Chapter 12

“Oh my gosh, they are so cute!” squealed Summer. Shinobi was crawling up the back of her arm, his tiny claws clinging to the girl’s hoodie. Shuriken was perched on top of her head until he launched himself six feet to the sugar glider’s open cage. “It’s like they just want to snuggle and play!”

George smiled. He was packing his backpack with things he thought he might need for the event that night. He brought a few water bottles and a couple of towels. He also stuffed a small first-aid kit into the bag. It was getting heavy.

“And they really just eat fruit and scrambled eggs?” Summer’s question was half muffled as she buried her face in Shinobi’s warm fur.

George couldn’t blame Summer for her reaction to his new roommates. He’d lived with them for two and a half weeks, and already he felt like his apartment was a much nicer and less lonely place to be. That was good, since he’d mostly been by himself since his father had gone back home the Virginia. Summer had spent the holidays away with her family visiting distant relatives, and Hector seemed to be more withdrawn. He’d seen him a few days after Christmas just long enough to exchange gifts, and then nothing.

Until today. George was on his way to see Hector in just a few moments, and he was surprised his friend hadn’t spent more time with him up until now considering how important this weekend was going to be.

“Just remember, they sleep mostly in the day, so you’ll want to play with them at night,” he reminded her.

Together they carried the cage down the stairs and out to Summer’s car, where the cage would only just fit in the back seat. Since he was going to be gone for two nights, he decided his little friends needed some looking after, and George was paranoid that Ricardo should go into his room without him there, he might find some incriminating evidence of his rule-breaking. Naturally, that left Summer.

“I will take such good care of these guys!” she reassured him.

“Thanks,” he said, and he kissed her.

She hugged him, holding her grip on him maybe a little longer than she normally did. “Be careful,” she told him.

“Summer, I’m not the one fighting. This is Hector. I’m just cornering,” he reassured her. He kept holding onto the hug, too. It was nice to feel her after several weeks apart.

“I know. I’m not worried about that. It’s just…you’re in the middle of things. In the middle of people who disagree with each other. And you can’t keep it up forever.”

He nodded. He’d been thinking about that a lot lately by himself. “I’ve been thinking about stopping the challenge matches. I don’t know what to do after that. They’re kind of the only things I’ve got going on.”

“Well, maybe you should think about doing something. I dunno. School,” she said.

He looked at her. It was strange to hear his father’s words coming out of her. “What about you?” he asked. “You’re just kind of working and hanging around. Like me.”

“I’m not going to work at Pampered Chef for the rest of my life. And I won’t be here forever.” She broke her grip with him. “I’m saving for something.”

“For what?” he said. And what did she mean about not being here forever? Was she going to leave him?

“Something,” she answered, shrugging. “We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

“I’ll really will stop the challenge matches,” he offered. It had just come out. He hadn’t even really meant to say it.

“I don’t know if he’ll let you,” she said, nodding to something behind his back.

He turned. Hector’s truck was pulling into the parking lot. George turned around again, not wanting to get off topic, wanting her to clarify what she’d meant about not being around. Before he could say anything, she silenced him with a brief kiss.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” she said again, and she got into her car. She was warm when she’d said it to him, and George was sure that her feelings for him hadn’t changed, but he couldn’t help feeling as she drove away that something was changing.

“Are you ready for this?” Hector called behind him.

George shouldered his bag and got into the truck.

 

“I finally get to watch you fight,” said George as he applied another strip of tape to Hector’s hand. “It’s usually you watching me in some dojo somewhere.”

George finished taping the hand and Hector made a fist. Covered in the protective white tape, Hector’s hands had been turned into bludgeons.

They were sitting in the locker room of the Coliseum Event Center in San Diego. They’d arrived the night before and spent the past twenty-four hours keeping Hector loose, warm, and rested. They’d even hooked up George’s video game console to the room’s TV and played a few hours of the new MMA game Hector had got him for Christmas. But now the games were over, and Hector was mostly silent.

