Tomás Ferreira vs. Luong Chun - Before the Fall

[BlackAkuma]

One of Luong’s earliest memories was that of her father crushing a roach. How it had made its way into their usually well-kempt home, she couldn't imagine. Perhaps it was a stowaway in some language. Perhaps someone had left a door open too long. Whatever the case, it had wandered into a place where it had no business and found its end under the heel of a being far superior to itself.

It wasn’t simply the sight of a roach that had stuck with her - even she, in her sheltered life - had seen her fair share of bugs by that point. No, what stuck with her the most was the way it persisted after the stomp. The way it lingered. The twitching. The spasms. The last vestiges of life in a pathetic creature, too primitive to even properly comprehend the simple reason it was dying.

Even now, years later, that memory made her skin crawl. And as she looked down at Tomas - broken, defeated, lingering Tomas - her skin crawled again.

He laughed. He laughed at her. She offered him mercy, a chance to end his suffering, and he had the temerity, the unmitigated gall to laugh at her. Her lip curled in a hideous snarl, but she should’ve saved her look of revulsion. That would not be the end of it.

It took Luong a moment to register what had happened. The way his mouth moved, the sight of something flying at her face, the sensation of something wet on her face. She saw everything, but she needed a moment to put it all together and process. The audience’s stunned silence confirmed it - he had spit on her face.

”You-”

Luong barely had a moment to properly voice her rage, before Tomas lurched forward and smacked their skull together. The sheer audacity of the move was enough to take her off guard, and his head was left to flop back to the floor as she staggered away and grasped his skull. Her mind was foggy, reeling, but that fog was fading with each second, replaced with a seething, steaming, white-hot rage.

[GoingBananas]

The image that is going through his scrambled mind was of an alley behind a shuttered bar, years ago, when he was still trying to prove he belonged. A boy had gone down there, cornered and panicking, and someone older, someone bigger, had put a boot on his chest and ground until the struggling stopped. What had stayed with Tomás wasn’t the act itself, but the way the man doing it had looked bored, almost annoyed that the body beneath him hadn’t gone still fast enough. Life clinging on when it was no longer convenient. That was what this felt like now. Not hatred yet—just irritation, waiting to curdle.

He tasted blood as he laughed, the sound rough and wrong in his throat, but he couldn’t help it. Laughter was easier than breathing carefully, easier than admitting how close the darkness was getting. He saw the revulsion on her face, felt it settle over him like a verdict already passed, and some bitter part of him took comfort in that. If he was going to be looked at like vermin, then fine—vermin bit back. In his world, persistence had never been noble. It had just been necessary.

The moment stretched, thick and unbearable, and then he saw it register in her eyes. His spit left his mouth before he could think better of it, driven by instinct and spite rather than strategy. The crowd’s silence rang louder than any roar. For half a heartbeat, he wondered if that alone would be what finally ended him. Instead, something uglier took hold, and his body lurched forward on its own, skull meeting skull in a reckless, desperate collision.

The impact rattled what little clarity he had left. Pain bloomed behind his eyes, and his legs nearly gave out as he recoiled, dropping back, then forcing himself upright again. The world tilted. His balance was shot; the earlier stomps had seen to that. Still, he stood—wobbling, knees threatening to fold, vision pulsing at the edges. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing red across his knuckles, and looked at her through the haze.

“I know…” The Nak Muay rasped, voice hoarse but steady enough. “Eu sei… you’re fucking pissed.” His head throbbed with every syllable, but he kept going, a crooked grin tugging at his split lip. “Good. Ódio chama ódio. The feeling’s mutual.” He spat the words out between breaths, shoulders rising and falling as he fought to stay upright.

He spread his hands slightly, not in surrender, but invitation—raw and reckless. “Fuck the prizes…Fuck whatever these bitches in suits promised you for breaking me….” His eyes burned with something feral, something dragged up from old streets and worse nights.

“Let’s just fucking fight. De verdade. You and me. Right here.”

[BlackAkuma]

Luong could say, with no amount of uncertainty or doubt, that this was the most angry she had ever been about anything in her entire life.

She had been mad before, yes. Of course. About a great many things. About her dinner arriving late. About her favorite show being pre-emptied for some silly soccer game that went too long. About a massage parlor playing a song she absolutely loathed. Her life was filled with little annoyances like that, the irritations of everyday life.

