Dragon Fighters (F)

[Pilgrim]

"Where the heck is she? Our fight starts in two minutes!" Randal paced back and forth nervously, twirling his long black ponytail.

"She'll be here." Lucas was relaxedly leaning against a brick wall, the only sign of nervousness a persistent chewing on his toothpick.

"Alright..." Randal looked at the referee, a short freshman with neatly combed hair, and saw him checking his watch. Immediately, he panicked again. "We should call her again. Do you think we should call her again? I'm going to call her again." He began searching through the pockets of his black bomber jacket for his cellphone.

"She'll be here." Lucas rested his hands behind his blond fauxhawk and continued chewing on his toothpick. He closed his eyes as if he were about to fall asleep.

"Seriously dude? How can you be so calm? You do know what this fight means, right? This is our placement match! If we disqualified from this fight we're going to get ranked at the bottom of the fight ladder. We'll be picked on by the whole school!"

"Yes, and you've said that several times now. Just like I'm saying, again, she'll be here."

Randal looked ready to punch his friend, but just then Ayaka finally arrived. And she looked absolutely miserable. The bangs of her messy amber hair framed her bright red eyes and nose, both of which she was alternately rubbing with one hand. The other was anxiously fishing around in the pockets of her pink jacket and jean shorts for tissues. And all the while the japanese high school student was sneezing wet "Huxsheews!" every few seconds. Lucas rubbed the stubble on his chin and approached the girl, smoothing out his sleeveless red jaket and pinstripe shirt.

"Hey. You okay to fight?"

Ayaka nodded. "Yes I'b...Haatschoo! I can...Haxsheew Ha-Atchoo! I-it's just aller...gies...HAAAGHSHUUH!"

Lucas shrugged. "Cool. Let's go then. You're up first."

Ayaka stepped forward to face her opponent in the center of the alley, the leader of the top-ranked fight team in the school. He was a tall, dark skinned teenager in a gray sweatshirt with a military haircut and dark beard. He eyed Ayaka curiously, as if he was looking through her. The brown-haired referee raised his hands.

"We will now begin the sanctioned placement match for newcomer team "Dreamer's Fight". First team to exhaust the other's Chi is the winner. Standard street fight rules apply. Round One is between Ayaka Hitome and Raven Cromwell. Begin...NOW!"

Raven held his left hand behind his back and invited Ayaka to attack him with his right. Lucas grimaced.

"There's that legendary one-handed fight style of his. Okay Ayaka, time to see what you can do" he muttered to himself.

Ayaka glared at Raven and ran forward, leaning into a kick. At the last second, however, she whirled around and threw a punch instead. Raven seemed to be ready for it, however. He caught the punch and then stepped forward, kicking out both her legs from under her to force her to widen her stance. He then spun behind her, bringing his elbow down behind her head, which she dodge just in the nick of time. She drew a fist back for a counterattack, but as she did so felt the itch in her nose spike.

"Haah-aaah...Haaacksheew!"

Raven timed his next attack with her sneeze, sending a kick into her midsection just as it overtook her. As she stumbled backwards, he moved in closer and began whirling around while striking at her with his free hand. She put her arms up as cover, but was unable to break through the assault. She continued backing away until she was at the edge of the chalkmarks designating the edge of the arena, at which point Lucas grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back, jumping into her place.

"Legal tag! Lucas against Raven." The referee shouted.

Raven shook his head and leapt backwards, tagging in one of his other teammates, a bulky young man in a white dress shirt and black vest with spiked bleach-blond hair and a lit cigarette in his mouth.

"Raven tags out. Lucas versus Joey" The referee corrected himself.

As the two fought, Randal began anxiously running his hand through his hair.

"Oh man, we are so screwed! You couldn't last ten seconds against that guy, and he's only using one hand! We're going to be busted down to the little leagues for sure now!" He paced back and forth as Ayaka rummaged through her purse, sniffling to keep her nose from running over her lips. "If you just didn't have those dumb allergies we'd be all over this fight. But me and Lucas can't make up that kinda lost ground ourselves. You're the best fighter we have, you're the only one who knows how to..."

"FOUND IT!" Ayaka cried, startling Randal. She held up a single tissue triumphantly in the air. "My last one..." She sighed and blew her nose wetly. Randal shook his fist.

"Hey, why does everyone always ignore me! This is serious! If we don't rank high, our reputations are going to be in the gutter! Nobody in the whole school's gonna respect us!"

