Anxious to know when they'd get where Benji was taking him, Ryuzio almost asked the blue-haired boy, but stopped by his side when he saw Benji breaking his pace.
"This is it," Benji said, rubbing hands inside his cloak due to the chilly evening breeze. "The best bunmeat place in all of Sonas."
Ryuzio looked at the neon-lit sign above the door of this building that was smaller than Melga's restaurant back in Klanta. "Munch Magica?" Weren't big cities supposed to have bigger buildings?
"The largest fast casual restaurant chain in all of Imperos," Benji explained, fixing his glasses. "And maybe even the world."
Imperos was the skyreacher on which they currently were. Ryuzio didn't really understand what most of it meant, but Lyla and Xen had taught him about the basic geography of Highplexia. Each skyreacher had skybranches on different levels of altitude. Sonas city was the largest city of this skybranch, making it even more special, and an obvious place for getting a skyjet!
"I don't see any chain around this restaurant," Ryuzio said, eyes still on the bright neon sign. "But I'm glad this place wasn't too far from that alley we were in."
"What do you even mean?" Benji shook his head. "It was so far that it almost turned night!" Coming here, they had to hide from many patrolling skyguards. Ryuzio didn't want to, but Benji insisted so he did. "There were many Munch Magicas closer than this, but I chose this one since this area of District One is not patrolled that often."
Ryuzio's brows rose. "So smart…"
"Yes," Benji said, standing a bit taller. "I wanted to make sure that we don't get caught by Legion 88—"
"Because of walking further, I'm even hungrier now," Ryuzio said, nodding to himself. "Now I'll enjoy my bunmeats even more."
Benji's shoulders slouched as he let out a deep sigh.
Ryuzio patted him on the back, before pushing him by his shoulders toward the tightly packed building. "Let's go!"
Benji tried his best to resist, but was unable to keep his feet stuck to the ground. "Hold on, Ryuzio. I wanted to ask you a very important question. Who's gonna p—?"
"We can do that while we eat," Ryuzio said, pushing Benji into the glass door, which opened up on its own as they got close. "Whoa! Who opened the door?" He shaded his eyes, looking around.
Ahead of them was a counter, however, there was not a single stool around it. Behind the counter were a young man and a young woman, wearing similar-looking clothes. There were four empty tables—each with four chairs—to their either side. By the tables, and even above the counter, there were many big video screens lined up.
"Ryuzio," Benji whispered nervously. "Don't gawk around, they're looking."
"Heh?" Ryuzio turned to face Benji. "If they're doing the same, why should I stop? I don't get it."
Benji sighed, leaning closer to speak into Ryuzio's ear. "Before entering this place, I just wanted to let you know that I have no money to repay you for your bunmeat that I ate. Sorry!"
"Money?" Ryuzio said, confused. "I can't eat that."
Benji cocked back his head, eyes blinking, lips drawing to a line. "I… I…"
Ryuzio pointed at the two people ahead, who looked confused. "They're the owners?"
"Owners?" Benji said with concern. "No! They're just here to take orders of customers."
Ryuzio tilted his head sideways, imagining people handing the two behind the counter plates of food, then joining their hands and bowing. "So people come here to feed them? Are they some kind of deities of Sonas?"
Benji set his jaw, eyes almost teary. "Why's everything so difficult with you?" he whispered loudly. "How can you not read the situation you're in? Those people will give you food! Do you get it now?"
Ryuzio nodded to himself. "So I was right…"
Benji grabbed him by his jacket's neck. "You—"
"Are you two going to order something or not?" asked the dark-skinned woman with black hair from behind the counter. "You're not exactly blocking the view, but we're trying to see the pre-fight press conference for today's main event and y'all are really distracting us."
"Make up your mind, you two," said the light-skinned man with brown hair standing beside her. "Either order something, or maybe just sit down and join us for this event."
Ryuzio walked to the counter with a smile, holding up two fingers. "Two bunmeats and a fizzofoo please." He glanced over his shoulder. "What about you, Ben?"
Benji paced toward him, embracing him with tears in his eyes. "You're saying you'll pay for my food? Man, Ryuzio, you're such a nice guy."
Ryuzio tilted his head in confusion, but kept smiling.
Benji gulped, climbing to his feet, scanning the menu from one of the screens. "Man, I always really wanted to try that plum pudding, but right now it's more expensive than your entire order—"
"One plum pudding for him please," Ryuzio said to the woman behind the counter. "We'll wait by that table." He pointed to a table over to the right.
"We'll call you when it's ready," the woman said, turning away from the screen she had her eyes on.
