson this hard,” said Khalif, who barely managed to block Troy’s spin kick. He was fitted from head to toe in padded sparring gear, and could still feel her every punch and kick.
He wouldn’t be bothered by this normally, but she wasn’t using any mana of any type. In the beginning, he was incapable of keeping up with her body's natural speed to both of their surprise.
Troy hadn’t fought without the use of mana in so long, that she hadn’t even realized her body had improved. She didn’t know what was harder, the practice matches at half strength, even without the use of mana, or the act she had to put on to make Khalif believe she gave each match her all.
This was one of many reasons why she missed Arson in the first place. Even though he was younger than her, she felt he was ahead of her in their cultivation journeys by far. This made her wonder if Arson too felt the stress of her current dilemma. How many times had they sparred, and Arson held back? As far as she knew, he’d never done so, but the question left her frustrated.
“Sparks Troy! Really?”
Frustrated to the point that she wasn’t able to hold back anymore. She didn’t use mana, but her body was beyond mortal caliber to the degree that Khalif felt her body should be illuminated as if she were.
“How in the sparks could you be this fast, there is no way anyone is this fast without mana, Troy!”
Troy giggled before she lifted Khalif off the ground with a straight kick.
“Maybe if you talked less you would be able to hit me,” said Troy. Her kick transitioned into a grab. In a blur of movement she snatched Khalif from the air, and yanked him backward in a two handed overhead slam. It wasn’t until he was left on the ground groaning, that she stopped and finally calmed down.
“How many more times do I have to do this?”
“As many times as it takes for you to be able to not have to run away from Ash, or the Augustines when you and the others come across them in the streets. Now get up, it wasn’t that bad,” said Troy with an extended hand. Khalif was rough on himself to a degree that Troy didn’t understand. Khalif was able to defend himself from time to time, which couldn’t be said by most in the 13th territory.
Troy fought every night against a new opponent, each stronger than the last. She’d only planned on doing so until their groups planned vacation, but then Arson had disappeared. So she decided she would continue until he returned.
The first win, though close, had been called a fluke. Though fans and the viewership felt the fight to be far more one sided than it actually had been, the judges scored otherwise.
The second fight was an absolute beat down. Yet, even though she stood unscathed over her unconscious opponent in the end, the score cards displayed told a different story.
In her frustration, she met with the others, and the group began to plan around her problem. Xani ended up with a plan that Arson had thought was an amazing plan, that she thought was a joke. Something too ridiculous and meticulous to pull off with the resources they had access too.
It was Jade that stepped in and spoke to them around the dinner table. Their conversation and plans became obvious to her and the group was forever changed by her words then.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to push aside his plan. I believe that you all have counted yourselves out, before you’ve even seen just how possible the plan is, if you ask me, for you all it would actually be rather easy to accomplish.”
“You can’t be serious, Ms. Jade, I know we pulled off a lot with the festival, but what your son proposed is like us doing a mini version of the festival in a single night, in random locations, how could we even—“ said Jasmine, before she was cut off by Troy.
“Wait a second Jasmine, I think we should really give this some thought for a second. Arson did say we all need to keep the morals of unity we gained at the orphanage, but learn and grow when it comes to money, favors, and opportunity, because I just realized that we might be wrong about Arson’s plan…”
“Why do you say that, said Jasmine and Xani at the same time. The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
“Yeah, what changed, I’m pretty sure we all said we don’t have the extra resources for it because of how much we are already doing,” stated Rob. Khalif nodded in agreement and Troy smiled.
“Okay, we already shut down many of our extra flight vehicles between 3:00 and 6:00 each morning, it’s a dead spot,” said Troy.
“Your point?” asked Xani. She was confused, but that was because Troy hadn’t quite practiced presenting a plan before in her life. Arson made it look easy, but she’d just given the middle section of what she’d plotted out rather than the beginning.
“Maybe I should ask you guys questions and you’ll see what I am getting at?” The others looked at one another and then back at Troy before they all nodded. They were used to this, as it was how Arson operated normally, so she felt the need to ask before she stepped into the position temporarily.
“Rob, you told me that a lot of food goes to waste between 3:00 and 7:00, until the morning rushes, right?” Rob nodded and Troy continued.
“Lane, you run extra footage, or reruns of highlights, from 2:00 to 6:00, and it's your lowest view point in the day still right?”
