Ultimate Muscle Fan Fiction ❯ I Want You Bad ❯ One of the Good Guys ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I don't own Ultimate Muscle. I don't own any of the characters. Nothing. Not a sausage.
 
Recap: Kiki shared a passionate kiss with Eskara, and she overhead an unusual conversation between Dik Dik Van Dik and DMP member Checkmate.
 
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Chapter 8 - One of the Good Guys
 
Kiki's vision blurred for a moment as Trixie ran at Roxanne, throwing her arms around her, whilst Terry lay unconscious on the hospital bed. Although Kiki was secretly glad Eskara had beaten Terry, she wished his victory had not been so violent; Terry was a kind person, and she had always liked him, and it pained her to see him so badly hurt.
 
“What is that bitch doing here!” Trixie snarled, pushing Roxanne away from her and rounding on Kiki.
 
Kiki turned to Trixie, a chill rushing down her spine as she saw the state Trixie was in. Trixie's hair was knotted and matted, her make-up was smeared all over her face, her clothes were badly creased and she was visibly trembling.
 
“Trixie, did you sleep here last night?” Kiki asked quietly.
 
“Yeah I did!” Trixie replied, stalking towards Kiki as she spoke. “Where did you sleep? In a nest, with your birdman?”
 
“Whoa, Trixie, calm down!” Roxanne said, jumping after Trixie and grabbing her arms from behind.
 
“Geddoff me!” Trixie snapped, tugging at her arms.
 
Roxanne held on firmly, digging in her heels to halt Trixie's progress.
 
“You know, I always thought I would be the one to break our promise, especially when I started seeing Kid,” Roxanne said snappily. “But it looks like I'm the only one who kept the promise!”
 
“The promise…” Kiki said softly.
 
“The promise was stupid!” Trixie cried dramatically. “We all knew none of us would ever keep it!”
 
“The promise wasn't stupid to me!” Roxanne declared. “We all promised that no man would ever come between us. And look at us! It's happened already, and we haven't even started college yet!”
 
“It's not my fault!” Trixie sobbed. “It was her! Her and that stupid Eskara!”
 
Trixie jabbed her finger at Kiki as she spoke, causing Kiki's eyes to water over again.
 
“No, Trixie, you're only half right,” Roxanne corrected her. “It was you as well. You are both upset because you sat and watched the men you were attracted to beat the crap out of each other, knowing that only one would be left standing at the end of it.”
 
“But I've always liked Terry,” Trixie hissed. “Kiki's little “thing” with Eskara is the problem, here! I mean it's so stupid! You're so stupid, Kiki! Do you honestly think Eskara is interested in you?”
 
Kiki felt her heart stop, and her skin prickle at Trixie's remark. A single tear burst from her eye, sliding down to her jaw, where it lingered for a moment, before falling to the ground.
 
“Think about it, Kiki,” Trixie continued, ripping her arms from Roxanne's hold and marching up to Kiki. “Maybe before you might have stood a chance, but look at the situation now. He's gorgeous. He's famous. He's rich. He's successful. Every woman on this planet wants him. Why the hell would he want a boring, little, goody-two-shoes, freckle-faced, mousy girl-next-door like you?”
 
Kiki gasped, her heart jumping back into motion, thumping so hard her temples throbbed.
 
“Trixie!” Roxanne gasped, looking even more shocked than Kiki at Trixie's cold-hearted words.
 
“They say you have to be cruel to be kind,” Trixie carried on, stretching to her fullest height to stand over the smaller Kiki. “And as your friend, it's my duty to be kind to you now. Stick to what you know. You remember what happened with Dan, right? The same thing will happen here. Eskara isn't interested in you. The only thing you have that he could possibly find attractive is your inside knowledge of his future opponents. Take my advice, Kiki. Go back to dating the skinny, feminine, geeky boys you usually go for. Eskara is way out of your league, and if you keep lusting after him all that will happen is that you will get hurt. Stop now, before it hurts so much, you never recover.”
 
“Trixie, that was uncalled for!” Roxanne wailed, becoming tearful herself. “We agreed to talk to Kiki sensibly about this!”
 
“We didn't agree on anything, Roxanne,” Trixie spat. “And besides, we've been soft with her for far too long now. It's time we started being honest.”
 