But this, the sheer, unbridled rage coursing through her system right now, was something else entirely. It was a level of anger that she had never thought possible. She had always assumed the term ‘seeing red’ was a metaphor, but no - she was, in fact, seeing red, and she was consumed by the unyielding desire to rip the man in front of her to shreds.

He was talking, speaking in both of the mongrel languages he knew, but Luong only heard babble, like the murmured words of a baby too young and too stupid to make proper sentences. It was just noise. He was just meat.

”Shut the fuck up!”

Luong’s screech cut through the air and left a wave of silence in her wake, bringing a hush over the crowd. It was the most noise they - or just about anyone - had ever heard her make. ”Shut up, shut up, 뚜껑을 닫다, you stupid piece of gutter trash. Who are you to talk to me like that? You are nothing. Just another piece of slime from another godforsaken shit pile in the middle of nowhere, and here I am, stuck taking out the trash. I’m not going to fight you, idiot, I’m going to erase you. I’m going to stomp you into a smear. They'll have to peel off this canvas with a goddamn spatula. You stupid, fucking, insignificant, irrelevant piece of shit!”

She hammered her feet into the canvas with those last few words, then broke in a mad charge, crossing the ring with wild eyes, bearing down on Tomas with the sort of ferocity better suited for predators closing in on prey. Out came the kicks, one after the other, leaping from foot to foot, lashing out him from both sides with little regard for targets or precision. She just wanted to hit him as much as possible, as hard as possible, as fast as possible.

[GoingBananas]

The first thing Tomás felt was the pressure of it—an invisible weight slamming down on the ring as her rage detonated. He had seen anger before, lived inside it, grown up around men who wore it like a second skin. But this was different. This wasn’t the hot, familiar burn of street fury or territorial pride. This was something purer and more terrifying, an all-consuming wrath that stripped away reason and left only the urge to destroy. He could see it in her eyes even before she screamed: the loss of restraint, the abandonment of calculation. Whatever game they’d been playing was over.

Her voice tore through him like shrapnel. Each word landed with more force than a blow, not because of what she said, but how completely she meant it. The crowd vanished from his awareness; the ring felt suddenly too small, the air too thin. He tasted iron again, felt the throb behind his eyes pulse in time with his heartbeat. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a colder instinct whispered that this was the most dangerous moment of the fight—not when she was precise, not when she was dominant, but when she stopped caring about the cost.

She came at him like a storm breaking loose.

“Then take your own fucking advice!” he spat, the words dragged out in a rough mix of English and grit, the last thing he allowed himself to say. Tomás didn’t retreat. His body screamed at him to—his legs were unsteady, his skull still ringing—but something older, uglier, and more stubborn overrode the pain. He leaned forward into the charge, meeting it head-on. As her first kick cracked into his side, knocking the breath from his lungs, his fist snapped out in answer, more reflex than plan. He felt the jolt up his arm as it connected, barely registering where. Another kick slammed into his thigh; another punch followed, wild but committed. No strategy, no elegance—just collision.

They crashed into each other in a brutal exchange. Her feet lashed out from impossible angles, battering his ribs, his shoulder, his hip. Each impact sent sparks through his vision, threatened to fold him in half. But every time she struck him, his hands answered back—hook, straight, backfist—thrown with everything he had left. He wasn’t thinking about winning anymore. He was counting the moments. One more breath. One more step forward. One more swing.

Pain was everywhere now, a constant roar drowning out fear. His balance faltered, but he forced himself upright again, planting his feet through sheer will. He knew with a grim clarity that he couldn’t keep this up for long. His body was a ledger of debts coming due all at once. But if this was where it ended, then so be it. He would not curl up. He would not beg.

If he was going down, he would go down swinging—punhos voando, teeth bared, meeting her fury with everything he had left.

[BlackAkuma]

In the back of Luong’s head, alarm bells were ringing, trying to remind her that this was absolutely not the way she was supposed to engage with her opponents. Her entire style derived from evasion, from long-range striking. With her speed and extended legs, she was well-suited to hit her foes at every angle and strike at will. If she played a match well enough, she could go through it without taking a single hit.

She was not an in-fighter. She was certainly not a brawler. Her body was built for agility, but that came at the cost of durability. She couldn't take many hits at all before she started to crumble like a house of cards. A slugfest with a nak muay, even a weakened one, was not in her wheelhouse.

