The Gymnasium was full of activity that day, a bustle of students moving to and fro across the broad, gleaming area. Some were trying, with the occasional grunt of failure, to pole vault over the high-bar and onto the blue mat beyond. Others were practicing acrobatics on a bar about 3 metres in diameter over another mat. A couple were even struggling around their 4th lap of the track, tracksuits soaked with the sweat of students working off too many study-snacks.
The majority of the population of the Gymnasium, however, was concentrated in its centre. It was there that the weight lifting equipment was being used and a little way off from that a Judo class was practicing. Everyone was absorbed in his or her own training. Even Engar was working, preparing his body for the physical strains he knew the Rumble would put upon him.
Engar was lying on his back, steadily pumping a dumbbell up and down with no sign of difficulty. On one side of the dumbbell Henry, one of the stronger college students Engar had come across, was trying unsuccessfully to keep the dumbbell down. On the other side Andrew, the strongest college student Engar had come across was attempting to do the same. Thus far, Engar was winning.
âEngar! Weâve come to knock some sense into your big head, you havenât a chance at the title!â
He sighed, still staring upwards towards the bright yellow lights that hung far above his head, and nodded towards the speaker.
âAndrew? Henry? You guys mind taking care of these clowns?â
The two nodded silently, slightly in awe of Engar, and lumbered off out of his sight. He had had quite a bit of attention since joining the Rumble and the two students, while still at the human level, were strong enough to keep most of the more foolish away. There were two dull, meaty thuds then the two re-entered his vision for a moment, sailing over his head. Engar blinked and sat up slowly - the mammoth weight of the dumbbell gripped in his left hand â in order to reassess his challengers. Apparantly these weren't the average fools..
The first two stood slightly ahead of the other, the way they felt giving him the impression that it was they who hand knocked out his friends. One was lean in build, like Engar himself, but felt strong. The other was the same but Engar found his attention drawn to the figure in the back, slouched with arms folded and a smirk on his face. There was an incredible power coming from this one and while he could usually find something of it in the personâs eyes, a pair of dark sunglasses shut off this form of intuition.
âMy name is Madd Dog, my friend is Ultima2_Freeze and the guy in the back is called Magus. Weâve decided that you don-â
âYes, yes,â Engar stepped up swiftly, he had been worried at first but now âbattle feverâ was crawling its way along his limbs; he was a slave to it now. âDonât have a chance at the title, I heard you the first time. Lets get this over with shall we?â
The first out of the four of them to move was Ultima2_Freeze, kicking off the ground with arms outstretched to catch him and hold him down. If they got him down he was through, that was obviously their plan so he had to work to disappoint them. His left hand blurred in an arc that swung the dumbbell over his head and smashed it down on Ultima2_Freezeâs. The warrior bounced off the hard, fake-wood flooring with a crack and as he rose upwards Engar caught him under the chin with the dumbbell again, having caught it with his right hand and swung it back upwards.
âI think youâve underestimated me..â
âOr!â From behind powerful, pale hands gripped at him, trying to grasp hold of him. Twisting sideways - his mind full of the dark alley fights of his youth - Engar smashed his knee up where he believed the crotch to be and was rewarded by a groan of pain. The dumbbell came up again, desperately this time, and caught Magus in the face. As fragments of dark glass exploded over his face, Magus grasped the dumbbell and wrenched it easily from Engarâs grip.
He was free now but surrounded, Ultima2_Freeze was back on his feet and apart from a bruise swelling on his cheek looked no worse for wear. Magus was actually laughing, the dumbbell buckling under his hands until he had formed a crude metal ball, which he dropped carelessly to the ground. Almost hypnotised, Engar watched as the yellow-brown flooring warped and distorted under the weight and didnât realise that Madd Dog was approaching before it was too late.
Blinking rapidly, Madd was suddenly right in front of Engar â his hand rising upwards under Engarâs chin for a devastating uppercut â then gone again just as quick. Next he was behind Engar who was still stumbling backwards, dazed and hurting, his fist cracking off the small of Engarâs back viciously. Engar turned just in time to see him blink again, and then Madd was hovering behind him â his right foot hooking out and knocking Engar forwards into a heavy metal stand, the weights it held tumbling down on top of him.
The three approached slowly.
âNot much of a challenge,â muttered Ultima2_Freeze, rubbing the bridge of his nose gingerly. âHe really shouldnât have been in the Rumble..â Madd Dog didnât say anything and Magus, the most experienced of the three, was already stepping backwards. There was one small, almost unnoticeable ripple of energy, then Engar was exploding from the metal heap â small weights blurring through the air as he stood up and glared back at his opponents.
Turning with a grimace, Engar drew back and spat a gob of blood and mucus onto the ground â a tooth rolled out of the blob and glowed white under the bright lights.
âThis may be harder than I thought..â
Ultima2_Freeze was the first to move again, kicking off the ground into a flying roundhouse that Engar narrowly ducked under. Engar, turning quickly, tried to kick out at Ultima2_Freezeâs back while he was off balance but the warrior was quick, landing in a roll he was soon back on his feet with a handheld weight in each hand.