“So this is what you both think of me?” Kiki asked quietly, glancing between Trixie and Roxanne.
 
“Trixie made it sound much worse than it actually is,” Roxanne began. “We meant-”
 
“You meant I'm not as pretty, or popular, or as cool as either of you are,” Kiki interrupted her. “Well that's fine. At least now I know exactly where I stand. I'm going home now. Goodbye.”
 
“Kiki!” Roxanne said, starting after Kiki as she ran out of the room.
 
Trixie grabbed onto Roxanne's arm, locking her in a death-grip.
 
“What the hell was all that about, Trixie?” Roxanne snarled, trying to pull herself from Trixie's hold.
 
“Don't play nice girl with me, Roxanne, I know you felt exactly the same way,” Trixie coldly answered her. “And don't worry, Kiki will come round. She always does.”
 
“She better,” Roxanne growled.
 
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Kiki hung back in the shadows, waiting until Roxanne and Trixie had taken their seats in the front row before sneaking along the back row to find her own seat. After her falling out with Trixie, she had traded her front row ticket for one at the very back, so as to avoid the girls.
 
As she walked along the row, Kiki's attention was focussed on the number on her ticket, and the number on the seats, and it was not until she sat down that she realised just who she was seated next to.
 
“Oh my God, Kevin?” she blurted, looking up at the masked Chojin warrior sat next to her.
 
Kevin Mask was sitting up perfectly straight, his arms folded across his broad chest, his long coat removed and hanging around his seat.
 
“Hello,” he quietly answered her, without turning his head from the stage at the front of the arena.
 
“Hi,” Kiki replied, studying him curiously. “What are you doing here?”
 
“I came here for the same reasons that you did,” he answered plainly.
 
“Oh.”
 
Kiki nodded her head slowly, silently deciding that Kevin was obviously not in the mood for conversation. She turned her attention instead to her programme, skimming through the lengthy introduction written by Vance McMadd, which tried to justify the reasoning for the tournament.
 
“Shouldn't you be sitting with your other friends?”
 
Kiki paused for a moment, more than a little surprised that Kevin Mask was actually making small talk with her.
 
“You mean Roxanne and Trixie?” she asked, turning to face him.
 
“The girl Kid Muscle is dating and her blonde friend,” Kevin monotonously answered, his eyes still fixed on the curtained stage.
 
“Yeah…” Kiki answered vaguely, looking down at Roxanne and Trixie, who were whispering to each other and giggling,
 
Probably laughing at me, she thought to herself.
 
“So than why are you sitting up here?” Kevin pressed.
 
“I had a…” Kiki began; before deciding not to tell Kevin about her problems with Trixie. “I didn't manage to get a front row ticket,” she said instead.
 
“There is a spare seat beside your blonde friend,” Kevin frankly told her.
 
“Is there?” Kiki asked, pretending not to notice.
 
“I had rather hoped to get some privacy up here,” Kevin muttered.
 
Kiki narrowed her eyes at him, finally understanding exactly why he was bothering to talk to her.
 
“I'm sorry,” she said flatly. “But I wouldn't feel right sitting in a seat that isn't mine.”
 
Kiki smiled to herself then as she sighted the boy she had traded her ticket with, who sat himself down next to Trixie. Trixie turned to stare at him, looking thoroughly disgusted. He began to talk to her, pointing back at where Kiki sat.
 
Kiki quickly lifted the programme up in front of her face to hide herself from her friends, turning past Vance's introduction to the section profiling each of the semi-finalists. Kiki paused at the page on Eskara, finding that the picture of him still showed him in his earlier disguise. As she read through his vital statistics, she heard Kevin mutter something at her side, and she moved her eyes to him, wondering what he was talking about; but he was talking too quietly for her to decipher any individual words, and thanks to his substantial iron mask, she could not rely on reading his lips to understand him.
 
The voice of Vance McMadd drew Kiki's attention back to the stage, and she lowered her programme just enough to spy over the top of it at the stage. Vance announced the entrance of Kid Muscle and Hydrozoa, and at either side of him, the wrestlers were lowered to the stage in life-size action figure packaging.
 
