As Waldemar enters the arena, a memory suddenly pops into his mind. It was of a time when he was a young boy, lifting weights for the first time. Back then, he was scrawny, with little to no muscle to show, and he had bruises all over due to getting into fights. Waldemar shakes his head to get rid of the thought.

  - “That’s weird. Why am I thinking about that now?”

  He thinks to himself, before pumping up his muscles, warming himself up.

  Leonardo is about to enter the arena, before he stops right at the entrance. Jack wonders what’s going on.

  - “What’s up?”

  He asks. Leonardo looks back at Jack.

  - “Just had to stop myself from exploding in excitement.”

  Leonardo says with a smirk.

  - “Oh, you! Get out there and show that old man what for! And remember, aim for his head!”

  Jack says, cheering Leonardo on.

  Leonardo takes a deep breath and enters the arena. The two fighters stare each other down.

  - “And now, it is time for round 3, match 2! Leonardo “Halimaw” DeGuzman versus Waldemar “The Jackass” Forrestville!!!”

  Waldemar goes for an open stance.

  - “I hope you’re ready for the ass beating of a lifetime, boy!”

  He says, arrogantly. Leonardo follows with a standard kickboxing stance.

  - “Looks like this old man needs to be humbled.”

  Leonardo says, returning the quip. The referee gets into position.

  - “Fighters, are you ready!?”

  Leonardo drops his smile, but Waldemar stays grinning.

  - “Let’s do this!”

  They say in unison.

  - “Then…BEGIN!!!”

  As soon as his hand slams down, Leonardo rushes in for a calf kick into a low kick, but he quickly backs off. Waldemar looks unfazed.

  - “Leonardo immediately tries to take Waldemar’s leg off, but it seems like he doesn’t want to follow up!”

  Leonardo takes a deep breath and analyzes the situation.

  - “Goddamn. I knew he was tough, but by this much?”

  He thought to himself. While Waldemar may not be showing it, the attack did deal damage. He’s composed, as he knows that acting like it did nothing shakes up his opponents. This is his usual strategy, however, Leonardo hits much harder than most of the opponents he’s fought in his life. He’ll have to play a little bit smarter.

  Waldemar goes in for a tackle, but Leonardo keeps his distance with a front kick, stopping Waldemar’s momentum. Waldemar swings a heavy right, Leonardo ducks under and lands an uppercut into a hook to the jaw. He backs off once again, shaking his wrists as he does so.

  - “Leonardo’s playing smart! He knows that getting within Waldemar’s range is almost a guaranteed loss!”

  Leonardo stays calm. Rushing in would only be in Waldemar’s favor.

  Waldemar rushes in with his arms wide open. Leonardo tries slowing him down with shots to the head and torso, but to no avail. Just before he’s able to escape his range, Waldemar gets a hold of his arm and leg. Leonardo’s face turns pale due to the anticipation. Waldemar lifts him up and slams him onto the ground, causing him to bounce off it.

  - “What was that!? That’s not a sound the human body should make!!!”

  Leonardo has bounced quite the distance a way. He gets up, but blood is dripping from his mouth and nose, and some parts of his skin are scraped. Waldemar slowly walks towards him. He tries to stomp Leonardo, but Leonardo gets up and pushes off Waldemar’s foot, causing him to fall backwards.

  - “Leonardo’s turned the tables now for sure!”

  Leonardo attempts to ground and pound, but Waldemar rolls away in time. Waldemar tries to get up, but Leonardo goes for a soccer kick to Waldemar’s head. It pops his nose, causing a nosebleed, but Waldemar brushes it off and gets back up. Leonardo backs off before Waldemar could counter him.

  - “Look at all the attacks that Waldemar’s brushing off!”

  Leonardo thinks back to what Jack said at the entrance. Headshots really are the only way to take Waldemar down as a striker.

  - “I got another idea.”

  He thinks to himself, as he formulates a plan. Waldemar rushes in with another one of his wide swinging attacks. Leonardo ducks under and hits Waldemar in the liver. Waldemar’s stunned briefly, Leonardo then hooks him in the jaw, then follows up with another hook but to the jugular. Waldemar tries to guard, but Leonardo pulls back thinking it was a counter. Waldemar shrugs off the pain.

  - “Oh, what’s this? Is Waldemar feeling Leonardo’s hits!?”

  Leonardo takes a deep breath.

  - “I see. No matter how thick his muscles are, if he doesn’t know they’re coming his organs are defenseless. For a man as experienced as him though, I must tread carefully. I’ll be sure to throw in some odd shots here and there just to throw him off.”

  Jack, who would usually shout at Leonardo with advice, is staying silent. He realized that Leonardo had come up with a strategy to defeat Waldemar.

