I had planned to simply write a quick summary of what would be this last day of training, but I'm still pressured by school, so this chapter turned into a filler one.
Fortunately, next week is the last one before a vacation period.
Enjoy.
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Closing my eyes for a couple of seconds, inhaling and exhaling deeply, I opened my eyes again and, like a waterfall, all the noise that until that moment I had somehow been ignoring deafened my ears for an instant.
"PJ!" Tim exclaimed over the noise of the place, frowning.
"What?" I asked, focusing my attention on my friend, who was now squatting beside me.
"I asked if you were okay," Tim replied with concern on his face.
"Oh yeah, I'm fine, sorry. I was lost in my thoughts for a moment," I quickly assured my friend.
"Sure?" Case asked, suddenly appearing on my other side, frowning.
"Yeah, totally," I replied, slowly moving to sit on the ground.
"Slowly," Case ordered, quickly joining Tim to help me by supporting my back.
"How is he?" I asked once I gained stability, nodding toward the other side of the ring, where more people were attending to my opponent.
"He's fine, he woke up a couple of seconds after falling," Tim immediately responded.
"Good," I murmured, trying to see through all the people on the other side of the ring.
"He's getting up. You're supposed to have won. Get up," Case ordered, frowning.
"Yeah, sorry," I immediately replied, struggling to stand up with some help from Tim—my legs were completely exhausted.
My opponent, assisted by the gym's trainer, Tanner, slowly walked toward where we were.
"Thanks for the fight," I said, offering my hand for a handshake as I quickly approached, embarrassed to make someone possibly more hurt than me walk.
"On the contrary, kid," the man said, taking my hand in a firm shake that turned into a friendly hug. "I couldn't believe you were so young. You don't look older than twenty," he added, snorting as he slightly pushed me away to study my face.
"I'm sixteen," I responded, smiling uncomfortably at the man's closeness.
"Sixteen!" the man exclaimed, surprised. "A kid three years older than my own son kicked my ass." With a comically wide-eyed expression, he told Tanner, "Max needs to start training much more seriously."
Given the serious expression on the man's face, I was pretty sure this kid, Max, would get a severe increase in his training.
It didn't take long before I could head to the gym showers to take a cold-water bath, trying to relax my muscles.
Tim's fight happened a few minutes later, and like mine, incredibly, Tim also took damage. Unlike me, who got a cut on one of my cheekbones, Tim had a long cut above his eyebrow.
With all the blood running into Tim's eye, Case had to call for a break—something every fighter apparently had to seal the bleeding. Knowing several methods to stop dangerous bleeding, it was interesting to see how Case handled a superficial cut.
After returning to the ring and receiving several kicks to the body throughout the fight, halfway through the last round, Tim managed to kick his opponent's liver with enough force to end the match.
That day, despite our hard-fought victories, neither Tim nor I had enough energy to go out and celebrate. After Case drove for a couple of hours, we arrived at a new motel where, imitating Tim, I fell asleep immediately as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Feeling every muscle in my body burning like in the first days I had started exercising, the next day, moving as slowly as my body allowed, I turned off the alarm with a sharp smack, not caring about the possibility of breaking it.
Definitely, having fought twice just the day before and all the damage taken in the last fight had taken its toll—a damn big one.
"If you make any jokes, I'll kill you," Tim declared, complaining with his back turned toward me, probably feeling just as sore as I was.
"I wasn't planning to," I replied, stretching my arms and back. I could feel every hit from the previous day.
"Good, because I'm pretty sure I'm blind in one eye," Tim declared with pain in his voice, slowly turning toward me.
"Oh, uh," I murmured, unable to help it, completely impressed.
Tim had almost the entire side of his face swollen. I remembered how I looked when the drunk teenager had hit me so many months ago. What Tim had wasn't just a swollen eye.
"Let me see that," I ordered seriously, approaching Tim and ignoring the pain in my legs. "Can you see if I open your eye?" I asked worriedly, carefully handling my friend's eyelid.
"Yes," Tim immediately replied, trying not to move as I checked, obviously still feeling pain in his face.
