The crowd yelled Polish curses at me as I entered the cage. In front of me was a tall and wide man with black hair and dark eyes. He was shirtless and his body was covered in tattoos of various kinds. I spotted a Polish flag and several viking runes. His strong biceps told me that the layer of fat on his stomach covered rock hard muscles. On me the muscles were more visible, but I was more lean and a head shorter than the Polish brute in front of me. I had taken off my shirt as well. I hope I didn’t blind anyone with how pale I was.

The referee was wearing a black tracksuit with a ski mask obscuring his face. Most of the people in the crowd had masks of some kind. Most were Polish because they came to support my opponent, but there were people here from all of Europe. I suspected most here had a criminal background, and they knew their enemies might be among the spectators. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The ref started, “Welcome to the metro street fighter arena!” We were in an abandoned subway station, often called a metro in several European languages. “To my left, is the Indonesian ox with the heart of a Dutch tiger, NAZRIL FABRIIII!” That was me, Nazril Fabri. They called me an ox because I was born in Indonesia, and also looked Indonesian except for my very pale skin, but I have lived in the Netherlands for seventy years. I raised my fists and smiled at the crowd. I was met with boos and curses. 

“And on the right, the Polish viking, ALEKSEI STROMANNN!” The brute slapped his chest with his flat hand and cried a battlecry. The crowd cheered him on.

I thought he was a sad poser. Vikings were Scandinavian, not Polish. This man could’ve called himself ‘Winged Hussar’. That would fit so much better.

The ref continued, “Everything is legal, I decide when someone is knocked out, or if someone is tapping out. Don’t expect me to stop a fight after an eye gouge  or a kick to the balls. You two ready?”

I nodded at the ref and my opponent did the same. I stretched out my hand to see if he would shake it.

He didn’t. Disrespectful asshole.

The crowd was rattling the cage and screaming like they were possessed. They wanted me to lose. I walked to my only supporter, a man with a big belly named Willem. He was one of the financiers of these fights, and the son of my best friend. I was declared his godfather when he was born sixty-two years ago. I was in the corner for the last time before the fight began. 

“Nazril, you can do this. Tire him and dodge him until he is gassed out.” 

“This one will be easy, I will knock his ass out.” I said with confidence.

I wanted to walk away but then Willem quickly grabbed my arm. “One last thing, give him a liver shot. I want to see this schmuck drop.” I nodded and he let go.

We stood face to face and the ref stood in between us. “Are you two ready?”

“Yes.” I said.

“Yes.” The Polish Viking uttered. 

“Remember, I will not save you from each other.” He stepped back and yelled while bringing down his arm in a chopping motion, “FIGHT!”

The crowd went crazy, screaming what sounded like instructions at Aleksei. I decided to block them out. I couldn’t get distracted now. We walked in a circle with our hands up. I positioned my left foot forward and my right foot backward. “I will kick you back to Indonesia!” He yelled. I smiled and put my hands up.

“Try.” I responded. That is when he threw his first punch. I slipped to the side and hit him onto the side of the face, but not at full power. We were fighting without any gloves. One hit against his skull could cost me my fingers. He shook his head and threw a three punch combo. I avoided the first two and blocked the last with my forearm. 

He sidestepped way too fast for his size and lifted his knee, smashing one of his four biological hammers into my stomach. The air was knocked out of me and I fell over. I landed onto my back and rolled onto my feet. The human body has four built in hammers, two elbows and two knees. I knew how to use them too. 

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“Nice sidestep.” I panted, being crouched onto the concrete floor.

Then he ran at me, preparing a deadly soccer kick to my head. I threw my head to the side and kicked the shin of the leg he still had on the ground. The Polish Viking was knocked off balance and his momentum threw him forward. His face smacked into the smooth concrete surface we were fighting on. I got up and walked to the other side of the ring. The crowd was silent, I had just kicked their idol’s leg from under him.

