Pit Fighters 1 redux, part 1 (slight NSFW) (Patreon)

Hey! Currently, Chain Unbroken is sitting and waiting for beta readers review. so currently I'm going to be working on Pit Fighters 5... or rather, the Pit Fighters collection/novel. To that end, I'm almost certainly going to be sprucing up a lot of the stuff I've written over the years. Now, while I probably don't need to clean up Part 1 first before I start on part 5, it is the part that's most in need of fixing up. I have so many more ideas for how to better articulate and present scenes, especially when it comes to introducing the world and characters. So, you get to read the new version of Pit Fighters 1, after which I'll probably jump into part 5.

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Paris sighed wanly, letting his eyes suck in those perfectly sculpted bodies on the television. The mango smoothie before him had gone almost entirely untouched, though the tip of the straw lingered in his mouth. He leaned forward on his elbows until his purple cheeks melted into his propped-up wrists, his long purple ears flopping along the wind line.

His blue-furred eldest brother, Blitz, sighed. “Paris… you are so hopelessly gay.”

“What!” Paris exclaimed, his long rabbit ears nearly standing up at the remark before flopping back under their own weight again. “I don’t watch all of Sultan’s matches!”

“Yeah,” Konner, the teal-colored middle child, said. He’d already drained his blackcurrant smoothie dry. “Sometimes you have to be at school.”

Although the dark clouds rolling in threatened another rain, the sun still shone from the east, the billowing wind tasted warm and fresh and salty, and the outdoor cafe aside the grocer still held the awning back and the patio uncovered.

Above them was the icon of St. Marten-Cristo, for whom the island was named. This particular statue stood tall in the middle of the bustling upper-class shopping district. The mustelid saint had burgeoning pecs out of the top of his toga, lifting high over his head a sword with a muscular arm. Since it was classical art, that meant it was perfectly fine and not a destabilizing factor in the delinquency of the youth. Paris had always found him kinda hot, though unlike his Pit Fighters heroes, he didn’t end up doodling pictures of the saint in his school notebooks, as he felt that may have been just a little blasphemous.

Directly behind the statue was the old church appended to it, originally completed in 1367. It now housed a branch of Sterling Clothiers.

In the cafe, the television sound was off to preserve the gentle stillness of the island’s natural beauty, intercut with scrolling closed captions of the color commentator.

"They’re spacing now—each one sizing up the other—though Sultan seems to be the only one standing straight. He’s a stone pillar, folks, can anything Farin do even bend him a little?" "Perhaps with a forklift, Colin."

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Paris asked. “Television is practically the only gay scene on this entire island.”

“There’s always the church,” Konner remarked.

Paris rolled his eyes. “An open gay scene. I’m pretty sure the church will not acknowledge what goes on behind the baptistery so long as they keep preaching how it’s a sin in front of it. Besides, I’d prefer a little less chanting and a little more…” Paris rolled his wrist around in a circle, searching for the word.

“…abs?” Blitz guessed.

“I was gonna say ass,but those are good too.”

Blitz snorted. “Maybe you could just start finding tits attractive.”

Paris glared. “Well why do you watch Pit Fighters, then?”

“Because fighting is awesome?” Blitz announced. As if to mark his point, he flexed his muscles, which for a rabbit his size were not entirely underwhelming. They were at the very least better than Paris’s. “Look, these guns can take on anyone and ladies love that kind of thing. They want a masculine man who can protect them. By punching dudes in the face.”

“Yeah,” Paris sighed, resuming eye-fucking the TV. “That sounds great.”

Blitz jabbed Paris on the shoulder with the spiral tattoo. Paris flinched and rubbed the resulting sore spot.

Konner interrupted before any more fighting could commence. “I think Paris meant that Pit Fighters is extremely gay-pandering?”

Blitz shot Konner a dirty look. “Right. Pit Fighters, the only sport worth mentioning in this city, popular with all demographics, centralized within a highly religious, heterosexual market, is specifically gay-pandering.”

“Well I’ve been around the block a few times,” Konner said, dabbing at the end of his smoothie and checking to see if there was any residue left on the bottom of the cup. “And you know what the weird thing is? When I had that one boyfriend—you remember Langsley—we got away with kissing in public because the adults around us thought we were just saying hello or goodbye. Even open-mouth.”

Blitz scoffed. “I doubt it.”

