The pilot suffered from extreme motion sickness and a fear of flying. Every transatlantic flight he spent tightly gripping the yoke with one hand, clutching his stomach with the other. White knuckled and pale faced. This was his 100th such flight, and he left the plane's autopilot to do its job long enough to toast a flute of champagne with the copilot and get a lap dance from a young stewardess stripped down to her panties. For the first time in the air, for a moment, he felt fine.

It was seven hours into the trip. The in-flight movie was The Last Starfighter in French with English subtitles. Rommel had already completed the crossword in every copy of Sky Magazine in every seatback pouch on the plane, the latter copies more a test of endurance than intellect. He'd finished a dozen little bottles of Crown, Jack and Johnny, but couldn't maintain a buzz. Only one music channel worked on his head set, light jazz. He'd converted the headset into a slingshot, and fired snack mix components (chex, pretzels, raisins, and those little log things nobody likes) at the flight attendants until he got caught and they took both snack mix and headphones away from him.

Yes, he was bored. Thumb twiddling, sweater knitting, chain smoking bored. He needed to pick a fight.

He got up from his seat, deftly squeezing past the sleeping woman next to him, and wandered up and down the aisles looking for nothing in particular. The art of the fight wasn't in the fighting, but in the picking of the fight. To be correct it was the fight that picked the fighters, not the other way around.

Fight, as an entity, paced the aisles along with Rommel, sometimes next to him, sometimes opposite. It was searching for a place where it could propagate, a circumstance in which it could be made visible.

A man spilled coffee on his neighbor. Elbows bumped each other. One woman was reading over the shoulder of another thumbing through Hustler. Somebody thoughtlessly kicked the seat in front of them.

Rommel hopped back. A huge Norse-looking guy had spit at his shoe. A little too obvious, thought Fight, but it'll have to do.

The spit absorbed slowly into the already speckled carpet. Rommel gazed at it, one eyebrow arched. Busker looked up.

Murmurs spread throughout the plane as flight attendants took bets and pointed out emergency exits, just in case. The large Norseman, Blondie (as he will forever be remembered), stepped into the aisle, golden locks brushing the ceiling. He slid a machete out of the sheath on his back, and placed it in an overhead bin. Busker pulled out his Jerichos, and placed them next to the machete, noting bloodstains on the blade.

“You should really wipe that off when you're done with it.”

“Nah, it adds personality,” said Blondie.

The copilot trotted back from the cockpit wearing a black and white striped referee shirt and blowing a whistle. Three stewardesses cartwheeled from the rear service area with pompoms. They pulled megaphones from between the defibrillator and first aid kit.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” spoke the captain over the intercom, speech a little slurred from the champagne, a little distracted by the stewardess who had moved on to steps beyond lap dancing, “from the city we have The Iceman…Rommel Busker…” applause “and from parts unknown, Blondie the Mauler…” boos “Gentlemen, start your engines.” Nobody seemed to notice the mixed sports metaphor.

Blondie swung first, a sweeping haymaker that was faster than it looked. Busker ducked under it and came up to plant the heel of his hand under Blondie's chin, but the large man proved more agile than physics should have permitted. He flipped back once, easily dodging the blow. A mad grin took hold of Busker's face, reflected back by Blondie.

The two men threw punches and kicks and elbows and knees, connecting only with air (except for once when Busker “accidentally” hit a lawyer talking on his cell phone about yachting). One hour, two hours, three. They spun and skipped and flipped like dancers or street performers. Vendors walked around selling peanuts, Bud Light and cotton candy. Little kids had their faces painted in bright colors. Rommel Busker and Blondie caps and t-shirts were sold from the flight attendants' cart. A little girl sold programs for ten bucks. She was almost sold out. There was a long line outside the lavatory.

“This is your captain speaking, we're about to start our initial descent to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I'm turning on the fasten seatbelt light, so you'll need to remain seated for the remainder of the flight.” Ding, went the seatbelt light.

Groans and moans spread throughout the cabin. The vendors disappeared to parts of the plane unknown. Flight attendants picked up trash, and people got back in their seats, but all eyes remained fixed on the fighters.

“Looks like this is over,” said Blondie.

“Hey, it's never over,” said Busker.

He squeezed his hand into a tight fist and slid forward slowly. The air started swirling around him, speeding up gradually, until a mighty wind was ripping through the plane. Empty packages of pretzels and cocktail napkins twisted through the air like autumn leaves in a storm. Still, the wind increased. The pressure change triggered the oxygen masks to fall. Secure your own mask before helping anybody else, a generality for all instances of mask wearing. The roar of the air inside drowned out the engines. Then Busker's arm disappeared. Just as quickly, it flashed back into existence, extended an inch past where Blondie's chest had been, and Blondie, all seven feet of him, was sprawled out in the aisle. He coughed, and a drop of blood streaked from the corner of his mouth down his cheek. The air was quiet again, except for the hiss from the little twisty vents.

The passengers cheered. Somebody started the wave.

Rommel grabbed his guns from the overhead compartment (no longer next to the machete, having shifted in flight) and sat down. Somebody splashed water on Blondie's face, and he slowly got to his knees, crawled to his seat.

He said, “There's always somebody faster.”

“Bigger, stronger…” said Rommel, trailing off.

Later, in the cockpit with the captain and the naked stewardess, Rommel asked, “Did you become a pilot to conquer your fear of flying?”

“More like I wanted to spite it,” answered the pilot.

“Yeah. I get that.”

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Next: it's not what you do that matters, but the style with which it is executed