"That was great, Lance!" Ilana said as he came towards the table after the performance was done, another band took the stage after their set and was now playing.
"Yeah, that was totally rad." Hannah said handing him a plate of fries. "Might be a bit cold."
"Thanks."
"Very good show, Lance." Newton complimented.
"Yeah, that was pretty cool." Jason said with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"Great job, Lance." Kimmy cheered.
"Thanks." There was a voice on the microphone; the crowd looked up to the stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, for a special request, for our last song we'd like to invite all of our couples out there to come to the center of the room." He announced.
"Come on, Newton." Kimmy said dragging him by his arm.
"Want to check it out?" Jason asked.
"Sure." Ilana said, they walked forward with their hands intertwined. Lance sat down with a twisted face as he watched Jason and Ilana dancing to the slow love song that was playing now.
"You okay?" Hannah asked, sitting next to him.
"Huh, yeah…" He responded. Hannah looked around; they were pretty much the only ones still sitting.
"Come on." The girl stood up and stared at him with her deep, sea green eyes.
"What?"
"Let's dance."
"Why?" He asked.
"Because, we're all alone over here by ourselves, no sense in that." Lance didn't respond for a second. "It's just a dance, I won't give you cooties. Come on." She took his hand and rushed up to where everyone else was. Eric stopped in his tracks, behind their table and watched.
"So, uh… what do we do now?" Lance asked.
"I donno…" She took the teen's hand, he tensed slightly, but soon relaxed. "My dad taught me this, it's totally retro, just take my hands…" Lance clasped both of her hands, and they slowly moved forward and backwards, then Hannah pulled away one of her hands, allowing Lance to spin her around. "Yeah, now you're getting it." Lance managed a smile.
Hannah moved forward, and intertwined the hold of her arm with Lance's and they walked around in circle for a moment, Hannah stared at Lance's muscular arms. Next, she stepped back, Lance did the same thing, and they immediately came back together in their original position. "This is kinda fun…" Lance said.
"Yeah." Hannah spun around and bumped into a large teen with a pink and red Mohawk. "Sorry."
"Watch it." He grunted, stopping his dancing, his girlfriend watched eagerly to see how he would react, then stared at Lance and Hannah.
"I didn't mean to bump you, man." She said.
"Well, you did."
"Hey, back off." Lance said, stepping in.
"You wanna back off?" The punk said, towering over Lance.
"Excuse me? She only bumped into you, take it easy. It was an accident."
"So is this." The punk shoved Hannah and Lance onto the floor with both of his hands. His girlfriend started laughing. Lance helped Hannah up, and then walked up to the man.
"You wanna take this outside?" Lance gritted through his teeth.
"Bring it. Come on babe." He said, the four teens left the building and stood in the stone brick path under the cool night.
"You should think twice before pushing us down like that…" Lance said, blood fully boiling.
"Make me…" He pushed him again, Lance grabbed his arm before it touched town, and quickly swung it around and bent it the opposite direction. The punk cried out in pain, after a moment of gathering himself, he sent a full sized fist towards Lance. The young soldier sidestepped, grabbed his arm, and deflected the teen's other hand as it came towards his lower gut.
With one swift movement, he pushed off of both of his arms and jumped into the air, and sent his foot flying into the Mohawk's lower jaw, then pulling a back flip to land swiftly on his feet. He watched with satisfaction as he fell backwards. Some more guys came outside from the bar. "Help, he just beat up Rocko!"
"We saw…" One of the three guys said. "Come on." He grabbed Hannah's shoulder, she quickly grabbed his wrist and stomped on his foot. Then she sent a quick fist into his chin and pushed him down. Then backed away towards Lance.
"Nice…" Lance admired.
"My dad taught me a thing or two…"
"One thing though, you're gunna want to improve your stance, legs spread apart, slightly crouched. Lance walked up to the next guy as he charged, he crouched his legs and spread them slightly apart with a very sturdy looking stance. Then he kicked his leg forward at the man's shin, and as he fell forward, grabbed his shoulder with one hand and punched his gut with the other. Then, raised his other leg and kneed him in the chest, then swiftly pushed him aside. Hannah copied Lance's stance.
"This good?"
"Yeah, like that." He said. The last of the grunts ran forward, holding a long metal pipe. Lance grabbed the pipe with one hand and twisted it out of his hand. Disarmed, he threw a punch at the solder, which was blocked with Lance's wrist. Frustrated, he swung a series of punches, all deflected with only one of Lance's arms. "See, with proper stance, my center of gravity is balanced, and it's a lot harder to knock me down. The boy stopped punching and ran forward to tackle.
He simply sidestepped and left his opponent diving onto the ground. "I can also evade very easily." The other two men got up and got back in the fight. Hannah took stance, and deflected a punch with her forearm like Lance had, then pushed away both of her opponent's hands and let two punches as hard as she could. "Don't put all of your energy into one blow, concentrate on leaving your opponent defenseless, then use a series of many quick, but powerful attacks.
Lance kicked high enough to block a punch, then knocked the other arm away from his chest, leaving his body fully exposed, he then let out multiple punches, and pushed the man down when he was done. "I can get more damage done with a lot of quick blows, versus a few powerful ones. Your last hit should be with everything you've got."
Hannah went to block another opponent's blow, but he caught her wrist before she could. Without hesitation, he started twisting it, and let a few quick blows of his own onto the girl. She fell to the floor, before she could get up, he kicked her in the ribs. Lance's instincts kicked in, he ran towards them at full speed and tackled the man as he was about to kick again. While on the floor, he got underneath his opponent and kept him in a chokehold until he went unconscious.
"You okay?" He asked, helping Hannah up.
"Not really, but I'll be fine…" She groaned.
"We should get out of here, before the police show up. I'll text Ilana, we can take my car… everything's already packed up in the van, they can take that home." Lance said, grabbing Hannah's arm and slowly making their way to the car. "Sorry I had to drag you into that…" Lance said. "I shouldn't have fought back."
"No, he started it… I just messed up, that's all."
"You did a good job, though."
"Well, my dad said I needed to learn to defend myself, since I'd be growing up alone pretty much."
"Yeah, you've got the general concept down… there's a lot to learn, though. I could teach you, if you want."
"Sure, maybe later…"
"Yeah, of course." Lance said, helping her in the car, then heading over to his side.
. . .
"What happened?" Eric asked, helping up his friends.
"Rocko bumped into them, and brought them outside, just like we planned… that Lance guy took him down… like nothing I've ever seen, he beat the crud out of us. He took Hannah home."
"That son of a…" Eric gritted though his teeth. "Who does he think he is, roughing up my boys? Stealing my girl… this is personal between me and him…"
