Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

out one of his tribesmen, half laughing, half sounding as if he didn’t believe it.
    “She asked for it!” said Trip.   “Practically begged me, even.”
    “Somebody wants a piece of the chief!” yelled another one, making everyone laugh in lecherous tones.   A few of them hooted in excitement.
    Oh, gag.   Leave it to a group of guys to turn a power challenge match into a naked mud wrestling event.   I let their disrespect sink in and fuel my determination.
    Trip made the first move like I knew he would - bold and simple, a straight up face to face attack that he obviously hoped would be the first and last move he had to make tonight.  
    I waited for him to come, balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to make the maneuver I would need to stop the aggression before it got the better of me.
    He came at me like a bull, arms slightly cocked, hands hovering near his chest, just below his pecs.   He was going to shove me.   Hard.   A tiny part of me was relieved to see he was taking the least brutal approach to his assault at the beginning - it suggested he might respect girls enough to not punch them in the face … at least not right away.
    I knew he was going to make contact; I couldn’t stop that.   But I could change the trajectory of my body once it got hit and remove some of the power from it.   I also planned to slow him down for at least a short period of time.
    The sounds of the crowd dulled and then disappeared altogether.   My brain was focused on only one thing - the man in front of me with the evil intention of taking me down.
    At the moment just before he reached out to hit me with over a hundred pounds of force, I shot my hand out in a choking position and jammed the space between my thumb and forefinger into his larynx, twisting a little to the side so I’d be able to reach beyond his arm length and so that only one of his hands would actually hit me.
    I felt the hard cartilage of his throat flex a little and the immediate response of his body to begin choking and gasping for air.   Meanwhile, his right hand hit me hard in the chest, sending me spinning off to the side.   I almost went down.
    I continued the movement of my body on purpose, catching myself after a full rotation to end up behind him, knowing I had to take advantage of his temporary inability to breathe.   I took one step and stomped the bottom of my foot into the back of his left knee, causing it to bend and bring him down closer to the ground.   I ran over to bring my fists down at the back of his neck in a double hammer that was meant to drop him, using the force of my hips and shoulders to drive it towards the ground as powerfully as I could.   But he was tougher than I anticipated, and all they did was bounce off.  
    I did the only thing that was left to me at that point and delivered a punishing kick to his face.   I hated to mar the beauty there, but this was my only chance to save my friends.
    His body flew back with the force of the blow, but only enough to give him the leverage he needed to stand back up.   He used his arm behind him on the ground to get his legs under him and then he straightened.   And boy, was he pissed.  
    Blood was coming from a cut by his eye that I’d just put there with my kick.   A bruise was starting to form already around his throat.   I knew he’d be sore there for days.   His voice told me he was already feeling the worst of it.
    “You’re gonna fucking die,” he croaked out.
    Wow, he really means that.  
    I watched as he reached down and pulled a knife out from under his pant leg near his shoe, never breaking eye contact with me.   I let my eyes widen and fear enter them, hoping that he’d take that as a sign of weakness to exploit.  
    He moved sideways, looking for an opening he could take so he could give me a new orifice.
    Grumbling from the sidelines filtered into my consciousness, making me think that not everyone was okay with the whole knife and death threat thing he had going on.   But I assumed that no one would be bold enough to actually say so, since that would probably mean they’d be on the other end of his anger instead of me.   It was one thing to disapprove - a whole other to volunteer to take my place.   I was totally okay with that, though.   This guy was a special case.   I doubted anyone here had what was needed to take him out.   I knew I did, but every fight was different.   Sometimes things happened that pushed the odds in the