Challenge
Backdated to February 25
It's nine o'clock, Challenge Morning. Sophie makes the long walk to Cadogan's quarters, where he tapes her hands and feet. Her chaussons, have spent the night in his freezer. Competition savate may have foregone steel-toed shoes, but that doesn't mean she won't use every trick in the book. Gerhardt certainly will. She has a cooler and ice for them. She won’t don her shoes until right before the bout.
They're still icy cold when they arrive at the Winter Ballroom and retire to one of the small antechambers to wait. She settles into a chair, closes her eyes and envisions the match to come. Her mind’s eye envisions him broken and defeated on the floor, herself supreme. At twenty till she starts stretching out. She begins warm-ups when it's fifteen of the clock. Before she knows it, Cadogan is slipping her gloves with the wide-silver band around the cuffs on her hands and tying her frozen shoes fast around her ankles.
She's not so focused that she can't fling her arms around him for a swift hug of thanks.
Round One
Sophie doesn't worry about Diamond masks when she takes the ring and makes her salute, gives not one whit if Gerhardt sees the determination--the hatred--in her eyes. Let him see her confidence. She exceeded him long ago. Today is mere formality--formality and necessity. She plans to goad him into dropping his own mask, to show parents what lies behind the facade of Emmerich Gerhardt.
The referee shouts, "Allez!" Sophie immediately backpedals. She has nearly thirty years on Gerhardt. He can wear himself out pursuing her. She leads him a merry chase. They're tied on points as the round nears its end and she finally sees her opening. Sophie switches from retreat to attack in a heartbeat, delivering three lightning fast roundhouse fouettes to chest, temple, back followed by a swift punch to his face that throws Gerhardt off-balance and open to a vicious kick aimed between his ninth and tenth ribs. He jumps back just in time to avoid taking it full force, but not so quickly that he avoids her other leg ripping behind him and catching his Achilles tendon. She sends him crashing to the floor.
The referee calls time and they're sent to their corners. She's certain she took the round on points. She landed more blows even if she did spend half the round moving. She’s barely breathing hard, though she sucks greedily at the water Cadogan holds for her. Gerhardt’s chest heaves and falls. My, my. Someone hasn’t kept up with their running. A muscle twitches on the side of his face. She knows that tick. Things are about to get ugly.
Round Two
Better the devil you know, thinks Gerhardt as he waits in his corner. He drills it into his students that opponents are to be rigorously cross- and pre-examined, every weakness brought into sharp focus with needlepoint precision. Sophie had been his star pupil before she threw all her promise away on sentiment. He'd watched her build flaws into strengths, slammed the chinks in her armor until they sealed, knew where they'd only been patched and never repaired. It's been nearly ten years, but some things never changed.
"Allez!"
The loss of the prior round fuels him for this one. The will to win, his pride on the line and the status of Six drive him. But something dark and ugly shifts through the calculations his mind cuts for him with every move. He breaks through her defense on a figure fouetté, a kick to the side of the head. Sophie ducks, and he only manages a grazing clip. He follows with a darting front-armed swing from the opposite direction that clouts the upstart on the other side of her head and leaves her stunned.
He punishes her with another left that pounds her nose. Sophie shakes away the sting from the jab and retaliates with a left kick to Gerhardt's chin. Gerhardt jumps backwards, avoiding her chasse frontale. Gerhardt rushes in and claps either glove against her ears, sending her reeling. She barely hears the referee call the illegal move over her dizziness. No time to stop. Keep fighting. Keep fighting! Sophie sets up her next move with two jabs to Gerhardt's face. He ducks just as expected, and just as expected he stops her lovely revers frontale kick with his nose.
Her eyes light when she hears the crunch.
Gerhardt snarls through the blood and charges viciously. He backs her into the ropes, where a flurry of punches opens a cut above her left brow. Gerhardt smothers her, never allowing her room to land an effective kick or punch. In the confusion, he hammers a chasse frontal that would have destroyed her kneecap had Sophie not leaned against the ropes to lift and twist her legs out of harm's way. The referee misses Gerhardt’s illegal blow, but is quick to call Sophie for hers. The warning was worth it. He only clipped her knee when he could have ruined it, but the bastard leads at the bell.