“Yes, though we are all up and moving, we never have anything planned around those times so I just use it to get extra footage, just in case, by showing off our newest works, and slotting the content for later dates.” The theme was beginning to be seen and where Troy went with Arson’s plan shocked even Jade slightly.
“Khalif, you said nothing trained your people more than the fights they had to break up at the festival, would it be too much to have your best form some sort of rotation to do almost the same thing every other night?”
“We could do it every night if you needed. I think we have more than enough people for that, since the cooks don’t need to be guarded during the dead spot in the morning. I have a lot of room to move,” responded Khalif.
“No, we don’t want them to overdo it, so don’t push them unless they push themselves to do more, but make sure they don’t overextend themselves, you remember what happened when they tried to keep up with Arson during the night time practices at the dump,” said Troy. Khalif nodded and she moved on.
“Xani, Jasmine, could you both form night time teams for the dead spot?”
“Depends on what you need,” asked Xani.
“Agreed,” said Jasmine.
“From you, I need a few teams of competent builders, we are going to need them to be able to build outdoor facilities, stages, and perimeter walls, and maybe even parking for hover and flight vehicles, as well as be able to deconstruct and regather all of the materials before we leave,” said Troy with a point toward Xani. The girl’s jaw dropped, and she couldn’t even respond before Troy moved on.
“And from you, I need you to work with Lane to show off exclusive clothing that you are only going to sell at our new twilight events,” said Troy.
“Wait what did you need the flight vehicles for, how are you going to use them in this supposed Twilight event?” All turned to look at Jade, who was also now interested in the plan.
“Oh, that, we are going to offer those who sign up for the premier subscription to the events access to use our driving services at a discounted rate to get to events faster, amongst a few other things I will work out with Xani, since we will probably have to bring the BlackHole app online early to pull this off,” said Troy before she asked a question of her own to Jade.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone in the music industry that could work with Lane, would you? Many of my fights don’t last as long, I don’t know that that may not change, but for now if we had additional access to entertainment for this, the better.” Jade merely smiled and nodded, and before Troy knew it, six events had already come and gone. With a seventh on the horizon.
…
Cyrus was proud of himself. He’d stopped drug dealing after being embarrassed on live broadcast, and joined his brother Damien’s prize fighting gym. His short time in the gym changed his life drastically, and now he wondered if he’d made the right choice.
After a week of hellish drills. Combat and fight training. In addition to military academy type dorm life that came as a requirement to join the gym’s fighters, Cyrus couldn’t believe he found himself in the woods of all places.
His older brother Damien had been challenged by some girl named the Queen of Troy. Cyrus thought the name was stupid, yet familiar. It wasn’t until he found himself on a hike to a pre-disclosed fight location beside his brother and a couple dozen other fighters at the top ranks of his gym that he thought to look the challenger up.
“Hey bro, you remember that kid I told you about, dressed up in streetwear—“
“Yeah yeah yeah, little kid, hit like a truck. What about it? What has you all bent out of shape over that again? I thought you moved on,” Cyrus looked at Damien before he spoke again.
“I am, but you are about to fight the kid's best friend, from what I can see from their group's content pages. Tonight will be her seventh straight fight against undefeated opponents, she’s trying to beat you and collect your first loss like a badge dude…”
“What the sparks are you talking about bra? I’m not going to lose to some backwater chick trying to build a name for herself,” said Damien with a laugh. Many nearby laughed as well but another disagreed.
“He’s not lying D, I tried to tell you about this earlier, these events are crazy as sparks in a shower. I don’t know what we are about to walk into. If I’m being honest, everything I can find on Chatter, says that it's impossible to use anything but electronic funds once you get close to the event, they have some sort of grid that blocks all flatscreen usage or something. They're not even promoting it beyond clothing sales, and some sort of exclusive fight club,” yelled a voice from a back of the group. It was like the boy had summoned the field himself, as their screens begun to close all apps and functions that didn’t pertain to electronic funds, or direct them to download an app.
BHC could be seen in front of a simple black swirl, and many downloaded the free app as no description was offered which only further piqued their interests.
Cyrus had also been on the popular app, Chatter, and frowned as his balance replaced what he’d been doing, but then he heard the sound of music and looked up as the others did. They’d all paused once their devices had practically shut down, but were now caught completely off guard.
“Simmer down little one simmer down,” mumbled one of the fighter’s who knew the words to the song in the distance.
“I knew it, that is Draco,” said another fighter before more of the group began to sing the words.
