After a long fight and a well deserved rest after his last bout, the new world warrior finally landed in his next destination, Italy. This up and coming rookie had one goal in mind, and that was to be the strongest fighter in the world. To do that, he would need to travel the globe, seeking out some of the greatest combatants the world had ever seen and gain as much experience as possible from these people. It was a daunting task, but he had already taken the first step a long time ago, and in this world, that first step is the most important factor.
Once outside the airport, the rookie’s phone started to buzz. He picked it up and checked to see who was calling, just to see it was his first mentor Luke as usual.
“Yo champ in the making. Heard you survived Chun-Li’s training. That’s no easy feat, my man. She’s given me more ass whoopings than I can count. So where are you headed next?”
The rookie responded, saying how he just touched down in the new country.
“Italy, huh? Well there’s only one person I can think of you’re trying to meet then. You’re looking for a woman named Marisa. She’s got pink hair, wearing black and gold, could probably bench press you, can’t miss her really. Anyways, she’s probably over in the Colosseo. Good luck, my man. I’ll catch ya later.”
With that last bit of encouragement, Luke hung up, leaving the newbie fighter alone to take on his next obstacle. Still on his phone, he pulled up the map and checked to see where this colosseum was located. After pulling that up, he called for a taxi, and set out for the training of a lifetime.
An hour drive later, the rookie had arrived at the gates of the arena. The walls rose high, and the outer appearance had some cracks in the seams, showing just how ancient this place truly is. Real quick, he snapped a picture of the place before heading inside. Even though all this traveling was for the sake of training, there was no reason to enjoy the sights at the same time.
Once inside, this upcomer couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Hundreds of men adorned in gladiator armor and weapons were all gathered in a circle in the middle. Lions were also sitting outside the circle, roaring as if they were excited about something. Overcome by curiosity, he jogged over to the circle, pushing through the crowd just to see what was going on. His eyes widened upon seeing what the commotion was all about. In the middle of all this was a woman that fit the description of Marisa that Luke had given him earlier. The gladiators around her kept charging towards her, spears pointed right at her as well. But she kept on punching and kicking and throwing them all out of the circle, making it seem so effortless in the process. It was clear that this female gladiator was on a completely different level than most people, and that meant she was the perfect person to learn from.
A few minutes later and the onslaught was over. “Same time tomorrow, yes?” That was all the strong woman said as she shook her head to get the sweat out of her eyes before marching off towards the direction of the rookie. And as she did, she spotted the young man, who was clearly an outsider of this whole thing. “Ah, you must be the new guy. I heard you were coming. Come, we shall waste no time. Let’s begin your training.” Even though her voice was as rough as her appearance made her out to be, she still carried an aura of nobility and grace in her stance. The young man nodded, following Marisa to a special table near one of the gates in the arena.
After the rest of the gladiators and lions were cleared out, thanks to Marisa’s demands, it was just her and the rookie left standing in the colosseum. Seeing the place so empty really sunk in just how huge this place really is. It was almost the size of a football stadium back in the states. The fighter took a quick picture of the inside of the place as Marisa was working at setting up her plan on the table.
“Alright, wear this ring.” Marisa instructed the rookie. He picked up the ring in question and held it up to his face. It was an ordinary ruby ring at first glance, so he put it on his ring finger on the left hand, thinking this would help channel his ki better. But he never did see Marisa use any of that spirit energy during her bout. But he would soon find out the true purpose of it.
Marisa was holding a box with two buttons on it now. Without warning, she pressed the bottom button. In the blink of an eye, it looked like the trainee had just vanished. But Marisa simply smirked as she placed the box back on the table, glaring down at the floor where the young man was originally standing with a smirk on her face. “Now we begin.”
The rookie was confused for a while as he looked around his new environment. This place looked nothing like the colosseum from earlier. Now there were massive boulders around him in all directions. The ground was adorned with massive trenches that could cause him to fall hundreds of feet if he made one wrong move. He figured he must have been transported to some desert facility, but his questions were answered as he heard a familiar voice from high above.
