Chapter 28: The physical

Gerald looked to his left. There were three black couches. On each couch sat two people except for the middle couch in which sat one person. There was a giant window behind the middle couch and on the middle couch sat a man. What struck Gerald the first thing about the man was that there was scar that ran down his left eye. His left eye was completely different from his other one. His right eye was as green as emerald while his other one had no colour. It was blind. Underneath the mans eyes were black bags that showed he hadn't slept properly recently.

There were bags laying on the floor and inside them were silver coins. Gold coins were all across the floor. In front of the man was a clear see through table and on top of it was a large amount of white substance. They were in a very long lines that started from one edge of the table to the other.

Gerald could see the blinding lights from the window behind the man.

The man had short messy hair, his skin was caramel brown but more on the tanned side.

"You look different Minna, What happened to you?" Gerald said.

"Yeah, I got a new haircut and a tattoo of a naked woman on my ass. Couldn't sit down for a few days but it was worth it." Minna replied with a smile.

"What happened to your eye? Last time I saw you it looked fine. But now you look like shit."

Minna touched the bags underneath his eyes. "Oh this, yeah I haven't slept properly recently, one of the side effects of running a criminal empire."

"I was talking about your scar, what happened to it? Was that bitch Stacey's terrible breath responsible for it?"

The four men sitting on the nearby couches and Li Xiu were looking at each other. Why was this man talking so casually with Minna? The old man who Dan had helped earlier was sitting on one of the couches and next to him was the tall man called Peter. Even he didn't dare to casually chat like that. Any time he talked with Minna he made sure to keep a certain level of professionalism and respect.

"Nah, I broke up with her before this happened, it's a touchy subject I don't want to talk about. Why are you here Geraaaald?" Minna asked as he butchered Gerald's name.

Gerald pulled the golden card from his pocket. "I came here to make some money, I will be joining the bronze cage matches."

Minna's smile widened slowly. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious, You think I would go out of my way and waste my time and come all this way just to see your ugly brown face, no. I saw your face so many times that I feel like you are a living cliche."

Master Xiu's heart was beating so fast right now that Peter could barely hear it. He could understand why. Minna was a cold killer by nature, the man who ran an entire criminal empire would have to have some seriously strong backbone and Minna did a lot of horrible things to get where he was.

There was a rumour that Minna shot a 12 year old kid just for looking at him the wrong way. There was a rumour that Minna had a third eye in the back of his head which was why no one could ever sneak up on him. There was a rumour that he courted a queen while her husband was forced to watch.

Everyone was waiting for the familiar sound of a gunshot and a dead body hitting the floor but they heard something else. It was the sound of Minna laughing! The man smiled a lot but rarely laughed. Usually he would snigger or let out a small chuckle. It was even to the point where everyone thought that he couldn't laugh properly.

Old man Xiu and everyone else turned towards Minna and saw that he was the one who was laughing.

"Ouch, those words hurt more than lemon on a paper cut injury and for that I demand an apology." Minna crossed his hands as he slumped back onto the couch.

"Does beating you up until you cry count as an apology?" Gerald said as he took a step forward. The moment Gerald took a step forward the two men on the left couch sprungs forward and placed their swords on his neck and the end of a gun barrel was placed on the back of his head by Liu Xiu.

Even old man Xiu had a crossbow aimed at Gerald.

"AAAAY, AAY, AY, PUT THE WEAPONS DOWN, PUT THEM DOWN, UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR LIFES!" Minna said as he shot up from his seat. The two men with the swords, and Li Xiu were confused. This man could barely react when they pulled their weapons on him so why would they lose their lifes.

"I SAID PUTT THEM DOWN, YOU DUMB IDIOTS, I D-D-DIDN'T S-S-STUTTER DID I?" Minna shouted.

Gerald scratched his chin, "You need to hire better security than this, their reactions are so slow."

With one swift movement of his hands, both of them where each on a sword. "Don't do it." Minna said.

Gerald only smiled back.

CRKKKAAAAA!!!

Gerald exerted as much pressure as he could on both the swords and they were shattered. The men just looked at their swords. This man had just destroyed with his bare hands, if he could do this with ease then surely he could crush their heads, could he not?

The two men backed of, not that they had any choice and Liu Xiu put her gun in the back. She had already put her gun back when she heard the orders.

'Looks like the bluff worked, thank God.' While everyone thought that Gerald was concealing his power and holding back, that took nearly all of his energy.

He barely broke the swords and had large cuts on his palm but no one noticed as he placed his hands in his cloaks pocket.

"You didn't have to break their swords you know? Anyways I need to talk to you later on. Liu will take you the fighting arena and explain the rules to you."

"There are rules, I thought everything went until someone died."

"Of course we have rules, we're not barbarians, and the death matches are only in the golden championship. Liu Xiu take him to the fighting arena explain the rules to him." Minna said as he waved his hands.

_________________ _________ __________

"... And those are the rules, do you have any questions?" Liu Xiu said to Gerald. They were standing in front of the fighters room.

"No, I basically understood the rules, no killing and no surrendering within the first minute and their is a maximum of 5 fights per fighter for the day and they are consecutive fights so it doesn't matter whether you lose or not you have to continue fighting, Quite simple really."