He returns to his corner, well satisfied with the first of what he expects to be a resounding victory . He's a machine. She's only a spoiled little girl who threw all her promise and all his hard work away on foolish ideals. She should have had the decency to slink off and drown in the abyss she’d made for herself. To think that she dared, dared! challenge him--him!--Emmerich Gerhardt! Well, he’d spank her for her temerity. Dealing punishment has always been his favorite pastime. Nice of Berthier to give him this opportunity.
He sneers when he hears the hissing going on between her and the Ten. Had she expected him to play fair when he'd drilled it into her that rules were to be side-stepped? Still, he should be doing better. He'd scraped by the second round on points and hadn’t smashed the upstart into the floor so much as once. Something, he decides as he yanks out his gum shield to pour water down his throat, he'll rectify in the next round.
Round Three
Third round explodes fast and furious. They fall together in a flurry of punishing kicks and blows. Gerhardt bides his time, eyes flashing with half-formulated plans. Instantly Sophie's wary; she knows him of old. But she can't hold off; they only have two minutes per round, six minutes left for the entire bout. She has to make them count.
Gerhardt weaves in close enough to smash a fast cross to her left kidney hidden from the referee's view. Sophie grunts and falters. Gerhardt smirks. She'll be pissing blood tonight. Want to play with the big boys, Berthier? There's more where that came from.
He seizes his chance close to the end of the round. Sophie whips a fouetté to Gerhardt's head. Her shoe impacts against his temple, but he's already lain his trap, a little trick picked up through experience. He hitches his shoulder and surges forwards. He's taller than Sophie, and her foot's caught a little behind his head and then on his shoulder. Her eyes grow alarmed as Gerhardt steps inside her guard, locking her leg on his shoulder before she can retract it. Already on one leg, Sophie barely manages to block the crochet punch to her face. The momentum of the blow bowls her onto the floor.
Gerhardt looms over her, Sophie a tangle around his legs. His shins block her effort to yank her legs out from under him in a doomed attempt to regain her feet and resume the fight. Gerhardt looks up to meet the referee's gaze just as the time is called, and in that moment takes a step, one simple step. It looks casual enough, and he doesn't so much as glance down. Sophie remembers this lesson, though, doesn't she? See without looking. Keep exact positioning pinned in your mind.
The heel of his savate shoe grinds into her right hand. It isn't a fast or a slow step; for all intents and purposes, he's walking back to his corner. But the force of over three decades of intense training, the pit of indignant bile at being used for some runt's starry climb to special snowflakedom, weighs on it hard. He doesn't hear the crunch.
He feels it through his foot.
Sophie's world goes black then flashes brilliant white dotted with black sparkling stars. Such a small sound--pop, Pop, POP-- a crunch that resembles cellophane crumpling-but a sound that sets spectators cringing. She swallows hard to keep from spewing bile over the mat. Somewhere the referee drones a question. Sophie shakes away the queasiness. She can't hear the referee over the buzzing in her ears. He repeats himself, then starts to turn towards the judges. Sophie throws out a staying hand. No. No! Not yet. It's not ending like this. Only her hand. It’s only her hand. Somehow she gets her feet under her and stumbles to her stool.
Cadogan's already standing, glaring murder at Gerhardt. He reaches out to support her. Sophie yanks her shattered hand away before he can touch it.
"The glove stays. I'll never get it back on otherwise." Her thoughts aren't coherent, but visceral knowledge warns that if anyone touches her hand, she'll hurl, maybe pass out completely. Something liquid trickles across the skin of her hand under the glove. Sweat, not blood. It has to be sweat. The other doesn't bear thinking about. She hangs her head between her knees and gulps air. She'd wanted to play it clean, to prove to all watching that she was the better, but down one hand and half a leg, the fight's already deteriorated into a brawl.