“You feel ready?” George asked, hoping for an answer. Since they’d arrived in the event center and seen the black cage in the middle of the floor, Hector had hardly said two words to him. “You can do this,” George encouraged him. “You’re a great fighter.”

“I don’t need to hear that from you,” snapped Hector.

George raised his hands and slowly backed off, as though he was in the presence of a dog who’d showed his teeth. He realized he’d mistaken his friend’s anger for anxiety.

“Sorry,” Hector said. “This is just the way I get before a fight. It’s not personal.”

The two of them sat in silence. George watched Hector loosen up with foot movements and shadow boxing. He wondered if there was a side to his friend he’d never considered. If maybe there was more to Hector than he’d seen as they played video games, trained Jiu-jitsu, watched movies, and talked about professional fighting dreams. Was Summer right? Would Hector take offense if George wanted to stop the challenge matches?

An official came into the locker room, ordering all fighters to come forward to have their hands inspected. Several men came forward, some of them followed by their coaches, and one by one the official handled their taping, turning their hands over and initialing with a felt pen on the wrist. Hector had his done as well.

“Hector Vargas?” the official said, searching the faces in the room. Hector stood and nodded. George stood with him. “You’re up first.”

George and Hector walked out of the locker room, through the hallway and into the large arena just in time to hear an announcer belt out Hector’s name. The floor and stands were packed with spectators. Hector and George couldn’t help but gawk at the sheer number of people watching the fight. Looming over the cage like a great insect’s arm, a video camera twisted and rotated to view the fight announcer. Another man holding a camera appeared in front of the friends and began filming them as he walked backwards.

George could see the two of them on a giant screen hanging above the cage. Hector looked menacing, his face a match for the oni on his gi. George couldn’t help but admire himself as well. The two of them, though wearing different colored gis, looked like a team. A team with only two members, but a team nonetheless. After all, this was a professional MMA league, Prodigy. And Hector, for the first time ever, was a professional MMA fighter, wasn’t he? Didn’t that make them a real team? George couldn’t hide the grin he wore from ear to ear.

All things that normally happened before a mixed martial arts fight seemed to pass in a blur: taking Hector’s gi and shoes, watching as an official smeared petroleum jelly on his forehead, and watching the other fighter walk out as well. Before George had a grasp that all these things were really happening, the first round had already begun.

Hector’s opponent, a stocky, well-built black guy by the name of Hanson, extended his fist in the normal show of respect. Hector seemed to return the gesture reluctantly, and the two of them began to circle each other.

The benefit to fighting a professional, George and Hector learned a month ago, was you could often study them by looking up their history. Hanson’s record of two professional wins with no losses, YouTube videos of his fights, and profile on his MMA gym’s website all painted a detailed picture of him. George and Hector clearly saw a tough, talented boxer with decent wrestling skills and a dangerous clinch who tended to win by knockout. They figured that would be exactly what Hanson would want to accomplish in the first round.

They weren’t disappointed. Hanson danced close to Hector, his hands working like pistons as he began testing him with jabs and crosses. Hector, not bad with his hands himself, responded in kind, slipping and dodging as many of the blows as he could and repaying every punch with one of his own. Hanson, however, seemed to have the better hands, as most of Hector’s blows hit blocks or nothing at all. Hanson ducked and weaved with surprising foresight, and some of his punches left Hector just slightly dazed, something missed by many spectators but not by George.

“Cover up!” shouted George, trying to be heard above the din of the spectators. His friend had been backed into the cage, and Hanson was hammering on him with short punches and uppercuts. “Shoot in on him,” George cried out.

Hector perhaps heard him, ducking below a hook punch and driving his chest and arms forward, springing off the flexible cage. Hanson did not sprawl his legs away in time, and soon he found himself tumbling backwards as Hector entwined himself with the man’s legs.

“Pass! Pass! Pass!” George shouted.

Hector worked to break the hold of Hanson’s legs, which had wrapped around Hector’s waist and crossed at the ankles. George watched his friend frame his knee against Hanson’s tailbone and push until the man’s feet parted by the smallest margin. His defenses soon fell apart as Hector passed Hanson’s legs and went to side mount, hammering with his fist on Hanson’s covered head.

