Marcus, nine years ago…
In between taking whatever jobs that Romano gave him, he was also doing his best to keep up with his lessons that were given to him by his tutors. Although, considering his perfect memory, it wasn’t as if his lessons posed any significant obstacle to him.
In fact, whenever he had free time he would start reading up on more advanced courses to get ahead of his grade.
Aside from his jobs and his lessons, his martial arts training was the only thing he considered difficult considering how young and weak he was.
He wasn’t sure why he needed it if all he had to do was squeeze a trigger or shove a knife in someone’s spine.
No matter how many times he tried to argue against it being necessary, Romano wouldn’t listen and insisted that he learn some form of martial arts.
“Just because you were able to avoid all the guards in my warehouse back when I first found you won’t mean that you’ll always be able to. At some point, you’ll be forced into a scenario where your weapons won’t be enough and you will have to fight with your bare hands,” he had said.
Since then he had hired teachers of multiple kinds of martial arts but none of them gave him the motivation to learn.
Most of them would eventually quit because of Marcus’s lack of effort or because their schedules were too busy.
For the last two weeks he had been enjoying his free time since they had all left, but that would end with the arrival of a new teacher.
Thirteen year old Marcus was in his room watching a movie with Thalia when his phone went off. He flipped it open and realized it was Romano calling him.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“Come up to my office. There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said before hanging up.
Thalia, who had fallen asleep half way through the movie, was resting on his lap which made it risky to pull himself free from her without waking her up.
He did his best to carefully lift her off of him without waking her up before putting a pillow underneath her head and a blanket over her. He also made sure to keep the movie running otherwise the sudden silence might wake her up.
Once he was satisfied that she would stay asleep, he left the bedroom and closed the door behind him before making his way to Romano’s office.
While he was walking through the halls like he normally would, he had an unusual feeling of anxiety that he hadn’t had in a long time. Something about this felt weird to him but he didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because any time that Romano wanted him to meet someone new, it was almost always during the day or meeting them in the living room, not in his office.
When he finally did reach Romano’s office, he opened the door to find that he was talking with a tall and very fit man who looked to be in his early thirties.
As soon as the office door opened up and Marcus walked through it, both men turned their heads to look at him.
When the other man saw him, he rolled his eyes in annoyance before turning to look back at Romano.
“This is the guy you want me to train? Seriously?” he asked.
Romano simply nodded and the man scoffed.
Stefan then looked at Marcus and said, “This is William Diaz. He’s going to be your new martial arts trainer.”
He actually remembered watching William’s fights on TV back when his mother was still alive. He was a real monster in the ring.
He was easily a head taller than Marcus was at that point, standing at six foot three. He had long straight blonde hair that reached his neck. His grey eyes looked pointedly at him, as if asking himself if Romano was being serious in hiring him to train a child.
With only a slight show of surprise on his face, Marcus asked, “The UFC champion?”
William, who seemed mildly offended at being recognized without the shock and awe that must usually follow, walked up to him and sized him up.
The champion was a head taller than him but even with the height advantage, Marcus didn’t feel impressed.
In his eyes, every man was equal when faced with the business end of a gun. This man was no different.
Marcus then looked at Romano and said, “I think this is a waste of time. What’s the chance that his schedule just gets filled up or he gets fed up with me like the other trainers?”
“You’re not exactly in a position to argue this with me right now, are you? Besides, he’s a retired fighter and I’ve promised to pay him to be your personal trainer until you turn eighteen,” he said.
Marcus and William both responded at the same time, “I’m going to be stuck with him for four years?”
Romano’s eyes then darted between the two in mild confusion before answering, “Yes. I assume that you won’t be having any problems with that, right?”
Marcus folded his arms but said nothing while William just sighed and said, “Nah, I guess not. Four years ain’t that long, especially not for what I’ll be paid. When do we start?”
“I want you to start training him tomorrow,” Romano answered, to which Marcus’s eyes widened.
“Tomorrow? But I have a bunch of plans laid out for my sister and I. Can’t we move it up til later?”
Romano shook his head no and said, “Things operate on my time table kid, not yours. You need to remember that. Besides, tomorrow is a weekend. Just take her with you.”
Marcus then got angry and said, “You know that I don’t want my sister to get involved with this mess. Why the hell would I bring her with me?”
“Bring her, don’t bring her. I don’t care. Point is, if you want to spend time with her, then you’ll have to bring her with you because you WILL be training tomorrow. No excuses.”
The following day arrived as Marcus, William, and Thalia went to the gym together.
“Stefan told me that you’ve already had multiple trainers before me. Can I assume that you already know some basic grappling and striking techniques?” he asked.
Confused, Marcus said, “Yeah...I learned plenty of that. But that was just basic self defense. What’s gonna be so different about what you’ll be teaching me? Brazilian Jujitsu? Karate? Taekwondo? Krav Maga?”
William actually chuckled when he heard Marcus list off various fighting styles.
“Nothing like that just yet. I want to see how fast your reaction time is first, start with that. You can memorize drills and techniques all you want, but if you can’t react to a punch you can’t see then knowing how to fight won’t help as much as knowing if you can fight.”
Marcus held his hands up in confusion as he asked, “What the hell is the difference?”
William smiled smugly as he spread his hands out and said, “Try and punch me. If you can get past my guard even once, then we’ll end today’s training right away.”
Deciding to take the bait just to see where this went, Marcus put up his guard and looked at William closely as the man put him his own guard halfheartedly.
Thalia watched while taking a drink of Gatorade.
Taking in a deep breath, he threw a single punch and watched as William effortlessly blocked it.
