Private Not Your Mama's Fight Club

[Aver Brand]

The bold red-and-black leaflet appeared one dank, overcast evening on the Local News board in the RnK gourmedog joint on the corner of 16th and B in the Suma district.

And. Well. It was no T H C G.

The entrance was a gaping maw between two dumpsters behind an abandoned chemical plant. The spiral stairwell groaned and squealed the whole way down, lit only by bleary emergency lights. It was a flip of a chit whether the bouncer was a bored preteen with a blaster in their waistband, a wizened veteran of suspicious provenance, or a brick-shithouse alien with a soft spot for hard candy and a picture of his seven kids in his wallet.

The inside of the establishment did not improve on the first impressions. Local legend held that the floor was once ferrocrete, but even the most enthusiastic building inspector would be hard-pressed to identify it under the thick film of congealed liquids. The walls were plastered with layers upon layers of posters, graffiti, and actual plaster, what with the occasional slugthrower hole that needed filling.

Harsh industrial lights circumscribed a circle in the middle, plunging the rest of the room into darkness. There was no ring, only a faint incline towards the mesh drain in the center. A relic of the decontam showers for the labs upstairs.

Certainly made it easier to wash away the blood in the morning.

It was payday Zhellday tonight, and the place was packed wall-to-wall. Smoke hung from the ceiling in heavy grey clouds, mixing with stale sweat and fresh iron. The screeching electronica – just trending in the Core, already old news on the Rim – was loud, but the crowd was louder. Cheering, booing, names: the usual fare in half a dozen languages.

Aver kept an ear out for any new fighters as she shoved her way to the bar and mimed her order to one of the harried staff. It was her third visit in as many weeks, dressed down to match the clientele, cheap beer to complete the picture.

These days, her bloodlust simmered deep under the surface. Hadn’t seen a reason to step into the circle.

Yet.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Dobb had packed her a snack.

No, Dobb had made a snack. This wasn't vending machine nuna jerky; this was hand-preserved, pre-cut, cloth-wrapped nuna jerky, lovingly dehydrated aboard The Sundry and probably the reason that the common room smelled the way that it did. Pungent, like the inside of a heavily spiced arsehole.

Sam held the cloth in her hand and stared at it as if she owed it money. Dobb was nice. Dobb was also a maniac. A four-foot fuck all Ugnaught with a scattergun that nearly matched her in length, and a penchant for explosives that would have alarmed professional killers. Or so Jhal said. Sam hadn't seen her in action yet, and lacked the imagination to picture the porcine mercenary waddling into the middle of a firefight with her boomstick and a prayer.

Bringing the jerky to her nose, Sam took a sniff and immediately recoiled, eyes watering at the sheer level of spice and heat that radiated off the dehydrated meat. Shit, maybe she was a lunatic. It went straight back into a pocket of her cargo-cut fatigues for the time being.

As she stood, shoulder-to-shoulder in the thrum of bodies, as she had on a thousand different nights, in a hundred similarly dingy venues, she tried to find that sense of home. She could remember it, the hard thrum of bass that reverberated through the chest, anticipation climbing with the pulse, jaw set, balls of the feet fucking bouncing. Felt like being alive, like being real, like something actually mattered.

She felt none of it, bar the bass.

It was downtime now, no longer the job but just the space in between. The ring was a reason to keep sharp, and Sam couldn't cope with the idleness festering, or Ossa back on the ship making her barbed little comments about how her blades were a civilised art form, and Sam's fists were a tantrum playing dress up. Dobb had approved, 'poor thing, you're wound like a string', she'd said before toddling off to pack a bloodsport snack, and Jhal, ever the ardent gambler, fancied making some pocket credits and something to pass a pilot's grounded boredom.

The announcement came mingled through the pounding bass, the hype man on the microphone announcing the next set of fighters in an incomprehensible barrage of sound. It pierced through her head, which provided its own familiar feedback, high-pitched ringing sharp enough to bring a twitch of a grimace.

Her opponent might as well have been called Susan for all she could hear.

