28

Mouse was in his corner, those short combinations barely got him into rhythm, only up close could you see that he wasn't even sweating. However, his rival was panting, and a gesture of a hand on his side seemed to reveal that the damage was real.

"Fine, but add fuel to the fire, make them hate you..."

"Trust me, they'll hate me..."

The boy only needed to win this round to take the fight, if he continued like this winning it wouldn't be difficult, but he had to stir up the crowd a little more than just winning on points.

Mouse didn't miss the gesture of Gorila's sponsor who was speaking in his ear, while he nodded and caught his breath.

The new round began, it seemed that Mouse was going to do the same, dance around the ring, move and win on points, but when Gorila launched himself again his shoulders and arms were closer to his body, before the two direct blows arrived the boy was already out of range. Gorila tried to continue but with Mouse turning on the outside he could neither get close enough to hit nor get his rhythm.

However Mouse was not attacking this time, he only moved, dodged and feinted. More than half a round passed like this, without an advance or an impact by either side. The theory was that this was an opportunity for Gorila if he managed to hit even one blow, those straight punches were not his thing, Gorila was getting angry but he saw the opportunity to turn the score around, so the boy took the bait. The shoulder movement announced an open blow, but his rival did not move as he expected.

It was a single kick to the foot that Gorilla was leaning on, but with his inertia and the powerful blow the boy lost his balance, it was only a moment but enough for Mouse's fist to give him a weak blow to his parts.

It had not been a violent blow capable of knocking down the rival between screams, only a ridiculous little punch, which hurt. Then Mouse retreated to outside the impact distance again, even giving Gorilla time to recover. The round was ending, and another attack was rushed by the other boy, this time it was again two punches and a flight.

The public booed the two, but Mouse had no problems following the pattern, even one of the times he feinted a punch to the eyes with his finger that missed, but it remained engraved in the minds of the spectators. At the end of the round, Gorilla only landed a clumsy punch to the boy's guard and he landed less than five punches.

The round ended and the undeniable count gave a victory on points to a weak kid, who played dirty, and who had spent the entire fight running away. While the referee signaled Mouse's victory, the public booed him and he responded with an ugly gesture of his finger raised to the entire public. The insults and shouts increased, the security members had to escort the kid out of the arena while throwing drinks and food at him amidst boos.

Marcus, however, laughed, that kid could really exceed his expectations.

After putting on the Blacker shirt, he accompanied Mouse to the VIP room they had reserved.

"Well done kid, not only have they not given you, and you have won, but the public hates you, ha ha ha, the bets will be good for us"

"Mr. Blacker, why can't Battle Suit fighters bet on themselves and we can?"

"Well, the first thing is to not fix the fights, but the truth is that the real reason is so that they don't make so much money with the fights, they can only take the prize pool for the night and that is set by the organization, you however are children, you don't wear armor, the possibilities of dying are many, let's say that it is a compensation..."

They sat down again at the table and dedicated themselves to watching the rest of the fights. There were others who tried tactics to avoid suffering damage, but sometimes a lack of expertise to do so, other times an excess of talent by their rival, and most of the time a mixed luck made the majority of these "more tactical" fighters lose their fights.

You might think that the easiest thing to do in a fight was to run away, but against a kid who attacks with continuous blows, either you were too fast or too late, the blows landed, and in the end the exchange game did not go well.

However, the public became excited again when the Tizón fight was announced. He was one of the hardest hitters and in these months his muscles announced a good job by his sponsor. He had gained weight, but he was undoubtedly in better physical shape than before, even too much in Blacker's eyes.

"That kid doesn't look like a G or F class, nor do the E class have that physique, I'm not saying it can't be genetics but there's something I don't like about this..."

"Tizón already hit hard in his previous fights..."

"Yes, but his physique wasn't that different from the rest of the kids, he hit hard because he knew how to hit with all the weight of his body, he didn't hit like crazy, I'd bet that that idiot Misquelo, his sponsor, has paid for a physical improvement..."

"Can that be done?"

"It can be done, there's nothing that prohibits it, but only a madman would spend that much money to improve a poop cleaner, don't be offended, but if his boy loses he will have lost a lot of money."

Tizón's rival was not small, he was tall and big, but he looked malnourished next to the other boy, the referee called the two contenders to tell them the rules.

The fight began and Tizón launched an attack, his first blow was a terribly powerful straight punch that, even though his opponent covered himself, he fell on his back. He managed to get up stumbling but a vicious hook hit him while he was not yet in guard.

The boy's jaw was twisted at an unnatural angle, the boy did not scream, he did not have time, his head went blank to avoid the excruciating pain. It was a magnificent KO in seven seconds.

The public was crazy, it was a real atrocity.

"Those punches, that force are not typical of a pooper scooper, that is on another level..."

"If he hits me with one of those I'm dead"

Blacker did not correct the boy's pessimism, really a blow of that caliber seemed more like that of an older boy with years of training. Tizón's strength was beyond any doubt.

Marcus in the front row hadn't missed a single detail of any of the fights, that the boys he had pointed out won, or that even Mouse allowed himself to play a theatrical role in his fight didn't surprise him. But his eyes had seen each one of those movements. In the videos they had, it was true that Tizón had won all his fights by KO in the first or second round, but what had been seen that day was above all expectations.

The punch, despite being good, had technical deficiencies, enough so that all that strength had to be mostly muscular. Three months to achieve that change? Even the possible improvements that could be achieved or paid for in Gretia couldn't make a simple child have such an evolution. There had to be something else.

In Battle Suits fights, doping was useless. Combat armor prevented most damage from vital point strikes and even greater damage from powerful blows, plus the suits' hydraulic power system meant that a fighter's physical strength was largely not the main factor in combat. The potential side effects weren't worth the risk... but would anyone be crazy enough to use something like that on a child?