How To Beat Bullies

Standing face to face with the bully monster Ari swallowed spit as it stared daggers through her with it's glowing red eyes.

Looking over at a still unconscious Stephanie, Ari steeled her rattled nerves and put the throbbing pain in her ribs to one side.

"Alright Buttons we gotta coordinate this shit" she said under her breath holding her left hand to her mouth.

"We gotta get code words or something, when I say 'up' put in little springs or something to make me jump further and higher. When I say blade make a blade hand, I don't know anything about this thing so make two blade hands for the time being. Make them a little long I gotta keep my distance for the time being" Ari muttered to Buttons as she watche her left hand become an elongated blade and the blade on her right grow.

Looking over at Stephanie slowly changing color slumped in the snow Ari looked back to the monster and slowly inched towards Stephanie.

As soon as she took a step the monster let out a deep primal snarl.

"...up" she said into her hand as she quickly sprung towards Stephanie.

Getting within a fingertip the monster crashed into her and the pair wrestled on the ground.

Struggling against it's dense weight Ari managed to scramble free.

Swiping for it with her right blade she narrowly caught its cheek before springing away to avoid retaliation.

Improvising on the spot Ari made a plan.

"Buttons this is my second mission, this thing isn't gonna be like insanely strong right" she said into her left blade.

"These missions aren't really based on power scaling Ari. It's a time based thing, Stephanie died a few days ago that's why your here. There's no guarantee on how strong that thing is" Buttons said in a matter of fact manner.

"Great. Super encouraging" Ari said sarcastically.

Left without even the delusion of hope Ari resorted to her martial arts training as a child.

Taking a standard attacking stance she stood with one foot two shoulders' widths forward and slightly to the side.

Keeping the back leg straight she bent the front leg, forcing the knee outward directly over the big toe.

Both feet should be flat, the front foot pointing slightly inward.

Placing herself back into every instance she had encountered a bully Ari made the situation she was currently in one and the same with her childhood confrontations.

This was an amalgamation of bullies in front of her and if there's one thing all the bullies she ever fought had in common it was not knowing what to do when the short tomboy punched them in the nose.

So that was now the plan, hit it in the nose to at least daze it and win somehow.

"Oh Stephanie" Ari said as she fake lunged towards her drawing the monster in to jump at her with it's arms out.

Keeping her wits about her, Ari almost effortlessly ducked the attack.

Stumbling forward the monster missed her and landed face first in the snow.

Rising back up it focused on Ari who was now looking back at it with an almost smug grin.

Charging forward in much the same way it stopped right as Ari was attempting to duck and anticipated which way she'd go.

Just about grabbing her Buttons suit it had enough of a grip on Buttons to pull Ari back and get a hold of her properly.

It effortlessly threw him across the snow watching her unceremoniously rolling across the floor.

"Gah!" Ari groaned in pain writhing around as her side hit a solid rock in the ice.

She clutched her sternum and felt a sudden spike in adrenaline rush through her body from the cocktail of cold and pain.

Her eyes shooting open she looked up at the sight of an unwanted red writing appearing in front of her.

[-5 HP]

"Spiked knuckles and claws!" Ari furiously shouted as Buttons quickly transformed the blade hands into normal hands with sharp bear claws and spikes on the knuckles.

Rising up seemingly fine she rushed towards the monster.

Charging straight towards it she punched the monster straight in the nose.

Despite the splatter of blood down its face was still able to reach out and grab Ari by the suit again.

In a panic Ari grabbed it's arm and failed to break it's grip.

Holding on she watched it raise her by the scruff of the neck.

Raising Ari overhead was a miscalculation as it put Ari at an angle to pull her leg back.

Grabbing it's arm with the claws on her left hand she held it's head in place with her free hand digging the claws into its skull and violently put her knee through its head.

Dazed and now in pain its grip on Ari broke ad the monster stumbled back.

Now grabbing it by the shirt Ari pulled the monster in for a ferocious headbutt.

A loud CRACK emanated through the snow.

Going on instinct Ari grabbed the back of the monsters disfigured head and began rapidly punching it in the face spikes first.

Staining the snow with it's blood she tightened her grip.

"Put the claws on the left hand where the knuckles are and make them a foot long!" Ari said watching the spikes on the left hand disappear along with the claws sink back into the fingers before reappearing on the knuckles.

Hearing the monster wince in pain Ari turned back to it's sickening bloodied mangled face.

It's glowing red eyes now dimmed and back to their mismatched differently sized brown and blue.

"Look me in my eyes you dumb bitch. This is for Stephanie Gomez" Ari said as she winded her hand back and drove her clawed knuckles through it's head watching the monsters brains splatter across the snow.

Flinging the bits of brain left on her hand to one side Ari ran over to Stephanie.

"Fuck... Buttons spit me out and carry her out of here" Ari said looking down at Stephanie's bruised and discolored body.

Buttons expanded his body and mouth, lying down and letting Ari climb out.

"Damn!" Ari said as soon as the snow hit her bare feet and she ran in a panic onto the snowmobile clutching her exposed arms and legs.

Shivering in her seat Ari watched Buttons grow exponentially and grab Stephanie's body and swallow her whole.

"H....h...holy fuck she better be okay. I'm dying here" Ari said looking up at Buttons.

"Oh she's stirring" Buttons said as he rubbed his stomach.

"That's something..." she said while shivering as she watched Buttons dissipate into thin air.

[Mission Completed!] Popped up in a green text as Ari looked out at the white fog.

As she let out a deep sigh that she could see as white steam everything faded to black.