I Destroyed a Man.... and Liked It

Cole let out a long defeated sigh as he hung his head down. Maybe the half demon woman was right. Maybe she could help with it, after all she literally had a demon side. Her entire story was fighting and overcoming something like that so... well if anyone could understand it might be her. Cole leaned back, shoulders slumped, against the couch he had his back to. He took another deep breath before looking at Raven in the face again. Still had that look in her eye but her face was far warmer.

"I need a drink for this." Cole muttered as he shuffled in place on the carpet. He was still avoiding looking at Raven's eyes. He really didn't want to see how she'd judge him for what she was about to hear. Or maybe it'd be old hat for her. Something not a big deal to a half demon hero who dealt with this kinda stuff all the time.

"You said you couldn’t handle drinks though." Raven told him, her voice soft. She kept her hand out for him to take but Cole just patted the ground next to him. Raven gave a slight nod and took it.

"Yeah well, sometimes you wanna get smashed." Cole muttered, as he leaned back and stretched out. He opened and closed his hand into a fist, slowly figuring out how to start, and how to keep it going. "Cause if I don't keep going... I'll probably clam up." Cole thought, sending a look at Raven. She sighed and vanished into one of her portals.

She returned with a can of beer and handed it to him, which Cole was grateful for. Less grateful when he realized half the drink was gone. He gave her another look but the sorceress just shrugged. "You never said it was to be a full beer." she stated.

"....Fair. Just need some to get my tongue loose anyway." Cole muttered as he brought the can to his lips. The cold tart taste sent a shiver down his body. He shook it off before putting the can to the side and leaned back, eyes staring up at the Ceiling. "Better now than never..." he thought.

"Okay so," Cole started, licking his lips and rotating his wrist just a bit, "There was this match. Against this guy I kinda didn’t like that much. Kinda an asshole. The kind that makes the rest of us look bad. Shit talking other boxers, refs, fans, spending tons of money, hookers and... ALLEGEDLY ****; Look you know the idea of boxing thug?" he paused long enough to look at Raven who just nodded before continuing, "Well that was him. Just like the biggest 'I own this place' asshole who could get away with it cause he's heading to the top."

"We hadn't fought before that point. Butted heads yeah at events or in interviews, but hadn't fought. Think we were still measuring each other, taking stock of what the fight would be like." Cole downed more of his drink, finding his words just tumbling out of his mouth now, "Mocking jabs and character insults. Riffs on each other's matches about how 'I would have done it' you know? That sort of thing. He thought I was just worthless meat tossed into the ring that kept getting lucky, I thought he was a mistake given gloves. This guy left his share of broken and battled guys in the ring. And more than zero of them were **** to retire way before they should have." Cole grabbed his soda to replenish now as he didn't want to go through his beer this early.

Raven just sat there, listening to it all. Part of her was worried if she said something without being prompted Cole would back off. "Better to just let him work through it on his own pace." she thought.

"So of course, eventually the match is set up. Two guys that have been itching to fight each other in the ring. We weren’t the highlight match that night, but man were people looking forward to this match. It was packed with fans, regulars and the people who could sense the coming blood shed. Heh" He gave a slight chuckle as he tapped his can with his fingers, "Even my folks came to watch, family too. Uncle was there, Cousin I hadn't seen in years, I had an Aunt tell me she was gonna watch it with her kids. Ah..., wanted to do them all proud."

"But..." He gave a deep sigh, his hand starting to grip the can hard enough to start bending the metal, "I dunno. Maybe he had flunkies. Maybe it was bad timing. Maybe fate. But the guy ended up bumpping into my family as they came in. He got into it with them; name calling me, dunking on my uncle as a trainer, assaulted my ma.. Oh I'm sorry, accidentally tripped her when he lost his balance. Couldn't really prove he didn't but..., he was doing it just to rile me up. He didn't care about them, he cared he could get to me through them. Just little animals to tease for his amusement. Since it was just him being kinda a dick and you really can't prove he didn't trip since it was on stairs, he wasn't ejected." By this point the can was about half as thick as it normally would be due to Cole subconsiously crushing it as he spoke. "Worked too. I was so wired and ready to go clean his clock."

"So finally get into the ring. We’re ready to go." Cole lazily brought the can up to his face and with his other hand flicked a finger at it. The dull 'tink' seemed to echo far longer than it should have. "Bell rings, nothing to hold either of us back." the boxer left the story at that for a bit, before going for his beer can again.

"Normally..," Raven started to say, sensing this was a moment Cole wanted to hear her opinion, "In a story like this you'd win. Some triumph against him in the first round. Given your feelings displayed thus far..., I'm guessing no."

"Damn right." Cole grunted as he put his drink back down, his body leaning further back and going more slack, "He cleans my clock. I’m barely able to hobble back to my corner. This continues for round two as well he’s just bulldozing me down." he waved a hand away at the thought. "I dunno. Maybe all his insults got to me. All the jabs and threats and mind games threw me off. Can't focus, can't get my rhythm. I thought I could fight this punk but.. he’s just an animal." Cole took a big long sigh at the word 'animal' and paused the story, lost in his own thoughts. Raven was about to speak when he suddenly continued.

