They say it looked like a fountain of energy from out in space…

We were exposed, and something sparked within us; our lives changed.

Some of us would have never become fighters if not for this,

But we’ve always been enthralled by a good fight, even as spectators.

Now watch us take center stage…

Fists of Light: Episode 1

The cold blue flash and the subsequent boom, accompaniment to the metronomic spattering of water over the desolate, early morning Ikebukuro streets, went hand-in-hand with the powerful body blow signaling the end of the fight. The punch, altogether thunderous and bone-crushing, instantly shattered a friendship, leaving behind only bitterness and resentment.

Rain continued to spill furiously from cloudy gray skies, drenching both the champion and his defeated foe: the young woman who laid unconscious beneath his feet. Thoroughly worn as he had been by his opponent, he stood tall, his scruffy, muscular figure towering over her small, crumpled frame. And on this man’s angled, chiseled face was a scowl.

"If only the 'Fountain of Light' didn’t happened," he thought, wiping the blood from the side of his mouth with his wrist "then this wouldn't have either..."

A moment of hesitation passed and, with a sudden limp, the world champion turned his back on the fallen opponent, beginning to hobble away; the leg kick the girl surprised him with towards the end of the fight did more damage to him than he wished to admit. But then again, Ygor Fyodorovsky would have never wished to admit that she had come closer than any man --- any professional in the ring or octagon --- to besting him.

Not a dozen steps away, he stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder, hoping that she could subconsciously hear him berate her through the white noise of the falling rain.

"You're too far gone for softness, Sophia! It’s irritating having to accept that you could do me this much damage. Females were never meant to hit that hard, that fast: they were never meant to be the warriors! But if you want to fight so badly, if that's the road you still want to choose, I’m sure you can handle yourself if I leave you here … just don’t cry when I have to kill you the next time we meet…"

Fyodorovsky then turned his back on her and walked away for good, leaving the soaked and floored Sophia Murakami to her own devices. If his punches, his kicks, his words, and even the vicious Guillotine choke he had almost managed to sink in did not get his message across, it would only be a matter of time before they would have come to blows once again…

&&&&&&

When Sophia came to, she found herself indoors, tucked into a futon with a heater next to her and a towel under her head. Instead of soaking outside with the side of her face to the street, she was keeping warm in somebody’s apartment, but apparently not her own: something that unnerved her.

Sophia initially perceived the room to be hers, figuring she somehow dragged herself home even if she couldn’t recollect doing so. But an almost-suffocating pain wracked her abdomen when she tried to sit up; even considering the inhuman physical punishment she could endure, this kind of injury would leave her immobile for a few days at the very least. It was clear that somebody retrieved her when she was still unconscious, and she had only hoped it wasn’t anyone looking to take advantage of her.

Though she kept mindful of her surroundings, Sophia had a hard time shaking the fact she’d just lost a friend. It was to be expected, given that the wound Fydorovsky left her was literally such a painful reminder, but now she was alone in her endeavors as a fighter, left wondering what had to be done from then on. She did know that she would have to face him again if she were to rightfully prove herself. But she was aware that it would mean completely letting go of her previous attachment to him.

She could still hear the spattering of rain outside, something she’d come to associate with that day. Arising from a simultaneous need to keep distracted and to better understand her circumstances, her eyes began wandering about the room (the lights being on further cued her in on the fact she wasn’t back at home). She could tell that the resident of the apartment was either luckier than her or simply better off financially, given how much more spacious this one was than her own.

There was a small, rectangular shaped table nearby. It had been mostly clear, save for a black laptop she noticed sitting comfortably by the edge with a charger connected to it, something that had her pondering further about the nature of her keeper.

A sizable bookcase against the wall she faced also told her a bit about who kept her there; two shelves were dedicated to volumes of manga, along with other anime-related paraphernalia. The two under were packed with literary works, the most visible one being a hefty hardcover copy of Beowulf. The larger spaced shelf below that one housed a collection of language-teaching books. And on the lowest, largest spaced shelf were the heaviest books; there were a number of textbooks and language supplements, though most of the books were, oddly enough, business ones.

All the while, Sophia was puzzled by a strange sensation she had felt. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, at first, but when she rustled about a bit in her futon, it became annoyingly clear what was wrong; she was in her underwear and the rest of her clothes had apparently been taken from her.

“--- the FUCK…?!”

Sophia almost managed to scramble out of her futon upon the surprise that she’d been disrobed, but was quickly gripped by the same pain she felt when she first tried to sit up. Clenching her teeth, she slouched back down, alternating mutters of “itai” and “shit”under her breath. This racket had apparently caught the attention of the resident of the apartment, who came rushing by the doorway.

