章 7: Issue 007: Championship, Part Two
"Damn it," the ref cursed. "Fine, one last round. If you're mad enough to think you can win, then I'm willing to give you the chance. Don't make me regret this."
Eden nodded and the ref left them.
"You sure about this, Eeds?" Coach asked. "We should at least try a different plan. You're taking every damn hit, it's crazy."
"It was your plan," Eden said.
"And you got some good hits in because of it," Coach replied. "But I've never seen Carn bleed. It was a bad plan and you've made the best of it. You've done better than most but maybe this is where we throw in the towel."
"I've fought hard to get here," Eden said. "I'm not missing my chance now."
"No one's ever knocked Carn down," Coach said. "Come on, Eden. Don't take this risk, I'll throw in the towel before I see you get hurt."
"Get your head out of your arse," Eden yelled. "This has always been a big bloody risk. You didn't pull me out against Jamie, or Kaen, or Elizaveta. You didn't pull Andy out-" She stopped herself. "Shit, Coach. I didn't mean it like that."
"Eden, you've got no right throwing that in my face," Coach said with a soft and quiet tone, but no less stern and cold. "Go another round. Do whatever the Hell you want. You always do."
Coach stepped down from the side of the ring and the bell rang.
"Fine," Eden growled.
She charged out of her corner like a steam train, hurtling towards Carn. He opened the round with his longer arms. A left jab, followed by a right cross, smacked Eden directly in her face. But she kept going forwards.
Blow after blow hit her face and head as she pressed on, closing the gap between them. Carn knew better than to let her get close though, and after every punch he shuffled backwards. Eden continued to chase him around the ring.
As Carn eluded her, still launching his attacks from a safe distance, Eden worked hard to not only keep up but also to cut off his escape. Step by step, she herded him into the corner. Carn hit her hard. But she moved forward until she had him boxed in. She hustled into the corner and pressed her body tightly against his.
Carn pushed her but she would not budge. She swung a right hook and Carn ducked under it before striking her with a bodyshot to her ribs. She keeled over and Carn pushed her out of the corner. Eden lashed out with her left hand. And struck him on his chin. His head snapped sideways.
The champion went limp and dropped to the floor. The crowd fell silent and the reef rushed over to begin counting.
"Ten, nine," he counted.
Eden stepped back, her breathing finally settling.
"Eight, seven, six," he kept counting.
Carn's eyes peeled open and he looked around, before his sights fell on the ref.
"Five, four," he counted as Carn slowly got back onto his feet. "Three, two." The ref stopped counting. He gave Carn a quick look over. "Good."
Carn had his guard raised before the ref had even moved away. He smiled as he charged towards Eden. She stepped up to meet him in the middle of the ring. They both swung. Eden let both hands lash out, one after another, not even trying to block. Carn aimed carefully, guided by his cybernetics. Both boxers openly traded hits to the body and face. Then Carn guided his fist into hers, jettisoning his attack forward with a burst of air. Their fists clashed and Eden's knuckles audibly cracked.
Carn followed up, no longer trying to avoid her hands. Every time she threw her left, he met it with equal force, smashing her knuckles with every collision. She slowed as the jarring pain in her left fist took a grip of her. And Carn lunged forward. With a long right cross, he knocked her and she stumbled back. He followed with another cross. One hit after another, he drove her across the ring and into the corner. She had stopped trying to hit back and just held her broken knuckles in her other hand.
A last right cross and she fell backwards to slump against the blue padded corner post. And the bell rang. Carn stopped, took a deep breath, and walked away. He returned to his corner with fists dripping with his opponent's blood.
The ref rushed to her corner and a pair of ringside medics clambered in to help her. They pulled her to her feet.
"She conscious?" the ref asked.
"Yeah, I'm awake," Eden answered. "I nearly had him."
"You nearly had him," the ref said. "But I've got to put an end to this match. Take her to a hospital."
