The Ace

She walked to the centre, and they all followed her with their stares, "We will be practising group combat, so, if you would, separate into groups. The size does not matter as of yet."

Ace walked over to t.i.tus before he could say anything, "Trust me, just me and you, no one else.", t.i.tus nodded, and just waited, the others got the message, and no one else came to join them.

Now, it was a group of two, with t.i.tus and Ace, a group of three, of which Amy was part of, and a group of four. Snyder was of course down for the count, and would therefore not partic.i.p.ate in this exercise, which meant, including Ace and Amy, there were 10 people.

"Ok, now, this is the way it will work, each person, will be worth a certain amount of points. When a team faces another, they will look at the number of points each partic.i.p.ant is worth, and then they will select their own partic.i.p.ants that will match up in the number of points. Each of you will have a rating of 1,2 or 3 points. The listing for points and groups will be posted on the board there soon. For now, you will have twenty minutes to practice.", she then walked off to the stand, where she seemed to be jotting down some notes on the iPad.

t.i.tus and Ace walked off to one of the sides of the dome.

"Good, this will be an easy win.", Ace said, and t.i.tus looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Look, I will most likely be worth 3 points, and you will be worth two. That makes five, I know. However, we have an advantage: our styles mesh quite well. In fact, it is your style that is brilliant, I am surprised no one tried to poach you."

"What do you mean?", t.i.tus asked, looking confused.

"We will most likely have to face multiple members at once, and will be outnumbered, but that will be fine. I focus on brutal attacks that are meant to disable my opponent with precise strikes, you, however, focus on drawn-out fights, until you are able to grapple someone down. If you were on your own, that could be a problem, but you see, you have me.", Ace smiled, now that he was thinking about it, this would be even easier.

t.i.tus now had a smile on his face, understanding where he was going, "So, I hold as many as I can at once, giving you time to beat the others, before we then take the ones left fighting me together.", Ace nodded, and t.i.tus smiled even wider.

"How many can you handle?", Ace asked

t.i.tus frowned, thinking,"I should be ok with most pairs, but it depends, I will tell you when we fight. However, there is one person I can"t handle: her.", t.i.tus pointed at one of the girls, slightly shorter than average, and quite muscled, but not brawny.

Ace remembered her fight, it had been quite short, she had a pretty strong punch.

"Ok, do you think she will be worth three points?", Ace asked, t.i.tus, nodded, "Yeah, she is the only one close to your level, however, I have never seen her go all out, all I know is that she focuses on a mix of boxing and elbow strikes."

Ace nodded in understanding, "And the others?"

The teams had now been posted with the worth in points, and t.i.tus was right, "Millie", as she had been called, was also worth three points.

"The question is, can I take her?", Ace knew that for all the talent he had, he had not trained anywhere near as much as these people had, which meant that it was inevitable for some of them to be better than him.

Millie was in a team with Amy, who was worth 2 points, and Zoing, a boy that looked as weird as his name.

"Him?", Ace asked, "Hmmm, a bit of a wild card, he has a balanced style, but he sometimes goes a bit mad, and spazzes out, going full strength for like half a minute before he tires himself out."

"Do you think you can take both Amy and him?", Ace asked, this was pretty important, "Maybe for a while, but I am telling you, if Zoing goes haywire, he gets real wild. I think I can maybe hold them off for a while, yeah, what are you thinking about how to take them?"

Ace nodded, "Yeah, the other team won"t be a problem, they only have a two-pointer, and the rest are worth one point."

"Ok, anything else?", t.i.tus asked, "Yeah, tell me what you know about each and every one of them…"

****************************

"Ok guys, I think we can start now", Allison walked to them again, and everyone reconvened in the middle of the dome.

"These are picked at random, so don"t complain, first match: t.i.tus" team, and Fred"s team."

They nodded, and Amy"s team walked back outside of the s.p.a.ce left for the fight.

