Bloody Roar III: Reunited by Chance, a Reflection of the Past
By Tiger5913
Chapter 6
A Reluctant Inception - Alan and Jenny's battle
Rarely crossing paths before,
They're now forced to battle.
Slowly turning to face each other
They raise their fists for the
Indication to start the fight.
It didn't take very long to catch up to the slower-speeded insectoid zoanthrope. As the older couple jogged over the crisp green grass, deeper into the forestry of the park, past countless trees and shrubbery, they came to a stop as soon as their opponent did. The area that the three of them were now in was clothed in the black of the night, and faint light was struggling against the darkness for room, but was losing. While the weak lighting was making it a bit hard for Stun and Alan to see, at the same time, it was to Jenny's nocturnal animal advantage.
Coming to a stop, not even feeling breathless, the bat zoanthrope smoothed out her dark blue top and long black leggings, glad that she wasn't wearing her one of her usual mini-dresses. Tucking a thick strand of her newly dyed silver, but still short hair behind her ear, she looked over at her spouse.
Alan blended in with his surroundings pretty well with the exception of his spiky red hair; he wore a dark green sleeveless shirt and pants. In front of them stood Stun, slightly resembling a GI-Joe army recruit with his forest green outfit and the numerous bandages wrapped around his body.
Breaking the silence, Alan questioned the other male reasonably, "Why are you working for Xion?"
Stun merely hissed a reply.
"We know you are capable of speaking, Dr. Goldberg," Jenny added, rolling her eyes in exasperation.
He didn't provide a verbal answer, just hissed at them again.
"Do you think he is under Xion's control?" The red-haired man whispered to his partner.
"Well, I would hate to find out that he was acting this way of his own will…" was her quiet reply.
Without warning, Stun lunged at Alan, lifting the lion zoanthrope over his shoulder and slamming him headfirst onto the ground behind. Immediately, Jenny was onto him; she leapt into the air and kicked at her opponent's face multiple times. After the fourteenth strike, she bounced off from the attack, slamming him to the floor while she landed, letting out a loud whoop as she did so.
By the time she'd executed her tech, her husband was already back in a standing position, and had hurriedly slipped a pair of brass knuckles over each of his fists. Following her attack, he picked Stun up from the floor by his neck; while doing so, Alan felt his hand wrap touch something thick. Squinting at the object, all he could make out was that it was dark-colored and wrapped around Stun's neck.
Turning his attention away from the circular thing and saying to his opponent, "I'm sorry, but Jenny and I reserve the right to defend ourselves," the lion zoanthrope punched the green tinted figure square in the face, knocking him down again.
His red eyes glowing with anger, the insectoid zoanthrope darted foreword, despite his lack of agility, and cross-slashed at the red-haired man's chest with his metallic claws, ripping through the dark green fabric. Looking over behind his shoulder and spotting Jenny running toward him, Stun hastily slammed the ground with one fist.
The woman stumbled from the impact, temporarily set back. Agitated with her attempt to disrupt him, he reached down low and grabbed one of her slim legs. He threw her high into the air and watched as she stopped going up and started pummeling down toward the earth. Seeing that his wife was in danger, Alan went to try and catch her, but there was no need for that.
A few yards above ground, Jenny unhooked her weapon from her waist and lashed it out at a tree. It wound several times around a thick branch, and she caught the momentum, swinging her body over and then under the branch. Landing carefully, the silver-haired woman yanked her long, thin whip back, retracting it into the palm of her hand.
"Impressive," Alan commented earnestly.
She flashed him a smile and replied, "Thank you."
While the couple was talking, they didn't notice that Stun was rushing toward Alan. When he was only a few inches away, the bandaged fighter head-butted his opponent, morphing in the process, throwing the both of them to the ground with his attack.
Green plated beetle scales replaced his features and his face expressions were even more concealed in the transformation. Stun quickly got back up and pounced on the still-down lion zoanthrope; pinning the red-haired man to the ground, he lowered his face toward Alan's neck.
Before he could try to drain his opponent's blood, Jenny hastily went toward the insect, light and dark brown fur starting to grow from her entire body as she ran. After her clothes dissolved into the fur, large supersonic ears formed on the top of her head and thick skin appeared under her arms, attaching to her waist. Finishing her morph with her wings, the newly transformed bat knocked Stun up into the air with one leg and then kicked him across the clearing.
As her opponent was flipping back into a standing position, Jenny dashed at him and the second he stood up, she lunged at him and sank her sharp fangs into his neck. Stepping away after a moment, she wiped the excess blood away from her mouth with the fur of her arm and watched as the dark red liquid drops fell silently to the floor.
I'm the only one that does the blood sucking around here, the female bat thought. Especially if it is on my own husband…
Giving her a grateful look, Alan tightened his brass knuckles, then pounded the stone concrete with his legs as light flashed off of him. Blazing red fur grew from his body and his face bulged out to receive the muzzle of the lion. His teeth enlarged, stretching into longer, sharper objects while a red mane circled around his neck. As more muscles were added onto his arms and legs, the thin maroon-colored tail appeared and the small injuries that he had endured were starting to heal.
The minute he finished morphing, Alan dashed at his opponent, letting the brute lion's instincts take over him slightly. He leapt through the air and pounced at Stun, knocking the insect away with his vicious, pointy claws. Jenny fluttered her large bat wings and floated up, out of their way, yet still keeping her beast form's red eyes on the two fighting men.
