It was fall... the air was chill outside, and I stepped into the
dojo lightly, with
anticipation for the day ahead. The young men inside were training with a furious
industry, punches and kicks flew through the air with the vigor of those who had yet to ever experience defeat at the hands of their adversaries... and I was a key element of their training.
The pristine silence of it all was disturbed today. At long last, and for the first time, it wasn't a drill anymore. From outside, where the autumn leaves drifted lazily to the ground, we could hear them coming. The air shifted, as if tainted, and there were soft, padded footsteps outside the door, footsteps that would've been imperceptible except for the fact that we knew this place so well that any change in the surrounding environment was immmediately noticed by most of us. Light footsteps, soft whispers, just ouside our doors, just low enough for us not to clearly mark them for what they were. Then, with all the fury in the world, they attacked.
The youths, who'd been so eager to hone their skills when they arrived today were now being put to the test, they exploded into a flurry of action, and an amazing display of alternating fighting styles was seen as our own brought the fight to these feminine warriors. The women responded in turn with a style we'd not had much experience with. Our fighters used everything they'd learned, improvising on the spot, improving their technique as they went, and adapting to the moment. I stood proud of them, waiting for the point at which I might be necessary.
Then, as the tide seemed to be turning in our favor, with our red clad youths fighting off these women whose dress was primarily ebon, a tall figure entered the room. Everything came screeching to a halt, her presence was incredible, holding the eye and the mind at attention. She was indeed in command of these women, as marked by her clothing. Making a raid or an attack on most places, she would have left the insignia and trusted her own to know her, but she knew we fought by an honor code here. She stepped up to me and said, "We are the Lesbianic Ninjas of Bahrain. I challenge you for the honor of our sect, and to claim your dojo as our own."
I was appalled. A matter like this surely could've been handled with more tact. Members of either of our groups could've been seriously injured with greeting practices like this. I looked her straight in the eye and said, "I refuse to allow you the honor. You've entered unnanounced, you challenge my fighters and my authority here, and I wouldn't allow you the privelege of using this place, even if you were to best me in single combat."
"Like it or not, you're still going to have to face me."
"Well then, if you're going to put it like that... Form a circle, quickly!" The two sects came together around us, we were entrapped in a ring. I hadn't had a real fight in years, and although I knew it wasn't the proper thing to do, as I should've attempted more boldly to avoid conflict, my blood rushed through my veins in anticipation.
She rushed towards me in a flash, much faster than I'd anticipated, but luckily, my thought to action time had become nigh on inconceivable, as I'd trained for this even when I hadn't had to fight for my honor since I'd come to this place. I grabbed her arm as it rushed towards my face and neatly brought my leg into her side as I rolled my weight backwards, throwing her flailing body into a mass of her followers. They held her fast, and pushed her up, murmuring astonishment and surprise. I heard a few, 'Are you okay?' type statements from her sisters. Then she turned, and with a look in her eyes that I'd not attempt to describe, save for the fact that it chilled me to my very core as she took a few deliberate steps towards me and resumed a combative stance.
I stood with my left side to her and planted my feet. Next, she delivered a series of kicks which caught me off guard. She started a few steps away and feigned a terrible kick. As I rushed to take advantage of it, her foot hooked back and caught me in the ear. She then followed this by pummeling me about the face and chest with hands that moved like an electrical storm of energy, finishing by hitting me squarely in the sternum, knocking the wind out of me and sending me a step back. I wondered what she was really about when she made the mistake of attempting an aerial display which made up for in show what it lacked in talent.
She leapt at me and extended a foot towards my windpipe, but I recoiled from it and grabbed hold of the reckless appendage, throwing her to the ground before I added my other arm to the mix, sending her skidding back to her colleagues. The leader of these women, disheveled and out of sorts, screamed at me and was soon in the process of unleashing a flurry of impotent attacks against my body, all of which were deflected by my shins and forearms, the amount of her energy that I was wasting was... impressive.
The fantastic part is that she never realized it. She fought me until she was red, sweating, wheezing, and slower moving than our neophytes. When she could barely throw a punch anymore, and I was winded, but still much more hale and hearty than her, I pushed her away from me and said, "This is it, if you wish to continue fighting me, you shall surely be injured. Go now, and take your 'Lesbian Ninjas' with you.
She wasn't amused by this, but she headed for the door anyway, and her sect followed suit. As she trudged off the last step, she whispered something to what must have been her number one. I'm not sure what words passed through her lips, but my gut gave me a feeling, and I shouted a warning to my pupils, seconds before all manner of mayhem issued forth into that room. The black seethed through the room, and this time they were out for blood. Number one came running at me, but I neatly sidestepped and then dropped her with a quick fist into her windpipe. I waded through the crowd of arms and legs, helping out my students that were losing their battles, after all, it wouldn't have been fair for them to lose their blood when they were merely trying to improve themselves today. In a fairly short time, the majority of these ninjas had been knocked unconscious, killed, or driven out the door, courtesy of our youths in training.
So there we were, with a pile of bodies and nowhere to put them. Wanting to dispose of them though, we dug a fairly sizable trench out back to put the bodies into, and unfortunately enough, they didn't fit. Everyone was exhausted, so enlarging the hole was not an issue. Rick (one of our neophytes), however, suggested that we use a shredder from his home. The work was going along fairly well, but after a while, the little pieces of the bodies started to pile up, and the shredder was getting, well, nasty (to put it lightly). Rick was getting pretty discouraged, and the situation dissolved into using weaponry to hammer the women through the malfunctioning device. From where I was teaching some of the youths who had gotten another wind and wanted to train, back inside, I kept hearing the people who'd devoted themselves to the task yelling for my help from off in the distance.