I ended up nailing the new assistant at the College infirmary, so it wasn’t a total loss. Oh, and less I forget, they both took me back later, at the same time, without telling each other. It is a wonder I’m still alive. In an effort to keep that going, I took us to the non-blooded gym this time around.
It wasn’t as nice as the full-blooded one, but it was still very full service. The biggest difference I had noticed earlier was the lack of archaic weapons on the wall near the training mat. Yasmin and I decided on a 40/20 split – forty minute of working out and twenty minutes on the mats. Around 5:30 pm, Felix showed up. Like me, he automatically drew attention and he’d clearly been cultivating his aura.
He barely spared me a glance, being absolutely confident he had the advantage in every aspect of our contest – both physically and socially. Within minutes a subliminal ripple moved through the crowd. I was spotting Yasmin so it took me a bit to figure out what was going on – full-bloods had entered. One by one, I picked out Daphne, Paula, Dora, Tigger, Violet and Oneida.
They weren’t coming at me – that would have kept things calm. No, ‘my’ ladies were circulating and I didn’t need ESP to figure out what they were saying. In the ladies’ wake, evil looks where shot Felix’s way. Once more, he felt the undercurrent but misunderstood it. He thought I was seeding the crowd against him.
One Amazon ‘Runner’ cleared up the nature of the disturbance, if not reason for the outrage.
“Did you really take a woman’s underwear to use as a trophy to throw in Cael’s face?” the disbelieving woman asked. Felix was fearless.
“Of course not,” he assured her. “One of Cael’s many one night stands stopped by my place, slept and forgot… something. That’s all.”
Good play. Since I wasn’t in on sabotaging Felix, I had no counter and I wasn’t going to get into a he-said/he-said contest that would leave me looking petty. Poor Felix, he kept forgetting we worked for some really smart women. Around thirty women into Felix’s counter-propaganda campaign, Daphne struck. She was confronted by a pro-Felix lady.
“Really?” Daphne announced loudly. “Let’s clear this up why don’t we.” She pulled out her phone, hit one number and said, “Please project that footage to the ‘Runner’ gym.”
Ten seconds later, Felix and my conversation was projected to every TV suspended around the room. Yes, even Felix’s boast and getting in my face.
This wasn’t solely Daphne’s doing. She didn’t have that kind of weight. Oneida on the other hand… Felix barely missed a beat.
“Nyilas, you pulled that all out of context,” he growled. The best defense is a great offense.
“Felix, I’m a guy. No way in Hell I have the kind of access to security tapes,” I held up my hands, proclaiming my innocence.
Felix missed the ‘I’m a guy’ part. The women didn’t. Most of them know I skated the rules, but never broke them. Yes, Katrina liked me. Would she give me access to security? That was laughable. Felix was about to pack on the stupidity.
“Fine, you had one of your cheerleaders do it,” Felix counterthrust.
Cheerleader was not a ‘positive’ Amazon role model. Cheerleaders were women who promised sexual reward to male warriors that defeated their enemies (a bit of a biased view). The bipolar normal world reaction to cheerleaders aside, I knew cheerleaders were athletes who worked hard to pull off relatively complex routines. Telling the Amazons this was pointless.
If any woman in this room had known a cheerleader before surrendering their old existence to become lethal man-killers, they probably didn’t like them. If they had been a cheerleader, they were keeping their mouths shut.
“Are you implying we have lied and altered the official record of events?” Daphne sizzled.
See, lying to me and Felix was expected. Lying to their fellow Amazons, despite the Blood Prestige rift, wasn’t going to happen. Trust and loyalty were fundamental virtues here. I imagine Felix had read that passage in the Handbook. I hadn’t believed it for the first two days either. I’d been educated since then.
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Felix glared right back at Daphne. Foolish – stupid.
“Yasmin, I gotta go,” I hissed to my Brazilian MILF then rushed to get to Felix. I wasn’t doing it for Felix, the douche. I was doing it for Katrina and her New Directive. Felix had not officially fucked up; he was just being a jerk.
Daphne sent Felix a wicked smirk. She’d kicked his ass. Felix knew his ass had been kicked yet still couldn’t grasp the underlying principles behind his defeat – he was in a Woman’s World.
“Felix, let’s warm up,” I urged him once I was close enough to be heard.
“After that stunt – you can go fuck yourself,” Felix glowered.
“Dude, it wasn’t me, I swear,” I met his gaze.
“I’m here. You find your own space,” Felix indicated another portion of the mat.
“Felix, these ladies are about to kill you. You do not want to send me away,” I whispered. Felix formed a rebuttal then looked around.