Round Four
Gerhardt sneers at the commotion in Sophie’s corner. Why the surprise? Hadn’t he drilled fear into her at a young age? She should thank him, really, for taking time from his busy schedule to school her once more. The rest will be a cakewalk. She doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to deal with injuries. In truth, he'd expected her second to throw in the sponge before the fourth round began, but Sophie had always been stubborn. That sits fine with him. He has no objection to grinding Sophie’s spirit the same way he had her hand. Three rounds out of five, and he's got two down. He's off his stool the moment the bell rings. Time to end this usurpation.
Groggy and disoriented, Sophie barely fends him off, luring him in. He falls for it just as she knew he would. He’d always been smug. Trap sprung, Sophie lands a bone-shuddering fouette to Gerhardt's back. The tutor staggers and nearly falls to his knees. He stumbles away from the follow-up that would have pulverized his liver, then wheels on her and charges. Sophie skips and dodges. He won’t be cornering her on the ropes again. He retaliates by whipping his leg behind and around her to slam the toe of his frozen shoe into her injured hand. Sophie muffles a shriek and nearly falls to her knees. She pitches back out of range. She can’t take much more punishment. Time to end him.
Sophie grits her teeth and smacks a swift kick to Gerhardt's shin, followed by a swift uppercut that puts him off-balance and blind to her wicked chasse frontal. The kick catches him in the solar plexus and he folds in half. Before he has a chance to recover, Sophie whips a kick behind him and sweeps his legs. She smirks at the satisfactory thump he makes when he lands flat on his back and slides across the mat.
He somehow manages a wobbling stand before the referee reaches, “huit.” He'd walked into that one, a momentary loss of concentration, nothing more. Nothing to worry about. An anomaly. It wouldn’t happen again.
Sophie knows better than to enjoy the worry marring Gerhardt’s smug countenance. Injury always brought out the tutor's beast. As if he read her thoughts, Gerhardt snarls around his gum shield and launches himself at her. He had always struck swift as a snake, but if Gerhardt is cobra, then Sophie is the mongoose, lightning fast even when she was young and unschooled. It had annoyed him then and it annoys him still. This time she doesn't back away. She lays siege, never giving him a moment to catch his breath. Jab, hook, fouette, direct, chasse bas, roundhouse, sweep. Gerhardt crashes to the canvas again. He's slow getting up, but get up he does only to have Sophie leap on him the second he's standing. Her reverse lateral bas smashes into Gerhardt's mid-section, followed by a fouette figure to the tutor's head that sends him flying. Only the end of the round saves him.
Round Five - Final
He glares at her while they wait in their corners, but his days of terrorizing her are long over. She can take anything he dishes out. He’d made certain of that all those times he’d smacked her around a ring when she was half his size, all those hours he’d forced her to stand like a stork In 100 degree weather reciting Berthier history, all the swift, unseen pinches that left her pale skin black and blue where none would see. You made me, Gerhardt. Aren’t you proud of your creation?
They charge out of their corners while the Allez! still reverberates around the room, weaving, kicking, dodging, punching. Sophie saves her good left for defense and the occasional direct to push Gerhardt off-balance. The tutor’s having none of it. He lurches forward, smacking his head against hers and delivering a duo of rabbit punches to her exposed neck, no longer caring who sees. The referee calls hors combat, but Sophie waves him off. A well-aimed kick to Gerhardt’s midsection puts distance between them. She shakes her head, long thread of blood flying through the air and spattering on the canvas. She blinks away tears. There went her nose.
Now she's angry.
She swarms after him: feint, direct, chasse bas, sweep. Down he goes, again and again, slower and slower every time he pulls himself to his feet. She spits out her gum piece to taunt him whenever he hits the mat. “Allez, allez, allez! Gerhardt! What is the capital of Kazakhstan? Time! Astana! The square root of 11,025? Allez, allez, allez! On your feet! One hundred and five! A simpleton would know that! Up!” The referee points her to her. Chagrined, Sophie sweeps down to grab her mouth guard, her face blossoming red. So much bile. Had she really survived thirteen years of that abuse?
