From - The Dauntless Recollections, vol I Chicago is my city, my home. My family have been a part of this city since the end of the American civil war. I was born here, both times, raised here. Went to school here, attended Church here, my first love was here, and my first heartbreak. Chicago is my city, my home, now our home. I have watched the crime and violence grow. Witnessed the death and sorrow from gang violence, drugs. I grew up watching it, at first, then living it as it spread from community to community like a disease. Watched as politicians lied and got rich, while the working men and women suffered and grew poorer. Watched as jobs fled and good people like my own father were laid off. Watched as mortgages went unpaid and homes were foreclosed, families forced out into the street. Watched as hope drained away. All I could do was watch. Then the Storm happened. Now I watch new politicians doing the same as the old. I see crime soaring to new heights. Gangs holding open warfare in the streets causing chaos and destruction, refugees from elsewhere coming here because we did not have any monsters. But we do it is just that our monsters that were always here, back then they were human, now some of them aren't. All I could do then was watch. Now I can do more. I The Storm had spared Chicago, for the most part at least. Aside from a tremendous lightning storm which caused massive electrical failures across the metropolis and the cold winds off Lake Michigan which carried snow and ice across the empty streets, no monsters rose up to wreak havoc, death, or destruction as had occurred across the states and the world. Chicago stood tall, but still the effects had been felt economically and mentally with what had been happening across the globe. The city untouched by the storms strange transformations became a place of refuge for many fleeing the death and destruction. A haven for those who had nothing left. A place where normal was still, at least on the surface, normal. The population increase had stretched the cities resources. Unemployment, always a problem sored as refugees crowded in seeking jobs, Crime rates rose, poverty rates rose, a bleakness settled over the region. But still people needed distraction needed entertainment and one of those distractions was sports and one thing Chicago had always had in abundance and had embraced was the fighting ring. Six Months After the Storm The girl on the cushioned exam table wearing boxing shorts and a sports top was solidly built if a bit on the small side for a boxer. Normally she was very pretty some would say even beautiful. She had bright blue eyes and her reddish-brown hair was long and straight, but tonight was worn up in a coiled braid. She held her finely muscled arms up and out as the old man wrapped her ribs. She grunted in pain as the trainer, Manny, pulled the wraps tight. Brigit Moran glared at her trainer, she could barely see him with one eye swollen almost shut, she also had a bad cut on her left cheek and a split lip, both of which were also swollen. Manny finished and began unwrapping her hands. “Dammit Brigit, you took a helluva beating tonight hun, you have got to keep those hands up and keep your face protected.” She winched as he started on her right hand jarring the shoulder she had fallen on in the ring. “I can’t just defend all the time Manny, I have to punch, it’s the only way I can get points...” She stopped as the door opened and a tall well-built woman in her late thirties, blond, very attractive, came through a scowl on her face having herd the end of Brigit's statement. “Honey you aren't going to be winning with points from your punches, you hit like a goddamned girl and it isn't cutting it.” Karen Gayle, one of the most prominent female promoters in the Chicago area leaned up against the wall and lit a cigarette, as the trainer and the boxer glared at her. Seeing the look they were giving her, Karen blew the smoke out through tight lips and said, “Oh, come on Brigit, we have been over this, this isn't the amateurs anymore, this is the pros, you don't score by just touching them, your hits have to mean something. That girl tonight Leda Sanchez, you have her by what 20 lbs. and she still kicked your ass. Dammit, look in the fucking mirror.” Manny turns back to Brigit and starts treating her bruised face carefully washing the cut on her cheek. “For Christ's sake Ms. Gayle, ain’t no call for that, Brigit is a goddamned good fighter what she lacks in upper body strength, she more than makes up in speed, stamina, and skill, and she's damned tough, one of the toughest I have ever trained guy or girl.” Ms. Gayle snorts a laugh, “Oh Manny,” she shakes her head, “Jesus this is her 6th loss in a row, that