Sam Wharton struggled to stay on his feet as he faced continual blows from a powerhouse. Dwayne “The Fall” Monroe was a world heavyweight champion and every single punch hit with enough force to knock an average person out or kill them. He was one of the most powerful strikers of all time. Sam felt less like he was facing a human and more like he was facing a raging bull. Most of Monroe’s opponents ended their confrontations with him face down on the floor before the first round ended. The man’s ebony skin gleamed under the spotlight of the boxing ring, his guard open and a large cocky grin split his face.
Sam, meanwhile, had to struggle to even push his own sandy brown hair out of his face. His build was thin but muscular like a swimmer or runner, with his slightly freckled pale skin already showing signs of bruising where he’d blocked the onrushing strikes of Monroe’s opening rampage. So far he hadn’t had the opportunity to return a single strike.
Around them a screaming crowd cheered, jeered, and shouted as he fought to stay on his feet. He’d already done his best to stay standing but he knew even a single slip up or mistake would mean the end for him. It wasn’t just the skill of the man in front of him - he was fighting outside of his weight class as well. Sam was little more than a middleweight at best while Monroe sat comfortably on the upper end of the super heavyweight class. Only endless practice with deflecting or dodging blows had allowed him to survive so far.
Well, that and the fact that his opponent wasn’t taking him seriously at all. He was the heavyweight champion of 2043 and one of the greatest boxers to ever step into the ring. Considering that Sam was only 17 this fight shouldn’t be legally allowed to happen. He knew perfectly well that it wasn’t even possible for him to win. He bit down on his mouthguard and steeled his will to fight on anyway.
“Come on!” His towering opponent screamed, “Are you going to hit me? Are you even fighting?”
Sam ignored the taunts from both his opponent and the audience. His hands were held up in the classic, “Peek a boo” stance with both fists in front of his face which he refused to relax. The slightest gap in his defense would mean death for him. He did his best to block a series of bodyblows with his elbows, swapping to block a swift jab to his face in the nick of time. If not for his practice that alone might have been the end. It was far better to dodge or deflect the incoming strikes but his opponent was too skilled to let him pull that off consistently. He was fortunate that the man had only been throwing light jabs so far.
Once Monroe realized he wasn’t going to take the bait he decided to stop holding back and unleashed a volley of full powered strikes. Each punch had the power to crush bone and Sam stifled a scream as he felt one arm fracture even as he turned to deflect the punch. Again and again and again the hands of the champion did their best to break their way through his guard. It was now a matter of survival and one Sam knew he couldn’t sustain.
Finally his opponent seemed to make a mistake, throwing a punch Sam was able to dodge cleanly and counter. As he struck out with his still functional left arm and struck Monroe across the face he realized that he had made a terrible mistake.
Monroe simply grinned as he took Sam’s strongest southpaw cross and took advantage of the opening in his defense. Sam’s strike might have knocked out a normal person but Monroe was as tough as he was strong.
He took advantage of the opening Sam had given him and happily traded punches as Sam felt his jaw shatter. Pain nearly overwhelmed him but he somehow managed to get his guard back up and create distance even as a low moan escaped his wreck of a mouth.
The following blows struck with even greater strength and precision right on his bruises and breaks. His right arm was soon so useless that he couldn’t even hold it up any longer. The only reason he was still standing at all was that his opponent was using him as a sandbag.
In any normal fight this would have been the end. A coach would have thrown in the towel, the audience would have screamed to end it, and Sam himself might have conceded. This was no normal fight however. The audience kept cheering with the same enthusiasm and his corner was empty. There was no coach to save him and no referee to hold Monroe back.
The champion finally landed a punch at full strength directly to his temple and Sam saw the blood splatter across the ring even as he fell to his knees. The world suddenly no longer made sense. Everything swam and shifted. He was vaguely aware that his eyebrow had split open and his eye was stinging because it was full of blood. He rose to his feet with a stumble.
“I just need to hold out.” Sam thought. “I just need to survive! I can make it past the first round! I can do it! I can-”
With a final strike from the champion his vision faded to nothing.
