A NEW CHALLENGER

Jul 21st 2011, 08:23 by E O Hatterpol | 1228 AU FROM SUN

SHE WRAPPED her legs around my neck.

Normally, I'd be happy to write that sentence, but not today.  Because then the female gymnast bent back, got her hands underneath her and whiplashed my poor skull into the concrete.

I put my bookshield between me and unconsciousness just in time; the pain wasn't much compared to that mindflounder I had had back at the Squid's Beak.

Funnily enough, I didn't cry out or cower or think about running away, like I had when Makemake harpooned and boarded the Starship Flybrary.

I just got angry.

“Thanks for the massage,” I said, ptooey-ing blood.  “But now it's my turn.  I'm gonna hit you so hard you'll finally go through puberty, freak!”

I swiped at her face with the jagged edge of my broken beer bottle sword, just grazing her cheek under the eye.  She looked at me stone-faced as the smallest amount of blood rose to the surface.  She smeared it across her face with the back of her hand, and it gave her the look of a demon.  Although the rest of her body seemed to be growing angrier, her eyes didn't show anything.  I couldn't help but think of that zonbi.

Was she one, too?

I didn't have any more time to think.  She sprang into the air with a Raphael-style kick, but I was ready.  I stepped into the box made by her chest and outstretched leg, drove the tip of my sword into her thigh, then used my bookshield to punk her in the neck so hard she dropped like salt water in an estuary.

“Puh-puh-puh-POW, chickadee!” I said victoriously.  “EOH ain't afeared uh-NO female gymnasts, wit-wiggidy-whizaaaaaat!?!”

The pretty black girl slipped into the ring, checked on the female gymnast, held up my hand in victory and slipped a few hundred $$B notes in my pocket.  My first winnings!!

My body was pumping at full throttle; I was untouchable!  Not only had I defeated Captain Makemake, but I had also curbstomped my worst nightmare!

“Here,” I said, handing the loot back, “put it all on me to win.”

“Really?" the pretty black girl said.  "You sure?  You even know who you're fighting next?”

“Does it matter?  You can't stop a Trane, sweetheart!”

And then, to the whole dancehall, “So who's next?!”

I laughed out loud.  I was invincible!

But then a tall, light-skinned black man in a bowtie and boxing gloves stepped out from behind the throng into the ring.

“I am,” said Heartbreak.