Then an air horn blew, and Hector watched the referee pry the fighters apart. As Hector walked back to his corner, George hustled to get into the cage. He set down a small stool, and Hector took the seat.

“How are you feeling?” George asked. Hector didn’t say anything, he was clearly fuming. “That round was close, but I think he might have won it. You need to own the next two, so don’t stand up and try to trade punches with him. He’s too good of a boxer. He slows down a lot in the third, but he’ll probably still be strong through most of the second. Keep up with the takedowns, okay?”

He handed Hector a water bottle, and Hector took a sip before shoving it back into his friend’s hands. He didn’t say anything.

The referee signaled for the corner men to leave so the next round could begin. “Good luck,” George said before he bustled away with his bag and his stool. He wondered if Hector, who seemed to be in his own world at the moment, had heard anything he’d said.

The bell rung, and round two began. Both fighters, now wary of each other, took their time before circling towards each other again. It was Hector’s turn to be the aggressor. He fired off a flurry of wild punches, though none of them connected with anything except Hanson’s bulky forearms. But when Hanson tried to fire back, Hector ducked below Hanson’s reach and charged forward like a bull. Hanson seemed to expect this, and sprawled his legs back, but Hector was stubborn and kept driving foreword until his hands found holds behind his opponent’s thighs. He looked like a farmer who’d fallen under the weight of a sack of flour he’d been carrying on his shoulders.

Hanson seemed unworried about Hector’s position, and rained down fists on Hector’s unshielded ribs as his body weight bore down on the back of Hector’s head and neck. Hector didn’t seem to feel them, and continued to circle closer to Hanson’s legs. Soon, Hanson became less concerned with hitting Hector than with keeping him from getting a better position. He tangled his arms with Hector’s, trying to break his grip, but the response came too late. With a terrible growl Hector finally lifted him into the air and slammed him onto the floor.

The ensuing beat down was terrible. George had known his friend to be an angry fighter before, noticing his temper when the two of them rolled in class or drilled wrestling, but George wasn’t prepared for the venomous wrath he saw unleashed on Hansen that night.

Hanson did his best to move along the ground and escape the worst positions, but always Hector stayed with him and on top of him, limiting his options and punishing him for the audacity of landing so many punches in the first round. Every moment Hector didn’t need his hands to pass or move or switch position, they were battering his withering opponent. George could clearly make out the cuts quickly amassing on Hansen’s lip and eyebrows. Hector might as well have been hacking at him with a machete. Smears of blood followed the two around the canvassed floor.

Somehow Hansen managed to last until the horn blew and the round ended. As Hector returned to his corner, George met him.

“That was something,” George said, unsure of how to put his feelings into words. He was awed by Hector’s energy and power, but ill at ease with the brutality he’d just seen. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so much blood in a single mixed martial arts match. “We know who won that round.”

But Hector wasn’t looking at him. Hector’s eyes were on the referee behind George on the other side of the cage. George turned, following his friends gaze and saw the ref talking energetically with a doctor who was examining Hansen’s cuts, particularly one just above his left eye. Hansen looked like he’d just been in five fights, and his body was practically hanging on the fence like an animal pelt tacked there to dry. Suddenly the referee turned and waved his arms in the air, and the crowd erupted.

Hector had just won his first professional MMA fight.

 

“Your first professional win a doctor stoppage,” complemented George. He and Hector were back at the hotel, the two of them soaking in the hot tub near the indoor pool. It was late, and they were the only ones around. “Not a bad way to begin your career.”

Hector smiled. He was back to his old self now the fight was over. “You were a good corner man. You gave me some good advice in there. I think if you hadn’t said anything I would have been angry enough to try beat him standing up again. I don’t know. When I get in there, it’s like I don’t know what’s going on. I just want to go crazy. I may not have won that without you.”

George grinned. “Save the sentiments for when we’re not in a hot tub together, okay?” The two of them laughed. But George secretly relished that compliment. It was good to realize that he’d just been a part of something great.

