A Little Bit Ninja

10: Kicking and Hiding Trash

 This Chappie is dedicated to someone who happened to read all my chapters, and commented, and voted, and all the other stuff in one night. Plus she gave me a shout out with no ulterior motive beyond sharing the love. As soon as I'm done with this family reunion, I'm totally going to check out her stuff.

You guys should too.

10: Kicking and Hiding Trash

The guy was the size of an adolescent elephant. I kid you not. I knew that Elephant Man must be the famous brother of Ivan. Not only did his size give it away, but it also appeared he inherited the genetic predisposition for nearly fatal acne—judging by the scars anyway.

I was torn between screaming like the dog-doo-doo-lunch-tray girl, and running the other way. I knew my precarious plan for discovering my mother’s secrets and keeping my much loved life hung upon The Boss’s ignorance of my non-ignorance about this whole operation.

Technically I wasn’t supposed to know who this guy was.  And technically, if this guy told the Employer From Hell that I saw him, my own private investigation would come to an abrupt end—as would my life when they most likely figured out I wasn’t The One.

If I had no idea who this guy was, or what he wanted from me, I would probably scream. Heck, I did know who this guy was, and what he wanted from me, I and I still wanted to scream.   

I settled on the only honorable course of action for any sane Kung Fu warrior. I screamed—and then attacked.

With as much strength as I was capable of, I drove my fist into his solar plexus—what else would I hit?—and immediately regretted it. If I hadn’t been trained in the fine art of punching and kicking for most of my life I might have broken my hand! This guy had a serious case of abdominal muscleage.

I shook my hand out as I stared wide eyed at the man who hadn’t even flinched when I’d thrown him one of my Winch Chun punches.

His dark eyes met mine, without any sign of emotional reaction to my assault I might add—not distress, and certainly not any pain—to my everlasting shame. I tried not to let my eyes wander from his eyes, lest he see the fascination I had with the rest of his face.

I’d thought Ivan was ugly, but it looks like he got all the looks in the family.  Elephant man didn’t just look like he’d had a few breakouts and some physically deforming accidents on top of that. This guy looked like he’d been dipped in acid. And Dr. Frankenstein was working the E.R. when they tried to do plastic surgery to cover the damage. His face was a patchwork of different colors of stretched skin.

Now I was scared. Not only because his face was possibly the most grotesque thing I’d ever seen on a living person before, but mostly because I didn’t seem to be able to do any damage to this guy. He hadn’t even pulled a drug tipped dart on me. He was just impervious to pain.

I noted that my special drink was still in my left hand, and sighed with regret—I was really thirsty—as I realized I would have to use it as a weapon. Actually, I thought, I might as well have a little before wasting it.

I took a few quick sips, keeping my eyes on the human mountain before me, in case he tried to make a move. He quirked his head to the side as if he were trying unsuccessfully to classify my species. That was when I threw the stemmed crystal glass, and lemon wedge, at his face. Spinning on my heel, I hauled butt in the opposite direction.

I know, what’s the point of training in the martial arts your whole life if it fails you every time you need it, right? Let me just say that nobody felt that bit of irony as keenly as I did at that moment.