Raging Minotaur (Part 1 of 7)

Here’s a story about Anon fighting Iron Will in the boxing ring. Why did I write it? Because it sounded cool and I wanted to experiment with non-linear story telling

 

Pre-Match

 

>Hearing the rolling thunder of the crowd overhead adds to your building anxiety.

>As you Stand Half naked and alone in front of your locker wrapping your hands, you’re in wonder as to how the hell you got to where you are now

>A year ago you were working a monotonous dead-end job while suffering in a monotonous dead-end relationship. Its amazing; the places life will take you

>The building roar of the crowd further intensifies your rising anxiety, gradually transcending it to rising bile

>You try to ignore it and focus on the match ahead of you but the taste of it slowly backs into your mouth. There is no ignoring that offensive pungency, you’re about to reach your breaking point

>You rush to the bathroom, turn on the sink and give yourself a face full of water in hopes it will give you a grip

>The cold splash neither helps nor worsens your condition but as you watch the water flow from the faucet and into the sink, you become hypnotized by the movement of it

>Simply watching it makes you nauseous to the point of illness

>You rush into the nearest stall, collapse to your knees and wretch. Relieving your stomach of it’s contents brings no relief to your anxious state.

>The night hasn’t even started and it’s already looking to be one of the weariest of your life

>You rinse out your mouth and tie your shorts on tight before returning to your locker.

>You shut it with the conclusion there is nothing left for you to do this side of the audience.

>As you head out of the locker room and onto the floor, the chatter of the audience rises to a deafening rabble. You’re wrapped hands tremble under the pressure as you make your way to the ring with no robe, no hood and no one walking with you.

>Its just you for now.

>The thunderous audience consists of Griffins, Dragons of minor ages and sizes, Minotaurs, Diamond Dogs, a few species you can’t even identify and not a single pony or colt in sight.

>Quite literally a tough crowd.

>You try to steady yourself by repeating “This is just another day. This is just another day. This is Just another day…” but to no effect. You’re as tense now as you’ve ever been

>You see your opponent romping around and punching midair in the ring continuously. Even after you climb in, he still continues to dance about for the crowd’s amusement

>Billed as standing a whole head over yourself and weighing who-knows how much more, Iron Will gives a careless smirk as you make your entry.

>To him, this is nothing. He’ll probably forget it by his next fight.

>The Crowd’s chatter and Will’s showboating dies down. The introduction given by the ring announcer (a shorter minotaur with a crew cut) becomes audible in the middle of his sentence

>Announcer: “…welcome you all to tonight’s bout! Standing to my right; Undefeated, Untied and undisputed heavyweight champion of this world and the next; Iron Will!

>The crowd explodes into applause as you continue to shake nervously

>Announcer:” Standing to my left, hailing from parts unknown. The man with no name; Anonymous!”

>The crowd gives a mixed response as you sigh heavily. Even amidst your nervousness, you still find that intro completely asinine

>Announcer: “Anon has been given the opportunity to fight Will in a match consisting of ten three-minute rounds. While he may be unknown and untested, we wish the best for this newcomer to the ring. Now if our fighters would gather in for the rules”

>You step in to the middle to hear the things you already know;

>No hitting below the belt, no rabbit punches, when one guy goes down the other guy goes to his corner until the ref tells him to come back out and so on and so forth.

>You reach the middle of the ring and sure enough, you’re given exactly what you expected

>Not feeling any obligation to stick around (in mind) you reminisce on just how you got to where you are now

 

>Raging Minotaur: Training day 1

 

>It all started when you woke one morning to find your estranged lover (as usual) not next to you in bed

>Walking downstairs, you see her sitting at the table and halfway through her breakfast

‘Morning, Dash

>Rainbow Dash gives nothing more than a tilt of the head to acknowledge your greeting

>As you sit down to eat, you forcibly expel small talk in a futile effort to exercise some communication between the two of you

>Dash Remains withdrawn as you talk about your week, giving no indication of interest whatsoever

>In another futile attempt to build some bridges, you ask her how she has been to which her only reply is a shrug and a roll of the eyes.

