"Standard rules, Miller," Barnes warned, stepping back to referee. "Submission or points. No strikes to the joints, no cheap shots. Keep it clean."
"Don't worry, Staff Sergeant," Tank sneered, locking eyes with Maya. "I'll go easy on her."
"Fight!" Barnes commanded.
Tank didn't waste a second. He wanted this over quickly, and he wanted it to be spectacular. He intended to shame her with one devastating, unstoppable move. He didn't inch forward to test her defenses; he exploded off his back foot, launching his massive frame toward her with startling speed.
His plan was obvious to any trained fighter, but to the uninitiated in the crowd, it looked terrifying. He feinted a heavy right cross to draw her hands up, and then, pivoting on his left foot, he launched a massive, sweeping roundhouse kick aimed squarely at her ribs.
It was a power move, pure and simple. If it connected, the sheer force of his two-hundred-and-forty-pound frame behind a driving shin bone would easily break ribs and fold her in half. It was meant to knock the wind out of her, throw her to the mat, and leave her gasping in pain while he stood over her victorious.
As the leg whipped through the air, time seemed to dilate for Maya. Where the crowd saw a blur of motion and impending violence, Maya saw geometry. She saw the over-commitment in his hips, the slight drop in his guard, the total abandonment of his center of gravity in favor of maximum velocity.
Tank was putting everything into this one strike. It was a beautiful, terrible manifestation of brute force.
But force without control is just a weapon swinging blindly.
Maya didn't retreat. A lesser fighter would have jumped back, trying to escape the arc of the kick, which is exactly what Tank anticipated. Instead, doing the exact opposite of what every instinct screamed, Maya stepped in.
By stepping inside the arc of the kick, Maya bypassed the lethal impact zone of his shin and foot, jamming the strike at the thigh. The impact was heavy, jarring her teeth, but her balanced stance absorbed the shock down into the floor.
Because Tank had committed all his momentum to a follow-through that suddenly met a solid wall, he was momentarily suspended, balancing precariously on one leg.
In that fraction of a second, Maya struck.
With blinding speed, her left arm swept under Tank’s extended leg, hooking it tightly against her ribs. Simultaneously, she stepped deep behind his standing leg with her right foot, destroying his remaining base.
She didn't use her strength to take him down; she used his. Using his own massive forward momentum against him, she pivoted sharply, dropping her weight and twisting her hips.
Tank’s eyes went wide as the world suddenly tilted violently. He had expected to feel the satisfying crunch of impact; instead, he felt weightless, completely unmoored from the earth.
With a sound like a sack of wet cement hitting pavement, Tank slammed into the rubber mat. The impact was deafening, echoing off the cinderblock walls of the gym. But Maya wasn’t finished. Before the vibration of his fall even stopped, she was moving.
Flowing like water, she followed him to the ground, spinning over his torso. Before Tank could even register the pain in his back or the breath knocked from his lungs, he felt an agonizing, inescapable pressure on his right arm. Maya had transitioned seamlessly into a flawless crossface armbar. Her hips were tight against his shoulder, her legs clamped over his face and chest, and his extended arm was locked perfectly straight, bent backward just to the a
For a moment, the combatives room was completely, utterly silent. The only sound was the harsh, ragged gasping of Tank Miller as he desperately tried to suck air back into his paralyzed lungs.