Madd Dog, meanwhile, had drawn up behind him and his fist came crashing down â on thin air. Twisting around, Engar knocked another punch away and hopped back as Madd Dog kicked at his knees. Still approaching, Madd Dog came at Engar with a volley of lightning fast punches that crackled with excess energy. Twirling around, Madd chopped at Engarâs neck and, bopping back, Engar could feel the sparks grounding in his skin from the near miss.
Forced off balance as he was, Engar had no way to prevent himself from being swept off his feet by Ultima2_Freeze who was pushing his advantage as far as it would go. Engar landed hard, his head smacking off the ground with a crack that filled his vision with purple dots, then his world snapped back with painful clarity as Ultima2 brought both hands, still clenching the weights, down onto his stomach.
Engarâs limbs jumped in the sudden pain, twisting onto his stomach and twitching as desperately tried to force his lungs into action. Ultima2_Freeze wouldnât waste any time though, he grabbed Engar by one arm and one leg and, with no sign of difficulty, heaved him up and into the air.
After a brief, confused moment of flight he landed with a thump to the sound of a muffled scream, his fight hadnât been going on unnoticed and several spectators had gathered at the pole-vaulting. When Engar landed on the thick blue mat the crowd scattered out of fear, unsurprisingly as Magus was currently striding towards them. He crawled towards the edge of the mat, clumsy and unable to stand with bruises starting to form along his shoulder where he had landed much harder than even the mat had been intended to help with.
Rolling off the mat and onto his feet, the pain a heavy throbbing that filled his mind, Engar forced himself to run even as Magus drew closer. Ahead of him the acrobats were fleeing in terror, stumbling over themselves and in some cases leaping from the bar and onto the ground in desperation to get away. As he got closer and closer to the bar, feeling more desperate by the minute, he could almost hear Magusâ breathing. Almost feel it on the back of his neck. He could feel the half-vampire/half-werewolf brush his fingers against his back in an attempt to catch him, then his good hand caught the bar and he was swinging up onto it.
For a brief second, just as his feet landed on the bar and he straightened up, he felt his balance shift and almost went tumbling down. But Magus was down there and falling would be the end of him. Unfortunately Magus had even less problems getting up than he did, he hooked one hand on the bar and kicked off the ground, swinging up first then back around â releasing the bar at the apex of his climb and somersaulting backwards to land neatly on the bar without any sign of problem. He looked up and smirked at Engar, but some of the confidence was gone. He was blinking a lot more now; he didnât like the bright lights even if they werenât as lethal as sunlight.
Engar tried to move in and take what advantage he could get by sidestepping up the pole as quickly as he could and bringing his left out in a quick jab to put Magus off his balance. Magus, however, was in his element. He deflected the blow easily and the two more that came after that without any problem. Taking another step forwards, watching out of the corner of his eye as Madd and Ultima2 approached, Engar punched out with his left only to have it caught in Magusâ vice like grip.
Magus smirk swelled into a full-blown grin and he yanked Engar forwards, the dazed fighter barely able to keep his footing on the bar as he was drawn towards his opponent. Wasting no time on niceties, Magus brought his right fist around into Engarâs stomach and, as he recoiled backwards, yanked him forwards again in order to upper cut him in a lightning fast blow.
Unbelievably quick and strong, the blow lifted Engar backwards through the air into an ungainly somersault that landed him awkwardly on the bar, his hands desperately seizing hard of the cold metal in order to keep up. All he could think of was Magus approaching relaxed as though he were walking in the park and not on a bar but Engarâs attention was soon torn away. Powerful hands gripped his legs and pulled at him, almost tearing him in two..
This is it? This is how it ends?!
Never!
The bar buckled under the sudden increase in pressure and, screaming filling the air, torn from its supports. Madd recoiled backwards as Engarâs foot, suddenly ten times as strong, slammed directly into his face and lifted him into the air. Magus, who had been thrown into the air when the bar was torn away, was caught by the self-same bar as it sliced through the air and batted away into the distance. Ultima2 received the same treatment, an enraged Engar turning and hurling the 3 metre long pole like a javelin, picking Ultima2 up and carrying him back towards the pole-vaulting mat.
The energy that consumed Engar had barely began to die down before Madd Dog was on him, sparks crawling along his fists as he pummelled the air, but the air was all he hit. Dancing around the blows, Engar waited until Madd put too much of himself into his punch and lost his balance. Engarâs fist dug into Maddâs stomach and, almost too fast to follow, kicked off the ground and swept his foot around in roundhouse that sent Madd crashing to the ground that splintered in his wake.
Exhausted for the moment, Engar collapsed to his knees and drew great, heaving breathes. Ki-Wielding was still unnatural to him, he still found it hard to bare.
âStronger though..â he muttered to himself, âalways getting stronger.â
âNot enough.â
And there they were, bruised but far from done while he had taken thrice as much punishment. It would have been so easy to just stay down.. But this was about honour. He hadnât backed down against T.G._Cid. He hadnât backed down against Cucumba. He hadnât backed down against Scruffie. To back down know was to disgrace those he had faced before.
So, memories of comrades filling his mind, Engar stood up.
Ready for the next round.
**OFF-TOPIC**
Whoee, must be one of my biggest Fight-Club posts to date. Had to up the size in order to work everyone in, good luck guys.