"Okay, that's good," I murmured, relieved. "That means there's no blood pooled behind your eye," I added. "Most likely, it's just your face that's swollen, plus the swelling around the eye."
"So what, I won't lose my eye?" Tim asked, and despite hiding it, I could hear a slight trace of fear in his voice.
"I don't think so," I responded. "I think we can just apply a cold compress for a couple of hours, and if the swelling doesn't go down, we can get an X-ray. You might have a hairline fracture."
"All right, so just a cold compress for now?" Tim asked, visibly calmer.
"For now, yes," I responded, smiling at my friend.
"Why are you smiling? Have you seen yourself in a mirror, doc?" Frowning—or at least trying to—Tim asked.
"I don't need to. I know I look much better than you," I declared, snorting. I could feel the heat in my cheekbone, definitely swollen—fortunately not enough to affect my vision, but enough to feel my eye slightly squinted.
Several minutes later, Tim and I left the motel room, this time with me being the one with the less disfigured face—a comment Tim didn't find very funny—and I went to hand in the key at reception.
"Hey, good morning," I said as I entered the RV.
"Morning," Case responded, studying my face for a few seconds before tossing me a cold compress the next moment.
"That looks better than I anticipated," he declared, returning his attention to his breakfast—exactly the same as the day before.
"I know, right?" I said, smiling widely as I pressed the compress against my face, avoiding a discreet punch from Tim, who had his own compress stuck to his face, as I sat next to him.
Unlike the day before, thanks to having slept without dinner, the mountain of food Case had prepared disappeared after not too long. In the end, not a single scrap of food was left on the plates.
"Today, you're not fighting," Case said after we finished breakfast, making both Tim and I exhale in relief at the same time. "Today, you're going to roll," he added with a small, evil smile on his face, surely enjoying the expressions on our faces.
"There's a jiu-jitsu gym run by a friend of mine. You'll participate in his advanced group's training."
Unlike a boxing match, or as I experienced the day before, a kickboxing match, when it was jiu-jitsu training day at home, the exhaustion was completely different. Competing in strength against another person while trying to control their arms and legs was incredibly draining.
Despite that, unlike the previous fights, I wasn't nervous. On the contrary, I felt excited. I knew, at least quietly, that my strength lay in the grappling aspect of a fight. Tim definitely shined more than me in striking, but submissions—that was my thing.
"You'll be going against purple to black belts, possibly. If I had to place you at some level, it'd be advanced purple or brown, so learn everything you can and don't embarrass me," Case warned, raising a finger.
For the first time on this trip, it seemed like Case was genuinely concerned about the outcome of the training. Definitely, in the fights the previous days, he wanted us to win, but this time, strangely, he seemed to want to pressure us.
"I can barely see out of one eye," Tim murmured, obviously noticing Case's odd behavior just like I did.
"Don't be a crybaby," Case said, walking to the driver's seat.
Tim silently turned slightly to face me with a completely incredulous expression. Slightly snorting, I could only shrug.
Not long after, we arrived outside a mall, which, like in Houston, was many times bigger than the one in Medford.
"The gym is in the mall?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yeah," Case responded, slightly frowning as he walked toward the mall entrance.
The mall, as expected on a Sunday at noon, was full of people shopping or simply visiting stores and restaurants. Children ran around playing, and women chatted in a coffee shop. Not at all the atmosphere you'd expect when heading to a martial arts gym.
"Big cities are weird. Why would there be a gym in a mall like this?" Tim asked what I—and surely Case—were thinking.
Without anyone answering my friend's question, we walked through the wide hallways of the huge building until we reached a storefront that from afar screamed "Brazil," at least due to a giant flag painted on one of the glass windows.
"Casa di Jiu-Jitsu," Tim read, confused by the sign above the door of the place.
"Home of Jiu-Jitsu," Case translated with a strange tone of disapproval in his voice.
"A bit arrogant, no?" I declared, studying Case's expression. Thanks to that, I didn't miss a small, impressively brief smile on the man's face.
"Let's go," Case ordered.
Adding to the strangeness surrounding the place, upon entering—which was surprisingly spacious for being inside a mall—we found an unusually large group of children on the floor "training" what appeared to be armbars while happily playing.