Gerhardt snarls an obscenity--filthy upstart!-and catapults himself around the referee and aims a reverse to the back of her head, but Sophie’s a fast learner, whirling just in time, and hustles in, catching his leg between shoulder and neck. She powers a direct straight under his jaw. The tutor’s head flies back and Sophie surges forward, forcing his leg higher and higher until he flips over and crashes to the canvas.
He lies in a heap, shaking the stars from his eyes. Sophie back pedals to allow him room to rise. The referee begins the count, “Un…deux…trois-“ Suddenly Gerhardt jerks his knees to his midsection and launches himself up and around on his right hand, pistoning both feet into Sophie’s ribs. She hears the crunch a split second before she’s sent flying ass over teakettle into the ropes.
This time, the referee has had enough. “STOP!” He hauls Gerhardt to his feet and gets in his face, delivering the law in hissing French. He turns to Sophie. She gives one, furious shake of her head. No, she doesn’t need a count. Finish it. She doesn’t have much left. Broken nose, cracked ribs, bum knee and crushed hand. Forty seconds left in the round. She’ll be lucky to last half that. She should win on points, but that’s not what she came for. Time to demolish him.
“Allez!” and the fight is on in earnest, both combatants desperate for victory. Gerhardt gets in several good punches and lands a fouette median that whips around Sophie’s back and smashes into her crushed hand yet again. She falters but refuses to go down, lashing out with an uppercut that keeps him at his distance. She turns her stumble into a hop and uses the strength of her good leg to snap into a roundhouse kick that hammers into Gerhardt’s temple. The point of her frozen shoe connects with the weakest part of his head. Gerhardt blinks owlishly. How? How? Then his eyes roll up behind his skull and he folds like an accordion onto the canvas. He doesn’t get up.
Sophie collapses in a heap the moment the referee calls, “Dix!” She may never stand again.
And then it hits her. She won. She’s a Six.
[ooc & eta: Worst person ever. Thank you so much, Daisy, for giving me insight into Gerhardt and penning so many of his thoughts and especially the hand-crushing scene. ♥]
It's nine o'clock, Challenge Morning. Sophie makes the long walk to Cadogan's quarters, where he tapes her hands and feet. Her chaussons, have spent the night in his freezer. Competition savate may have foregone steel-toed shoes, but that doesn't mean she won't use every trick in the book. Gerhardt certainly will. She has a cooler and ice for them. She won’t don her shoes until right before the bout.
They're still icy cold when they arrive at the Winter Ballroom and retire to one of the small antechambers to wait. She settles into a chair, closes her eyes and envisions the match to come. Her mind’s eye envisions him broken and defeated on the floor, herself supreme. At twenty till she starts stretching out. She begins warm-ups when it's fifteen of the clock. Before she knows it, Cadogan is slipping her gloves with the wide-silver band around the cuffs on her hands and tying her frozen shoes fast around her ankles.
She's not so focused that she can't fling her arms around him for a swift hug of thanks.
Round One
Sophie doesn't worry about Diamond masks when she takes the ring and makes her salute, gives not one whit if Gerhardt sees the determination--the hatred--in her eyes. Let him see her confidence. She exceeded him long ago. Today is mere formality--formality and necessity. She plans to goad him into dropping his own mask, to show parents what lies behind the facade of Emmerich Gerhardt.
The referee shouts, "Allez!" Sophie immediately backpedals. She has nearly thirty years on Gerhardt. He can wear himself out pursuing her. She leads him a merry chase. They're tied on points as the round nears its end and she finally sees her opening. Sophie switches from retreat to attack in a heartbeat, delivering three lightning fast roundhouse fouettes to chest, temple, back followed by a swift punch to his face that throws Gerhardt off-balance and open to a vicious kick aimed between his ninth and tenth ribs. He jumps back just in time to avoid taking it full force, but not so quickly that he avoids her other leg ripping behind him and catching his Achilles tendon. She sends him crashing to the floor.
