The Heart of Tony Winters

by P. S. Power

  That one he actually knew, having run along them as part of his daily training for over half a year. He even had a good sense of where to park so no one would be able to see them. After that they kissed for a while, with him not being too advanced or anything. After all, there had been some clearly set limits that way. It was a bit surprising then, when she moved a good bit past them.

  Not unwelcome or anything, though he took care to make certain she wasn’t working too hard at any point. Also that she wasn’t going to get pregnant. They didn’t do anything that would cause that. Really, they didn’t even get close to anything like that, but it was fun anyway.

  They were still home by eleven, kissing on the doorstep.

  She grinned at him.

  “All right. Now I get to make my escape, having had my way with you. I expect calls. Emails. All that kind of thing. Otherwise I’ll feel like you were just using me. Even if that isn’t true at all.”

  “All right. We can do that. Take care of yourself?”

  She nodded then. It was a simple thing, but something in her expression seemed to be telling him that he had things about right. By some miracle.

  “You too, Tony Winters. Keep being you, all right? You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. That’s not a small thing in life.”

  There was another kiss, which was, one way or the other, probably the last they were going to share. Even if they kept in touch.

  Even if she lived for fifty more years.

  Hopefully that would be what happened. It probably wouldn’t be. Wishing for the best wasn’t going to help, but it left him feeling a bit better anyway. So he stood there, watching her drive away, into the night. Alone. It was a bit much for him, so he went inside. Everyone else was in the living room, watching the fight he’d had with Erlander for some reason. By everyone he saw that it was Rick, Jen, Ash and Missy, who was staying the night in the guest room.

  Standing behind the sofa, he finally saw what had happened in the ring that day. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. The times when he’d kind of shut off mentally looked… Hard. He did. Over and over he took the fight to the other man. Ignoring the blows that came in like they weren’t even happening most of the time. There had been a legitimate reason for him to be swollen and bruised after what had happened. The whole fight was intense that way, which had Missy shaking her head by the fourth round.

  “Damn… I’d thought that I’d kind of beaten you, for real. In the ring earlier? We didn’t do that.” She looked behind herself, her face a bit annoyed. “So. I’m not as ready as I thought?”

  Interestingly, Ashley went next, her voice fairly firm.

  “Look, Missy… You pretty much really beat Fox today. I mean, if anything, the fight you had was better than she could bring. Not a lot, but if you’d been in the ring with her, it really would have been you walking away with the win this time. So, yeah, you have that. You’re ready. Now we need to get you set up for Leandra. Tony, do you have that ready to go?” She looked at him like he’d have actually been doing that instead of parking in a car along the railroad track with a willing young lady.

  “Not yet. I will by tomorrow afternoon. Good plan, actually. Rick, do we have any video of her? Leandra?” It would make it easier, but if not they could probably find some on the internet. At least if it wasn’t her first fight. If it was, then Missy, even one returning after a hard loss, was the wrong person to put her up against. She was too good for that.

  His uncle just nodded.

  “You know, I think I might just have something for that. Yes.”

  Then, after a bit of small talk, he made his way up to bed for the night. It was late, for him.

  For Tony, who always tried to do the right thing.

  Chapter seven

  Tony was up at seven the next morning, standing out front of the gym with a stop watch. It got funny looks from the people actually doing the work, since he normally went with them. Leading when he could. No one actually called him on it, since they all sort of understood that he’d been overtraining and had been for months. That he’d managed the fight as well as he had was great, but probably had to do with a combination of luck and his youth. It certainly wasn’t his great exercise plan.

  After that, where he mainly mopped up inside instead of training, the rest of the day until one was all about him going over how Leandra Mission fought. It did not take long for him to go over her entire career and master how she moved. That didn’t mean the woman wasn’t good. Honestly, she was probably a better technical fighter than Missy was. She was also going to lose, unless she managed to change a whole lot about her game before the fight.

  The woman had better hand skills, was a superior grappler and didn’t have any heart at all. Missy could go in and take her down hard in the first round if she really wanted to. When Holms got into the ring with him, dressed like a boy instead of doing the whole Fox Rends thing, she grinned at him.

  “No fog or music?”

  That got him to wink at her.

  “Not for Leandra. Instead you get four hours of… Well, you’ll see. We have other people for you to work with as well, but I’ll hang in there as long as possible.” He smiled, trying to seem nice about it all. “Then… If you’re good, I’ll give you the secret to winning the fight that… Well, you’re going to win. I’d bet money on it, if it wasn’t illegal. If, you know, I did things like that. Anyway, come at me.”

  There was no bell for their sparring, since they were alone. After a while, about an hour of going at things as well as they could, which got kind of lazy, the woman glared at him.

  “I… Don’t think I can beat that.”

  He smiled, his mouthpiece still in.

  “Yeah, you’d think, right? Like I said, after we finish here, I’ll give you the rest. Right now, in skill, this is about what you’ll be facing. Power too. Leandra isn’t a strong woman.” In a lot of ways. That she was a pro-fighter at all seemed off, to be honest. Good for Missy.

