(2022 - December 10, Detroit)
Little Caesars Arena wasn't an arena that night. It was a cathedral. But not of hope or glory. It was a cathedral of impending violence, and 20,000 worshippers had come to witness the sacrament. The air, thick with the smell of cheap beer, expensive cologne, and collective breath, vibrated with a low, hungry hum. Detroit had come to see its monster coronated.
In the bowels of the arena, in a locker room that smelled of antiseptic and cold steel, Kyon Wilson was a study in still, coiled fury. He was already gloved and wrapped. The ritual was stripped bare. No music. No speeches. Gregor was gone. Only Manny, the conditioner, and "Slick" Rick, now a nervous observer, were with him. Doc Hollis smeared a final layer of Vaseline over Kyon's face, his brows, his cheekbones.
"Don't need much," Doc grunted. "You ain't planning on getting hit, are ya?"
Kyon didn't answer. He was looking at his own hands, clenched and unclenching. The wraps were stark white. The gloves, black leather, seemed to drink the light. He could feel it—the power, a living current under his skin, impatient, begging for release. He wasn't nervous. He wasn't focused. He was hungry. A deep, primal hunger that had been building since the moment Monroe's video hit his phone.
Lena entered, a silhouette in the doorway. "It's time. They're finishing his walk."
Kyon stood. The movement was fluid, powerful, utterly silent. He looked at her, and his eyes were flat, black pools. There was no artist there. No philosopher. There was only the apex predator.
"Let's go," he said, his voice a gravelly rasp.
His walkout was a masterclass in dread. The house lights died. A single, pounding, percussive beat began—no melody, just the sound of a massive hammer striking an anvil, over and over. A lone spotlight hit the tunnel.
He emerged.
He wore a simple black hooded robe, the hood drawn up, shadowing his face. He walked slowly, deliberately, his shoulders rolling with each step, a prowl made human. The crowd's roar was deafening, a wall of sound that seemed to part before him. He didn't acknowledge it. He didn't raise a fist. He kept his eyes fixed on the distant ring, a diamond of light in the darkness. The anvil-hammer beat matched his heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Across the arena, Terence "Trigger" Monroe was finishing a flashy, triumphant entrance, all sparkling jacket and pyrotechnics, blowing kisses to the crowd. The contrast was absolute: the peacock and the panther.
Kyon reached the ring, climbed through the ropes. He shed the robe. The gasp was audible. His physique was a work of terrifying art. Every muscle was carved, defined, humming with visible tension. The scars on his torso, the faded marks from a lifetime of war, stood out like runes. He began to shadowbox, not the flowing Phantom dance, but sharp, explosive motions—jabs that snapped the air, hooks that ripped through space, each punch accompanied by a sharp exhale that sounded like a gunshot. He wasn't warming up. He was demonstrating the tools of the slaughter.
Monroe entered the ring, still bouncing, talking to his corner, trying to project confidence. But his eyes kept flicking to Kyon, to the quiet, devastating violence of his movements.
The announcements were made. The champion. The challenger. The referee, an experienced, grim-faced man named Mills, gave his instructions.
"Touch gloves and come out fighting."
They met in the center. Monroe, trying to reclaim the psychological edge, thrust his gloves forward aggressively, his chin up, a defiant smirk on his face.
Kyon touched gloves with a lazy, almost contemptuous tap. He didn't look at Monroe's eyes. He looked at his throat. The damaged throat. And for the first time that night, he smiled. It was a small, cold, terrifying curl of his lips that held no mirth, only promise. He leaned in, his voice a whisper that slithered through the noise.
"Your voice still sounds broken," he said. "Let's fix that."
He turned and walked back to his corner, leaving Monroe standing there, the smirk frozen, then melting into a flicker of naked fear.
Ding.
Round 1
Monroe came out slick, as predicted. He was on his toes, flicking a sharp jab, moving laterally, using the entire ring. He was here to box, to survive, to outpoint the monster.
Kyon took the first jab on his high guard. Pop. He didn't flinch. He took a step forward. Monroe skittered to his right, fired another jab, a quick one-two that Kyon deflected with his gloves.
Kyon wasn't chasing. He was cutting the ring. With slow, dreadful steps, he began to walk Monroe down. His feet were heavy, planted. He was a glacier, and Monroe was a skiff dancing on the water before it. He feinted a lunging right hand. Monroe reflexively leapt back, his feet crossing for a moment—a tiny, panicked misstep.
Kyon saw it. He didn't pounce. He smiled again. A wider, more chilling smile. He pointed at Monroe's feet with his gloved left hand. A teacher pointing out a child's error.
The crowd oohed. The humiliation was instant, psychic.
Monroe's face flushed with anger and embarrassment. He darted in, threw a fast combination—jab, cross, hook—all aimed at Kyon's head. Kyon rolled with the shots, letting them glance off his shoulders and arms, the sound like rain on a tin roof. As Monroe finished and tried to pivot away, Kyon finally threw his first meaningful punch.
Not the overhand right. A short, vicious left hook to the liver as Monroe turned.
THUMP.
The sound was sickeningly deep, a punch you felt in your own gut just hearing it. Monroe's eyes bulged. All the air left his body in a pained oof. He stumbled, his graceful footwork turning to a stagger. He grabbed onto Kyon, holding, desperate to survive the follow-up.
