The group stood up from the lunch table as the three boys groaned in nervous anticipation.
"Soon I'll be joining you guys. Then you won't have to hurry about getting hurt." Chase pointed finger guns.
"Hopefully in the next five years." Akilah snickered. Amora chuckled.
"Not you too, Amora." Chase stared at Amora with puppy eyes as Amora chuckled again.
"Good luck, Hendrix!" Vida smiled and waved goodbye as their paths forked.
"Yeah. You too." Hendrix let out a little smile, messing with his hair.
"Planning time." Taro's face got serious as they turned the corner away from the group.
"I'll hit her!" Kai raised his hand.
"That's not really a plan, Kai. Listen up." Taro turned around, walking backwards with his front facing the other two boys.
"One of us hits her with a distraction while the other two overwhelm her with a combined attack." Taro played this plan out with his hands.
"Wow, that's actually a really good plan." Hendrix was surprised by the simple efficiency of it.
"Yeah I was up all night thinking of this." Taro said this proudly. Hendrix could now notice the bags under his eyes.
"So who's doing what?" Kai asked.
"I'll be a distraction. I can just start punching, but you guys need to be quick with your attack. It'll only be a couple seconds before Alex puts me on the ground." Taro shivered at the memory of the pain he felt every time Alex would slam him into the concrete.
"I don't know how me and Hendrix will combine an attack though, bro." Kai put his finger to his chin. Hendrix thought for a second and then grabbed the crumpled piece of paper in his pocket.
He dragged his finger down the piece of paper and then pointed at a spot on the paper, saying "Aha!" as he did.
"What's on that paper?" Kai peeked over the top of the paper curiously.
"It's nothing, it's just a list of songs. It's like my move list. I got the idea from the old fighting games Chase would find in the trash when we were little." Hendrix smiled as he reminisced.
"Oh, then what did you find?" Taro asked.
"One of the songs I used to listen to. It's called Bloodstains by this punk band Mr. Frewin's ancestors listened to. When I used the melody while I shot my strings out it created a kind of ramp. Do you think you could run on one of my strings, Kai?" Hendrix asked.
The twins took a second to pause, as this was the first time they had heard Hendrix explain his Mode. Kai thought for a second more.
"The strings are pretty thin… But I think I could do it. Why?" Kai responded.
"That could help make the attack seem random. Last time we just kept hitting her from the same angles because we were too exhausted." Hendrix thought over his plan as the two brothers nodded at each other.
"Let's do this." Taro opened the doors to the courtyard. Alex stood leaning against the willow tree talking to Jessica.
"Oh, finally." Alex groaned and stretched. "It felt like I was going to wait all day!" Alex noticed that the kids weren't expecting Jessica to be out here. The boys probably thought that something was wrong.
"Oh, Jessica is just here to check in on Hendrix. She'll be watching to make sure he isn't overworking himself." Alex nodded at Jessica and she nodded back. Hendrix got the feeling that they weren't being told the entire truth. Taro turned back towards Hendrix to affirm his feeling, Taro was sensing the same thing.
"It'll be alright, there's nothing wrong with you Hendrix. You better not hit me by accident, though, or else something will be wrong with you." Jessica glared at Hendrix as he laughed nervously.
"Alright, you guys ready?" Alex bounced off the side of the willow tree as she cracked her knuckles. The boys all looked at each other and nodded. This surprised Alex, but she liked the surprise. Whatever they had planned, she loved that they had put some thought into it.
Taro charged forward, reeling his fist back to land a blow to Alex's head.
"Aw man. I'm disappointed." Alex thought that it would be back to the direct offensive plays for today, just like yesterday.
Taro threw a frenzy of blows at Alex, which were all caught by her swift hands. Taro threw a left hook, which was met with the fist of Alex, but this time, instead of jumping back in pain, Taro grit his teeth and threw his next punch.
Alex smiled.
"Nice!" She said as she caught Taro's next punch.
Meanwhile, while Alex was focused on Taro, and expecting the other two boys to be sitting around waiting for their opening like usual, Hendrix and Kai nodded at each other.
"Bloodstains!" Hendrix mumbled to himself as his strings formed ramps and waves on each side of Alex and Taro.
Alex noticed this out of the corner of her eye, but assumed that Hendrix wouldn't know how to close in an attack without catching Taro in the crossfire.
Kai quickly swung up onto one of Hendrix's strings, trying to run as fast as he possibly could without losing his balance. Hendrix tried to keep his strings moving as smooth as possible as to not rock Kai off of his balance.
Kai wasn't going that fast compared to his full sprint, but it was fast enough to get near the two exchanging fists without Alex noticing.
Once Kai got close enough, he jumped off of the string, coming down on Alex's head with a double axe handle.
Unfortunately, the lift off was a bit messy. Hendrix's strings had swung chaotically for just a moment, causing Kai to tumble in the air a bit before regaining his composure and forming the double axe handle.
"Shit." Hendrix mumbled as he tried regaining control of his strings.
Kai's mid air flailing as he tried to regain his mid air composure caught the attention of Alex, who saw his frantic movement out of the corner of her eye.
Jessica noticed Hendrix's slip up, writing it down on her clipboard. "Signs of Spiritual Overflow." She wrote.
Alex threw a haymaker straight at Taro's face. Luckily, Taro was able to cross his forearms in front of his face to block the blow. Taro still felt every inch of Alex's fist land on his forearms, wincing in pain.
Taro tumbled back off the concrete and onto the grass as Alex turned her attention towards the falling Kai.
"Oh shit!" Kai's eyes widened as Alex threw a fist straight into Kai's abdomen, causing the whole of his body's momentum to stop at Alex's hand.