“Now we need to get you in the cage,” Hector said. “Then get our gym. And our own fight team.”

George nodded. The idea was deliciously grand after their win that night. He loved martial arts, and he loved the fights. He loved watching them and being a part of them. If he went along with Hector’s plans, he always could be. It would have been perfect, but for a sudden thought of Ricardo and his father, and George realized that neither of them would approve of such a fantasy. And just like that George’s dream of MMA Greatness was tainted with guilt, like a glass of water fouled by a single drop of motor oil. He wondered what on earth it would take to make everyone in his life happy for him.

 

“It’s good to be home,” George whispered to his sugar gliders. Shinobi and Shuriken were snuggled together into ball in their nest. One could not tell where one creature ended and the other began.

He wished Summer had stayed a little longer when she came to drop them off. When George called her to tell her he’d come back from San Diego, she whined that she hadn’t had enough time with the sugar gliders. Neither one of them said anything about the things she said to him before he left about not being around forever. Neither did they bring it up when she came to the academy to return Shinobi and Shuriken. She’d only hugged him, and kissed him, and politely declined his invitation to come upstairs to his room. It was a nice moment they had together, and neither wanted to spoil the moment by bringing up unpleasant possibilities.

And so he’d said good night, and he was back in his own world, alone with his pets and his things. He tried watching TV, but felt strangely tired and resigned to sleep with his clothes still on.

He awoke with a start when someone knocked on his door. It always startled him when someone did that, because so few people could actually come to his apartment door since he lived in the academy. He wondered if it was a member of Ricardo’s family. It turned out to be Ricardo himself.

“George, good morning. I…did you sleep in your clothes?”

George looked down at himself and blearily recognized he was still wearing the jeans and hoodie he’d worn on the ride home from San Diego. He nodded without offering any explanation. It was too early for him to string more than a few words together anyway.

“I was wondering if I could take you out for breakfast,” Ricardo said.

George’s eyes immediately became less heavy, and without a word he dashed about his room, looking for his shoes and effects.

George slowly warmed up his powers of speech as the two of them piled into Ricardo’s SUV and drove to George’s favorite Mexican restaurant. The two of them chatted happily about Jiu-jitsu, and future plans for the school, and even some of George’s classmates. It wasn’t until George was nearly halfway through a plate of huevos rancheros that they began to actually talk.

“George, I want to know what you think. I mean, what you really think about my family’s Jiu-jitsu.”

George stopped chewing and looked at Ricardo, then quickly looked away again. He swallowed. “I think it’s great,” he said.

Ricardo nodded. “You train a lot. Every day. And you’ve been here for a while now. I can tell when you’re heart is in it, and when it’s not. I can tell when something’s changed, and I think something has. When you first started training here, you were captivated by Jiu-jitsu. You couldn’t get enough of it. I know what that looks like because I see it every time I look in the mirror. It’s the feel of being a part of something. A family legacy. A story.”

George nodded his head slowly, but inside his head he was running a thousand miles an hour. Had Ricardo figured out what he’d been doing with Hector? Had he found George’s gi embroidered with the devilish oni mask? What was it? What had given him away? What was going to happen to him now?

“I can also tell,” Ricardo continued, “when Jiu-jitsu has taken a back seat to something else. I know what it looks like when people train Jiu-jitsu for other reasons. They lose that passion, and they stop growing. Jiu-jitsu becomes just a workout, or a hobby. It stops being special. And I think that’s where you are now.”

George didn’t know what to say. It sounded as though he might still be in danger of being caught breaking the no-competition rule, though now he wasn’t sure. He decided to keep his mouth closed until Ricardo had finished.

“Some months ago you asked me to bring back the challenge matches. I told you no. I might have been a little too hasty.”

Now George was very confused. This conversation could very well be one he was dreading for months, but it might be something else entirely. He decided to test his hopes that it was something else.

“Are you saying you’re going to do challenge matches again?” he asked. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he did. Something in him began to be excited.”

“I’ll do one, for now,” Ricardo answered. “Consider it my birthday present to you.”

