You've Got to Be Kidding Me!
Maria dodged backwards as the three kids stepped forward once more. The kids were tough little buggers, she'd give them that, but that was the extent of her compliments. They were definitely a tough group of opponents. She probably could handle them one-on-one, but that wasn't going to happen. Besides even if it was one-on-one...they were definitely weirdly strong opponents. Jiz had decent power and outstanding balance to be able to stand and dodge on his large ball. Tin's weird contortionist powers made it difficult to hit him in a vulnerable spot, so his defense was top-notch. The last one, Aki, had a fast spin to her movements, which allowed for easy escape and quick attacks. If they had a few more years to them they would definitely be tough opponents.
Aki began the attack first. "Acrobat Technique! Train Track Rotation!" Aki jumped up and landed on the ropes that Jiz had previously spread. She then began to spin about and zoom about on the rope. Using her leg muscles she would sometimes jump up and land on one of the higher ropes or lower ropes, making her movements a fast blur that no one could keep up with. Maria definitely couldn't watch her as she still had two other opponent's.
"Acrobat Technique!" began Tin, jumping backwards and grabbing onto another one of the ropes. His momentum carried himself back and bending the ropes, "Bender from A Slingshot!" The rope snapped forward and sent Tin flying towards Maria. He stretched his body, prepared a fast punch. He had a special pad on his hand, so his speed and strength were top-notch. He was demanding all of Maria's attention. Maria brought her guard up and absorbed the fast punch with both of her arms. Without skipping a beat Maria twisted around, lifting her arm up and bringing it down aiming for Tin's head. As she brought her fist down, she saw Jiz's red ball bounce into the path of her punch.
Her fist slammed into it and pushed it towards Tin's head, but the rubbery material of the ball absorbed most of the impact and it harmlessly pushed Tin out of the way. "Shit," Maria said as she realized that she had completely lost sight of Aki, who had been spinning around on the rope cage. She didn't dare take her eyes of the two young boys that were in front of her.
Tin and Jiz looked at each and nodded. "Bounce!" shouted Jiz quickly landing on his ball and using it force himself into the air again. "Roll!" replied Tin lowering himself to the ground and contorting himself into a smaller size, almost a ball and then rolling forward. "Spin!" finished off Aki from wherever she was. Maria looked up and saw Jiz coming back down, using the rope cage to change direction midair. Tin was coming in low, making it harder to avoid the two attacks. It all depended on where Aki was attacking from that would decide how effective of an attack this was.
Maria leapt into the air to avoid Tin's lower attack and then she brought her arms up to block Jiz's falling kick. Tin's rolled beneath her and she blocked Jiz's kick just like she had planned. However, she knew that wasn't the end and when she felt a powerful force slam into her back, she knew that Aki was behind it. "Three Side Attack, Three Way Impact!" Maria was forced forward and away from the three kids. She quickly regained her balance due to her many years of fighting and turned around to face them.
Three opponents. She had to admit it was definitely a good warm-up for Mashiba, who probably would've slaughtered them the instant they stepped into the ring. The three of them may equal one of Mashiba. After Shigoro it was nice to met someone who actually enjoyed fighting, even if it was three little kids. She felt her gut twist at that sentiment and she felt equally sick. Kids who enjoyed fighting? It seemed like the beginning of the end of the world already.
The three kids seemed to be slightly impressed with Maria's endurance and broke off, each of them dashing into their own direction. They all landed on the tightrope cage and sat down, all of them on a different side of Maria, forming a perfect triangle. Maria couldn't keep her eyes on both of them and had to continuously turn her head from one to the other to make sure none of them were launching a sneak attack.
"Over Head Roll!" shouted one of the kids. Maria turned around, recognizing the key word 'roll' and the voice. It was definitely Tin, the same person who did 'Roll' during the last combination attack. To her surprise, though, he was just sitting there smiling. Suddenly she felt a heavy kick to the back of her head again. She cursed herself as she realized it was nothing more than an elaborate feint. One of them distracted her attention, by pretending to launch an attack and shouting that he was doing so freeing up one of the other two, if not both, to launch an attack. Her vision was definitely becoming blurry from the consecutive attacks to the neck.
She shook her head and tried to calm down. She took a deep breath and bent down, she dug her fingers into the ground and pulled. She forced a chunk of the arena into the air. Then without second guessing herself, she chucked it over at one of the kids. She believed it was Jiz, but she didn't wait to find out. The instant the rock left her hand she charged off towards one of the other ones. They all seemed slightly distracted, their heads turned to Jiz to make sure he wasn't about to get knocked out.
