(OOC notes within. Also, collab with Mie below.)


Early to drop from Ace's casino night (especially after losing his first few games of... every game of chance he tried to play), Rock had plenty of rest to work with come next morning.

Morning sunlight made the black curtains glow from behind. The white primate, sprawled with his arms up near the headboard and his lower half under the gnarled comforter and sheet, twisted onto his side and curled slowly at his waist as a yawn rushed into his lungs. Consciousness began to oust unconscious and subconscious, and before he was quite willing to part with either of the latter, he found himself very awake, staring with watery eyes at a green LCD clock face .

6:15

He rolled lazily away from the nightstand, casting his gaze on the girl next to him. She was out like a light. He eased up against her back; settled his hand on her side; leaned his face around next to hers...

She just buzzed out a snore. It was too early to bother her.

With a smirk and a roll of his eyes, he tugged the covers up over her shoulder, then slid over to the side of the bed, set his feet on the cool, black carpet, and a couple sleepy blinks and a stretch later, carried himself over to the window. He carefully parted its curtains and squinted out.

The resort didn't look nearly as impressive during the day. The architecture was still something, the grounds were well manicured, and even the Metropolis skyline was quite the sight, but it lost mystique and adventure without the darkness and starkness of the night and lights.

Far too alert to entertain any idea of laying down again, he eventually decided to get ready, and get to work.



The top floor training facility, humongous and well-equipped, was largely empty when he arrived, but became packed and noisy very soon, full of shouts, whistles, and the glorious sounds of violent sport. The primate still hadn't yet met his assigned trainer, but neither was he too concerned about it. He just wanted to be warmed up and comfortable by the time he got called in for his interview, or audition, or whatever it was, so he set to task with some wraps and gloves, and a heavy bag as his victim. The pounding he gave it was a rapid-fire, merciless one, full of jangling chains and meaty punching noises, wantonly aggressive and destructive, but without a much actual boxing form worth mentioning. It was just... Rock's sneering, teeth-baring face, flying fists (about as fast as fists could fly), and a leather-wrapped target getting annihilated.

The bag became more L-shaped with every passing minute of abuse.

In such an international draw as this tournament of Vince's was, one would be hard-pressed to say anyone really looked like they belonged there, but every so often, a sweep of the eyes would turn up something just about as opposite from it as you could get. The room was so abuzz with the frenetic activity of the enthusiastic competitors-to-be, that it would have been impossible to hear the innocuous little creak of the doors that announced the entrance of one such individual.

An aged fedora topped off his small stumpy stature, and an equally antiquated overcoat hung from his slightly hunched shoulders. The relief of his weathered face deepened as he spent a moment (hand still on the door,) looking around the room in quiet bewilderment as if lost. After a moment, however, he swallowed back something evidently unpleasant, snorted in a sharp breath of air, and shuffled -- somehow angrily -- into the teeming, sweating, punching masses. His scowl and gait stopped at the fierce-looking, white-furred individual about a head taller than him.

"What's that?" he rasped lowly.

Rock hesitated mid-swing, the question having caught him off guard. His caught the bag and stilled it, and gave the small, old man an odd look. "It's... a punching bag," he uttered, dead serious.

"Yeh, this I can sees, thank y'so much," grunted the elderly observer, transparently put-off, as he shuffled around to the side of the bag, and closer to the perplexed primate.

He removed his hat, revealing a withered comb crowning his sparsely feather-topped head, which was promptly stuffed back into a black knit beanie extracted from his coat pocket. The sneer plastered on his short, yellow beak poorly matched his banter.

"It would be nice to know, is if you could tell me what the hell you're doin' with it."

Rock's brows flattened down and he opened his mouth to reply, but paused, and glanced around in disbelieving confusion. He could not find the hidden meaning to the question, however.

"... Well, I'm... punchin' it," he finally answered with a demonstrating jab.

The bag jangled and swung in tense silence.

The old rooster's well-lined eyes narrowed in scrutiny at the flailing bag.

"I see," he simpered (about as much as his ancient, gravelly voice would allow him). He nodded once or twice, slowly, as if gradually comprehending. "And I s'pose this is -- what, is this a-a hobby of yours or somethin', is it?"