Ayaka stepped past Randal and leaned over the chalklines. "Hey Lucas! I'm ready to go back in now!"

"Heh, finally. I was getting tired of buying you time." Lucas stepped back and tagged Ayaka in. Her opponent paced at the other end of the ring, looking at her smugly while puffing on his cigarette.

"I should warn you little girl. I don't play nice."

Ayaka assumed a fighting stance with one hand held out in front of her and another behind, balanced on one leg. An eerie red glow began to rise around her. "No worries. Neither do I." She ran forward and leapt into the air, twisting sideways and bringing her heel down at Joey, who just barely sidestepped in time. A second after she landed, she swept her leg across the ground at him, and as he hopped to avoid being tripped she coiled back and sprang forward, kicking him in the gut with both feet. As he fell to the ground she rose up, grinning.

"Not done already, are you? Heh, hehhh-Heghsheew! Hecheew! Ecksheew!"

Ayaka's sneezing broke her concentration, and the red aura faded away. Seeing his opportunity, Joey sprang forward. He began raining blows down on Ayaka, who was only just able to block them while still sneezing sporadically. However, the moment the nagging itch died down, she ducked down and struck Joey in the gut with an elbow strike, following up with an uppercut that knocked him flying backwards. He landed flat on his back, his cigarette sent flying out of his mouth.

"He, gonna be beaten by a snot-nosed little girl, Joey?" The third teammate snickered, flipping back his curly brown hair. Joey rolled over to him and tagged his leg.

"She's all yours, Rufus."

"Heh, sorry, but a friend of mine has your number." Ayaka tagged in Randal, who ran into the arena screaming at the top of his lungs. As soon as their fight had began, Ayaka allowed the itch she'd been fighting against the entire round overtake her.

"Huxsheeew! Heggsheew Hecksheew Heh-Etcheew Hiiigh-SHEEEW!"

"That's some allergy you got there." Lucas rubbed his stubble.

"I can hah-handle it." Ayaka wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

"If you say so." Lucas shrugged and turned his attention back to the fight, where Randal was unleashing a barrage of attacks so vicious he was tearing holes in his opponent's red button shirt and white wifebeater.

"Looks like Randal's going to burn out soon. You'd better get back in there."

"Me? Why not you?" Ayaka sniffled.

"Because he's tagging in that Raven guy, and he hasn't taken his eyes off you the whole fight. Besides, you said you could handle yourself, right?" Luca leaned back against the wall of the alley. "Go get'em, girl."

"Legal tag! Raven versus Ayaka!"

Ayaka once again assumed her fighting stance and summoned the red aura. However, she felt the tickle in her nose rise with her Chi, and she had to struggle to maintain her concentration as her eyes began burning and her nose started to run. Raven just stood still, staring at her face as it twitched in an effort to suppress the growing allergic itch. Finally, she couldn't hold it back anymore.

"HaaaACKSHOOO! Hah-Haghsheew Hachtcheew Haaah-"

The last sneeze was cut off as Raven made his move, bringing a fist down on top of her at the end of a huge leap. She went face-down into the ground and the red aura broke apart and vanished.

"Ayaka's aura is depleted! K.O!"

***

"So, yeah, that's how we lost, basically. After you went down that guy just took us apart. He is one mean sucker." Lucas explained as the three walked to school. Ayaka rubbed at her nose.

"Really? I don't remember any of it. Guess he hit me hard enough to cause a little memory loss."

"Ergh, I still can't believe, of all the days for you to forget your allergy meds." Randal wrung his hands. "Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to work up into the big leagues from Amateur level? Huh? Do you?" He groaned.

As the trio headed into the school, a teenage boy with a hawkish face stood staring at them from under a tree, talking into his cellphone.

"Yeah, boss. I just uploaded the footage of the newbie's first fight. Already figured out six different ways of beating them with at least an 87% chance of success. Huh? Yeah, lower than usual. The girl wasn't in top form so I decided to be conservative. Right, I'll keep an eye out. I gotcha. Catch you later."

[Skiffy]

Wow. This is so exiting!

[NoV]

Sneezing AND fighting = epic!

[Butch]

Pilgrim - NICE! Love it. Is there more?

[Chanel_no5]

Oh, what an interesting story. You told it very well, I could really the images you described. And the sneezing was good too.