---
Sam woke up inside of the coffin-like interior of a fulldive virtual reality pod. No longer did he smell the scent of the ring or feel the agony of his broken body. Instead he smelled the stale scent of his own sweat as he panted and tried to reorient himself. He looked through the viewport. The sounds of an active gym came from outside the pod as various people worked sandbags or sparred in the ring.
An automated message popped into view on a screen inside the pod.
May 1st, 2115. 9:15am.
Pain settings: 25% standard nerve level. NOTICE: You are at the maximum level for pain settings. Minors over 14 are not legally permitted to use more than 25% pain levels in sim.
Total time lasted: One round.
Total hits inflicted: One.
Hits Taken: 97
Loss by: KO*
*Wounds estimated to be fatal or seriously life injuring. Do not attempt a similar fight in real life.
All likenesses are a licensed property of Realsim Boxing.
Thank you for using an Athletics Optimized Pod, the best pod for accurate full body emulation.
It always took a moment to adjust when returning to reality. It had been over 70 years since Monroe had been a heavyweight champion. Sam thrashed and panicked for a moment as his mind refused to let go of the pain of the lethal beating he’d just taken. True, it was only 25% of the actual pain and sensation of being killed but that was no minor trauma. He realized his pulse was still pounding and he was on the edge of hyperventilating.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He took out a small pack full of thin, transparent sheets from his jacket pocket. In the real world he wore a simple jean outfit - a jean jacket, jeans, and a simple button-down shirt. The box he took out had a bright label on the front: “KET STRIPS” and had the tagline, “Erase mental trauma in seconds!”
He pulled one out and let it dissolve on his tongue. Soon a sensation of mild relaxation overtook him and he felt like he was starting to fly above his own body. His hands started to tingle. His breathing slowed and he calmed down. Soon those sensations faded as well and he popped the lid of the training pod.
“I can’t believe I have to clean your loser sweat out of this thing,” Said the hulking monstrosity waiting outside the pod.
He wore the outfit of the gym, a basic branded t-shirt and shorts, but that was where the resemblance to a regular person ended. He stood over eight feet tall with arms like treetrunks and legs to match. Every part of his body looked sculpted from marble. His dark hair framed his square jawed face and his subtly inhuman eyes looked at Sam with hatred.
“Fuck off Ian,” Sam swore.
“I watched you on the monitor,” He said, sneering. “I can’t believe that ancient fossil was able to take you out.”
“That was one of the greatest boxers of all time, asshole.” Sam replied. “You aren’t worth shit compared to him.”
“Oh really? The baseline wants to talk about being worthless?” He laughed.
“You know damn well that isn’t my choice.” Sam replied, voice full of indignation.
“Are you done with that pod yet?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, I’m done.” Sam replied.
“Alright.” Ian pressed a button as soon as he stepped out and the pod closed, flashed, and then when it opened again steam rose from the inside.
“You should see how a real man does it.” Ian sneered, stepping inside.
Sam watched the monitor above the pod. It fired up and displayed the same championship fight. This time Ian stood in the ring, his hulking form dwarfing that of the super-heavyweight.
The fight began and it soon became apparent that it wasn’t just his size that was a mismatch. Ian’s arms had been enhanced with synthetic muscle fiber. He took up the same cocky, casual attitude the champion boxer had in the sim and began to punch. This time it was Monroe that was on the defensive from the start. It wasn’t that Ian was more skilled, it was that he was exactly as skilled as his opponent. He showed the telltale signs of having used The Fall’s own downloaded fighting skill.
His punches hit less like a large muscular man and more like a car than a fist. Each strike shattered the simulated boxer’s bones. Less than ten seconds had passed and Monroe’s arms were broken. Soon his jaw followed and the fight ended with pixelated brain matter splattering across the ring in the system’s one concession to censorship.
The pod popped open. “See? That’s how a real man does it.” Ian said.
“Funny,” Sam said. “I haven’t seen one yet.”
