Without warning, Harley began thrusting his chains at Lars in a vicious series of attacks. Swiftly dodging the chains, Axel bobbed and weaved easily through the barrage.
Whipping the chains back around his shoulders Harley got down into a sprinting position.
Instantly, Harley approached LArs with blazing speed and threw a strong lariat at Axel. Without batting an eye Axel swiftly ducked under it causing Harley to overshoot and barrel past him, just as the colonel had done to him.
"That's impossible" Harley said.… "I'm traveling over 500 km per hour on these air thrusters!"
Attached to the man's ankles were large square thrusters that shot out fuel like rockets. As soon as he turned them on, he slightly hovered over the ground giving him a frictionless approach.
"I saw that attack 3 times, did you really think I would fall for it the fourth time? Axel rebutted.
"ARGHHHH " Harley grumbled.
Turning on his thrusters again, he accelerated towards Axel throwing a punch aimed at Axels temple. Once again Lars dodged with relative ease.
"How! That was a different Attack! How are you dodging a 500 mph punch!" Harley growled.
"Your air thrusters are fast, no doubt but your punches aren't" Lars said extending out his fist. "It would be impossible for you to throw a punch at that speed, so you are slowing down before you hit me to aim. Attacking like that is useless!"
Harley came at Lars again throwing out as many punches as he could, a jab, a hook, then an uppercut! But no matter how he struggled he just couldn't make contact. After a good minute or two of hitting air he fell back catching his breath.
"You should have never let me see your attack! I asked on of my friends about it and he explained everything! For that huge speed boost your losing a lot of precision!" Axel said
"Yoooo Ax is kickin gass out there!" B said
"Yeh! Who was the friend who explained to him how an air thruster works?"
"Geez… I dunno…" Reggie said scratching his head. "Heh Whoever it was I bet that had a very high Iq and was very attractive…" Reggie said gloating.
"Really? Lance you helped Axel?" Lili asked
"Reggie!" 6 yelled as Reggie's eyes filled with tears
"CH…Its ok… I just died a little on the inside" Reggie said covering his face
The man came at Axel with another blow but Lars immediately sensed something different. Taking heed of the minute change, Lars moved farther out of the range than he needed to avoid the attack.
As the man zoomed passed Lars , he came to a sliding stop on his air thrusters. Axel could see sharp spikes coming out of his right arm.
"Hah bet you didn't expect..-" Harley said turning around. "WHAT!"
Lars stood standing in the same stance as before completely unscathed from his attack.
"That's impossible… how?" Harley said
"I noticed when you went to attack me that your punch was slightly slower than before, actually a lot slower. I had been attacked like that before by another person using the same trick, you were slowing down your punch to time the ejection of your spikes."
"There's no way.. You haven't been through training… your just a kid!" NO NO You must've got lucky!" "This time I'll put an end to this fight." Harley yelled.
Taking off his chained leather vest the man became shirtless and hunched over into a bent position.
"ARGGGHHH!" He grumbled
Dozens of tiny holes ruptured his skin, black spikes like the one from his arm shot out from his back giving him the appearance of a giant hedgehog. Using the chains that expanded from his handkerchief he inserted them in between the spikes
"By covering myself in spikes" he began. He began to curl himself into a ball and changed the position of his thrusters.
"I'm able to spin creating a super deadly attack!"
The thrusters previously angled behind his leg facing away from him, were now vertically facing away from the ground. As he turned them on, he spun the top of his body into a front flip then turned the thrusters off once the flip was over.
Spinning from the momentum of the first thrust, the spiky hairs on his body scraped the ground propelling him in a circle before he briefly turned his air thrusters back on repeating the process. After what seemed like 50 runs of this maneuver he no longer held the shape of a man nor hedgehog and was a giant black blur of deadly spikes and chains spinning at an insanely fast velocity.
"HAHA I'm traveling over 500 mph now good luck catching up now!" Harley laughed
Lars closed his eyes trying to track his opponent.]
(Lars remembered)
"Today were going to talk about opponents that are faster than you!" Vincent chimed
"Why do I always have to be at a disadvantage? Why can't we do one where the opponent is slower?" Lars asked
"Because, no matter what the circumstances are, your opponent will at least have one advantage over you.. Otherwise he wouldn't be fighting you!" Besides the best way to train for the fights where you have an advantage is learning how not to make the mistakes your enemy has when he has one!" Vincent explained
"Uhhh so how do we do this" Lars asked
"When an opponent uses an extreme speed that's overwhelming, if they are not naturally that fast they themselves may not be able to see anything while moving that fast!" Vince explained
"So how can they attack you?" Lars asked
"They will use their sense of hearing!" "That sense will allow them to find where you are and attack you before you have a chance to react!" Vince explained
"So… How do I beat that?"