George had no idea what to say, but he was suddenly aware there was a ridiculous grin spreading across his face.

“I’ve been trying to impart our Jiu-jitsu to you like a family member,” Ricardo explained. “But all of our family members had seen the challenge matches. You hadn’t. I think now that it might not be fair to you. Our legacy has not proved itself to you like it has to me.” Ricardo pushed three DVD cases across the table. “These are the ones we did before. Study them. You never know, you might be in this one.”

George reached across the table and took the DVDs. He couldn’t imagine a better birthday gift from Ricardo.

“Remember,” Ricardo said suddenly, causing George to freeze, “this event is only to bring honor and recognition to this family’s Jiu-jitsu. It is not to seek out personal glory or to build your reputation, should I allow you to participate. And this is the only competition I will allow you or any of my students to participate in. Deal?”

George nodded. “Deal,” he agreed.

 

“Okay, I’m ready,” said George. He sat on his bed, his phone in his hand. In his lap was a box DVD set, already half unwrapped.

“You sure you didn’t open it?” asked Summer over the phone. She’d given him the gift the night before since she wouldn’t see him today, but only on the condition that he not open it until she was on the phone with him.

“Yep,” he said, admiring the DVD set. “I’m sure.”

“Okay, open it.”

George rustled the already torn wrapping on his gift so it could be heard on the phone. “Wow,” he gushed in his best surprised voice, “this is great!”

In fact, he did love it. The DVD set read “Elite: the Beginning” in big foil letters on the front and contained every fight of the first four Elite championships. George had seen several low quality video clips on the internet of these fights, but he’d never seen them all, and he looked forward to it.

“Really, this is awesome. You’re awesome. Thanks.”

“I guess you’ll get to watch the real thing in a few minutes,” she said.

“Yeah,” George agreed. “That’ll be pretty awesome.”

“And I hope this will help you get this whole fighting thing out of your system,” she said.

George shook his head. “I don’t have a thing to get out of my system,” he said.

“George, I know you,” she argued. “I can definitely tell you have something to get out of your system. You want to prove yourself. That’s just the way you are. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Ricardo does,” George said. “He pretty much spelled it out to me when he agreed to do this whole thing.”

Summer was silent for a while. “You know, I’ve learned a lot about your family members by being around you and listening to you talk about them and being in the academy. Your family is full of people who want to prove themselves. I just think they don’t do it if it hurts the family.”

George wondered if she was right. And if she was, what did that say about him? Did George try to prove himself even though it hurt his family? He didn’t think so. He didn’t even think he was all that eager to take on the world like that. That sounded like Hector to him. He also wondered if he really did talk about Jiu-jitsu and the Gracias so much she could make those kinds of statements with so much confidence.

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you from your big day,” she said.

He smiled, and said goodbye. Then he grabbed his gi and ran downstairs.

 

The main academy floor had been transformed. Where there had once been a large open space covered by blue mats, there was now a hard green linoleum floor George had never seen before. A large banner hung across the wide room towards the entrance, reading “The Gracia Family Challenge”. In the center of the room was an octagonal area walled in by what seemed like barriers made from metal piping wrapped in foam pads and covered in black canvas. The barriers were a little higher than waist height. George recognized the octagon structure from the DVD’s he’d received from Ricardo. It was the challenge match arena.

“The barriers are to keep our challengers from running away,” Ricardo said, walking towards George from his office.

“Why remove the mats?” George asked. “Don’t we plan on fighting them on the ground?” He imagined how uncomfortable it would be to roll on a hard linoleum.

“For a couple of reasons. First, because many of our critics believe we are incapable of fighting without comfortable mats under us. I would like to put that myth to rest. Second, fights typically go to the ground whether the fighters plan on it or not. I would like for our opponents to know what it feels like to fight on the ground without an understanding of Jiu-jitsu or mats to protect them.”

George winced at the thought of martial artists being thrown to the floor without knowing how to break their fall safely, something every Jiu-jitsu practitioner learned on their first day. Now that he thought about it, mats only protected the person on the bottom of the ground fight. The body of the person on the bottom protected the fighter on top.