is not a good start to a career.” “Hey!” Brigit pushes Manny back and slides off the exam table, a flare of anger in her bright blue eyes. “Quit talking about me like I'm not even in the fucking room. Look Karen, I'll take a few weeks off and do some crash strength training, I've been letting it slide a little, what with everything, but I can build my upper-body up and get my punches ...what?" She sees both her manager and her trainer exchange looks. Manny speaks first. “Honey, Ms. Gayle has a point, your punches..., your just not built for upper body Strength projection...” “What the hell do you mean I'm not built for it,” Brigit interrupts, “what the fuck is wrong with my body? Fuck!” The young woman was starting to have a hard time controlling her anger. “Brigit, Manny is right, to get your strength up to where you need to be you’re going to have to put on fifteen, twenty pounds and that puts you in the next weight class and right back where you are now.” The older woman was trying to calm her client down. “Brigit, honey, you’re as strong as you need to be its your shoulders and the way your built up top. You just don’t have the build to project the strength you have in a punch, it’s not anything we can correct Bri. Your biggest points Hun are your legs they are strong and fast, Straight-up boxing just does not utilize your strengths well Bri.” Brigit caught the turn of phrase Manny used ‘straight-up boxing' and saw where this was going. She just stared at her trainer until Karen spoke. “Brigit, you’re wasting your money paying me, and I'm losing money promoting these fights. I cannot promote you if you cannot win and you cannot win in the pro boxing ring." Karen drops her cigarette butt and mashes it out with her shoe. "I like you Brigit. You are talented and you have the spirit, your just in the wrong ring, I can get you in the cage Ill even spring for training. Sixth months with Jenifer Marks, and we can get you in some low tier MMA bouts and you will shoot up the ranks like lightning. We both,” she indicates Manny, “think this is the way for you to go.” Manny starts to speak but Brigit cuts him off. “I'm a boxer Karen, I don’t want to be a damn MMA fighter, I want to be a Boxer.” “No, Brigit, your father wants you to be a boxer.” Karen said in a soft voice. Sean David Moran was a fifth generation Irish American, born and raised in Chicago, Sean had always wanted to be a boxer, like his father and his father’s father all the way back to Ireland before the civil war. Boxing was in the Moran family’s blood. When Sean turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy, he had already been boxing in youth clubs and he figured he could box in the navy as well as learn a trade skill. He did well in both until the middle of his second year of his enlistment when a shipboard accident left him with a shattered knee, steel pins in his hip, and a medical discharge ending both his navy and boxing careers before they had ever really begun. Sean returned home to Chicago where he got a job with the union, met a girl, a local schoolteacher from a good Irish family whom he married, and six months later had their first child. Brigit Fianna Moran the oldest of four daughters was born August 12th, 1995. By the time she was six and her three sisters had come along it was apparent to her father that there was not going to be any boys in this branch of the Moran family. Sean had wanted a boy. Badly someone he could teach how to box a son who could carry on the tradition that he had failed to carry. But he loved his four daughters dearly and never regretted having them not once. But when it came to Brigit well, she was daddy's little girl, as she grew up she hung on every word, sat with her daddy as he watched the boxing matches and listen to all the family stories about boxing. It was in her blood and She was a tomboy through and through so she became the surrogate son her daddy never had and when she was ten he started teaching her how to box, at twelve she stated taking boxing lessons at a local gym and at 16 began boxing as an youth amateur. After she graduated High school Sean convinced His old Trainer James “Manny” Fitzpatrick a Retired Golden Gloves Champion to train her for the pros. In 2015 she went pro She won her first two matches against other first time pros before being taken on by Manager and Promoter Karen Gayle. Gayle, one of the most Successful Promoters of female fighters on the east coast had risen to fame with the first Wave of Female MMA Fighters in the late nineties and early oughts. She saw the potential for a first-class fighter in Brigit even though she herself didn’t much care for Straight Boxing she figured she would take a chance and promote Brigit. But Pro