Raising an eyebrow in his own surprise, and then apparently chuckling to himself, he sauntered in and leaned against the wall, his arms folded.

“Oh, so you’re finally awake? And you speak English.”

There was a cruelly playful smile on Sophia’s keeper, a young man about her age who (as she expected) did not seem to be Japanese like her. She guessed him to be of Malay, maybe Polynesian descent, given his facial features and golden-dark complexion. With his clean, shoulder-length jet black hair, blue jeans ripped by the knees, loosely tucked-in shirt, and the light, weathered green jacket he wore with sleeves rolled up, he exuded a rugged, laid-back, yet paradoxically well-kempt character.

Although he did seem handsome in a way, it didn’t concern her. And she was disturbed --- no, furious that he had the nerve to strip her.

“Stop playing around and shut the FUCK up!” She covered herself up with her bedsheets, yelling at him as she completely ignored his sarcastic remarks. “Where the hell are my clothes?!” Traces of any Japanese accent in Sophia’s English were absent, and she fought hard to raise her voice and make it clear she was agitated in spite of the biting pain she still felt.

The young man opposite her chuckled again, this time closing his eyes and digging his forehead to his palm. But upon lifting his head to look back at Sophia, his playful smile suddenly turned into a weaker one.

“Hey I said I’m sorry! But I didn’t want you getting sick, that’s why I took your clothes off.” His gaze then dropped, unable to level with hers. “I’m even drying them right now in the basement; gave them a quick wash and then put them into the dryer.”

An awkward silence followed thereafter. To an extent, Sophia felt a bit embarrassed that she passed judgment on her host so quickly. But she still felt inclined not to completely trust him.

She kept her agitated expression and shuffled again in the futon, beginning to lie down on her side.

“Why didn’t you just call for an ambulance?”

“I saw your fight as it came to a head…” he responded, his eyes to the ground. “You wanted me to let you get in trouble? I know what they do to kyokaningen who break ‘That Law’. You either get incarcerated or straight killed… besides, you’re Yakuza, aren’t you?”

The young man sounded earnest in his concerns, but Sophia felt annoyed by his slight naiveté over the International Enhanced Human Act. Her unsanctioned fight with Fyodorovsky was in fact highly illegal, but she would have actually been ‘safer’ given the connections he assumed her to have.

The question was a test, and he had failed. Now instead of showing appreciation, she would only give the “gaijin” more of her feigned ingratitude. She turned around in her futon and faced away from him.

“Baka yaro…I could have handled myself just fine…”

She heard him snicker behind her back. “Ano na… not even a ‘thank you’ huh?”

Sophia raised an eyebrow; the stranger’s first mutterings were bizarre to her. Though the words ano and na were recognizable as commonly used flowerings in everyday Japanese, their compound usage was unheard of. Maybe he was also so caught up in the moment that he primitively muttered with the language he thought in.

“By the way,” she finally began responding to his earlier question. Her back still to him, her blanket dropped slightly, revealing the ornate design peeking from behind the straps of her bra. “I’m actually not a Yakuza.”

“I don’t believe you. Are you serious? You’ve got some balls then, with that freaking tattoo.”

She giggled, immediately surprised thereafter that she still could given how downtrodden she felt. It was strange how after she had just lost a friend, she seemed to already be making a new one; it was something that felt disgusting to her, yet liberating at the same time.

“I know I have balls. But so do you, being normal and still keeping me here after you found out I had this thing on my back…”

&&&&&&

As the day had only just begun in Japan, the sun was already setting on the other side of the world. London being bathed in chrome light portended to the bustling night life soon to emerge from hiding.

To this end, a certain red coupe that had been cutting through the Inner City from the East End inexplicably blasted past a red stoplight, forcing bystanders to back away in panic and vehicles perpendicular to keep prone a moment longer. The two men in the car were going to be late for work if they did not rush. And though it gained them much ire, the driver insisted that they made haste.

“Are you daft?” the large, ponytailed black man in the passenger seat quipped, albeit with a level of calm. He only furrowed his brows for a bit, slightly unnerved but altogether unshaken.

The older, lighter complexioned man in a suit with a bowtie shook his head. “Yeah, I know, but we won’t ‘ave been so frickin’ late, Phil, if it wasn’t for you and that damn… French thing you do, ‘Parker’ or whatever it’s called.’”