“Why?” Felix whispered back. Felix was finally acknowledging he’d lost. Now he wanted to know why.
“I can’t explain it right now, but let’s say ‘cheerleader’ was the wrong descriptive to use,” I continued. “Calling them liars only dug the hole deeper. It is the way it is.”
Felix didn’t understand my words, but understood the intent. He was in Oz without any knowledge of the tornado that had taken him there. We didn’t spar together. I did stay close enough to make my intent clear – there would be no ambushing of Felix. You had to understand Amazon psychology to figure out why they weren’t angry with me.
I was exhibiting loyalty – especially to a person I hated. Amazons had blood feuds, the specifics I hadn’t figured out. You could probably kick your opponent’s ass. If you stabbed them in the back, there was no rock on the face of the Earth you could hide under.
“He practices Muay Thai and Savate,” Oneida snuck up on me. “I lend you my spirit,” she added with deep compassion.
I turned on her and placed my hand between her breasts.
“No. No cheating in this fight,” I insisted. That drew many stares. “Hold your spirit for the battles that matter, not for the resolution of male grievances. Your heart is fierce and I appreciate that, Oneida. No one’s spirit is infinite, so marshal your resources carefully.”
Yes, I was lecturing Oneida – bad move. Yes, I was safeguarding her spirit, as would any of the other Amazons in the room – good move. Cloaking my lecture and concern in mystical terms – the win.
“I care deeply for you too,” Oneida gave me a demur look, “my Ash Man.” Kill me. Kill me now.
This culture didn’t have a ‘ready-set-go’. When one person was ready, they attack without warning. I almost forgot that and blind-sided Felix. I didn’t hold back for him. I held back because I didn’t want him to be a whiny baby about this whole thing. I gave him a nod, he nodded back then he attacked.
Two piston kicks by Felix backed me up. He switched up with a reverse roundhouse. That was his mistake – I slipped inside his kick range. I came at him – left jab, left jab, and a right cross in such a rapid blur the audience later told me their brains didn’t register the hits until after the fact. It was lights out for Felix. His body made a wet, thumping noise at it hit the mat.
There was a hush. Everyone expected this fight to go the distance. I was more renowned for my stamina than punching power. Welcome to the world of light heavy-weight boxing. My problem with Madi had been I couldn’t touch her. I hadn’t even gone all out with Rhada and I dropped her with two jabs.
A good number of ‘martial artists’ think of boxing as a primitive fighting form. It is. It has also been around forever because the principles are rather simple and effective. Either don’t get hit, or soak up the hit (particularly for heavier fighters), set your opponent up and clobber then. Felix had meant to control me with his powerful kicks.
Both Savate and Muay Thai have excellent fist and elbow blocks and strikes. It is simply difficult to switch your focus from kicking to blocking in the blink of an eye. That was less time than what I gave Felix. Most people think of boxers as freight trains, not snipers. In truth, we are both – locomotives approaching the speed of light (somewhat).
Double back to all the options Savate and Maui Thai boxers have. They would never be afraid to take a risky kick because they can block in so many ways. Suddenly the issue became one of distance and balance. The boxer was at the kicker’s ankle at the moment of supposed impact and closing. By the time the kicker realized the kick’s over-extension the boxer was at his knee.
The kicker still had a plethora of elbow, arm and hand blocks and grapples – except all his power has gone down that kicking leg, leaving him with on point of balance; his other leg. Sure he could get an arm up, but it only had the strength and weight of that limb to call upon. The upcoming hit? It had the mass times acceleration of the boxer’s body coming at him. Good luck.
Felix could have beaten me, except it would have taken time. Closing would have allowed him to use all those nifty elbow, palm and hand strikes. It would have also allowed me to do what boxers to best – box. This wouldn’t give me an advantage, just leveled the playing field a bit. He didn’t want to grapple. I had an entire school devoted to grappling while it was an addendum to what he did.
Felix’s saw me go to a boxing stance, and like most practitioners of Savate and Muay Thai, he laughed inside. He was going to make a mockery of me because my style sucked and his styles were the ones that best broke your enemies and caused them pain. He was going to knock me back with his kicks then close in and pummel me with every part of his body before I could slip into jujitsu. It would be lightning fast and bloody.
Nice in theory; bad in practice. He should have worn me down with his stronger legs. Things fell apart when I stopped running away after the second kick. I couldn’t do much about the piston kicks. The reverse roundhouse on the other hand… allowed me to get close. I put him off-balance with two jabs, not letting him escape and out came the right with my entire mass behind it. I’ve hit a guy with that before who didn’t go down.