Red Twilight: A Dawning of Power

Chapter 18: Final Combat

The smoke clears from in front of Spooky's eyes. He coughs, waving his hand from side to side, trying to find fresh air. He kicks the bench before himself, accidentally stumbling over it. He feels light. He looks at himself and his surroundings. He is dressed in his Ken po gi from when he was a Thai boxer in his youth—blue baggy paints made of cotton, a tank top made of the same heavy cloth, and a badge with the kanji Chi on his back and over his heart.

Up to just over a decade ago, Spooky made a living as a Moiré-Te warrior and teacher in both America and the Middle East. He fought in the middleweight division for his whole career. He called it quits when his age started to catch up with him. He found that he was losing his staying power and having more and more trouble meeting the weight standard. One day he bet his career on a fight, he lost. His teacher, Onaga Honzo, told him he could keep fighting if he wanted to; he just would have to fight in the heavyweight divisions. This concept scared the hell out of Spooky. He knew that in heavyweight the rules were different, and barely making the cut, he could be killed on stage by a high-end fighter.

Spooky spins about. He appears to be in a locker room like the one he used during the World Fighter's Cup in Weihaiwei, China in 1991. He was the only African American to fight that year. That was back when he was still Mohamed, and before he went to work for a school as a gym instructor. Those were the good days, the hard days, before he went self-destructive and still cared what people thought about him, and when he cared about others in return.

Spooky has played this game. The bulletin on the wall states that it will be his turn to fight in five minutes. He tightens up his boots and slicks his hair down. Finally, he takes a kota from the wall and waits his turn to fight.

Passing the time is hard, as it always would be before a fight. When the time comes, the locker room door opens as if on its own. A strange light pours through the open door, and cheering can be heard from outside. Spooky passes though the light to an outdoor arena. There are seemingly hundreds of men dressed in ninja masks shouting in unison "Kon." Only a handful of the guests in the audience look familiar; Trash, Pistol, and Honzo are present. Trash and Pistol are in their biking gear, while Honzo looks like some divine entity in a white robe to match his long hair.

Far in the back of the arena, an Asian man in a black leather trench coat with the symbol of dueling dragons on it sits on a throne of gold and bone. The man's eyes burn with hateful emptiness like the devil's might. The man yells, "Kill him," pointing at Spooky. "Then bring me my prize, Kon."

An eight-foot-tall man with a monkeylike head and four arms walks into the ring. His hair is in a bun and he has only three fingers on each hand. His skin is a dark brown and his eyes have no retinas; his chest is giant and ripped tight.

Spooky stares up at the monster, his face turning white. Aside from Lacerti, Spooky has never seen anything that size. The monster leans in, howling like a dragon, and Spooky staggers back as he finds himself in momentary shock. The man yells again,

"Finish him!"

"Puny man, you should feel honored that you face a High Belroge," the monster says, putting a classification to his large species. "Now before you die, try not to scream," he taunts. He brings up one hand and slaps Spooky once, knocking him to the floor of the gravel ring. Spooky is dazed; one hit and he is seeing spots. If it had hit him any harder, it may have knocked his head clean off.

"Get up, get up!" Pistol calls to him over the crowd as the Belroge stamps toward Spooky. The outsized man scampers to his feet. The Belroge throws one fist at Spooky, who raises one arm to protect his head, but the Belroge's tremendous weight shoves Spooky to one side.

Cheering continues as the bloody sport heats up. "Come on," Pistol calls, "hit 'im back!" Spooky rushes the Belroge, taking two swings at it. The towering monster catches both Spooky's fists.

"Give it up," the Belroge laughs, "I know all your moves." With its two free hands it hammers Spooky's chest then backhands him twice in a scissor-like fashion, dropping him.

Spooky hits the ground, the wind knocked out of him. He has never been pounded so hard in his life. This monster is going to kill him if it grabs him again. Spooky has to think fast. He does not want to know what the prize the man on the throne is talking about.

Trash yells, "Spooky! Do something!" Spooky lies still for several seconds, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

The Belroge picks up Spooky and throws him to the opposing side of the ring, heckling his miserable resistance. Spooky skids along the ground. "Up, Spooks, up," Pistol calls again to his battered friend.

Spooky starts to climb to his feet. The Belroge laughs, kicking him back onto his back. "Worm," the giant taunts as it throws him again, this time with only one arm. "Can't you get up?" It stomps over to him again and brutally punches his head into the dirt.

Honzo locks eyes with Spooky. Honzo whispers to him, "Mohammed, forget your weakness. Remember me, remember your strength." Spooky knows what his weakness is. His beers, his cigars, and his fear of the future. That's it, he was afraid—afraid of this sort of fight precisely, which made him quit. Pistol was there to help him pick up the pieces of his life afterward, but he lost a lot of weight and a lot of muscle and stopped taking care of himself for a while. Maybe now is a good time to start again.

Spooky finds his way up to his feet by kicking the Belroge in the stomach forcing it away. He then kick-flips up. "Yes!" Pistol yells, throwing his fist in the air. "Use the kicks!"

The two foes engage in mortal combat, throwing kick after kick and punch after punch, pushing each other in every which way. The Belroge well outsizes Spooky, but once Spooky has his wits about him he can easily outrun the monster. Blow for blow, Spooky finds himself well in the lead, but he just is not strong enough to do any lasting damage. The Belroge is not feeling a thing as it towers over him tauntingly. One, two, three hard blows to the stomach, but the monster refuses to flinch, like a child throwing punches at his father. Like a butterfly, Spooky flutters under two swift jabs, ducking and dodging with grace.

The Belroge stretches its four arms behind itself and withdraws a set of kitars. "I will grind your bones into flour to salt my breed," its bellows at him, gripping the punching knives tightly.

A flag flies out of the crowd, landing between the Belroge and Spooky. The human snatches up the long pole, spinning it around his body in preparation for the monster's impending assault. "Come on," he waves the beast forward, "let's dance." The staff and the claws clash several times before the Belroge smashes his enemy's weapon in two. Undeterred, Spooky slams the broken pieces of the flag into monster's neck. The monster kneels, and Spooky round kicks it in the head, dropping it to its side.

Spooky triumphantly dances in place, but the monster suddenly hops to its feet, enraged. Spooky makes a break for it, running through the crowd for the mountains beyond them. The Belroge lays chase on him, stampeding up the mountain. As he runs he can hear two voices echoing up the hill like a voice would echo on a stage. The first voice belongs to the devil on the throne, while the second is his master, Honzo's.

"Bold move, Laus-deu-O, but as you soon will see, utterly pointless," the demon speaks in a slow low tone.

"Filous-mammon, child of the earth, we will not tolerate you arrogance much longer. These shenanigans are not your purpose for being in this plane," Honzo commands.

"Laus, my dear brother, you are powerless. Two of your hunters are already mine, and in a matter of moments a third will be, too," the beast Honzo called Mammon responds. "The laws your ladies of fate placed on you, me, and the rest of our brothers clearly exclaims that you and I cannot directly interfere in each others' affairs. You can only act through your mortal servants. So as you can now see, you are without dominion."

"Silence yourself, serpent!" A crash of thunder shatters the air as Honzo yells.

"My dominion is my concern alone!"

Mammon laughs to himself triumphantly. "It would seem, my dear brother, you have no choice but to watch your mortals battle my monsters. I'm in no doubt it is going to be very pleasurable for us all, sun god, Laus-deu-O."

There ends the dialogue on an unfriendly note. Spooky now finds he is running through nothing more than darkness on an endless street. Without the help of the others, this nightmare will never end.