Phil smirked, shuffling a bit in his seat and adjusting the jacket of his own suit under his safety belt. “Hey, don’t knock on it man, Parkour is a pretty liberating experience.”

“You’re an Enhanced Human who’s been given the title of ‘Most Dangerous Man in the World’ by a renowned martial arts publication, I bet it does.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it Bob, I’ve been doing Parkour even before I got hit by the Fountain.”

“Yeah, whatever, mate.”

After turning on the next intersection, he stopped at the following light and took a glance over his shoulder.

“Damn, I only hope that the fuzz didn’t catch that little mess back there…” he muttered. “I’m starting to become like you now.” The bartender paused for a while, a contemplative look on his face, before bringing his eyes back to the road in front. “By the way, you’ve heard, right?”

“Heard what?”

“They said it earlier this morning; Fyodorovsky had to cancel his next fight due to a training accident.”

At this point, the bouncer in the passenger seat was notably surprised. “Wait, a training accident?”

“Something about him rock climbing without any equipment…”

Silence set in again as the light turned green and Bob floored the gas pedal. Phil was well-acquainted with Fyodorovsky, having befriended him after the two had an exhibition match a few years back. He had come to know him well enough and realized this was very uncharacteristic of him; reclining in his seat, Phil wondered what was really going on.

“More like he got into trouble with some people… maybe Yakuza or something. He never was the type to run to the law over those kinds of problems.”

“Hahaha, maybe he was messing with one of their ladies, y’ fancy? I hear they’ve got some really deadly schoolgirls over their, mate, hahaha!”

A smirk crept up on Phil’s face as he turned to look at his coworker. “Nah, I know the guy’s a real family man. He doesn’t seem like the type to fool around, and especially not younger girls, they remind him too much of his daughter”

“Ah, that’s right, mate, I’d be talking about you now when it came to that, wouldn’t I? Hahahahaha!”

Phil only shook his head with a grin and chuckled before readjusting his seat and again sitting upright.

&&&&&&

It wasn’t far from the hastening companions that a particular man eagerly gazed over the sunset-drenched metropolis from his high-rise office. His corporate headquarters towered over the rest of Canary Wharf, the area of the city which had recently become its premier financial district, emphasizing the world-renowned power and influence of he and his company, the Uroboros Conglomerate.

The large, stocky Caucasian, an intimidating 6’8, scoffed as he looked down upon London, feeling his grasp over the world had not yet matched his imposing frame. He had become impatient.

“Incompetence… how much longer is it going to take?” he muttered in solitude, his low voice still resounding in echo throughout the spacious room.

Suddenly, the intercom on his desk began to beep. A smile crept on the large, middle-aged man’s face as he turned around.

“Mr. Uroboros…” the receptionist chimed in. “Dr. Singer is here for you.”

“Let him in.”

After a short while, the elevator doors gradually slid open with a ding, revealing a platinum-haired young man in a laboratory coat carrying a laptop bag. He did not even seem to be in his late twenties.

“Well, please do tell me, Singer…” Uroboros addressed his head scientist as he walked in. “How is everything progressing?” There was a sense of causticity in the C.E.O’s voice.

Singer only sat down on one of the swiveling chairs from across from his boss, taking the laptop from out of its bag and putting it on the table. He exited the computer’s hibernate mode and opened a program with a blueprint of the project he had been spearheading, turning it over for his boss to see. Confident in himself, he then smiled defiantly.

“Rather promptly, sir.”

Singer carried a self-assured air about himself when he stated this. He became unnerved, however, when after a lengthy silence, his superior’s eyes narrowed and he brought his hand to his chin in an almost in a lighthearted manner. Singer’s right eye began to twitch at this sight.

“Now tell me, Singer,” Uroboros began “what exactly is the difference between this and your previous colossal flop?”

The young prodigy gulped. “‘What exactly is the difference between this, and--- ngggh!!’”

Before Singer could nervously repeat Uroboros’ quip, his boss had reached across the desk and grabbed him by the collar with a single hand, lifting him high above himself. His legs dangling as he struggled and pleaded to be let go of, Uroborus only let off a sneer.

“My patience is growing thin with the incompetence of you and your team, Singer; it already grates me enough to… lay eyes on your pathetic, sniveling visage so often. But then we’re here… on the threshold… on the bloody threshold, and all you can present me with are failures, projects that go nowhere!”

In a seeming fit of rage, Uroborus throttled Singer with such strength and fury that his helpless body tumbled and rolled against the carpeted floor until it came to a crashing halt by the door from which he entered.