Fighting isn't like the amateurs and when Brigit found herself matched against experienced boxers, she found herself unable to clinch a win. She could stand toe to toe round for round, but she couldn't deliver the hits needed to score a win on points. “So, Karen,” Brigit took a deep breath the anger turning inward and becoming resignation, “are you cutting me loose?” “No, Brigit, I'm not, I want you to think about the MMA offer, in the meantime I can get you one more match, I think we can make some money off of. I'll set it up” “What do you mean make money off of? I’m not throwing a fight.” Shoots Brigit back, glancing at Manny who is looking at Gayle obvious questions on his face. Gayle laughs “There has to be an expectation of you winning for throwing the fight to have any value, and I'm kind of offended you would think I'd ever ask that of you. I'm putting you in the ring with Renee Espa.” “What?” Manny shouts drawing both woman's attention to him. “Espa's a fucking machine she hits like a goddamn freight train! She has eight wins all knock outs within three rounds.” “Exactly, Manny, and that plays to our strength. You said it yourself, Brigit is though, one of the toughest fighters I have ever seen especially in her weight class. It’s an eight-round exhibition fight a preview for her big championship fight next month, no one is going to be betting on who's going to win. The bets are going to be on how fast Espa knocks Brigit out.” Gayle explains as she lights another cigarette. “If you go all eight rounds, we can make some serious money, and more importantly it puts you on the map as the fighter that Renee Espa couldn't knock out. And that is a rep that could be gold we could stand could make a lot of money promoting that especially if she gets a knockout in the championship bout.” Brigit doesn’t hesitate only looks at her trainer and her manger and says, “I'll do it.” Brigit left Manny and Karen arguing about the Exhibition and caught the city bus home. It was late almost midnight and while her friends were probably expecting her at the pub, she just didn’t feel like it, not tonight. She looked out as the bus drove down what a year before would have been deserted streets and empty lots, now they passed tent cities full of men ,women and children, all displaced by The Storm, huddled around metal drums containing fires for warmth, These were now the homes for the homeless. She felt a despair she hadn’t felt in, well, in a while. She let herself into the dark house where four generations of the Moran Family had lived. In the living room she found her sister, Keira a sophomore at the University of Chicago asleep on the couch, books scattered on the floor the light from table lamp and the silent tv throwing shadows across her face. Brigit shut off the lamp but left the tv on, then covered her sister with a throw blanket instead of waking her, she didn't feel like talking about her latest defeat. She went into the kitchen looked in the fridge but didn’t get anything the thought of eating made her stomach flip. She checked the kitchen door to make sure it was locked. They lived in a good neighborhood but where you could leave your doors unlocked before now, thanks to the Storm, that was not a good idea. Brigit made her way upstairs, stopping to look in on the twins, Kathrine and Kelly, seven-teen and seniors in high school. Both were sound asleep. Last she made a quick peek in on her parents’ room. She found her father asleep in the chair by her mother’s medical bed. He was out cold, and from the bottle and glass on the nightstand it was obvious he had drunk himself to sleep. She entered the room for a closer look at her mother. Margret Moran, originally Travers, had been a beautiful voluptuous woman with striking red hair and piercing green eyes, all three of Brigit's sisters took after their mother while she had inherited her father’s darker reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. Now her mother was thin and pale a shadow of who she once was, the cancer eating away at her. Brigit checked the monitors and made sure everything was working and that her mom at least looked comfortable. It didn't strike her as odd her checking in on her family she had always felt protective of her sisters and with dad laid off and mom sick she just naturally fell into that care giver roll and no one else questioned it. Maybe that's why I took the fight, she thought to herself as she made her way to her room forgoing the shower she really needed, we need the money more now than ever. Brigit fell into bed and drifted off to sleep dreaming of money and fighting and of her being strong enough to beat all her opponents, of being good enough to do anything of being the best in the world...