As the weeks went by, Ivy continued her training, and Tobi would watch, almost mesmerized by the light flowing from her.
He would try himself, but would never get any closer.
After a particularly grueling workout, he fell to the forest floor, breathing heavily, staring up at the sunlight peaking between the trees, blinking the sweat from his eyes.
"Y'know," Ivy started, "I had to almost die to get this, so maybe-"
"No, I'm good," Tobi interrupted. "I don't need to test my luck with near-death experiences."
"Okay," Ivy nodded.
A few days later, Ivy eagerly walked into Tobi's room with an impatient grin.
Looking up from his Xbox, "Yeah? What's up?" Tobi asked, seeing her expression.
"They just announced the time and location of where I sign up to the tournament. It's gonna be this Saturday at noon!"
"Okay, cool." He thought, 'My school has a week-long holiday starting Friday…' A puzzled look crossed his face, "Do you know how you're gonna get there?"
Her face fell, "Oh. I probably should've thought about that," she clicked her tongue in thought. "Darn."
"Uh," Tobi opened his banking app on his phone, then looked up the price of tickets to Dubai. "Look, I've got a school break then…If you want, I could get aircraft tickets, and we fly there."
Ivy's large brown eyes lit up, "You can do that?"
"I mean, the flight will be early, and we won't have time to rest before we get there the day of, but yeah."
She jumped on him, squeezing him, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
Springing from the aircraft, Ivy had never felt so excited. Her heart was racing and her skin was tingling; if she wasn't careful, she could've accidentally activated her energy.
"Oh damn," Tobi said, quickly putting sunglasses over his eyes, feeling the hot Dubai air blast him in the face—a stark contrast to the well-air-conditioned aircraft. He stood for a moment, admiring the opulent architecture of the skyscrapers that surrounded them.
"How does a place like this exist?" Ivy marveled, spinning around slowly, looking at all the buildings.
"Do you want the real answer?"
"Mhm," Ivy nodded.
"Indentured servitude and slave labor."
"I- oh…" There was a pause, and Ivy's mouth curled slightly as if she was trying not to smile.
"What?" Tobi asked, trying not to laugh himself.
"Nothing!" Ivy said quickly, shaking her head. "It's just…"
"The thing is, if you go like five miles outside of this city part, it's just slums."
"Well, I can see the NFC building from here!" She pointed.
Tobi looked over, seeing through a row of buildings the red logo of the NFC.
After running for a while, they turned the corner and arrived at NFC, seeing the massive line that was waiting for them.
Finally getting to the front desk, Ivy smiled and strolled toward the woman behind the bulletproof glass. "I want to fight the champion!"
Looking pretty unimpressed, the clerk slid a stack of papers forward, saying, "First, you're gonna have'ta fill these out." She gestured at some chairs to the side.
While Ivy scribbled down her information, Tobi's gaze wandered around the room, "Hey, Ivy, you see that guy over there? He was behind us in line."
Ivy looked up, "Yeah? The guy who's been staring at us?"
"Okay, so you noticed it, too."
"Yeah."
Jokingly, Tobi said, "You think if he tries something, we could take him?"
"Do you ever wish people would randomly attack you?"
"What?" Tobi gave her an odd look, "No…"
Seeing his confusion, she clarified, "Well, you can't just attack someone yourself for no reason."
"Yes."
"But if they attack you first, it's like self-defense."
"Yeah."
"So, it's like you have an excuse to really mess someone up, y'know?" She looked at him, grinning.
Tobi thought for a moment, "I really don't know, Ivy."
"You are able to just go all out on someone, and it's justified…I see you don't seem to get it."
"Ivy, finish writing whatever you need to write."
She handed the stack of papers back to the front desk as Tobi walked up, snagging a flyer about the upcoming tournament.
'As far as I know,' Tobi thought, 'The NFC functions as any other fighting organization: Fighters get signed to the NFC and will compete in 1-on-1 fights. If someone wins enough times, they will be able to challenge the title holder for the belt of their division. Though, the NFC has what are called "The Three Kings."--A title given to the top three NFC fighters at any given time.' He opened the pamphlet and started reading, seeing the silhouettes and fighting record of the current Three Kings: K 54-1, Cloudy 45-3, and Byron Cartt 67-0.
He continued reading, looking for the rules for this tournament.
How the tournament works: This specific style of tournament occurs once every four years. There are the preliminaries before the real tournament. The preliminaries are held in a small, disclosed location without an audience. Each person is put in a group and fights in mini-tournaments, where each match lasts only two minutes. One winner of each group will move on to the actual tournament. There are three brackets. Whoever gets to the end of one of the brackets can challenge any of the Three Kings. If they win, the reward money will be enormous and will take their place as one of the Three Kings. The Three Kings are required to be a part of it. If one of the bracket winners challenges one of the Three Kings, the King can not refuse. Each time someone wins and moves up in the bracket, they get a monetary reward.
The preliminaries started when the sun set.
Ivy and Tobi walked into the massive room.
Throughout the area, several fighting rings were spaced apart, with a massive crowd of fighters surrounding the perimeter of the room. Bleachers ran along every wall, and a large projector showed the current brackets for each fight.
The fight administrator broke everyone up into their groups. Whoever won their mini-group tournament would move on to be one of the 24 competitors in the group bracket. There were three ways to win during the match: Knockout your opponent, Your opponent taps out/gives up, or You knock them out of the ring.
Since Ivy labeled Tobi as her "Coach," he was allowed to watch.
As he walked over to the bleachers to sit and wait, Ivy looked above him and saw the odd-looking man sitting at the top of the bleachers. He looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s, and he was wearing a pitch-black suit. He was a large, bald black guy, but what stood out was that he was wearing sunglasses indoors.
In Ivy's group, there were twenty people in total. Turning away from the bracket, she saw her first opponent…and it wasn't hard.
She was facing, Fighter #213, "Big Tit." He was a massive man whose body resembled the shape of an egg. He was at least six foot seven, and if he stepped on a scale, it would've read 400lbs before it would shatter under his weight.
Standing across the ring from Ivy, he flashed a piss-toothed grin. "A kid like you, I'd break by steppin' on," he goaded.
She just stared at him.
Attempting to rile her up again, he said, "A girl like you should really…" he trailed off, watching Ivy hold her arms a bit to the side and slowly spin in a slow circle, whispering under her breath. He couldn't hear over the buzz of the other fights and the fighters in their group watching; stepping forward, he smirked, "You're seriously saying affirmations?" He cackled. "You should know, I've never lost a competition like this before. A hoe like you shouldn't be here, if you're too nervous to even sit still."
He kept going on and on about how he had never lost once in his life and how she looked nervous.
Truth be told, Ivy was nervous, but not for the reason he thought.
The ref climbed into the ring by ducking under the ropes. Standing between the two fighters, he made sure both were ready. "Set…fight!"