"Easy you use your ears to predict where they are!"
(Back to present)
"HUHHAAA?"
"Everything moves in a pattern, if you are able to hear a pattern in their movements you can predict the direction they will attack from and counter attack!"
"He hasn't attacked me yet… That means he can't see me as it is…His form is not completely uniform.. There's a portion of his body that is not spikey. I can hear it skipping a beat every rotation…. If I can time my punch for when he's exposed he'll be destroyed by the speed of his own attack colliding with my punch…. But If I miss," Axel said thinking. "I'll probably lose an arm."
Seeing the black spikes create sparks on the ground Axel decided against the wager.
"Heh, actually I've got a better idea." Lars thought
Axel pivoted his right foot while simultaneously moving to the left. Sure enough, the black ball barreled right over his right shoulder just missing him.
Coming to another screeching halt, Harley's feet dragged on the ground creating a trail that looked like tire tracks from the burnt rubber of his thrusters. He looked back at Axel baffled.
"No one has ever dodged that before… How did I miss it? No…. You must have gotten lucky Again! This time!-"
"No: Lars interrupted "This time it's my turn to strike…. This is your last chance to surrender."
"ME? SURRENDER HAHAA, you really think a 16 year old who barely passed puberty runt like you could ever-"
"UHGHHHH!" Harley cried.
It was so fast. So fast that not only could Harley not see the attack but he couldn't feel his stomach absorb the blow until he was already in midair. Lars stood on the ground slowly walking back from the attack.
"Grant! What is the meaning of this?" The general said watching Harley get blown back from Axels attack. "That's your thunder knee! Isn't it?" The general remarked.
"HAHAHAHAH! So you figured it out did ya kid!" Grant said laughing "That's right I never punched you not once!"
"Thunder knee? I don't get it?" Obrien said adjusting his glasses.
"It's a knee attack where you faint a punch and appear directly below your opponent and knee them! Since they are expecting a punch they never see your knee come out and since they are blown back from the attack it creates the illusion you are walking away! Useless in normal combat of someone of equal skill but perfect to psychologically damage weaker opponent's moral!"
"That attack was so fast I couldn't even see it?" Harley grunted floating through the air
In that instant he felt pain. Pain In every part of his body… He could barely feel his stomach at all besides its inability to inhale air.
"Shaking my body is shaking?" He thought
As he slammed onto the ground and slid towards the end of the ring it felt like his skeleton was disintegrating into his body..
"All this from one attack?" He thought.
He was in so much pain and shock he could barely squeak out the words
"C… C'mon get up" He said as he strained his neck, but as much as he tried he could not get it to budge.
"Your body is in shock... You've never been hit that hard," Lars said standing over him,
"I don't know how… but it looks like that Old Geezer went easy on you those two years!" Lars said laughing
"Thhhaattss… Impossible.. I.. I lost to a kid?" Harley said lying on the ground
"Don't feel too bad… I'm sure Darius will be saying the same thing when I beat him." Lars laughed. "
"I trained… for two years… and I couldn't even force you to use… your power…" The man said passing out on the floor.
"That just means you'll have to train harder than those last two years for the next 6 months." Axel said.
Vincent didn't even bother doing a count he walked over to the unconscious man and used some type of blue gauge to prick his neck.
Waving his hands he signaled to the crowd.
"Axel is the winner by Knockout!" He announced
The crowd was in complete silence. No one knew how to receive the situation. A kid just beat the crap out of a grown man? Was this staged? The only voices that could be heard were coming from the dugout.
"WHHOOOHHOOO"
"YEEEHHHH AX!!!!"
"YEEHHH BUDDY"
" Hahah DATS BABYY BLUEEE FOR YAHHH!"
"So… you did get stronger…"
"Colonel Grant!!!!' Lars shouted into the stands. "Are you watching? I won a match! Which means! I'm officially an officer now!" Axel yelled.
"He did it Grandmama!" Nalini cheered.
"Yes he did honey" Lu said rubbing the child's head. "Yes he did."
"Grant! What the hell is going on here?" The general barked as Grant entered the booth.
"What is do you mean?" Grant asked
"Who are these kids?"
"Those are the ones who are gonna beat Darius."
"Heheheh You've got to be kidding me!"
"I honestly didn't believe it myself until I saw this fight…" Grant said
"I just fought with that kid a couple days ago … And to my surprise, not only has he fully recovered from a ruptured spleen and a few broken ribs… He's even stronger than when I examined him!"
"Are you saying he's going to be even stronger than he is now? O'Brian! What kind of drugs are you giving these kids!"
"A drug the SPA stopped taking a long time ago…." O'Brian answered
"You son of a bitch! I knew it!"
"Its a drug called faith."