“Seriously! Yeah, when we were in elementary school, the reaction would have been ‘haha eww gay’ but most of the adults around here are so burnt-out, they’d rather just convince themselves that there’s a perfectly reasonable, heterosexual explanation for anything short of two penises grinding against each other. Sometimes not even then.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Am I?” Konner asked. He pointed his used straw back at the TV. The camera swept in a low-angle zoom, right under Sultan’s thick kangaroo tail—the back of his enormous balls very prominently in-frame. “What’s that, then? Any closer and we’d be inside Sultan’s rectum.”

Paris jolted, and his nose spontaneously sprouted a leak. He dabbed a napkin to his face to soak up the blood.

“Also Paris’s nose does that any time Sultan is particularly saucy,” Konner said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“You’re the one looking for their balls,” Blitz countered.

“They’re right there!” Konner gestured furtively. “Sultan’s not even my particular type—he’s way too big. He’s almost chunky.”

“No, Komana is chunky,” Paris said, referring to the top tier elephant fighter. “Sultan is…prime…”

He trailed off as Sultan trapped Farin in an out-of-nowhere suplex, pinning the boar on the floor so his face was dead-smack in the kangaroo’s crotch.

“Holy crap that leglock,” Konner said, his jaw dropping.

“Okay…” Blitz said, “…maybe it’s a little gay, but it’s not necessarily gay. Besides, I doubt Sultan’s even into guys if he’s beating them up all the… Paris?”

Konner turned too. Paris had fallen backwards onto the red slab deck of the cafe. His tongue lolled out like a bloated corpse, his nose ran with blood down both of his mussy violet cheeks.

“…should we get mom?” Konner asked, looking up toward the doors to the grocer.

“Eh, he’ll be okay,” Blitz said, polishing off his drink. “Though you might want to get his unfinished smoothie there and press it into his crotch before he really embarrasses himself.”

###

“Mom, no, I’m fine,” Paris sputtered as she wiped the blood from his cheeks with a tongue-dabbed napkin. “I’m almost twenty, I can do it myself!”

Tyree sighed, stroking her hand over Paris’s ruffled head and down his ears. Blitz and Konner both pulled the groceries from the cart for the trip back to Lowtown. Paris eventually joined them, struggling to lift one of the grocery bags off the cobblestone plaza. Both his brothers each lifted two.

Paris grunted. “God, mom, why do you have to buy so much any time we go uptown?”

“Because we don’tget to go often,” Tyree said. She discarded into the waste bin several paper remains, each with large square holes everywhere that once coupons had occupied. She replaced the pair of scissors back inside her poncho. “And if we’re gonna, we’re gonna make the most of it.”

“Oh, thanks for the smoothies, mom,” Konner added. “Free smoothies always taste the best.”

“Aww, welcome hun. Hope you boys had fun.”

“Paris sure did,” Blitz snickered.

Paris huffed, trying to ignore the jab as he dragged the cloth bag down toward the streetcar tracks. He had a bit of pride in being one of the strapping young sons who could walk around the city with his mother and keep her from being harassed. But he did wish he wasn’t so completely outclassed by his brothers.

Paris’s bag clanged to the floor of the car and he collapsed onto the seat. As he caught his breath, he glanced inside the bag. “…canned fish?” Paris asked. “Mom, we get fresh fish down at the docks for less than this.”

“Not halibut. And besides, fresh goes bad in forty-eight hours, we can’t always make it to the docks every day.” Tyree said. She tilted her head. “Paris, what’s wrong? You’re not usually this moody.”

“Sorry…” Paris slumped.

“We were watching Pit Fighters,” Konner said, still easily holding one of the grocery bags as he held the overhead strap with his other hand. “Sultan was on.”

“The huge kangaroo?” Tyree said, looking a little flustered at the thought. “Oh, I love him. How’d he do today?”

“He won, as usual. KO’d Paris with just a glance.”

Paris blushed fiercely.

“Oh…” Tyree sat down next to Paris. “You know, hun… this pent-up energy is driving you nuts. As much as it’d aggravate your father, you’re clearly in need of a husband.”

Paris pinched his lips shut, glancing around the streetcar as if someone would say something. Most people continued reading their outdated print newspapers, though there was a dark red weasel in the back in a black vest and flat cap, clearly casting the occasional look in his direction.

