2014-12-01 - The Bet: Round One

Kara finds herself in a large arena filled with rubble and ruin, as if it was built broken or has been destroyed slowly over ages of fighting. She is standing in an open area, able to see the stands which are filled with people making noise. There are floating balls with holes in them, that appear to be loudspeakers because they start to belt out the announcement for the match, probably not in English but that's no trouble for Kara.

"Welcome to the next match for today, with fourteen kills under our belt so far we're due for one more! We have a new player in the field, wearing some kind of costume that apparently shows off her legs," the voice seems to chuckle. "I somehow doubt that will help the newcomer against THE HYDRA BROTHERS!"

From the large black door in the edge of the arena comes what is apparently a starter opponent and expected to take her out early, a thirty or forty foot tall dragon with seven heads, all on long stalklike necks. It is ridden by a male humanoid with green skin, Abomination with a helmet on his head, reveling in the glory of the audience. He raises his trident to the roar of the crowd, not even looking for his opponent yet.

Kara Zor-El raises an eyebrow when she sees who's riding on top of the hydra. Seriously, this guy has to be the most unlucky supervillain in the history of supervillains. She looks up at him, using two fingers to make a whistle at him to get his attention, putting a hand on her hip.

Abomination doesn't seem to be directing the Hydra so much as just riding it, though he's probably strong enough to do that if he wanted to. The Hydra bears down on Kara, its seven heads launching themselves at her with impunity, roaring terrifyingly as their thousands of teeth threaten to tear out her innards and strew them all over the field!

Abomination however? Well, the camera zooms in on him for a moment and he appears to have a sweatdrop over his head. Seriously. Anyone who can read lips is picking up new swear words, as he grabs at one of the Hydra's heads and tries to pull it back. No luck, they're committed.

At the last moment, he jabs forward with his trident at Kara's throat but really, he knows where this is going now.

Kara Zor-El smirks a bit when the monster launches itself at her, thinking she'd be a quick meal. She'd actually read stories about Hydra on Themyscira, and how Hercules killed one. Not that they were a fan of Hercules on Themiscyra. Plus.... the whole cutting off a head and burning the stump? Yeah.... that sounded really cruel to do to an animal that's not necessarily sentient. Then again, it's trying to eat her.

Kara pulls back a fist and hits it across the side of the first head that tries to chomp down on her. And it's unconscious - the other six heads, though, are still quite conscious. She flies up a bit to dodge a second head snapping at her, flying down onto its head with a kick downward, hitting the head into the ground. Two down, five to go.

But it's really taking too long, and she wanted to get this done with, so the third head that comes at her, mouth wide, Kara grabs the end of the top and bottom of the mouth, keeping the razor-like sword-sized teeth from biting down. Her nose crinkles at the stench of the Hydra's breath though. "Ugh. Wish I could give you seven large breath mints, buster." she says to the beast. She quickly flies upwards, pulling the tremendous beast up with her, along with its rider, and flips it over in the air before slamming its entire body down at the ground of the arena with an earth-shaking thud, causing Abomination to get hurled off it first.

Kara Zor-El lands on the ground a few seconds after the Hydra is slammed into the ground.

Cassandra Cain sits in the box in the wall where she's found herself, watching the fight. She rolls her eyes slightly when she sees the victims I mean opponents for Kara, taking a moment to check her pockets and make sure that everything she's supposed to have is there. Then when Abomination gets thrown, he hits the wall in front of her little window and grunts, getting back up as if it were nothing.

"Lay down, idiot," she says from her window, getting a glance from Abomination. He appears to consider it, then shakes it off and launches himself back at Kara. Having lost his spear (It's imbedded in someone's vehicle outside) he starts to run toward Kara, roaring! Not that it's likely to have any more effect than the Hydra, but there is one effect.

The crowd went absolutely quiet for a moment when Kara hit the Hydra in the head once. Then, when she picked the Hydra up and slammed it to the ground? They went insane! Roaring and cheering for the underdog newcomer, they wait to see if the Great Hydra (abomination's stage name) will finish her!?

In Kara's defense, when Cassandra gives her VERY intelligent advice to Abomination, she gives him time to take the advice. Unfortunately, it's Abomination, and he decides that the four times Kara's beaten him in horribly one-sided confrontations were not enough of a hint, and so he charges in for number 5.

Kara sighs a bit. "I swear, he just doesn't learn..." She just puts her hands politely behind her back and stands there to wait for the inevitable result of when a superstrong opponent punches the face of a much more super-girl.

Honestly, he actually had this happen to him before, but not before an audience.

Abomination slams his fists into Kara like gigantig, super-strong wrecking balls. They hit like H-Bombs, the very arena shifting outward in a wave as the impact makes the air compact in a shockwave, the audience flinching from the blow. They also get a very good look of the slow-motion replay as Abomination's hand bones shatter. Got to give him credit, even when he's lost, he puts his all into the work. Not like some who just give up and go home safely. The ground around Kara has a lovely circle imprinted in it now. He really is quite powerful. And quite busted.