For everybody else, he was Vress Traik. Big local boy with a top-knot and a local piss beer logo tattooed onto his bicep like it made him real. Broad, shoulders like pauldrons, but with enough soft beef packed onto the middle to suggest that he was past his prime. Sam had met fighters like him before; Sam had been him before, a fighter coasting on old wins. Local hard nut. The known quantity. Drawing familiar cheers like the people here weren't watching to see if his head got stoved in.

She was announced as a footnote, just 'Sam' and nothing extra. No surname. No nickname. Sam. Hardly a name that got the crowd buzzing, not Uktar the Concussionator, or Grisz the Rizz and it was noted.

"Sam?" Vress laughed to the crowd at his back, already commencing in the time-honoured pre-fight trash talk that she had always lacked the nous for. All that peacocking and grandstanding boiled her piss, even worse when she lost to the wankers. "That's it? One name? Didn't even karking bring a full one?"

Stepping forward, the harsh lighting illuminated her in full for the masses. Shaved head and a hard face that had about as many losses under its belt as it did wins. With a black tank top, everybody who cared to look could see that nothing was spare on her, all corded muscle and sinew, density without bulk seeming all the more severe under the overhead lighting. The right arm wasn't hidden, the cybernetic junk heap just above the elbow, no synthskin, just mismatched plating and the visible guts of the machine. She didn't engage; no, Sam just looked, face dead-level with a red-rimmed stare that had yet to blink, courtesy of grit, whose imminent comedown gnawed at the edges.

 

[Aver Brand]

Some lad name of Vress Traik and another… lad? ladette? name of Sam.

The former had fought on her first visit, and Aver had taken the measure of the man over three bouts: big mouth, long reach, small imagination, short temper. Nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing to awe the discerning audience of the Cream and the Crop.

Plus they’d have to mask out the beer logo in post for anything broadcast. The casino legal team had better things to do than fend off the infamously litigious CorusCan.

The other fighter was in every way his opposite. Wiry, lithe, mum. Bad news for Mr. Traik.

As the local favorite talked trash, Aver elbowed two kidneys and stomped three feet to clear a path. Front row achieved, the merc sipped at the foam in her plastic cup and settled in for a beatdown.

“Oi, you deaf?” Vress made a show of raising his voice. The people crowed. “Cat what got your arm got your tongue too?” Beer sloshed as the throng thrust their cups in the air.

“Mama raised me not to hit ladies, you know. Which you ain’t.” More laughter. Vress soaked it in for long seconds before he held up his hands for silence. “Mama also raised me not to hit crips. Which you are.” He grinned. “Bully for you, Knuckle Sammich. ‘Cause this—”

“—ain’t your mama’s fight club!” roared the crowd as Vress surged forward with a quick one-two.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Somewhere in the front row, Dobb had managed to barge her way to the front of the ring of bodies, all four feet of maternal Ugnaught standing proudly, like this was her Uglett's first day in the junior blitzball league, and not, in fact, morally dubious bloodsports. "...what did he just call her?" She bristled, stout body gone rigid as the trash talk continued. "OI! OI! You watch your mouth!" the voice bellowed up at the fighter that could not hear her, one small voice drowned out by the cheers.

Somebody had to be offended on Sam's behalf, because the woman in the 'ring' didn't seem phased at all. Lights on, house empty, planted there just staring at Vress like he was the only thing in the room.

He surged, so did she.

Vress Traik had a better reach, and Sam had never been one for a good guard, or a guard at all. The jab with the left connected, bare knuckle on cheekbone, testing the range and setting up for the follow-up. She'd eaten more jabs than she could count, and even more on top of that, given that Sam couldn't count that high... owing to all the jabs eaten. It didn't bother her none; it was the entrée, the hors d'Oeuvres, a tester and a teaser.

She stepped into it, the warning sign if you knew where to look.

The follow-up cross came in with the right, big and fucking dirty. Probably the same straight punch that Vress had ended a good many fights with, the old reliable rear hand. It smashed into her brow like a teenager crashing daddy's classic speeder.