“I know that,” Paris whispered. “But it’s not exactly easy to find a guy to date in this place, you know? All the ones I know of are already dating someone, or Konner got to them first.”

“I’ve literally only dated the one guy,” Konner said.

“And you got to him first!”

“There’s that school function, right?” Tyree asked. “The one Konner’s going to tonight.”

“It’s a meet-and-greet for the college,” Konner said. “Paris isn’t going there.”

“Next year,” Paris said.

“Yes but it is the free college,” Tyree said. “I don’t think they’ll particularly care if you bring a plus one. And I’m sure there’ll be cute guys there!”

Paris gestured fruitlessly. “It’s just…so hard to talk to people. I’ll just make an idiot of myself. And nobody finds that attractive.”

“You just need to work on your self-confidence.” Tyree embraced Paris tightly.

“Yeah, maybe,” Paris groaned, eyes shifting toward the weasel in the back. The weasel gave him a thumbs-up.

“You know what else is unattractive?” Blitz asked, turning around to face Paris. “Being a momma’s boy.”

“What!” Paris snapped, standing straight up.

“That is not unattractive,” Tyree scoffed. “Lots of tough men love their mothers. That’s why you see those tattoos all the time.”

Blitz set down his other grocery bag and held up his fingers in turn. “One, Paris is not tough. He doesn’t get a pass for that. Two, most of said tough guys don’t retreat to their mother’s womb because the world is too scary for them.”

“Would you shut up, Blitz!” Paris jabbed a finger into his brother’s chest. “You’re always on about this, why is my lovelife of such interest to you?”

“Because you suck at it!” Blitz said. “I don’t care that you like balls, Paris, but at some point you’re gonna need to grow a pair of your own!”

“Oh, that’s it!”

Paris pounced, knocking down Blitz in a flying tackle. The cab was still mostly empty, and so they only fell to the floor together. Blitz was caught off-guard, and struggled against Paris smacking him the face over and over.

“Boys, stop that,” Tyree growled.

“He started it!” Blitz yelled.

With his legs, he hooked Paris’s knee. He yanked his brother’s whole body to tumble aside, and then fell on top of him. Now pinned to the floor, Paris tried to pick himself up. Blitz grabbed hold of his ears and yanked on them, shoving his shoulder to the floor.

“Do you even remember taking martial arts classes?” Blitz grunted.

“Ow!” Paris yelped. “Ow, mom! Make him stop!”

“Blitz, for God’s sake, leave the wrestling at home.”

As Blitz picked himself up off on Paris, sprawled pathetically on the flood, Konner hurried to pick up the toppled canned goods before they rolled right out of the car.

###

Paris was certain having to wear the ruffly formal clothes for the school social was his punishment. He felt at least three decades out of place in a location where being six weeks out of fashion was reputation-destroying. There was some “retro” statement to be salvaged with the high collar, but he didn’t even like wearing clothes at appropriate times. The weather of St. Marten-Cristo almost entirely precluded the need for any clothing at any point of the year, and yet tradition and formality rules still lingered.

Hardly four dozen students mingled around. The location was not even in a proper auditorium. Or maybe it was the auditorium, it just normally doubled as a science lab—clearly marked by the lab tables shoved all the way to the edges of the room, surrounded by posters with lame science puns. Apparently there was a main stage somewhere, but it was in use for more interesting events that night.

To top it off, the speakers were melanchonicly blaring Take My Hand, Baby Baby. Paris hated that song.

“So,” Konner started. He was wearing a belted poncho with the Free Friar Chanters band logo printed on it—they were the ones singing the terrible song. Konner had gotten it at a thrift store. “You gonna talk to anyone or just become a permanent fixture of the room?” He sipped lightly from his red plastic cup.

“I don’t see you talking to anyone,” Paris said.

“I have a girlfriend now, remember?”

“Yeah, she lives in Avaria.”

Konner kicked Paris in the ankle. Paris winced and pulled his foot away.

“It’s true!” Konner insisted.

“So, what,” Paris said, gesturing to the clots of people milling about the floor, “You just go up to someone and bother them? That’s how introductions work?”

“Kinda,” Konner said. “You really should learn this stuff when you’re young.”

“I don’t remember how I did it when I was a kid!” Paris threw his arms up. “It just all seemed so easy then, before there were any hormones involved. Now I can’t help but think everyone’s judging me for more than what TV shows I like to watch.”

