It's five on one. All five are wary of me. They're on their toes, ready to go in at any moment. Suddenly I remembered Joe saying something about my shirt before we started. I'm not a vengeful person, but payback is payback.
I sprint off right away before they can react, and leap up, planting a foot straight into Joe's face. Poor Joe wasn't even able to tell what happened. Joe would probably have broken his nose for a while.
The other four realized what happened and started running toward me. The first one threw out a punch to test the waters, but I blocked it to the side with my left arm and closed in. Seeing me coming, a glint of fear is appears in his eyes. I hit him in the neck and he fell over choking.
The second one was coming with a roundhouse kick which I blocked with my knee. After that I grabbed his leg with one arm and pulled, putting him off balance. Then, while he was in pain from the forced split, I gave him a roundhouse kick of my own.
The remaining two of them came at me at the same time. No technique though. Just some punches. I felt underwhelmed. All five of these guys are rather sizable people with bulging muscles, but they were so weak.
I tripped one of them and used him as a punching bag while the other guy tried to punch around him. Eventually, a few broken ribs later, I shoved the impromptu punching bag into the last guy. The last guy fell back on the floor and I finished him off with a downward punch.
"Disappointing. Stacy," I said while I was taking of my gloves,"how many has it been today?"
"17 matches. 58 fighters," said Stacy, who was standing of to the side with a tablet in hand.
"Go with Marvin and tell him to take the limo back to the house. I am driving back alone," I said.
"Understood, Mr. Rowan," said Stacy.
I put on my shirt again, displaying the dog picture on the front. I went straight to the garage. Recently, I had been doing these fights every day. It's been 3 years since I had started the fights at all.
10 million. That is the amount they get if they beat me. 10 million. A life changing amount for most, but pocket change for me. My parents were going to leave me and my sister everything if they died. They didn't expect my sister to die at the same time as them.
It was news headlines. That is how I found out my family died. "CEO of TemTech dies in plane crash." I didn't know how to react. My entire family died. I grieved for a while. It hurt so much. I wanted it to go away. So I did what I loved. I fought. More and more.
I had always loved fighting. It took everything I had to convince my parents to let me learn martial arts. They thought I was going to quit in a week at most. I kept going and it turned out I was pretty good.
I picked things up quickly. I managed to beat my sensei in under a year. I wanted to learn more though. Karate, tai kwan do, judo, kickboxing, jujitsu, boxing, wrestling. It took me less then 5 years to become a master at them all.
It would have taken me less time, but my parents forced me to do other things as well. After they realized how fast I would learn things, they started assigning me tasks. "Learn this language before Christmas" or "learn advanced robotics and programming in a half a year."
They even made me learn piano. I actually secretly enjoyed piano though. Being the naive 16 year old I was, I didn't realize that I was probably being manipulated into doing these things because my parents didn't want me to learn martial arts.
I had already graduated school early to pursue my dreams though. Otherwise learning everything I wanted to or had to would have taken forever.
By the time I reached the garage I realized just how deep in thought I was. I cleared my mind and got in the car. However, right when I turned on the car engine, I heard a click.
Boom! The entire car went up in flames. Some of the people outside the garage heard the explosion and saw the smoke, so they called the police and the fire department. The police attributed it to a intentional attack, but never found who did it.
At Rowan's funeral, many people came to pay their respects. Many were fighters who had lost to him, or people who had taught him. Even Marvin and Stacy were there. There was even a nice speech that wished him peace after death.
Rowan however, wasn't doing so well. Currently he was freaking out.
"What the hell is this! Where am I!"
Surrounded by darkness and warmth, he couldn't even tell what was happening. Then he felt the space pushing him out. There was a light there. It was so bright. Rowan tried to go towards it and got pushed out. The light was so bright that he had to keep his eyes shut. All of the sudden, he felt hands grabbing him and tugging him into the light.
As he slowly became more aware, he saw what was happening. There was a green haired woman on a bed. She was panting like she had just run the worlds longest marathon. To her right was a tall man with black hair and a well shaven beard. He was holding the woman's hand smiling like he had just won the lottery. There was also a man holding him. That man had a big white beard, glasses, and reminded Rowan of a less fat Santa Claus in a doctor uniform.
Then he realized that he was being held in this mans arms. He looked down and saw his body. His jaw dropped. He was a baby!
The doctor who was holding him said,"Your child seems healthy Margret. You and James are lucky to have such a healthy baby all the way out here. The only thing is-"
The loud wails of the baby in his arms cut him off as he smiled.
"Never mind. Normally baby's are whining right out of the room. It was a bit concerning, but it is clearly nothing."
Meanwhile, from Rowans perspective, he was actually trying to say, "Son of a *****, what the ****, is this for real, ****ing **** man."
He was reborn. Little did he know though, this wasn't the same world as his.