Kara Zor-El did not move - not even having removed her hands from behind her back. Which, for anyone who saw the previous fights, should not have been a surprise. Abomination must not have been paying attention during those fights. The kryptonian teenager's head didn't even get moved back from the impact, despite the fact that the shock wave caused a lot of damage to the ground around them. One fist then the other strikes against her, and each are rewarded with the crunch of bones being broken from the impact, just as a normal person might break their fists if they punch a steel statue. She looks down at the shock impact craters on the ground, then at Abomination and shrugs a little. "Better than the last few punches, to be honest." she says casually. Not a cut or blemish on her face, dammit.

"My turn." she say as she takes her hand from behind her back and quickly slams it into Abomination's stomach with an open palm, towards the unconscious Hydra he rode in on.

The crowd oohs and aahs as Kara's hand drives into the guy they know as the Hydra Brother, watching animatedly as he flies through the air. "Is it a bird?" "No, it's a squack flighter." "Stop being stupid." Then he lands on the Hydra, the whole mass moving back a few yards more til it stops.

No movement. And the crowd goes wild as the loudspeakers announce the win! "Our newcomer, the Red and Blue Shield! Give her a hand, folks, I think we have a new contender for the champion!" He has NO clue who she is.

Kara Zor-El gets a confused look. "Red and Blue Shield?" she says, looking around at the loudspeakers. "But I'm not-" she says before the loudspeaker and cheers cut her off to announce the next contender. She just looks over at Cassandra and shakes her head.

Cassandra Cain is popped out of her little hole while the crowd cheers for Kara. Quite an impression she's made. "The newcomer has dominated this fight, but we have another figure coming out now folks. It's non-stop action tonight! Let's see if this much darker female can continue to hold the field. I think they're called Dirtlings, folks. Let's hope this one can stay alive long enough to make it interesting." In a softer voice the speaker says, "is it just me or is this one even smaller?"

Cassandra strides out into the field, holding a hand up for Kara to high-five on the way by. Either that or tagging herself in.

Kara Zor-El smiles when Cassandra comes up and taps her hand, murmuring, "If mine's any indication, the first one's either going to be easy or someone you beat repeatedly. Which for you probably means anyone in Gotham right?" Then frowns a bit at the loudspeakers as she's walking to where Cassandra had been waiting. She looks around briefly, then blurs out of there, at which point the voice on the loudspeaker goes 'grrk!' "I of course meant Earthlings, not Dirtlings!" *murmur* "Ow how should I know that you're not from - augh! that's not my ear ow!" Then Kara blurs back to where she was and waits in the 'waiting area' to watch Cassandra's opponent.

Or rather, Opponents. One of the loudspeaker voices say, after a few moments of silence, "This EARTHLING looks small, but as we saw looks are deceptive with these EARTHLINGS..... Not just one opponent, but TWO! Give a round of applause to the twin team of .... SPIKETAIL AND DINOGUY!" At which point both Scorpion and Killer Croc come out of an elevator in the ground.

Kara pauses. She knows that Dinoguy's Killer Croc. Don't these people even know any of the names of ... well... ANYONE IN THIS GLADIATOR THING?

Scorpion seems to have been given spikey blades on top of his costume for some reason, while Killer Croc is in a loincloth. Kara leans against the viewport to watch this, a little concerned since she hasnt actually SEEN Cassandra in many superhuman fights. Just heard about it.

Without further conversation, Cassandra climbs up to the top of one of the hunks of broken wall that make up the place, it being strewn with rubble, and takes a moment to watch the incoming opponents. This is IMPORTANT, she's not just watching, she's learning their body language and this field is nearly perfect for her to be able to do that ahead of time. It just looks like she's hunching on top of a broken wall though, looking like a black blot on the landscape.

After a pause, while the two come closer, Cassandra raises her right hand in the air, the index finger raised to the sky, and intones, "ONE HIT." Then she stands upright, waiting clearly where both of them can see her, and adds, "...EACH."

Kara Zor-El tilts her head. "Guess she's being generous to not say one hit for both?" The stuff Robin said about her was probably true. The whole 'Cassandra's probably the single most dangerous human being on the planet.' Considering that included Bruce, that was really saying something.

Croc and Scorpion didn't exactly have a reputation as graceful fighters, or even particularly skilled ones. They were, however, very strong. And against a single girl, they didn't exactly have a lot of fear. "Yeah!" Scorpion shouted at her. "Two hits. One where I hit you, then one where you hit the ground!"

Croc growls, "Not even, I'll have her for dinner before she hits the ground!" And with that, both of them charge at her!

Scorpion does say to Croc, "Dude, that's dark" before they charge, to which Croc replies, "HUNGRY!"

Leaping into the air, Black Bat does a simple inverted flip as the two approach, landing between them. With absolutely no fear, she stands up between the two attackers and proceeds to duck under their first strikes, making it look like she knew it was coming before they started to move. Almost lazily, she leans back and lets Scorpion's tail bypass her and hit Croc's arm, and when Croc starts to bite at her she ducks and rolls between his legs.