Ryuzio looked at this screen, only to find the same two guys he'd seen on that fight advertisement from the alleyway Benji and he were hiding in this afternoon. "Ben, you told me about skyguards being in these fights, but what are these actually?"
Benji gestured toward the table. "With you, it's gonna take a while, so let's sit down first." With that, they both made their way to one of the tables on the right, sitting.
Ryuzio smiled, leaning closer to Benji with interest.
Benji frowned, a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face. "That just shows me that you'll ignore everything I explain."
Ryuzio shook his head with haste, his wild and spiky hair ruffling around. "I'm always excited about fighting."
"We'll see…" Benji said, sitting more comfortably. "For decades now, Sonas city has had a rich culture of professional brawling. It was only a matter of time before a company like this arrived."
Ryuzio gave him a frown of confusion.
"Stay with me, I'm getting there," Benji said, showing his palms. "Many companies tried to capitalize on this fighting market, but there was never one successful like this. Now, for more than the past decade, not only in Sonas, professional brawling has become a worldwide sport, and one of the most famous ones at that."
"Fighting is a sport?" Ryuzio asked, brows rising. "Back in Klanta, the only game we played was chicken chase. It was super fun and super easy to play. You just chased chick—"
"Focus, Ryuzio," Benji said, setting his jaw with closed eyes, an eyebrow twitching.
Ryuzio sat upright with a smile. "Okay."
"So," Benji said, exhaling softly. "The company that brought this revolution was none other than the 'Apex Brawling Championship' or 'ABC' for short, created by the brilliant Filep Alekzandre. It has such a large monopoly over the fight business that if you see any upcoming brawl, you can say with certainty that it's an ABC brawl."
Ryuzio felt sleepy. "I thought you'd tell me about…fighting."
"The promotion you saw this afternoon was for tonight's ABC main event," Benji said, leaning closer. "In fact, those two behind the counter are watching the pre-fight press conference of that very event as we speak."
"But I don't wanna see fights!" Ryuzio said grumpily. "I wanna fight!"
"It's not as if we CAN see this fight in person even if we wanted to," Benji said, sighing. "Seats for events like these are booked in advance. But…if I COULD just go to an event of this scale, I could find even more recruiters to request from."
Ryuzio looked at the lowered head of Benji. "I see…"
"Anyways," Benji said with a serious look over his face. "These fighters aren't just ordinary people, Ryuzio. Because of the unpredictable nature of moves in a fight where every hand-to-hand fighting style is allowed, ABC fights are often bloody brawls where both fighters try their best to predict the unpredictable. But that's not all. These brawlers have special bands around their wrists that allow them to use Ether more efficiently."
"Sounds fun," Ryuzio said with a dramatic smirk.
"Calm down now," Benji said, fixing his glasses nervously. "Becoming a brawler in ABC is perhaps one of the hardest things in sports. The competition in each weight class is cutthroat, so most careers are finished before they even start." He scrambled around the table, looking for something. Then he grabbed a remote and pointing toward the screen on the wall by their table, he pressed a button. "Which brings us to this fight."
"Right," Ryuzio said, head rising. "You said something about this being one of the biggest fights."
Benji nodded, face toward the screen. "This is the third time these two will be going against each other. Now generally, trilogy fights are the rarest of the rare in ABC. However, with the history these two have, this is going to be hands down the biggest fight of the decade in terms of tickets sold."
Ryuzio stared at the screen, looking at the videos of the two individuals Benji was talking about.
"This is Brandin 'Boomerang' Geraal," Benji said, pointing at the light-skinned man with a buzz cut on top that was in a video on the screen. "He had one of the craziest streaks in middleweight history, going into his first title match with 10 continuous wins, and winning that fight too.
"Not only that, he also won the rematch against the prior champion, before beating the top contender and moving up a weight class. That could've been a mistake…if it weren't for the fact that his streak only continued!
"After 6 continuous wins, he got a title shot for the light heavyweight title. And guess what? He won that fight too, AND the rematch that followed!"
Ryuzio nodded to himself with folded arms. "So this guy is tough. He did win 10 times and 6 times as you said."
"Tough?" Benji said, tapping on the table with wide eyes. "This man had a 21 win streak, was a champion of not one but TWO divisions at the same time, and had defended his titles in the most dominant fashion!"
"Had?" Ryuzio said flatly. "What happened?"
"This is the part where it starts to get exciting!" Benji said, voice shaking with the eagerness he was trying to suppress.
"Exciting?" Ryuzio said, leaning forward with interest. "Tell me!"
