Pit Fighters 4: Family Ties 1

Gonna try posting the second draft of Pit Fighters 4 in parts here, like with other stories. This one's already been drafted to the end and I don't anticipate deviating from that, but comments are always appreciated!

Also.... NSFW. Just a warning.

--

I can do this.

Kick. Sweep. You’re a rabbit. Your strength is in your legs. Use it.

In the practice room, the beat-up floor mats were only in place because the concrete floor had worn down to unevenness over decades of use. It was just as well to Paris—the lumpiness of the floor made the drills all the harder, which was a bonus in his eyes, as he never knew moment-to-moment if he’d suddenly find himself off-balance.

Kick. Sweep. Kinny, the blue opossum facing him, didn’t even bother to use the practice room’s foam guards—other than the fact they were torn hand-me-downs from the higher ranks, it was useless to rely on guards for one’s own defense drills. And he was treating the practice with Paris as defense drills, even if for Kinny, he was operating on autopilot. He punctuated this by yawning long and slow in the middle of Paris’s attacks.

Kick. Sweep. Kinny’s form was so solid that Paris still had little hope of breaking it, just bringing his arms up and sweeping Paris’s leg away as naturally as he was breathing, shuffling slowly backwards as Paris’s kicks advanced.

Kick. Sweep. “How am I doing?” Paris asked.

Kick. Sweep. “Marvelous,” Kinny said, though his tone was so dry he sounded sarcastic. “Still not good, but you may actually get there.”

Kick. Paris stopped in surprise at the comment, with his leg raised solidly in the air. In the months since he’d started drilling in earnest, his legs had gotten thicker, and his stance so rock-solid that even stopping in an awkward position like one leg on the floor, the other raised in an imminent snap kick, he could hold himself like a statue. It was a skill he’d never anticipated having for real and not as just some fantasy. Sometimes he just stopped to marvel at how this was his body now.

And Kinny was suggesting he could get even better? Lose the rest of his squishy midsection fat? Have more energy? Move more effortlessly? Push his strength beyond the boundaries of just holding himself up? Someday, could he possibly even look in the mirror and, even beyond just looking at his own firm ass in the mirror and thinking “wow, I may actually be sexy” for once… like himself?

Kinny, who did not regard Paris’s pause as a proper time-out, reached in and clobbered Paris in the stomach. The air fled Paris’s lungs and he doubled over.

“Why did you do that?!” he cried out.

“I told you we were gonna,” Kinny said. “You’re getting good but you still need to learn to take the hit as well as give it.”

“I know, I know!” Paris wheezed, falling to his knees and grasping at his stomach.

Kinny stood over Paris with a hand on his hip, shaking his head like a disappointed father. “If you anticipated the attack, you could have moved with it, lessened the pain, and put yourself into an advantageous position.”

“I’m trying—“

“I know you are. But you need to stop making excuses, bunny. Stop looking for pity.”

“I’m not looking for pity, it hurt!”

“Why aren’t you anticipating an attack you know is coming?”

“Because that’s… hard! How am I supposed to look forward to something I know is gonna hurt?”

“Paris…” Kinny took a deep breath. He knelt down, elbows on his knees, to look Paris in the eyes, or at least where he would if Paris wasn’t staring at the floor. “You know it’s inevitable. You’re getting over the intimidation you felt when you first started here, but you need to keep pushing. You’re fighting. You’re living. You’re going to get hurt. Stop treating it like something to fear and start treating it like something to manage. You need to get over yourself and—”

Paris shot out a right hook at Kinny’s jaw. Kinny caught it and held it without much effort, though his eyes widened in surprise at just how close Paris’s knuckles came to grazing his face.

Paris was smiling.

“You’ve given me the speech four times already,” Paris said, not an ounce of wheeziness left in his voice as he continued his kicking drills.

Surprisingly, a small smile cracked across Kinny’s lips. “Told you you’ve been learning, bunny boy.”