The gym, aside from being full of kids laughing and playing while learning a technique that could easily destroy anyone's ulnar nerve, was quite clean, with padded floors and flags from various countries hanging on the walls, along with numerous photographs and small trophies decorating the rest of the space.
"I hope the black belts aren't among this group of kids," I muttered sarcastically, leaning slightly toward Tim, who snorted in response.
In the center of the surprisingly large group of children, a Latino-looking man dressed in an immaculately white gi strolled among them, smiling kindly, giving instructions occasionally, or stepping in when necessary to separate two kids.
"Mateus," raising his eyebrows—possibly the most expressive I'd ever seen him—Case spoke after taking in the scene before him.
"Case," the man declared, stopping abruptly in the center of the gym and slowly turning with a frown, causing everyone, including the children, to freeze in place, oddly nervous from the suddenly tense atmosphere.
Without a word to each other, Case and the Latino man slowly approached.
Tim and I exchanged a glance, clearly sharing the same concern—it looked like Case and the man were about to start fighting. And while that would be amazing to see in person, being surrounded by kids probably wasn't the best setting.
When the two men were just a step apart, before Tim or I could move to try and stop anything before it started, the Latino man pulled Case into a tight hug.
"Hermano," the man declared, and a moment later, further breaking our minds, Case hugged him back.
"Is all of this a product of my imagination? Am I actually in a coma at the hospital after taking a knee to the head?" I asked, baffled, watching as Case and the Latino man—Mateus, if I remembered correctly—spoke rapidly in what was surely Portuguese.
"Are these your students?" Mr. Mateus, now noticing Tim and me still standing awkwardly where we were, asked after a minute of speaking only in the foreign language.
"Oh yeah, PJ Duncan and Tim Newhouse," Case introduced, pointing at us.
"Pleasure to meet you, boys," the man said kindly, approaching with his hand outstretched. "I see you came from another gym—I hope," Mr. Mateus added, raising his eyebrows at our injuries. "I'm Mateus Santos. I trained with Case in Brazil many years ago."
Tim and I hurried to shake his hand, introducing ourselves quickly.
"Yes, we had some kickboxing fights yesterday," I added after Tim introduced himself, smiling at both the man and the group of kids who were now staring intently at us from behind Mr. Santos.
The children, who until then had been observing us with growing curiosity, were now especially focused on Tim, clearly concerned about the marks on his face. Some whispered among themselves while subtly pointing.
Tim, noticing the stares, raised a hand in an awkward greeting. "Hey," he murmured uncomfortably, offering a slight smile that, given the state of his face, was far more intimidating than my friend obviously intended. One of the kids even shyly hid behind another.
"Don't worry, my friend here hit his face on a pole on the way here. Me, on the other hand, had an absolutely incredible fight against a bank robber," I said exaggeratedly, smiling at the kids, my tone playful enough that some of the younger ones laughed in amusement.
"A pole, really?" Tim asked, leaning toward me slightly annoyed.
"You should watch where you're walking," I replied with a mischievous grin.
Mr. Santos, still beside us and clearly amused by the exchange between Tim and me, snorted. "You've got good students here, Case," he said, smiling at the other man, who simply had his arms crossed.
"If you say so," Case declared with exaggerated exasperation—it was strange seeing Case expressing himself like a relatively normal person.
Shaking his head with a smile, Mr. Santos checked a clock on the gym wall. "Oh, look at the time," he declared, clapping loudly before shouting something in Portuguese that the kids apparently understood immediately, causing a chaotic stampede of children running to grab their backpacks.
"Mothers use the gym as a daycare while they visit the mall," Mr. Santos murmured with a shrug. "Can't complain—it pays the rent."
Once all the kids had their little backpacks slung over their shoulders like a hive mind, they rushed to one of the walls, sitting on the floor and immediately starting to chatter among themselves.
"The mothers will start arriving any minute now," Mr. Santos said with a small smile as he watched the kids.
And he was right—it didn't even take two minutes before the first mother arrived. The woman, oddly well-dressed, effusively thanked Mr. Santos for her son's training, a scene repeated by the mothers who arrived in the following minutes.