"Enter Hitryel Hystryk!" Benji said, pointing at the guy fighting Brandin on the video playing on the screen. This guy had dark brown skin and a high fashion haircut, with the sides faded and the top having forward-flowing short dreads of black-to-blue gradiant. "Brandin Geraal, the undefeated double champ, the 21-win-streak brawler, fought Hitryel as he was the top contender at that time. And…" His breath started to get heavier.
"Alright…" he continued. "The match starts. Round 1. Just as expected. Brandin is dominating his opponent with his assortment of kicks. But of course, every round ends. So after that 5 minute round, round 2 starts. But none of us saw what was to come. Hitryel ended Brandin's streak in the FIRST 30 SECONDS of round 2, and he did that with a freaking KICK, becoming the new and current light heavyweight champion of Imperos!"
"He looks so much younger than the other guy too," Ryuzio pointed. "This guy defeated the guy who no one could beat? He must be awesome."
Benji fixed his glasses, smirking slyly. "You thought that's crazy? Let me warn you, because it's about to get even crazier from here!"
Ryuzio's mouth opened from the passion with which he was getting all this information. He smiled when he noticed the pure joy in Benji's eyes. The blue-haired boy was telling all this to Ryuzio with so much enthusiasm that Ryuzio couldn't help but see his younger self in Benji. Paired with the fact that they were in a restaurant, Ryuzio was getting a bit nostalgic.
So he did to Benji what he would've liked others to do to him, back when he was still a kid. He listened.
"Two months ago," Benji said, body moving freer than ever, "ABC held a rematch between these two. But the result didn't change. Hitryel successfully defended his title against Brandin freaking Geraal, defeating him for the second time! But he didn't stop there.
"With talks of a third match between these two in air, Hitryel went up against the top contender of the light heavyweight division: Lushen 'Mirage' Barion.
"Lushen is a fantastic boxer, and we hadn't seen much from Hitryel in terms of boxing defense, so it was a consensus that Hitryel is going to lose against Lushen. But that changed as quickly as round 1 of their title match ended, when Lushen couldn't even get a single clean hit in. Then…round 2 happened. Hitryel, this madman, beat Lushen…with a RIGHT CROSS, successfully defending his title!"
"I don't get it," Ryuzio said, pointing at the screen. "Why is the champ guy fighting the streak guy again? He has already beaten him twice, yeah?"
Benji put a single finger forward. "Putting it in one word: story! People, especially fight fans, love story in these fights! When they saw Brandin winning 5 fights in less than 2 months after getting beat by Hitryel for the second time, just to become the top contender again, to them, Brandin now became the underdog. To see a man struggle in the face of defeat, that's what we like!
"Now, I could be making all this up…if it weren't for the fact that as soon as the seats for this fight became available to book, the arena was completely sold out in less than HALF AN HOUR!"
Ryuzio looked carefully at the champ guy—Hitryel—who fought without much shine in his eyes. "Is this what he wants too?"
"Huh?" Benji said. "Of course! The fans love him…mostly. But I'm pretty sure that that's not important for him; since he's making more money than you and I will ever see in our entire lives."
Ryuzio pointed at Benji, cocking back his head as his brows furrowed. "I'm going to have more money than anyone under the Eight Skies, so don't speak for me!"
"Whatever, man," Benji said with a dismissive wave. "You know nothing about ABC or even Hitryel. Speaking of which, let me tell you the history of fights and the crazy career of the man that defeated Brandin Geraal. And this might surprise you if Brandin's winning steak seemed impressive to you, since Hitryel Hystryk's current win streak is—"
A bell sounded. "Your order—"
Ryuzio sharply turned his head toward the counter but immediately glanced at the door.
The glass door slid open, a large man wearing a hooded coat appearing from the other side. He walked toward the counter with hands in his coat pockets.
Ryuzio grew apprehensive, memories of his childhood not allowing him to look away—
The woman behind the counter flailed her wrists animatedly. "Oh my goodness, you really came back!" she said with a suppressed voice, as if trying not to yell out—
Ryuzio stood from his chair, knocking it over, firing up his Ether. "Came back?"
The two people from behind the counter stared with confused looks, the newcomer's face shadowed by his hood.
Benji grabbed Ryuzio's wrist, mouth cupped with the other hand. "Sit down, Ryuzio," he whispered. "Don't stand out. Legion 88 is searching for us, remember?"
Ryuzio exhaled, picking up his chair before sitting back on it. "My bad, it was just very similar to something that happened—"
"We packaged up your large order," said the man behind the counter. "All the bags are inside of this large one. I hope we can provide you our service again, sir—!"