“There, open up with Pit Fighters,” Konner said. “Everyone watches it. So you got something in common.”

“It sounds like a recipe for embarrassment…”

“Just watch and do what I do.”

Konner pulled away from the wall and sauntered up between a doe and a mouse, who were talking with a ewe clearly sheared under her thin toga. Her modest breasts were practically on full display. How did that even count as formal clothing, when Paris had to cover up his own sexual features?

“Hey, you catch the match today?” Konner said, poking his head into the conversation.

“What, Sultan?” The ewe asked. “Let me guess, he won? I don’t need to watch that for the eight hundredth time.”

“Well he might have lost, and then you would have missed a very interesting fight.”

“Look, he’s very handsome,” the mouse girl said, “but you can get that from magazine spreads. Besides, I’m much more into Thunderhead. He’s got all those stripes, they hug those muscles like nothing else.”

“I don’t know how they can keep booking Sultan all the time,” the ewe added. “His ratings have got to be down any time he shows up.”

“Oh, I suppose,” Konner said. “They always say the fights you remember are the ones that are close. Say, what are you girls drinking?”

“What,” the ewe said. “It’s just punch.”

“That’s not what it smells like,” Konner teased in sing-song.

“Shh!” The doe said, looking around to spot the TA observer in the far corner. She pulled a flask out of the chest of her own blouse. “I brought rum. No telling!”

Konner held out his cup. “Pop a little here and my lips are zipped.”

He turned and winked in Paris’s direction. Paris’s jaw opened; he could hardly believe he was supposed to do that. It seemed more like marvelous luck that Konner found ladies with something going on.

He swallowed, and glancing among the groups of people, did his best to assess whether any grouping of guys were sufficiently gay. That amounted largely to him staring at a large ram who had nothing covering his tail, and his thoughts getting caught in a loop between please let him be gay and he’s probably not and he’s gonna laugh at you anyway.

He eventually settled on I could watch his butt all night and be happy.

“Dude, just go,” Konner said, swinging back around to Paris’s increasingly isolated spot. He had the doe under one arm and the ewe under another.

Paris stared up and down at them. “What about your girlfriend?”

“She’s in Avaria,” Konner shrugged.

“Fine, just—rrgh—are the guys over there gay or not?” Paris said, gesturing toward the hot ram dude. “I really hate guessing.”

“Trent?” the ewe said. “He’s my brother.”

“Is he gay.” Paris expressed it exclusively as a frustrated statement.

“I dunno,” the ewe said. “He watches a lot of Pit Fighters.”

“Men’s league or women’s?”

“Both, I think.”

“Good enough for me!”

Before he could talk himself out of it, Paris righted himself upward and marched right into the conversation Trent was holding with a svelte mongoose.

“Hi, Paris, I’m Trent. Did you see the match on Sultan? Amazing end to the season tournament, don’t you think?” Paris tried his best to ignore how many of those words were in the wrong order.

Trent, being nearly a foot taller, glanced down at Paris. “I don’t watch Sultan matches. He always wins and that’s rather monotonous.” He took a big swig of his cup.

Paris’s mind blanked. He froze there for a solid five seconds, watching Trent drink. The mongoose just stared at him and blinked.

“Right,” Paris said. “Okay. I’m now going back into that corner to die.”

###

Paris turned his head down as the streetlights came on. The wind picked up and spattered his head with the first sign of rain, and Paris tucked his formal coat tighter under his armpit as he trudged the cobblestones back toward home.

It was, at the very least, quiet. Much better to be far away from everyone. Maybe he’d turn right and walk down and go sleep under the boardwalk instead. Maybe the sea would rise and carry him away.

Before he could turn his feet off from autopilot, however, Paris raised his head and noted a walrus stapling up a series of bills along the walls of the stucco buildings all around. He turned and found one of the dozens of such posters just at his left, the top corner flickering in the wind.

JOIN THE PIT FIGHTERS IN ITS 77th SEASON! We need new, fresh fighters willing to shake up the status quo and go all the way! Fame and fortune could be yours! Ages 16+, any body type, any skill level, no formal training required! Average monthly winnings start at 6600Ƌ.

The thought had crossed his mind before. With the season ending with the end of the summer—a.k.a. the wet season—the recruitment was going to start up for the league downtime over the winter—a.k.a. the wetter season.

