The Rodrigo Academy of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was also, beneath its surface, a school of assassins. The same Japanese immigrant who had taught the Rordigo family jujutsu had also, in secret, initiated them into the ways of the ninja.

KnightMask, a practitioner of jiu jitsu's rival submission art, catch-wrestling, ran afoul of the clan when he defeated Jorge Rodrigo in the finals of the world's most prestigious submission competition, the Abu Dhabi championships. Matters were only made worse by the love shared between KnightMask and Jorge Rodrigo's daughter, Natalia.

Now, he and his tag-team partner, Crimson Cobra, find themselves hunted down at every turn by the vengeance hungry clan, intent upon restoring their honor by killing the tag-team champions....


THE CONSPIRACY

“For the honor of the clan…KnightMask must die tonight."

The speaker was tall and lean, with wiry muscles that suggested a lithe agility. Slanted eyes that burned like those of a wolf peered out beneath a thick mane of grey hair, looking over his listeners who sat amongst the shadows. Their eyes glinted as they murmured their agreement.

“His partner, Crimson Cobra…has already been dispatched of. The explosion that ripped through his mansion has most surely destroyed him. Natalia, our treacherous little beauty…”

The man stepped back, revealing a black haired woman struggling like a trapped animal against ropes that bound her hands and feet. Her mouth was gagged. Her eyes, slanted similarly to the speaker, blazed raging wildfire.

“…has also been secured. A member of XWF security has been paid off to lead the staff away from our business, while we have also seen to it that the masked fool’s many allies will be variously occupied. There is nothing then, to stop us from our goal of destroying that masked thorn in our side…once and for all…! Swear now, with me…by the gods of old…KnightMask dies tonight!”

Together, the shadowed figures chanted back, “KnightMask dies tonight!”

They did not notice the scaly beast that slithered quietly across the floor as they chanted. Reaching the door, it squeezed underneath and went on upon its belly, down the corridor in silence.



THE AFTERMATH OF THE US TITLE BOUT


KnightMask held his head low his walk back to the locker room, but inwardly he verged on euphoria. Finally, after all his labors in the gym and on the mat, he had at last battled for the US title. And though the desire to hold the strap burned within so fiercely that it had birthed darkling urges to throw aside all morality, honor and mercy in order to hold the title, though the desire seemed at times to consume his very soul…he had, in the end, held fast to his principles. He had not stooped to low-blows or the use of weaponry, even though the bout was contested under the tables, ladders and chairs format. His opponents had also fought an entirely clean contest. Not even the barbaric Steve Davids, a self-proclaimed psychopath, had utilized any weapon other than his own hands and feet.

He had faced the greatest temptation of his life…and his soul had survived. Later, he knew, the pangs of regret would find their way to him. But for now, he was happy.

He closed his eyes briefly and recalled the past weeks, how close he’d teetered to the abyss in his struggle to control his lust for championship gold. Before he realized what he was doing, he had fallen to his knees in the middle of the bustling corridor and begun to pray. Images cascaded before his eyes of all the wins, the losses, the long, lonely training that had substituted for a childhood, for a social life…before finally settling on that moment where he and Crimson Cobra, inside the confines of a cage, had simultaneously wrenched crippling submission holds upon one another…and for one, brief, shining moment, thrown off the shackles of fear, pain and fatigue.

Beneath his mask, tears rolled down his cheeks. It had not all been in vain.

A little behind him, the thing noiselessly slithered after him..

THE ATTACK

“Your tag-team partner…? He’s been blown to pieces by our agents…but his death was undoubtedly a swift one. Yours…shall be slow and agonizing…!”

An ocean of rage flooded into KnightMask, drowning all reason. He bounded through the air, scissoring the man’s legs between his own and bringing him crashing to the floor. Wasting no time, the masked wrestler imprisoned the would-be assassin’s lower limbs between his own legs and immediately wrapped the man’s Achilles tendon over the shin of his other leg and compressed them together in the move known to XWF fans as the KnightLock.

It was not a crippling hold in the same sense of so many other lower-body submissions. The pain would set in prior to the advent of any permanent damage. Thus, KnightMask had time to make the man pay for the death of his friend before he decided whether or not he would rob him of the ability to walk for the rest of his life.

