Post by Bene Elohim on Feb 8, 2024 14:09:15 GMT -8
No one paid him any mind as he walked the street, heading toward the warehouse in the business district with a bag over one shoulder and his eyes focused on the pavement. He looked like anyone else you might see on the street. The only thing that might give a person pause was the inverted cross tattooed on his neck right near the throat.
He wore a pair of faded blue jeans, his torso covered by a black and silver button-up shirt that was buttoned up to the second button, revealing the outline of the black tank top beneath. His hair was a style of crew cut.
He looked like everyone else. But he wasn’t like everyone else.
He was Anthony James Crawford, the Demon Lord Sathanas, and the deadliest weapon the Devil-made-flesh Lord Apollyon had at his disposal.
But this wasn’t about Apollyon or the war with the Children of Nephilim and their leader, Lord Lucifer. This was about something more personal, more visceral.
This was about love.
Men had taken the only woman that Sathanas had ever loved and were holding her, set to auction her off in a barbaric ancient rite of combat. The winner would get rights to Melissa Reed and her body.
And Sathanas intended to make damn sure that didn’t happen.
He had gone to great lengths to find this location. He heard that a band in Asheville, North Carolina had been approached about providing the musical entertainment to distract those invited to watch this event between rounds.
He had not known the underground band had turned this offer down flat. He had not known that the lead singer had a family. A daughter. All he knew was that this man knew the location of this event and he made him tell.
Sathanas broke his fingers. His knees, both of his orbital bones, his nose, and his jaw before finally with a shaking hand, the man, covered in blood and barely breathing, had given up his phone.
No location. Just a dead father.
But the Caller ID had a name.
James Marshall.
This led him to a sporting goods store where he found this James Marshall. The eighth entrant in this tournament.
The man looked like an ordinary retail employee, but he didn’t fight like one. Not that he was anywhere near a match for Sathanas.
From James Marshall, he received the location of the rite. From him, he knew where to find Melissa.
Anthony wasn’t stopped until he reached the door leading into a three-story warehouse. When he approached the door, he felt a hand press to his chest, stopping him in his tracks. Anthony looked up and found a huge man with piercing gray eyes dressed in a beautiful suit.
Security: “Sorry, sir. The place is closed for a private event.”
Anthony: “I’m invited.”
Security: “Oh, well, that changes everything. Invitation please?”
Anthony reached back into his pocket and pulled out James Marshall’s phone. He flipped through the texts until he came to the invitation that had a little square QR code. He held it out, and the big man scanned it himself, the details showing up on his phone.
Security: “As agreed upon in advance, all names are blacked out for privacy and security purposes. It says here you are the eighth entrant. Better get inside; it’s already started and you are up soon. You can change upstairs on the third floor. The stairs are on the left.”
Anthony gave the smallest nod, shifting past the man and into the warehouse. It had been transformed into a beautiful club, or perhaps it always has been? There was a 24-foot by 24-foot ring in the center of the room with tables littered around and bleachers set up against the walls.
Women dressed in beautiful, if revealing, clothing mingled with hundreds of people in the room, bringing them drinks or snacks while they watched the two men in the ring going at one another. High above them on the second floor sat a man in his mid-to-late thirties, clean-shaven and wearing a thousand-dollar suit.
Melissa Reed sat beside him. Her hands folded over her lap, dressed in a beautiful lavender dress, with her makeup done and her hair styled into elegant ringlets.
She looked like the prize she was.
As Anthony crossed the room, he allowed his eyes to fall on the two men in the ring. One of them was a slender black gentleman with dreadlocks and the other a man of Cuban descent. As Anthony neared the stairs, the Cuban won with a beautiful flipping counter into a heel kick to the back of the skull.
The cheering ground was drowned out as the door to the stairs closed. He climbed them, intending to take the second-floor exit and just kill everyone on it and fight his way out with Melissa. However, he found no way onto the second floor.
The man who organized this had seen to it the fighters couldn’t get to their prize until a winner was decided.
