“You shouldn’t have brought it with you, then.” Iris was unsympathetic to his plight. Perhaps she was jealous, he mused. “You don’t wear your favorite clothes that your mate bought you when you know you’re going on a dangerous mission into enemy territory. That’s just stupid.”
“Whatever,” Kevin mumbled. He turned his attention toward the ceiling, or, more specifically, the woman hanging from the ceiling. “What do you think we should do with her?”
“Leave her hanging,” Iris suggested. “Or we could always strip her naked and hang her out of the train by her thighs. Maybe that will teach her not to attack people.”
“Hmm,” Kevin hummed thoughtfully.
***
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re way too nice?” Iris asked as she plucked several splinters from his back. Kevin ignored her tone, just as he tried ignoring the icy sting of her yanking wood out of his flesh.
He instead focused on the young woman lying on the bench. She was… different than other females he’d met. Not in appearance. She looked like any normal woman, albeit, a bit more beautiful than most. What really stuck out to him were her clothes. Gleaming bronze, the chest plate that she wore only covered her, well, her chest. It left her stomach completely exposed, however, revealing tanned skin and six-pack abs. Plated armor sat over her skirt, situated into multiple segments. Pauldrons of the same color sat on feminine yet surprisingly broad shoulders, their rounded forms about half the size of her head.
“She isn’t human, is she?” Kevin asked, wincing when Iris pulled out one of the splinters that had stabbed into a cluster of nerves.
“Probably not.” Iris stopped pulling splinters out. He hoped that meant she was finished. “I don’t know any human who would be stupid enough to jump through the window of a speeding train. I don’t even know if a human could do that and survive.”
He heard her ruffling around in their duffel bag. The next thing he knew, something cold and wet stung his back. The sharp scent of disinfectant soon filled the air.
Kevin inhaled a short, quick, hissing breath as the alcohol in the disinfectant stung his wounds. The feeling left soon enough, and he released a slow exhale as the pain faded.
“Hanging in there, Stud?”
“I’m fine,” Kevin assured, frowning at the young woman who’d tried bludgeoning him in the head with a club. “What happened to us can’t be a singular incident, can it? I mean, why would someone jump in through our window and attack us on their own like that? What’s the point?”
“It could be someone working for the Shénshèng Clan.”
“I thought that too, at first.” Kevin paused to shift his shoulders. “But that wouldn’t make sense. For one, they shouldn’t even know we’re traveling to China.
“That kasha could have told them.”
“The news wouldn’t have arrived so quickly, though. Yōkai hate using technology, especially kitsune. I don’t need to remind you how ancient Psyxḗ is. Kotohime said that all of the Great Kitsune Clans are like that, and unless Shinkuro has decided to become tech-savvy and get himself a cellphone or something, there’s no way anyone could have informed him that we’re traveling to China.”
“I guess you have a point.”
“Also, why would they send a single yōkai to attack us like this?”
Iris waited a second before asking, “What do you mean?”
Hearing the curiosity in Iris’s tone, Kevin sat up and turned to look at her. “I mean why attack us on a train in this manner? While it is true that we don’t have anywhere to run, there are easier ways of killing us than smashing our window and jumping me like that. I could think of at least six other ways to kill me that would have worked ten times better and none of them involve infiltrating a moving train.”
“Should I be disturbed that you’re thinking about ways someone can kill you?” Iris inquired sardonically.
Kevin frowned at her. “It never hurts to be prepared. We’re heading into enemy territory, so thinking up ways an enemy might ambush us can only be a good thing. It’s called being cautious.”
“That didn’t help us much when we were attacked by that kasha,” she pointed out.
“Which is why I’m doing this now,” he retorted. “It’s called learning from one’s mistakes.”
He’d never know if Iris planned another retort because at that exact moment several loud crashes and bangs echoed from beyond their compartment. Kevin and Iris listened to the exclamations of fear, followed by a woman’s scream, and then a loud crack! that reminded Kevin of what happened when someone’s face got bashed in with a bat. This noise was followed by a dull thud, the sound of a body hitting the floor no doubt, and then another shrill scream.