He’d known something was wrong even before the impostor had pulled away the rubber mask and revealed the scarred, dark face of a stranger contorted in murderous hatred. It wasn’t like Cobra to wait on anybody…and that’s just what the man who had disguised himself as his tag-team partner had been doing when KnightMask came upon him in the dressing room.

And yet, for all that, he hadn’t acted upon his instincts until the man had drawn his twisted dagger and attempted to sheath it in KnightMask’s chest. The submission master had caught the faux Cobra by the wrist and wrenched the weapon from his hand before the doppelganger had kicked free of his grasp and announced with wicked arrogance the death of the man he’d been disguised as.

The impostor writhed in pain as KnightMask continued to apply pressure to the KnightLock. Realizing that the crippling of an unwilling opponent would be a poor tribute to life of his friend, KnightMask relinquished the hold, even as the man passed out from the pain. Standing over the man’s unconscious form, KnightMask was silently cursing his inability to speak and question the man when something bounced off his head.

He looked up to see the ceiling of his dressing room yielding to an avalanche of katana wielding ninja. In the face of the surprise attack, his suppressed rage suddenly returned in a mighty wave, crashing against the core of his soul. Coiling into a crouch, he growled inwardly. He had forgotten Mr. Satellite, forgotten Steve Davids, forgotten his pride in having fought a clean bout, forgotten even the US title itself. He thought only of his fallen tag-team partner…and of the part, direct or not, that those who now fell upon him had played in his death.

The black-garbed killers hadn’t even touched the ground before KnightMask began his assault, leaping off the ground to deal out a back-flip kick to the face of the foremost ninja. He’d scarcely landed when he sprang again, somersaulting over a ninja, grasping him while upside down and heaving him up into his fellows upon landing. His humanity momentarily submerged in the tumultuous sea of vengeance-crazed rage, he charged recklessly into their ranks, heedless of the death-dealing katana blades they wielded.

A dozen blades cut and thrust on empty air as KnightMask sprang into a back-flip, landing behind a ninja and in a blur of motion, planting him headfirst upon the floor with a German suplex. Utilizing the momentum of the slam, he floated forward, his feet flying over his head and locking onto an advancing ninja with a head-scissor before flinging him across the room. With a shrill battle cry, one of the warriors came forward with a sweeping blow aimed at the neck of KnightMask. With a leap, he passed over the path of the sword, landing upon his assailant’s shoulders and with a whip of his body, threw him against the wall with a hurricanrana.

The swords flashed like a lightning storm. KnightMask weaved and dodged even as he went on the attack, his defense a matter of pure instinct rather than regard for his life. In his berserk state, thoughts of life or death were beyond his mental capacity. For a momentum, his quickness of hand and foot together with the elemental ferocity of his assault kept him untouched amid the storm of slashing steel. Then cuts began to gather, each one a nick in and of itself, but together they amounted to a significant blood loss. Black-garbed hyenas overwhelming a mighty masked lion, the assassins began to gain the upper hand upon KnightMask.

And then, with a hiss, the hooded cobra rose up in the midst of the attackers, its fangs bared, its head swaying side to side in grim, fearful warning. The assassins gave back, while the sea of rage ebbed and receded within KnightMask as he realized that somehow, some way, the presence of the serpent meant that his tag-team partner was yet alive.

“Enough…!” a powerful voice bellowed from the back of the room. Stepping forward amid the ninja, a tall, leanly built figure strode to the front. The other ninja fell kneeling as he passed them. With a wrench, he tore off his mask to reveal an Asian of long, thick grey hair and burning eyes.

The man clicked his fingers and a pair of ninja appeared, carrying along the struggling form of Natalia. In a few swift motions, they removed her gag and cut her bonds. Thus freed, she ran headlong into KnightMaks’s arms.

“Tyrone…! Tyrone…! You’re alright!” declared Natalia breathlessly, as KnightMask scooped her in his arms. Her night-black hair was tossed wildly about, her normally stoic face full of emotion.

“I am satisfied.,” the grey haired man spoke in a deep, haggard voice. “You have yet again turned back the Rodrigo clan. Let us war no more then. I have at last found my successor. You have proven yourself to be worthy in my eyes…and my granddaughter loves you. Join me KnightMask…and the world shall be yours.”

The cobra hissed, as if it somehow understood the man's words, while Natalia and KnightMask looked into one another and then back at the man, speechless.