The referee calls time and they're sent to their corners. She's certain she took the round on points. She landed more blows even if she did spend half the round moving. She’s barely breathing hard, though she sucks greedily at the water Cadogan holds for her. Gerhardt’s chest heaves and falls. My, my. Someone hasn’t kept up with their running. A muscle twitches on the side of his face. She knows that tick. Things are about to get ugly.
Round Two
Better the devil you know, thinks Gerhardt as he waits in his corner. He drills it into his students that opponents are to be rigorously cross- and pre-examined, every weakness brought into sharp focus with needlepoint precision. Sophie had been his star pupil before she threw all her promise away on sentiment. He'd watched her build flaws into strengths, slammed the chinks in her armor until they sealed, knew where they'd only been patched and never repaired. It's been nearly ten years, but some things never changed.
"Allez!"
The loss of the prior round fuels him for this one. The will to win, his pride on the line and the status of Six drive him. But something dark and ugly shifts through the calculations his mind cuts for him with every move. He breaks through her defense on a figure fouetté, a kick to the side of the head. Sophie ducks, and he only manages a grazing clip. He follows with a darting front-armed swing from the opposite direction that clouts the upstart on the other side of her head and leaves her stunned.
He punishes her with another left that pounds her nose. Sophie shakes away the sting from the jab and retaliates with a left kick to Gerhardt's chin. Gerhardt jumps backwards, avoiding her chasse frontale. Gerhardt rushes in and claps either glove against her ears, sending her reeling. She barely hears the referee call the illegal move over her dizziness. No time to stop. Keep fighting. Keep fighting! Sophie sets up her next move with two jabs to Gerhardt's face. He ducks just as expected, and just as expected he stops her lovely revers frontale kick with his nose.
Her eyes light when she hears the crunch.
Gerhardt snarls through the blood and charges viciously. He backs her into the ropes, where a flurry of punches opens a cut above her left brow. Gerhardt smothers her, never allowing her room to land an effective kick or punch. In the confusion, he hammers a chasse frontal that would have destroyed her kneecap had Sophie not leaned against the ropes to lift and twist her legs out of harm's way. The referee misses Gerhardt’s illegal blow, but is quick to call Sophie for hers. The warning was worth it. He only clipped her knee when he could have ruined it, but the bastard leads at the bell.
He returns to his corner, well satisfied with the first of what he expects to be a resounding victory . He's a machine. She's only a spoiled little girl who threw all her promise and all his hard work away on foolish ideals. She should have had the decency to slink off and drown in the abyss she’d made for herself. To think that she dared, dared! challenge him--him!--Emmerich Gerhardt! Well, he’d spank her for her temerity. Dealing punishment has always been his favorite pastime. Nice of Berthier to give him this opportunity.
He sneers when he hears the hissing going on between her and the Ten. Had she expected him to play fair when he'd drilled it into her that rules were to be side-stepped? Still, he should be doing better. He'd scraped by the second round on points and hadn’t smashed the upstart into the floor so much as once. Something, he decides as he yanks out his gum shield to pour water down his throat, he'll rectify in the next round.
Round Three
Third round explodes fast and furious. They fall together in a flurry of punishing kicks and blows. Gerhardt bides his time, eyes flashing with half-formulated plans. Instantly Sophie's wary; she knows him of old. But she can't hold off; they only have two minutes per round, six minutes left for the entire bout. She has to make them count.
Gerhardt weaves in close enough to smash a fast cross to her left kidney hidden from the referee's view. Sophie grunts and falters. Gerhardt smirks. She'll be pissing blood tonight. Want to play with the big boys, Berthier? There's more where that came from.
He seizes his chance close to the end of the round. Sophie whips a fouetté to Gerhardt's head. Her shoe impacts against his temple, but he's already lain his trap, a little trick picked up through experience. He hitches his shoulder and surges forwards. He's taller than Sophie, and her foot's caught a little behind his head and then on his shoulder. Her eyes grow alarmed as Gerhardt steps inside her guard, locking her leg on his shoulder before she can retract it. Already on one leg, Sophie barely manages to block the crochet punch to her face. The momentum of the blow bowls her onto the floor.