“Someone’s in trouble!”
“What? H-hey! Hold up, Stud!”
But Kevin didn’t hold up. He rushed out of the compartment and came face to face with an unusual scene. Another woman, her attire similar to the one that Iris had knocked out, walked out of a compartment carrying an unconscious man over her shoulder.
Kevin’s eyes met hers. This stare down only lasted for a quick second before they both acted.
Kevin rushed forward into a slide tackle. The woman threw the man onto the floor behind her and leapt over his attack. He skipped back to his feet quickly, just in time to meet her head-on assault.
As the woman, some type of Amazonian warrior princess he guessed, charged right at him, Kevin fell back into the style that he’d been perfecting for the past eight or so months. He slid into a loose stance, arms at his side, his guard full of easily exploitable holes.
The woman was definitely a fighter. The moment he moved into his stance, she attacked the hole that he left in his guard, the one he gave her in order to predict her next attack.
He slipped around the fist aimed at his throat. He knew how deadly a pair of knuckles to the throat could be and had no desire to have his esophagus crushed. As he sidestepped to the left, he brought up his fist and batted her attack away, causing her arm to go wide. This left her open for a counterattack, or so he’d hoped.
The woman wasn’t a warrior for nothing, however. She had excellent reflexes. She recovered her position and quickly began backpedaling, narrowly avoiding his attack, a heel kick that would have made her fold over like fold out chair.
Iris chose that moment to run out of their compartment. He would have loved asking her to help him tag team this woman, but another Amazon warrior princess decided to make an appearance. The vixen barely had time to squawk in indignation before she was attacked with ferocious intensity.
Kevin couldn’t focus on his mate’s sister any longer because the woman before him attacked again.
He turned his attention fully onto his opponent. Rather than act rashly, the Amazonian woman probed his defenses with a combination of swift jabs and even quicker kicks. Kevin allowed the woman her attacks, directing them by presenting her with predetermined openings, which she didn’t hesitate to take.
A blow to the head was avoided when he raised his arm, not blocking the woman’s attacking club, but redirecting her arm down and to his left. The club in her hand struck the ground with a great smash! and Kevin almost gaped at the large hole it left in the floor. He could see the train tracks flashing by underneath.
He slipped around the reverse heel kick to his torso by sidestepping. He could feel the power behind the attack, the unleashing of displaced air, which caused his clothing to ruffle.
Swerve. Dodge. Contort. Redirect. Kevin’s style allowed him, not to predict her attacks, but to control where she would attack next. This let him keep ahead of her by the narrowest of margins. He saw the woman beginning to grow frustrated with her lack of success, the way her brows knitted, and lips quirked into a frown being the clearest indication, but her movements also became a tad sloppier.
He would have smiled were he not so busy concentrating. Frustrated opponents made mistakes. She would make one soon, and then he would capitalize on it and end this fight swiftly.<
br />
That mistake came sooner than he could have hoped. In her frustration, his opponent took an opening that he presented on his left torso. Like a jaguar pouncing on a bird, she lunged at him with her club, probably in the hopes that her club’s extended range would throw him off.
Instead of finding his ribs crushed on her club, the woman found herself on her back when Kevin latched onto her arm and used her own momentum to flip her over. Oxygen blew from her mouth like a tank releasing helium. The woman barely had time to comprehend her situation before Kevin slammed his foot down on her face, cracking her head into the floor and knocking her unconscious.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Kevin looked up to see Iris locked in combat with her own foe. It was quite the sight.
Her raven hair whipped fiercely about her head. Fist, feet, and club flew past her as she contorted her body at impossible angles, like she was boneless. Kevin watched in awe as Iris literally bent backwards until she was parallel with the ground, her knees bent at perfect ninety-degree angles. She then placed her hands on the ground and launched a twirling bicycle kick at her foe.
