Dreamers

Chapter 3 - flying man

Once you turn 18 in this city you either work, go to college or be a fighter. Fighters in this city are called dreamers. "To dream is to think and to think is to dream." That is my philosophy.

As both of us stand in front of each other, a couple meters apart. We're both waiting for one of us to make the first move. I decided to strike first, a lightning jab coming from my right hand, he easily dodges it, showing his extreme nimbleness. He has a long arm span which he uses to his advantage and is very quick in his defense, making him a traditional out fighter. I decided to keep playing aggressively with double and triple jabs. He still hasn't made a counter move on me yet which kind of worries me. I try to break the rhythm by throwing a wild rear left hook. Joseph says under his breath "Too obvious." Joseph dodges it easily, he lands the first shot of the fight, a 1-2 while circling to my left. As I recover, he throws another right straight from my blindspot. I take a big step back to regain my composure but he proceeds to chase after me. I throw 4 straight jabs to keep him away from me but he dodges all of the punches. Luckily the field is open so there's no walls I could get trapped on, I could have kept running for the rest of this fight but it would just lead to my loss. I stand my ground trying to hold my guard up but Joseph keeps throwing hooks and uppercuts from my blind spots. He's constantly moving which makes it even harder for me to find an opening, I just need to stall for time and keep analyzing him.

DeadStone's crowd is getting restless and started shouting at us "End the fight already Vice-captain!" "He's not doing anything. He's just shelling up" "This fight is getting boring!" I hate those types of comments. I'm a showman first and a fighter second! What's the point of a fight if the audience isn't having fun! As a kid, my favorite boxer was and still is the legendary Ali. I always wanted to copy his boxing style but you can't imitate greatness, however, I tried my best to make a boxing style similar to his but I decided to keep it locked away as a last resort since it's still unfinished. I changed my style to a traditional defensive counter-puncher boxing style.

As I got older, I made myself think that my Ali imitation style was incomplete, but that was wrong. I was just scared to bring it out. In my high school days, I've won many street fights with the counter puncher style. But for some reason I wasn't happy, now with some higher level fighter straight beating my ass in this fight. I've come to a realization. "It's not how hard you hit, or how fast you move. It's how much passion you have!" Muhammad Ali was a legendary boxer who was known for getting up every time he went down. It goes to show how much passion he had for this sport. Joseph breaks my train of thought "Passion? What a joke! Fighting is all about knowing your skills and knowing your opponents. Style makes fights!" "You may be right Joseph, but that in itself is a sign of passion for this sport. This isn't a battle of skills anymore. Show me Joseph who loves fighting more!" Joseph looked visibly angry here "Fine! I'm going to end it right now!" "Go right ahead Joseph!"

As Joseph starts throwing a flurry of punches. I lower my guard and drop my hands to the side. One DeadStone member yells out "What is he doing! Did he give up!" Sam shows a smirk and says "It's over Joseph, you lost." I see every punch coming my way. A left jab, a right hook, a lead upper. I could see everything clearly and dodge all of them. I get out of Joseph's punching range and I take a glance at the DeadStone crowd, they all are in awe. The fight isn't over though, I still have to win this thing. I started bouncing up and down like how Ali used to and started moving all around Joseph, keeping my movements unpredictable. Joseph keeps chasing and tries setting up combos with jabs and straights but he keeps hitting blanks. I decide to go on the offensive. He looks desperate to get a shot in so I pretend to stop moving for a second and Joseph decides to bite! He throws a straight right but I immediately take a big step back and throw a counter left straight. With his abnormal arm length, he would have definitely been able to hit me, but I'm a left handed boxer which means I'm farther away from what he's used to. With my right foot outside his left foot, his punch missed by a couple centimeters. He's 5 foot 7 and I'm 6 foot 2. I easily cover the punch distance and land him a clean left straight at him!

The crowd goes silent. I looked at Kyle with a grin on his face but I could tell that he was mad. Joseph didn't go down so the fight continues. Joseph still looks shooken up from that counter punch so I decide to go finish this fight with a 1-2 combo, but then Joseph decides to shout

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT HIT BY A SOME STUPID SHII LIKE THAT! LET'S FINISH DEEZ FIGHT DEXTER OF ZNYDER RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

His shout made me stop in my tracks. The crowd goes wild with a mix of cheering and screaming from them. Looks like he wants to finish this fight punch for punch. "Alright! I accept!". We both face each other, both in punching distance. He throws the first punch and I take it straight on, I then throw a right straight and he takes a step back. We continued punching each other for another minute before he stumbled and fell to the ground. He wasn't a hard hitter so my face didn't look that beaten up. Joseph on the other side had both of his eyes swollen, his nose was broken, and he was missing a tooth. He knew I was stronger in terms of punching power but he still decided to go pound for pound with me. It shows how much pride and passion he had for this match. Kyle declares the winner "Winner! Dexter from Znyder" I raise up my hand to the night sky in victory. To my surprise I saw the crowd of DeadStone started cheering me on. "That was an amazing match to watch! Great job you two!" "Joseph, you fought well!" "Let's get a rematch!" Joseph comes up to me and raises his arm up for a hand shake. "Good game." "Good game Joseph. I may have won the fight, but you proved to me that you had more passion for this fight."

Kyle tell his crew to bring Joseph to the infirmary. "Sam, Dexter, now that the fight's over, we could now discuss this alliance of ours. Let's head back to my place, we could talk there. While Joseph wasn't a hard hitter, he did hit me over 100 times in that fight. My legs were exhausted from all that moving and my body wasn't responding well after all those body shots from Joseph. Sam lends an arm to me "Thanks" "Damn, you're heavy as shit, I hope we're close to your place Kyle." Kyle lets out a laugh "Haha, don't worry we're almost there. You surprised me, Dex, Who would've thought you were bringing back that boxing style." Sam chimes in "I already knew you were gonna win once you brought it back. I haven't seen that style ever since we were 14. What are you gonna call it? The Ali-Dex fusion?" I laughed "Nah, That style is light years behind Ali's boxing style and while It's heavily inspired from Ali, I would like to add more moves to it.I'll think I'll call it the Flying-Dex!"