She felt cold water splash her face but the swelling was starting to cover her eyes. Then a damp towel pressed at her gently. She heard one of the medics tell the other that her nose needed to be reset but she was unprepared for them to crunch it back into place. The smell of isopropyl burned her nose and she flinched as they cleaned her left hand before bandaging it. Eden and her medics struggled with her weight as they made their way from the side of the ring and into the locker room. She heard the crowd's cheers fade away the further down the hallway they went, they were cheering for their champion; Carn.
With help, she was lead outside to an ambulance that had been on standby for the entirety of the fight. Eden figured she would have to pick her car up in the morning. The medics handed her to the ambulance driver and a paramedic, who took her away to the city hospital.
--- --- ---
Joseph sighed. "I can't lie, that's left me feeling very complicated."
"I couldn't agree more, Joe," Samuel said. "She laid it all out in that ring. I've never seen anyone knock Carn down before. And what did she get for it? She got a-"
"A smackdown!" Joseph interrupted with a sudden shout. "I've never seen a fight quite like that before."
"So, Carn continues his reign as the undefeated national champion. But what comes next for Eden?" Samuel asked.
"A well earned rest," Joseph answered. "Let's be honest though, Sammy. As great as she did, did the girl really stand a chance? This is why this sport needs divisions."
"I don't think that's the best takeaway from all of this, Joe," Samuel said. "Eden's left plenty of fighters in a mess. It's all been a fair game with no divisions this far. And in that, she earned her place at this championship match."
"Well I'll tell you this for sure," Joseph said. "Despite being hurt, despite being absolutely brutalised, she persevered. And she took her pound of flesh from the champion. For the first time in his boxing career, Carn has not only bled but he was also knocked down."
"Just think: A couple more seconds and she could have actually won," Samuel said. "I hope to see her continue boxing after she's made a full recovery."
--- --- ---
Eden lay in bed, in a private room, at Lisbeth City Hospital. She just wanted to be at home, in her own bed, in a soft pair of pyjamas fresh from the dryer. The nurse had promised the medication would wear off soon. Now, all she had to do was wait for the doctor to hopefully discharge her.
She felt sluggish and when she moved her head, she felt waves slosh around inside her skull. They had to put her under for the surgery on her hand. With a great deal of patience, the surgeons had managed to remove her cracked knuckles and substituted a temporary set of silver bearings to prevent infection.
So Eden waited, staring up at the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. The TV screen buzzed in the background but she could not reach the remote to change the channel or turn it off, so some tired sitcom from the 90s played cheap laugh tracks at her.
"Hey, Eeds," she heard Coach's familiar voice, out of breath and worn out. She sloshed her head towards the door to look at him. But he was not alone. "I came to…" His old eyes looked from her to his companion. "Well, I wasn't the only one who came to see you."
"The girl with the steel," Carn greeted. He spoke deliberately slowly as he struggled to form words.
"Turn this crap off," Eden slurred.
Carn looked to the TV and then back at Eden. "Sure." He crossed the room to take the TV remote from a small table in the corner. With the press of a button, the screen fizzed into a black, lifeless, square. "I wanted to talk to you."
"It couldn't have waited?" Eden asked.
"Eeds, be nice," Coach said as he entered the private room. He went to the chair in the other corner of the room, much larger than his frail frame so that he seemed even tinier sitting on its padded cushion. "Just hear what he has to say."
The room sat silent for a moment. Eden pained herself to furrow her brows at Carn. She saw his bruised face and stitches across his brow.
"Fine, let's hear it," she said.
"In two weeks, when I can talk properly again, I'll be making a public announcement," Carn said.
"Why can't you talk prop- propa-" Eden struggled with the slurry of words. "Why can't you talk?"
"My jaw had to be reset," Carn answered. "You dislocated it when you knocked me down." He ran a hand along his jawline to show the bruising under his chin and around his neck. "When I make this announcement, I want you to be there."
"I knocked you down?" Eden asked.
"You don't remember?" Coach asked in turn. "Shit."
"Well remember this," Carn said. "In two weeks, be at the press conference if you want to come back to boxing."
Eden looked at the TV remote, still in Carn's hand. "Pass that here."
"Two weeks, you got it?" Carn asked.