Sam's picture cut out for a quarter of a second. Brains scrambled in the pan. Then the half second, where the majority of punters howled with that pre-win anticipation, just when the next card flipped over to make that sweet twenty-one. Sam robbed them blind. She was still standing. Vision flooding back in at a tilt. Head snapped to the side and the floor not where it had been a second ago. Whole world was underwater, the crowd muted while her own pulse was suddenly hammering in her skull. Heat in the brow. Warm. Wet. Dull.

"Watch your...! Oh. Oh. She's fine. She's fine," Dobb reassured herself from the sidelines, resisting her natural urge to run in with a napkin and a reassuring word.

She was inside his guard now, still standing, forward motion undeterred for her part in a meaty first exchange. The scrapheap arm did the business, a thick dirty shovel hook straight into his liver. A nasty thing that arm, upgraded in the Cairn by Mox, reinforced frame, pain-limiter stripped out. No cap on the output with no care for the flesh it was attached to. Full fucking mechanical force.

 

[Aver Brand]

Somewhen around the fourth drunken bellow into her ear, Aver found herself hankering for her helmet and its wonderful sound-dampening features. Maybe she was getting old.

The miserable thought got blown out her skull by another shout, this one mercifully at crotch-level. A vicious little ughnaught, spitting the only invective in defense of Knuckle Sammich far as she could hear. The merc had half a mind to ask after the smaller fighter, but then the woman (?) went and blocked Vress’ fists with her face.

For a quarter of a second, Aver thought she’d misjudged the balance of power in the bout. Then the half-second ticked, and Sam didn’t keel over, went in and under and made to yank out his liver in recompense. Vress outdid the crowd with his shriek of pain.

Heh. Still got it.

Aver popped a squat next to the bouncing ughnaught as the boy wrapped Sam in a desperate bear hug. Limit movement, limit further damage. The merc spared an ounce of respect for the good instinct, even though it would probably earn him a bitten-off nipple or some shit. Sam had the right sort of glint in those bloodshot eyes.

“Phrik jaw. She yours?” Aver asked as she leaned closer to the fiery shortstack on her left, gaze never leaving the fight.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"Damn right she's mine," Dobb responded, chest out like the proudest, fiercest aunt on the block, eyes still on the fight, "and did you hear what that big ugly streak of piss called her? Crip! To her face!" The Ugnaught was still clearly bristling on Sam's behalf, because somebody had to. "I hope she takes her time."

Sam, meanwhile, was occupied by the bear hug. If she had the sense to think about it, it was the smart move. He was the bigger, stronger fighter; her arms were pinned, and a clean fighter would have been up shit creek without a paddle. She wasn't a clean fighter. She had never been a clean fighter. Clean fights were for dickheads that never once had to fight to survive.

"Remember to breathe, hen!" Dobbs bellowed again before resuming her conversation with the squatting woman. "She doesn't go down. Watch. Best thing you'll see all night." The Ugnaught rummaged in her pockets for a few seconds before producing another cloth-wrapped package, which was offered to the woman without ceremony. "You want jerky? I've got jerky."

Oblivious to her ardent cheerleader at the front of the ring, Sam did what at least one person in the room was thinking.

She opened her mouth.

Vress saw it too late, a row of tombstones in a dilapidated graveyard. Chipped, broken, or missing, the mouth of a woman who heard about the concept of dodging and thought it was a waste of movement. She didn't even lunge; more like burrowed her face up into the side of his as far as she could go and bit into the corner of his jaw, finding the meat of his cheek and the soft underneath in a filthy clamp. No rip, no tear, just feral pressure from the back molars.

 

[Aver Brand]

“Well, I don’t know her,” Aver chuckled as the ugnaught puffed her chest, “but she doesn’t seem patient enough for that.”

No recrimination in her tone, neither; been there herself, many moons ago. She’d put good credits on the reasons being similar, too. Aver felt a twinge of kinship with every screaming, hurting creature in this damp basement.

Even Vress, squealing like a pig as Sam chomped down on his face. “You fuckin’ mad cunt!”

He started slamming his elbows into her back, then tried to leverage his longer arms against her skull to wrench her away. Red dribbled down their fronts now, saturating the air like the finest perfume.