Furrowing his brows in annoyance, he took a step back before kicking the ground as he lunged and threw a few more jabs, all of which were smacked away.
To add insult to injury, William lightly slapped Marcus in the face. Not enough to hurt him but with enough force to sting.
“Come on! Land just one punch Marcus! One punch and today’s session will end right away!”
Angry, Marcus struggled to land even a single punch only to fail each time as they were blocked or smacked away, to which William responded by lightly slapping him in the face and agitating him further.
The next time William reached out his arm to smack him, he wouldn’t have it and dodged it.
Seeing this, William nodded appreciatively.
“That’s good. Keep that up,” he said while avoiding each punch.
It was then that William did something Marcus wasn’t expecting.
His next slap was slow but it was done in such a way that he couldn’t read. When the slap hit, Marcus was dumbfounded as to how he got hit by something moving so slowly.
Seeing his confusion, William laughed but said nothing.
Hold on...I remember seeing a Michael Jai White video talking about this at one point…
Deciding to test his theory, Marcus telegraphed a feint with his left hand.
Much to his surprise, William actually fell for it and went to smack away the feint. For the split second that his hand rose to move his feint out of the way, it blocked his view.
Marcus used that small window to strike at William’s arm, smacking him in the face with his own hand and making lose his balance.
However, he didn’t stop there as he swept his leg low and kicked William’s feet out from under him.
While he was falling backwards, Marcus reached out and grabbed the hem of his shirt. Williams arms spread out and flailed wildly as he tried to regain his balance only for them to jerk back as he was pulled up by his shirt.
As Marcus bore down on him, he put all of his strength into his right arm and punched William in the face as hard as he could, feeling a satisfying crunch underneath his knuckles.
The moment his punch landed, he let go of his shirt and watched as William fell to the ground.
Thalia, who was watching on the side, got a little mixed up and shouted, “Touchdown!”
Hearing his adorable little sister shout in support of Marcus but referencing the wrong sport made him laugh.
William, who was groaning on the ground while holding his face, swore as he said, “Son of a bitch! You really broke my damn nose! For a teenager your shockingly strong.”
Once he got back on his feet, he walked over to where Thalia was sitting, sat down, and picked up his water bottle that he had packed for the session.
Taking a quick drink before setting it back down, he then carefully grabbed both sides of his broken nose before doing a sickening motion as he reset it.
Thalia, who was watching him reset it, shuttered when she heard the gross squishing sound of it being put back in place.
William then looked at him and asked, “You tricked me into deflecting when I should have backed away. Where did you learn to do that?”
Marcus answered, “I saw a Michael Jai White video a little while ago explaining telegraphing and realized that you had did that to me when you slapped me slowly.”
He had a confused look on his face when he asked, “When I…? Oh… I wasn’t trying to. I was just messing with you then. I never would have figured you would figure that out so fast and use it against me… You’re pretty smart for your age.”
“Well, since I managed to punch you in the face, does that mean today’s session is over like you said?”
William blinked before he realized that he did say that and replied, “Yeah… We can go. Though, don’t expect every session to end like this. From this point on, I won’t be taking it easy on you just because you’re a kid. Plus, I don’t want my nose to be broken two times in under a week.”
When William and Marcus returned to tell Romano what had happened, he looked at William and asked, “What happened to you?”
“Marcus broke my nose,” he said, to which Romano snickered.
“He’s a real piece of work isn’t he?”
William looked at Marcus before looking back at Romano and answered, “You got that right. Just from what little I’ve seen, he’s a natural born fighter.”
“I take it then that you two won’t have any issues, right?” he asked while looking at Marcus.
“No sir.”
William then raised his arms and stretched as he said, “Well...I better get something to eat.”
Romano waved for him to leave and watched as he left the room.
Rather than go with him, Marcus stayed behind and waited until he was sure William was far enough away that he couldn’t hear them.
“William doesn’t know about...what I do?” Marcus asked.
Hearing this question, Romano’s expression became serious as he said, “No, and you better keep it that way. He’s your trainer, nothing more. He doesn’t have any connections with us beyond that. Don’t tell him anything about the jobs I give you, understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good, now get the hell outta hear. I have several meetings in about an hour,” he said while making a shooing motion with his hand.
Leaving the room to go join William in the dining room with Thalia, he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“So...how long have you and your sister been living here? From what I’ve heard, they took you off the streets and have been letting you live in their home ever since. Is that true?” William asked.
Thalia nodded while she took a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Marcus also answered, “Yeah. We’ve been living here for the last five years. So far, its been pretty good I guess. They put a roof over our heads, kept us fed, gave us clothes, and helped us with a lot of other things.”
Hearing his answer, William gave him a strange look.
“How old are you again Marcus?” he asked.
“Thirteen. Why?”
“Just wondering. The way you answered...I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter,” he said as he got up from his seat and went through the fridge as he looked for something to eat.
“There’s a Tupperware of leftover pasta. You can heat that up,” Marcus said.
“Oh...thanks,” he said as he found it and put it in the microwave.
Once it was finished heating up, he sat down at the table with a plate of pasta and was about to start eating when his nose started itching.
He scratched it but flinched in mild pain since it was still sore.
“Damn dude, you really pack a punch for your age,” he said.
“Maybe don’t leave your face wide open for me to break it,” Marcus said before stuffing his face full of sandwich.
William sneered at him and said, “Smart ass.”
The dream faded away as Ruvick opened his eyes only to feel more confused than before he had went to sleep.
He was hoping to learn something useful from his dreams. Something useful that might help him understand Marcus a little better but this didn’t seem to help him at all.
Who the hell was William Diaz?