The woman, yet another female in skimpy armor, moved back posthaste. Unfortunately, she had forgotten about Iris’s tails. Just like what had happened with the first scantily clad armored Amazon they fought, the tails coiled around the woman and slammed her into the ceiling. A loud cracking echoed around them. The air from the woman’s lungs left her in a rush. Iris didn’t give the skimpily clothed femme time to recover. A violent tug of her tails sent the woman crashing face-first into the floor, where her body went slack.
“I didn’t know you could fight like that,” Kevin commented idly as he walked up to Iris’s side. The smile she flashed him, so full of mischief, would have made lesser men shudder in uncertainty and arousal.
“Of course, I know how to fight,” she huffed in mock agitation. “All Pnév̱ma women are taught the basics of self-defense. Granted, I’m not the best of my clan. Lilian’s definitely better than me, since she’s got that weird obsession with shōnen manga, but I can hold my own.”
The conversation didn’t get much farther than that before several more woman wearing stupidly skimpy armor rushed into their train car. Kevin and Iris stared at the four women, who stared back with startled, blinking eyes. One of the women looked down at the two Amazons that he and Iris had felled, then back at him and Iris. Another moment passed before the train car exploded with chaos.
“That man!” A younger woman barely out of her teens pointed at him. “I want him now!”
Iris and Kevin barely had time to blink. The women rushed them like a horde of super-hot zombies descending upon an unsuspecting high school student in a hentai. Battle cries were unleashed. Clubs were drawn. Like an avalanche descending upon the hapless skier, the group of women were upon him and his companion within seconds.
Kevin was left with no time to think; his body moved instinctively, falling back into his style of combat, allowing holes to appear within his defense. He presented the teen Amazon an opening, which she took eagerly, thrusting her club into his side. It missed when Kevin leaned out of the way and swatted the club with a fist. He didn’t have time to be amused by the shocked look she wore. He didn’t have time to capitalize on the opening either, as had been his plan, for one of the other women launched a powerful kick at his side.
He leaned back to avoid the blow. The two Amazons who’d decided to take him down came at him again. They tried a pincer maneuver, coming in from the left and right. He guessed they wanted to force him back or make him respond with a hasty defense.
He would do neither.
The younger swung her club at the same time that the other woman tried taking out his knees with a leg sweep. Kevin spun to the left, the club cutting the airspace he’d been in a split second ago. This also allowed him to avoid the other woman’s attempt at kicking out his knees. It also put him in the perfect position to send a startlingly fast kick at the ducking woman’s head.
Perhaps the young one sensed this, as she was there just as he launched his kick, her arms crossing over her chest. Flesh smacked against flesh, a loud slapping sound that rang out over the din of battle. Kevin was shocked when he saw that his attack was stopped—no, not just stopped. Stopped with ease. His attack looked like it hadn’t done a thing to her. She didn’t budge an inch. She didn’t even grunt when his attack connected!
This… this is really gonna hurt my masculine pride.
Kevin didn’t have time for such morbid and humiliating thoughts. In the next split second, the teen Amazon grabbed his foot and lifted him off the ground like he was a paper doll. He gnashed his teeth together and spun his body around, corkscrewing, twisting. He launched his other leg out in a snap kick. This time, his attack did connect. Her head turned. Her hands let go of him, allowing him to land back on the ground. Unfortunately, he was given little time to celebrate his minor victory.
The woman he’d first tried punting in the face came out from behind the younger one. It wasn’t long after she attacked that the younger Amazon came in, too, double-teaming him and preventing him from counterattacking. They worked in tandem, with one on the offense and the other on defense. Every time he tried to counter, the other was there to take his measure. Kevin was put completely on the defensive.
Sweat escaped his pores, thick globules that ran down his forehead in rivulets, stinging his eyes and making him nearly blink. He didn’t, but only because doing so would mean taking his eyes off his enemies. Looking away for even a split second could mean the difference between life and death.