Luong could not have cared less. Not if her nose busted or her ribs broke, not if she bled or a tooth fell out. In this moment, she only had one concern, which overrode all other priorities: She was going to pummel Tomas until he stop talking. Until he stopped moving. Maybe even after that.

She kicked him in the ribs. He punched her in the face.

She kneed him in the groin. He chopped her in the neck.

Kick to shin. Elbow to the neck.

Kick. Punch. Kick. Kick. Scratch. Chop. Gouge. Bite.

Luong’s body was starting to fail, succumbing to Tomas’ fury, her body wholly unused to the damage it was incurring at a rapid rate. Growing desperate, she broke away from the madness, leaped on Tomas’ body, wrapped her leg around his waist and proceeded to wildly pummel his face, throwing blow after blow with a merciless fury.

[GoingBananas]

It was clear now—painfully, unmistakably clear—that whatever this had started as, it had long since curdled into something far uglier. Hatred sat between them like a living thing. Tomás felt it in the way Luong looked at him, in the way her words still echoed in his skull, sharp and venomous even though he didn’t understand the Korean she’d spat at him. He didn’t need to. Contempt translated itself easily. Disgust always did. He had been called worse by men with knives and guns, by rivals who wanted him dead in alleyways slick with rain and blood, but this was different. This was personal in a way that crawled under his skin and stayed there.

They were no longer fighting for rules, or pride, or points. They were fighting because neither of them could stand the idea of the other still breathing.

Every exchange blurred together into a brutal rhythm. Her kick slammed into his ribs, and he answered with a fist to her face, feeling the impact reverberate up his arm. Her knee drove up into his groin, white-hot pain flaring through him, and he hacked the side of her neck with the edge of his hand, more instinct than technique. Shin met bone. Elbow met throat. There was no finesse left—just collision after collision, each one fueled by rage and stubborn refusal to back down. His body screamed at him to stop, to protect itself, but he ignored it, letting the damage pile up as long as he could keep swinging.

He could see it, even through the haze of pain and adrenaline—this wasn’t her world. She wasn’t built for this kind of fight. Each hit he landed seemed to take a little more out of her, her movements growing sharper but less controlled, her breathing harsher. That knowledge didn’t slow him down. If anything, it fed the fire. He had been underestimated his entire life, dismissed, reduced, treated like something disposable. He wasn’t about to let that end now.

Then she broke away, desperation flashing across her face for just a heartbeat before she launched herself at him. The impact knocked the air from his lungs as her weight crashed into him, her leg cinching around his waist as she clambered up his body. Her fists came down in a furious barrage, wild and relentless, cracking against his brow, his cheek, his jaw. His legs buckled under the sudden weight and exhaustion, and they went down hard together, the mat shuddering beneath them.

Even on his back, even with her straddling him and raining blows down on his face, Tomás refused to stop. His vision swam, blood warm at the corner of his mouth, but his arms still moved. He threw punches upward, crude and furious, aiming for her face whenever he could find it, his knuckles slamming into flesh, bone, anything he could reach. Around them, the crowd shifted, the noise taking on an uneasy edge as the violence spiraled past spectacle into something raw and uncomfortable.

He didn’t care. Not about the audience, not about the consequences, not about how this would end. The only thing that existed was Luong above him and the need—burning, absolute—to hurt her as much as she was trying to hurt him. If this was where it all collapsed, then so be it. He would spend every last scrap of strength he had making sure she felt it too.

[BlackAkuma]

There was a growing, coppery taste in Luong’s mouth, and it took her a moment through the haze of violence to realize what it was: blood. It had been so long since she had that taste in her mouth, she hardly recognized it. She couldn't even recall what had brought it on the last time - like an errant kick from a sparring partner, back when she was still young and relatively untrained.

Surprisingly, though, she did not hate this taste. It was acrid, but it served as the perfect reminder her of hatred towards the man beneath her. It was fuel, and she relied on it as she continued to batter away with, screeching after every hit.

Technique was going. Precious was gone. Her punches were sloppy - of course they were, she so rarely used them, and never in this way. She had always found this way of fighting barbaric, something only for unskilled clods in cages, but now, with Tomas withering beneath him, she could see the appeal.

