Cheering... the crowd was cheering as a blast of energy ripped through the smooth concrete that made up the arena floor. A moment sooner and the champion would have taken it on the chest. But as it stood he moved effortlessly out of the way leaving the dark purplish ray of light to pass safely into the ground behind him.
"Not bad. But you'll have to move faster to hit me."
The old devil was right. Well, old might not have been the best name for it. But that's what everyone called him for he had been fighting and wining since before a lot of them were born. The world champion was in truth a man in his fifties. Tall, handsome and built like a god with a pair of forward curving horns polished to reflect every speck of light pointing calmly at his opponent. Not that calm was on offer today.
Not waiting for a reply he lunged forward unleashing his ki into a devastating blade like strike. But the alien was too fast. Just as the champion before him he moved out of the way effortlessly letting the attack fly past before responding with a swift kick which it self was dodged.
The crowd was loving the display and so was Mia. She sat there, smiling, her eyes transfixed by the flurry of motions most of the crowd could barely see. The old man was amazing. The movement of his body, the way his puffed up hair seemingly on his own to evade the strikes it all spoke of a grace and prowess few were able to achieve. Even the thick mustache curving like a black centipede around his mouth seemed to have a life of its own. Mia sincerely hoped that she would look half as good when she reached his age.
"Why are you really here? You are holding back on something." Words followed by a flying fist.
"Don't play dumb." The alien chucked even as he stepped out the way of the attack.
"You Oni didn't really think you could hide here?"
A dozen more blows followed.
"We... are... not... hiding." The champions responding cutting as he did in with a strike between each word.
"So you really don't know than? A pity...."
"You'll just have to die stupid than."
Mia woke up on the floor drenched in cold sweat. It took all of her strength not to scream even as the last memory of her dream faded away. She tried to grab onto the memory but couldn't. And it was gone.
Angrily she looked around the small room she was in to find something to smash before, having found nothing she sat dejectedly on the pile of rubber training mats she called a bed. She needed a shower, and a hot meal. *sigh* And a hug...
Yesterday when they all left for the city she didn't really now what to do. The place was abandoned and demolished. And for all her cheerful talk of shopping before Mia was not exactly accustomed to looting through rubble left behind by the dead. And so whilst the others (hopefully) spent their time productively for a long while she just flew around aimlessly looking for something, anything really to catch her eye.
Eventually she found a sports supply store, or was it maybe a gym? Maybe both? The place had taken a blast during the invasion which shattered the glass and set most of everything that was flammable inside ablaze. Still as much as it was a mess it felt just familiar enough for her to let her guard down and collapse in the supply room in the back.
What followed was a night of on and off sleep, tossing, turning and bouts of hunger quenched only by the occasional half scorched protein bar. At least the taste wasn't terrible.
Getting up from her makeshift bed the first the she noticed it was morning. The black clouds had lifted slightly allowing a single ray of sunlight to penetrate through the shattered glass and into the back. The second thing she noticed was her stomach. There had to be some decent food around here...
Under the first rays of the rising sun Mia made her way through the city streets quickly discovering she was in a residential district and deciding that the time had come to hit up the occasional shop which lay scattered about the place.
Quickly she had picked out a supermarket and found some canned food, which she ate cold managing to cut her self in the process followed soon thereafter by a capsule purse which she filled with cosmetics shamelessly pilfered from the discount isle. It wasn't the quality she was used to but neither was the meal, nor the mirror ripped off a wrecked automobile that she used as a compact to fix her hair. Just one more thing she would have to get used to.
A couple hours later she arrived at the agreed upon meeting place. Awake, fed and mostly presentable. And above all definitively up for some revenge.