As much as Paris hated it when some people called him that, he rather much liked it when Kinny said it. His smile faltered out of mischievousness into something more bashful—which of course Kinny took full advantage of, twisting Paris’s wrist, then reaching with his gripping feet to practically clamber over the rabbit, pulling his limbs along until Paris found himself, somehow, in a very firm hold, pinned to the floor.

“But I said you’re not there yet,” Kinny said, sitting on top of Paris’s knot of elbows. “You getting close to hitting me only means I need to underestimate you just a little less each day.”

“Ah,” Paris grunted below, “So you admit, you underestimate me!”

Kinny used his free foot to grab the back of Paris’s head and shove his nose harder into the grungy floor mat.

—

The turning point came faster than Paris ever expected it to.

At first, when he decided to take his training seriously, Paris powered through Kinny and Logan’s routines merely despite the fact that he was awful at them, with floppy stance, and a singular determination to move forward solely because his idol believed in him. He could barely get himself to move in the morning to practice forty minutes, then was too sore in the afternoon to do anymore—but he did more. He had nothing else to do.

It was dull for several weeks. Wake up miserable. Feel sore. Lift weights. Eat an approximation of breakfast. Drill with Logan. Eat something resembling lunch. Go running outside with Logan and Kinny together. Feel sore. Drill with Kinny. Practice bout, if it was on the schedule. Feel sore. Eat dinner, kinda. Soak underneath the showers. Read through his contract or Sultan’s book, depending on how much he hated himself at the moment. Go to bed miserable.

And then, one day, when he woke up, to his surprise, he didn’t feel miserable.

Logan had showed him how to stand and breathe properly, but now Paris was taking deeper breaths entirely out of habit. Their afternoon runs had gone from one kilometer to five, and Kinny was pushing for ten. Paris’s rapid pulse had lowered considerably. He started to like feeling sore, for some godforsaken reason!

Even if he didn’t feel it right away, something in his subconscious noticed he was becoming better. And he loved it.

Paris somersaulted through the air, shoving his heel on the downswing. He felt almost like a superhero in the fluid motion—even if Yigg, the green raccoon friend of Porte, dodged the blow deftly, he was more than ready to duck under Yigg’s next swing, laying his back and ears flat on the concrete and jutting out his heels in an upward scissor kick. Yigg pulled back before his chin was clobbered by Paris’s strong rabbit feet, but it gave Paris just enough room to roll back and stand again.

“Good form, Paris!” Logan called out, whistling. The pale green deer sat on the sidelines with Kinny seated in his lap. Kinny, fingers interlaced and slightly steepled on his chest, seemed on the verge of taking a nap, though he always did. The fact that his sleepy eyes were constantly on the fight was the greatest indication he was interested in the proceedings.

Paris stood like a statue before Yigg, arms out and ready, legs spread in firm foundation, waiting for the slowly circling raccoon to make his approach. When Yigg charged and, despite Paris’s dodge, his fist glanced across the rabbit’s shoulder, Paris could feel where he’d made a mistake. But instead of panicking or reflexively self-loathing as he’d done so often in the past, he accepted the mistake for what it was, and moved on.

Paris reassessed his position— left shoulder half dodged, forced forward by Yigg’s blow, threatening to throw him off-balance. Paris let the blow throw him forward, feigning a fall. If Yigg was any good—and Paris knew there was half a chance he wasn’t—he’d realize his fist didn’t connect all the way or lay in nearly enough force to ground Paris, and he’d back off from what Paris did next.

But Yigg did not back off. Paris wheeled about, back and shoulder on the floor, reeled back and sprang, his legs spearing out like a javelin, heels cracking against Yigg’s jaw. Yigg staggered and fell backwards.

Dyna, the rotund badger referee and the green-level coach, blew his whistle. Yigg looked up, noticing his flailing arm had fallen just a half-inch outside of the circle. “Ah, dammit! You lapine asshole!”