Hydrozoa burst out of his packaging, and walked over to take a seat on one of the four stools immediately behind Vance. Kid Muscle, meanwhile, was having difficulty breaking the plastic, and was beginning to panic. Meat started towards Kid, stopping to screw his face up in disgust as Kid farted loudly inside the packaging. Kid smiled for a moment, before pegging his fingers over his nose and beating a fist against the packaging as the air around him became toxic.
 
Meat quickly ran over and broke open the packaging, staggering back and choking on the smell that escaped with Kid.
 
“Thanks, Meat!” Kid gasped, walking over to take a seat on the end stool. “I thought for sure I was a goner back there!”
 
Meat coughed and spluttered, waving a hand in front of his face in an attempt to waft away the noxious gases. As Meat joined Kid, the front row of the audience began to cough and complain of the smell, their vocalisations slowly spreading back as the smell drifted up through the audience.
 
“How disgusting!” Kevin grumbled as Kiki used her programme to waft the smell away from them. “The Muscle family are nothing but a joke!”
 
Once he had suitably recovered from the effects of Kid's flatulence, Vance announced the entrance of Eskara and Dik Dik Van Dik, who were lowered to the stage in the same manner as Kid and Hydrozoa had been.
 
Eskara was the first to break out of his packaging, walking directly to a stool and sitting down. Dik Dik tore out his packaging with his antler fist, marching over to the final stool. Kiki sat forwards to watch Dik Dik, noticing that he still had the same infuriated look about him from the night before when she had seen him talking with Checkmate. His ears were flat against his head, his eyes were thinned and his fists were so tightly clenched at his sides, every muscle and sinew in his arms were taut and bulging.
 
A woman three rows in front of Kiki and Kevin turned to her friends, smiling dreamily.
 
“Eskara is one of the good guys!” she whispered.
 
“Stupid woman,” Kevin muttered, his voice only loud enough for Kiki to hear. “You don't know how wrong you are.”
 
Kiki frowned at Kevin's profile, silently wishing that he would explain his venomous outburst; but as usual, he remained still and silent.
 
“Our semi-final matches will take place over the next two days,” Vance announced, as Eskara and Dik Dik eyed each other over in disgust behind him. “First up, in tomorrow's match-up, we'll have Hydrozoa taking on Kid Muscle!”
 
Kid Muscle laughed nervously as Hydrozoa turned to look at him, dragging Meat around to stand between them.
 
“And the day after that, Eskara will take on Dik Dik Van Dik!” Vance said.
 
“I'm gonna crush you, loser,” Eskara muttered, scowling at Dik Dik.
 
“I'll kill you first,” Dik Dik snarled back, baring his teeth viciously.
 
“Hey guys, I've got a much better idea!” Kid offered, slipping off his stool and passing Hydrozoa to approach Dik Dik. “Why don't we just have a tag team match to decide the tournament? What do ya say, Dik Dik? You and me against Eskara and Hydrozoa!”
 
“What's the matter, Kid Muscle, too scared to face me on your own?” Hydrozoa taunted Kid.
 
“No thanks, Kid,” Dik Dik answered solemnly. “I want to take Eskara out on my own…”
 
“In your dreams,” Eskara scoffed. “By da time I'm done wid you, you'll be forced to go back to Lapland, pulling sledges for Santa Claus, Rudolph!”
 
“How dare you?” Dik Dik roared, standing up abruptly.
 
Kid shrieked in fear and shock at Dik Dik's sudden reaction, leaping into Meat's arms and chewing at his fingernails. Meat groaned, dropping Kid to the stage and causing him to scream again from the impact.
 
“Don't you know I'm an endangered species?” Dik Dik growled, raising a fist in the air between himself and Eskara.
 
“Endangered species, huh?” Eskara said, mocking interest in Dik Dik's statement. “Den I guess after our match you'll be workin' for da WWF, not da IWF.”
 
Dik Dik hesitated to respond, the entire arena falling silent as he stood over Eskara, who was still seated, slouched low in his stool, his arms folded, looking entirely disinterested with the whole affair.
 
Dik Dik then swiped his right hand at Eskara, in a move so swift, Eskara had no time to defend himself. His head snapped back, and the audience gasped in shock as Dik Dik stepped back, his antler fist hanging at his side, the points dripping with fresh blood.
 
