Aggression

As Ortiz stands with her back to her charges, the girls regroup around Charlotte, some distance from the teacher. “Sloppy teamwork will only get us so far.”

“I don’t see you doing anything,” Diana snaps at her intellectual counterpart.

Unbothered, Charlotte crosses her arms. “Information is key. I wanted to see what you’d do. After all, I have no intention of letting you be the reason I fail.”

“Hah?”

“I got what I wanted. As long as you’re being cooperative, I’d say…” She levels a cold look at her opposite. Then, in a tone mimicking Diana’s confidence from the top of the match, she continues. “We’re gonna win now. ‘Kay?”

Unfair. That’s just unfair. Using Diana’s words like that.

The flatly irritated look across Diana’s face says it all. She certainly doesn’t appreciate being mocked. Least of all by Charlotte. However, she scoffs and turns away, only to be met by the gazes of the others. With a heavy sigh, she stands upright with her hands in her pockets. “Who knows?”

Charlotte brings a hand to her mouth. “Oh? But you seemed so confident before.”

“Bite me, Ice Queen.”

Just then, movement from across the mat gets the girls’ attention, followed by the relieving sigh of someone doing a bit of stretching. Ortiz stands with her back still to the girls. She removes the top of her tracksuit, her sports bra revealing the athletic build and defined muscles she typically hides beneath it.

The hole through the back, though… that’ll take some patching.

“Shoot. This was one of my favorite ones, too.”

Rather than discard it, Ortiz ties the jacket around her waist by the sleeves. All the while, Kelly watches from the sidelines, not even minding the ticking down of the clock. A knowing smirk graces the corners of her lips.

Ortiz stretches her back and cracks her neck. She feels it. The hum in her bones. Her blood getting hot.

“Still… Ah, man. I’m getting kind of impatient. It should be okay, right?”

The girls haven’t a clue what she’s talking about. Not until she turns around and they see it. Her face. Gone is the sleepy, lackadaisical expression that’d seemed a nigh-permanent fixture on her face. This look is something entirely different. It’s sharp. Fierce. No doubt about it. This is the look of someone truly fired up.

“If I start getting a little… aggressive?”

Oh no.

The fearsome instructor snaps to the bunch in an instant, blowing her prior feats of speed well out of the water. The girls split in a heartbeat, raising their guards as quickly as possible. It hardly makes a difference. The first one she finds is Diana, who does what she can to block the oncoming punch.

Where once the girl had been able to root herself in place, this is a completely different level. The blow is so forceful, it doesn’t care whether she plants herself or not. She will move. And move, she does, the floor beneath her tearing up from the structure even as she clings to it. Which is to say nothing of how the girl’s arms now feel like their bones have been shattered to toothpicks.

“W-what the hell?!”

Only a tether of silk from Little Moth keeps her from soaring out of bounds. Though the landing is far from pleasant.

Charlotte grimaces whilst watching the others scramble to do anything about this.

Mio and Ragyou both return to their tactic of making themselves into absolute pests. They zip to and fro in a bid to be as difficult to hit as possible, all whilst still trying to exploit the movement to find an opening. The moment never comes. Not for them. For Ortiz, however…

In order to pull a maneuver like this, the two girls have to be in sync. Otherwise, they’d crash into one another. If they’re coordinated, then what seems like infuriating randomness from the outside…

“Too predictable.”

Ortiz rushes forward, catching both girls in the gut with either fist at the perfect moment. Thrusting both of her arms forward, she throws the pair forward, sending them skipping across the mat like cans down the street. Once again, it’s Charlotte who keeps her team in the fight, having Little Moth catch the duo in a net of silk.

It does nothing to stop the feeling both girls have of their stomachs being forced into their throats. Still, it keeps them in the fight.

Charlotte winces. Even if she’s only a little more serious, we can’t keep this up. Plan… I need to come up with-

“Oi.”

“Heh?”

“You should be paying attention when you’re fighting someone.”

Oh…

Charlotte lurches back with a gliding step. Not that it’d get her to safety against this monster. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to. “Speak for yourself.”

“Stinger Missile!”

“Kuroi Dangan!”

Ortiz stops in her tracks. She swats Kuro aside and catches one Stinger Missile, though it explodes in her face. She clears the smoke with a swipe of her hand, only to find Ragyou soaring towards her with a flying kick that connects, knocking her away.

Diana stands in front of Charlotte with more Stinger Missiles on the ready. “You’re the smart one, right? So? What’s the plan?”

Charlotte blinks. Had Diana, of all people, just said those words in that order?

Surely this is some kind of trick.

Hmph. Perhaps she really will prove us wrong. I should hold up my own end, right? Charlotte collects her thoughts, given this brief moment to breathe.

“As a matter of fact, I do have an idea.”

Ortiz returns to her offensive in seconds. “What’re you doing, standing around?”

Diana points at the teacher. “Attack.”

