Growing up different is hard - even a six-year old Sefu Zari knew that. That’s why Sefu stood up to a kid twice his height and size in an Egyptian classroom twenty-two years ago, when one of Sefu’s classmates got a tooth knocked loose by the upper school boys. Nobody suspected that Sefu would not just stand his ground but would actually win the fight, or that a mere ten years later he would be one of the greatest prizefighters to come out of Egypt. Sefu made money - quite a bit of it, in fact - but he was an odd child, and would only take half of his winnings for himself. With the other half, he went door to door in the poorer neighborhoods and handed out Egyptian pounds like pamphlets, one per house when he was lesser-known and had less money himself. As he became more and more popular, he hired someone to go door to door for him, saying that it was “from an anonymous source”. He didn’t need recognition. He didn’t want it.

But fate’s a bitch sometimes, a real bitch. Flash forward to a year ago, when Sefu was twenty-eight. During one of his fights, Sefu got a piercing migraine, like a lightning bolt was frying his brains. He went down without throwing a punch. Doctors looked at him, and they found the cause: grade three brain cancer. A little malignant tumor was nesting in Sefu’s skull, and in nine months the parasite would down the mighty Egyptian fighter for the last time. Chemo and surgery could stave off the disease, but couldn’t erase it - Sefu Zari’s life was on a timer.

Four months in, and Sefu had given up fighting altogether and became a social worker, donating his spare time to multiple charities throughout Cairo. He had denied treatment to enjoy the little time he had left. But fate’s funny in a twisted sense, and sent a man from Zambia his way, a man covered in tribal tattoos, with a bald head and no eyebrows. The man from Zambia said that he was a real fan of Sefu’s work, and that the diagnosis was a shame. Sefu nodded his thanks, and admitted that he had grown tired of fighting anyway. The Zambian man sighed and shook his head, and said that that was an even greater shame. “I have a cure for your condition,” the man said, “but you will need to fight for it to work.” Sefu refused at first, but the man kept insisting, and Sefu gave in. He followed the man.

The Zambian man was a witch doctor, a spirit man of old, and what he did changed Sefu’s life forever. Using ancient incantations long forgotten, the Zambian man bound the soul of a great serpent to Sefu’s body, a spirit by the name of Grootslang. The Zambian man said that the Grootslang feeds off illness and negativity and badness, and that as long as Sefu could release that negativity in the form of battle, the cancer would not harm him. After seeing this great power, Sefu asked how he could fight anyone if he now had much more power than the average man. The Zambian man said, “Go to the RHG. It is the gathering place of those who are too strong to be accepted by regular folk.”

So now Sefu fights with the Grootslang and the progression of his illness is halted, but the Grootslang is the antithesis of what Sefu stands for. Where Sefu is naturally cheerful, fun-loving and down-to-earth, the Grootslang is conniving, sociopathic and filled with spite. How long Sefu can keep the Grootslang in check is anyone’s guess…