Literally laughing a little, she takes a couple of steps while the two whirl to come after her and suddenly pauses, slipping down and placing her hand on Croc's extended right foot as he steps toward her, his balance low and forward. She just pushes it to her right, his left, just before he puts weight on it, and he's suddenly rolling OVER her body, and she stands up right into Scorpion's face.

Surprised, he backsteps a moment while Croc is recovering, and hauls back for a tail strike, but she's not there. Cassandra leaps up into the air, placing both of her hands on the right side of his head, and brings her left knee to the LEFT side, slamming the knee in with all the power in her entire flexing body.

And Killer Croc gets back to his feet, as Black Bat turns away from the still standing but quite unconscious form of Scorpion.

Scorpion's tail whips out and hits Croc, instead of the girl he was aiming at. It's a little bit unnerving that the girl barely bothered to move much to dodge his tail - something that even Spider-Man didn't always manage to dodge. Croc gets hit by the tail, but is already snapping at Cassandra, attempting to just bite her in half with his powerful jaws. He gets a big bite of ... AIR (and almost Scorpion's face) .... as Cassandra deftly rolls between Killer Croc's legs. Croc tries to whip at Cassandra but she seems to effortlessly roll OVER him until she's right in front of Scorpion's face.

Which is suddenly struck with surprising force from the knee of a supposedly UN-powered girl in the batgirl-bondage-worthy outfit.

And he just stands there. But there's this wobble to his stance, which shows that even though he's standing there, he's already unconscious. His body just forgot to tell him to fall over, which is something a finger or maybe a stiff breeze will do any time now.

Within the two seconds it takes for all this to happen, Croc manages to turn around to hiss out, "BITE YOU INTO PIECES!"

Black Bat says, "Try it," tauntingly, waggling fingers in front of Croc's face to tempt him to have a snack, her grin showing quite merrily. She doesn't even seem out of breath, and she boots a fairly solid rock out of her way so she can work.

As Croc, or Dinoguy, moves to remove her head from her shoulders, Cassandra does something that seems stupid when viewed on the big screen overhead. She takes a step toward him, ending up nose to nose where his arm slashes can't reach. She's too close for them to hit, ans she says, "Slow," right into his bad breath. Arms down by her sides, she's obviously not doing her 'one hit' at the moment, but Croc tries to bite her in half, and she slips to the left just enough to avoid and brings up her right knee. It doesn't hit, she visibly pulls it so it stops in front of his eyes, and he jerks his head back to avoid the hit instinctively.

Flicking her right hand in front of his face while his balance shifts, she gets him to try and swing on her with his left claw, getting into place so he'll be tempted to do the move she wants, and she steps under it and down. Down further, drawing his move, and he tries to lean and bite, and she slides underneath him while he tries to both bite and compensate for the missed slash. And Killer Croc flips over and slams into the ground on his back, while having never been touched physically even once in the process.

And Black Bat leaps into the air, doing a flip to gain momentum, and lands a splits kick right between his eyes as his head lands on the rock that she placed with a kick a moment before, rattling his brain between the two.

Croc slashes and snaps at the same air that Scorpion had been swiping at before his bout of standing unconsciousness. Oops wait, he just fell down, without anyone needing to touch him more than that first knee strike to the head. The airflow of Croc's jaws and claws hitting at nothing must have been the good stiff breeze that was needed. And he falls straight backwards with a satisfying 'thump.'

Meanwhile, Cass's knee comes up but doesnt actually hit -into- Croc, causing him to instinctively pull backwards with his head. After a series of the next few acrobatic maneuvers of Cassandra, Croc somehow finds himself lying flat on his back, having somehow flipped HIMSELF over. He doesnt get to contemplate what the hell just happened, though, because Cassandra has him join Scorpion in unconscious-ville with a hard split kick right between his eyes, sending his brain, pea-sized as it might be, rattling around in his thick skull.

And that would be the second hit. Just like Babe Ruth, Cassandra called it - one hit. Each.

Cassandra Cain leans her head left until the neck vertebrae click. Straightening out, she turns and walks away from the two unconscious bruisers. Then she stops, points at the announcer in the stands, and says loudly, "BLACK BAT." Then points at Kara in her little area and adds, just as loudly, "SUPERGIRL." Eyeing him as if saying 'he's next', she waits for him to acnowledge the name, baring her teeth.

The loudspeaker goes, "And... they're both down! Forget about rounds, we should just have had a stopwatch for that fight! Make sure it had a glornox hand! Just goes to show you, Earth Girls are NOT easy! Apparently!" *murmur* "cancel the trip to Earth for looking for concubines Mellllnar."

Kara comes out from her viewing port as bulldozer-looking automatons move the unconscious, defeated gladiators off to the side. She tilts her head again, then murmurs to Cassandra, "You know, I heard Robin talk about it but never actually saw it before. Nice!"