Gerhardt looms over her, Sophie a tangle around his legs. His shins block her effort to yank her legs out from under him in a doomed attempt to regain her feet and resume the fight. Gerhardt looks up to meet the referee's gaze just as the time is called, and in that moment takes a step, one simple step. It looks casual enough, and he doesn't so much as glance down. Sophie remembers this lesson, though, doesn't she? See without looking. Keep exact positioning pinned in your mind.
The heel of his savate shoe grinds into her right hand. It isn't a fast or a slow step; for all intents and purposes, he's walking back to his corner. But the force of over three decades of intense training, the pit of indignant bile at being used for some runt's starry climb to special snowflakedom, weighs on it hard. He doesn't hear the crunch.
He feels it through his foot.
Sophie's world goes black then flashes brilliant white dotted with black sparkling stars. Such a small sound--pop, Pop, POP-- a crunch that resembles cellophane crumpling-but a sound that sets spectators cringing. She swallows hard to keep from spewing bile over the mat. Somewhere the referee drones a question. Sophie shakes away the queasiness. She can't hear the referee over the buzzing in her ears. He repeats himself, then starts to turn towards the judges. Sophie throws out a staying hand. No. No! Not yet. It's not ending like this. Only her hand. It’s only her hand. Somehow she gets her feet under her and stumbles to her stool.
Cadogan's already standing, glaring murder at Gerhardt. He reaches out to support her. Sophie yanks her shattered hand away before he can touch it.
"The glove stays. I'll never get it back on otherwise." Her thoughts aren't coherent, but visceral knowledge warns that if anyone touches her hand, she'll hurl, maybe pass out completely. Something liquid trickles across the skin of her hand under the glove. Sweat, not blood. It has to be sweat. The other doesn't bear thinking about. She hangs her head between her knees and gulps air. She'd wanted to play it clean, to prove to all watching that she was the better, but down one hand and half a leg, the fight's already deteriorated into a brawl.
Round Four
Gerhardt sneers at the commotion in Sophie’s corner. Why the surprise? Hadn’t he drilled fear into her at a young age? She should thank him, really, for taking time from his busy schedule to school her once more. The rest will be a cakewalk. She doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to deal with injuries. In truth, he'd expected her second to throw in the sponge before the fourth round began, but Sophie had always been stubborn. That sits fine with him. He has no objection to grinding Sophie’s spirit the same way he had her hand. Three rounds out of five, and he's got two down. He's off his stool the moment the bell rings. Time to end this usurpation.
Groggy and disoriented, Sophie barely fends him off, luring him in. He falls for it just as she knew he would. He’d always been smug. Trap sprung, Sophie lands a bone-shuddering fouette to Gerhardt's back. The tutor staggers and nearly falls to his knees. He stumbles away from the follow-up that would have pulverized his liver, then wheels on her and charges. Sophie skips and dodges. He won’t be cornering her on the ropes again. He retaliates by whipping his leg behind and around her to slam the toe of his frozen shoe into her injured hand. Sophie muffles a shriek and nearly falls to her knees. She pitches back out of range. She can’t take much more punishment. Time to end him.
Sophie grits her teeth and smacks a swift kick to Gerhardt's shin, followed by a swift uppercut that puts him off-balance and blind to her wicked chasse frontal. The kick catches him in the solar plexus and he folds in half. Before he has a chance to recover, Sophie whips a kick behind him and sweeps his legs. She smirks at the satisfactory thump he makes when he lands flat on his back and slides across the mat.
He somehow manages a wobbling stand before the referee reaches, “huit.” He'd walked into that one, a momentary loss of concentration, nothing more. Nothing to worry about. An anomaly. It wouldn’t happen again.
