Introduction

The Lioness Queen's Confession

They call me the Lioness Queen.

I like this title. Not because of the word "Queen", but because of the lioness. Lionesses are the best fighters in the pride – they hunt, they protect, they tear apart anything that stands in their way with teeth and claws. But I have no pride. I alone am an army.

My name is Merlin Isabella. Nineteen years old. Long golden hair, blue-green eyes. I never tie my hair up – not during training, not during matches, not even when I sleep. It just falls loose, flowing from my crown down to my waist, like a golden waterfall, like a flag without a pole. My manager says an opponent could grab my hair. I say let them try – the last person who grabbed my hair had their wrist locked for three months, and they still carry the mark of my teeth.

I don't need to tie my hair back. Tying it back means being afraid of pain, afraid of mess, afraid of getting in the way. And I am afraid of nothing.

I have a bright smile. I'm not bragging – everyone says so. But that smile isn't social politeness, it isn't pretend happiness. It's because I genuinely think that being alive is worth smiling about. Smile when a rib breaks. Smile when I lose a match. Smile when my dad kicks me out of the house. Smiling doesn't make the pain disappear, but it lets the pain know who's in charge.

I'm a rich girl. A Merlin – that Merlin. But don't get me wrong – I'm not standing here because of my last name. I'm standing here because of my fists. When I was seven years old, I stepped onto a wrestling mat for the first time. That soft floor, smelling of sweat – the moment my feet touched it, I knew: this is it for life. Not because my family forced me, not because I was angry at anyone. I chose it myself.

Everything else in my life was given to me by someone else. My last name from my father. The mansion from my father. Even the white horse I had as a child – bought by my father. Only fighting is mine. I train in wrestling, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, MMA – everything, and I'm good at everything. Not talent. I just refuse to sleep until I master it. People say a rich girl can't take hardship. I laugh. They've never seen me in the gym at four in the morning – golden hair soaked and plastered to my face, hand wraps dark with sweat, my breathing as rough as a bellows, but I'm still smiling, because it's worth it.

They've never seen me lose, either. I have lost. I have lost badly. The taste of blood in my mouth, salt and iron. Knees numb from hitting the canvas. The referee raising my opponent's hand while the whole arena chants someone else's name. And then? Then I get up. Wipe my face clean. Toss my loose hair back behind my shoulders. Go home. Train again the next day. Not because it doesn't hurt – because I chose this road, and even if I have to crawl, I'll finish it. And I never crawl.

I have a younger sister. Nami Rose. Two years younger, a boxer. She's more arrogant than me, more willful, and a hundred million times cuter. Every time I fight, she screams from the audience: "Don't embarrass me, sis!" And when I win, she's the first one to run into the cage, jump on my back, grab my hair, and say "Not bad. Still a little worse than me." Then she makes a funny face at the camera, as if she's the one who won. That's my sister. The loudest, most annoying, most-punchable-but-I-can't-bring-myself-to-punch-her little brat in the world. I won't say much about her, because this is my story, not hers – but you should know: she's one of the very few people I'd turn my back to.

And then there's someone else. My ex-girlfriend. Forget it. I won't go into details. I can only say this: I smile through everything – wins, losses, injuries, getting thrown out of my home. I can smile through all of it. But when I think of her, I can't smile. So I take all the things I can't smile about and punch them into my opponents' bodies. Every punch says the same thing: I don't need you. And every punch proves that sentence is a lie.

This is my war. Not revenge. Not a comeback. Not proving anything to anyone. I just want to know – if I didn't have the Merlin name, if no one paved the road for me, if all I had was my golden hair, my fists, and my smile – could I stand at the highest place on my own? And if not? Then try again. I don't have much, but I have time and I have fists. Plenty of both.

I am the Lioness Queen. A lioness doesn't need a pride.

I alone am an army. Golden hair loose and flying, never tied back, trailing behind me like a golden wake. Fists raised. Smiling. One comes, I beat one. Two come, I beat both.

One sentence to sum me up:
My golden hair isn't meant to be grabbed – it trails behind me like a road, so everyone knows where I came from and where I'm going.

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Start of membership: 2026-05-15