Smart.
He continued up through the stairs and onto the third floor where he found doors all lined with the numbers. He made his way across the floor and found there were only eight doors. Three fights total and this would be over.
Inside the eighth room, Anthony slipped out of his clothes and into a pair of plain black trunks and a pair of black knee pads. He left his feet bare as well as his torso, allowing him more maneuverability.
It was nearly an hour before there came a shout from down the hallway.
Slowly, he rose from where he knelt and grabbed a mouth guard from behind his ear. He slipped the mouthpiece into his mouth and rolled his shoulders as he made his way out. He never saw anyone come out of the first door before heading down the stairs.
When the door opened and he walked through it, thick-bodied, muscular, and covered in tattoos, those watching all broke into cheers. High above them, Melissa choked down a gasp when she saw him. A rush that could have brought tears of joy to her eyes.
A brilliant smile spread across her face.
“And what are you smiling at, my dear?”
The man to her right asked politely.
“You have no idea how fucked you are, Romian.”
“As I told you, I’m counting on him coming for you. I intend to put a bullet between his eyes.”
Melissa only smiled. He was speaking about William, but she never took her eyes off Anthony. She knew the truth.
He’d rip anything between the two of them apart to get to her.
Anything.
Waiting for Anthony inside of the ring was a man in his early twenties with short brown hair. As soon as Anthony fully entered the ring, the man was on him, throwing blows at him, but Anthony was able to block each one with his forearms. Anthony grabbed the man and spun around, shoving him into the corner, but the man arched a kick back into his chest, forcing Sathanas back.
The man advanced on him and threw a wild right hand. Anthony caught his hand, but the man twisted and threw Anthony over his shoulder. The crowd gasped as Anthony actually somersaulted in the transition, landing on his feet, and yanked the man over his shoulder instead.
The man hit the mat brutally hard, and without hesitation, Anthony spun around, driving his knee into the man’s chest and pinning him down. Vicious lefts and rights came down onto the man’s face and head, who was trying his best to block them. He caught one of them and tried to bring Anthony into an armbar submission, but when he turned to his side, Anthony threw all his weight forward without warning.
The point of Anthony’s knee connected with the side of the man’s head full-force with a sickening crunch. Sathanas threw himself back, arching his full length, and lunged forward into another knee, throwing all his weight into it.
Blood exploded across the mat like a fountain as a bone-breaking SNAP echoed across the room. The man’s jaw was broken.
The only other man in the ring finally came forward and waved his hands above his head, signaling the match over when Anthony’s opponent simply stopped moving. Wiping the blood off his thigh, Anthony spread it across his chest and raised both arms into the air, roaring in rage as he stared up at Melissa and the man.
Melissa straightened her body with a glee filled smile. A glow of pride.
The smile was enough to tell Romian sitting on her right that something was wrong. Something about this was wrong. He snapped his fingers and another man standing near the door came forward and bent down.
“Fighter number eight. Find out whatever you can.”
He whispered into the man’s ear.
Melissa's sly smirk never wavered as she knew what he would find.
Nothing.
Anthony was the right hand of one of the Devils of the world. He’d find nothing on his prints. Nothing on facial recognition. Nothing on DNA, if they could get it.
It would be like he didn’t exist.
The first of the two fights of the same round was a barn burner with more counters and blocks than the others all combined. When it was over, a young man with blonde hair of Polish, or perhaps Russian descent, stood victorious, lifting one arm while cradling the other that was obviously injured.
Unlike the fight that preceded it, Sathanas made short work of the Cuban. While the Cuban had a height advantage and a reach advantage, he just couldn’t match Anthony in sheer technique and skill.
Anthony ate two straight rights to the mouth, each one snapping his head to the side before looking back and smiling. He ducked under one, spinning and driving an elbow into the man’s midsection. He then straightened, lifting a knee as the man doubled over, connecting it with his face with a loud crunch as his nose broke.
The man straightened before Anthony threw himself into the air, spinning into a jackknife kick that took him in the face with back and back kicks knocking him smooth out.