There was a knock on a glass window. George turned and saw the crowd pressed against the glass windows and front doors of the academy. There had to be more people out there than could possibly fit in the academy at once. They were dressed in all manner and color of martial arts attire. There were gis of every conceivable color, even one man dressed in pink, and some didn’t wear gis at all. Some came in kickboxer shorts or wrestling singlets. Others wore gi pants and t-shirts with the logos of their martial arts schools. Some looked like mixed martial artists. Others still looked like they weren’t there to fight at all, and carried video cameras and sound recording equipment.

Ricardo’s challenge issued in the newspaper, internet, and radio seemed to have caught the attention of more people than George had imagined. He wondered how they were going to fight them all in one day.

Soon Ricardo and George were joined by three others: Pablo Gracia, Mo Al Nahyan, and Scott Brown. With Ricardo the four of them constituted the intructing black belts of Brotherhood Jiu-jitsu. George was excited to see what they could do. He was even more excited at the prospect of doing it with them, if Ricardo felt he was ready.

“Let’s get this started,” said Ricardo.

The doors opened, and in came a flood of challengers, all of them looking to make a name for themselves as the one who beat the legendary Jiu-jitsu master or one of his protégés. Some of them immediately looked intimidated by the four black belts that greeted them just inside the door, and George saw that many of them tried to compensate for that feeling with bravado. Some of them, quite ridiculously, popped their knuckles or necks, or made comedic face-off expressions at Ricardo and the others. While some of them did, in fact, look credible or at least normal, some looked and acted as though they’d stepped out of a bad movie.

“Welcome to Brotherhood Jiu-jitsu,” said Ricardo. Though his voice carried fairly well in the room, many of the challengers were still outside, craning their necks above the crowded doorway to hear. “This is the Gracie Family Challenge. We will be more than happy to accept all of your challenges, and we’ll do it as quickly as we can to face as many of you as possible before the end of the challenge at eight o’clock tonight. However, there are only four of us and there are many of you, so please be understanding when we need breaks and such. Are there any questions before we begin?”

There was a hand from somewhere just inside the door, and George could only make out part of the man’s question. He heard the words “rules” and “referee”.

“Yes,” Ricardo answered, having apparently heard the man even though George had not. “Our referee will be Mr. Albert Sears. Though he is an old friend, he has an honest reputation as a referee for professional mixed martial arts as well as boxing. I hope none of you object.”

A man who’d been sitting in a spectator’s chair stood and waved. Albert Sears was a tall man, and powerfully built, George saw. He had a pristine mustache, and wore a pressed white shirt and slacks without a tie. George recognized him after a moment. He’d seen this man referee Elite matches. It didn’t surprise him Ricardo had such friends, but it was impressive anyway.

Many of the martial artists in the room gave the man a respectful nod. None of them seemed to object to the referee.

“The rules are simple,” continued Ricardo. “You win if you knockout your opponent, if you force him into a submission, or if Mr. Sears stops the match for the safety of your opponent. This is a no-holds-barred challenge. You’re free to use any techniques with the exception of eye gouging and biting. You may also grab any piece of clothing. If you fight like a gentleman, you can expect us to treat you like a gentleman. Though some techniques such as hair pulling and groin striking are not illegal in this contest, those of you who use these brutal techniques may expect the same from us.” George saw some of the challengers wince at the warning. Some smirked. George pitied anyone who planned to do such things to a Jiu-jitsu master.

“The winner of the challenge will be awarded five thousand dollars,” Ricardo continued, this time in an even louder voice than before. George’s eyes widened, and he stared at Ricardo. He didn’t know there would be such a large prize. “You will also receive a plaque and my profound respect.”

George looked at the competitors. Their expressions had changed. The mention of the large cash prize had changed many of them from intimidated to eager. If there was anything that might encourage these men to fight harder and dirtier, George was sure Ricardo had just offered it to them. A shiver went up his spine, and he wondered if perhaps Ricardo had made a mistake.

