Book 2 Ch 51: Mud and Blood

Davi stepped up to the mercenary commander. His size and musculature made him nearly the commander’s equal in height and weight despite being physically younger than him. Still, he had to look up slightly for his gaze to meet Jeb’s.

“Alright pup, I hope you’re hungry. I’m about to make you eat a lot of mud.”

Davi stayed silent, just rolling his shoulders once and lowering himself into a stance.

Finn finished vomiting mud off to the side and wiped his face to return and watch the match. There was a bit of anger in his face, but he didn’t discourage Davi, nor did he complain about the unfairness of his defeat. He just took his place at the front to watch. Gemini mercenaries cleared the way for him and regarded the muddy circle silently.

There was no countdown, or gunshot for the fight to start. One moment Jeb was smirking at Davi and the next he threw himself forward at him.

Davi met the tackle with his own and they started to push against one another in the mud, their shoulders pressed together as their arms shifted and their hands slid around trying to find leverage.

The redheaded mercenary’s size caused Davi to get pushed back into the mud, his feet sinking deeper into it, but Davi kept pushing, his stoic expression a sharp contrast to Jeb’s wide grin. They pushed against one another while probing for weaknesses for nearly a full minute before they both attempted to let up a bit and reorient themselves for another collision. When they moved back in on one another, Davi went low and grabbed Jeb’s leg.

The commander managed to keep himself from being flipped immediately, but was only able to resist for a few moments before Davi put him on his back. Davi tried to maintain hold of the leg, but Jeb managed to use the slick mud to his advantage and removed his leg from Davi’s grasp, repositioning and trying to get hold of Davi’s arm.

This went back and forth for some time with neither of them relenting. The fight with Finn had been based on Finn being fast and getting Jeb into a submission hold, but this was just a brutal slog of two men doing everything they could to subdue the other. Eventually they were both completely covered with mud, and Jeb managed to very suddenly gain the upper hand, getting Davi into an arm bar.

He pulled, but Davi didn’t relent, gritting his mud-covered teeth and roaring as he slipped his other arm through Jeb’s leg to grip his locked arm and provide leverage in the opposite direction. In a burst of furious strength he broke his arm free and got around Jeb getting hold of his leg as he’d intended to from the start and pulling back on it causing the larger man to nearly let out a howl of pain that he barely managed to bite back.

The mercenary captain suddenly burst into flames as he had before, mud bubbling and exploding around him for a brief moment, but Davi didn’t release him, even as Michael watched large burns spread from wherever he was in contact with the mercenary commander’s flames. There was another burst, and a third, but Davi still didn’t relent.

Finally the bursts stopped and Jeb’s body went slack. He muttered something.

Davi pulled the leg harder, bringing it closer to breaking. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you?”

“I yield! You hear me you bastard? I yield!”

Davi released his opponent and stood, his body smoking a bit, only clean in those spots where the mud had been burnt off revealing large patches of burns across his skin. He spat a mouthful of mud onto the ground.

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Finn clasped Davi’s shoulder as he walked back and they exchanged a nod.

Michael approached Davi. “Well done,” he placed a hand on his arm and healed the burns along with a number of damaged ligaments and muscles.

Davi nodded. “Thank you.” He looked across himself and scraped a bit of the mud off. “You don’t suppose it’ll rain soon, do you?”

Michael laughed.

“I’ll help you with that, mate,” said Ollie as he began to chant his usual string of curses. He began moving a large ball of mud into the air and slowly pulled all of the water from it. After that he dropped the dry dirt back into the mud pit and had the now clean water gradually fall onto Davi allowing him to clean himself.