Stephanie & Xander

Chapter 14

I'm back to the same arena. I'm here just yesterday. We're both wearing hoods so nobody recognized me. Maybe even if I removed this hood, nobody will recognize me. I'm just assuming. There are many fights everyday in this arena to be even remembered.

When Xander removed her hood in the back room, she's not wearing her usual ponytail. Her hair is cropped like down to only two inch of her hair. It's almost just as long as mine. Now, she looks more like a guy than she ever was. Is she planning to really kick my manliness down to ground? If she wants to be a girl, then do it! Damn it.

Beast hands her over Neon orange jacket and fitted white shorts. She's wearing cycling so she just wears the shorts over while she stays on tank top after she hangs the jacket atop a chair. But she looks like a fighter now as she chews her mouth-guard. She carefully wears all the gears, hand-wraps, boxing gloves, groin-guard, shin-pads, and kick-boots.

She stretches a little, reaching her toes and she's flexible as fuck. Her air punches are swift. She's on different level than me. I hope Beast can see that he wouldn't get out alive if he cheats Xander over for some measly money by throwing off fights.

"I have to do something about my chest." She says, ruffling her own hair. She doesn't have big boobs but it's not flat either. I guess that's a B-cup which will still be a little difficult to hide considering that as a kick boxer; you're supposed to be bare.

"I don't think they'll care if you're a woman." Beast says, "You can keep your sports bra."

"You shouldn't have cut your hair." I say.

"I'll cut it eventually anyway." She says and she kind of looks scary today, like, since the day began, she hasn't smile, "It's in the way." She looks at me, "I think it's dangerous if they see two girls travelling alone together."

She finally smiles and she's got the nerve to tease my feminine features again.

"Half-half" Xander mutters, "I'll win the fight and it's half-half. I'll climb as far up as I can go. Once the bets are good enough, I'll throw the fight."

"You can't climb that easily." He says, laughing, "Impatient brats. You don't know what underground business means. These guys don't live their lives travelling and playing games. They wear themselves out training."

Xander removes her tank top and she's wearing nothing but sports bra. I can see her toned body: abs and biceps. She's fit and muscled, but not bulky. Covering her body are various scars, ranging from two bullet shots on her abdomen up to numerous shallow cuts and marks all over her body, "I didn't have this body for nothing." She says, "I didn't make everyone get turned off of my scars just to be weak."

"You've been shot? Twice?" I ask, making me wonder what kind of life she's been through or what kind of enemies she faced.

"This was when I was seven." She says, "Mom and I were travelling through a car to my father, when we hit a boy. We stopped of course but it was a trap. They broke the windows and mom protected me. They hit my mom with a baseball bat and I tried to call the police. A woman with a dragon tattoo asked a guy to shoot me and he shoot me twice. End of the story."

"I'm so sorry about your mom." I say apologetically.

"Damn, Stephanie. She's alive!" she laughs, wearing the neon jacket, "She's somewhere in Ohio, doing some business. Mom's alive and kicking and she and her dad are happily married. I just... strayed off path because I want to get back on whoever put this goddamn scar on me. But yeah, life sucks. I didn't find them." She made her last air punch, "Maybe that's the reason why I'm so violent. I still want to get back on them until now. The only thing I remember is how the dragon tattoo looks like. She's wearing a mask so I can't tell what her face was. But the dragon is biting a dragon fruit so I can't be mistaken."