"How much do you want to go for?", Allison asked, and Ace and t.i.tus went along with their plan, "Five points."

Fred smiled at this, "Match."

t.i.tus and Ace walked to the middle of the dome, where t.i.tus began to warm up. The other team came, there were four of them, and their total worth was five points, so they all joined up.

"Ok, hold who you can, I will deal with them quickly.", Ace said, he then asked Allison, loud enough so everyone would hear, "How hard can we go?"

She thought over it for a few seconds, "You can all go 100%, but Ace, be careful, try not to kill or maim anyone.", he nodded in understanding, but internally, he was smiling, "Oh man, I can actually go all out, but should I? Oh f.u.c.k it, if they were scared of getting hurt, they should not have come."

He tensed a few of his muscles, trying to relieve the excitement he was feeling.

"t.i.tus, hold the two-pointer, can you do that?", Ace asked, causing a variation in their plan before they even started, "Yeah, no problem, but what about…", "Don"t worry about it, I can go all out.", Ace grinned, and t.i.tus got scared.

"BEGIN!"

t.i.tus went in first, taking the attention on Fred, and moving to the side, leaving Ace alone against the others.

"Oh man, ou f*cked up huh?", one of the three said, and Ace just smiled, "Well, I suppose it is up to us to put you in your place."

The three went up to him in a loose triangle formation, but Ace could not care less.

As they came at him, Ace just positioned himself properly, and got ready, then, he began.

The four spectators, saw a dance, the three opponents, felt a ma.s.sacre.

The three of them came at him at the same time, Ace dodged a kick from the one to the right, and caught the fist of the one in the middle by the wrist, he pulled, and twisted in one motion. He shouted in pain, and grimaced, but Ace was not having it, in the same motion, he twisted his body, and put his hips into the motion, dodging the hit by the one of the left, and delivering a full-on turning kick to the ribs of the middle opponent. He shouted and contorted his face in pain, before dropping to the floor.

Only two left, Ace focused on the one to the right first, he acted as if he overextended on a motion, and let him grab his own arm. The opponent smiled, but Ace just sighed, "Rookie". He let himself be pulled, and going with the momentum, delivered a strike to the neck, which cut off the airway supply, and brought him to his knees. Then, a kick to the head took him down.

Only one was remaining, and before he could even attempt another move, Ace jumped towards him, and kicked him full on in the solar plexus with the ball of his foot, before an axe-kick took him down fully.

Just like most fights, it had ended in a matter of seconds, and Fred had seen it, he also noticed Ace getting close to him, and surrendered instantaneously, going to check on his teammates.

t.i.tus was also looking at him slack-jawed, and Ace just grinned sheepishly, "Holy sh*t, Ace man, you just destroyed them."

"Hahaha, they were just small fry."

***************************

"Allison, where is he from? Soldier brat, dojo boy… No, it has to be soldier brat, those were pretty much killing moves.", Millie went up to Allison to ask her, confused as to what she had just seen.

"Nono, he does not do this for fun, he trains to be the best."

"For fun? My *ss, he could probably take us all down, you lose to him right?", Millie asked, worry plaguing her features, Allison nodded, "Before I was not sure, but now? Yeah. But you have to also think about it, he is not training to spar, for him this is a way to remain safe, so he only knows killing and disabling manoeuvres."

"I see, so a future soldier then?", Millie asked, sure of her answer now.

"Nope, he is a cla.s.smate of Amy"s, I know he seems older, but he is actually just fourteen."

"Bs."

"No joke."

"Well, so,, what exactly is he doing training like that?"

"No idea, but I asked who trained him, and you know what he answered?"

"No, I a.s.sume some of the big shots though?"

"He said: "Google and anatomy books".", Allison said, and Millie"s eyebrows could not go further up.

"The h.e.l.l, but he has almost perfect precision form what I could see, he is pretty much surgical, almost as if he came out of a text-", she cut short her spiel as she realised what she was about to say, "Oh sh*t."

"My thoughts exactly"