Sophie knows better than to enjoy the worry marring Gerhardt’s smug countenance. Injury always brought out the tutor's beast. As if he read her thoughts, Gerhardt snarls around his gum shield and launches himself at her. He had always struck swift as a snake, but if Gerhardt is cobra, then Sophie is the mongoose, lightning fast even when she was young and unschooled. It had annoyed him then and it annoys him still. This time she doesn't back away. She lays siege, never giving him a moment to catch his breath. Jab, hook, fouette, direct, chasse bas, roundhouse, sweep. Gerhardt crashes to the canvas again. He's slow getting up, but get up he does only to have Sophie leap on him the second he's standing. Her reverse lateral bas smashes into Gerhardt's mid-section, followed by a fouette figure to the tutor's head that sends him flying. Only the end of the round saves him.
Round Five - Final
He glares at her while they wait in their corners, but his days of terrorizing her are long over. She can take anything he dishes out. He’d made certain of that all those times he’d smacked her around a ring when she was half his size, all those hours he’d forced her to stand like a stork In 100 degree weather reciting Berthier history, all the swift, unseen pinches that left her pale skin black and blue where none would see. You made me, Gerhardt. Aren’t you proud of your creation?
They charge out of their corners while the Allez! still reverberates around the room, weaving, kicking, dodging, punching. Sophie saves her good left for defense and the occasional direct to push Gerhardt off-balance. The tutor’s having none of it. He lurches forward, smacking his head against hers and delivering a duo of rabbit punches to her exposed neck, no longer caring who sees. The referee calls hors combat, but Sophie waves him off. A well-aimed kick to Gerhardt’s midsection puts distance between them. She shakes her head, long thread of blood flying through the air and spattering on the canvas. She blinks away tears. There went her nose.
Now she's angry.
She swarms after him: feint, direct, chasse bas, sweep. Down he goes, again and again, slower and slower every time he pulls himself to his feet. She spits out her gum piece to taunt him whenever he hits the mat. “Allez, allez, allez! Gerhardt! What is the capital of Kazakhstan? Time! Astana! The square root of 11,025? Allez, allez, allez! On your feet! One hundred and five! A simpleton would know that! Up!” The referee points her to her. Chagrined, Sophie sweeps down to grab her mouth guard, her face blossoming red. So much bile. Had she really survived thirteen years of that abuse?
Gerhardt snarls an obscenity--filthy upstart!-and catapults himself around the referee and aims a reverse to the back of her head, but Sophie’s a fast learner, whirling just in time, and hustles in, catching his leg between shoulder and neck. She powers a direct straight under his jaw. The tutor’s head flies back and Sophie surges forward, forcing his leg higher and higher until he flips over and crashes to the canvas.
He lies in a heap, shaking the stars from his eyes. Sophie back pedals to allow him room to rise. The referee begins the count, “Un…deux…trois-“ Suddenly Gerhardt jerks his knees to his midsection and launches himself up and around on his right hand, pistoning both feet into Sophie’s ribs. She hears the crunch a split second before she’s sent flying ass over teakettle into the ropes.
This time, the referee has had enough. “STOP!” He hauls Gerhardt to his feet and gets in his face, delivering the law in hissing French. He turns to Sophie. She gives one, furious shake of her head. No, she doesn’t need a count. Finish it. She doesn’t have much left. Broken nose, cracked ribs, bum knee and crushed hand. Forty seconds left in the round. She’ll be lucky to last half that. She should win on points, but that’s not what she came for. Time to demolish him.
“Allez!” and the fight is on in earnest, both combatants desperate for victory. Gerhardt gets in several good punches and lands a fouette median that whips around Sophie’s back and smashes into her crushed hand yet again. She falters but refuses to go down, lashing out with an uppercut that keeps him at his distance. She turns her stumble into a hop and uses the strength of her good leg to snap into a roundhouse kick that hammers into Gerhardt’s temple. The point of her frozen shoe connects with the weakest part of his head. Gerhardt blinks owlishly. How? How? Then his eyes roll up behind his skull and he folds like an accordion onto the canvas. He doesn’t get up.
Sophie collapses in a heap the moment the referee calls, “Dix!” She may never stand again.
And then it hits her. She won. She’s a Six.
[ooc & eta: Worst person ever. Thank you so much, Daisy, for giving me insight into Gerhardt and penning so many of his thoughts and especially the hand-crushing scene. ♥]