I had my first match in Xtreme's ring today. It happened almost straight after school so I had to be quick there. Fortunately, the arena's only a five minute walk away so I was able to make it in time.
I'm staying at Mom's place this week so I let her know that I was going to be late back home because of this. She was pretty lax about it - she simply shrugged and went "okay". Whether she's perfectly fine with all this or she simply thought I was joking, I don't know.
Gemma, Lottie and Smartie were there too. They were all selling our milkshakes to willing crowd members in order to hype my brand up. I saw quite a few people drinking them, so clearly this business plan was doing well so far.
I was both excited and nervous. Fighting's a specialty of mine and I've been training with Dad for years, but I had no idea of why type of people I'd be up against. Hopefully they would just know a few basic martial arts and that would be it. At least this was apparently a non-lethal tournament, so I didn't have to worry about death as well as missing out on the prize money.
Xtreme was hosting as expected, and she was really hamming it up. I mean, she was doing it Marshall style. Loud voice, OTT gestures, everything.
"Coming back to defend her title for the second time, it's Meg Monday! An expert of kickboxing and karate, she's won our grand prize during the past years ever since she first set foot into the arena!"
A woman possibly in her twenties and wearing a tank top and shorts walked out into the ring. Pretty attractive if you ask me. Long brown hair and...considerable talent. In more ways than one, it would turn out.
"And challenging her for the win this time, it's brand new contestant Dynamite! Not only has this young gal been training in martial arts for years, but the way she uses her secret explosives will REALLY blow your mind!"
Yep, there was the pun alright. I could have said "Good one!" in response, but I just stepped out into the arena.
"Now BEGIN!" Xtreme yelled.
That was it. Just our introductions and then the fighting. We had no time for a breather beforehand.
Meg really had me on the ropes for the majority of the fight. I don't know how long she's been practicing kickboxing and karate for, but it was really hard to land a good hit on her. She just kept dodging my moves like they were nothing. I think I took about ten or twenty hits to the face and stomach during the fight.
And then there was the matter about her sand powers. Yeah, I'm not kidding, this girl has the power of sand and she would occasionally shoot it out of her hands into my eyes. I could barely see anything most of the time. I don't know why that sort of thing was allowed, but apparently it was.
Fortunately, I'd been allowed to take my explosives into the arena. After getting blinded for possibly the fifth time, I decided to take a couple of sticks of dynamite out and throw them whilst hoping for the best.
You better believe it worked! Meg really got thrown off-course after the first one landed and only just managed to avoid the second. And just to really make things easier for myself, I got out one of my bombs and threw that at her too.
The bomb didn't hit her, but it did send her flying up into the air, flailing her arms about. And just as she came down, I aimed a good hard punch at her stomach.
That punch really slammed her into the side of the arena! And clearly she wasn't able to get up in time because the klaxon sounded.
Xtreme was just going erratic. "What a performance! Dynamite takes a surprise victory in the first match of the year, defeating previous champion Meg Monday. She will be making it through to the next round! Let's see if she can keep her game up!"
The whole crowd just started cheering. I have to admit, I was pretty chuffed with myself, bruises and cuts across my face not withstanding.
I have to admit, Meg was surprisingly a good sport about the whole thing. Even though she had a black eye and a cut lip and I'd hit her in one of her boobs. Once she was able to get up the ground again, we shook hands with each other for quite some time.
So yeah, fighting in Xtreme's ring was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I mean, if Meg's this good, what will the next fighters be like? But hey, there's a family motto of ours - "Easy fights are no fun". And I'd rather have fun in a fight than be left bored by it.
The bad news is that I misunderstood the terms in the contract. I thought that I'd simply get some money from participating in a match, but Xtreme told me afterwards that the money only gets offered to the overall winner of the tournament in December. Which means that not only will I have to try even harder, but it would be a rush to get my bedroom sorted out if I do get the money.
The good news is that it's a shit ton of money. A thousand dollars! Plus with the milkshake business on the side, it should be more than enough to cover the cost of my new room. As long as I win the tournament and sell enough milkshakes, everything should be fine. ;)
