Tavor and Mystique locked eyes, the air between them becoming charged with an indescribable amount of tension.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Tavor planted his feet firmly apart and clenched his fists as he spoke.
Mystique smiled, her red lips curving upwards mockingly. "It's no business of yours, kid; just go back to bed or else!"
Tavor sensed the inherent threat in her words, causing his Saiyan blood to begin to boil. "Or else what?"
Mystique reached behind her and pulled a pair of knives from their sheaths; she twirled them in her fingers before holding them at the ready. "Or I will put you in your place!"
Tavor smiled as he heard this, catching Mystique off guard. "Is this kid insane?" Her brows furrowed, and her yellow eyes narrowed into slits.
Tavor's tail unfurled from around his waist, and he took a large step forward before spinning on his heel and snapping his other leg outward towards Mystique's abdomen.
Mystique crossed her arms to block, but the sheer force of the kick sent her airborne; with remarkable agility, she twisted midair and landed gracefully on her feet.
She crouched low and launched herself forwards, her knives glinting in the low light as she swung her arms, aiming to disable this combative child.
Tavor performed a backflip and knocked one of her knives from her hand while the other narrowly missed slicing his face.
He managed to flip to the point that his feet once more pointed towards Mystique and delivered a double kick to her face.
Her head whipped back, vision bursting with stars as a thin line of blood traced down from her nose.
Yet, in a surge of fierce resolve, she steadied herself within moments and struck, her blade slicing into Tavor's thigh before the sheer force of his kick hurled her crashing backward.
"Akkkhh!" Tavor let out a cry of pain as he landed on his back and blood flowed from the knife wound, forming a small puddle on the linoleum floor before he could stand back upright.
Mystique closed the gap quickly, her knives slicing through the air from both sides as if to cut him in half. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Tavor lunged forward, grabbing her forearms and halting her deadly swings. His grip tightened, cutting off her circulation in an instant.
She struggled to remove herself from his grip, but she felt like she was being held in iron clamps and unable to extricate herself.
"TCHHHH... Let go of me, you little shit." She pulled harder but she only managed to make his grip tighter.
Tavor answered with action.
Still gripping both of her forearms, he yanked her violently toward him.
Mystique's eyes widened.
Before she could brace herself...
THOOM!
Tavor drove his knee upward with explosive force.
CRACK!
The strike slammed squarely into Mystique's face.
The impact echoed through the cafeteria as blood burst from her nose, her head snapping backward with such force that her entire body went limp for a heartbeat.
Her vision became a whirlpool of darkness.
The room spun.
Her ears rang.
"...Ghh..."
She teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, every instinct screaming at her to surrender to the darkness threatening to swallow her whole.
But Mystique had survived far worse.
Countless missions.
Countless beatings.
Countless betrayals.
She bit down hard enough to draw blood from her own tongue.
The sharp sting forced her mind back into focus.
"No..."
"Not here, not against a child."
With the last reserves of her balance and combat experience, Mystique twisted her hips despite Tavor's iron grip.
Her body flowed like water.
WHAM!
Her heel lashed out with pinpoint precision, crashing directly into the fresh knife wound carved into Tavor's thigh.
"AAGHH!"
White-hot pain exploded through the young Saiyan's leg.
His muscles instinctively spasmed, and his fingers loosened.
Mystique tore both arms free before springing backward several meters, landing in a low crouch with one hand pressed against the floor.
Blood dripped steadily from her battered nose onto the polished linoleum.
Drip.
Drip.
She raised the back of her hand, wiping the crimson away before glaring at the child.
"...You're a little monster."
Tavor stumbled back a single step, instinctively clutching his wounded thigh.
Fresh blood seeped between his fingers.
His face twisted in pain.
Then...
A grin slowly spread across it.
"Hehehe..."
Mystique frowned.
Instead of fear...
Instead of anger...
The child looked excited.
His tail lashed wildly behind him.
"That hurt..." Tavor admitted, rolling his aching shoulder before lowering into another fighting stance.