"Maybe we should take in kids at the gym, you know, to train the next generation," Tim said, staring ahead as another woman laughed fakely at some comment from Mr. Santos while 'discreetly' placing a hand on the man's chest.
"Ask Case," I said, shrugging. I had no issue with it—in fact, it would be much better for the business, which desperately needed it.
"Definitely not," said Case, who wasn't far and had definitely heard the conversation.
"But—" Tim tried to argue.
"No," Case declared sharply.
Lowering his head—his dream of flirting with married women surely crushed—Tim said nothing else, sitting down on the gym's padded floor.
As more women arrived and kids left the gym, other people slowly started trickling in: a well-built man with glasses who formally greeted Mr. Santos before leaving his shoes in the designated area, a guy probably a couple of years older than me. When the number of arrivals reached six, the small group began talking among themselves, occasionally glancing discreetly at where Case, Tim, and I were.
When the last child and his mother left the gym, the small group of adults who had arrived, now stretching, quickly lined up in the center of the gym.
Losing his friendly smile and slightly furrowing his brow, Mr. Santos walked to the front of the group.
"As you've noticed, we have some guests today," the man said, pointing toward us. "These are PJ Duncan and Tim Newhouse from Medford. They're here to train with you," he declared, making the group now openly stare at us. "Don't let their small-town origins fool you—they're accompanied and trained by my old friend Case Walker," he added, nodding toward Case, "who is one of the best, if not the best, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners I know."
A series of greetings, some more enthusiastic than others, were heard immediately. A couple of heads nodded, and one of the practitioners gave us a thumbs-up from across the line.
"Now that introductions are done, let's start warming up," the man ordered, clapping loudly.
"Warm up and get familiar," Case commanded, walking alongside Mr. Santos to some chairs at the edge of the gym.
We moved to one side of the mat as the warm-up began. Light jumps, joint mobility, dynamic stretches. Despite the pain in my body, I started moving, letting myself be carried by the collective energy, slowly feeling my stiffness fade.
During the warm-up, for the first time, I strangely felt eager to begin. At home, there was no one—aside from Tim and Case—to practice everything I'd learned from the various notebooks Case gave me to study. Technique after technique trained on the homemade dummies Case had crafted, but without any real opportunity to apply them.
My hands felt itchy.
When the group was sufficiently active and sweating, Mr. Santos stood at the front again, clapping and shouting an order in Portuguese to get everyone's attention.
"You know the drill—grappling rounds, five minutes per round, one-minute rest between rounds. Let's roll," the man explained, smiling slightly at Tim and me.
No more needed to be said. As if it were a ritual repeated a thousand times, pairs began forming and finding space on the wide padded floor.
From the small group, two people separated and walked toward us—an older man, possibly around Case's age, and a younger one, maybe a couple of years older than me.
"Hey, I'm Sam," the younger of the two approached me, extending his hand.
"PJ," I responded, smiling, noticing how Tim introduced himself to the other man. A moment later, they separated.
"Wanna roll?" Sam asked, grinning.
"Sure," I replied immediately, feeling the itch in my hands spread through my whole body.
"So, Medford, huh? Are you part of a Jiu-Jitsu gym there?" Sam asked, seeming genuinely interested.
"It's more of a mix of different martial arts," I said, not really knowing how to explain it fully. "Case trains us in a lot of things."
"Cool," the guy said, nodding with a slight frown. "So those bruises are from training another martial art?" he asked, pointing at my face.
"Ah, yeah, yesterday we went to a kickboxing gym," I replied.
After our introductions, the conversation strangely became a bit awkward. Somehow, it seemed like Sam didn't approve of us training multiple martial arts instead of just one.
Before we could continue the conversation, a sharp sound cut through the air. A loud, digital beep activated from a clock on the wall, displaying a bright red five minutes.
"Round one—record to break is thirteen taps!" Mr. Santos shouted, clapping loudly to capture the group's attention. The already-formed pairs began taking positions.
"All right, good luck," Sam said, smiling with a tiny but visible hint of condescension.
"You too," I replied, smiling, though I was slightly offended.
Without saying more, Sam and I took our stances, ready to fight.