He screamed in rage and slowly got up. I could’ve ended it right there by beating him onto the head repeatedly so the referee would call it quits. Instead I waited for him to get up. His nose was like a waterfall of blood. It had flattened against the floor. The Viking still held his hands high, and his eyes were full of fury. The blood dripped down his neck and his chest in a line of splatters. This time I decided to be on the offensive.

I hit him with a few quick taps to the head to distract him, then I uppercutted him into his stomach at full force. His layer of fat and muscle seemed to protect him. He grunted, then carried on like nothing happened. He prepared a wide hook onto my jaw. I barely dodged it. He bounced back quickly and threw his other fist  against my face with the momentum he had gathered from the missed punch. A few of my teeth got knocked out and I was slammed to the ground. 

Somehow I was still conscious.

The Polish Viking saw movement and jumped on top of me to start his heavy ground and pound. He started swinging his arms at my face and I did my best to block them with my arms. The referee crouched down to look if I was still conscious. After getting a hang of the pattern he used for his strikes, I lifted my elbow. The Viking hit right on the tip, I could hear his finger crunch. He screamed in pain and launched a wild swing with his other arm. I tilted my head to the side and he rammed his fist into the concrete. This time I could feel his entire wrist snap.

His eyes started tearing up and he slowly lifted his fist, his hand dislocated. He held onto his wrist and softly whimpered. I looked up at him with an ugly smile that missed several shiny teeth. I pushed him off and he got to his feet. He tried to do something with his legs, but the fight had left him. He knew he had lost.

I ducked and advanced, ramming my elbow into his liver. He gasped and before he even collapsed from the liver shot, I wrapped my fingers around the back of his head. I pulled myself up against the brute and bent my leg into the biological hammer it was . I smashed it right onto his solar plexus. 

That was the end of the viking.

He fell over, the back of his head smacking against the concrete. The sound made me cringe, and the crowd with it. There were several audible gasps. A hit like that could make a man blind for the rest of his life. Even the referee was shocked.

“Do I need to beat him even more?” I yelled at the ref. He widened his eyes and called off the fight. He crossed his flat hands in front of his chest. Then he grabbed my wrist and held it up.

“The winner is Nazril Fabri!” He said in the mic. He still sounded spooked.

Of course I was met with rampant booing by the crowd, who just saw their hero defeated by a smaller opponent. “Meet me outside, see how you’ll do against a knife!” One of the viewers screamed from behind the cage. I ignored the simpletons. I won fair and square.

I ran up to Willem, holding my stomach. I could feel blood pouring into my mouth. I felt it gush from the holes where my teeth once were. Willem hugged me and I swallowed the blood. In my humble opinion, my own blood was delicious. 

“You fucked him up. Good. I will get the money, you go freshen yourself up.”

I didn’t say anything but nodded. Talking would only hurt.

I walked past Willem and to the bathroom. I was dizzy from the hit against my head, but luckily I was gifted against that. I stared into the mirror and opened my mouth. A few of my front teeth were knocked out.

I abandoned the restraints on my body. The pain in my stomach slowly faded away, then the dizziness. I looked in the mirror, and felt a set of pointy teeth forming and extracting from the bloody holes. More blood streamed out of my mouth as the new teeth worked their way forward. I grunted, loudly, then the teeth were back in place, and the gums wrapped around it.

“All healed up?” It was Willem. “I have the money, three thousand euros. That’ll be enough for some time.”

I washed my mouth with the water from the sink. He handed me a shirt that I immediately put on. We then left the bathroom and walked through an old part of the tunnel network used by workers before it went out of service. We climbed some stairs and opened a door. Sunlight hit my eyes and I felt it burn onto my skin. Logical, because the sun would burn anything beneath a vampire’s skin. We waited in the door opening for two soldiers dressed in blue uniforms to pass. They had helmets, riot guns that shot rubber bullets, and a gun that shot a net. If we were to be seen by those men we’d be toast. 

We pressed up against the wall and waited it out. “They're gone?” Willem asked. 

I nodded and we walked out of the opening and into the busy Amsterdam city streets.