Iris wasn’t very much better. What little he saw of the vixen through the furious flashes of combat was her being completely overwhelmed. Without time to weave illusions, her limited martial ability made simply keeping pace with the two obviously skilled warriors a challenge.
Dang it. I need to do something!
That was easier said than done. More and more Kevin found himself being pushed back. A swing to his head was only avoided because he’d lowered his guard on purpose. The strike to his kidneys was dodged merely thanks to his ability to control the flow of battle. Yet even with that control, even with that ability, he could do nothing in return. These two simply refused to give him that opening he needed to take one of them out.
Ugh. I can’t believe I left my handguns in the compartment. That was stupid.
“GYA!” Iris cried out.
Kevin turned.
It was a foolish thing to do, spinning around to face a shout while facing off against two people. Kevin realized his mistake only seconds after he’d already committed to the action. For one single second, he saw what happened. For that split moment, he saw Iris getting hit in the stomach with a club, saw her double over and spit out bile and saliva. For that one instant, he took a single step toward Iris.
Then reality hit him like a ton of bricks. A sharp pain flared in his skull. He saw, more than felt, himself crumbling to the ground. He blinked several times as he stared at the ceiling, his vision darkening, the edges blurring. A figure appeared above him, indistinct, like he was looking at it through deformed glass. It closed on him seconds before his world became consumed in darkness.
***
If she had the breath to do so, Iris would have cursed like a drunken sailor who hadn’t been laid in over a decade.
She watched as the young floozy in skimpy armor hefted Kevin’s insensate body over her shoulder and ran off.
“Hey! Come back!”
Iris tried to rush forward, to reach that woman before she left. She never got the chance. Two people stood in her way. It was the same two people who’d been giving her so many problems.
“Out of my way! Extension!”
Her tails shot out from behind her. Like snakes uncoiling to strike their prey, her tails struck the two women. Rather than let themselves be smacked around like the last two women she had fought, these two took the attacks head on, letting her tails wrap around their arms, yanking her
forward.
Iris was cut off mid-yelp when one fist and one foot slammed into her with the ferocity of a Gundam doing a drop kick. She could almost swear she felt her ribcage snapping. Blood pooled in her lungs. She coughed. Crimson splattered against the ground. Her knees met the floor as her legs gave out. Seconds later she fell onto her stomach and curled into the fetal position.
The women who’d nearly broken her body didn’t finish her off. They fled, leaping out of the window like the other two who had fought Kevin.
“N-no…”
Iris gritted her teeth as she struggled to move. Her body refused to unfurl itself, however, so she was left with no option other than to crawl. She dug her fingers into the floor, reinforced nails scraping along the surface. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, Iris dragged herself along the ground like a legless cripple.
Upon reaching the nearest window, she grabbed the ledge and hauled herself up. Pain flared in her torso. She could tell now that her ribs had not been broken, but they were certainly damaged. She didn’t know what kind of yōkai those women were; however, they were clearly skilled in combat. That kick and punch had been extremely precise, hitting her at just the right angle to cause maximum pain.
She stared out of the window just in time to see Kevin slung over a horse and the woman who captured him whipping the reigns. They were out of sight soon after.
“D-dammit!”
Iris clutched a hand to her chest. Acute pain hit her. It wasn’t the pain born from physical wounds. It was something else, something that she had only felt a few times before: when Lilian was in danger.
“I-I… what is this… feeling? Why does it hurt so much?”
Iris gnashed her teeth together and shoved that unwanted feeling aside, ignoring the strange, gaping chasm in her chest. She couldn’t deal with that right now. Kevin had been kidnapped, though for what reasons she didn’t know, and honestly, she couldn’t care less. All that mattered was that he’d been kidnapped, and she had to get him back.
“Do you really think I’m going to let this stand?” Iris asked no one but herself, for no one else was there. “Don’t think you’ve won.” She glared into the distance, dark carmine orbs gleaming like pools of blood. “I won’t let you bitches take what’s mine!”
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