"That's good, you can use any weapon you want, if you don't have any weapons but wish to use one they are in this room. Your fight starts in 30 minutes, please get ready. You can place your clothes in the lockers."

Liu Xiu walked away shaking her hips from side to side. Gerald did not look at her behind as he was not attracted to her. He turned around and pushed open the fighter's room's door.

The moment he walked in a heavy scent hit his nose. It was the smell of heavy sweat. The room was practically a gym. There were dumbbells of varying weights and lots of other equipments.

There several long ropes that were attached to the ceiling, a wall that was made for climbing and he could even see a swimming pool through a door window.

There were all sorts of people in the room, giant bulky men who were curling the iron weights, slender men who were climbing up the rope and several woman who were using several battling ropes.

No one paid any attention to him and Gerald breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to get into a fight with those giants of men. As he looked around, he noticed a giant notice sign on the wall. The sign was white but the letters were in red. It said: DESTRUCTION OR THEFT OF ANY

KIND ON ANOTHER FIGHTERS

PROPERTY SHALL NOT BE

TOLERATED. CONSEQUENCES

START FROM FINES OF AS

LITTLE AS 3 GOLD AND COULD

END IN BEING BANNED FROM

THE FIGHTING ARENA.

"That's good to know." Gerald thought. As he looked around he saw the lockers.The lockers were 30 inches by 30 inches from what Gerald could guess.

He put on his gloves and took of his cloak, his black shirt and gloves until he was wearing only boxers, his normal slippers and the gloves he put on earlier.

Gerald had a really well built body. If anything it looked more like Dan's. It was slender with decent muscles all over him. He had six well developed packs and well conditioned triceps and biceps. His back was smooth and muscular.

Gerald decided it was time to warm up before he got into a fight. He stretched for approximately 5 minutes making sure to stretch the most important parts. He made sure he had stretched his back and his legs since he did not want any cramps in the middle of the fight.

He was going to be fighting 5 matches back to back with no rest. Gerald jumped up several times making sure that his knees almost touched his chins. He also did this for approximately 5 minutes.

He then decided to do some pushups. Right after hitting 68 pushups he heard someone calling his name.

"Is Gerald here?" a loud voice said.

Gerald looked to see who was calling his name and saw a man dressed in a suit with a clipboard.

"Is there a person named Gerald here?" The man once again repeated. The other fighters continued doing what they were doing since their name was not Gerald.

"This is the last time, is Gerald here?" the man repeated. Gerald quickly stood up and walked over to the man. "That would be me," he said.

"I was told my match started in 20 minutes and I'm pretty sure it still hasn't reached 20 minutes."

The man nodded his head. "That's true but we have to do a quick physical to test your body and to show your physique to the people who are watching and gambling. Quickly follow me we only have around 10 minutes left." The man turned around and walked away before Gerald could speak. Gerald ran after the guy who looked more like he was running than speed walking.

Gerald followed him through the corners and the long halls until finally they reached a door with a crescent moon drawn on it. The man pushed it open and Gerald followed.

"Take of your slippers and step on to that scale." The man ordered and Gerald followed his orders. He took of his slippers and stepped on the scale. He looked up as he already knew what to do.

"82 kg, that's pretty healthy." The man said as he jotted it down. He then used a tape measure to measure his height. "184 centimetres, that's pretty tall." Once again the man jotted it down.

He then grabbed hold of Gerald's skin and pulled at it. "10% body fat." he muttered as he wrote it down.

There were several dumbbells lined up in a row, the smallest being 5kg and the heaviest was 150kg. The man told Gerald to pick them up starting from the smallest to the heaviest with one hand.

Gerald managed to barely pick up 100kg with one hand.

"Now do it with both hands." the man said.

Gerald easily lifted all the weights up to the heaviest.

"Now punch this bag as hard as you can" The man said as he pointed to a boxing punching bag.

WAPPPPPAAAA!

Gerald hit the bag as hard as he could. The sound of him hitting the bag made the white suit man wince. "350 kg, not bad I guess." Just like the other times he jotted it down.

The white suit man walked to one of the cabinets in the corner and took something out. He threw it at Gerald who caught it easily.

"That's a training mask put it on and get on that treadmill." the man said and Gerald complied.

"I'm gonna start you of at 15 km/hr."

______________

The physical was done and had been sent to Minna and the crowd.

Gerald was standing in one corner of a cage, on the other side was a white skinned man with nearly identical physique to Gerald but slightly shorter. In the middle was a pot bellied man with a whistle in his mouth.

The air was buzzing with cheers, jeers and boos from the crowd. Several people threw banana peels and rocks at the cage. In the corner of his eye Gerald could see the people who threw the objects at the cage were tackled to the ground by several bulky men.

"Is this your first time in a cage?" the other man asked Gerald.

"This is not my first time in a cage but this is my first time in a cage like this." Gerald replied. He had no intention of remembering those painfull memories that he had locked away long time ago.

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Please tell me your thoughts on this chapter. Also golden tickets would help.

As always thanks for reading.