Some of them were sitting, others were standing. Each of them--all twenty--were leaning against something, be it the water cooler, the walls of the dojo, or one of their training partners. For the most part, they weren't paying attention to the two men grappling in the center of the mat.

Luiz Andrade, the guy starting the round with the triangle choke already locked up, well, he was definitely good. One of the dojo’s best grapplers, actually. But he was just as tired as the rest of them, which meant forced, sloppy technique. And you couldn’t really learn that.

And as for the other one, the black guy with the comic-book style mask that they'd been taking turns grappling against, one after another...?

The guy that destroyed each of them in succession, again and again and again, in spite of the fact that, by his own choice, he began with each of them the same way he was starting against Luiz, inside of a triangle choke?

That would be KnightMask…and they’d already given up trying to emulate him. Heck, so much of what he did seemed more similar to break-dancing or gymnastics than to the kind of grappling they were familiar with. A lot of it seemed to violate the fundamental principles of grappling that had been hammered into them as beginners. And yet, everything he did worked, without fail. The fundamentals of grappling seemed to mean as much to him as the law of gravity meant to Superman.

There was one person who was, from a corner in the dojo, watching everything KnightMask did. It seemed as if her almond-shaped eyes were locked onto his body, following his swift explosions of movements as only one who knew what those movements would be in advance of them could. Owing to her precisely chiseled features, her trouble state of mind was conveyed with acute clarity to any of those who looked back towards her. The black waterfall of hair that ran down the sides of her face seemed somber, like the veil of one at a funeral.

Natalia Rodrigo's feelings for KnightMask had run across a wide spectrum in the course of their tempestuous relationship.

She'd loved him and cursed him...led him into traps and also prayed for his safety. Yet it was only now, watching as he trained with an unrelenting, single-minded intensity, demanding that each successive grappling partner begin at the bell with KnightMask locked in Eric Rex's trademark Cuban Necktie, that she had ever felt afraid of him. Her feelings were a surprise even to her. After all, it was a noble goal, wasn't it, to want to release an innocent child from the clutches of a cold mercenary such as Eric Rex...?

Though she was initially angered when he'd seemingly stood her up at the post-match festivities in Vegas--after all, she was taking a great risk even to be seen in public with him, given the animosity harbored for KnightMask by so many in the jiu jitsu community and most especially of all, by what she supposed was now her former clan--she'd understood and accepted his decision to throw himself immediately into unceasing training in anticipation of his match with Eric Rex.

His plan was sound enough; to lock Rex in a submission hold and then force him to either release Lacey Witasick or divulge the information of her whereabouts. And yet, in his training, he'd seemed to become someone else. No, that wasn't right. He became nobody else. He was a machine. A biological machine of flesh and bone, yes. But still a machine.

Relentless, unswerving, completely, utterly focused. It was as if his personality, his humanity, his soul, had simply gone out of his body in a drift, leaving behind this empty vessel...with the simple mission of defeated Eric Rex programmed into it, but nothing else.

Well, actually, there was one piece that was left behind, she supposed. Because it was not as though he seemed to be, in any way, going through the motions. There was an engine inside of him, fueling him on. Driving him on past fatigue and further yet. But no, she wouldn't call it an engine. That didn't account for the tenacity, the vigor that permeated his training.

Hunger was the word for it. Everything else was gone from him...everything human, anyways...but the hunger, the hunger remained.

She shuddered as she watched him, for what seemed like the millionth time, break open a sparring partner's Cuban Necktie and spin into a knee-bar. He hadn't even looked up at her during the entirety of his training session today. That fact alone did not bother her. It was the fact that Tyrone Gunder--KnightMask--as she had always known him, could never have done that.

She looked away, at the banner of the gym, hanging from the wall. Black Belt Legacies....she'd never heard of the gym before they'd come to Las Vegas...and yet, they'd welcome her and KnightMask with open arms. And unlike so many jiu jitsu schools, there had been no probing, no personal questions regarding what Jorge Rodrigo's daughter could possibly be doing with him.

It had been almost too good to be true. With no questions asked, they'd opened up their doors to them...

...and just then, the doors to the dojo, opened up to let out the sweltering heat, swung closed, as if of their own accord. Natalia felt herself falling back, away from that strange territory of fearing KnightMask...and back into the more familiar grounds, of fearing for him.

Something was wrong.

Looking up at the dojo’s banner, she mused over its initials…BBL. BBL.

Part 2

At a certain point in his training, he’d hit a wall. Inside the confines of one of his training partners triangle chokes, he’d realized that he’d stayed inside of it too long as his mind began to fuzz. Next, he’d discovered that his leaden arms were too tired to fight out of the situation.

And that was when, in a semi-conscious soup of swirling images, he’d somehow come to see, in place of Lacey Witasick, Natalia, as she was in their childhoods, held hostage by Eric Rex. He’d surged up, above the rising tide of darkness that had been overwhelming his consciousness, blasting back to life. A second image had come to him of Natalia, in place of his sister, being handed off to some child trafficker. And then there was aught else he could do but vent the storm that unleashed within him until it finally let. One after another his sparring found their triangle chokes twisted and turned against their advantage and then there legs as well, tied one strange and painful knot after another. KnightMask followed his own motions no better than they did, merely a passenger, tossed along by the inner tempest he’d called up.

It was only Natalia’s warning cry that broke him from the stupor of his fury.

“Tyrone…! KnightMask….! Its…it’s a trap….! And we’ve already fallen into it…!”

A strange siren sound cut through the dojo. At the hearing of it, the men who had been nearly crippled with exhaustion suddenly straightened up. Their eyes went blank. Each one suddenly revealed himself armed as well, with sais, daggers, cestus, knuckle-dusters and all manner of weaponry, which it seemed had been hidden in the folds of their clothing all along. They converged on KnightMask, all of them, as if they were magnetically drawn to him.

The man beneath him, in whose triangle-choke KnightMask had allowed himself to be placed, suddenly produced, in each hand, a dagger.

Natalia cursed herself for not realizing sooner…BBL…

…Big Bad Leroy…! It had been a trap all along…and they’d fallen for it….!

Desperately, she fumbled for her cell-phone and dialed up the number of Crimson Cobra. It was then that one of the men had turned upon her, knocking the phone from her hand with his dagger.