“Walk it off, Yigg!” Dyna called out. “Gracious losers are better for the camera; heels are just playing pretend!”

“I’m not a fucking heel!” Yigg scoffed as he slouched out of the ring.

“Paris, stop standing there looking stupid,” Dyna told him. “The moment the match is called, you should know what you’re doing now! You only have five seconds before the camera gets bored!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Paris said, suddenly snapping out of the elation of actually doing well in a fight without resorting to desperation to get it done. He was getting better! He felt better, unquestionably! In the rush of victory, he threw up his arms in the direction of the ring’s CCTV camera and blew kisses in its direction.

“Woo!” He cried out. “Sultan, hope you’re watching this! This win is for you! I love you!”

It was perhaps a little much, but Paris felt an infectious joy spreading all over. He sprang out of the ring and nearly barreled into his two friends, giving Logan a massive hug around the middle while Kinny stood awkwardly to the side as though not to get caught in whatever madness Paris was experiencing.

“I never would have thought I could feel this good about a fighta month ago!” Paris said.

“You’re looking good!” Logan, who was much bigger than Paris, smiled down at him with a goofy deer grin.

“You might be going delirious from the endorphins from being beat up so much.” Kinny said.

Paris snorted. “Who cares! I actually feel good about fighting for once. I mean once you get past the inherent cruelty and hurt feelings, it’s just started to feel like a game! A fun game!”

“Uh-huh.” For some reason, with Kinny’s eyes cast downward, he didn’t seem to want to share in that same elation.

Dyna approached the group from behind, looking at the tablet computer in his paws. “Okay, Paris, real nice job, dramatic improvement these last three weeks. Just… one thing we need to take care of.”

Paris pivoted, “What’s that? Is it my form? I should move toward the cameras quicker?”

Dyna simply pointed downwards. Paris tilted his head down, and to his shock, found that he was sporting a rock-hard erection that nearly tapped Dyna in the stomach.

“Uh,” Paris squeaked. His fur threatened to shift from purple to bright red, and at the very least, the blood rushing to his face at least caused his stiffy to soften rapidly. “…how long has that been there?”

“Oh, it just popped up while you were making out with the camera,” Dyna said, his tone routine and quite bored-sounding.

“Glk,” Paris glked.

Paris expected everyone to start laughing—his body sure anticipated it, as this location was still eerily reminiscent of his high school gym, but the worst reaction from the guys in the room was Logan putting on a devious smile, which Paris understood from experience wasn’t mocking as much as it was very, very thirsty.

It didn’t help, but it was better than mocking. He was fortunate the cameras were closed-circuit and… probably not being recorded.

“Look I don’t care what you do with that thing,” Dyna tapped the head of Paris’s cock with the blunt of his claw, springboarding it up and down, “but, believe it or not, Pit Fighters considers itself family entertainment, so we’re supposed to downplay the obvious sexual thrill of the ring.”

Paris hadn’t really been thinking of the ring as a sexual thrill—he’d been thinking of Sultan, and how much he wanted his sexy, sexy performance to impress giant kangaroo. He may have fantasized just a little about skillfully grinding his rapidly-sculpted body into Sultan’s groin. And he may have still been thinking that, preventing his little fighter from standing down.

When was the last time he’d masturbated? Kinny had insisted that as long as he didn’t constantly seek sexual relief, he didn’t really need to “hold on” to that energy, as it’d rapidly return anyway. But despite that, Paris hadn’t gotten off in at least two weeks—it was difficult to do so entirely privately, so he’d just foregone it again.

“I didn’t mean to!” Paris started to apologize.

“Nobody blames you, bunny!” Dyna ruffled Paris’s headfur and smiled. “Nobody but the cameras care. But: we’re gonna be doing a local outdoor tourney at the end of the month, and I’d like you to try and not embarrass us, m’kay?”

Paris waved weakly as Dyna went to debrief Yigg, his head tilting. “Uh, sure…”

An outdoor tourney? Are we actually going to fight in front of a real crowd?