Brutus got up on all fours, turned his head from side to side and then shook off the dust and rubble. He pushed himself back up to his feet and then backflipped out of the room, landed on his hands and kicked out his feet at the Bruiser who dodged to the side as the monster flew back, landed on his feet and his hands and then leaped at him again and swiped with his claws which Bruiser dodged again. This time Brutus balanced on one hand and kicked out with his foot and caught him in the face. He reeled back but recovered from it and the animal man sprung back to his feet and swung a backhand at him. Bruiser ducked under it and then he blocked his next punch, gritting his teeth from the impact and then he stepped in and delivered one right back that Brutus halted with a forearm and then he grabbed Bruiser and flung him up to the third floor. Bruiser flipped in the air, twirled around and stuck one foot downwards and then his other foot into the wall. He stopped his movement and he walked forward and looked down at the floor but he didn't see the animal man. He immediately jumped up to the roof and he jabbed his hands into the ceiling just before Brutus' hands broke through the floor he'd just been standing on. "Nice try." He quipped.
Bruiser dropped back down as the giant burst through the floor throwing up dust and debris but that distracted him for a moment that Bruiser used to get in and land a hit that launched him down the hallway and through a wall.
The animal man got right back up though and he roared at Bruiser. Bruiser hopped over the hole in the floor and rushed him and then he jumped over to a wall, kicked off of it and kicked at his head only Brutus to grab his leg and swing him into and through a wall and then down into the floor hard enough to break through it. Bruiser fell through it down to the second floor with Brutus falling down with him while holding onto him. Bruiser kicked out with his foot and caught him in the chest and knocked him away. They both crashed down to the floor and bounced back. Bruiser kipped up and leaped at the villain and grabbed him by the head and tried to drive his knee into his forehead only for the villain to bat him away. Bruiser hit a far wall and went through it. He pulled himself through it and he coughed and shook off the hit.
Brutus was rampaging towards him now so he had to think fast. Bruiser rolled forward and slammed a punch into the floor and send a shockwave through it towards Brutus. The shockwave tore up the floor between them and shook the area. More importantly it caught that lunatic off guard and threw him backwards. Bruiser jumped over to him and smashed him through the floor down to the ground. Pieces of the walkway and ceiling fell down both of them while they brawled with each other. Bruiser got on top of Brutus and began punching his face into the floor hard enough to shake the ground around them. Bruiser managed to land around eight of them until the monster knocked him away through a doorway and into a room. Brutus turned over on his stomach and spat on the floor and wiped his mouth before getting up and leaping in and jabbing a claw into the wall where his head just been but Bruiser had dodged it and rolled to his feet and then sprung over Brutus and kicked on the back of the head. Brutus staggered a bit but turned right back around to face him. Bruiser smirked and motioned for him to bring it. Brutus obliged and attacked the hero. There was an exchange of blows in between Bruiser dodging him and landing his own until Brutus grabbed his hands, pulled them up and then punched him so hard in the face that the hero went through multiple rooms and walls before he came to a stop against another one.
Bruiser groaned in pain and sat up while rubbing his face. He slowly climbed back to his feet and wiped his mouth and got ready for more.
"Let's see now that's about....5 or six, six inch thick hardened concrete walls and rebar...yeah probably gonna feel that in the morning."
Brutus roared and slammed his hands against the walls wildly before running through the broken walls right at The Bruiser. He got ready and waited until the villain was close and throwing a punch before he jumped to the side and he landed a heavy kick on his leg to knock the villain down on one knee! Next he grabbed the villain around his stomach and leaped backwards a dozen feet before slamming him down onto the floor head first! Bruiser let him fall and then he rolled onto his back and grabbed the villain's arm and put his right leg on his opponent's neck while keeping a balance with his other leg. Brutus growled and struggled to free himself but the hero held tightly onto his arm while twisting it.
"It's over. It's over you hear me? You've lost. Now give up or I'll break your arm!"
"RELEASE ME! RELEASE ME! THE SINNERS! THE SINNERS MUST BE PUNISHERD! UNHAND ME NOW! THE WORLD MUST BE PURGED OF SIN!" The animal man shouted while he struggled against his super strength.
"Not a chance! Now give up now or I'll break it!" Bruiser shouted back and began to lean back with the arm.
"GRRRRAAARRGGGH! NO! UNHAND ME! UNHAND ME NOW!" He roared and slammed his free hand into the floor hard enough to throw himself up into the air and hit Bruiser against the wall and threw him out of the room through another wall. Bruiser rolled across the floor and got back up to his feet.
"Okay, guess I'll try something else then."
The animal man broke through the wall and Matt braced himself as Jackie Lee's words echoed through his mind.