>Having cleared off her plate, she leaves the house without a word. Leaving you to eat alone and sulk over your deteriorating relationship

>After finishing off your breakfast, you head off to work your monotonously mind-numbing job at sweet apple acres

>You do nothing but push a cart around from point A to point B all day long. It’s a job that expends no mental capacity in the slightest.

>In addition to the obvious problems of boredom that come with the job, such easy labor provides no distraction at all. Leaving your mind completely free to worry about your life at home while your body runs on sort of an auto-pilot.

>After hauling around more apples than anyone should ever have a reason to count, you sit down for lunch with your boss

>As you yourself grow steadily more withdrown, Applejack grows worried about your state of being

>Jack: “Why so Glum, Sugarcube?”

>You’d rather not complain about your job in front of your boss (Despite the fact that it makes up half of your frustrations) you instead op to talk about the other half;

Dash.

>Jack: “Is always busy? Is too full of herself? Is too much for ya?”

No, she’s just grown so…Detached.

>Jack: “Whadya mean?”

She’s just not interested in me anymore. I can’t even talk to her. She’s distanced, she’s uninvolved, she barely even acknowledges me, I don’t even know how to involve myself with her anymore

>Jack: “Why’d ya ever get involved in the first place?”

>You stumble over your words as you fail to come up with a coherent answer

Well, you know…umm

>Jack: “What now?”

I don’t even know. You know how it is when your young and naïve. You’re just…Fascinated with some one. You don’t even know why, you just are. There isn’t any  rhyme or reason, just desire.

>Applejack continues to listen, able to pick up far more than what’s given to her in her Astuteness

At first it was Great. For the next few years it was good. but at one point or another it just Died all of the sudden

>Jack: “Oh sugar cube, it never died all the sudden. It was dead on arrival”

>Your taken by surprise by Jack’s retort

How do you figure?

>Jack: “I’m Dash’s best friend. She didn’t lose all her interest at once, she never had any real interest to begin with. It‘s sorta like how you were saying you were into her with no rhyme or reason, she had the same interest in you. It was never meant to last.”

>Now coming to realize that your ill-fated relationship has simply ran it’s course, you try to deny what you’re hearing

That’s ridiculous

>Jack: “Is it? Do you two have any common interests? Do you talk to her about anything she would want to hear?”

>You stumble over your words a second time ultimately failing to form even a semi-coherent sentence. It’s hard to say what’s more agitating, That Jack’s right or that she understands the dynamics of your relationship better than you do.

>Jack: “Look, Sugarcube. If you don’t even want to try, than it’s just best to let it go.”

>Applejack’s words effectively silence you for the rest of your shift. Even if you could come up with an answer she’d probably have a rebuttal at the ready.

>Her words follow you late into the day. You take them home with you as you scavenge through your photo book, hoping to find what brought any interest to your relationship in the first place

>The photo book contains countless memories of days when there was actually some enthusiasm present. Pictures from parties, pictures from dates, pictures from home projects, pictures just taken for the sake of taking them.

>Simply good times and nothing more. You wish it was still that simple

>Ultimately none of your photos it bring you any clarity. They agitate you as now you feel you don’t even know how to reclaim what you lost

>You toss the book off to the side in frustration, as it lands you hear Dash speak to you for the first time since you can’t remember when

>Dash: “Anon”

>You turn attention to her with the hope that this problem will be solved for you

>But instead you get this;

>Dash: “Can you take out the trash? It’s really full”

>Dash leaves the room without another word or waiting for you to tell her yes. You rise to your feet, still thoroughly distressed from your unsuccessful scavenge through the photo book.

>As you go to the kitchen to greet the trash, you find Dash was quite serious about the trash being really full.

>Lifting the tied bag out of the bin, you carry the overstuffed sack with both of your arms to the front door, only to find the bag won’t go through it.

>You shift the bag around to try and see if it will fit through at a different angle but there are none that you can see

>Jumping to the conclusion that your going to have to pile drive the thing, you press it into the door way and start pushing.