Once again eaten by fear, Singer blinked rapidly, only for Uroborus to appear by him in the middle of one of his blinks. It was déjà vu. This case was a repeat of preceding visits to his superior; he was just lucky that he did not end up bleeding again.

“Promise me…” he uttered, as he cornered the young prodigy. “… just promise me that you will not fail me again…!”

Singer tried to stand up, bracing himself against the closed doors. “There is nothing wrong with the project, s-s-sir!” Taking a deep breath and fighting to erase the traces of fear from his person, he stood upright, adjusted his lab coat, and stopped hyperventilating. “There is nothing wrong. You may look at the results for yourself. They don’t lie.”

Again, silence took the office, as Singer only raised an eyebrow. Then Uroboros suddenly burst into laughter, gesturing whimsically as he spoke.

“That’s the spirit, boy, that’s the moxy I’ve been trying to instill in you! You almost had it at the beginning, but you broke! Haha…”

Uroboros turned his back on his subordinate and stood tall, very slowly walking back to his desk

“But that’s obviously not enough for me. We are a team, remember that; we must all be strong in this bloody world, lest we perish. And we must all work together perfectly doing our part.”

He then disappeared from where he had been in a single puzzled blink from Singer, appearing once again by his desk staring out into the city. He laid his hand on the laptop behind him.

“… which is why I will take a look at this alone, barring your explanations and excuses, to evaluate your progress for myself. You may go now, Singer, and if you’re doing what you should be doing, I won’t have to cut you off from us.”

Narrowing his eyes, Singer turned around himself and pressed a button on the control panel of the elevator door. In no time, it arrived for him with a ding, but also brought with it a tall, slender, short-haired blonde with unnaturally crimson eyes, a sharp chin in a black dress. Undoubtedly, she was beautiful, but one could sense a sort of austereness about her, both in her features and the way she carried herself.

“I heard the beating he gave you from downstairs. My, how you make me jealous!” she teased in an evidently Spanish accent.

“You lab rat trick… you have no right to talk to me like that.”

She scoffed. “Watch your tongue.” The mysterious woman told him, as he passed her by and switched places with her. “No, better yet watch your balls; I’ve snipped off bollas with more weight and flavor than those puny testicles of yours, maricon but I’m still quite sure the black market could find a use for them.”

&&&&&&

In only a week, Sophia had recovered to the point she could resume training again. She quickly befriended the foreigner who took her in, returning home after staying only three days but promising to keep in touch.

It was halfway into the following week that she asked to spend a day with her new friend R.G throughout Ikebukuro, causing his face to light up. Having recently moved in, he wasn’t well acquainted with the area or the people there, so he was content to establish some kind of rapport with her.

Though they did see other sights in the morning, they spent most of their afternoon at an arcade Sophia constantly frequented. Aside from her knack for physical combat, R.G quickly learned she had a talent for rhythm-based games, her scores often the highest amongst the rankings. Though he had been unable to keep up with her in spite of making an earnest effort to beat her high scores, he did manage to annoy her with his own prowess in the fighting games there, consistently beating her regardless of how much she kept focused. After a while, she half-jokingly threatened to flatten him with one of the game cabinets if he persisted in aggressively bulldogging her. This apparently scared R.G into letting up, eventually leading to him losing a match to her, Sophia gloating, and her terrifyingly giving him a “light” kick in his shin, which led to him having to limp around for a good bit afterwards.

Before the sun began to set, the two left the arcade and found themselves walking through a much less crowded part of Ikebukuro. The young Filipino man was puzzled; as the place seemed to hold nothing of much interest, being a more residential neighborhood, he was confused as to why she led him there.

“R.G…” she suddenly muttered with a devious smirk, steadily breaking into a run. “Catch me if you can.”

R.G raised an eyebrow, momentarily stopping in surprise before he went after her. Able to promptly catch up, he soon realized that she had been holding back much of her potential. Sensing that he understood this, she laughed.

“Wow, you run pretty fast for a normal person… especially one who’d just been kicked in the leg! ” the Japanese girl yelled back to her companion as she began to run even faster, dashing into an alleyway. As he trailed behind her, she had managed to vault over obstacles he only moved aside to avoid. Her eyes narrowed. “Demo, you’re not moving efficiently... and I’m not even trying!”

“‘Not even trying?!’ With YOUR wound still bothering you?! You’re fucking kidding me…!”

At this point, Sophia chuckled and suddenly catapulted herself up to the rooftops from the alleys with a series of wall-kicks, her shoulder-length, blonde-frosted black hair blowing in the wind.