As the man was dragged out of the ring, Anthony didn’t even bother to leave. Instead, he turned to look up at the man on the second floor and raising his arms. Romian pursed his lips in displeasure at the arrogance Anthony showed. He leaned over and listened as another man whispered that the young Polish kid’s arm was badly mangled and he wouldn’t be able to fight.
The boss drew in a deep sigh and rose from his chair, standing before the edge of the balcony overlooking the “Club”, and held out his arms for silence.
Romian: “Well, ladies and gentlemen… I have some bad news. It seems our other finalist is unable to compete, so it seems the winner...”
Voice: “If I may?”
All eyes in the room turned to a man standing near one of the doors leading deeper into the warehouse. He had brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His ears were a little on the big side, though it was easy to tell the man worked out. You could see his abs even through the shirt.
On the balcony, the man smiled and opened his hand toward the man.
Romian: “Mr. Maguire, the man who made all of this possible. You have a surprise for us?”
At the name “Maguire”, Anthony’s head snapped around and he locked eyes with Aerynn Maguire’s husband, Shonn. Shonn shot Anthony a wicked, even menacing look before looking up at the man standing on the balcony.
Shonn Maguire: “Aye, tha I do. I brought someone wit me jess incase sometin’ like this happened.”
Romian: “And he’s qualified?”
Shonn Maguire: “Ye kin bae telin’l me, Sir.”
Shonn turned and shoved the door behind him open and the monster walked through them.
He was seven-foot-one and weighed nearly four hundred pounds of pure muscle. He wore a pair of plain black shorts that hung down to his knees and nothing else. No shirt, no shoes, no pads, and was covered nearly head to toe in tattoos.
Anthony whispered in disbelief at the same exact moment Shonn announced him.
Anthony & Shonn: “CRONOS!”
Melissa saw the concern, even apprehension on Anthony’s face. It didn’t take her long to put two and two together. This was one of the Children of Nephilim.
Lucifer had set the trap and Anthony walked right into it.
And now he had to fight Cronos or give up on Melissa.
Something she knew he’d never do.
And Lucifer was counting on it.
He wore a pair of faded blue jeans, his torso covered by a black and silver button-up shirt that was buttoned up to the second button, revealing the outline of the black tank top beneath. His hair was a style of crew cut.
He looked like everyone else. But he wasn’t like everyone else.
He was Anthony James Crawford, the Demon Lord Sathanas, and the deadliest weapon the Devil-made-flesh Lord Apollyon had at his disposal.
But this wasn’t about Apollyon or the war with the Children of Nephilim and their leader, Lord Lucifer. This was about something more personal, more visceral.
This was about love.
Men had taken the only woman that Sathanas had ever loved and were holding her, set to auction her off in a barbaric ancient rite of combat. The winner would get rights to Melissa Reed and her body.
And Sathanas intended to make damn sure that didn’t happen.
He had gone to great lengths to find this location. He heard that a band in Asheville, North Carolina had been approached about providing the musical entertainment to distract those invited to watch this event between rounds.
He had not known the underground band had turned this offer down flat. He had not known that the lead singer had a family. A daughter. All he knew was that this man knew the location of this event and he made him tell.
Sathanas broke his fingers. His knees, both of his orbital bones, his nose, and his jaw before finally with a shaking hand, the man, covered in blood and barely breathing, had given up his phone.
No location. Just a dead father.
But the Caller ID had a name.
James Marshall.
This led him to a sporting goods store where he found this James Marshall. The eighth entrant in this tournament.
The man looked like an ordinary retail employee, but he didn’t fight like one. Not that he was anywhere near a match for Sathanas.
From James Marshall, he received the location of the rite. From him, he knew where to find Melissa.
Anthony wasn’t stopped until he reached the door leading into a three-story warehouse. When he approached the door, he felt a hand press to his chest, stopping him in his tracks. Anthony looked up and found a huge man with piercing gray eyes dressed in a beautiful suit.