  After two hours, Missy was actually just done. As in she wasn’t going to be going on without a break. Not that day. It was nearly enough time, but Jen was there to take over, so he waved her in to listen to his take on things.

  “Okay, now, time for the secrets!” Tony faked his own energy then. He could still lift his hands, but that was about it, Missy couldn’t really even do that.

  “Leandra is going to lose, because she can’t take pain. Go in and just hit her hard right off the bat, take her down and make her suffer for half a minute and she will give up. Don’t get me wrong, she has the skills to bring what I did out there. Possibly the conditioning, though that’s hard to tell. The only time she goes the distance is when she just isn’t really touched much at all.”

  There was more glaring then, from the brunette woman. The one who was soaked with sweat.

  “Then why go through all of this?” She waved at the mat, which was damp in places, needing to be cleaned before Jen went out on it.

  He didn’t get to speak about that, since Raul walked up then, doing some glaring of his own.

  “You do not see? Tony, he is not teaching you to fight. He is moving you past fear. Yesterday, you won against your demons. It was an honest win, but today you must conquer the rest of your fear. The little hesitancies and self-doubts that will try to plague your mind. You were hurt by what happened. Injured in a way that should not have taken place. That is normal. Now, today, you will bury that feeling so deep that it will never come up in a fight again. Even if you’re losing. So, you will face Jenny first, followed by myself. Then anyone else we need, until you are well. That is the point here. Why do you think you really came here? To work with a cute boy for a few days?” There was a small smile at the end, the glare fading.

  Tony nodded, since it really was what he was trying for. He’d researched the idea after all. What he didn’t know was how Raul knew that kind of thing. Possibly his own data collection efforts.

  “Rest. Until I get the mat cleaned up. Jen, sh
e’s tired. Press here just enough to make it feel real for her. We don’t need to tire her out.”

  That got a happy nod. No comment however.

  Missy growled at him a little, but it didn’t actually seem real or anything. Even two hours later, when she was laying on the mat, not moving, Raul having worked to the very end of her energy. There was no sense that she was worried though, which had been there the day before. That was the point. Exposure therapy. The basic idea was simple enough. If you were around the thing you were afraid of long enough, in a relaxed fashion, you covered it up so it wouldn’t bother you any longer.

  That was all this really was for Missy.

  So instead of having a near panic attack over any coming fight, she’d probably be a little nervous, but no more so than what she’d had her entire career. Most fighters felt a bit of a tingle before they went out on fight night. A searing feeling in the gut was how Tony had always experienced it, which wasn’t that big of a problem for him. Some told tales of nearly passing out and feeling weak first, even if it went away the moment they started to fight. That would be hard to move past.

  Looking at the now very damp woman, Anthony grinned a bit.

  “If you can do this, not a lot is going to get to you. You need to work on your standing game, if you want to take the top spot, but I think you have the chops for that, if you keep working on it.” He shrugged a bit not breaking eye contact, hoping she wouldn’t think he was being rude, instead of trying to be helpful. It was a bit hit or miss with some people. “Then I say that about most of the MMA side people, so don’t feel too bad about that.”

  Instead of proving that he was wrong with a few rounds of boxing, the extremely tired lady snorted at him softly.

  “I know, I know. I’ll work on that. So, what’s next?”

  He didn’t know, but could come up with a basic plan for her. It really depended on her training schedule. Which was a thing that no one had mentioned to him in the slightest. Which kind of made sense. He worked with Ashley Lancaster and it was kind of clear that Missy was gearing up for a fight there sometime soon. She hadn’t said anything, but her constant glaring and distancing herself from the other woman made that kind of clear to him.

  The problem there for her was that Ash was truly a better fighter than she was. Both on her feet and on the mat. Her throws were about comparable though, if he were going to be honest about the whole thing. That was mainly due to the fact that most MMA fighters only used two or three throws in their entire career. Having a good double leg takedown was enough for a lot of them. That plus a hip toss and maybe a single leg just in case it came up was about all that they could do well with the gloves on.

  At that, single leg takedowns almost never worked in the cage. They were too awkward, which meant slow. That ended up with people hitting you in the head while you tried to get them into a good grappling position. No one intelligent was going to waste a lot of time doing things like that. There were a lot more things that could be done however. Missy would probably have an edge there, in throws and take-downs, if it were a real fight.

  She had a judo background, so knew more about that kind of thing. Ashley had started in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. That meant she had spent a lot of time fighting on the ground, learning boxing only after starting her MMA training. At least from what she’d said. That was why she’d started working at Winters Gym. They had both kinds of training going on there, which meant they didn’t teach the MMA people to be wimps that way.

  Both women were in shape, but the truth was that at that moment it was impossible to tell who’d be better when it came down to things. Ash was just off a fight, so was still hard from that. In shape and ready for more, Tony thought. Missy had been on a half year or more of a layoff. It was clear that she’d been working out, but she wasn’t fight ready. So that could go either way when the time came. At that moment and from the vid that he’d watched on Missy, she would probably lose, however.

