"Graff! Graff! Graff! Graff! Graff! Graff! Graff! Graff!"
The chanting of the crowd gets louder and louder as they chant the first syllable of your first name. You look over at your manager, sitting outside the cage on the first row. He just shrugs, which makes your shoulders slump. You relent to the inevitable. Tilting your head back, you let out a howl that echoes throughout the arena.
The crowd goes wild as you head back to your dressing room. The racist bullshit you have to put up with.
Your name is Graffin Pyne, and you are member of the species Homo Lupus. The name your own people call themselves is Taymay, though most humans call your people Wolvings. It's the name the Europeans gave your people when they first encountered them.
Before the Europeans came to the Western Hemisphere, tribes of Taymay could be found as far south as the Rio Grande. Then the Europeans arrive, and the Taymay, along with the First Nation of Humans in America, kept getting pushed back and back. Now, with the exception of a few isolated individuals, most Taymay can only be found in the northern territories of Canada.
You're not the first Taymay to leave your reservation, however. Your great-grandfather, Wana-ay Pyne, fought in World War Two. His heroics earned him several medals and a knighthood. He was also the first (and so far only) Taymay to be named a Royal Lieutenant Governor of a Canadian Province.
Your cousin, Xanik Pyne, is the first Taymay to earn a doctorate from the University of British Columbia (Xanik earned it in atmospheric sciences). Xanik went on to become a noted environmental activist.
You left the reservation and headed to Toronto when you were eighteen. You joined the Dynamic Fighting League, whose claim to fame was the Unlimited Division (where large humans and hominids fought). Despite its name, the division was well regulated, with your claws properly wrapped before each bout. And absolutely no biting. People still came to see the unlimited division.
You hated those early days. You were touted as the Big Bad Wolf, with the speakers blaring "Little Red Riding Hood" anytime you entered the building. Ring girls would wear red cloaks and bikinis, and opponents would play Hip-Hop versions of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
Your cousin Xanik called it "Eurocentric, Neocolonialist, White Privilege, Racial Bullshit." You just called it Racial Bullshit and left it at that.
Eight years later, and the Dynamic Fighting League, along with a number of Mixed Martial Arts Leagues, have been acquired by, and folded into, the Ultimate Fighting League. You win your fights because you train hard, fight scientifically and have the best support team in the league. And all that racist bullshit you had to put up with when you were younger is now gone.
Everything but one. The victory howl.
Every time you win a bout, the fans expect a victory howl. Among the Taymay, a youngling will howl if they are lost. The Taymay will howl in mourning, or in challenge, or as a call for a tribe to rally. There is no such thing as a victory howl.
But here you are, stuck with the victory howl.
You make good money fighting, have done a few commercials, and even had a cameo appearance on The Big Bang Theory.
The money is good, but it's not great. You have heard rumors of great money to be had. But those fights truly are unlimited, where fang and claw come to the aid of strength and skill. And the whispered offer suggests that just one fight in this secret league would pay as much as you have earned legitimately in your entire fighting career.
You decided not to think about it until your last fight was over. But now that you're last fight is over, you have to think about it.
You go into your dressing room and find someone waiting for you.
(Who is waiting for you?)
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