Chapter 17: Tank vs. Tifa
While Winston helped walk Clint back to his cage, Owlowiscious strutted back to Winston's cage with pride in his chest. Once there, he was greeted with a round of adulation and praise from his friends.
"Good show, Owlowiscious!" cheered Opal.
"Didn't know you had it in ya!" exclaimed Winona.
"I have to say, I'm pretty damn impressed," remarked Tank. "You really outsmarted that guy."
Owlowiscious blushed. "I did, didn't I?"
"You did," Winston announced upon returning from the birds' aisle. "A truly remarkable showing from our first guest, Owlowiscious," he added, turning to face the rest of the store. "Wouldn't you say?"
Winston's comment was met with assorted barks, squeaks and hisses of approval from the Pet Paradise community.
"Now, without further ado," said Winston, "let's move on to Round Two. First, let me introduce you to our next combatant!"
Winston hopped off the counter and scurried deep into the first aisle, which was labeled 'SMALL ANIMALS'.
"Representing Pet Paradise," he called from the aisle, accompanied by the faint ka-chink of a lock being undone, "the Lightning Bruiser... Tifa!"
Out of the aisles hopped a lean, muscular hare with short, gray fur and a long, perky set of ears. She bounded restlessly around the store in search of her opponent, her powerful thighs bulging with each hop.
"All right, who's steppin' up to bat?" she demanded, putting up her dukes. "Lemme at 'im!"
"Peace, Tifa," said Winston. "I haven't even announced who you're fighting yet."
"Then freakin' do it already," Tifa snapped. "I ain't got all day."
"If you insist," Winston said with a roll of his eyes. "Tifa's opponent shall be... TANK!"
Tank gulped. Well, here goes nothing, he thought, stepping out of the cage at his usual pace.
Tifa couldn't help but chuckle. "Boss, c'mon," she said, turning towards Winston. "A tortoise? Really? This is... this is a joke, right? What are you gonna have me fight next, a sloth?"
Winston gave Tifa a pointed look. "I'd warn you not to question my judgment, Tifa. This is your opponent, take him or leave him. If you want, I'd be happy to send you back to your cage and give someone else a shot."
Tifa sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine," she grumbled, hopping up to Tank and planting herself right in front of him. "But Imma make this quick."
Tank's heart began to sink as he sized up his opponent. The hare had already demonstrated outstanding agility upon making her entrance, to say nothing of her well sculpted physique. Furthermore, from the fiery, impassioned look in her eyes, he could tell that she meant business. How in the world was he even going to land a hit?
"Round Two... FIGHT!"
As soon as the words left Winston's lips, Tifa delivered a massive haymaker to Tank's face, knocking him senseless. Tank swore that he felt his brain rattle from the impact.
"That hurt?" she sneered. "Did that sting, tortoise boy?"
Tank shook off the punch and quickly reoriented himself. He picked up one of his forelegs and took a swing at Tifa, who ducked out of the way and countered with an uppercut. The blow sent Tank's head bobbing up and down like a Bobblehead doll.
"Too SLOW!" she taunted, giggling as she watched her opponent struggle to regain his senses. Before Tank could recover from the uppercut, Tifa followed it up with a jab to the cheek. And then another, and another, until she was pummeling his face with rapid fire punches like a furry little jackhammer.
"And they call you 'Tank'," she laughed as she continued her attack. "Whatta joke. They shoulda called you 'Speed Bag'."
Tank tried to shield himself against the punches, but they simply came too fast for him to block. Between Tifa's blazing agility, effortless dodging and endless taunting, Tank's confidence fell lower and lower each passing second. Worst of all, he had to deal with the fact that it was his idea to fight in the first place. And now, because of his recklessness, he was doomed to be humiliated in front of his closest friends, getting mercilessly pummeled into the-
And then it hit him. These punches don't actually hurt all that much.
Tank may have felt overwhelmed by Tifa's relentless assault at first, but this feeling faded as soon as he realized how little damage she was actually doing. As this realization sunk in, Tifa's barrage felt lighter and lighter with each successive punch. The blows seemed to bounce off of Tank's rough, armor-like skin without leaving any sort of mark. Imbued with a new feeling of confidence, Tank reared his head back and swung it forward with all of his might.
