A small woman with powder blue skin and long black hair stood by Max's assigned seat with a water bottle and a rag filled with ice.

"No medicine between rounds, but I can press down swelling if you're having issues seeing. What do humans need?" She asked.

"Ice is good. On the ribs, please. It will help with the bruising and numb the pain a little." Max replied with a forced smile while he considered how exactly he was going to knock out an opponent like that.

"We also serve as your coach if you need us. The armpit of the lower arms is a weak spot, and if you hit it hard enough, you will wind him. It is nearly impossible to knock a Titan out with a hit to the head, but if you aim for the spot just above the clavicle where the neck muscles meet, you can do it.

It looked like you didn't know before. You should be fast enough to hit it. Even though your striking to the ribs wasn't exactly wrong, it is the best way to wear him out enough that he will drop his guard and let you at his vital spots.

"Got it. I'll take water." Max agreed and opened his mouth for her to spray a mouthful from the bottle on him. It was mildly citrus flavoured, likely to make it easier to drink, and at room temperature, so it didn't cause cramps. They had prepared everything just right for the fight, and Max took a second to listen to the thoughts of everyone here to see if that was normal.

It seemed to be, and he even caught a few flashes of how the blue-skinned Titan had been defeated before. The current champion had gotten him into a chokehold, much as Max had done, but he was large enough that he couldn't be thrown off so easily.

That wasn't going to help him here, but it would help him later since he had an idea of how the champion fought after watching other people's memories of the fight. historical

"Good Luck." The corner assistant cheered Max on as the Referee motioned both fighters back to the middle of the ring.

The Titan was smirking, likely having gotten some hasty advice on how to fight a human from the assistant in his corner, and the second round started with a ring of the bell.

The Titan tucked his lower arms tight across his chest, blocking both of the vital spots that the assistant had pointed out but opening one vital weakness that almost all bipedal males shared. Max smiled as his Targeting Function marked six possible weak spots on the Titan's body and then recommended a combination of strikes that would be more likely to take him down.

With a lightning-fast rush, Max drove a hard punch forward and directly into the Titan's groin, bringing him to his knees, and then followed up with a left hook to the throat and an uppercut to the left eye that laid him out on the mat.

"Break! It's over. He's done!" The Referee announced while the Titan curled into a ball.

The sturdy alien lifted Max's hand in victory while the crowd roared in a mix of celebration and rage. The Titan had been a heavy favourite for obvious reasons, and Max had defeated him in what might be the dirtiest possible way.

"Your first match winner, Commander Keres of the Terminus Trading Company. We can add that to the list of accomplishments of their species. Not even a Giant can hit hard enough to bring a Titan to their knees with a groin punch." He announced into the microphone while the Titan wheezed and slowly climbed to his feet.

Max wasn't sure what he meant by that until he listened to the Titan's thoughts. Their species had a protective bone that guarded their reproductive organs like a jockstrap, and Max had broken that bone with his punch before knocking him out with the throat punch, hitting exactly where the nerve cluster was.

The former champion clapped Max on the shoulder once he had recovered and made it back to his feet.

"I underestimated the power behind a Human. Your species is impressive, little man."

"Thanks. But don't expect all humans to be that tough. I'm a Commander for a reason, and I'm quite a bit stronger than the average fighter, even for my species. I must say, though, Titans are incredibly durable. If I had hit a Giant in the face like that, I would have broken his neck." Max agreed, accepting the compliment.

"You wouldn't have had to hit a giant nearly that hard. Go easy on the amateurs. It will look bad if you kill someone on your way to the final round." Jericho declared, just close enough to the Referee for the microphone to pick it up.

The audience burst into laughter at the insinuation since there were a number of Giants fighting here today, but the fighters who were watching knew he wasn't lying. The very first hit of the fight, the punch that threw Jericho across the ring, would have been the end for almost all of them.

Their ribs would have buckled under the impact force, and they wouldn't have gotten back up after hitting the wall. They had underestimated the pure power that Max could put out, thanks to his increased speed, and none of them were looking forward to fighting him.

Max headed for the edge of the ring, and the boss sent down the same young woman who had been in his corner of the ring but was now dressed in a long, flowing black dress to escort him back up to the VIP booth.

She gently took Max's hand, and he felt a sense of connection like someone was trying to look into his mind but failing. She looked shocked at the failure, and Max gave her a wink, letting her know not to say anything until they were out of the public eye.

They walked into the booth, with its one-way mirrored windows, and the boss asked about it immediately after the door closed.

"Might I ask, what were you thinking of that has my assistant so shocked? She's seen nearly everything imaginable while working with the fighters." The Valkia asked curiously.

"Nothing at all. That's why she's shocked. I have some resistance to mind reading abilities." Max laughed, then flopped down on the couch to let his ribs heal before it was time to fight again.

"Your species gets more and more curious every time I ask you a question. I'm afraid that if I keep asking questions, then next, you'll tell me that you know the secret to eternal youth." The boss laughed.

"Do you count rejuvenation treatments? The data that we collected from the Envoys suggests that the ones we have developed will work on a wide variety of species. Using them, we can expand our lifespan from seventy or eighty years to nearly two hundred." Max told him.

"Seriously? Do you have any idea what that knowledge would go for here in the Alliance? Even if it worked on a few species, being able to reduce the decay rate due to aging would keep vital personnel alive for decades longer so that their knowledge wasn't lost. How did your species never leave their own Galaxy with that sort of technology? Shouldn't you have run out of space?" The assistant asked, rapid-fire in the fashion of the Innu, though she didn't appear to be one.

"You greatly underestimate the lethality of the indigenous species in our Galaxy. We haven't even filled a third of our Galaxy's potential yet. Perhaps you have heard of an invasive species called the Klem that appeared within the Alliance? They were taken from our Galaxy and released here for some unknown reason." Max asked.

"Yes, we know more than we would care to about that particular species. But we can talk about that later. There are fights to watch now. You can place bets with my assistant if you are so inclined." The Valkia agreed.