“Who would be playing Draco music this loud in the middle of the woods,” asked Damien. With what Cyrus had managed to read before Chatter shut down, he had a feeling that no one was playing Draco music.
“Holy marking sparks…” Damien said what every fighter he'd brought there was thinking. Before them all was an open theater with three stages at its center. One was filled with Draco, the musical artist sung on stage to thousands of people around the stage. People celebrated, danced, ate food, and sang along all around all the stages.
The second stage held a ring, caged in by a metallic chain dome. Currently inside were two fighters Damien had beaten prior, and Damien knew fans of professional fighting would kill to see fight one another, and apparently could if a part of BlackHole's exclusive fight club.
The only cameras he could see, seemed to be operated by the group that had put all this together.
He knew this because the symbol of a simple black swirl could be seen on the back of all the cameras, and was identical to the symbol on every stall, guard, vendor, and even the massive perimeter wall that surrounded the event. When he saw a vehicle with the same symbol drop a dozen attendees off on a landing pad near the wall, he lost it.
“Why the sparks did we walk out here if there was a delivery service?” He looked at his brother and many of the other elites of his group.
“Only just figured it out, boss. I bought their premium package to see if we could figure anything else out, and it's all here. I can even stream the fight happening down there right now,” said the same young man from the back of the group. Cyrus shrugged at Damien and his brother waved the young man up to the front and the fighter explained.
“You're about to fight The Queen of Troy. She hasn’t lost her last 13 fights, the last six of which started her Undefeated Twilight Tour, they pop up at a random place, at a random time, have a concert, alongside fights that the professional fighting consortium would never broadcast or host, even across weight divisions, and rake in the credits,” said the young man. Even before Damien got his thoughts together to respond, their group was approached by a single individual dressed in an all black suit that made him seem to appear out of nowhere.
“Challenger has arrived, making contact now. Squad seven combat lead out,” said the individual while they scanned their surroundings. Their head constantly on a swivel, even as they spoke to the group finally.
“If you are ready, we can escort you to your locker rooms, sir,” said the guard.” Cyrus and Damien both looked around at the person’s words but saw no other individuals beside the one who’d just spoken.
“We,” asked Damien confused. The young man smiled and with a single whistle, a roll call began that made Cyrus know that he indeed had once again found himself in a place he may not want to be.
“1, checking in,” said an unseen person beside Damien.
“2, checking in,” said a person behind Cyrus, that made him jump. But when he looked he couldn’t truly see anyone there. Then the next voice came from the right side of their group and the count continued until Cyrus heard "7 checking in" from the dead center of their own group.
Cyrus knew why his brother had accepted the private match. It was against a fighter with far more losses than wins, and the fight wouldn’t be seen by many as far as he knew. He had nothing to lose when he thought about it that way; plus he was pretty much guaranteed free money for something as easy as a spar.
When Cyrus looked at his elder brother in that moment though, he was absolutely confident, that his brother was no longer fearless in this situation. He picked fights he would win, and knew that to be the best way to advance his career.
Now though, he was out of his element, and about to fight an opponent on a hot streak, that also had found a way to legally fight and not have the fights publicly broadcasted, which only furthered draped her growth in combat in a layer of mystery.
Damien had glanced at the price of the premium pass the group offered to watch the fights and events entertainment, and knew that the fighter in his group that had bought it must come from a wealthy background. He ran his own gym and couldn’t afford to pay for the service without making a few sacrifices in his day-to-day life.
He once more thought about the price offered. Looked at his younger brother who stared him down, before Cyrus shook his head back at him.
Damien could tell that he didn’t want him to fight, but Cyrus knew that he’d already signed the contract to fight, and the cost to terminate the deal was almost as steep a fine, as he would be paid if he fought and lost.
He looked at the stage he hadn’t before; the final stage. There Troy sat at a table, surrounded by two other young women, all three in thrones. He felt insane because he considered the job to be an easy one, but when he looked down at the confidence displayed, he wanted to run back up the hill they came from. Regardless, he spoke as the leader he was, and knew himself to be.
“I am ready when you are,” said Damien to the guard he could see. The guard laughed and turned around. Not a single look was given in the groups direction from that point forward, and Cyrus and Damien knew it was after he spoke his next words that they had been dismissed from the guards mind completely.
“Yeah, sure you are, that is what the last six people said…”
End of Volume 2.