Ian’s fist came towards his face faster than he could consciously perceive. He saw the hulking teen in the pod one moment and the next he was next to him, fist in front of his face.
“Look at what I did to him. I could do the same thing to you anytime!”
“Ian!” Came a shout from the office outside of the main room. A man that was nearly a century old but looked like he was in his early 20’s emerged, his frame lean and face set with an expression of annoyance on his seemingly normal human frame. His hair and eyes matched Ian’s own. “Sam is a paying customer. Stop threatening him and slacking off!”
Ian gave him a last glare. “Fine.” He pouted before walking away to grab his mop and bucket again.
“Sorry about him. How did you do this time?”
“I did alright Jerry. I finally punched Monroe. Unfortunately it was just a trap and he pummeled me after that.”
“It’s crazy that you want to fight him. You’ve already worked your way through every historical figure in your own weight class! Now you’re trying to pick fights with legends. You are really impressive for a kid your age. If you’d been born a century ago you would have been a prodigy.”
“Yeah well, I wasn’t born a century ago. Every one of my classmates can beat the shit out of me. It’s a good thing I have virtual classes or I’d probably be dead.”
“Look, I respect you learning things the old fashioned way instead of just downloading your fighting style. It’s not just augments, skill matters too. I wish Monroe didn’t sell his memory, half the people in here just use his skills. Real skill takes hard work and effort, that’s the way we did it back in my day. My nephew doesn’t respect the hard work that goes into earning things yourself. I was at the real fight you know! The tickets were expensive as hell. I was barely twenty years old then. Ahh, to be so young again,” he said wistfully. “You want some pointers? We can hop in a real ring and go over it.”
Jerry still looked only 20 instead of 90. People like him rarely looked older unless they wanted to. The heavily augmented elders like Jerry were tough enough and skilled enough to pummel Ian without breaking a sweat. Far more dangerously they looked like regular people instead of hulking gorillas. That was a very modern trend.
“Maybe, I do have some final assignments to take care of for school.”
Suddenly a man looked up from the bag he’d been punching and cocked his head to the side as though he was hearing something inaudible.
“Hey Jerry!” the boxer suddenly shouted. “I just got bad news on my neural-link! You’ll wanna see it. Turn on the screen!”
Jerry stopped and blinked for a moment, mentally accessing the gyms control systems. The walls shifted and transformed from the look of painted concrete. The paint itself shimmered and began to show images like a television screen.
An older man with thinning white hair appeared on the screen, identified in the infographic as the Prime Minister of Australia. To his side was a hulking mechanical thing. Its long, thin, triangular face sat atop a body that was skeletally thin. It was a silvery metallic color and much of its body was covered by simple white and gold robes.
“The government of Australia welcomes the Machine Emperor into our country and announces our decision to join the Empire.”
“Good god,” Jerry said, shocked. “I thought they’d last longer.”
Sam held back the desire to puke as panic and hatred battled within him. Even Ian’s sneer had been wiped off his face, replaced with a look of sheer terror.
“We advise all citizens to not resist during this time of transition. The Machine Emperor needs to scan all of us to be the most effective leader he can be. Please go into the pods peacefully. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you. I’m from here after all. Nobody wants more trouble than we’ve already got.”
“Not another one. It’s just us now.” Ian said.
A man dressed in military attire stepped up to the podium. “All military units are to stand down. I repeat, all military units are to stand down.”
“Are you concerned about the American response?” A female reporter asked.
The mechanical being spoke then, its voice calm and all-too pleasant. It was impossible to tell the gender, male or female. The voice made you feel like it was the most reasonable person in the world. It was gentle and kind.
“Do not worry. This is within the agreement. The Americans will not be using orbital bombardment. I will keep you safe from them.”
“The only safe place is in the star colonies now. It’s only a matter of time until they pull the trigger.” One of the patrons said.
“Yeah, if you can afford it.” replied another.
Sam turned and ran out of the gym. He knew it was only a matter of time before it came for them too.