“You interested?”

Paris nearly jumped out of his skin. He pivoted to see the tall, red weasel from the streetcar earlier that day, wearing the same black vest and flat cap. Paris, knowing he was going to be mugged despite having zero money on his person, instantly took up a fighting stance, nearly toppling as he spread his legs out wide.

“Woah, hey, easy there!” The weasel said, backing up and holing his hands out. He unzipped his vest and opened it up. “No weapons, see? I’m not here to hurt you, kid.” He took off his cap to emphasize the point.

“Are you following me?” Paris asked, not moving from his spot.

“Naw, I just keep my ears open. I heard you were looking for a husband. Or perhaps just a boyfriend, or a cute toy to play with.”

“Are you propositioning me?”

“Well, that too…” the weasel grinned, showing off rows of sharp teeth. He pulled a bill from his vest pocket. “You’re prolly broke, right? Sixty drachs to suck my dick. Then if you want, pay it back and I’ll suck yours. Or keep it. I’m fine either way.”

Paris sighed and pulled out of his fighting stance—it was getting difficult to hold anyway. “Oh… I think mom would kill me if I started prostituting myself. Not that she’s against it, per se, just that… you know, there’s a lot of exploitative people out there.”

“I’d never!” The weasel said. “I ain’t no pimp. God, those guys disgust me. Look, I can tell you’re spooked, let’s go somewhere there aren’t any dark alleys for mugs to spring on you. Down the beach. Big open place. C’mon.”

Paris glanced at the tall, shadowy alleyways where he couldn’t see past the first few feet, then hurried down the stone steps to the beach. The weasel was already waiting for him.

“Here,” the weasel said, offering his hand. “Ain’t gotta do nothin’ you’re uncomfortable with. Let’s just take a stroll. A lil’ rain and a lil’ streetlight. Romantic-like.”

For Paris, It was strangely nice to walk down the beach with someone, even if they were just pretending for the moment to be interested in him. Still, even though the stranger was a little frightening, very little about his demeanor suggested he was cruel, or even planning something. He was just grinning, and swaying his hips and his long body in a manner Paris could only describe as effeminate. Maybe it had something to do with the way his vest was slumped off his shoulders, hanging around his elbows.

“You said that too…” Paris said. “What’s the other thing you wanted from me?”

“I mean, you must be aware the gay scene is dead around here, right? They don’t allow those sorts of nightclubs in this city. Not even regular clubs. Kid, I’ve been to countries where they do allow it, and it is so nice, let me tell you.”

“Then why come here?”

“Work.” He said it so innocently, the word had to have more meaning behind it.

“You… work for Pit Fighters,” Paris said. “I gotta say, you have a very strange pitch.”

“It’s not a strange pitch,” the weasel said. “Without an open gay scene… eh, we have other ways of making do. You wanna meet some local guys who’ll be interested in touching your wiener?”

“God yes,” Paris sighed. “But don’t say it like that.”

“Well, that’s where you need to go.”

“I’m not a fighter!”

“Geez, you read the poster, right? No fighting skills required. They teach you that stuff. You learn to fight, you get fit, you get to hang around with a bunch of fit dudes all pent-up and ready to splooge.”

“Would you stop saying it like that?”

“Sorry, but I’m actually real used to having a lotta hot guys waiting on me. Barely even registers that this island is so strictly het.”

“There’s really that many gay guys in the Pit Fighters men’s league?”

“Kid… everyone who joins is gay.”

Paris stopped in the middle of the sand, his hand slipping out of the weasel’s. He crossed his arms and gave the weasel a side-eye.

“There can’t be that many,” Paris said. “Marten-Cristo’s population is only half a million. They all become Pit Fighters?”

The weasel shrugged. “Half a million, divide by two for male population. Multiply by ten percent—that’s what everyone says the gay rate is but trust me, it’s a lot higher than that. Even so, that’s twenty-five thousand. There’s only roughly one thousand fighters and other male employees in the league at any one time. Not that unbelievable.”

“Maybe the number fits, but I just can’t believe it’s sitting under everyone’s nose on this island.”

The weasel placed a gentle paw on Paris’s shoulder. “Kid, just take the tour, no obligation. You will be a believer. Now… you want those sixty drachs or no?”