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Water is formless, therefore it can adapt to every form. You, however, are often way too rigid. You do not adapt. When water crashes against an object, it disperses and forms again, but when a box, for example, crashes against an object it shatters into pieces. Currently, you are like that box, trying to force yourself to adjust to different situations, shattering to pieces, breaking your own spirit, if you can’t. Stop trying to make the teacup adjust to you and adjust to the teacup instead. Be fluid in your movements and then strike hard."
As the animal man charged at him on all fours and then leaped at him, Bruiser ducked down as she dashed towards him, uppercut him into the air with a punch to the jaw, grabbed him and flung him over his shoulder down onto the floor hard enough to shake the floors around them. Bruiser then stomped on his chest, got down on one knee and unloaded a flurry of punches to his face!
Linking multiple straight punches in quick succession, also known as chain punching, is one of the cornerstones of Wing Chun, a Southern Chinese martial art invented by the Buddhist nun Ng Mui. While the hero obviously wasn't a master, he still managed to pick up this much at least from Jackie along with a few other tricks he hadn't displayed just yet. Bruiser finished his assault and rolled off of him.
The animal man growled and sat up and turned around to face Bruiser only to receive a spinning kick across his face that launched him into a wall! Bruiser spun with it, landed on his feet and put both fists perpendicular above one another and moved them in a circular motion starting forward and downward in a tight formation with both fists facing forward bent at the wrist outward and clenched vertically. Bruiser lept forward closer to Brutus and then he ran at him while dishing out another devastating flurry of centrifugally forced punches towards the center of his mass!
This particular move, the straight blast, is a martial arts technique popularized by Bruce Lee and associated with Wing Chun Kung Fu and Jeet Kune Do. It is one of Bruce Lee's most famous signature moves, and an international federation of gyms have been named after the technique. Essentially, you punch your target as many times in the gut as you can, hurt him, and break his balance. Then, with his balance broken, hurt him some more.
The Bruiser's impressive super strength and the stamina afforded to him from years of fighting and body building amplified this technique and his Chain Punches to devastating levels enabling him to launch rapid powerful strikes on his ribs, stomach and liver! Spam attacking him with rapid fire rib-cracking body blows!
This body bashing barrage soon forced the beast backwards through the wall. Bruiser kept pushing him and then he knocked him to the floor, hopped over him, turned around and kicked the back of his head to kick him up into the air and The Bruiser followed this up with a hard strike to the middle of his back as he was falling back down. The punch sent him flying back out of the hole in the wall and across the room into the directly opposite wall!
The beast smacked face first into the wall and bounced off of it and onto the floor. He lay there groaning in pain and holding his stomach as the Bruiser walked out of the room and slowly approached him so he could catch his breath while still being cautious in case he tried anything else.
"This is over! Give up!" Bruiser called to him.
The Beast wheezed and growled in pain as he rolled around on the floor. The pummeling Bruiser gave him to his torso had put more than a few dents in him finally. The world seemed to spin around him and a sharp, throbbing pain took hold of him, so much so that all he wanted to do was vomit and hope the pain would come out with it. He nearly curled up in pain right then and there as he grasped his stomach. Ferocious cramps completely crippling him without remorse. Was this it? Was this as far as his crusade got? Was his sacred mission in life to be ended here at the hands of this...child?! This ignorant child who didn't even know what he, what they, fought for? This hypocritical child who stood in the way of their sacred path?! No.
No this would not be the end.
Not when was there was so much more sin to be purged from this world.
The pain began to disperse as the others took it upon themselves, taking the pain from Brutus upon themselves while others had it thrust upon them so he could stand once more.
A memory flashed in his mind and suddenly he was elsewhere in the cage again.
Bruises. Bruises everywhere. Broken nails and bashed in eyes. A battered face and bloody tears dripping down onto the cage floor.
Cade kept her secret out of misplaced loyalty perhaps, or was it fear? Cade's mother paid the bills, did the shopping and drove the car. She controlled him and his behaviors, where he could go, for how long and when. Then she suddenly started to keep Cade secluded in the manor. Then in the attic and that damned cage. She slipped him food on occasion while instructing him to pray for forgiveness and to pray the monster away. To pray the red eyes away. To pray the devil away. He remembered the tears in her eyes as she preached to him and kept him secluded. As if she was being forced by something outside of her control or if it was because she believed a higher power was forcing her to do it. She preached against the sinners and the corruption of the world and how they had to pray for salvation and a light to burn it all away.
One day he escaped that wrteched cage and tried to leave the attic. But she caught him. She stopped him cold. He remembered the pain on her face before she grabbed him and dragged him back into the attic despite his screams not too. He remembered her pinning Cade down and raising her first to him as she screamed abominations at him and then locked him back in the cage again.