Aver licked the back of her teeth and slid her eyes off the lutte accompli and to the proud matron beside her.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said with a close-lipped smile and unfolded the cloth. The scent of spice cut through the odours of the club like a lightsaber, sharp and clean. Her smile grew teeth. If this was some elaborate scheme to poison her, she would commend this assassin for getting her preferences spot on before blowing out her brains.

The flavour bloomed full-bodied on her tongue as she tore off a leathery chunk. Her eyelids fluttered. “Damn, tastes even better than it smells,” she groaned and stuck out her free hand. “Aver. Homemade, right?”

A pall had fallen over the crowd now that their champion was spouting more blood than smack. It would never get entirely quiet in a place like this, but it definitely got quiet enough to hear the wet noises of enamel against bone.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

As the polite, young lady's (at least from where the Ugnaught was standing) teeth tore into Dobb's lovingly made nuna jerky, Sam's teeth were torn off Vress' squealing face.

Sam had been undeterred by the elbows that hammered into her back, becoming the dog that would not let go, and was only removed when he wrenched her head away. The manoeuvre asked a question. What would give first, her teeth or his face? It was promptly answered. The purchase of her molars slipped when he forcibly moved her head, leaving jagged canines and the remaining chipped incisors free to pierce and drag, and Sam came away, quite visibly, with shreds of his cheek between her teeth.

The crowd, well, the crowd needed a moment to digest the scene. Except Dobb, who expressed her delight and support with an enthusiasm that didn't seem capable of waning. "That's our girl! Did you see that? Did everyone see that?!" It was hard not to see; there was a lot of blood.

Sam heard it this time, and didn't know what to do with it. The genuine heartfelt cheer sat on Sam's shoulders like something foreign as the man opposite her clutched at the parts of his missing face with slick, red fingers. A second later, it was shrugged off, as Sam bounded back into violence, her scrap arm rocketing upwards like a piston to deliver a brutal uppercut to Vress that would hopefully knock him into next week.

"Homemade!" Dobb seized the offered hand in both of hers and shook it like a pump handle. "Four days in the dryer, you're the first one to try it. My lot won't go near it." Without room to object, the Ugnaught pressed the whole cloth bundle into Aver's captive hand. "Go on, take the lot; I've got more on the ship. I'm Dobb, and that one's Sam."

 

[Aver Brand]

Girl seemed about as fitting as polite, young lady. The pint-sized cheerleader maybe wasn’t the best judge of character. Or maybe she was of the same persuasion. Not that Aver would complain about being mistaken for a human being, but getting stellar jerky into the bargain just sealed the deal.

Aver hummed and pocketed the gift. By the time she got home tonight, the smell would permanently bond with the jacket, but it was a small price to pay for prime meat. “Love to take a peek at your recipe, if you’re willing to—”

The crowd oohed as Sam snapped back Vress’ head in an arc of blood.

“—share. Damn. What’re you feedin’ her?”

The taller fighter waffled a retaliatory cross, stumbled on watery legs, and collapsed into the dust at Sam’s feet. A referee rushed out to tap out the count. Perfunctory; the boy’s feet were twitching as if he’d been struck by lightning.

Aver chewed on her bottom lip. “Say, Dobb.”

What were the chances that Dobb, affable ugnaught mother-figure to a streetfighter with more chin than sense was the same as Dobb, renowned ugnaught demo expert with greatest hits such as ‘Republic Senate-in-exile’, ‘Heir apparent of Naboo, his noghri lover, and half the love hotel on Zeltros’, and ‘Datt Preekh, the premier food-critic for the Manarai Gazette’?

Well, no matter. If anyone could appreciate the anonymity of a nameless underground gladiatorial arena, it was the warlord formerly known as Vrag.

“Think your Sam’s got room on her dance card?”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"THAT'S IT! Oh, well done, sweetheart, well done!" The Ugnuaght erupted, immediately fishing back in her pockets and retrieving an astonishingly clean handkerchief for the venue.