*CRACK*
In the midst of Tifa's attack, Tank found the strength to deliver a crushing headbutt that broke through Tifa's guard and sent her crashing down onto her butt. This elicited a massive collective gasp from their audience.
"Alright, so you can fight a little," Tifa muttered, picking herself up off the floor. Determined to regain her momentum, she reared back and walloped Tank with another haymaker.
This one barely made Tank flinch.
"Eh?" she grunted, taking another shot at Tank's face. Again, Tank shrugged it off. In a fit of rage, she resumed her rapid fire assault from earlier, only to be met with the same result. No matter how hard she punched, Tank stood firm like a stone upon the shore.
"All right, big boy, howzabout THIS?!"
Tifa leapt into the air and cracked Tank in the mouth with a roundhouse kick, knocking Tank senseless and sending a sharp pain shooting through his lower jaw. The rattling brain sensation that Tank felt upon receiving the first punch had just come back for an encore.
Before Tank could recover, Tifa followed this up with another kick, this one nailing him right between the eyes. With each kick, Tank felt as if he was being pummeled with a sack of potatoes. Tank, once again, tried to raise his foreleg to shield himself, but while Tifa's kicks were quite a bit slower than her punches, they were still far too fast for Tank to block.
"Gettin' tired?" Tifa teased, continuing to deliver kick after kick. "Don't feel bad. There ain't nobody in the world who can take my-"
*CHOMP*
"OW! What the hell?!"
On an impulse, Tank opened his mouth and clamped it down hard on Tifa's foot just before it made contact.
"Who bites a foot?!" she cried as she grabbed her foot with both hands and tried to pry it loose. After struggling for a few agonizing seconds, Tifa managed to dislodge her foot from Tank's mandible with a pop. Unfortunately, she had pulled so hard that the momentum sent her careening headfirst into the cage-laden wall. Her head hit the bars with a clattering bang.
Tank gave her a smug smirk and started strutting towards her prone body. "Ready to give up?" he asked.
Tifa's answer was a resounding, "BLOW ME!"
Tank was taken aback when she jumped back onto her feet with a kip-up, immediately meeting his gaze with a furious, rage-laden glare.
"Alright, tortoise," she snarled, stomping towards him and huffing and puffing all the way. "Now you've made me MAD!"
Tank shut his eyes and shielded his face, bracing himself for another strike... but it never came. Instead, he felt Tifa grab hold of his shell and hoist herself atop it.
My shell?, thought Tank. What the hay could she be planning to- URK!
Tank got his answer a moment later, when he felt two thick, beefy legs wrapping themselves around his cranium. The shock of having his vision blocked out was quickly eclipsed by the pain of a slow, deliberate leg scissor. Tifa pushed her thighs together harder and harder, crushing Tank's skull with her vicelike grip.
"Crack, you dumb tortoise!" she grunted. "Give up or I'll start squeezin' harder!"
As the pressure on Tank's head ramped up, he started to feel shortness of breath. The increased difficulty to carry oxygen to his brain made him feel as if he was drowning; drowning in a sea of flesh. Tank tried to grab Tifa's legs and pry them off, but her thighs of thunder refused to budge. An attempt to fling her off with his head was equally fruitless, as his head and neck were both kept firmly in place.
"You lost, tortoise," Tifa sneered as she tightened her grip even further. "Just give up and we can all go home."
But even as the pain reached intolerable levels and his consciousness quickly faded away from him, Tank refused to admit defeat. With the last bit of breath reserved in his lungs, Tank managed to croak out the following:
"Not...yet!"
In an act of true desperation, Tank reared himself back onto his tush and rocketed himself forward with all of his remaining might. In an exceptional display of strength, he broke Tifa's hold and bucked her off his back, sending her skittering onto the floor.
Tank greedily gasped in air, delighted at the sensation of being able to breathe (and see) again. As blood rushed back into his head, all of Tank's senses quickly returned to him.
His relief was cut short, however, when he spied his opponent pushing herself up off the floor. "Why...won't...you.. quit," she huffed, hobbling over towards the tortoise.
I was wondering the same thing about you, Tank thought.
"You're a tenacious one, I'll give ya that," she uttered, catching her beath. "But there ain't no way you can get up after this!"
She gripped Tank by the shell and swiveled him around 180 degrees, so his back was facing her. Before Tank could spin himself back towards her, he felt her grab him by the tail with both paws.
