P1

Every movement was calculated.

Breath held, muscles tensed, his arm took one fluid motion towards the target without any deviation. If it could be said that the human mind could only truly focus on more than one thing at a time, all five senses were locked in this engagement of force.

He gripped his enemy in an iron hold that couldn’t be broken with a sledgehammer and time, yet could surround an egg without even scratching it.

Bringing his enemy towards himself, he stared it down. There was only one emotion plastered over his face as he brought it closer and closer - hunger.

And so Ma Gangyrong took a bite.

"This hits the spot! How the hell have we never had tacos, Honse?"

While it could be said that New York City is the melting pot of America, its sister city bordering the Pacific had a similar stew of blended cultures, if not spread out over significantly more land. As such, the sight of two Korean students loading up on practically every food venue in a multi-culinary all-you-can-eat wasn't enough to do more than arch a couple eyebrows.

Honse sword under his breath, "You'd imagine having the opportunity to engage with martial artists from different distinguished schools in the world would make you a bit more..."

*Focused* was probably the right word. For as long as Gu Honse had taken care of his lowerclassman Ma Gangryong, he hadn't seen Gangryong passionate about anything other getting into scuffles with the other martial artists at Reunion Sanha Co. Hell, keeping Gangryong from deciding to try and fight *him* was practically a 24/7 effort when they were travelling together.

The entire situation the two of them were in reeked of bureaucracy. Entering into the Mixed Martial Academic Decathlon was typically a privilege that could only be afforded to two students from each qualifying academy from around the world. To no one's surprise, Reunion Sanha Co High was able to pull some strings to submit *four* students, one from each of the-

"Honse, Honse, check this shit out!"

Gangyrong summarily dropped a stack of Korean *won* that approximated two U.S. dollars on an unsuspecting hot dog stand (which probably didn't even accept foreign currency) before picking out a hot dog straight from a vat of boiling oil and shoving it into his mouth.

*Well, at least he's not trying to beat up random civilians...* Honse thought. He still couldn't shake off the fact that Gangyrong had done practically no training for the tournament's preliminaries, at least that he could observe.

They'd been walking for what seemed like ages from the airport to the bus station that'd take them to the school hosting the preliminaries - a test against a "benchmark" opponent that would help seed the upcoming bracket. It was like the city was purposefully designed to make travelling by foot impractical.

He couldn't even fathom where the school they were heading to was. The best instructions the big wigs at Reunion gave them was to wait near a buss stop, but given the necessary size of a school that could house thousands of martial artists from around the globe he'd have imagined that it would be noticeable at some distance.

After a long trek that had Gangyrong nearly eat through both of their allowances, they'd finally arrived ... in the middle of a suburb, with no noticeable bus stop at the cross-streets they were at.

Finally, Honse could sense it - Gangyrong had a stupidly large grin on his face that was expanding every second. It seemed like the best way to get him to cease fighting every person who looked remotely strong enough to beat the crap out of him was the anticipation of having *two* people do it. But still, where was...?

A practically pre-historic school bus trudged towards them at a distance, bright yellow with all the generic works. It patiently stopped for what was probably too long at each intersection going up to the pair from Reunion.

Honse half-expected it to turn left away from them and pick up a set of pre-schoolers, yet it was without a doubt coming towards *them*, stopping right in front of Gangyrong, who looked like a kid who was about to get his Christmas presents early.

The doors opened, and Gangyrong jumped in, but Honse was still unsure. He wasn't one to judge, but it was still odd for *this* to be how they transported students from one of the most esteemed martial arts schools in the world.

The bus driver casually looked over to Honse as if he was a normal high school student.

"Well, that's Ma Gangryong, so you're... Gu Honse? Come on in or we're all gonna be late."

It was unbelievable, but Honse walked in. He already saw Gangyrong eying the other, un-remarkable students, as if he was gauging if the middle of a school bus would be an interesting place for a free-for-all melee. Honse sat down next to Gangryong with about as much dignity as he could muster, blocking Gangryong's view, before the bus began trudging along again.

A voice came over the bus' intercom after a couple uneventful minutes.

"Well folks, looks like the coast is clear."

Honse could make out the bus driver pull down a lever from where he was sitting. The driver swapped his hat out for another, ripped off some patch on his shoulder. The bus made a sudden turn onto a closed ramp that quickly rose into an unoccupied overpass.

Gangryong seemed to have judged basically everyone in the bus to not be worth a fight, and started dozing off, but Honse was able to notice the bus speeding up towards a sheer drop off the unfinished road. He briefly thought the driver had a screw loose, until...

More levers were pulled, panels were opened, and the front of the bus started looking more and more like a pilot's seat. Suddenly, a set of tight seatbelts automatically wrapped around Gangryong and Honse's chests.

And then the bus flew off the road, tumbling towards the ground. Most of the passengers were experienced martial artists, so only a few looked panicked, although Honse prepared to flex out of his seatbelt and escape with his friend. And yet,

The driver pushed one final button. There was a jerking motion around the bus as bright yellow wings spread out on either side of it, and a set of rocket boosters in the back thrust the entire assortment forward and up into the clouds.

"Here we go... next stop: Sky High!"