Warehouse Rumble

Fighting, real fighting, had two very specific facets to it. You didn’t necessarily need to be strong, though it helped. You didn’t necessarily need to be skilled, though that helped too.

To win a fight, Marc knew that he needed Will to hurt the man in front of him. That was the first key facet. Many people thought they had that sort of will, but didn’t. Others did, but could only manage to do it from a place of advantage, never face to face. Cheap shots, sucker punches. Then they would turn into cowards when confronted directly. There were even some people who were trained and skilled in a martial art to **** degrees, but all that training was for competition - scoring points. Friendly sparring. When faced with the need to truly strike an opponent with the intent to do damage, or to push a limb past its breaking point rather than wait for someone to submit and call ‘Uncle,’ they folded.

Then there were people like Liam, who wanted to make people hurt. Who relished in it, at least a little. Marc had no doubt that Liam had been in enough fights that he wasn’t going to simply back down and run like a little dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

Marc did not come across as a violent person to his acquaintances and co-workers. Even his friends wouldn’t have thought of him as violent.

Driven? Certainly. Focused? Absolutely. Determined, undoubtedly.

But there was a power in the ability to commit ****. An intoxicating power. One that he had never indulged in this way, but that he knew was there.

Marc was a violent man by consent. Rough sex was a kind of ****. A kind of power, a kind of threat.

BDSM. Sadism - deriving pleasure from causing pain. A simplified definition. Of the four letters involved, it was the third highest on his list when it came to his sex life. But there were other, non-physical forms of sadism. Marc was ruthless in business and took pleasure in that ruthlessness even as he went about his business with a kind of honour. He wasn’t intoxicated by hurting his dear Felicity, but he knew the balance of pain could enhance the pleasure for her and he took pleasure from finding and working that balance.

Liam came forward, fists raised in a boxer’s stance, his cheek a bright pink from the vicious slap that Marc had applied. The slap would have hurt the man, and Marc was perfectly happy for that to be the case. Almost more importantly, the slap would have embarrassed him. Here they were, fighting in front of a small crowd of criminal elements, in front of one of his bosses if Marc’s guess was correct that the skinny Italian man was only junior to the swarthy one upstairs. Marc had slapped Liam to open up a fistfight over a woman. It was an insult, even if it had almost as much physical impact as a punch.

Marc stepped back smoothly as Liam advanced, his feet feeling the cement floor through his socks. He almost wished he’d taken the socks off as well and worried about them slipping.

The second key factor to fighting, other than Will, was understanding spacing.

How far from him to the opponent? How much reach did either of them have? Where was it dangerous to be, where was it safe to move to? But not only the spacing between the two men but also the space around them. Was anything going to get in the way? What were the environmental factors?

What was stored in those mysterious boxes at the other end of the warehouse?

Two children fighting in the schoolyard often simply clashed together in a flail of limbs. No skill, no sense of spacing. A professional fight broadcast on television could be considered a chess match comparatively as two highly skilled and trained fighters traded blows as they sought an advantage in their spacing. Eventually, one would find that advantage and land a devastating blow, or ‘shoot in’ and attempt to take their opponent down into a grappling scenario by closing the distance at the right time.

Marc didn’t know what sort of skills Liam had beyond raw experience and a decent idea of a boxer’s stance, hands up to protect the face and light on his feet with knees slightly bent. Putting the man off kilter emotionally with the slap gave Marc some hints, though.

Liam snarled as he darted forward, chasing Marc as he backpedalled. Liam lunged, and Marc dodged the straight, controlled jab. Maybe, if Marc had been some sort of Wing Chun master, he could have deflected the blow and traded a few of his own - but Marc wasn’t a master, despite his black belt, and he knew it. Mastery took years and constant practice. And his practice was in Karate, not Wing Chun, anyway.

“Come on!” Liam snarled, pushing closer again.

Marc feinted another slide backwards and Liam came on, giving Marc the chance to plant one strong snap punch into the other man’s gut. Hitting the Irishman was hard, he was built strong, but Marc’s knuckles were harder than his tight abs and he’d put his full weight behind the punch.

Liam grunted and snarled, lashing out with a one-two-three combo of his own. Marc managed to turn the first blow into a glancing one off his shoulder, dodged the second and took the third in his own stomach. That last one made him lose his breath, but the spacing meant that the two men were close to each other. Liam raised a fist, probably intending to bring it down on a hammer strike on the back of Marc’s head or neck, but Marc - slightly bent over from the stomach blow - reacted faster and punched using his second knuckles into the ligaments just over Liam’s right kneecap.

The Irishman shouted in pain, losing his balance as his leg gave out, his blow landing in the middle of Marc’s upper back ineffectively as he fell to the side and away. Marc took the opportunity to step back, his shoulder aching and his stomach on fire. Unfortunately, out of practice as he was, the blow that could have done permanent damage to Liam’s leg hadn’t landed perfectly, or with the power necessary to do so. Liam rolled away, staggering up to one knee as he panicked momentarily that Marc would follow up swiftly, then snarling and getting to his feet when he realised Marc had backed away.

Liam was limping now, his knee not wanting to take much weight.

“So you know how to fight,” Liam snarled. “What was that, aikido or something? There’s a reason why no one respects that shit, you slimy frog.”

Marc backed away some more, making Liam follow. “Karate, actually,” Marc said, his voice even compared to Liam’s anger. There was shouting from the men and women who had come down to watch, and they were following at a distance as the fight moved through the warehouse.

“Let me guess, you learned from some Mr Miayagi old fu-”

Marc interrupted Liam by stepping forward instead of back and snapping a front kick at the man. He managed to block it with his elbows but was rocked back, grunting in pain as his leg protested.

“Just an old Frenchman who learned from an old Japanese man,” Marc grunted as he backpedalled again.

“Fucking French,” Liam grunted and lunged forward again, this time trying to grab Marc. Maybe Liam actually did know something about Karate, because the martial art was criticised for devaluing grappling and throws.

The thing about lunging with a busted-up leg, however, was that Liam didn’t really have as much manoeuvrability as he should have. Marc sidestepped to the right and back, circling slightly, and came around in a sidekick that was definitely going to hurt in his groin the next day. It caught Liam in the shoulder, not a particularly great place to kick a man when trying to do damage, but that wasn’t the point. It sent Liam sprawling sideways.

Directly into the mysterious crates.

He hit them and they fell over like dominos, but none of them broke.

Marc seized the opportunity and did something that his Master would have told him he was an absolute idiot for trying. He took a step forward and jumped, his knee travelling directly towards Liam’s chest as the man sprawled against the crates and scrambled to try and find his footing.

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