Ringside City Showdown: Hellcat & Tempest VS. Bengal

[BengalTheBlazeTiger]

“What are you doing? Singing her a lullaby?” Bengal sneered, as Tempest whispered something to a seemingly unconscious Hellcat. “I don’t think she can hear you, little pest! Maybe you should try giving her a jump start!” She made a crude gesture, as if she was clamping an invisible pair of nipples.

The two remaining fighters approached, eyeing each other like prospective partners across a dance floor. Even through the dusty haze covering the street, Bengal could see the blue sparks dancing along the other woman’s arms, a telltale sign that her opponent was charging up energy. Still, she was unprepared for the sheer speed of Tempest’s diving kick.

The Tiger tried to catch her foe’s legs in midair, intending to whip Tempest into a Giant Swing. But she just couldn't move fast enough. The other woman’s foot, wreathed in crackling lightning, drove into her chest before she could even get her arms up to intercept the blow.

The super-thief somersaulted backward like a tumbleweed in a gale, before catching herself with her claws. She continued sliding for several yards, leaving a series of smoking furrows in the asphalt, before straightening up with a baleful look. The tufts of fur lining her top had been singed off by electric burns, leaving an acrid smell in the air, while her own hair was standing on end like a fright wig from the static charge. She hurriedly reached up to smooth it down with the back of her hand, before calling out to her opponent: “Not bad, lightning bug. But how do you plan to keep standing…when there’s nowhere left to stand?”

With that, she kicked her leg up like a dancer, flames coiling from the inside of her thigh and rising to an inferno around her foot, yet leaving her trunks and boots untouched. Were the garments fireproof, or was this just a demonstration of how well she could control her power? Before anyone had time to ask, Bengal slammed her heel into the street, sending out another wave of heat - but this time, directed entirely downwards. “Careful…the floor is lava!” the white-haired woman laughed wildly.

It might have sounded like the start of a children’s game, but Bengal was deadly serious. Her words were punctuated by the sound of subterranean pipes bursting from the heat, sending jets of steam up from the sewer grates. Meanwhile, the asphalt around her liquefied and rippled outward, starting a chain reaction that threatened to turn the whole street into a river of molten tar. Tempest doubtlessly had the speed to escape on her own - but what about Hellcat, still stricken on the ground? The Tiger surveyed the scene through the flickering heat haze, waiting to see what her opponent would do. If Tempest did try to rescue her new partner, Bengal had a plan to take out two birds with one stone…