"Two weeks, two months, two years," Eden said. "Does it matter?"
Carn shook his head. "When you're done with your pity party, I'll see you at the conference."
"Just pass the damn remote."
Carn tossed the TV remote into her lap. "I spoke to your doctor. She said you've had your aluminium knuckles removed."
"So what?" Eden asked, barely interested as she wrestled with the TV remote.
"You haven't had your replacements put back in yet?" Carn asked.
"Do you always avoid the point?" Eden asked. She tapped harder at the remote buttons.
Carn had to keep himself from gritting his teeth as he became more and more frustrated. It would only hurt him more. "I've ordered some better ones. No more aluminium. Tell your doctor when you're being prepped for the surgery."
Eden frowned. "I don't need better knuckles." She kept smashing the buttons but the TV remained ignorant, a pitiful black screen that refused to obey. "I don't need…" She hit the remote with her right hand. "AH!"
"Eden…" Coach whispered. "Why don't you get some rest? We can talk about all this later."
"You want me to rest?" she asked. "Or do you want me to box? I should get new knuckles and I should get back in the ring, would that make you happy?"
"Announcement in two weeks," Carn reminded. "Get the new knuckles put in."
"Yeah, whatever," Eden said as Carn walked to the door. "Two years, two decades."
"Eden!" Carn shouted. He had stopped at the doorway. "If my hands weren't bruised from hitting your thick head, I'd hit you again. Everyone, every person in that stadium, all of the people watching us fight on their televisions at home. They all thought you had no chance. As soon as you went down in the opening moments of that first round, everybody wrote you off. But I didn't. I saw you get back up."
"That was three rounds ago and look at me… They were right," Eden said.
"Four rounds," Carn replied. "It was four fucking rounds ago. Shit, I know I hit you hard but do you not remember anything from our last round?" Eden shrugged. "I saw you get back up in the first round. I know you'll get back up in the next round."
"What next round?!" Eden cried out. "I've got no more rounds. Our fight's done. There's no more… I've got nowhere to go. What's left?"
"You think you've reached as high as you can go, Eden, but you don't know how far you've got left," Carn said. "Yeah, you lost. But that doesn't mean you're done with boxing. And boxing ain't done with you."
"Boxing…" She fell quiet and silently fiddled with the TV remote.
"Eden, why'd you start boxing?" Coach asked. She made no answer for a hushed minute. "When you stepped into my gym as a kid, what was it you wanted?"
"To win twelve fights, three in a row, and then beat the champion," Eden answered flatly.
"No, all that came later," Coach said. "You wanted to box. Was that all?"
"Dad boxed," she said. "And my mum had just left. I just needed… Something."
"What do you want, right now?" Carn asked.
"Some peace and quiet," Eden answered.
"I'm not your fucking therapist," Carn said. "Your coach can talk some sense into you."
Carn lingered in the doorway. Then he turned around and walked away.
"Get some rest, Eden," Coach said. "Tomorrow, we'll get back to boxing."
Eden resigned herself to the TV remote not ever working and pushed it aside. Coach struggled to stand up, then approached her bedside. He laid an old, wrinkled hand on hers.
"I'm sorry," Coach said. "I should have been there."
Eden shook her head and the world slurried into a mess of swirling colours. She stopped, took a breath, and waited for everything to settle. "No," she mumbled. "I shouldn't have brought up… I shouldn't have said that about Andy."
"You were right," Coach said. "About Andy. And it stung. It made me angry. I shouldn't have put Andy in that ring with you. And I shouldn't have put you in the ring with Carn."
"I nearly had him," Eden said.
"You just weren't ready," Coach said. "I rushed you into it after only twelve fights. But I won't do it again."
"You won't have to," Eden replied. "It doesn't matter if I box again. I'll never get another shot at the championship. He's never taken a rematch for a title defence."
Coach smiled. "You don't need championships and titles to box, Eden."
"I know," she said.
"Yeah, you've got all the pieces figured out, Eeds," Coach said softly. "You just need a little time to put it all together. Get some rest and I'll see you in the morning."
"Just leave," Eden said.
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