  Leonardo goes for another liver blow. Waldemar notices and guards. It was a feint, and Leonardo went in for a sweep. Waldemar is off balance, and Leonardo uses it to his advantage. As Waldemar tries to recompose, Leonardo hits Waldemar in the temple with a snappy high kick, dealing massive damage. Waldemar falls to one knee.

  - “Oh!? Leonardo’s doing some heavy damage to Waldemar despite the difference in weight class!”

  Leonardo tries to follow up, but Waldemar gets up swinging, causing him to back off. Waldemar returns to his wide-open stance. Leonardo recomposes. The two keep their distance, slowly moving around the arena in a circular pattern.

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  - “Waldemar’s not gonna let Leonardo follow up! And now the two are circling each other, looking for an opening!”

  Leonardo shakes his arms, feeling his injuries.

  - “That body slam did a lot of damage. I’m still feeling its aftereffects.”

  He thinks to himself. Waldemar clears his nose of blood.

  - “He’s going for my head, while also mixing some other hits in there. It’s a basic strategy, but it’s not that easy to pull off against someone like me.”

  He thinks as he slowly closes in. Leonardo makes the first move by throwing a jab to measure the distance. Waldemar doesn’t flinch, but stays still, waiting for the next attack. Leonardo goes for a low kick; Waldemar reacts and blocks. He tries to counter with a wide-swing punch, but Leonardo ducks under and hits two hooks to Waldemar’s jaw, briefly stunning him.

  - “Two clean hooks to Waldemar’s jaw! Even if it’s him, that’s still gotta hurt!”

  Leonardo tries to follow up with a snappy front kick, but Waldemar pushes it away to grab Leonardo.

  - “I’ve got you now!”

  Waldemar says, as he smiles and crushes Leonardo.

  - “WALDEMAR’S GOT LEONARDO IN A BEAR HUG!!! IT’S OVER!!!”

  Leonardo struggles, but Waldemar’s insane strength is squeezing him. A bead of sweat drops down Jack’s face. Bartolomew and Narso arrive at the entrance to take a closer look. They’re both in shock, seeing as their friend is being crushed to death.

  - “Leo’s gonna die..!”

  Narso exclaims, worriedly. Jack stays calm, despite the stress he is going through.

  - “No, he’s still got more cards to play.”

  Jack says, confident that Leonardo will be able to get out of this.

  Waldemar laughs as he tightens his grip, before he notices something off. Leonardo seems to be compressing himself as well, as to get crushed in a less painful way, and his head is bent backward, to the furthest he can go. Waldemar closes his eyes, anticipating Leonardo’s move.

  - “He’s making it so that I’m unable to fully crush him without killing him, and it looks like he’s going to try to headbutt me to make me let go. But too bad it’s gonna take more than that to-“

  His thought gets cut off, as Leonardo bites Waldemar’s nose. While it probably didn’t deal as much damage as a headbutt would, the sheer pain exerted from the bite was enough to make Waldemar let go, as he screams in anguish.

  - “Holy! Leonardo’s really showing his street fighting routes!”

  Leonardo drops down and kicks Waldemar in the groin, leaving him in even more pain and stunning him briefly. Leonardo uses this opportunity to dash back. As Waldemar tries to recover, Leonardo is rushing straight at him. He jumps, and hits Waldemar in the face with a dropkick. Waldemar drops to the ground, and Leonardo recovers.

  - “Damn!!! Leonardo has just dropped the muscle machine Waldemar!!!”

  Leonardo stretches, wincing in pain with every stretch. While he was able to survive the bear hug, it still crushed some of his bones. Still, Leonardo stands and fights, using whatever he can to beat Waldemar.

  Waldemar stands up from the attack. He’s a bit groggy, but he’s still standing. He thinks back to the memory he had earlier. He was just a regular boy, who was unfortunate enough to get targeted by some bullies. Every day, he would get picked on until he decided that enough was enough. He started weight training. He religiously followed a routine, to make himself bigger, to make himself stronger, to make himself invincible.

  Soon enough, he became strong enough to trample those who wronged him. But his newfound power brought ego. He had now become the one on the leash, the one who could get anything he wanted with enough force. That was until he fought and lost to another student with martial arts skills. That loss didn’t humble him, however. It only fueled him to become even stronger. Soon enough, he toppled that student with brute force alone, and he concluded that learning techniques was silly, and that pure power was above everything else.

  He devoted his time to getting stronger. Taking jobs that would allow him to exert his muscles to their limit, going under a training regimen that would kill most people, and even taking performance enhancing drugs to boost his muscle gain, all to become the strongest. He joined the Paraiso Organization in his early 30s and quickly rose to fame. In a ring where martial artists would gather, a man who used nothing but his muscles would seem like a weakling, but he was a force to be reckon with. In most cases, techniques can only work against someone who is 1.5x-2x their size, but Waldemar was beyond that. At a height of 183cm, and weighing 163kg, many who were skilled martial artists could not overcome this wall.