  Unless she got better. After the Fox thing…

  That part just made sense. Either Missy Holms was going to fold and quit, or improve. It was part of why he’d left out the one component of his fight with her that day, where Leandra would fold, even if it was nearly certain to happen. You didn’t get better by training for the best case possible. You had to assume that everyone would be better than you, then prepare for that. If you could. There were just some things in life that were going to hit you from the side no matter what you did. In those cases you did your best, put everything on the line and prayed that it was enough.

  Sometimes it couldn’t be. That couldn’t stop a person though. Not if they were ever going to be the best at what they wanted to do in life.

  Everyone was looking at him, so he started to nod.

  “When are you heading back home?” It probably seemed rude, like he wanted her to be gone, which wasn’t the case. He actually had nothing else of note to work on for the time being, after all. Starting back in the grappling classes, but other than that, not much.

  The woman shrugged.

  “Two days? I can leave early, but…” She seemed a bit upset for some reason, as if it were really a problem, which it wasn’t at all.

  “Good. Tomorrow we’ll go over standing work, if that’s all right. I need to work on that myself. Especially kicks for me. We can get here early and run with the morning crew?” He wasn’t all that certain that she could make that kind of thing, but she wasn’t exactly a newb or anything.

  For instance, she didn’t ask how far they ran or act like he was being mean suggesting it. Most of the other people around there really kind of did most days. Except for Steve, who hadn’t been there at all that afternoon. Hopefully that meant he was just working. That or finally getting some real rest. Watching television or whatever it was the real fighters did on their down time.

  It didn’t take a lot to get Missy off to shower and then rest herself. Really, he suggested it and she acted like it was an order from on high, rather than coming from some kid she barely knew. Not that it was some kind of big deal. She was there to work with him, so it made sense for her to do that. Even if he was just himself.

  After that, it was time for him to get cleaned up and find some dinner, then get with Chase. The man who ran the BJJ classes at the gym. He was a black belt with years of experience, which meant he was a bit older. Anthony smiled at the thought, since the guy wasn’t old at all. Just in his forties somewhere. Interestingly, the man lit up when he walked into the room, dressed up for class. That meant he was, like everyone else, in a white gi, complete with a light blue belt to tie around his middle.

  He wasn’t supposed to be allowed to have one of those until he was sixteen, but Chase had figured that he was good enough for it anyway. That night, his first day back after three months, would either prove or disprove that one. If he’d lost everything that he’d learned, he’d have to give the thing back. Maybe not by the rules, but by his own that sounded right. Then, he really had been practicing every night in his head before bed. Including working on things that hadn’t strictly been learned when he’d last been in. Not officially. Really, he’d been doing everything that would be needed for a black belt. That didn’t mean he had mastery of it yet, of course.

  “Tony! There you are. I kind of thought it might be longer before we saw you. Let’s get set up. Everyone.” The classes tended to be a bit informal. There was no bowing or anything.

  They started out doing a warm up together, then they’d all pair off to work with each other for about an hour. Tony was planning to stay for all the classes, since he had a lot to catch up on. Taking a break for a bit meant he wasn’t nearly as close to being exhausted as he had been in the evenings for a while.

  First he worked with Gary. If the man had more of a name, Tony didn’t know it. For that matter, he didn’t know the man at all. He was a black belt and looked to be about fifty. Not in super human shape or anything either. Which meant that Tony was able to more or less keep up with the man whil
e they worked. Just before Chase was about to call for them to switch, Anthony managed to get a lock on his left arm. The other man was larger than he was. That probably translated into stronger, given everything. Which meant that, if he wanted to get free of the lock, all he had to do was use his other hand to toss Tony away.

  Instead of doing that, he fought for control of the arm, repositioning to force Tony to make a mistake and end up losing control, with the other man on top of him. That didn’t happen. It was too close to things he’d been working on for the fight with Hodder. That meant he floated on top of the other man, who was smart enough not to turn to his front or anything that stupid. Not that he could, since his arm was being locked into place, cinched tight as he tried to shake free.

  Which meant he had to tap Tony on the shoulder. The instant that happened he let go, since there was no reason to cause Gary any long term damage over a bit of class work.

  Chase nodded at him.

  “Good, you’ve been practicing. Work with Neema next.” The class leader had to point so that he could see who that was. A woman, who looked a bit like she didn’t belong in the class, to be honest. She was lovely, seeming to be in her late twenties and probably from India. Her skin was a smooth dark tan and when she spoke her voice was smooth and British sounding.

  “That sounds good. Over here?”

  Tony also noted that the woman was both wearing a black belt and that the thing she had on was dingy and faded seeming. Nearly gray, instead of black at all. There were worn spots on it, from where it had been tied, over and over again. Which meant Chase was probably trying to trick him. As if Anthony was going to underestimate her just because she was pretty. The idea was a bit silly.

  They started on their feet, with him getting the takedown, going for a hip toss, instead of a double leg, which he acted like he was going to do at first. He made certain she didn’t slam the mat hard, since they were about the same size. It was a thing that he wouldn’t have been doing with Gary or Chase. They were just too large.