Due to his tough defensive mechanism, Stun was able to get up rather quickly and he immediately ran toward the red-furred lion. Grabbing his opponent by the waist and charging foreword still, he pinned Alan to a nearby tree and forcefully smashed the back of his head against the hard bark. As soon as the feline zoanthrope fell to the floor, Stun reached down and grabbed him by the neck.
He threw his victim into a different tree across the area, and the strength of the blow was hard enough to make Alan paralyzed for a short while. Wasting no time, the insect flapped his green human-sized wings and darted straight at the stunned lion. After connecting hard with his opponent's chest and rib area, Stun threw him to roughly onto the dirt floor, while transforming out of his beast form.
Watching the situation, Jenny swooped down from the sky and drilled her sharp webbed feet into her foe's back. He stumbled a little from the attack as she floated back into the air, flying away from him. Turning to look at her husband shakily get up, thankfully still strong enough to maintain the lion's body, she smiled in relief.
Sky High Tempest. The bat quickly decided.
Jenny dive-bombed Stun, aiming for the top of his scalp; she grasped on tightly, swinging the protesting zoanthrope up over her head. She performed an air-combo on him, kicking at his helpless being, then tossed him down to the earth. As her bat features disappeared and were replaced by her normal human features, the silver-haired woman could no longer fly. Falling down after Stun, she landed on his ribs, somewhat accidentally stepping on them as she cried out a bit sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sorry!"
Just as her dark brown boots left his body and stepped off to click on the ground, Stun grabbed a hold of her leg and swung her into a tree several feet away. His back turned to Alan; he was oblivious of what the other male zoanthrope was doing. The maroon-furred lion stalked up behind the insect, and then without warning, knocked him up into the air with one punch. As Stun started to fall down, his face met with an elbow as Alan, now human, stretched out his arm.
After finishing his Beast Drive, he went over to his wife's side. His blood-red eyes now flashing with fury, Stun flipped up into a standing position and stalked toward the couple. All of a sudden, the three of them heard a crisp noise and the insectoid zoanthrope felt something pierce the side of his leg, cutting through the thick bandages.
Staggering from the pain, he looked at his green colored upper thigh and stared at what appeared to be a sharp spear attached to a long wooden rod. While he was trying to wrench it out, a swishing sound whispered nearby him and another object coincidentally sliced at the dark ring around his neck, breaking it into two. As the pieces and the stunned zoanthrope fell to the floor, so did the weapon that broke the ring: a small dagger, its blade glinting.
Looking up ahead, Alan saw two figures cloaked by the shadows and realizing who they were, exclaimed, "Jane! Long!"
Running foreword into one of the dim lights from a lamp in the park, his tall, blonde-haired daughter appeared in the view, her boyfriend jogging beside her.
"Father!" Jane called out as the couple sprinted toward him and Jenny. When they were just a few feet away, they stopped running.
"Are you two okay?" Jenny asked, quickly looking them over.
"Yeah, we're fine, just had to take care of Shenlong." The tomboy replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
"You are both hurt," Alan pointed out with paternal concern, noticing the bruises and small cuts on their face and arms.
"I will probably take a little while to recover," Long said. "But I will be alright."
"Same here," Jane added.
"I'll help her if she needs it," her boyfriend added.
Chuckling, Jenny commented, "So alike, right down to their slow healing speed."
They all laughed; they knew that Jane and Long weren't exactly as fast at healing as Uriko and Kenji were.
"Well, at least we're not still hyperactive teenagers like Uriko and Kenji," Jane protested jokingly.
"They're both a little smaller than us, but faster than all of us," Long commented, praising his disciple and the blue-haired ninja.
"Hey, speaking of the kitten, where is she?" Jane questioned suddenly. "Is she still back at the site with Alice, Yugo, and Kenji? And that evil guy who has pretty nice hair but a rotten attitude?"
The others laughed at her last remark as the Asian man teased her lightheartedly, "Oh? And what's wrong with my hair?"
"Absolutely nothing," his girlfriend replied with a grin, gently taking a hold of his long ponytail tied together with several red bands and pressing it delicately against her smooth cheek. Flushing a little, he gave her a small smile.
"…I don't mean to interrupt," Alan started saying. "But perhaps we should go look for Mademoiselle Uriko and the others."
"Father, you and your French accent," Jane commented, chuckling lightly. "Well, you are right about that though."
"Let's head back toward the center," Jenny suggested.
Her husband paused. "I think just two or three of us should go; I feel responsible for Steven's current condition." He looked back at the unconscious zoanthrope.
"We'll go ahead and investigate," his daughter said, gesturing toward Long and herself.
"I'll stay with you," the silver-haired woman told Alan when she saw him hesitating.
"All right. But be careful," he agreed, nodding to Jane. "Long, take care of my daughter."
"Father-!" She protested as Jenny started walking away from them, heading toward Stun.
"Jane, this is more dangerous than the battlefield that you went to nine years ago," her father insisted. "Just… keep an eye out for… each other then, okay?"
"I will not let Jane get hurt; I swear myself on that." The Kenpo master promised solemnly.
"You know, I really am capable of taking care of myself," she said, feeling a tad irritated. "Well, see you and Jenny later."
"Hey wait, don't you want this?" Jenny asked from a few feet away. She tossed the spear to the blonde tomboy.
After murmuring her thanks, Jane turned and rapidly walked off; looking apologetic, Long caught up to her and they had a whispered conversation amongst themselves. Letting out a heavy sigh, Alan shook his head, then went to his wife's side to check up on Stun.
End of Chapter 6