Unlike boxing or kickboxing, in Jiu-Jitsu, the initial base stance—the guard—was actually one of the most open I knew. It basically involved preparing the body's center of gravity in anticipation of a takedown. Beyond that, the hands were wide at the sides of the head, not really protecting against any strikes.
At first, Sam seemed to be measuring my knowledge. Wide movements, open stances, letting me in only to counter. He wasn't bad—not at all. He had a good base, quick hands, and decent timing. But his game had cracks. Small ones, but enough.
As soon as I sensed an opportunity—a slightly slow transition from half-guard—I took it. I wrapped my leg, took control of his arm, and dropped into a clean armbar. There was no need to fully extend it. The tap on my leg was immediate.
"That was good," Sam said, genuinely surprised, preparing again.
This time, his surprise oddly felt condescending.
"Thanks," I said dryly.
This round, Sam was more defensive. He tried to control the pace, imposing his top position. But now I was slightly annoyed. I passed his guard by pushing his hand off my neck, securing side control, and quickly—without letting Sam escape—transitioned to full mount. The rear-naked choke came immediately for the second tap.
This time, when we separated, Sam said nothing, lowering his center of gravity even more. I could see him slightly frowning—it was obvious he hadn't expected to be dominated so easily.
After we both nodded, ready, with his chest lower than usual, Sam suddenly shot for my legs, taking me down in a double-leg tackle.
As I fell, feeling the pain in my body, I couldn't help but wrap my legs around Sam's waist. Gripping his wrists, struggling to regain my breath after the impact against the mat, I fought against Sam, who was in an advantageous position, trying to fully mount me.
With the pain in my body now more controlled, I took a deep breath, still forcing Sam's hands away from control. In a quick movement—one I'd trained countless times in my mind and on practice dummies—I lifted my legs from his waist while pulling his left wrist and releasing the right. Without thinking, I slid my foot behind my knee, locking Sam's neck in a triangle choke while pulling his left arm.
Before Sam could tap my leg, the same alarm that had marked the start of the five minutes announced the end.
"That was crazy," Sam said, completely changing his earlier strange attitude now that he was free. "You're crazy," he added with a wide grin.
"Wha—" I tried to say.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be this good," Sam admitted, cutting me off with some embarrassment on his face. "I underestimated you."
"Ah, don't worry, I didn't notice," I lied immediately. If he was going to apologize, I had no reason to stay mad—it wasn't like he'd insulted me.
From there, the training continued, switching partners after the one-minute rest. I had the chance to try things I'd never done before but had always wanted to—loop choke, gogoplata, mounted triangle, baseball bat choke. After Sam, the rest of the group managed to make me tap a couple of times, but there wasn't a single one I couldn't submit in return.
By the end of the session, Tim and I—having met everyone in the best way possible, by fighting—were now integrated into the group, talking about what had happened.
"You're a damn anaconda, PJ," one of the guys said, causing small laughs in the group.
"Thanks," I said, confused, not entirely sure if it was a compliment.
"This was really good. You should come more often," Mr. Santos said to Case after the training, with a broad smile.
"Sure," Case responded, surprisingly smiling himself.
After saying goodbye, we left again—this time still sweaty. Since the gym was in a mall, Mr. Santos' place didn't have showers. The trip back was pretty uncomfortable.
Several hours later, switching drivers periodically without stopping, we arrived in Medford.
"Don't go to the gym for a couple of days. Rest and recover," Case said as he dropped me off in front of my house.
"Sure, see you later," I said, completely exhausted and feeling my body stiff, probably smelling bad too.
"See you," Tim, who was behind the wheel at that moment, replied.
Watching the RV drive away from my house, I turned on my feet, carrying my backpack, ready to head inside.
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We have reached the end of the fight arc, no more for the moment.
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Author Thoughts:
As always, I'm not American, not a doctor, not a fighter, not Magnus Carlsen, not Michael Phelps, not Arsene Lupin and not McLovin.
Another chapter has passed, so new thanks are in order. I would like to especially thank:
11332223
RandomPasserby96
Victor_Venegas
I think that's all. As always, if you find any errors, please let me know, and I'll correct them immediately.
Thank you for reading! :D
PS: PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW.