Project ROWDY 2-16: INVINCIBLE III

“Is that all you have, son of Nolan?” 

Shut up.

The hit came hard, the taste of pennies filling Mark’s teeth as his body shuddered.

He swung back out, a backhand catching the woman across the jaw. Blood flew from her mouth but like before, it didn’t do a thing to stop her.

“I ask again, is that it?”

Three punches rocked Mark, his head shuddering with each one as the purple-haired bitch worked him like a heavy bag. She… Another hit he took was traded for two of his own, right to her stomach as he pushed her back just a bit. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, blood flowing free as a tooth came loose and fell a mile down onto the shattered surface of Thraxa. She’s faster than me.

That was obvious.

A lot of things would probably be more obvious, but one too many hits to the head were making it a bit hard to put two and two together right now. F…fuck.

The purple-haired bitch was faster than him, and the way she hit — fuck me. It was  like she’d been doing this since long before he was even born — WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS?! — which was a fucking given.

Combine that with the rundown his dear-disappeared dad had given him on Viltrumites in the few seconds they had before hell in the form of white-suited psychos rained down on them, Mark was starting to feel pretty certain he was going to die here. 

On this alien planet. 

On a world he couldn’t remember the name of right now, fighting a woman whose name he didn't know either, bleeding out of his nose and his mouth and from places under his suit that shouldn’t be bleeding at all.

…fuck that.

This bitch might have been strong but he knew strong.

More than that, there was only one of her.

That mattered. 

It had to matter. 

His chest heaved, pulling in air that tasted like alien dust and copper. Fuck. Mark slammed his mouth shut, locking his jaw as he swallowed down all the blood in his mouth. ‘S gotta matter.

Because if it didn't…

If it didn’t matter — if all those months getting his ass absolutely handed to him by the three big-eyed thirteen-year-olds in training while Cecil watched didn't count for anything — then he was just going to be a dead body.

Another corpse on a planet full of bug people his dad had apparently knocked up while Mom was back in Baltimore grieving a husband who wasn't even dead.

"You hit hard for a half-breed.” The Viltrumite woman smiled at him with blood thick on her white teeth, a thin red line cutting through the white of a uniform in the same spot his elbow had caught her ribs a few seconds ago. “Very hard.” Her hair was woven into a long braid that whipped behind her like a living thing as she flew, the thing almost like a purple anaconda from the size of it. “In fact, you would make a good mate if not for one thing.”

“And…” Mark spat another tooth out. “And what’s that?”

“You fight like a feral child."

The distance between them vanished in a blink, the sound barrier shattering behind her the only warning Mark got before her fist appeared right in front of his face.

F-! A dropped shoulder was his savior, Mark slipping the strike even as the raw pressure of her punch burned his cheek with the friction. “YOU ALIEN BITCH!” A roar tore out of his throat, the insult instinctive as he crowded her space in a blinding rush of his own. His left hand met the back of her neck before she could dodge back, and drove his right knee up into her gut with the exact opening she gave him.

The impact sank deep, something cracking in the air and inside her as she spat blood and wheezed air. Mark didn't stop. He couldn’t afford to, not when she was stronger and faster and tougher than him all at once.

One of those was tough enough to match.

All three? That was a death sentence if he didn’t fight like he was already dead.

Mark roared without words, pivoting his hips to throw a vicious elbow right at her temple.

Five fingers caught his arm mid-swing, the Viltrumite palming his elbow like it wasn’t moving at supersonic speed. Her grip was a vice of bone and hate, but Mark didn’t even have a second to grunt in pain as he was spinning, his own forward momentum used against him.

A split-second later, Mark went airborne whether he wanted to or not.

Stone exploded as Mark slammed spine-first into a cliff-face, dust and gray debris clouding everything as it rained down over him in chunks. His back screamed, the impact radiating through his body and skull. My… my ribs. If they weren’t cracked before, they definitely were now. 

Mark didn't stop to check as he pushed off the shattered cliff with both legs. Stone cratered under his feet as he missiled back to the purple-haired psycho at full speed. 

They met over empty air.

His skull rattled as her fist caught his jaw, head snapped sideways as he tasted another mouthful of fresh blood. He swallowed it without a thought, and hammered a brutal hook into her kidney off pure instinct.

Another hit the same spot.

Then another.

And another in the same exact spot, stacking the damage exactly the same way Butch had drilled into him. You make them feel every hit. The same spot, on top of the same spot, and you don’t let it scatter if you can help it. Those red-and-black eyes drilled into his brain with the words he thought were insane back then. You hit them until the bone breaks and you never stop making them pay for starting the fight.

Kinetic backwash blew them apart at least a hundred feet, Mark’s vision swimming with dark spots at the edges as his ears whined. She was coming back already, the purple braid streaming behind her as she grinned his way.

Not fast enough to outrun her, Mark met her head-on again.

Their fists met dead-center.

The world roared along with him, a shockwave blowing out in all directions as massive boulders tumbled down the nearest mountainside. Something hot trailed down his fist as his knuckles split open, hers doing the same as their blood mingled and sprayed back into their faces.

None of that stopped the swinging.

She was stronger. She knew she was stronger, and she proved it with every hit

His blocks were barely holding, forearms halfway numb with every hit that shook him down to the bone. Every hit trained and precise, she made sure every hit counted and she fought clean as Mark had ever seen.

He didn't.

All he knew was fighting dirty, from the Flaxans to the Boys, and he didn’t forget any of that on the week-long trip to this bug-planet. Mark rushed her the second she tried to pull back to reset her stance, fingers digging into her chest as he grabbed the front of her white uniform.

Fabric tight in his fist, he yanked her forward. 

His vision went white, a crack echoing out as blood sprayed hot across both their faces.

“You-!” She snarled, actually snarled, like an animal as she pulled back from him. One hand held her shattered nose, blood flowing fast and free as the amused playfulness vanished to pure anger.

His left hand surged out with another blow, a strike that caught her in the ribs. 

Something broke.

It definitely broke.

Mark felt the snap vibrate through his fist, his hand sinking deeper into her torso than it should as something compressed under his fist. His right elbow was already coming down hard on her collarbone because stopping meant losing and losing meant dying.

Another bone cracked under the downward strike.

Bloody teeth hissed back at him, red spraying into his eyes with his goggles shattered to fragments. “Jes-!” The words died on his tongue as air flew from his lungs, an open palm strike taking him right in the chest.

The force sent him flying backward like a cannonball.

Mark hit the ground miles away, body skipping over the alien planet like a stone against water, a trench torn deep through the soil deep enough to bury a car. He forced himself up onto his feet mid-slide, catching himself up as he vomited up something red and thick that wasn’t just blood anymore. 

Two miles out across the ruined landscape, Mark could hear the breaks of rolling thunder and quaking earth that was his dad fighting. One on two, three different voices shouting things Mark couldn’t even make out. Both of them — the blonde guy with the yellow visor and the massive one with the receding hairline — had rushed his dad before Mark could do a thing to help.

He wanted to turn around, clear the distance, and make it a fair fight for the man who had lied to him his entire life.

But the purple-haired woman was already on him again.

Mark rolled, dodging her falling fist as he threw himself to the side.

Her punch cratered the ground exactly where he'd been kneeling, the impact loud enough to hurt his eardrums. The shockwave lifted him clean off the dirt, and Mark used it. He let the concussive force carry his body up and around, and twisted with it as he brought his heel down directly onto the back of her skull mid-spin.

The Viltrumite spiked face-first into the massive crater she'd just made.

Mark dropped his weight squarely on top of her, driving his knees hard into her spine to pin her down. Both fists went up and came down just as quick, the teenager hammering down blows on the back of her head. 

Over and over and over.

His hands were shredding open to the bone, her hard skull making him suffer for it as her purple hair became matted with heavy dark red, his and her blood mixing together again. He didn’t stop, though. 

He couldn't. 

Because if he stopped, she would get up, and she would kill him.

Strength that surpassed his own bucked him off, the world spinning until Mark managed to catch himself in the air a good hundred or so feet up.

Ms Purple was already coming at him, her braid in her hand and the blade at the end shining and ready to be used. Before she even came close, she swung her head.

Metal of a type he’d never seen or felt before carved a line across his shoulder, Mark barely even tracking the pain through the sound of his heart in his ears and the blood rushing through his veins. 

She swung her head again and Mark’s hand lashed out, catching the braid and gripping it tight.

It was stupid. 

Incredibly stupid. 

It could have taken his hand clean off at the wrist, but his fingers closed tight around the woven hair before he could think twice. 

By the time he had the first thought, he was already pulling. She screamed, he screamed; they both screamed as he swung her in a wide arc, slamming her into a mountainside hard enough that the entire cliff came down on both of them in sheets of rock. 

Avalanche-scale destruction turned the air a choking brown, Mark diving directly into the falling rubble after her.

He found her in the dust, half-buried under slabs the size of sedans. Blood and dust left her with each cough, the Viltrumite pushing the rocks off her chest, one of her eyes swollen completely shut. 

Wha… Mark almost froze in the air as he saw the look on her face, the wide smile that was bigger than anything she’d worn so far. Even with her eye ruined and her nose crushed, she was still smiling.

Still. Like this was genuinely fun for her. 

Like she was enjoying this.

Mark's fist obliterated that smile. 