His doubts didn’t survive long, and neither did the first round of challengers. The first man was a fourth-dan in Shito Ryu Karate, a rank George later learned meant he was a fourth degree black belt. He was young, and seemed to know to expect the Jiu-jitsu fighters to take the fight to the ground. His effort to sprawl his legs away from Ricardo’s reach, however, proved his youth and mental preparation weren’t enough to defeat the Jiu-jitsu master. Ricardo laid the man on the floor, almost gently, and seemed to know exactly where to tuck his head to make his opponent’s every attempt to punch him in the face as awkward and poorly angled as possible. It had not been a full two minutes before the Shito Ryu fighter finally stopped flailing like a drowning cat under Ricardo’s calm attack and tapped out. Ricardo’s assault on him had been as slow and crushing as a glacier. George had never seen him fight quite this way. It was as though Ricardo had been holding something back when he taught and rolled with his students.

The next challenger, a huge brutish looking guy with a style George had never heard of and suspected was entirely made up, stepped into the ring with Pablo, who ended the match quickly by throwing the man head-over-heels with a graceful throw that appeared so effortless that to George it looked as though he’d done nothing but take a funny step to the side. As the man’s large form collided with the unpadded floor, George could hear the sound of the man’s breath escaping his lungs with a determination to never go back. Pablo immediately relented his grip on the man while Mr. Sears waved his arms to signal an end to the fight. The challenger didn’t argue as Mr. Sears and Ricardo helped haul him to his feet and over to a corner of the room where a volunteering medical professional could take a look at him. The man wasn’t hurt seriously, though his red face winced every time anyone probed his ribs on the side where he’d hit the floor.

Mo represented the academy next. George didn’t know Mo Al Nahyan well, only that he was a Saudi-American who seemed close to the Gracias and taught classes for them occasionally, except for the children’s classes, which he taught all the time. George had only seen him roll a couple of times. He knew Mo was good, but was he as unearthly good as Ricardo and his son? George had a suspicion he must be if Ricardo had asked him to participate in the challenge.

Mo’s challenger was a mixed martial artist of some repute in the area. George noticed the fighter seemed to have a weakness for exotic tattoos, since very little of his torso below the neck wasn’t covered with strange symbols, foreign calligraphy, and symbolic animals. He bounced on his feet and shook out his hands with the expression of one who knew something everyone else in the room didn’t.

“You see this guy?” Mo whispered to George before the beginning of the match. “He thinks everyone here, including me, is a traditional martial artist. He thinks because he fights in a cage he is a better fighter than me.”

“Is he?” asked George, joking.

Mo laughed. “No. See, I used to fight in a cage, too! Even before I started learning Jiu-jitsu!”

George had never known that about Mo. Had he been a professional MMA fighter? He’d never heard of him, but that didn’t mean much to George. He was learning about more “great” fighters every day. If he was a seasoned cage fighter, George was more than a little curious about how Mo’s background might show itself in his fighting. He was also curious about how he might stack up against this challenger.

As soon as Mr. Sears signaled the fight to begin, the MMA fighter held his fists up like an unworried prizefighter, which he was, and bounced lightly on his bare feet as he circled around Mo. This was interrupted when Mo planted a hard kick into the fighter’s chest, sending him tumbling to the ground. Mo followed him, taking position on top of him and punishing the man with open-handed strikes to his face and head. It wasn’t long before the MMA fighter was tapping on the floor. Mo hadn’t put him in a choke or joint lock; he’d just been pummeling the man relentlessly until his opponent simply couldn’t take it anymore.

And that’s how the fights went, and they went on for hours. Some of the challengers lasted longer. One man, a thirty-something year old man with long, curly black hair, lasted a full ten minutes in the ring with Scott until Scott finished it with a painful-looking leg submission that looked like something from a contortionist circus act. The challenger was quite friendly and a good sport about his loss, and mentioned his style was his attempt to renew an old Greek fighting sport that was a mix of boxing and wrestling. Ricardo was impressed since his style had seemed to do so well and cheerfully listened to the man’s thoughts on fighting strategies and training.