Honey Bee’s eyes flash and the command wills a swarm of bees to do as instructed, collapsing on Ortiz like a tidal wave that crashes down and forces her back. The swarm disperses on its own, but it gives them the space they need. Mio zips back to her standard maneuver, encircling their instructor with sharp movements.

“This again? I told you. This is- eh?”

Right when she goes for an attack on another clear opening, Mio moves in completely contradictory directions to her forming pattern. As if yanked by something to travel in a way entirely divorced from her natural momentum.

“Huh?”

“Kuroi Dangan!”

BANG.

Damage.

Ortiz stumbles forward, more than a bit surprised. It doesn’t last. When she looks up, this continues. Mio darts around her again. Ortiz tries for another attack.

No sell.

“How-?”

This carries on all over the dojo until… it doesn’t. When Mio stops, Ragyou tags in. Ortiz blocks the gyaru’s eminent kick. Yet the second she returns it with a punch of her own, an invisible force pulls her back from one direction and pushes against her from the other, cratering all of her forward momentum.

“What’s going on, here? How are they-?”

Then it hits her.

Charlotte.

Off to the side, Kelly leans back against the dojo’s wall with a proud, even somewhat smug grin about her.

“Atta girl.”

Her eye tracks up to Little Moth, still fluttering just over the battlefield. Such a clever ploy. Using Mio to spread more silk lines across the field, unnoticed, and pull her out of trouble the second Ortiz got a handle of her movements. Mastery of information and domination of the battlefield. That is the role of the controller. The ultimate enabler. Speaking of which…

Ragyou has a different use for the same silk lines used as a prison for Ortiz. She bounces from one to another, adding some real oomph to her every kick. Whenever Ortiz tosses her away, the girl just springs back from another line at a different angle.

“Y’know, this is actually super fun, right now!”

If the look on the usually dull-eyed gym teacher is anything to go by, she concurs.

A jail for one becomes a bouncy house for the other. Still, Ortiz is wise to the trick, now. Which means it can’t last long. The woman assumes a stance and takes a breath. That’s it. One breath. The pressure she emits without doing anything else sends a wave of pure force throughout the battlefield.

That’s it for the trap. Without further restrictions, Ortiz grabs Ragyou and tosses her into the air. Before she can come down, though, Diana tags in and rams the woman, joined by Mio when everything settles.

“Don’t slow me down, Extra.”

That line again. The same as all those times before. But the tone, this time. It’s entirely different. It almost sounds like… a challenge.

Kuro crawls onto her shoulder. “Well? We’re going to show her, right?”

“Mm!”

The two girls press their own attack. Whenever Ortiz goes for Mio, Charlotte yanks her out of harm’s way with a silk line. What’s more, her replacing small portions of the Silk String Prison slows Ortiz just enough for Diana to match the woman’s might.

Ortiz, though? Loving every second of this.

“You wanted my attention, right?”

“Ah. Eyes on me, teach.”

Even with the prison active, it’s a struggle to come anywhere close to matching this woman’s mammoth strength. Luckily, Mio’s distractions help considerably. It’s a sight that fills Kelly with warmth. Diana working with not only Charlotte, but even with Mio.

Then comes the climax of this whole dance number. Ortiz knocks Mio away, sending her careening towards the ceiling. Diana capitalizes on that distraction by rushing her. The pair lock grips. Though it’s clear who wins this exchange as Ortiz bears down on Diana, forcing the girl to arc her back and dig in her heels.

“Hey, Teach.”

“Yeah?”

“My teamwork’s a whole lot better now, right?”

Ortiz grins. “You’re askin’ that now? For real. You guys… you guys are all kinds’a fun.”

“Gracias. You don’t have to look at me anymore?”

“Heh?”

Charlotte isn’t doing anything. Wait. Up.

Just over her head, Mio soars, her scarf once again flaring behind her like a pair of amber wings as a mass of black energy forms at her fingertips.

“Kuroi Dangan!”

BANG!

The Kuro bullet comes down right over the woman, forcing her to let go of Diana. That isn’t the end of it, of course. Not by a long shot. It’s just the moment when it hits her. Ragyou never came back down.

Mio lands behind her but the teacher’s focus remains fixed on the ceiling. There, looming over them all, a massive stinger.

“Oh…”

Charlotte glances to Kelly and the timer. Four seconds left. She gestures to Ragyou, who holds onto the ceiling with a silk line slingshot behind her. “Kikuchi! Go!”

“Roger!”

Three seconds.

Ragyou releases the ceiling and the line launches her forward as the stinger, itself, falls. She catches up immediately, kicking into the back of it to give the enormous projectile that much more speed.

Two seconds.

It barrels down like a falling rocket. A Queen Stinger Missile.

One second.

Without a single other method of recourse available to her, a shocked Ortiz leans herself back so that the immense point passes right over her nose as it drives itself into the dojo floor.

Time.