Maria fired a punch and it hit home. She was fairly certain she hit the girl and knocked her back. She was forced back and off of the tightrope, she fell down, but managed to hook her legs around another rope before she fell into the pit that surrounded the ring. Maria wasn't about to take it easy on her now, she bent down and prepared another punch aimed straight for the poor girl's face. Immediately one of the other brother's leapt to her rescue. Tin wrapped his legs around Maria's arm preventing her punch from firing forward and then his two hands went forward and covered her eyes. Maria fumbled around a bit while the little boy tried his best to throw her off balance by grabbing her hair and then leaning back and forth causing her to stumble all around the arena.
Finally Maria had enough of it, she smashed her foot down in a desperate attempt to regain her balance and then her cold metal fingers snaked their way around the kid's stomach. She then sent him flying clear across the ring with all of her might. It probably would've been a ring-out if the blasted rope cage hadn't been there to catch him. She looked over at her three opponent's who had all regrouped and were probably preparing another team attack to take her down. It didn't bother Maria, she took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. The team attacks and separate attacks were a difficult problem to handle. She just needed to take them down and quick. She passed the first fight with flying colors, a quick victory over a particularly troublesome opponent and now she was having trouble with a couple of kids? The crowd must be laughing at her. They must've thought of her like some stupid brat.
She decided it was time to take this fight to the next level.
She charged off towards them, their stupid team attacks and distractions had given them the initiative for the entire fight so far, it wasn't going to happen again. She slammed her feet to a stop, and slid in between them, cutting the young girl off from her two brothers. A rapid flurry of punches rain down towards the poor girl, kicking up dust and dirt. The girl managed to dodge the blows with a bunch of flips and spins all of them specifically designed to avoid the medley of blows. Maria swept her leg across the ground, finally managing to catch the girl and knock her up into the air.
Maria brought her palm forward, catching the poor girl's gut and bringing it forward. She slammed the young girl forward and into the ground. There was probably a bone that broke upon impact from Maria's rough handling, but she didn't stop to listen. She pushed the girl aside using her foot and turned to her two brothers next.
They immediately dispersed, jumping up and landing on the rope cage and began rushing away in opposite directions. Maria didn't care, rather than chase after them she went forward, grabbing a hold of the ropes themselves, and shaking them vigorously. It sent shockwaves along the ropes and forced the kids off of it and made them fall to the ground with a loud smack as they hit the pavement.
Maria rushed off towards the contortionist Tin. She was more than eager to pay him back for grabbing her head and riding her like a donkey. She got close and swept her arm upwards for an uppercut. She felt it hit home and knock the young man up into the air. She wasn't done, yet. She jumped up and used one of the rung on the rope cage to jump even higher. She finally got close to the poor kid. She rotated her entire body around and fired a kick downwards, smashing the front of her foot into Tin's poor stomach, the kid's eyes went wide as he felt the powerful kick drive itself into his gut. He was slammed down towards the ground, hitting his back straight into the hard pavement. Maria landed and looked over her shoulders at him. She smirked as he didn't move, finally another one was knocked out. Now it was just a one-on-one.
She stopped and listened to the crowd for a second and wasn't pleased with what she was hearing. Apparently the kids were fairly popular and the crowd didn't seem too happy with her beating up on kids, many of them requesting their money back…except they used a colorful slur of curse words and other forms of unpleasant language.
Maria didn't care she turned and looked at her opponent, Jiz. The last kid, he was the one who put up this infernal rope cage trap. She was looking forward to tearing it down as well as him. She strode forward for the young kid, the kid froze for a second, but then he turned around and began to run. Maria chuckled, the kid was nowhere near as fast as she was. She went into a full sprint and caught up to him in a matter of seconds. Her leg came sweeping across the air, catching him in the head and knocking him back. She wasn't about to stop, they basically humiliated her in front of this crowd, she'll knock him out with the next attack though. She brought her entire body around, firing a single punch, but putting all of her strength and power behind it. It came crashing forward, smashing into Jiz's face and sending him flying backwards.
Maria lifted her arms up in victory. Her enthusiasm wasn't shared with the crowd. They were all mumbling about how the fight wasn't fair; it was just a bunch of kids being beat up by a cyborg. It wasn't interesting at all. Maria put her arms down and shrugged. She turned around to leave, but her eyes caught Trevor, who was sitting down in his little throne silently clapping as he stared at her like a starved dog. Maria fought back the urge to stick her tongue out at him or worse and just kept walking. She entered into her locker room without any further problems.
Starting the Escape
Uh…I originally wanted to do a couple of bonus chapters to celebrate the holidays…but what do you know! I got a lot of duties and responsibilities and other crap piled up on me, so no post last week and almost no post this week, but I pulled through! I'll try to post a bonus chapter next week…however, I still have some crap to take care of…here I thought when I was done with finals I'd get free time…