"Ladies and gentlemen!", Misha roared from the announcer's table, turning every vowel into a rollercoaster, "Welcome, to another day of sensational spectacle for your entertainment! Are you ready to see more of the new faces ready to take this sport head on?!"
Despite not being one of the main events of the season, the venue was still full of people that shouted in excited to answer the announcer.
"They've heard you Misha, and just like them, I can't wait!", May bounced off his partner, "And on the first corner we have a face that you already know from the exhibition matches. Get ready, because today we have one of your favorite rising stars on the ring. You know him, the boatman that delivers the dead for their riches, the one that no one can escape from! Charon!".
From the side, a small boat floated towards the ring amongst the applauses and whistling from the public. On top of it, a man covered in a cloak of golden coins pushed forward with an oar, stopping only to raise a hand for his audience. Once by the ring, he tied the boat to one of the posts, jumped in, and elegantly bowed for all those around him.
"Thank you everyone, it's a pleasure to be back here with you!", Charon smiled with shining golden teeth, polished enough to blind someone if light hit them at the right angle, "It's great to see all of you before your appointment!"
"And on the other side we have a new fighter!"
"A creature so vile, that it got his heart ripped out in hell itself as punishment for its sins in life", Misha returned, using her powerful voice to work the audience like the conductor of an orchestra, "A soul so black that they locked it up in the deepest pit and threw away the key. But now, it's broken out and has come for our fighters. We give you the cursed one from hell, Hellmask!"
The floor of the ring exploded in green flames without a warning, and out of them, Hellmask clawed out of his pit, bearing his scars for the world to see. He jumped to the ropes and raised his arms to the public to finish his entrance, green flames still stuck to his body. The welcome wasn't as warm as Charon's, they were still waiting to see what to expect out of him. Without any desire to keep them waiting, Diego turned and looked at his rival dead in the eye, knuckles itching in impatience.
"Listen here, Hellmask", Charon pointed a finger covered in fake gold rings, "I'm going to give you the chance to go back to Hell quietly. I can't let souls like you escape from it just like that, you're going to tank my fares. And, since I'm feeling generous, I'll even do it free of charge this one time".
Diego began to think. His job was supposed to act like a jerk and make people hate him, and Dirtha had spent many hours making him take lessons in acting so that he'd know how to play his role. However, he couldn't think of anything to bounce back of Charon, so instead, he decided to go practical. He raised his hands and made a vile gesture that Emma had taught him a few days earlier, bringing an audible gasp from the commentators' table.
"Dear Lord!", Misha screamed covering her mouth.
"Have you no shame!?", May quickly butted in with enough indignation to win a prize for his acting, "This is a family event! There are kids watching!"
Diego looked at them, and then gifted them with another of that same gesture. It was working so far, so there was no reason to stop doing it.
"I can't believe my eyes!", the announcer continued, "Let me tell you Misha, this is a sad day for sports entertainment".
Diego was already thinking how he could up the ante, but he was interrupted when he got shoved against the ropes. Charon butted his head against him, trying to project his body over his own for the audience, and moving at just the right angle to make the coins of his cloak shine. Emboldened by defiant anger, the skull-faced wrestler got up and pushed him back with his forehead.
"Buddy, you picked the wrong choice. You could've gone with the easy path for the two of us, and you had to go and do that. Now you made me look bad, and I've got to drag you back to Hell even if I have to tie you to my boat", Still pushing forward with his head, he raised his arms by the sides, "And I'll do it in front of this audience, so that your kind knows that there ain't no escaping your place in the underworld!"
"Kinky", the masked revenant said, trying to buy time to think about something dickish to answer with, like his character was supposed to do, "But, I think I'm out of your league. How about a date with Lefty and Righty instead?", He raised his hands in a guard, mockingly making kisses with them.
God, that was dorky.
"Now I'm definitely doing this one for free. I'll admit, I love guys like you, because putting you punks down is one of the best perks of the job".