  That being said, he is not without his losses. He had taken part in the three Paraiso Grand Tournaments before, and while he got far in all of them, he never won. During the 8th Paraiso Grand Tournament, he fell to Jitae Won in the semi-finals, who would then go on to win the whole tournament. During the 6th and 7th, he was unfortunate enough to be in the same bracket as Yu Yi, the winner of both tournaments. They were fighters who were not only more skilled, but could match Waldemar in size, with Jitae Won being a massive 208cm weighing 134kg, and Yu Yi who was around 200cm, and was also blessed enough to be born with the condition called Dragon’s Bones, a condition where bones are much harder and stronger than the average person’s bones.

  But Waldemar was too far gone at this point. He didn’t believe that it was their skill that beat him, but by the fact that they were larger than him, and there was nothing that could disprove that thought seeing as how he had beaten many skilled martial artists in the past with just his muscles. To him, it seemed like he just didn’t work hard enough, and with each subsequent loss, he kept bulking up until he became the size he is today.

  Despite how sluggish he is at times, he is able to throw out strikes at surprising speed, and due to his years of experience he is able to make counter plays against tricky opponents even though he has never undergone formal martial arts training. But now, he is facing off against his trickiest opponent.

  Waldemar goes in for another tackle, but Leonardo steps to the side and hits him with a Question Mark kick to the jugular, stunning Waldemar again. Leonardo uses this downtime to throw a barrage of high kicks at Waldemar’s temple, with each kick slowly but surely wiggling his brain around.

  - “Holy! Waldemar’s brain must be turning into mush in there!”

  Leonardo takes a moment to catch his breath, and within this time Waldemar recovers. He goes on the offensive. Leonardo is caught off guard and is out of stamina, forcing him to block instead of dodge. Leonardo tries his best to block and parry, shaving off damage, but Waldemar’s brute strength is slowly cracking down on his defense.

  - “Leonardo’s blocking, but I bet he can still feel the damage!”

  Jack is getting increasingly worried, but all he can do for now is watch. Bartolomew and Narso are cheering for Leonardo, as he tries his best not to get pummeled. Leonardo tries to dash back, but he trips and falls backwards.

  - “Oh, no! This isn’t looking good for Leonardo!”

  Waldemar’s not going to let this opportunity go to waste. He attempts to mount Leonardo, but Leonardo throws the sand of the arena in his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Leonardo gets back up, and immediately follows up with a flying knee, causing Waldemar to stumble back.

  - “Leonardo’s used the environment to his advantage, and now he’s on top again!”

  Leonardo goes for the ground and pound, but Waldemar rolls him off. The two get back up again. Waldemar, for the first time in his life since he fought that martial artist kid way back, is feeling threatened by techniques. He’s slowly getting agitated. Even though in the end he believes that pure power is the only way, there is a part of him telling him that he won’t win that way, and it is tearing him apart.

  - “Muscle…it’s all I’ve got.”

  He thinks to himself before rushing Leonardo.

  - “IT’S ALL I’VE GOT!”

  He shouts at the top of his lungs, going for another wide-swing punch. Leonardo slips back, and sweeps Waldemar’s leg, causing him to fall over. Leonardo successfully mounts him.

  - “Leonardo’s on top again! Waldemar’s been getting hit with blow after blow, I don’t know if he’ll be able to survive this!”

  Leonardo showers him with hammer fists. Waldemar’s unable to guard, his face taking in all the damage. His consciousness is slowly fading.

  - “I’ll take…you…with me…”

  Waldemar musters a smile, as he mutters his final words for the fight. Jack obviously can’t hear what he’s saying, but he notices that he started smiling.

  - “LEO, GET OUT OF THERE!”

  He shouts, trying to get Leonardo off Waldemar. Leonardo’s unable to hear Jack, and Waldemar grabs his right forearm and uses the last bit of strength he has to crush it. Leonardo winces in extreme pain.

  - “WALDEMAR’S CRUSHING LEONARDO’S HAND, CRIPPLING HIM!!!”

  He gets off Waldemar and immediately stomps him out, finally knocking him unconscious, Waldemar lets go. Leonardo tries not to scream in pain. The referee slams his hand down.

  - “And the winner is…LEONARDO “HALIMAW” DEGUZMAN!!!”

  Bartolomew, Jack, and Narso all rush to Leonardo’s aide. Jack looks even more worried now, with Leonardo’s left arm pretty much unusable.

  - “Hey, Leo, we can still-“

  He tries to say, but Leonardo side eyes him. This was enough to make Jack stay silent.

  - “C’mon buddy, let’s get you to the infirmary.”

  Narso says, as they assist him in going to the infirmary. As they enter the hallway, they all notice Francisco Luna about to enter the arena. He takes a quick look at Leonardo, before diverting his gaze.

  - “What a pity…”

  He mutters to himself before stepping foot in the ring of champions.