"Round three starts. I'm just fighting to stay in. Processing the fact he put me down again and as he walks to his corner he says… something. I dunno." the sound of metal bending stats up again as Cole's hands grip tight the can, "Something foul about my mom he fell on before the fight, about my female cousin who'd come with my uncle, this reporter gal I had as kinda an on and off thing; something, I can’t remember, I was blacking in and out, but I heard him say it. And... I just blacked out after that. Or maybe red-out?"

"What I do remember is two things." he held up a hand with a finger, "First, Ref had to pull me off and my corner men had to haul me back to the corner. I mean one minute I'm fighting to my feet, next thing I process were arms hooked under my own pulling me away. By the time I process what's actually happening, I realize that punk was just laid out on the ground, and absolute mess of a body." Another carefully gauged sip of beer, about two more left in the warpped can.

"They tallied it, you know." Cole shot her a quick glace before looking back at the ceiling, "Four cracked ribs, right shoulder he tried to guard with beat to hell, several tissue damage in his face, jaw shattered, lost teeth; looking back, the fact he was able to get put back together was kinda a miracle."

"Dude was an asshole. A massive bellend, and if he left the ring I wasn't going to cry but..., I was the one that did it. That wasn't boxing that was just... ****. I only got off thanks to the ref and those few bystanders speaking up about the comment this asshole made before I blacked out. Ref also said I seemed ‘knocked out but still fighting’. A sort of berserker rage that kept me going when I shouldn't have. He didn't realize it at first so it's partially on him. Otherwise I might have met with criminal charges, cause that wasn’t just damage from a sports match." Cole took another drink as he slumped further down against the couch.

"I won; but had the worst showing of my career. People said I bribed the ref to let me beat on the guy. Family save my uncle and folks won't look at me anymore. Heck, Aunt doesn't want me anywhere near her family now. Lost everything I'd been trying to build. And him? Well... he's in better shape now but never gonna box again. I'm in the gutter, and he's in recovery but both of our lives are ruined. All because of that one fight." Cole finished with a shake of his head and a heavy sigh.

That was his story. One of a broken boxer in a badly done fight. "No. There's something more. He's not telling me." Raven thought. A failure of a fight wouldn't have made him try to lock this away as much as he had. "You said you remember two things. The other was...?" Raven slowly asked.

"Ah. Right. The other thing." Cole muttered, looking like he became aware of Raven's presence again. He scratched the underside of his jaw with a lazy hand before saying, "Yeah... I kept the vids they had of the fight several times and nothing rings a bell. Can't remember this punch, that dodge, those blows, his attempted defense or counters..., nothing. Not one thing comes to my mind mid ****. Save for one thing."

"And that was...?" Raven posed the question leaning forward. Cole just shot her longing defeated look, took the last sip of his drink before sitting it on the counter and just weakly leaning back to his slump of a pose. The next words out of his mouth for the first time today, surprised her about Cole McKay.

"…. I remember liking it."

Raven was dumb founded for a bit. Cole had seem... well sweet enough. Hard Headed or maybe competitive but it wasn't anything like Robin. The fact he had just admitted to taking pleasure in crippling a man just made Raven ask..., "What?"

"Yeah. Yeah..., kinda figured." Cole quietly offered as he kept his vision low and his voice shakey, "And this wasn't like the joy of boxing either. Not of stopping this monster, of showing my skill, or overcoming this challenge; nothing like that really. I just remembered the feel of his bones giving out on my fists, the cry of agony he made on impact, the sickly smell of his blood. Winning wasn't on my mind at that point. Family either. Just enjoying the fact that at that point, I could beat the ever-living shit out of him."

Cole rubbed his eyes with a hand, shaking in place a bit as he added, "I watched the tapes. That insane grin..., that wasn't me." his voice cracked with the last part. With that the room stayed silent for ... a good while. The heavy kind that makes it feel like only seconds to an eon has passed. Cole took a large breath of air that puffed up his chest before letting it all exhale in a heavy 'just done' sigh.

"There was no going back for me after that. All my thoughts of him being a monster, of being just some psycho given gloves…, and here I was. Forget the media circus around me and all the fallout; I couldn’t really trust myself in the ring again." Cole stated, his hands gripping into fists and his eyes darting to his shadow below him. "Not vs living people at least. It's good exercise and I still like being around it but..., dunno. What if I lose myself again?"

"So there you have it." Cole waved a hand as he drew himself up to a more proper sitting pose, but his arms still lax, "Quit because for one round, I turned into an absolute monster. And I was worried I’d do it again." he just weakly turned his neck to look at Raven who still had a mask of.... warm indifference on her. "Well, I think I'd be more worried if she was disgusted, shocked, or fearful... and showing it." he thought as he stretched his legs out for being in that pose for so long. He just asked a single question in return.