"Proper food, that's all it is," Dobb crowed with enormous pride, "I do a stew." The part that wasn't mentioned was quite how difficult it was to get Sam to eat said stew on a regular basis. It wasn't out of any dislike of Dobb's cooking, but the girl had carried her prison appetite out with her. The Ugnaught would not be deterred; she would cook, she would offer, and she would cook again.

"Aye, she's free. Just give me a... Sam! SAM! THIS ONE WANTS A GO!"

Sam, shockingly, did not hear her. She was too busy staring at the man on the deck, eyes flat, body coiled, waiting to see if her opponent would try to get up again and more than prepared to launch a boot through his teeth if he even tried. She was still, but it was not calm.

"She's a wee bit deaf sometimes," Dobb explained to Aver, licking the corner of the handkerchief. "Comes and goes. SAM! HEN!"

The referee called it. It was done. There was no great fanfare on her part; Sam didn't feed off the crowd, didn't showboat or spit on the man while he was sparked. Didn't feel it, didn't feel like doing it. Instead, she turned her attention to her arm; the hits landed had been delivered at full force and without the governor, the pain always caught up in the end. She let the scraphead hang for a moment, shoulder sitting lower, the gnawing ache lancing up the flesh from the join and into the shoulder.

Then, she noticed Dobb. Shouting. Waving.

Sam approached the edge of the 'ring', and without fear, the Ugnaught caught her real wrist, pulled her down into a crouch and immediately went after the split eyebrow with the corner of the handkerchief. "Hold still, you've split it again."

"S'fine," Sam grunted, trying to turn her head away before Dobb took her jaw in one hand and turned her face to the light as if she was inspecting fruit. Every other member of Rade's crew Sam could handle, but Dobb was the exception. Everybody in the galaxy wanted something, even warm people, especially warm people. But as far as she could reckon, the Sundry's demolition expert wanted nothing. She was just like this, and something about it was paralysing, more often than not making her go still, like an animal being handled.

"There we go, turn to the light, love," Dobb continued, dabbing away at her cut with an inexplicable fondness. "Now, this nice woman here was wondering if you would like to fight."

Sam attempted to take a look at said nice woman, but made it about two seconds before her head was swiftly turned back around for attending, managing a glance instead of an appraisal. "Stop fidgeting, Sam. My goodness."

"Yea' I can go 'gain," Sam replied, unable to do anything other than be tended to. "Ya meanin' here an' now?"

 

[Aver Brand]

After a dumbfounded moment, Aver glanced away from the intimate scene. A melancholy ache seized her heart as she settled her unseeing eyes on the cleaning crew dragging Vress Traik from the circle. She’d never had someone in her corner like this, waiting to wipe the blood off her brow, making sure she stayed fed and on her feet.

Not that she would’ve wanted it, then. Or even understood that a relationship could be something other than transactional.

She twirled the ring around her finger and willed herself to ignore the soft conversation beside her until Sam addressed her directly.

“Yeah, but—” Aver inhaled, paused.

They stood close enough that she could smell more than the iron on her breath. Cloying, sweet, synthetic. Like the solvent they used to clean the floors here after-hours.

“You let her fight high?” The amusement was gone from her tone, mouth a thin line.

Aver glared at Dobb, then shifted her gaze to the fighter in her tender grasp. “Only if you’re sober.” A beat, and the merc shrugged off her jacket. “And if you promise you won’t try to catch every hit with your face.”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Dobb's handkerchief froze in mid-dab.

Nobody aboard the Sundry had acknowledged the grit; it wasn't spoken about, and it hadn't been flagged as a problem. It came from the Cairn and was carried over into the crew without intervention. They knew, they all knew, but as long as it wasn't causing a problem or impacting the work, then it was just private baggage, and everybody had that.

The Ugnaught's mouth opened, but no response came out. There was a reason that trying to get Sam to eat a proper meal was such a challenge, and it had just been named out loud and directed at her.

"Nah," Sam drawled, standing up now that Dobb had been stunned by the accusation, "'dere ain't no lettin' me do shit."

She didn't take too kindly to the implication that anybody was letting her do, or be anything. Like she was owned.