Quickly, they both held onto each other, pinning the other in place as they tried to gain enough space to put the other in a hold. Not willing to waste time, Diego began to hit him again and again with the side of his head on the ear, to disorienting him for enough time to grab him. The coins hanging around bit him back, but he clenched his teeth and took it in with every strike to the ear. It didn't take long to make Charon lose his grip, enough to move his hands away and pull his cloak down until he was all hunched.
The kravist drove the boatman around the ring while hammering down with his fist like a butcher softening the meat. He was desperate to let out some steam and take out his anger, but Diego couldn't help but think that Charon was in the same situation as himself, forced to fight in that circus, and he couldn't help but hold back. He ended up aiming for the back and all the other places where he couldn't do as much damage. Just a little.
"What a disrespectful pummeling!", May shouted from her corner outside the ring.
With a twist of his hips and a shove, he made his enemy roll away against the ropes, before leaning back on one of the posts, "Come on, at least try to make me break a sweat."
Charon merely got up in silence, and both fighters walked around the ring as the measured one another. While Diego kept his guard up, his rival kept his arms by the sides ready to pounce, lacking any sort of guard. The masked revenant was building up a theory, and it was the time to put it to the test.
He studied how Charon moved around the mat, crossing his legs as he was searching for a chance to make his move. Diego, instead, slide his feet over the ground, like any halfway serious martial artist had been drilled to do hundreds of times.
He then threw small clouds of fire out of his mouth and smiled as much as a skull could, goading Charon to come for him. The boatman happily accepted the invitation and lunged ahead, swinging wide punches like they were paying him for making the biggest ark he could, putting all his body into every attack. Diego kept on watching him, as he blocked or moved out of the way.
"Just a moment ago Hellmask was acting pretty confident, but now he's on the back foot!", the woman of the announcing pair shouted, doing her best to turn anything that happened on the ring into a reason to rile the public up.
With a tap on the leg, the kravist then tried to bring out some kicks out of him. Just like with the punches, he put all of his body into them, moving his center of gravity all around the place.
"I'm not sure about that, I've never seen a guy stay that calm when he's against the ropes", the other half of the commentating table butted in, "What is going on in your head Hellmask, what are you planning?"
You got that right, Diego thought to himself as he dodged under one of the coming hooks.
He finally figured him out, and it was just like he thought.
Charon didn't know how to fight.
Another hook came running against him, but this time, he already had a plan to finish the fight for good. He bent his knees and ducked once more under the arm, only that this time he rushed one of his own between the boatman's legs. The next moment, much to his confusion, he was already hanging on Diego's shoulders high in the air.
And the moment after that, he was flying face first against the mat.
"Dear Lord, did you see that!?", Misha stood up on her chair, and was about to upgrade to the table, "Charon's on the ground! Charon's on the ground!"
As the boatman squirmed on the floor, Diego walked next to him without a hurry, and put a boot on his chest. The ref came running next to him and started the count, while the kravist held three fingers up high.
"One!"
Two fingers
"Come on Charon, get up!", Misha screamed, now leaning on May's shoulder for a better point of view.
Diego sighted with relief, it was about to be over. He'd managed to sweat out part of his issues and was starting to see things clearer. And to top it off, no one had been hurt.
"Two!"
Something slashed his leg. Shocked he looked down and saw a thin string of blood run down his calf, and something shining on Charon's arm.
Then, he noticed that it wasn't something on the arm, it was the arm itself. glistening and silver, it had turned into a blade all the way from the elbow to the fingertips.
The ref shouted something, but Diego couldn't understand it. His whole world had collapsed into that arm.
Charon had knives for goddamn arms.
"I said the count's dropped!", the referee shouted while pushing Hellmask away, "Move it, the match isn't over!"
Charon got up on his feet and smiled with his golden teeth, tilting his head so that they shined for the public alongside his two silver arms.
Cold sweat ran though Diego's body. He was again at that street at night, again with a guy that was about to gut him with a knife.
He wanted to run, but his legs turned into stone.
He was going to get stabbed again.
Oh God, he thought, eyes open wide when the realization kicked him like a cannon, Oh God.
He was about to die a second time.
And Charon was running at him.