Cade had loved her as all good children should. He loved her even with her atrocities and the torment she put Cade through. The pain that created him and the others. Brutus was born by Cade to protect him. To purge the world of Sin as he had done when he burned that manor to the ground. They were all created to protect Cade from this sinful world until it was all purged and burned to ashes.
The pain was not forced upon Cade. It was distributed among the others but not to Cade. Cade was to remain pure.
Brutus rolled over onto his stomach and pushed his hands down underneath himself and climbed back to his feet and stood tall once again.
Brutus would protect Cade and cleanse this world of all sin. If that meant killing this boy then so be it. Burning rage hissed through his body like deathly poison, screeching a demanded release in the form of unwanted violence. It was like a volcano erupting; fury sweeping off of him like ferocious waves. The wrath consumed him, engulfing his moralities and bellowing out of his mouth uninhibited by Cade's horrified screams to stop.
Bruiser stopped where he was and looked up at him. (Okay what the hell? I just had this guy on the ropes! How in the hell does he get back from all that?) He covered his ears as the enraged screaming echoed around the high rise and the monster man began trembling as his muscles began pulsing and spasming and growing!
Fires of fury and hatred were smoldering in the beast and radiating out of him as his muscles trembled and pulsed up and down before settling and growing into their larger state. His teeth grew sharper while his maw grew wider and steam began floating off of him. His claws grew longer along with a bone claw ripped out of the back of his heels and curved upward. Other bone spikes ripped out of his elbows. His neck muscles grew thicker and stronger. His body hunched over like an animal and spike up dark hair covered his body. The whole time that horrible scream echoed from his mouth. It almost sounded like a baby crying interspersed with horrifying blind rage.
His eyes became bloodshot and he focused on the hero once more as the screaming finally died down back to his usual snarling.
"Sweet merciful God, what in the fuck am I up against?"
The monster erupted forward and swiped at him with its mighty claws and Bruiser barely dodged in time by leaping to the side and rolling to his feet while the claws sliced clean through the floor and the impact of his blow broke apart the floor like he was swiping through water!
(Oh. Oh this is going to suck. Not only is he stronger now, he's even faster now too! I'm going to need adapt fast!)
The monster charged him head on and he tried to super jump over him only for it to leap up after him! He swiftly closed in on him. He kicked his feet out and used the impact to push off of him but then Brutus grabbed him, yanked him back, swung him up and down and then up into the air and then he landed a devastating punch! Matt's jaw dropped as his body was rattled from the impact and then rocketed backwards at an upward angle. He crashed through a railing, up into a wall, through that, across the room and through the opposite wall. He nearly fell off but then he grabbed onto the hole he'd made in the wall and held on using his superhuman grip strength. It stopped him but the part of the wall he was holding onto broke off and he fell down but then he grabbed onto the wall again, gritted his teeth and pulled himself back inside. He fell down on one knee holding stomach and coughing and hacking. "Holy crap...this guy...h-he's not as strong....as Nightmare Queen got...but...h-he doesn't have her weakness....either..." He spat saliva down on the floor and wiped his mouth. "This...is gonna be a bad night..." (But, either way, I have to hold him off until the girls can escape. Then we can both go all out without worrying about collateral damage. Until then I just have to-) The monster broke through the floor and roared at him. "Crap."
The monster slammed its arms down onto the floor and broke it apart. They fell to the floor below and the monster attacked him with unrelenting fury! Matt was forced to quickly back away from him and then jump backwards, flinging himself through a wall and landing on his feet, falling back and kicking up his feet into the animal man's stomach as he was leaping onto him and throwing him away with his feet, tossing him across the room they were in. The hero sprung back up to his feet and then he turned around just in time to catch a swipe across the face that threw him back across the room! The animal man then leaped ontop of Bruiser and smashed him through the floor! "Ungh! Get off me you sonnova-!" The monster interrupted him by roaring and swinging down on him. The Bruiser shielded himself with his arms to try and block those swiping claws and hammering fists but with the sheer raw power of the monster bearing down on him it was an exercise in futility. Pain was shooting through his arms and he was certain the animal man was starting to cut through his skin. But he was able to withstand it until Brutus roared and lunged down and tried to bite him and he got his hands up in time to grab his head and throat. He struggled against the monster until he was able to throw him off of him and punched it in the chest and sent it sliding backwards across the floor. He scrambled to his feet and then he took a deep breath and tackled him all the way down to the first floor hard enough to embed him in a small crater the size of the animal man's body! Bruiser then got on top of him, pulled back his fist and slammed it down in the animal man's chest hard enough to shatter the floor around them!