Security: “Sorry, sir. The place is closed for a private event.”
Anthony: “I’m invited.”
Security: “Oh, well, that changes everything. Invitation please?”
Anthony reached back into his pocket and pulled out James Marshall’s phone. He flipped through the texts until he came to the invitation that had a little square QR code. He held it out, and the big man scanned it himself, the details showing up on his phone.
Security: “As agreed upon in advance, all names are blacked out for privacy and security purposes. It says here you are the eighth entrant. Better get inside; it’s already started and you are up soon. You can change upstairs on the third floor. The stairs are on the left.”
Anthony gave the smallest nod, shifting past the man and into the warehouse. It had been transformed into a beautiful club, or perhaps it always has been? There was a 24-foot by 24-foot ring in the center of the room with tables littered around and bleachers set up against the walls.
Women dressed in beautiful, if revealing, clothing mingled with hundreds of people in the room, bringing them drinks or snacks while they watched the two men in the ring going at one another. High above them on the second floor sat a man in his mid-to-late thirties, clean-shaven and wearing a thousand-dollar suit.
Melissa Reed sat beside him. Her hands folded over her lap, dressed in a beautiful lavender dress, with her makeup done and her hair styled into elegant ringlets.
She looked like the prize she was.
As Anthony crossed the room, he allowed his eyes to fall on the two men in the ring. One of them was a slender black gentleman with dreadlocks and the other a man of Cuban descent. As Anthony neared the stairs, the Cuban won with a beautiful flipping counter into a heel kick to the back of the skull.
The cheering ground was drowned out as the door to the stairs closed. He climbed them, intending to take the second-floor exit and just kill everyone on it and fight his way out with Melissa. However, he found no way onto the second floor.
The man who organized this had seen to it the fighters couldn’t get to their prize until a winner was decided.
Smart.
He continued up through the stairs and onto the third floor where he found doors all lined with the numbers. He made his way across the floor and found there were only eight doors. Three fights total and this would be over.
Inside the eighth room, Anthony slipped out of his clothes and into a pair of plain black trunks and a pair of black knee pads. He left his feet bare as well as his torso, allowing him more maneuverability.
It was nearly an hour before there came a shout from down the hallway.
“Numbers eight and one! You’re up!”
Slowly, he rose from where he knelt and grabbed a mouth guard from behind his ear. He slipped the mouthpiece into his mouth and rolled his shoulders as he made his way out. He never saw anyone come out of the first door before heading down the stairs.
When the door opened and he walked through it, thick-bodied, muscular, and covered in tattoos, those watching all broke into cheers. High above them, Melissa choked down a gasp when she saw him. A rush that could have brought tears of joy to her eyes.
A brilliant smile spread across her face.
“And what are you smiling at, my dear?”
The man to her right asked politely.
“You have no idea how fucked you are, Romian.”
“As I told you, I’m counting on him coming for you. I intend to put a bullet between his eyes.”
Melissa only smiled. He was speaking about William, but she never took her eyes off Anthony. She knew the truth.
He’d rip anything between the two of them apart to get to her.
Anything.
Waiting for Anthony inside of the ring was a man in his early twenties with short brown hair. As soon as Anthony fully entered the ring, the man was on him, throwing blows at him, but Anthony was able to block each one with his forearms. Anthony grabbed the man and spun around, shoving him into the corner, but the man arched a kick back into his chest, forcing Sathanas back.
The man advanced on him and threw a wild right hand. Anthony caught his hand, but the man twisted and threw Anthony over his shoulder. The crowd gasped as Anthony actually somersaulted in the transition, landing on his feet, and yanked the man over his shoulder instead.
The man hit the mat brutally hard, and without hesitation, Anthony spun around, driving his knee into the man’s chest and pinning him down. Vicious lefts and rights came down onto the man’s face and head, who was trying his best to block them. He caught one of them and tried to bring Anthony into an armbar submission, but when he turned to his side, Anthony threw all his weight forward without warning.
