Battle Bot
Who likes bad kung fu movies with a postfurry twist? I do, I do! If you do you might like this too. First of seven parts, hopefully.
The bat had pretty much laughed in his face. "Are you sure you're supposed to be here?"
With the crowd already cheering for them from around the ring as they sized each other up after the bell had just rang, it seemed a little late to the skunk for him to have changed his mind by that point. "You're aware most of us who join this can barely even die, right?"
But he'd been determined enough before entering that he hadn't changed his mind then. "I mean, I probably won't kill you, but someone else might. You should really give up while you can."
He wasn't going to change his mind now.
"The crowd's getting restless," Klein smiled at Rakim. "That's enough for now," he added, his feet and arms starting their back and forth motion as the skunk sank into his battle 'swing'. "Your funeral," the bat shrugged, grinning back while adopting his own static yet just as insolent ready stance. "You're the one who's out of your..."
His taunt was cut short as the ball of the crouching skunk's foot connected with his abdomen under his swiping paw, retracting before the bat could go in for a heelhold.
"... league," Rakim finished, flashing his sharp metal claws menacingly at Klein as an unspoken discouragement from trying the same trick again. He arguably had a point - even Shinai hadn't joined, and you couldn't talk that weasel out of putting his life on the line for... Well, Klein had tried. He noticed Shinai watching him from the audience as he turned around while ducking under the bat's spinning kick, sending the heel of his own other foot back at the bat's chest.
"Because it doesn't matter if you can hit me," Rakim continued as the skunk cartwheeled over his sweep. "The question is, how are you going to knock out or ring out a machine?" The bat's eyes crackled with electricity while he spoke. 'Not by grappling, that's for sure,' the skunk thought to himself gingerly as he ducked under a reversed claw swipe. He was glad his style emphasized dodging over blocking and strikes over grabs; prolonged contact seemed ill-advised.
Think fast!
What?
Before he could blink, Klein yelped as a blinding light illuminated his whole field of vision, rendering him momentarily sightless. He could only clutch at his abdomen after the cyborg's attack - he had truly no idea what it could've been, since he hadn't been able to see it - had landed without interference.
"Cheater," the skunk could only stick his tongue out at him in response. Rakim gave him a mock-innocent look. "Am I now?" Klein yelped again as a strong screech-like siren specifically designed for the frequencies his hearing was most attuned to came out of the bat's mouth directed at his head, his hands covering his ears while the cyborg punched him in the gut.
"That's what I was talking about, you know," Rakim shook his head disapprovingly as the skunk's hands returned to his belly. "Everyone here's going to use everything they have. Besides," he chuckled as smoke began to pour out of his joints, "didn't you skunks pretty much invent this sensory warfare crap to begin with?" he added knowingly as Klein fought back a coughing fit, cursing his sense of smell.
What do you do when there's smoke everywhere in a regular setting, he asked himself? You stay close to the ground, he'd been taught. Thank goodness he was already pretty good at that, the skunk thought to himself as he went down into a crawl, from which he could breathe and from which the smoke made him more difficult for the bat to see.
On the ground, the skunk swung both of his legs around from behind him to in front of him, hoping to knock the cyborg's legs out from under him so he could either pin him down for the count or throw him out of the ring by his feet. As Rakim jumped over his takedown, Klein stood up from the ground on his hands, going for the escapee from his trap with a kick over his own head. It should've reached its target and, at first, the skunk didn't understand why it hadn't, before the reverberating sound of flapping drew his attention to the ceiling.
Looking up at it between his legs from his handstand, he saw that the bat, not content to have made the most of his several unnatural advantages, hadn't shied away from making the most of his natural advantages either. He was flying so high over the ring that none of the skunk's attacks could've possibly gotten anywhere near him where he was. Klein narrowly went down in a bridge just in time for his legs to avoid the first swoop and up on his legs from it just in time for his torso to avoid the second one.
"Maybe you should try to echolocate to figure out where I am!" he teased, hiding his fear of this new tactic poorly. The cyborg had the drop on him in terms of maneuverability, and could come at him from anywhere he pleased. Rakim, meanwhile, was privately frustrated that it would've been taking him so long to defeat the tournament's most ordinary contender.
"Oh you gotta be kidding!" the skunk exclaimed as he saw two lengths of chain extend out of the bat's chest, one for him to wield in each hand. The cyborg started whirling them both in counter-directional circles at his sides, letting out an electronic chuckle as he sent one of them in front of him in a threatening figure 8 before pulling it back at the ready for further use once more. This was getting further and further from anything that anyone might have considered to have been a fair fight by the second, the skunk couldn't help but think.
Thinking back on his earlier handstand kick with Rakim flying around him, Klein pictured himself as some kind of strange weathervane, being flown at by a very funky avian. This was how the idea inadvertently popped into his head. Yes. This was how he was going to do it. It was only going to be a matter of getting the timing just right...
He kept his eyes on the bat's flight path as he went back down on his hands in a split. Observing the chains coming for the tempting targets his feet now seemed to present, he kept doing partial handspins each way while they were on their way to avoid them each time. The cyborg chortled victoriously when they finally wrapped themselves around the skunk's ankles.
"Get over here!" he yelled in that easily recognizable voice, laughing at his own bad joke as he rapidly pulled both chains back to him and the skunk along with them. Rakim could only gasp in shock when Klein's legs joined together into a corkscrewing double side kick to the bat's chest in midair that wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't been for those very same chains. The cyborg was so taken off guard that he'd already fallen all the way back to the floor before being able to collect himself - just outside the ring, at that.
Klein fell back to Earth upside-down, grabbing onto the rope on his way before his feet continued down in front of him and back on the ring. As the raccoon referee climbed up on the ring and raised his arm to declare that he'd won, the skunk spotted Shinai in the audience again, looking at him with something that looked almost like pride. Then it was time to vault offstage toward the one who'd lost to him, that time.
"Heh, I honestly thought I'd at least make it to semi-finals..." Rakim said from the ground with a bitter smile. "Good luck with that," he added. The skunk returned his smile minus the bitterness, hoping it would catch. "You'll make it next time. Finals even, maybe!" A weak, electronic chuckle answered him.
Thanks. And skunk?
Yeah?
I meant what I said. You'd better be careful.