Mystique narrowed her yellow eyes.
Something was changing.
The child stood there clutching his bleeding thigh, yet instead of weakening, his breathing grew steadier.
His grin widened.
Then...
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The veins running along Tavor's forearms began to pulse visibly beneath his skin.
His fingers flexed.
The muscles of his arms and shoulders tightened, swelling ever so slightly as if his body had decided that what it possessed moments ago simply wasn't enough.
A faint heat radiated from him.
Mystique's instincts screamed.
"He's getting stronger..."
Without another word, Tavor exploded forward.
BAM!
His right fist shot toward her face.
Mystique calmly redirected it with the back of her forearm.
Before the punch had fully passed...
BAM!
A left straight followed immediately after.
She deflected it with her opposite hand.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
His fists became a relentless barrage, each punch arriving faster than the last.
Mystique retreated one step at a time, her hands flowing like water as they guided every strike away from her body.
Right.
Parry.
Left.
Deflect.
Straight.
Redirect.
Each impact reverberated through her arms like a hammer striking steel.
"He's speeding up..."
Tavor's expression only grew brighter.
"Hehehe!"
His barrage stopped without warning.
Mystique's pupils contracted.
"What?!"
Using the momentum from his final punch, Tavor pivoted sharply on his heel.
WHOOOM!
His body spun with frightening speed as his elbow carved through the air toward Mystique's temple.
The strike generated enough force to whistle audibly through the air.
Mystique instinctively abandoned any thought of blocking.
She bent backward with impossible flexibility.
The elbow swept mere centimeters above her face.
The displaced air alone whipped strands of her crimson hair across her eyes.
"If that lands..."
She didn't finish the thought.
Pushing off the floor with one hand, Mystique flipped backward to create distance.
In the same fluid motion, her remaining knife flashed into her hand.
With practiced precision, she snapped her wrist.
SHINK!
The blade hurtled toward Tavor's chest.
Tavor's black eyes locked onto the spinning weapon.
Instead of dodging, he stepped into it.
SMACK!
His palm struck the flat of the blade with explosive force, suddenly changing the knife's trajectory.
FWOOOSH!
It became a silver blur, rocketing past Mystique before burying itself deep into the cafeteria wall.
THUNK!
The blade sank almost to its hilt.
For several long moments, it quivered violently within the concrete.
Bzzzz...
Bzzzz...
Mystique's gaze shifted from the embedded knife...
...to the child standing before her.
Her heartbeat quickened, a sudden sense of urgency replacing her usual cold bravado.
Tavor's grin never faltered.
The instant Mystique's heartbeat quickened, he moved.
BOOM!
The cafeteria floor cracked beneath a single thunderous stomp.
His small frame became a blur.
In less than a heartbeat, he had crossed the distance separating them.
His right shoulder dipped.
His hips rotated.
WHOOOM!
A vicious hook punch tore through the air toward Mystique's jaw with enough force to leave a visible ripple in his shirt sleeve.
Mystique's eyes widened.
"Fast!"
There was no time to retreat, no time to duck.
Instead...
She stepped into the punch.
At the very last instant, she caught his wrist with one hand while her other arm wrapped around the back of his elbow.
Using every ounce of technique earned from decades of combat, she pivoted sharply on her heel.
Tavor's own momentum betrayed him.
"HAAH!"
With a powerful twist of her hips, Mystique hoisted the young Saiyan clean off the ground.
For a brief moment, Tavor found himself upside down.
Then...
CRAAASH!!
His body slammed through a cafeteria table.
Wood exploded into splinters, and metal legs bent inward with a deafening screech.
Tavor bounced once before landing amid the wreckage.
Mystique wasted no time.
She lunged.
Her final knife gleamed beneath the cafeteria lights as she raised it overhead.
"Stay down!"
SHINK!
The blade plunged downward toward Tavor's chest.
But the young Saiyan's instincts screamed.
His black eyes caught the glint of steel.
