Texas Gangsta
One might think making the trip from LA to Boston on a vehicle rated for thirty miles an hour to be onerous beyond compare. It is 2416 miles to Jacksonville on the I-10, and another 1145 miles up the I-95 to Boston. Almost a hundred and twenty hours of straight riding might break the will of a lesser man, but not Richard Hanma who possessed the ability to run his day on autopilot. Turning off his greater thinking and emotional capabilities and just dedicating himself to the grind.
It's how he achieved his bloodline power, the demon-face back, and how he mastered his martial arts. Practicing a move thousands of times feels like no time at all while near unconscious. While undoubtedly a valuable tool, it came with the drawback of limiting Richard's mythical awareness and suspicion.
On the endless stretch of highway that is Texas, the gargantuan youth failed to recognize the obvious danger of an armored personnel carrier pulling up alongside him. A side door slid open revealing a huge jacked man in sleeveless yellow fatigues with a red beret and ascot. In his large honky hands he wielded a green kali stick, which he used to brain the clueless youth.
The man grinned widely as the youth lost control of his moped, but frowned at the show of athletic superiority as the youth leapt off the highway with a single leg, clearing his crashing moped and launching himself on top of his APC.
"Keep driving." The man commended as he gripped the roof of the APC and flipped up onto it.
The man and youth faced each other as the wind whipped by and the crashing moped exploded. Not because the crash would cause an explosion, but because explosions are cool. Though the man was shocked by the explosion, he kept his strict military facade.
"Civilian!" Rolento F. Schugerg shouted as the mustache toting youth entered a loose fighting stance, "Surrender the Invitation for the Fists and the Furious World Tournament right now!"
Richard looked at Rolento with a face full of derision and replied, "I'm ain't giving you shit, honky. Now that my beloved is destroyed, I'm coming for what's due. From you. If you impress me, I might not go after your gang too."
Rolento's blood pressure shot up through the roof as he screamed "How dare you call this well regulated militia a gang!"
"You're a gang." Richard insisted quite petulantly.
"THIS IS TROOPS!" Rolento yelled as he sprung into action, adopting a stance reminiscent of Muay Thai, but hunched over and fondling his big green beat stick.
He closed distance behind a series of jabs that turned into a trio of high speed spinning attacks as Rolento twirled his kali stick like a helicopter blade atop his palm. Honey colored hands parried the jabs and his upper body easily maneuvered around the spinning attacks. He checked a low kick coming in, shin to shin, and watched the grimace that flashed across the militia man's hard face.
Over the checked kick came a quick jab from the youth, and the kali stick came up to smack it aside. Despite the stick to skin contact, the jab continued on its path and stung the nose of the man, which began bleeding freely onto his red ascot.
Richard nodded at the clever use of clothing which briefly allowed the man's yellow shirt to remain unblemished. As always, a fight reveals all of a man's secrets to the lazy, yet piercing gaze of the youth.
"I have a dream!" Rolento yelled, to rally his wits, to engender sympathy, to distract, Richard knew not and wanted to know more so he allowed the man to continue, "This country, this great nation, is falling apart. No one else has the vision and will to fix it, no one but me! Twenty percent of Americans approve of Congress, but we have a ninety percent incumbency rating, yet eighty percent of America approves of the military. Democracy has failed, and it's time for the military to take over, and place me as the Supreme Leader of America! That's why I need that Invitation, boy! First, I'll prove to the world that I am worthy, and then I'll use the prize money to fund a coup! A coup that will save America! That's why, if you love our country, the way I love our country, you'll hand it over and join me! What do you say?"
"I say…" Richard started, then firmed up his stance, "if you have any moves left to show me, you best do so now."
Rolento snarled as his speech failed to reach the hearts and minds of the youth, and sprung into this ultimate attack. On the moving APC he couldn't employ his acrobatics, but the concept remained the same, strike high, strike low, strike high. A three part maneuver with his full power behind each strike.