Something about the exchange tickled Rock's funnybone (which many people probably thought had long been removed), and he started to laugh. The laugh became anxious as he looked between the bag and the old rooster, and saw that the old man's expression wasn't really changing.

He straightened his face, and idly jabbed the bag again.

"Th-... th' tournament," he sputtered, "it's for th' tournament." He was still fighting off a confused, but amused grin.

"Tournament," repeated the still sour-faced chicken, feigning misunderstanding. "What now, izzat slimy schmuck havin' a punching contest, of all things?"

At last, it seemed the crotchety old man was also finding humor in the situation, as his wizened face cracked into a grin that, frankly, was even scarier than his scowl.

Rock's amusement was waning a little, so he slowly began to resume hitting the bag. "Boxing tournament," he clarified, still apparently uncertain of just why the old man was there.

"Then you're well up s**t's creek, y'lousy bum!" the rooster crowed in an alarming roar as he lunged forward, shoving in between the monkey and his adversary. The bag hit the cantankerous cock's backside to surprisingly no effect -- He stood solidly without the smallest trace of a flinch, his small beady eyes burning as they bore into Rock's.

"'Cause punchin' in one spot like you're drivin' railroad spikes witch'yer fists ain't boxin'. Y'go out into the ring like that, and y'won't make it past the qualifiers."

"..."

Rock's brows were up rather than narrowed, and he looked like he'd just been asked the hardest Jeopardy question in the history of planet Earth. Too stunned to be offended, he blinked a couple times, scratched at the side of his face, and finally sighed in a gravelly-low mumble, "H'okay,... so you must be the trainer."

"No," replied the rooster, for once, not masquerading his sarcasm as geriatric confusion. "I'm yer fairy god mother, and I'm here t'getcha t'rough da ball widdout a black eye."

"But we'll just stick with Mack, if that's okay witch'you."

Shrugging out of his coat to reveal an old, tattered set of unmatching sweats and dirty, once-white trainers, the chicken pushed up his sleeves, and jerked a head toward the bag.

"Now, let's see if you got any bark t'that bite 'a yours, hm..."


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"Lochert!!"

To be so old and grungy, the ancient rooster's voice carried with remarkable clarity and resonance, even in the crowded room. Mack hobbled fiercely from the double door entrance, clipboard in hand, and battle-worn stopwatch swinging wildly around his neck as he made his way toward the pair of primates.

Upon closing the distance, he glared quite emphatically at both the bevy of breakfast pastries, and their bringer, before snapping his steely gaze to Rock with an unpleasantly textured snort.

"Whaddis dis crap youse eatin'?" he grumbled, snatching whatever remained of the muffin from his hand, and tossing it over his shoulder. "I was un'er da' impression you was in training."

Sparing another brief glare for Jam and her cornucopia of danishes and sticky buns, he quickly sobered up as he looked back to his charge.

"It's time, kid."

The look the old rooster got from Rock was an interesting mix of did he just do that surprise, I can't believe he just did that incredulity, and he didn't just do that anger.

Rock looked briefly at Jam, irritation clear in his face, but ultimately just shook his head, got up, and followed Mack. There were bigger things to worry about.


***


A few minutes later, Rock was in a ring (not the ring, but one of the sparring rings in another section of the training facility), with some bright red gloves on his hands, a mouthguard in his mouth, and his back to a corner. He leaned there, gripping the ropes as he waited and looked around; Mack was busy wielding a clipboard around like a machete and yelling at somebody about something, while some bored-looking officials blabbered on about contestants. No real names were being used, but Rock nonetheless eventually gleaned that he was apparently #78, and that he was about to be facing #1.

Why did that sound so ominous? It was just a number. The fact that he was the first registered could have meant any number of things. Or maybe he was just alphabetically first, even.

He didn't have long to think about it before "#1" parted the ropes and stepped into the ring from the opposite side. He was burly but not stout, just a bit shorter than Rock, sienna brown—a wolverine from the looks of it. He wasn't a truly scary man to behold, but he had an intense focus about him as he hopped around and warmed up.

Soon, a guy in a T-shirt with an ID card hanging around his neck stepped into the ring and motioned them both over.

