The Wanderer's Tournament

Prologue: Champion of 1985

This was it. After five weeks, the longest the Tournament has lasted yet, two were left standing. Dimitri was exhausted. Being a wanderer meant that everyone else was out to get him on sheer principle that if he'd win, all of their fighting would be for nothing, and the shame they'd forever burden in their people's minds for losing to a "Vagrant" result in them most likely being cast out of their own homes. After the first Tournament in 1955, in which Canada had won, fighters who made it in the top 20s would go on to raise their eldest for the next five to ten years, and then the child (and sometimes the parent as well) would enter their respective tournament based on how much time has passed. These families were treated higher than any group of men in the government, to the point of being loved and cherished as Gods or Goddesses by the people they represented. So for them to score anywhere less than the top 20 would be an utter disgrace. A few cases in the past involved some world powers to officially ban them and their family from the country they were born and raised in and denied access for decades.

But Dimitri didn't have anything like that to worry about. He represented no one, was treated like nothing, existed as nobody to the eyes of the world. That is until four days ago, where in the badlands of Iraq, the third leading fighter in the tournament, Jeremiah of Norway, challenged the lonesome Vagrant, trying to test himself against what he considered a "trivial vagabond". After thirty minutes of what began as a "joke" to Jeremiah, the tides turned into a desperate struggle for victory, both men were at the end of their strengths when the last blow was thrown. Jeremiah tried a left hook, with everything he had. However, he unable to see well with the two black eyes he got from earlier in the fight, missed, allowing Dimitri to uppercut him directly under his lower jaw, shattering it and sending the Norwegian fighter a couple of feet in the air away from Dimitri.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he had been tagged by an Observer who had sent all the footage it captured directly to all who watched the fight. Dimitri, had just beaten number three in the world and was immediately  sky rocketed to Jeremiah's place. The following morning a helicopter sent by the Old Tenants of the Final Challengers' Tower arrived and escorted Dimitri to said Tower. Originally meant to pick up Jeremiah after the Observer located his whereabouts, was now host to what many of the world's societies would call "unneeded filth". Sure the rules state any wanderer with no allegiance or home to call to can enter, but this was the first time one of them had gotten this far.

Two nights afterwards Dimitri took down the Russian Warrior, and was taken to the highest level of the tower. There he would battle the leading fighter of the world, a hulking,  grizzled old man from the disbanded United States Marine Corps, Alexander of the U.S.A. within the next two days. And alas, here they were now, the entire world watching the two vastly different souls stare each other down.

Alexander was a patriot, a man who had fought and bled in World War II for his nation, a man who was already willing to fight and die for his home. In a weird way, the less experienced, but wise nonetheless vagabond respected his opponent. Dimitri had no love or care for where he was born, just as the people in charge and around him did not care or know that the man was even alive. His only source of pride to his upbringing came from his mother, the one who passed down her beliefs of bettering the world down to him. In the end, the both of them were warriors. Fighters of a completely separate spectrum, but Strugglers all the same. The announcer blasted out from the speakers for the official fight to begin and both men launched themselves after one another, their fist colliding into each other and causing them both to hop back a step.

The American was sweating, his dark green sleeveless shirt was practically soaked, sticking to his toned and firm torso. His arms weren't necessarily extremely muscular or anything, but what was there was intimidating. The man's sunburnt flesh made the nearly pale gashes and scars around his exposed arms and neck look all the more menacing to Dimitri, as Alexander's piercing hundred yard stare reached deep into the lost wanderer's soul. The only colour left in this man's eyes was grey, a deep, hazy grey that both hid and revealed everything to Dimitri. This man had been through hell, and wasn't afraid to go back there.