Rolento felt the exhilaration of unleashing his ultimate maneuver fall flat as the youth wrapped his hand around the kali stick on the final strike, preventing it from reaching his head by inches.
"More." the terrifying youth demanded.
In response, Rolento bounced around like a man on a pogo stick, attempting to crush the feet of the youth before rolling back over his shoulders and springing forward to bring his kali stick down on the the boy's jheri curl clad head, but it was a feint as the man flipped back and launched a throwing knife, then upon landing lauched two more knifes into arcs set to land on the boy's head.
Richard caught the assassin's blades with hands quicker than a snow leopard and tossed them aside carelessly, causing another trio of explosions as they impacted following vehicles. Despite this apparent failure, Rolento smirked as his true attack landed. He yanked a near invisible wire that he lassoed around the youth's ankle, seeking to drag the young man across the small landmines he'd seeded along his path of retreat.
The youth simply performed a donkey kick, pulling Rolento across the small explosive devices. He popped back up, his front comically singed. Thank God it looked like a gag, otherwise someone might have really been hurt there.
"I've taken all I can from you." Richard declared, "Let me show you what I've learned."
Like an unstoppable force, the youth came foreword and ripped the kali stick from Rolento's stunned grasp and leaned forward into the man's own stance. With a quick shuffle of his feet, a series of jabs thrust the tip of the shaft against the man's chest and belly, each bringing the familiar and frightful pain of being shot to the veteran.
In fact, it really was like he was being shot, Rolento staggered back, and saw his life's blood pouring from his torso. The sound of a buzz saw shrieking brought his gaze back to the youth who continued the combo into the trio of spinning attacks. Two body shots followed by an overhand attack to the head. The man threw his arm out to block the attack from reaching his already heavily damaged core, and screamed as the kali stick tore his arm off, cleaving right through the bone as it continued uninterrupted to carve a deep gouge across his middle. The next attack came in from the opposite side and completed the meat canyon though his belly, his innards falling out as he collapsed to his knees.
The final attack to his head was a mercy, the kali stick lodging itself in his brain stem as its final home after losing momentum carving from his temple. The attack could have continued, but the stick ruptured from the torque put upon it by the youth
His business up top concluded, Richard Hanma slid down into the APC, taking a seat along with the armed paramilitary men. His arms crossed over his chest, and a tick in his eye, he shouted at them, "SCRAM! SCRAM HONKYS! SCRAM, I SAY!"
A primal terror filled the chests of each man, grasping their hearts and forcing them to obey. The militia men threw themselves from the vehicle to get away from this negroid destroyer. Including the driver. Richard managed to squeeze his unusual bulk behind the steering wheel, and it was here he discovered something horrible.
As a thirteen year old, no one taught him to drive.
Once again, Richard lamented that he never made friends with hoodrats and not doing hoodrat stuff growing up. The controls of the APC were moderately similar to those of the cars he'd seen others driving, but the buttons, switches, and joy sticks were enough to give a young man anxiety. After a brief period of hesitation, Richard brought the APC to a stop in the only logical way he had any assurance about.
He slammed his feet through the floor and stopped the APC Flintstone style.
The engine tried to to keep pushing the vehicle forward, but in a contest of metal axles versus the fleshy tree trunk-like super man legs of Richard Hamna, the obvious gave out first. The screech of steel screamed out over the highway as the youth asserted dominance over the machine.
Which promptly exploded.
Because explosions are cool.
Richard Hanma emerged from the blaze, his clothes burning off his body, his moped destroyed, his Air Forces decimated. All he had left was the apparently fireproof invitation, meaning he had yet to hit rock bottom.
Nearby, a black Jaguar sports car slid to a stop on the highway shoulder and a man emerged from it in a charcoal suit and fedora shouting, "My God, you're alive!"
"A little cherry bomb like this couldn't take me out." Richard declared with seeming disinterest.
"Tell me son," the white man grinned widely, "Have you ever played football?"
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And we have our first cross over character from Street Fighter who learned that he was actually in Mortal Kombat the hard way.
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