Ryuzio knocked over his chair again as he got up. "Who are you!" he demanded loudly.
The faces of the two behind the counter paled as they panicked.
"Please don't mind him, sir, he's not a usual customer by any means," said the man behind the counter, before turning to Ryuzio and putting a finger on his lips, indicating to quiet down.
Ryuzio fired up his Ether, pointing a finger at the hooded man after taking a step forward. "I asked you something."
"Ryuzio!" Benji whispered loudly from behind him. "Please sit the freak down!"
The hooded man fidgeted around nervously, not revealing his identity. "Um…" he said nervously. "I'm sorry, I can't say that, but I do apologize if I offended you in any way. I'm really sorry."
Ryuzio slowly lowered his finger. "Sorry?" he tilted his head in confusion—
"Don't scare customers this special!" yelled the black-haired woman, pointing at Ryuzio. "Here's YOUR order, take it and leave—" she bit her lips, putting her palms to the front, eyebrows coming together. "What're you doing, sir?"
The hooded man picked up the two plates from the counter, walking toward the table in which Benji sat. "I can do at least this much to apologize."
Ryuzio looked with wide eyes at the hooded man, who placed the plates on their table.
Benji started laughing nervously. "This was not important at all," he said, scratching his cheek. "This guy here just thought you were someone else, that's all…"
The tall man let out a chuckle. "No problem. As long as everyone's fine, we can forget the past—"
Ryuzio pulled down the man's hood, revealing his bearded face. The man had tan skin with black hair and a scar on his chin, where his beard did not grow—
Benji fell from his chair onto the floor as his eyes fattened. "Y-Y-You…? Here…? Wh—?"
The tall man hastily pulled his hood over his face, turning sharply and pacing toward his large order. "You saw nothing." He ran out the store in a hurry, carrying the large package filled with orders easily.
Ryuzio picked Benji off the floor, looking at him with confusion. "You know that guy?"
Benji's legs wobbled as he tried to stand on them. "How can you not?" he said with a quivering voice, meeting Ryuzio's eyes, face sweating. "I can't believe I was so close to him. I almost died."
"Heh?" Ryuzio said, tilting his head sideways. "Was he one of Baru's squadmates? Or maybe even Baru himself—?"
"No!" Benji said, pulling away from Ryuzio, flailing his arms around. "That was Tryst Bracken! The most legendary heavyweight brawler in existence!"
Ryuzio picked his nose with a pinky. "Oh, that guy…"
"You're not getting it at all, Ryuzio!" Benji put both of his hands on his head. "I couldn't even ask him for an autograph! I'm pathetic!"
"He didn't defeat the streak guy," Ryuzio said with a shrug, "what's the big deal?"
Benji grabbed Ryuzio by his shoulders. "If you think Hitryel Hystryk is amazing, his mentor must also be great right?"
Ryuzio's shrugged. "Guess so—"
"Tryst Bracken is the one who taught Hitryel Hystryk everything!"
Ryuzio's eyes widened, before he sharply turned his head toward the door. "If that's the case, I need to do something!" With that, he paced toward the entrance with hands held in front to break the glass door.
Benji ran after him with a panicked expression. "Don't run when it's time to pay the bill!"
"Hey!" yelled the woman from behind the counter. "You mother—"
The man beside her tapped on her shoulder, pointing at the table with food resting on top of it. "They didn't even touch the food."
The door slid open before Ryuzio could touch it with his hands. He glanced over his shoulder. "You don't need to come with me, Ben. I got this!"
"What're you even doing?" Benji said, gasping for air as he chased Ryuzio outside the restaurant. "Don't leave me alone, Ryuzio!"
Ryuzio glanced over his shoulder with a smile. "I can't protect you from Baru forever, Ben."
"So you're just going to ditch me like this?" Benji said, eyes watering. "What about the time we spent toge—"
"So I decided to get you recruited!" Ryuzio continued with a smile. "I'll get you inside this main event thing, and then you can request the recruiters!"
Benji gasped for air, breathing as fast as possible, as Ryuzio started to get further…or rather he himself was starting to slow down. "But…" he stuttered as he spoke. "But… Ryuzio…we don't have any tickets…" Benji fell forward—
Ryuzio stopped, Benji's chin falling on his left shoulder. "I don't get it, what do you mean?"
Benji breathed heavily, face on Ryuzio's shoulder. "I don't get what YOU mean…! What did you even run for…?"
Ryuzio smiled. "Tickets!"
"Um…" Snot ran down one of Benji's nostrils. "What…?"