After that, the event changed from a strict battle of martial arts styles to a sort of fighting discussion forum punctuated by the occasional good-natured sparring match. George was introduced to local instructors of a dozen or more different styles, all of them answering his questions and inviting him to train with them “to supplement his ground game”, as many of them like to put it. George even noticed some of the martial artists had begun to challenge each other in the ring, and Ricardo allowed a few of them to do so. It was a welcome break for the Jiu-jitsu fighters, all of whom had fought several times since then and were in need of some rest.

George realized sometime in the afternoon the challengers seemed to have all but forgotten the prize money and the prospect of defeating a Gracia black belt. And there was no doubt in his mind Ricardo knew this would eventually happen. After all, the Gracia family had done these challenge matches before, and Ricardo seemed so well prepared for the change from fight to forum that George was fairly sure the other matches ended in similar ways. He wondered if the spell Ricardo had cast over them to make all these fighting men laugh and talk and exercise together was yet another strength of the Gracia family’s Jiu-jitsu.

“Can I have everybody’s attention?” Ricardo announced over the buzz of the many challengers. “We’re celebrating something very special today. Not only is it our first Gracia Family Challenge in nineteen years, but it’s also the nineteenth birthday of my nephew, George Peligro!”

The room broke into applause, and Pablo appeared from the office with a large cake in his hands. It was topped with lit candles and decorated with the image of one gi-clad cartoon figure choking out another. George had never had such a large cake for his birthday before.

“George,” Ricardo continued, “I also have a gift for you.” Ricardo pulled a wrapped gift box from behind his back and handed it to him.

George was at a loss for words. His grin felt like it went from horizon to horizon as he opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of tissue paper, was a purple belt. George stared at it, not even reaching inside the box to touch it. He was afraid that what he thought he was receiving wasn’t what it was.

Ricardo seemed to sense the confusion and answered George’s unasked question. “You’ve progressed so quickly in our family’s art,” he said, reaching into the box and removing the belt. “You’ve trained more than any other student besides family. It normally takes about four years to earn a purple belt. But you showed how fully dedicating your time and effort to something can help you achieve incredible things. You’ve almost earned this belt in eight months.”

“Almost earned?” George repeated, wondering if he’d heard him correctly, or if Ricardo simply misspoke.

“Almost,” Ricardo confirmed. “There’s still one more test you must take before you deserve to wear this belt.” He nodded to something behind George.

George turned, but there was nothing obvious behind him. There was Mr. Sears, some martial artists, the ring…

Then it dawned on him.

“You want me to fight?” he said, his voice slightly cracking.

“I want you to represent the family in a challenge match,” said Ricardo, pointing at the ring with the purple belt. “It’s your turn to contribute to this family’s legacy and show your commitment to our art.”

The many martial artists in the room laughed and clapped approvingly. George somehow felt smaller because of it. Even though he’d fought in several secret challenge matches before, he’d never done it in front of Ricardo. That somehow made a difference. He also realized there was quite a bit of money on the line. Money that wasn’t his. He and Hector had competed for several hundred dollars, but this was for five thousand!

“Go on,” said Ricardo, nudging George with the belt towards the ring. “Earn your birthday present.” Then he turned to the rest of the men in the room. “I need another challenger!” he cried.

Immediately a short Asian man stepped forward. His head was shaved and he wore some sort of Chinese martial arts uniform George wasn’t familiar with. He was an inch or two shorter than George, but he was powerfully built. He walked into the ring and nodded to George, who entered more slowly.

Suddenly, Scott was at George’s side. He placed his hand on George’s shoulder and whispered into his ear. “Remember the floor. Don’t let yourself get on the bottom. Let him commit and close the distance. Get the takedown. Take your time once you get on the floor. And relax.”

George wasn’t sure he could relax, but he raised his hands to guard his face and staggered his stance to give himself more balance. It’s just a challenge match, he tried to remind himself, I’ve done these before. Then Mr. Sears signaled for them to begin.