“What… the… hell!?” I asked.  The slight girl with the glowing circuitry in her bodysuit went spinning through the air as I applied force enough to break her ankle and finish the fight.  Instead of the gut-wrenching crunch of broken and grinding bone, she flipped her leg around and spun through the air like a horizontal pirouette.  For a half-second, I was reminded of those bad vids where wires are used to suspend someone in the air, but then I realized, she was able to pull it off thanks to the highly-illegal cybersuit she was wearing.  Even so, she still lost her breath when she hit the ground and only just avoided the stomp I aimed at her leg by spinning up and around.

“What the hell ARE you?” I asked again, watching as she spun up to her feet and eyed me.  No smile.  No anger.  This was a professional, on some sort of professional hit.  “Did Samantha send you?  Tell her I’m sorry already…”

That worked.  The expression on her face changed to one of puzzlement.  Okay.  So not Sam.  Taking advantage of her momentary confusion, I lunged, planting a fist in the side of her head that sent her staggering.  Prepared for that, I reached out with my other hand, grabbed her by the arm and spun her back, capturing her arms.

“Was it the Zebra Lady?  I told her those were bad when I delivered them to her, but she just wouldn’t listen.”

In response, she cracked her head back against my jaw, which was already aching.  Gritting my teeth, I squeezed tight enough to get a gasp out of her.

“Right, then.  Can we at least talk about this?”

She didn’t answer.  Instead, she came back with a stomp to my booted foot which, while not seriously damaging, hurt like a bitch.  She followed it up with an elbow to my side, loosening my grip.  A moment later, she had slid out, spun about and planted her foot across my cheek again.  Thankfully, even in her suit, she wasn’t THAT strong, or she might have just dislocated my jaw.

“Right then,” I muttered, rubbing my face.  We exchanged a flurry of blows, her punches blocked by my forearms, my punches blocked by her retreating twists and the occasional redirect of an arm into an attempted pin.  Most of the time, however, she relied on her far more powerful kicks and I soon had a collection of bruises to remember her by.  After a few of these, she must have noticed that I was grinning because her expression changed.

“You’re enjoying this?” she asked, side stepping a punch and reversing into a spinning punch aimed at my jaw again.

“Actually, yes,” I said, catching her fist, twisting and spinning her up and over my shoulder.  She flew into a pile of metal crates that clanged about and echoed through the chamber.  When she stood up, she was shaking her head and massaging her back.  “Sorry ‘bout that,” I said, “I wouldn’t be doing this, but you started it…”

Before I could finish, she had launched herself into the air again, foot aimed at my face.

This was really starting to get old…