Chapter 1: A Chance Encounter of the Fantasy Kind

The cheering of the crowd could be heard just down the hall from Cooper Andrews' locker room as he was sitting in wait with his head in his wrapped hands. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt with blue athletic shorts with black stripes slightly curved along his calves. The A/C ran the cool air through his marine cut hair as the people could be heard craving for a fight between their favorite champion and the formidable challenger that wanted his title. There was a knock on his door and a Japanese man dressed in a suit and shades poked his head inside. "It's time, Mr. Andrews." he said in a gruff voice.

"Right." was Coopers' response as he stood up and walked to the door to be walked down to the end of the hall. He wore only his black boxing shorts and camouflage robe. He walked with security guard as he held up a walkie-talkie to his face and spoke into it in Japanese. Cooper knew well enough what he said, it didn't take a genius to figure that he was on his way to the arena.

He arrives at the end of the tunnel at an entrance as the echoes of loud, cheering fans bellowed louder the closer he got to it. Cooper ceased walking at the entrance closed by two metal doors, the loud cheering ringing in his ears. He could hear the ring announcer hyping the crowd up for his arrival. He was dressed in street garb consisting of a sleeveless white t-shirt, jeans with holes in the knees, and a white rolled up bandanna tied around his head. He announced Cooper as "Gaijin Devil Dog", his given nickname, and was given the cue to walk through the doors swinging outwards as he found himself drowning in an ocean of cheering, jeering, and booing. Cooper snaked his way to the ring, his song of choice "Thunderstruck" playing him out. He cared not for whether they liked him or not, only on the fight itself. As he entered the caged ring, he made a round around the caged ring and shaking off the nerves. He went to his corner and waited for his opponent.

In a matter of moments, his opponent came out of his entrance as he was granted with more cheers. The way he came out was of arrogance and hype. Eyeing him for a few minutes, Cooper turned back to his corner to mutter a quick prayer. Once done, he crossed himself and turned back just in time to see his opponent enter from the other end. He waited patiently until the referee called for them both to meet in the middle as he explained the rules for this underground match. They were free to do almost whatever they needed to do just as long as they inflict no serious bodily harm to each other like breaking limbs and such. Winner is determined by either knockout or by submission. All the while, Cooper's opponent was trying to intimidate him, but the former marine didn't break. He became too stoic to be antagonized by such childish threats.

When asked if there were any questions, Cooper just shook his head. He just wanted to end this fight, go home, and rest. He paced back and forth in his corner, his eyes not leaving his opponent. The gong rang and the war began. Cooper circled his opponent like a great white eyeing its prey, fists up and ready to strike like vipers. Being silent, his opponent was trying to antagonize him by insulting him and daring him to throw the first punch.

Cooper threw a few back to keep antagonizing his opponent. He was too focused on getting a read on his pattern, if he had one. This guy was too cocky and too jacked up on pride to keep this American guessing. He threw in a few hard ones to keep the crowd happy. Win the crowd, and you win the match. But this guy was making it too easy for him, save for the guy maybe throwing in a kick as well. At one point, he tried to take Cooper down by shooting for his leg. But Cooper saw it coming and blocked it. Coming up, however, his opponent intentionally head butted him catching him on the nose.

With a grunt of pain, Cooper pushed the bastard back gave him a hard right hook on the right of his opponent's face. He was about to go at him again when the bell rang, ending the round. Cooper was heading back to his corner when he felt someone push the back of his head. Sharply turning his head in the direction of the pusher, he saw that it was his opponent. He was yelling and gesturing at him, saying in his Japanese tongue along the lines of "You're nothing! You ain't nothing!"

Getting annoyed, Cooper waited in his corner for the bell to sound off again. It seemed like this was how it was going to be with this man, loud and impulsive. He watches him as his challenger tried pumping the crowd up, relishing in the cheers he was making. He felt something warm dripped from his nose. One good luck at it was all he needed to confirm it was blood. With a sharp breath, Cooper pounded a fist into his other hand. It was time to give him the hard lesson he gave to all cocky fighters he had to deal with.

The referee saw his nose bleeding and went over to check on Cooper. When asked if he still wanted to continue, Cooper responded with a solid no without any hesitation whatsoever. With a nod, the ref checked both fighters to see if they were ready to continue. Both said yes, and the fight resumed. But this time, it was Cooper who was the first to attack. Not allowing his opponent the opportunity, he went into slugger mode and worked on punching the bastard's ribs. Any time his opponent tried to get away, Cooper just kept coming after him. His opponent drew blood, and he was going to pay for it. He watched for the kicks and blocked them until he seized his chance and grabbed onto the next one kicking him to take him down wrestling style. He never forgot about his military training and used it to his advantage. Be precise and go for the kill.