With Sam's attention now fully settled on this 'nice woman', she could acknowledge the frame. She measured. Shoulders, reach, the weight and where it sat, and how she thought it would move in a fight. There was something about her that made the hair stand to attention on one and a half arms, but the reasoning got lost; the thought came halfway through then toppled back down like they tended to do these days. It didn't show on Sam's face; it showed on her neck, every muscle pulled taut.

"Fight high if I fuckin' want," she said, low and slow, eyes still red-rimmed and unblinking. High was generous right then; she was about to hit the crash. "Take hits how I fuckin' want."

Sam stepped forward, planting herself directly in front of the woman, expression flat and continued to stare.

"You got a problem wi'dat?"

 

[Aver Brand]

Pride animated Sam’s features like even the brawl beforehand hadn’t. Figures. Lucky that Aver had experience aplenty handling bruised egos. Mostly her own.

She held Sam’s gaze as she pulled her hair into a tight bun. “You want to keep chasing oblivion fighting the local losers, that’s your right.” A jerk of her chin at Vress, now recovering on a barstool with ice on his chin and bacta on his cheek. “You want a challenge, you can fight me.”

Even as the smaller woman pressed into her personal space, the merc stayed put. Half her own instincts, honed from birth on Nadir; half skills taught much later at the hands of a beast-taming mate.

“My problem—” she began, and was promptly interrupted by the boisterous bookie.

“Sorry ladies, gents, aliens,” the houk barreled into the conversation. “Sam – I hate to say it, but you really oughta consider a moniker, you know? – here’s your cut for decking Traik. Lovely work, that, with the teeth. Really went for it, huh?” He chuckled, gave her an over-familiar pat on the shoulder, and disappeared back into the milling crowd.

Aver had the grace to lower her voice. “My problem is that if I kill you,” at this her eyes cut briefly over to Dobb, “I’m gonna be stuck looking for explosives under my speeder for the rest of my life. So do us both a favor and block with your hands, yeah?”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

There were a few solid retorts that Sam could have volleyed back with. She wasn't chasing shit, and she wasn't looking for a challenge. This was downtime, a way to unwind between jobs, no longer the reason for being and just...

Just what?

She lost the thread, and when the bookie rolled in, it was already forgotten. Dobb took the purse, not because it wasn't Sam's purse, but because Sam didn't take her eyes off the other woman. She had the target; she was fixated, and credits took a back seat when the blinkers were on. Even the mammoth hand clapping down on her shoulder didn't elicit so much as a flinch.

"Under the speeder?" Dobb finally chimed in, a pained expression cresting without having asked permission first. "You'd not even..." She managed to stop herself, catching her words before she said far too much and went about stowing the purse. "Right. Well. It's not the worst idea, Sam, hen."

Sam grunted.

She stepped backwards into the informal ring, eyes never budging from her new opponent. The edges of the comedown still lurking, the lights veering a little too bright, the bass a little too distorted. Fresh aches and old aches both a little more present than they had been five minutes prior. The head, the arm, the old ankle. Nothing she couldn't endure but nothing she wanted to endure.

Rather pointedly, she did not raise her hands into a guard.

 

[Aver Brand]

“Sorry, Dobb,” and to her own surprise, Aver even meant it. “I’m sure you’d pick a much better place to stash the bomb.” She flashed her best mother-charmer and held out her jacket. “Could you hold onto this for me? Thanks.”

To think that both apologies and gratitude now fell so easily off her tongue. Back during her first years on Coruscant, the words couldn’t be pried out her mouth with a plier.

Rolling her shoulders, shaking out her arms, relaxing her knees – small rituals enacted en route to the center of the ring. The bookie’s bellow cut through the noise of a gathering audience. Sam had the better odds going, on account of laying flat the local champ. Just as well. Aver wasn’t looking to turn any heads down here.

And there Sam stood, hands at her sides in a pointed statement. Fuck you, or somesuch.

Fine, replied Aver via cocked brow.

Her footwork was a quick half-circle off to the right, away from the cybernetics. Two steps forward, a feint with her lead to cover for the actual jab. Also with her lead. She wasn’t aiming to shatter a jaw or even send Sam rocking.

Just a light flick on the chin.