Chapter 47: Stubborn

“No way,” Davis stammered. “You…you can’t be standing…not…not after taking all that!”

“You ought to know by now, Davis…” Jackson spoke, “…even if you had shot me through the brain…” she drew back her arm, “…I would still have beaten you!”

She smashed into Davis’s, slamming her to the ground.

Davis started to rise, only for Jackson to knee her in the stomach, tossing her across the arena.

“Oh you’ve really done it now!” Davis screamed as she steadied herself back onto her feet. “Power: Secess—gahh!”

Davis howled in anguish as she grabbed at the side of her head.

A concussion? Davis thought with a snarl. From all those damn headbutts of hers!

“Pow—” Davis tried again, but winced at the overwhelming pain flowing into her brain. She tried opening her mouth one more time, only for Jackson to slam into her torso, flinging her away.

Polk let out a small sigh of relief from the stands.

“I was worried for a second there, but it looks like Jackson is finally ready to finish things off for good.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Pierce spoke cautiously. “I know Jackson is a stubborn fighter, but the same could be said of Davis as well. After all, even after her entire army surrendered itself against the forces of Lincoln…”

Davis rose off the ground, her blue eye shining with rage.

“…Davis refused to back down.”

Jackson threw out a punch. Davis growled as she stepped forward and swiveled underneath Jackson’s swinging arm, then gave a sharp strike to Jackson’s exposed back.

Jackson turned around to face her opponent, receiving a swift punch to her chest as she did. Jackson took the hit without losing any ground, then countered with a vicious uppercut to Davis’s chin, launching her into the air. Jackson leapt up after her, readying a follow up strike.

Davis gritted her teeth and twisted herself midair as Jackson hurtled towards her, launching an attack of her own as Jackson threw her punch. The two blows struck each other simultaneously, flinging the fighters to opposite ends of the arena. They both shot up from the ground, sprinting to one another before colliding at the arena’s center.

The two unleashed attack after bloody attack against one another, neither of them even bothering to dodge any of the blows coming their way. At this point, the only thing either of them cared about was landing their next hit.

“Amazing!” Thompson shouted as the fight raged on below, “I thought these two were at their limit before, but they just keep on going!”

“That might be true for now,” Truman spoke hesitantly, “but they’re only mortal after all. Sooner or later, one of them must fall…”

The grueling slugfest continued on the ground below; the two battered fighters refusing to show even the slightest sign of weakness to their opponents.

Then, after an agonizingly long minute of relentless torment, the fight came to a sudden halt.

It all began with Jackson delivering a blow to Davis’s head. The attack was no different from any of the other punches she had thrown previously in the match. However, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back; the blow which ultimately forced Davis’s aching mind to unconsciously shut itself down despite her overwhelming drive to keep on going.

And so, Davis fell to the side, her eyes rolling back into her head as she lost consciousness. At the same time, Jackson, having achieved her goal of knocking out Davis, felt Trail of Tears automatically deactivate itself from her, returning her back to her unenhanced form.

Then, in that small, crucial window; the President inside Davis’s Seal took control of Davis’s unconscious body.

Davis’s body spun itself around, delivering a roundhouse kick to the now vulnerable Jackson, smashing her into the ground with a heavy crash. Davis’s body steadied itself as it landed on its feet and hung itself over Jackson’s motionless body.

“T-Time out!” Taft shouted, making his way to the fighters. He examined Jackson and, to his dismay, found her to be unconscious.

Taft rose up and looked at Davis, taking in her strange, dangling frame.

Could it be?

Taft reached out a hand towards Davis, only for her body to unconsciously flick it out of the way. Taft clicked his tongue.

I guess she’s conscious after all, he thought, then struck down his gavel to the ground.

“The match,” he spoke wearily, “is over! The winner is…” he swallowed hard. “The winner is…[The Mephistopheles of the South]…Jennifer…Davis…”

The crowd let out a roar of boos together with screams of foul play. But amidst all their cries, not a single soul in the audience suspected that Davis was no longer conscious as her body shuffled out of the arena.

In the commentary box, Thompson threw her mic to the ground.

“Well,” she snarled at Truman, “it looks like your girl Jackson didn’t win the match after all, huh?”

Truman clenched his fists, then picked up his walkie talkie.

“Hayes! I want you to go and get your best men together and have them comb through every scrap of security footage we have here on Davis.”

Hayes didn’t respond for a moment.

“I take it then,” she finally spoke up, “that you’re trying to find a lead as to who Davis’s Confederate might really be?”

“Exactly! It’s not an ideal scenario, but if we can find some evidence as to who gave her that Seal of hers, then we can rightfully kick her out of the tournament while maintaining at least a partial sense of our credibility.”

“That is a reasonable plan…” Hayes mumbled, “…but I don’t think Davis is the only one we should be tracking. In particular, I’d recommend spending about half our resources digging up what we can on our primary suspects for her Confederate.”

“Primary suspects? Who all are you talking about?”

“There’s two people in particular I have in mind,” Hayes went on. “The first is Andre Johnson. While it is true that Johnson fought against Davis back in the day, the two always struck me as having similar sets of values, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the two have been working together ever since the night of Johnson’s betrayal of the National Union Party.”

“That makes sense to me,” Truman agreed. “And in that case, I guess we really ought to prioritize our attention on Johnson given that him and Davis will be facing each other in the second round.”

“Exactly! If those two really are colluding together, then we’ll need to figure it out before one of them has the chance to give up their match.”

“What about the other suspect you mentioned? Are they also close to Davis in the bracket?”

“Indeed they are,” Hayes replied with a light chuckle. “My second suspect; the one I’m most suspicious of if I’m being perfectly honest…is one of the fighters in the very next match…”

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Shot me Through the Brain. A famous duel of Andrew Jackson involved him giving his opponent the chance to shoot first, after which Andrew carefully aimed his own gun against him and shot him dead. Sometime later Andrew said that “if he had shot me through the brain, I should still have killed him.” This duel is also referenced at the very start of the fight when Andrea Jackson allows JD to get the first hit against her.

Nullification. This fight is partially based off the nullification crisis which took place during Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Essentially, this crisis occurred after South Carolina declared that they should be able to nullify any federal laws that they didn’t like, throwing the entire concept of the national union into jeopardy. Andrew Jackson fought hard against the nullifiers, at one point declaring “Our Federal Union, it must be preserved!” at a party attended by several of the lead nullifiers. He would eventually succeed in quelling this crisis, but ultimately failed to resolve the underlying sectional issues that would later blaze into the Civil War.