The point of Anthony’s knee connected with the side of the man’s head full-force with a sickening crunch. Sathanas threw himself back, arching his full length, and lunged forward into another knee, throwing all his weight into it.
Blood exploded across the mat like a fountain as a bone-breaking SNAP echoed across the room. The man’s jaw was broken.
The only other man in the ring finally came forward and waved his hands above his head, signaling the match over when Anthony’s opponent simply stopped moving. Wiping the blood off his thigh, Anthony spread it across his chest and raised both arms into the air, roaring in rage as he stared up at Melissa and the man.
Melissa straightened her body with a glee filled smile. A glow of pride.
The smile was enough to tell Romian sitting on her right that something was wrong. Something about this was wrong. He snapped his fingers and another man standing near the door came forward and bent down.
“Fighter number eight. Find out whatever you can.”
He whispered into the man’s ear.
Melissa's sly smirk never wavered as she knew what he would find.
Nothing.
Anthony was the right hand of one of the Devils of the world. He’d find nothing on his prints. Nothing on facial recognition. Nothing on DNA, if they could get it.
It would be like he didn’t exist.
The first of the two fights of the same round was a barn burner with more counters and blocks than the others all combined. When it was over, a young man with blonde hair of Polish, or perhaps Russian descent, stood victorious, lifting one arm while cradling the other that was obviously injured.
Unlike the fight that preceded it, Sathanas made short work of the Cuban. While the Cuban had a height advantage and a reach advantage, he just couldn’t match Anthony in sheer technique and skill.
Anthony ate two straight rights to the mouth, each one snapping his head to the side before looking back and smiling. He ducked under one, spinning and driving an elbow into the man’s midsection. He then straightened, lifting a knee as the man doubled over, connecting it with his face with a loud crunch as his nose broke.
The man straightened before Anthony threw himself into the air, spinning into a jackknife kick that took him in the face with back and back kicks knocking him smooth out.
As the man was dragged out of the ring, Anthony didn’t even bother to leave. Instead, he turned to look up at the man on the second floor and raising his arms. Romian pursed his lips in displeasure at the arrogance Anthony showed. He leaned over and listened as another man whispered that the young Polish kid’s arm was badly mangled and he wouldn’t be able to fight.
The boss drew in a deep sigh and rose from his chair, standing before the edge of the balcony overlooking the “Club”, and held out his arms for silence.
Romian: “Well, ladies and gentlemen… I have some bad news. It seems our other finalist is unable to compete, so it seems the winner...”
Voice: “If I may?”
All eyes in the room turned to a man standing near one of the doors leading deeper into the warehouse. He had brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His ears were a little on the big side, though it was easy to tell the man worked out. You could see his abs even through the shirt.
On the balcony, the man smiled and opened his hand toward the man.
Romian: “Mr. Maguire, the man who made all of this possible. You have a surprise for us?”
At the name “Maguire”, Anthony’s head snapped around and he locked eyes with Aerynn Maguire’s husband, Shonn. Shonn shot Anthony a wicked, even menacing look before looking up at the man standing on the balcony.
Shonn Maguire: “Aye, tha I do. I brought someone wit me jess incase sometin’ like this happened.”
Romian: “And he’s qualified?”
Shonn Maguire: “Ye kin bae telin’l me, Sir.”
Shonn turned and shoved the door behind him open and the monster walked through them.
He was seven-foot-one and weighed nearly four hundred pounds of pure muscle. He wore a pair of plain black shorts that hung down to his knees and nothing else. No shirt, no shoes, no pads, and was covered nearly head to toe in tattoos.
Anthony whispered in disbelief at the same exact moment Shonn announced him.
Anthony & Shonn: “CRONOS!”
Melissa saw the concern, even apprehension on Anthony’s face. It didn’t take her long to put two and two together. This was one of the Children of Nephilim.
Lucifer had set the trap and Anthony walked right into it.
And now he had to fight Cronos or give up on Melissa.
Something she knew he’d never do.
And Lucifer was counting on it.