She was going to break him, utterly, with her own hands. The thought alone was markedly exhilarating.

But it wouldn’t last. Through it all, Tomas was returning fire. She was so caught up in the moment that she barely registered it, but he was doing damage, and that was taking a toll. A toll she would have to pay, when one of those errant punches landed flush on her chin, in the exact wrong way at the exact wrong time. It sent her skull flying skyward, and the rest of her body followed shortly behind it.

Luong flopped back on the canvas a few feet away, landing with her body stretched out, arms akimbo, and a glassy look in her eyes. The rage was still there, fiery and fierce, but it was blunted now, simmering under the fog. Groaning, she rolled over and clutched her forehead as she tried to shake it off and lock back onto her target.

[GoingBananas]

The thing Tomás hated most, he realized dimly through the storm of pain and motion, wasn’t the blows or even how Luong thought of him.

It was the fucking noise.

That godforsaken screeching—shrill, feral, scraping against his nerves like rusted metal. Every strike she threw came with it, a banshee’s wail that burrowed into his skull and rattled around inside what little clarity he had left. He’d been in street fights where men shouted, cursed, begged. This was worse. This was pure, unhinged fury given voice, and it made his teeth clench harder than any punch ever could.

When his fist finally connected cleanly—chin, solid, undeniable—the sound cut off mid-shriek. The impact traveled up his arm like an electric shock, and the sudden absence of her weight was almost disorienting. Luong flew off him, and Tomás lay there staring up at the lights, chest heaving, lungs burning like he’d been breathing fire instead of air. The momentary triumph was brief. Everything else came rushing in right after: the kicks, the stomps, the way his head rang as if someone had taken a hammer to the inside of his skull. Her punches might not have had the same ruinous force as her legs, but they’d added up. Christ, they’d added up.

His body refused to stay flat. Some stubborn instinct rolled him onto his side and then onto his stomach, muscles protesting every inch of the movement. The canvas felt rough against his cheek, damp with sweat and streaked with something darker. He planted his forearms beneath him and pushed, shaking, until he was propped up on his elbows. The world tilted and swam, but it steadied just enough. He spat, thick and coppery, and watched a string of blood slap against the mat before dripping away.

His eyes lifted, slow and heavy, fixing on Luong as she lay a short distance away, clutching at her head. His face felt like it had been sculpted with a brick—swollen, split—but his gaze was still sharp, still burning. He breathed through his mouth, each inhale a rasp, each exhale a low growl that vibrated in his chest. Whatever technique or elegance this fight once had was long gone. What remained was two people battered past reason, still dragging themselves upright because neither knew how to stop.

Tomás wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his knuckles, and kept his eyes locked on her as the distance between them seemed to shrink and stretch with every pounding beat of his heart. His body screamed for rest, for surrender, for anything but this—but he ignored it. He always had. Even now, half-broken and barely holding himself up, there was no question in his mind.

If she was still moving, then so will he.

[BlackAkuma]

Everything hurt.

Luong wasn’t accustomed to pain. She’d experienced so little of it in her life that she wasn’t even sure if her body was processing it the right way, like a computer running a program it simply wasn’t designed for. On some level, she knew this had to be normal, but her brain couldn't translate it that way. Everything had to be out of whack.

Her only consolation was that Tomas was worse - or, at least, she assumed that was the case, since he wasn’t immediately capitalizing on her downed state. The referee hadn't called the match yet, so she assumed they were still going, which raised an annoying question - how was she supposed to defeat this man, again?

Because simple, brutal violence wasn’t going to do it. For whatever reason, this man seemed determined to cling to whatever ridiculous delusion he’d concocted to make him think his chances were attainable. She needed something to change this up with. Something besides her own bare hands. An equalizer.

But she wasn’t going to find that in this ring.

Luong rolled over to her chest after a moment and pushed up, only making it halfway before her arms began to give out. She caught herself before she could flop back all the way, but it was a grim reminder of how short her time truly was.

Crawling, dragging, she pulled herself over to the edge of the ring and slipped out under the ropes, then flopped off the apron and fell the rest of the way. The tumble brought her down hard on her aching side, right on the ribs, and she shrieked as her body protested every second of it, but it wasn’t enough to stop her. Not now.

On her hands and knees, she began to root around under the arpon, feeling through the darkness for anything metal, something she could use. It had to be here…