Learn Your Own Definition of Tenacity (III)

Auden cursed from under his breath as he quickly jumped back up to his feet. The clock ticked down to 13:20.

Now it was her turn to get the offensive and his turn on the defensive. A hit to his right shoulder, blocked. A kick to his abdomen, blocked as she was swept under by his legs.

She rolled out of the way of a hard hit, narrowly avoiding a serious hit to her spine. A slash to her abdomen, blocked and parried by her sword and then her left hand as she gripped the lower end of the blade, which managed to cut up her hand in the process.

She got back up and began trying to push him back again a wall, nearly tangoing with him like it was a dance competition. Blood was dripping out from her hand.

Spectators and ongoing viewers were bedazzled and shocked by what they were seeing.

Luca was gritting her teeth sharply at him as he did the same. Neither of them wanted could make a move to break the current stalemate.

Luca jumped back, backing off. She began running around him, baiting him towards the outer edges. The clock ticked down to 12:52.

He gave in and gave pursuit to her game of chase.

"Trying to play that game?" Auden said, taunting her.

Both of them outstretched their arms and their blades to give them separation and distance from each other.

Auden sped up and made a diving move to deal a big blow to an area near the center of her torso. It failed as he nearly fell to the floor, and she jumped on top of his back, sharply cutting into his back in the process. Blood began dripping out from him.

She landed just a few feet behind him.

He stumbled, nearly hitting the wall, as he regained his balance. He swiftly turned to face her and their two swords clashed once again. She tried to force his blade under and step on the rapier's blade with her right boot, she was met with a fierce grab on her left shoulder as he pulled her in.

She couldn't muster enough of her own strength to match it, and he grabbed her by the left arm and tossed her behind him, sending her flying to the ground.

When she landed, she coughed up blood from the sheer force of the impact.

Auden dashed and went for a blow to the center of her torso.

Which she swiftly blocked as she held up her right arm in the air. 12:28.

Auden began pressing down on the sword harder with both the rapier and now his right leg.

Luca matched with a kick to her belly.

Auden coughed up blood and got sent back, forcing her off him.

Luca got up and made their swords begin clashing once again.

She dodged to the left, then the right, and then the right again. When she dodged for the third time, managed to pull him closer and kick him up and away from him, sending him a few feet up into the air.

In the air, he attempted to go for a blow to her face. It missed and she landed a hard blow to his abdomen. It only managed to send him just a few inches higher and back another few feet when he landed on the ground.

Both hits to him made only made him bleed more as the blood from his back still oozed and coughed up blood.

He once again cursed under his breath.

She ran up to him and her sword was met with his rapier. As he was fighting to get back on the ground, she slammed down her right leg on his abdomen.

This made him jump internally. He hiccupped and missed a block, letting her make room for a hit on his right shoulder. Blood began dripping out.

He managed to still get up but was beginning to stumble.

He stumbled and as if drunken, took a swing at her. It easily missed as she turned to dodge the hit, grabbing his hand and the handle, lifting it, and following it up with a hard kick to his abdomen.

He hit the wall so incredibly hard that every spectator present could hear the "poomph!"

He dropped to the ground and began crawling as fast as he possibly could to her.

As she responded by standing up in front of him, she gave him a cold and serious look as she kicked him in the face.

He was knocked out. 10:44.

The small crowd of spectators went up in an uproar as the knockout bell dinged.

She snickered to herself. The referee blew the whistle and the timer stopped as they ran over to Luca.

"The match has come to a close! Luca Pasteur is the winner!" They said, holding up her arm high in the sky. She was still bleeding from her hand, ironically.

She took a deep breath and sighed.

As the referee lowered her hand, they said a word of notice to her. "Congratulations on winning your first match, go to the clinic to get patched up before going on to getting your second match scheduled."

She nodded in response as she went back to her prep room. Her heart was still intensely beating.

Back in the prep room, she grabbed a towel and some bandages and wrapped them around the hand. She began pressing them against her skin for a few minutes to stop the bleeding as she walked out to meet up with Rambone and Cara.

She pushed open the door with an elbow and immediately saw Rambone standing there at the door.

"Wow, you showed up here quick. Where's Cara?" She asked.

"Oh, she said she went to go to the bathroom earlier," Rambone answered.

"Must be taking one intensive shit." Luca joked.

"Yeah, must be." He chuckled. "Anywayssss... how are you feeling?"

"Uhh... I can't feel anything right now because I'm still all kicked up on adrenaline." She sighed.

"Damn. Guess that'll be fun for me to experience."

"You bet your sweet ass it will." She said as she shook her hand. "Speaking of which, here comes the pain."

"How bad is it?"

"Not that bad. It's more annoying pain than anything."

"Can I touch it then?" He said, proceeding to touch it.

She minorly reflexed in pain. "No, you can't!"

"Oh, sorry."

"Then why did you touch it?"

"To make sure that you were okay."

"That's not how you do that!"

She shook her hand once again. "Since your match is tomorrow, do you wanna go spend some time with Cara?"

He nodded. "Provided that she's still not taking a shit, sure, I'm down."

"Alright."

The two of them headed towards the nearest women's restroom. It was oddly quiet.

"Aren't women's bathrooms typically louder than men's?"

"What the fuck are you on about?"

"Scratch that. That was a stupid question."

She opened the door halfway. "Cara, you still in there?" She saw her legs from under a stall.

She turned to Rambone and nodded.

They waited for a few seconds for a response. Nothing.

"Cara, you asleep?" Luca went in, the door shutting behind her.

"Caraaaa..." She said, gently knocking on her stall door. "Caraaaaaa! I'm giving to the count of 3 to wake up!"

"1..."

"2..."

"3!"

She crouched under, tired of the sleeping Cara, to wake her up.

When she came up, she found that Cara wasn't even there. It was just a dummy set of legs meant to replicate hers.

Luca rushed out of the stall door and then the bathroom.

"Rambone, we got a big problem on our hands!"