Once down, he went after the guy. No matter how he tried to kick him away, the opponent just couldn't shake the former devil dog off him. After giving his face a good thrashing with haymakers, Cooper allowed his opponent up. As much as he was enjoying the beat down on this fool, this was not quite how he wanted to end fight. Even if the crowd was cheering for it. Seeing him get up, Cooper could see how the challenger was more bloodied up that Cooper. Bleeding just above one of his eyes, the fighter looked like he had a red eyepatch over his eye.

"Now we're even," Cooper mumbled. Forgetting about strategy, his opponent rushed him. Cooper timed it just right and landed a solid right hook rocking the fighter. The crowd is roared with approval. He then let the guy have another. And another. And another. And another. His opponent staggered. The crowd were on their feet. Cooper landed a hard upper cut in the left rib before landing the heavy hitter at his opponent's exposed face.

It all seemed like slow motion to Cooper as his opponent staggered and slowly crumbled down onto the mat. Gravity and a hard fall welcomed his knocked out adversary and the crowd went nuts. Standing silent and solemn, the former top Marine pumped his fists in the air and held them up as long as he could. After seeing it was a complete knockout, the referee held one of his hands high in the air to declare him the winner.

He could hear the ring announcer crying out in the native tongue for all that filled the room. "Ladies and gentlemen! Your winner and still champion of the underground, the Gaijin-n-n-n DEVIL DOG!!" The crowd roared with cheers that drowned out the boos from those disappointed. He didn't care. Here, he was a mad warrior. Here, he was king.

The alarm buzzed a dead tired Cooper Andrews awake from his deep slumber. His tough hands slammed the snooze button before switching the alarm off. He groaned as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He stretched out the soreness he felt from his title defense last night and got out of bed to get ready for the day. He was gonna take it a little easy today with a long walk before doing a light workout later on.

As he went to the bathroom, he could feel the soreness in his jaw and the bruises he earned as badges of honor. He winced as he moved his jaw around while brushing his teeth. It wasn't an easy way of living, fighting for money. But it was a start for him just moving in to another country. And it wasn't that bad of a thing to keep his fighting skills sharpened. Never forget what you've learned, that's his motto. Not to mention it helped pay the monthly rent of 109,000 here in the Ginza district. After the prize money he got from last night, it was just enough to cover it and half of next month. Eventually he'll have to get a better paying job once he has the time to work up a resume.

One breakfast session and protein shake later, Cooper got into his usual jogging attire consisting of shorts, sweat-away shirt, and running shoes, grabbed his phone and cordless headphones and headed outside of his small apartment. He started on the left and head towards the busy part of town, listening to music as he did. The city was buzzing with act. The people moving about like ants doing what was the mundane to them. They paid no heed to him, although he had been getting the occasional glance.

To Cooper, it always felt he had to be at the ready in case he ran into someone who didn't take kindly to foreigners much less Americans. No matter where you are in the world, there's always some form of prejudice. Granted, only a few have seemed a little resentful to the former American. But fortunately for him, their country's reputation still held up. He's received many polite nods and friendly greetings from the locals. They were more impressed in how well he not only learned their language, but also

how well he understood how to communicate with them non-verbally. As long as they were happy, Cooper didn't have to worry as much.

He walked through a more crowded part of the district along Ginza 6-chome and discovered that there was an anime convention happening today. Seeing it made him smile. It's been who know how long since his last convention. Maybe he'll stop by a little later to check it out. He continued on with his walk a little longer.

Thirty minutes later, Cooper stopped for a small bite of ramen to eat. Satisfied, he started to head back to maybe have that look around the convention. It was about 12pm on the dot when mood suddenly changed after he noticed panic going on in the area. People were running and screaming from something. "Hey, what the hell is going on?" Cooper asked a random citizen in Japanese, taking out one of his ear buds.

"I don't know! They just came out of nowhere and started attacking everyone!" the citizen cried out over the noise. "It's chaos down there!" He took off as Cooper looked back at the commotion. He knew it was the smart thing to do to run from the danger, but the soldier in him strongly disagreed with him.

Winning him over, he ran towards the scene and what he saw was nothing that he expected to happen. It was a vast army of men dressed in armor and carrying weapons similar to that of the ancient Roman Empire, along with orcs and various monsters. If that wasn't enough, there were also soldiers armed with lances riding…on dragons? No. More like wyverns if he remembered correctly. They were smaller than their fearsome cousins and only had the wings for hands.

But where were they coming from?! Hiding behind a corner of a building, he could see the source a little ways down. It was a mysterious gate that had the Ancient Roman style as well. Where and when did that show up, one could only guess. "This day just got a whole lot of crazy." Cooper said with incredulous astonishment.