Bellerophon
Part 7 out of 7 of my martial arts tournament series. Enjoy!
Diaz knew that the chimera, having trounced him soundly, and with there being only one fight left, wasn't going to have to leave the ring until the tournament would be over. He certainly didn't expect to see the monster get out of the ring where the golem had fallen out just so he could extend his hand down to him, tilting his heads to his side with an inquisitive grunt. The statue, understanding that the chimera was offering to help him up, only hesitated for a moment before grabbing the hand that was being presented to him to pull himself back up.
"Thanks."
The monster nodded graciously. "No problem," he replied. "You gave me some trouble." Diaz chuckled weakly. "Yeah, I made you earn it, didn't I?"
As the golem slithered back to his seat for another, less traumatized post-fight hug from Mandrake and sat back down to watch the last fight with him, the chimera climbed back into the ring in a way that showed that he'd done it so many times that he didn't need to think about it anymore, as though the ring was where he truly belonged most of all. In daily life, he was quite hurt when people would be scared of him because of his fearsome appearance, just as Diaz was. In the ring, people admired him for it, and that was what kept him coming back.
"Well," Rakim intoned at Klein tongue firmly in cheek, "it's not that I don't _want_to wish you good luck, but, well... you know." The bat winked at him as a shiver went down his striped spine. "Don't worry, I'll leave all the important bits intact," the skunk tried to joke back clumsily as he got up to make his way back toward the ring.
"So," the hybrid started off, "still wet from that otter fight?" he asked as Klein flip-vaulted over the rope into the ring yet another time. "Like me to dry you off?" he winked as his dragon head breathed clouds of smoke out its nostrils and maw.
The skunk stomped each foot then each hand down on the ground in front of him successively with what he hoped was a fierce expression on his face, as all skunks did when they warned potential attackers that if they persisted they would to be attacked by the skunks themselves. "I'm good, thanks," he cracked back, his striped tail slowly waving behind him as he looked his adversary up and down. The more Klein tried to evaluate him in terms of angles of attack, the more he was confronted with the reality of what a complex endeavor that would prove to be.
The snake tail head shrieked at his lowered face from between the chimera's legs. As he stood back up into his usual 'swinging' half-crouch, the skunk told himself that his best bet to avoid becoming hopelessly entangled in a mess of attacks that would be coming at him from every direction at once would be to figure out a way to push the whole monster's body out of the ring at the same time. The hybrid adopted a motionless, resilient stance, sharply contrasting with his opponent's hyperactive footwork, four sets of eyes following his movements without fail.
Breaking the pattern he'd established, Klein abruptly stepped forward thrusting one foot forward at the chimera's torso in front of him in an all-out push kick. At first he was glad to see that it had connected and mildly surprised that the monster hadn't even tried to block it. That was when he noticed with some measure of dismay that having put his whole strength into the pushing motion hadn't made the hybrid's feet move back on the ground by a single lonely inch.
The chimera didn't even shift his stance at the blow.
He kept his piercing eyes right on the skunk as if nothing worth noting had even taken place, satisfied with the effect that his resistance had provoked. Cold sweat ran down Klein's striped back as he resignedly admitted to himself that this battle was going to be just a little more difficult than he'd thought it'd been going to be, more difficult than either of his previous ones had been. He'd have to try harder than that.
Ducking under the chimera's hook punch, the skunk's arms both swung low in the opposite direction than it was coming from to grab the monster's ankle and pull behind his knee. Again, the leg refused to budge as staunchly as if the small mammal had been trying to uproot a tree. As he struggled with one of the hybrid's legs pointlessly, he spotted the snake tail head coming for his exposed flank from the other side of him.
Hastily abandoning his vainly attempted takedown, Klein performed a hands-free cartwheel over the snake tail to the other side of the chimera to land in front of the dragon head. Crouching under the monster's round kick, the skunk swung one of his legs back under his other leg behind then in front of himself, going for the hybrid's other ankle with the inner edge of his circling foot. Again, the chimera's leg didn't shake or recoil in any discernable way, showing no sign that it had been hit by anything, but stopping Klein's attacking foot dead in its tracks.
The skunk liked his chances of winning less and less with every passing second.
Klein did a one-handed cartwheel out of the way of the dragon head's bite, finally hitting the lion head with his legs joined into back spinning kicks with both feet on his way back in front of the ram head. As the snake tail head went for his support arm, using the momentum he'd gathered to continue spinning in the same direction, the skunk leapt in the air trying to hit the monster's torso with his legs joined in two flying back spinning kicks. The hybrid saw this one coming, and shifted his stance back just barely out of its flight path, seemingly without effort.
Before Klein could stand back up from the crouch he had to go down into to absorb the impact of his fall, just under a ram head bite which would've reached him otherwise at that, he saw that the snake tail head was coming for his face. As it was about to reach him with its maw still only half-opened, the skunk thrust his arm at it with his index and middle fingers outstretched, almost poking its eyes and forcing it to withdraw. 'Snake eyes,' he smirked to himself.
Using the fact that his arm was now stretched out over the ground in front of him anyway, Klein planted it on the ground in a one-handed handstand, bringing his foot on his opposite side forward over it to front kick the chimera's torso upside-down. The monster yelped - this one had not only connected but had definitely pushed him back, which the hybrid clearly hadn't expected. The skunk almost wagged his tail at the thought of it as he went back down to his feet, backing off back out of close range to reassess his battle plan.
'You can't approach the chimera by land,' Klein thought, recalling his chimera lore, "only by air." Breaking into a short dash at his towering opponent, the skunk leapt in the air over and toward the monster, his body spinning sideways through the air on its way to the hybrid as he did. In the process, Klein's legs ended up wrapping themselves right around the lion head, one in front of it and one behind it, just as he'd hoped to have been able to do.
"OOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!"
The other fighters rushed to the ring as the skunk fell to the ground clutching his bitten leg, his blood leaking out of it on the ring around him. The fight was over. Klein was out of commission.
"Oh shit, I'm sorry! Oh shit," the chimera said, "are you okay?!" The monster sounded less preoccupied with his victory than with the damage he may have caused to his first opponent that night who didn't instantly regenerate from all the damage that he'd inflicted on them. "He'll be fine," the rat he'd burned to a crisp earlier that night told him, "eventually, anyway."
Mandrake crouched near the fallen contestant, taking a gourd he carried out of his pocket and opening it in order to disinfect the wound as well as he could until better care could be provided for it later. "You carry alcohol with you?" Diaz raised his eyebrow at his therapist quizzically. "It's only for emergencies exactly like this," the drunken stylist defended himself from his client.
"I told him he shouldn't have signed up!" Rakim emphasized as he pulled his chains back out of his torso, intending to figure out a way to tie them up around the skunk to fly him to Soma for reparative surgery. "But did he listen? No! No one ever listens to bats," he lamented. 'That's because no one can hear them in ultrasound,' Klein wanted to but was in too much pain to say.
"I told him the same thing," the otter added. "Uh, you won," the raccoon referee timidly tried to interject at the hybrid without much success. "Should've brought more lead, Bellerophon," the rabbit shook her head at him, but the skunk was too busy screaming in pain to answer.
"You tried to get a chimera into flying leg scissors!" The rat berated the wounded contender with a disbelieving shrug. "What did you think was going to happen?"