Eskara got to his feet, one hand on his cheek. He took a step towards Dik Dik, then took his hand down to look at it, rubbing his fingertips together, his eyes flashing in fury at the sight of his own blood. Dik Dik's deadly antler fist had cut two gashes down one side of Eskara's face, from his ear to his chin, leaving a curtain of scarlet blood seeping over his lower jaw.
 
Eskara bunched a fist and started towards Dik Dik, but the officials quickly jumped up onto the stage, holding the two apart. As they struggled to go at each other, Vance gave a speech about how exciting the ensuing fight between the two would be. Hydrozoa helped in holding Eskara back as Meat helped in restraining Dik Dik.
 
Kid Muscle, meanwhile, was using the distraction to sneak out of the arena unnoticed.
 
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Kiki crept around the backstage area of the arena, looking for Eskara. She wanted to make sure that he was alright after Dik Dik's attack, but she was not having much luck finding him; in fact, she was not having much luck finding anyone.
 
Kiki eventually stumbled across a partially open door to a dressing room that looked as though it was still in use.
 
“Hello?” she said softly, knocking on the door.
 
She poked her head around the door, looking around the room. When she found no-one there, she backed out of the room again, pausing as her feet reached the hall. She frowned to herself, stepping back into the room.
 
What was that, she wondered?
 
Kiki looked back out into the corridor, looking up and down the hall to ensure that no-one would catch her snooping around the room. Once she was confident that she was completely alone, Kiki walked over to the glass bottle by the vanity desk, picking it up to read the label.
 
“Danger, highly corrosive,” she read aloud. “Handle with extreme caution. Sulphuric acid.”
 
Kiki frowned, replacing the bottle to its place on the vanity desk. The bottle was half empty, and it looked like the sort of thing only available in scientific laboratories; certainly not the sort of thing one could readily find in a shop.
 
Kiki looked around the room, wondering what sort of person would carry such a dangerous chemical and why. She sighed in frustration when she found no clue as to who had been in the room, about ready to give up her search; but then she noticed something in the mirror.
 
Kiki spun around to face what she saw, walking up to the door to confirm her suspicions.
 
She slowly lifted the black coat from its hook at the back of the door, holding it up to inspect it more closely.
 
“Dik Dik…?” she muttered, lowering the jacket again.
 
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“Kiki!” Terry said brightly, waving at her as she walked up to the door of his private room at the hospital.
 
“Terry!” she greeted him, stopping in the doorway. “How are you?”
 
“I'm alright,” Terry replied, despite the fact that his head, neck and shoulders were still held in traction.
 
He was sitting up in the bed, forcing a brave smile for his visitor.
 
“I reckon ma worst ailment must be ma legs, Kiki,” he added. “Those boots done tore right through ma skin!”
 
Kiki frowned, walking into the room. As she did so, she became aware of a shadow by the window. She turned her head sharply, hoping that it was not Trixie; she had done a fantastic job of avoiding the girls thus far, and she was still not quite ready to face either of her friends, least of all Tricie. But it was not Trixie. Nor was it even Roxanne.
 
It was Dik Dik Van Dik.
 
He was standing leaning against the window-ledge, his arms folded, his ears plastered to his head, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. He glared at Kiki silently, his stare so intense, she was forced to look away.
 
“The doctors said they done found some sorta strange substance in the linin' of ma boots!” Terry continued. “They reckon that's what caused me so much pain in ma match against Eskara!”
 
“Substance?” Kiki repeated.
 
“Some sorta acid, they said it was,” Terry explained. “Burned right through ma skin, and made Eskara's attacks hurt like all hell!”
 
“Acid…”
 
Kiki turned to Dik Dik, unable to hide her shock as she looked into his eyes. Had he used that acid she had found against Terry? And if so, why? Why would Dik Dik want to sabotage the match, to cost his friend and team-mate a victory? Had it not been Dik Dik who had accused the others of not taking the tournament seriously enough?
 
Unless, Kiki thought to herself, Dik Dik had done it to ensure Terry's defeat; to ensure that he would face Eskara himself in the semi-final match.
 
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Next Chapter: Kid returns to take on Hydrozoa at Vance McMadd's beach resort, and a bad case of mispronunciation leads to a conflict between Eskara and Kevin Mask. Chapter 9 - Beach Party.