Kai gasped as he felt the wind being knocked out of his respiratory system. After Alex retracted her fist, Kai fell to the ground on his knees, curling over from the pain.
"Fuck." Hendrix mumbled. He felt like the blame fell on him for the failure. He retracted his strings and waited for Alex to inevitably turn her attention towards him, ready to pummel him.
His eyes began to water as he quickly glanced at the two brothers who now suffered for his mistake.
"SWITCH!" Taro yelled out to Kai and Hendrix from the grass. Hendrix got taken out of his self-hatred by Taro's single word exclamation. He looked at the two brothers as Kai looked up from his knelt over position.
Hendrix nodded at Kai and Taro.
Kai quickly sped towards Alex, remembering to not be as predictable as yesterday, he didn't want his feet to be swept for the one millionth time.
Kai threw punches and kicks at Alex that were all either caught or blocked. Even though his attacks weren't nearly as powerful as his brothers, he knew he had the advantage in the raw speed of his attacks.
Alex tried to sweep Kai's feet like yesterday, punishing him for the direct and predictable attack, but Kai saw through it this time, jumping over Alex's feet as he threw another punch straight to the side of Alex's head.
"Nice form!" Alex smiled as she swiped Kai's fist out of her direction. She saw improvement, even if just for a moment, and that made her excited to push the boys past their limits.
"Let's see what's past your maximum!" Alex exclaimed. She threw a roundhouse kick at Kai's side, sending him flying into the trunk of the willow tree.
Kai coughed as he tried to catch his breath. His vision turned to a white light just for a second as his body went between light headed and fully conscious.
"I can't give up, not yet." Kai caught his breath and stood up.
His brother's exclamation repeated in Kai's head. "SWITCH!". Taro could have easily given up and gone back to throwing random punches, but he didn't. Taro's decision gave Kai enough motivation to push on until they won Alex's challenge.
"Get ready for me!" Kai said as he sped back to Alex.
"Ha ha! Let's do this!" Alex exclaimed excitedly as she assumed a fighting position.
While this happened, Taro began to run towards Hendrix, assuming Kai's original position in the plan.
"Damn it. What's another song?" Hendrix thought to himself. He didn't have enough time to pull out his list of songs and remember the melody to each of them.
"Um.. Lounge Act!" Hendrix thought of a random song from his childhood. His strings propelled from his forearms in tight waves that crossed each other right before meeting Alex and Kai's location.
"Yes!" Taro exclaimed. Taro grabbed one of Hendrix's strings and began to swing towards Alex, using the strings as a sort of monkey bars.
Alex stayed focused on Kai, who kept more of her attention than Taro because of his speedy and light punches. She knew that even if a light slap hit, that would be the end of the challenge.
Kai began to use more kicks, as he noticed that it kicked up dirt when he did, lowering the chances of Alex seeing where Taro was attacking from using her peripheral vision.
Hendrix focused entirely on keeping his strings' patterns as smooth as possible. Hendrix could feel the strings defying his will. He channeled as much of his Spirit into his forearms as he knew was possible.
"Focus, Hendrix." He mumbled to himself.
As he tried to focus his attention into his strings, he had an idea. Taro was closing in on Alex and Kai. He was only about two swings from jumping off, so Hendrix retracted the strings that Taro wasn't going to use for his jump off.
"I got you." Taro mumbled. He jumped off of Hendrix's strings as his fist reeled back to land a blow on Alex.
"Got who?" Alex uttered. Kai and Taro's eyes widened. Alex blocked Kai's latest blow with her forearm as she turned towards Taro to land a kick to his side.
Alex smiled as she had foiled a second plan from the three boys.
"Mr. Self Destruct." Hendrix mumbled. Alex's complete focus was split between the two brothers, so Hendrix was able to sneak a single string across the floor, coming to Alex's pivot foot she was basing her entire weight on since she was focusing on landing a kick on Taro.
The string quickly wrapped around Alex's leg and raised her foot into the air, rapidly turning Alex and her head.
Taro's momentum was still heading straight for Alex. Before he could even comprehend what was happening before his eyes, his reeled back fist instinctively aimed where Alex's head was, which was her abdomen now.
Taro landed the blow, sending shockwaves through Alex's lower abdomen.
The three boys' eyes widened from shock. Alex let out a single cough as her green hair swung upside down.
Taro fell to the floor, landing on his knees. Hendrix began to slowly let Alex down from his strings.
"Yes!" Alex exclaimed as she began laughing. She caught herself in a handstand and flipped onto her feet as she looked at the boys with a smile.
"That was amazing!" Alex gave a thumbs up towards the boys.
The boys looked at each other and smiled. Kai sped towards Hendrix as Taro ran towards him too, the two brothers jumped in a huddle as Hendrix laughed at the excitement.
"You guys are growing into something, I tell you. Kai, the way you learned from your openings yesterday was amazing. Taro, you were able to take my hits, even just for a little more. That's awesome. Hendrix, I saw your quick thinking. That was the key here." Alex smiled at the boys as her words sank into their hearts with a warmth they had never felt from Alex.
Jessica wrote in her notebook: "Better Control. Maybe it won't be a problem?"
"Now, should we run it back or go check in on Bloom's group?" Alex cracked her knuckles like she was ready for another go at the challenge.
"You know what? I'm SUPER interested in what the others are doing right now!" Taro waved the others towards the courtyard doors.
"Yeah, I wonder what they're doing right now?" Kai sounded comically interested.
"Well, if you say so." Alex shrugged as her and Jessica joined the boys in exiting the courtyard.
In all honesty, Hendrix was genuinely curious how his friends were getting along in their own respective training.
"Has Vida gotten better control of her spores? What about that brain Spirit Akilah was yapping about? Has Amora gotten that healing Spirit down? What about Chase and his guns?" Hendrix thought.