"Time to take the tortoise for a ride!"
With a heavy grunt of effort, she hoisted him off the ground and began to swing him around in a circle.
"W-w-WHOA!" Tank cried. He could do little to resist her as she spun him faster and faster, until the entire room was an unrecognizable blur. All he could do was tuck himself away into his shell and shut his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable collision with the wall. With every rotation, he could feel the falafel he had for supper rising back up through his esophagus.
"See ya!" Tifa exclaimed as she released her grip, sending Tank flying into the wall. Though he was safely tucked away in his shell, the impact of slamming against the wall of cages still shook him to his core, especially since it did nothing to stop the shell's momentum. Upon collision, it ricocheted off the cages and was sent careening in the other direction; right towards the pet who launched it.
Tifa barely had time to say, "Uh oh" before Tank's shell plowed into her at full force, sending her flying across the room like a rag doll.
The impact slowed the shell down considerably, enabling Tank to stick his legs out and stop himself. Unfortunately, the room was still spinning once he reopened his eyes and poked his head back out of his hole. Tank had to clench his throat shut to keep himself from spewing right then and there.
While Tank was waiting for the world to stop spinning so he could get off, his opponent was struggling to pick herself back up. Her belly and ribs were still throbbing with pain from the impact.
"T-that's it," she croaked. "No more. I'm done. You win."
"Already?" asked Winston, giving off a disappointed sigh. "Oh, well. The winner is Tank!"
***
Upon reaching the elevators, Angel leapt up and gave the down button a good whack.
"So here's the plan," he said to Gummy. "We wait for the elevator to take us to the lobby, and when it does, we run like the dickens. Sound good?"
Gummy gazed back at Angel, giving no discernible response.
"I'll take that as a yes."
After a moment, the elevator door in front of them shifted open to reveal, much to Angel's relief, an empty room. He and Gummy strolled inside, took a seat and waited for the doors to close again.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
"What the hay's the holdup?" griped Angel. "You'd think the damn thing would get moving after a-"
Gummy interrupted Angel with a tap on the shoulder and pointed him towards a cache of labeled buttons on the inside of the elevator.
"Oh."
Angel walked up to the buttons and studied them with a quizzical look on his face. "Which one do you think'll take us to the lobby?" he wondered out loud. Gummy, once again, gave no response.
"Eh, let's hit 'em all just to be safe."
*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*
For the next few minutes, Angel and Gummy sat and waited as the elevator made its slow, tedious descent, stopping at each and every floor on the way down to the lobby. The only thing breaking up the monotony was the occasional sight of a perplexed-looking pony standing right outside the door.
Finally, the elevator arrived at its destination. As soon as the scent of fresh floor polish and potted plants came pouring into the elevator, Angel knew that the floor before them had to be the lobby.
"GO!" he shouted, taking off in a dead sprint out of the elevator. Gummy nodded and took off after him, staying right on his tail. The two pets were met with the bewildered stares of the apartment denizens as they ran the length of the lobby and barreled out the door. Once they cleared the stoop, they took a left turn and ran across the length of the block. Their run continued until they reached the corner, where they stopped to catch their breath.
"That *gasp* was *gasp* too *gasp* close," Angel wheezed. Both he and Gummy had to prop themselves up against a traffic pole to keep themselves from collapsing while they tried to regain their composure.
"So what *gasp* do we do now?" Angel asked.
Gummy, predictably, remained silent, save the sounds of his gasps for air.
"Yeah, I'm *gasp* stumped too," said Angel.
It was then that Angel realized how parched his mouth and throat were. He hadn't anything to drink since he set off on this excursion, and after the sprint, he could feel his body sweating itself dry.
"I *gasp... I got it," he huffed. "There's gotta be a way to get some water here in the city. Let's find it."
Gummy pointed to a puddle of water leaking into a sewer drain just beyond the curb, prompting a smack upside the head from Angel.
"Not that kinda water, you moron. What do you want me to do, throw up my guts?"
After thinking for a moment, Gummy shook his head.
"Oh, for the love of Pete," grumbled Angel, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You know, rhetorical questions don't actually have to be answered, Gummy."
Gummy just gave Angel a blank look.
"Whatever. Point is, if I don't get hydrated soon, I'm gonna keel over. Let's get a move on."