Kyon let him hold. He put his forehead against Monroe's, looking down into his pain-widened eyes. "One round," Kyon whispered, the words a hot breath in Monroe's ear. "You have five minutes of running left. Then we start."
He shoved Monroe off as the referee broke them. The bell rang. Monroe practically fell onto his stool, his body already betraying him, one hand pressed to his throbbing side.
Round 2
The running began in earnest. Monroe, his side screaming, moved constantly, flicking jabs from too far out, his rhythm shattered. Kyon walked him down, a relentless, silent pressure. He started to jab himself. Not to score. To punish. Each of Kyon's jabs was a thudding piston, snapping Monroe's head back, popping against his guard with a force that resonated up Monroe's arms. Red welts began to rise on Monroe's face.
Midway through the round, Kyon cornered him. Monroe, panicked, threw a wild, looping right hand. Kyon ducked under it with insulting ease and came up with an uppercut that started at his knees. It missed the chin but landed flush on Monroe's chest, right on the sternum.
CRACK.
A dry, bone-on-bone sound. Monroe's legs buckled. He sagged against the ropes, gasping for air that wouldn't come, his heart hammering against a stunned cage.
Kyon didn't swarm. He stepped back. He looked at Monroe, struggling to breathe, clinging to the ropes like a shipwreck victim. He nodded, as if confirming a hypothesis. "The body goes first," he said, loud enough for the ringside mics to pick up. "Then the will."
The crowd was no longer cheering. It was watching in a kind of horrified, rapt silence. This wasn't a fight. It was a dissection.
Round 3
Monroe was a ghost of himself. His movement was sluggish, his punches had no snap. Fear had replaced strategy. Kyon began to play.
He walked forward, his hands down by his sides. He dared Monroe to hit him. Monroe, desperate, threw a desperate right cross.
Kyon slipped it inside, letting the glove whisper past his ear. As Monroe's arm extended, Kyon trapped it against his own body, locking Monroe in place. With his free hand, he began to deliver short, brutal, unanswered hooks to Monroe's exposed ribs. Thud. Thud. Thud. Each one a muffled explosion of agony. Monroe cried out, a strangled, helpless sound.
The referee hovered, close to stopping it. Kyon looked over Monroe's shoulder, made eye contact with the ref, and shook his head once. Not yet.
He released Monroe, shoved him back. Monroe stumbled, his arms dropping, his face a mask of torment.
Kyon then unleashed a combination of pure, savage beauty. A stiff jab that rocked Monroe's head back. A straight right that split his guard and smashed his nose flat in a burst of crimson. A left hook that caught him on the jaw as he was already falling.
Monroe crashed to the canvas, landing on his side in a spray of his own blood.
The referee started the count. "ONE... TWO..."
Monroe stirred, his instincts forcing movement. He pushed himself up on trembling arms.
"...SEVEN... EIGHT..."
He made it to his knees, his eyes glazed, blood pouring from his ruined nose and a cut over his eye.
"...NINE... TEN! He's up! He's up!" The referee waved him forward.
Kyon waited in the neutral corner, his expression one of cold, clinical interest. As Monroe staggered to his feet, clinging to the ropes, Kyon walked forward. Not a rush. A stroll.
The bell rang, saving Monroe from certain oblivion. His corner rushed in, a blur of towels and panic. Kyon turned and walked to his stool, not a drop of sweat on him, his breathing even.
Round 4
They should have stopped it. Everyone knew it. But pride, money, hope—something made them send Monroe out.
He was a walking corpse. His left eye was swollen shut. His nose was a grotesque, bloody mess. He held his right arm low, protecting his shattered ribs.
Kyon met him in the center of the ring. He didn't throw a punch. He put his left hand on Monroe's chest and pushed. It wasn't a hard shove. It was a dismissive flick.
Monroe stumbled back, his legs betraying him, and fell onto his backside.
The crowd gasped. The humiliation was complete, absolute.
Kyon looked down at him, then at the referee. His expression said, Is this what you wanted?
Monroe, weeping with shame and pain, used the ropes to pull himself up.
Kyon let him get set. Then he attacked.
It was a final, merciful flurry, if such a thing could be merciful. A right hand to the body that folded Monroe in half. A left hook to the jaw that snapped his head sideways. A final, concussive overhand right that landed with the sound of a splitting oak.
Monroe didn't crumple. He went stiff, then collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. He landed face-first on the canvas, utterly still, a pool of blood already spreading beneath his head.
The referee didn't count. He screamed for the doctors.
The arena was silent. A profound, shocking silence broken only by the frantic shouts of the medical team rushing through the ropes.
Kyon stood over the wreckage of Terence Monroe. He looked at his own fists, then back at the man he had destroyed. He wasn't celebrating. He wasn't remorseful.
He was satisfied.
The cold smile returned to his lips, now smeared with a fleck of Monroe's blood. He raised his arms, not in triumph, but in acknowledgment of the work done. The cathedral of pain had witnessed its sermon. The monster had fed.
As the medics stabilized Monroe on a stretcher, Kyon turned to the crowd. He met the thousands of stunned, fearful, adoring eyes. He leaned into the nearest camera, his face a mask of gore-streaked, god-like indifference.
"Who's next?"