“Aww, you can’t catch me up here, now can ya’?”

The young man stopped. Leaning over seemingly to catch his breath as he rested his hands on his knees, he sighed. He began muttering to himself.

“Is this for that beating I gave her in ‘MB’? Wasn’t the kick enough?”

Suddenly he smiled, his cascaded hair obscuring his face.

“Sigue…looks like another beautiful girl leads to my cover being blown. But: as long as we don’t damage property and keep it inconspicuous, I don’t think any Enforcers are gonna give us grief… besides kicking people in the shin is MY trademark…!”

Fervor suddenly took him as he deviously grimaced up at his friend dawdling by the edge of a building roof. “I can see under your skirt from here…” he joked lecherously under his breath in a sing-song voice.

In his own splendid display of agility, R.G followed suit and --- with more effort but seemingly more ease --- also bounced between building walls to propel himself higher. When he had been a few meters away from the roof where Sophia had been taunting him, he catapulted himself and leapt over her, beginning to somersault forward numerous times; he was going to crash down on her with some kind of attack.

Sophia’s eyes widened and her smile dissipated, an anxiousness taking hold of her; questions began to scuttle about her mind. She wondered how she could have been so gullible, wondered if her new friend were really an Enforcer or anyone else who could have been out for her blood. ‘What were his intentions for suddenly attacking her?’ ‘Who was he, really?’

These thoughts momentarily paralyzed her, keeping her from avoiding his predictable rolling kick until the very last moment... where she had been forced to instead deflect it while stepping aside. He was too close to her afterwards and she had already been facing him, having instinctively put up her dukes. There was no point in her trying to run now, although she realized it would have allowed her to vocalize her concerns.

“R.G… you’re a Kyokaningen too?!”

Putting his hands to his hip, tucking one of his thumbs in his pocket as he leaned back arrogantly, he began to cackle. At first sadistic and diabolical, his token villain’s laugh began to fade into a more mischievous snicker, as if R.G had found childish amusement in Sophia’s shock.

“Ohhh… that’s right! Scared you didn’t I?!” he blurted, leaning forward and grinning smugly for a while. But when he realized Sophia still scowling, his smile disappeared. He whined, rolling his eyes. “Oh come on! Stop looking at me like that! No, I’m NOT an Enforcer if that’s what you’re thinking…!”

Her mouth slightly open in disgust at hearing this, Sophia only snapped at R.G. “You FUCKING idiot. You want to fight me now?! Didn’t you remember what you told me last week?!” She realized he only wanted a friendly match, but she was genuinely concerned for him; something told her he was a newcomer to Enhanced Human street fights, even if had been one for five years as she had.

R.G sought to assure her. “Hey, hey…I know you’ve got your Yakuza connections, so you’ll be a’ight. But you know, I’m not really in much danger myself either.”

A cool wind then blew by the two, forcing the both of them to sweep their hair from their faces; it was as if R.G’s veil of naivety had been promptly blown off with those summer winds.

She dropped her arms to her sides, hoping to make it seem she dropped her guard when all she did was assume a stance granting her more mobility. If he did not take the opportunity attack her then, perhaps he was not an Enforcer after all.

“Who… are you, R.G? Really?”

Once again, R.G smiled a weak smile with a raised eyebrow.

“I think you’ve heard of me before. While I’m not gonna say who I really am until I think I can trust you, I’ll tell you that I’m known in Southeast Asian underground fighting circuits as Macurpo Verde. You’ve heard of the name, right?”

Sophia’s eyes widened, her mouth slightly opening in surprise.

“You’re Macurpo Verde?”

Sophia first seemed shock. But after a brief moment of silence, she began to laugh, surprising R.G.

“Hah! I kicked you in the shin! No wonder you want to fight me… your pride’s hurt, isn’t it?”

R.G growled, somewhat annoyed but still amused by her snide remark. With that, he raised his fists and assumed his own stance; right hand in the rear, guarding the side of his face, left hand in the lead, with knuckles pointed towards Sophia, and feet spaced out evenly to keep agile and balanced.

“Okay… I may be wounded, but we’re just sparring, after all. I’ve always wanted to fight you, you know.”

“Likewise, ‘Wild Goddess,’ I share the same fucking sentiments…”

After another moment of silence with neither making a move, the two rushed headlong towards each other, thrilled by the prospects of an enjoyable fight; it had been fun enough when the two confronted each other in the arcade, but they knew it would be something altogether different and all the more wondrous when there were working their hardest to physically beat each other into submission.