>Spending 5 minutes trying to get the thing to go through starts to get you annoyed. You begin slamming your shoulder into it with only minimal results being noticeable after about 10 impacts.

>Now, quite frustrated by this nonsense, you begin to straight up punch the bag to get it to go through. After giving yourself quite a workout, the bag finally budges and crosses the threshold to the outside.

>Still feeling you have a little more rage to expend, you channel all your frustrations into your fists and resume socking the bag. It drags across the ground slowly with each blow.

>Not really knowing or caring if there’s anyone to witnesses to your tantrum, you finally cease your punching when the bag ends up next to the trash can.

>You pick up the bag and drop it in the can. Finding that you’ve tired yourself out, you retreat back into the house to call it a night

>As you make your way to the bedroom, you feel your frustrations relieving. Not just the immediate frustration of taking the trash out, but the frustration pent up from both your job and your relationship

>This makes you wonder; Maybe you shouldn’t even worry about trying to patch up what seems to be doomed. Maybe you should just cope with the problem instead of trying to fix it.

>You lay down in bed next to Dash as she reads her Daring Do novel

>As your body touches the mattress, she can’t help but notice you’re tensed up an in a sweat.

>She looks at you curiously as you wrap yourself up in the sheets.

>You’re not concerned about her though, Your not worried about anything for the moment.

>You don’t even stop to think that beating the trash bag senselessly is the start of something grand. It’s hard to believe grand things can spawn from such small and unremarkable events

>But even the mighty oak was once a lone acorn that stood it’s ground.

 

>A poke on the shoulder takes you out of your memories and back to the ring. The griffin referee gives you and your opponent your respective black and red gloves.

>You and Will tie them on with the Ref’s help as he issues the last call for backing down

>“If you want to back out, do it now. You two ready?”

>The both of you give no signal of chickening out at the last minute (much as you may wish to) and return to your respective corners

>The two of you face each other and assume your stances. The Bell rings and the both of you close in for one another. before you can even mount a plan of action, you’re already taking jabs to the face

>You change direction hard off to the side to avoid the fire. Will closes the distance in a fast pursuit

>Covering your face with your hands only gets you punched in the stomach, Covering your stomach with your forearms gets you punched in the face again and trying to cover both gets you punched in the ribs.

>You slip out and away once more in an ill attempt to keep Will at bay

>He charges at you to with his arm cranked back, ready and primed to resume his assault.

>Ducking down at the last second allows you to narrowly escape taking a hook punch straight to your jaw.

>With Will thrown off balance by his failed hook punch , you take what little time you have to step to the side of him and toss three quick punches into his ribs

>While you can certainly tell that he felt and identified those punches, Will turns his body to face you before you can determine how much damage (if any) they did to him.

>With his body now parralel to yours, you see there is already another hook punch half way to it’s destination

>You avoid his hook by ducking down quickly a second time, Popping back up immediately after to begin throwing jabs directly at Will’s jaw line.

>You’re only successful in landing one precise hit before he counters your jabs with a one of his own placed right on your chin

>The jab wasn‘t extraordinarily powerful, but he was fortunate enough to land it without you bracing yourself. You phase out for a split second, disoriented by the blow. By the time you phase back in, you see a straight punch coming in

>And unfortunately you’re not lucky enough to avoid it. It strikes on your chin

>While you did have yourself braced for this time around, it was still disorienting nonetheless. You stumble backwards, Barely managing to stay on both your feet. Had the punch hit you just slightly harder, it would have easily decked you.

>Elsewhere, Will is spending as much time recovering from throwing that straight punch as you are from taking

>You manage to get back into your stance before he gets back into his and start closing the distance, hoping to land a few punches before he can recover.

>Sadly he recovers quicker than you can attack and is ready to throw more punches by the time your in arm’s reach

>Still not having calculated any real strategy, you charge in with only blind instinct steering you.

>Your instinct gives no further advice than simply telling you “Punch him! Punch him and you‘ll win”. If only it were that simple.

>To your great relief, the bell rings and the round ends before you can embarrass yourself by attempting another petty offensive

>You retreat to your corner, shamelessly knowing that Wills besting you without even trying