Volume 01, Story 11
Mario Kart night at Chino’s gets interrupted the way it always does: a doorknob nobody bothered to lock, and Thomas walking in like he owns the place, which he doesn’t. He’s got an offer: an underground Kumité happening somewhere below Chinatown, part Fight Club, part UFC, invite-only. Nobody needs convincing. The crew, Chino, Homeboy, and Chuy, follows him past a Bruce Lee statue they bow to with genuine reverence and down a staircase that smells like old soy sauce, into a black-market bazaar of knockoff electronics, questionable meat, and a furious old duck vendor who wants to know who’s going to pay for the roast duck Chuy just ate straight off the spit, bones and all. Is this your dog? That’s racist! Thirty dollars later (twenty, plus a five-dollar asshole tax and a five-dollar lucky-I-don’t-call-the-police tax), Thomas is square with her and asking Chuy for a leg. Down in the pit arena, ringed with bleachers and reeking of sweat and rust, a man with molten fists is dismantling a werewolf while an Asian dwarf in a crimson silk jacket sidles up and tries to buy Chuy for the roster. How much for your dog? He’s not for sale.
Then Ingrid arrives, statuesque, radiant, Thomas’s girlfriend, to watch her brother fight, and no, not the hairy one. Backstage, the Mountainous Man turns out to be Hugo, mid-argument with a pudgy manager in thick glasses, and Ingrid steps between them like a peacekeeping queen and talks them both down. Introductions all around. And then, across the backstage chaos, Chuy spots two more familiar faces: Uncle Rob and Killian, here to win the big prize money, Killian as Uncle Rob’s self-described guinea pig. The plan is chemical: a vape pen loaded with Psycho Crusher, Uncle Rob’s newest strain (Hydroken lost the naming poll), and Killian’s job is to inhale as deep as he can for a full ten seconds, which he does while flipping Uncle Rob off the entire time. In the pit, Killian’s opponent is a wiry man in a crisp gi whose arms stretch across the ring like rubber bands of doom, and for most of the fight Killian is getting dismantled on what Homeboy confidently misdiagnoses as the rope-a-dope. Then the Psycho Crusher lands: Killian’s eyes flare white, light spills out of his mouth like a divine belch, his hands and feet ignite, and one casual roundhouse launches a glowing orb that folds the stretchy man in half against the far wall. Winner by divine surprise.
Between fights the night tilts sideways. A messenger kid sprints up with a note for Thomas (We have your girlfriend. Ha Ha Ha.) and bolts, and Thomas and Chino chase him through a filthy alley into a brick building where three shadowy figures with glowing hands are waiting, and Chino screams. Meanwhile Homeboy and Chuy, deep in ramen bowls back at the stall, have no idea any of this is happening. Homeboy’s big contribution to the evening is mistaking a stranger’s bathroom suffering for Chino’s and advising him, through the stall door, not to push too hard or he’ll shit his culo out. When Chino comes to, he’s shackled to a concrete wall alongside Thomas and Ingrid, and the man towering over them is General Pain, leader of the Kali Dojo, built like The Rock ate another wrestler. He wants the prize money and Hugo’s forfeit, and he’s holding all three of them as the argument. Chino’s response to imminent death is to roast the man’s name (Mediocre Pain? Dull Pain?), demand a bowl of rice for his last meal, and stall for time by making a minion scroll through hundreds of photos of women on his phone looking for the right one. (Bullshit you dated this many women. Don’t judge me!) Uncle Rob, back at the arena, gets the same treatment via kid-delivered note, forfeit the final match or your friends die, and responds by handing Homeboy the Psycho Crusher pen with instructions for Chuy: one hit, that’s it, and have it back before the last match.
Chino’s bowels break the siege. Mid-standoff he announces he needs to cagar, and then, in front of General Pain, Thomas, Ingrid, and an audience of minions, he simply lets it happen. The smell triggers Thomas, which triggers Ingrid, which triggers General Pain himself, and within a minute the entire room is vomiting in a chain reaction. Into that precise moment of total biological collapse, the door explodes inward and a body sails through it, followed by more bodies, followed by Chuy, glowing white with Psycho Crusher and roaring like primal fury, with Homeboy right behind him shouting Let them go! General Pain, eyes watering, wants nothing on earth more than for these people to leave: Take them! I don’t want to see them ever again! They’re unchained in seconds. Chino walks out in a wide-legged shuffle that Homeboy diagnoses instantly. Back at the staging area, Killian discovers his vape pen is empty (Chuy smoked it all) and tells Uncle Rob exactly what he thinks of him, flipping him off with both hands on the way into the pit for a final he has to fight stone-cold sober-ish. The night ends at the apartment: Chino in a pink robe and bunny slippers with a towel on his head, Mary Jane wishing she’d been there for all of it, and Homeboy summing up the evening with total accuracy: It was a shit ton of fun.
Featuring Chino, Homeboy, Chuy, Thomas, General Pain, Uncle Rob, Killian, Ingrid, Mary Jane, Hugo, Hugo’s Manager, Chinese Duck Vendor, Asian Dwarf, Werewolf Fighter, Wiry Stretch Fighter.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 01