"One round, two minutes, get knocked down and you lose by default," he rattled hastily, as if he'd already done so about fifteen times that day. "You should know the rules. No low blows, rabbit punches, kidney punches, absolutely no clinching in this one. Protect yourself at all times. Give it all you got—winner moves on."

The ref stepped back, the bell rang, and per custom, Rock went to touch gloves with his opponent.

All he got in return for the "nice" gesture was the hardest hook to the face he'd ever taken in his life. He had to make a jogging stumble all the way to the ropes just to avoid falling down. Things were off to a beautiful start.

Mack, on the other hand, was old and tired. Not to say that he'd checked out of boxing, or was ready for retirement, or any such nonsense, but he didn't seem affected by Rock's treatment at all. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the monkey was merely one of dozens of faces he'd met with over the last couple of days, but whatever the case, the grungy old trainer's only response to the scene was a grumpy snort, coupled with a nigh inaudible complaint that might have contained the words, "damn kids" and "no respect."

His eyes narrowed (whether in scrutiny, astigmatism, or cantankerous glower was anyone's guess) as he unceremoniously dropped his clipboard to the floor with a clatter, watching wordlessly, and wringing the rope with his gnarled, feathered hands.

Rock rebounded from the ropes and turned around just in time to catch a straight right in the eye. His body bounced back across the ropes and he covered up his face as what looked like an all-out massacre started. The smaller, but clearly more professional boxer swarmed him very nearly like a machine gun, backing the taller, less experienced target practice into the corner.

The primate's head was abuzz, but the shock of the first blow began to wear off in seconds. The flurries of punches stung, and the body blows knocked air out of his lungs, but as he leaned back into that turnbuckle, awareness of precisely what was happening rushed back, and within seconds, his first response punch came.

It glanced off the wolverine's head ineffectually, but it was followed by another, and another, as Rock uncovered and started openly taking blows to return them. "Number one" found himself driven back by that apelike reach, and soon, Rock was bowling forward like a steamroller, his head low, his gloves up, and punches firing out like streaks.

He took hit after hit straight to the face from the wolverine with nary a flinch as he very nearly began to chase his opponent around the ring. Every time #1 tried to reverse the momentum, he got mercilessly cracked in the face by punches that, for all their swing, should have been haymakers, but flew out as fast as some boxers' jabs. It sounded like meat was being tenderized.

With thirty seconds left on the clock, #1 was buried in his own corner, his feet barely flat on the ground, while Rock drilled him like a heavy bag, or an inflatable clown, or something equally helpless.

The other boxer was nowhere near finished, and wasn't about to go down, but he was so out of control of the match that the ref had to step in. It took Rock's blazing, beady eyes a good five seconds to notice the official even trying to get between them, but even as he finally, reluctantly backed off, his snarl and utterly terrifying expression seemed frozen on his face.

The wolverine looked unsure of where he was, eyes wide and unfocused as the ref tried to ascertain his condition. He just shook his head at the boxer, waved his hands out dismissively to end the match, and so the bell rang.

Perhaps disturbing to anyone astute enough to draw the parallels, Mack wore a look eerily similar to Jam's, though it had segued from more of a "Well, whadda ya know" expression, and was directed entirely at the judges. By the time he'd hobbled up to Rock's corner, though, he was wearing an awful sneer of a smile as if he'd long ago forgotten how.

"Congratulations, kid," rasped the rooster, attempting to lean on the ropes, but nearly falling through, and recovering jerkily with little grace to his name. He shook it off with a dismissive (and disgusting) clearing of his throat.

"Ehhh, I don't s'pose you know whose face dat is you just broke, do yas?"

There was something vaguely unsettling about the nearly manic twinkle housed in the heavily lined, still rather intense-looking peepers of the old cock fighter as he gazed fervently at the white monkey as though his head were made of diamonds. Yet for all his scarily intrusive staring, he didn't answer Rock's question. Instead, old Mack's attention shifted almost immediately to the very sour-faced wolverine as he made to depart.

"Hey, champ!" he called in a gravelly, thinly veiled jeer. "Better luck wit'cher title bout next month, eh? Maybe them Westside bums won't give ya so much trouble!"

Perhaps unwisely taking his eyes off the now aptly named Burnin' Joe Blazer, the cantankerous rooster at last shifted his attention back towards his new project, a telling grin on his face.