No words, just rage as he dropped from the air and drove a straight cross directly into her mouth. He felt teeth give way under his knuckles as her jaw dislocated or broke or both, the bone shifting as he followed up with a second harder hit.

A hand grabbed his throat in response.

She squeezed. 

He didn't try to pry her fingers off to break the grip, the woman still stronger than he was even now; fingers steel cables around his windpipe. Instead, he brought both of his fists down hard on her forearm, hammering the joint, the bone, and the same exact same spot over and over and over.

Finally, something gave with a pop, and her grip finally loosened.

He sucked in a ragged breath of bloody dirty air as his own hands found her throat and squeezed back. Thumbs directly into her windpipe, he squeezed as hard as he could, pushing her further down into the rubble as he refused to let her catch a breath. 

Fingers clawed at his face, blood flying into the air as her nails tore apart his cheeks. She dug toward his eyes, but missed, just drawing deep lines of blood down his jaw.

No matter what, Mark didn't let go.

Not after the Flaxans. 

Not after his dad.

Her throat bent further under his grip, cartilage giving way as she choked with one working eye wide and bloodshot as she stared up at him. His thumbs dug in deeper as he pressed in harder, some distant part of him screaming at him to stop. 

To show mercy.

Blue eyes stared down at him, Mark remembering how his head spun from an electrified triple kick to the jaw. Mercy is for the weak.

 “Get!” Another impact detonated behind him, earth-shaking enough to rattle his teeth as a familiar voice cut through the dusty air. “Off me!”

Mark wanted to look back, just turn his head and check the skyline to make sure his dad wasn't dying. But the woman trapped under him was still moving, still fighting as she kicked and thrashed beneath him.

He leaned in, pushing even more of his weight forwa- “Fuck!”

Something hit his eye like a bullet, blood and something white spat right into his face driven right into his eye. Mark stumbled back, grip loosening just enough.

The woman shoved him back, the move weak but not weak enough for Mark to hold tight as he went flying off her. Half-blind, he fell apart from her, rolling away as she did the same while gasping for precious air.

Mark got to his feet first, his legs shaking and knees threatening to buckle. The world was still gray at the ends but he saw her there, still on the ground and one hand clutching her ruined throat. Her purple face was going even darker, neck bruised where the blood vessels had already popped. His legs were shaking uncontrollably, his knees threatening to buckle. His vision was blurring heavily at the edges, a gray vignette closing in, but he was up. She was still on the ground. She had one hand clutching her ruined throat, her purple face going an even darker, bruised shade where the blood vessels had popped.

She tried to push herself up to a standing position. No, you don’t! His foot kissed her ribs before she made it halfway, another two or three cracking as she went down into the dirt again. 

He made to stumble after her, but everything hurt; every single muscle fiber screaming. What wasn’t outright broken was bleeding like he had infinite blood, and Mark knew for certain that much wasn’t true.

He took one more step and his right leg gave out, Mark falling to one knee. 

The Viltrumite woman was crawling now, one hand on her throat as she coughed weakly, the other hand dragging her body forward across the dirt and away from him. She was trying to escape, or trying to find space to regroup, or something that Mark's brain was too fogged and exhausted to figure out.

I said… no you dont. Mark forced himself forward again, still dragging himself over the soil after her. One step. 

Then another.

His dad was still fighting behind him, the impacts coming faster now. He turned around to see one of the Viltrumites with their hands around- “DAD!” 

He needed to help. He needed t-

Something glinted bright in Thraxa's alien sunlight as pain erupted through him. 

Mark Grayson looked down, blinking slowlyat the metallic tip of the blade protruding from the center of his chest, thick blood already pouring freely from the wound. Oh.

The woman let go of the braid, collapsing backwards into the dirt. Half-blind, her throat ruined, and bleeding from everywhere, but she was still breathing as the weapon landed heavily on top of her, coated in his blood.

I… I almost had her.

Almost.

He didn’t know when he actually hit the ground, but Mark knew he couldn't get back up. Hell, he couldn't even breathe right with blood in his lungs, bubbling in the back of his throat. "MARK!"

Mark had never heard his dad sound like that. Never. Not in eighteen years. 

He tried to turn his head, wanted to tell his dad it was okay, or tell him to keep fighting, or to run or… 

He didn’t know what he wanted but his body wasn't responding anymore. 

All he heard was a massive, sickening impact behind him followed by a heavy grunt of pain from his dad. The kind of grunt that sounded exactly like losing.

"When you kill someone…"

Someone was saying something nearby. Mark could barely make out the words through the deafening ringing in his ears. It was a wet, thick sound, sloshing in her throat as she forced the words out past the damage he had done to her.

"…make sure they're dead."