Without hesitation, he rolled backward across the shattered tabletop.
The knife stabbed into the wood where his chest had been only a fraction of a second earlier.
THUNK!
Before Mystique could wrench the blade free...
Tavor's legs snapped upward.
WHAM!
His heel crashed into her wrist.
The impact forced her fingers open.
The knife spun free from her grasp.
CLANG!
It bounced once across the linoleum before skidding beneath another cafeteria table.
Both fighters froze for the briefest instant.
Tavor sprang back to his feet amid the splintered remains of the broken table, chest rising and falling with excited breaths.
Mystique took two light steps backward, flexing her stinging wrist.
Now...
Neither of them held back.
The child possessed monstrous strength, while she possessed decades of lethal experience.
And for the first time since entering Xavier's School, Mystique realized this mission was spiraling far beyond anything she had anticipated.
Silence settled over the ruined cafeteria.
Broken trays lay scattered across the floor.
The embedded knife still quivered faintly within the far wall.
Tavor and Mystique stared at one another from opposite ends of the room.
Neither spoke.
Neither blinked.
Then...
BOOM!
CRACK!
The linoleum fractured beneath Tavor's feet as he burst forward.
At the exact same moment, Mystique lunged to meet him, her body flowing with a predator's grace.
The distance between them vanished in an instant.
BAM!
Tavor's straight punch rocketed toward her face.
Mystique tilted her head just enough for the fist to whistle past her cheek before retaliating with a lightning-fast palm strike toward his jaw.
Tavor caught her wrist.
She twisted beneath his arm with serpentine flexibility, slipping free before whipping a spinning kick toward his ribs.
WHUMP!
The kick landed.
Yet instead of staggering, Tavor merely slid half a step, his feet grinding against the floor.
"Hehehe!"
His answering hook forced Mystique to duck.
The punch tore through empty air with enough force to send a gust across the room.
She planted both hands against the floor, her body folded backward with impossible flexibility as both legs shot upward.
THUD!
THUD!
Her heels struck Tavor squarely in the chest.
The impact pushed him back several feet.
Before Mystique could capitalize...
Tavor lunged again, his fists blurring.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
Mystique's forearms danced from one block to another, redirecting every devastating strike by the narrowest of margins.
Even so...
Each collision sent painful vibrations racing up her arms.
"His strength is increasing again..."
Tavor suddenly abandoned his punches, instead, he swept his leg low.
Mystique sprang upward, easily clearing the sweep.
She planted one foot against the cafeteria wall.
Then another.
For a heartbeat, she sprinted sideways across the vertical surface before launching herself off it.
WHOOSH!
Her knee descended toward Tavor's head like a falling axe.
Tavor crossed both forearms.
BOOM!
The collision echoed throughout the cafeteria.
The force drove him to one knee, and cracks spiderwebbed beneath him.
Mystique landed lightly several feet away.
She didn't let him recover; her body blurred forward once more.
Left jab.
Right elbow.
Front kick.
Knife-hand strike.
Every movement flowed seamlessly into the next, each attack targeting a different opening.
Tavor answered with raw instinct.
He slipped beneath the elbow, and knocked the jab aside.
Absorbed the kick against his forearm, and countered with a crushing uppercut.
Mystique twisted sideways; the fist narrowly missed her chin.
The sheer force of the passing blow sent her crimson hair flying behind her.
"Too close..."
She retaliated with a spinning heel kick.
Tavor leaned backward just enough for the heel to skim the tip of his nose.
A smile spread across his face.
"Hehehe..."
His tail lashed excitedly behind him, and without warning, both fighters unleashed another flurry.
Punch.
Kick.
Elbow.
Palm.
Knee.
Block.
Counter.
Evade.
The sounds of flesh colliding echoed like rapid-fire drumbeats throughout the empty cafeteria.
BAM!
WHAM!
THUD!
CRACK!
Mystique slipped beneath his latest hook, and her fist shot upward.
WHAM!