“Now we begin.” The voice boomed down, stronger than any thunderstorm imaginable. The baffled fighter strained his neck up, and audibly gasped at the sight before him. It seemed impossible, but there stood Marisa, now standing before him like a towering behemoth. He glanced back down, piecing things together. Those boulders are just pebbles. Those cracks in the ground were possibly not visible to those above. He had shrunk, and by his estimate he was now no bigger than a grain of sand. But he had no more time to think as the mountains before him began to move. There were structures bigger than the boulders before, and now he surmised that they were simply Marisa’s toes. Her right foot now hovered thousands of feet high into the sky. This was the strangest training he had faced yet, but now was no time to think. He began to run, dashing as far away from the shadow of the foot as best as he could.
Marisa bid her time as she kept her foot hovering above the ground. Thanks to her specialty in jewelry making, she could sense where the little fighter was at all times, given he was still wearing the ring. She could tell that he was running for his life down in the dirt, a pleasant smile forming on her face as she could now tell how serious this newcomer was to his training. Or perhaps this was just natural human behavior, and his fight or flight response triggered. Wanting to test his resolve, Marisa began to lower her foot down.
The rookie was still dashing, just trying to find a spot where there wasn’t any shade eclipsing him anymore. The little bits of grit and rubble that anyone else would simply step over were now too big of an obstacle to climb, and instead he would have to run around. And even the smaller bits of sand still took some effort for him to jump over just to save a few seconds. But it seemed like there was no way to escape that foot still lingering high above. As he looked back, he noticed that Marisa’s foot was getting closer now, like a meteor making a slow descent towards the ground to instantly shatter him. Now the rookie had to kick it up a gear, channeling the last of his stamina for that extra push.
After a few more seconds, the foot unceremoniously crashed into the ground, creating a huge tremor beneath the tiny fighter’s feet that shook his entire body. But that aftershock from the ground quaking made him realize that he hadn’t been squished and was still alive. He stood back up and dusted himself off to take in the scenery. On both sides of him were now two immense walls that looked similar to what he saw before he had to race for his life. He soon realized those were the same toes as before, and he had only managed to survive this whole ordeal by winding up in the small gap between Marisa’s toes. All he could do was take in a sigh of relief and catch his breath, hoping there wouldn’t be a round two so suddenly.
Of course, this is what Marisa had planned this whole time. Being a top fighter is all about precision, and that’s exactly what she executed by ensnaring the little guy between her toes. But this was just the warm-up, as the real challenge was about to begin. She lifted her foot back up, resetting her position before her entire body began to lower, much more quickly than her foot did before. She caught her fall with her hands, but the extra speed caused the minuscule rookie to fly into the air from the power that quake produced. The way Marisa oriented herself now was in a push-up position, her head now extremely close to where the tiny guy was sent flying.
The rookie had to think quickly as he was airborne, but there weren’t many options in mid-air, that is until the wall of pink appeared before him. Wasting no time, he reached his arms around and grabbed ahold of one of the strands of Marisa’s hair, sliding down for a moment before coming to a stop. Once again, he paused to catch his breath, but that moment of silence didn’t last for long as Marisa began moving up and down, causing the teensy fighter to grip even harder to avoid falling off.
Even though this was training for the newcomer, Marisa also needed to train as well, so this was benefitting both of them. Of course, after a long battle from earlier, and with the sun beaming down in the middle of the Colosseo, the female gladiator began to work up a sweat all over her body, including her head. For Marisa, it was nothing out of the ordinary, but for the rookie, it turned his training into another game of survival. The little fighter began to pull himself up the strand of hair, trying his best to make it to his mentor’s scalp so he wouldn’t have to rely on his upper body strength to survive. But the onslaught of sweat droplets made it tricky. These globs of water, that looked like entire lakes to the micro warrior, slowly descended the hair strands. Some of these drops of sweat slid right off, rushing through the air, making the atmosphere more damp, and making the hairs slicker and harder to grasp.
But the rookie was persistent. He kept clambering up the hair to try and make it to the top, but the push-ups in the background proved to be too much. For every one step the small warrior took, the downwards motions Marisa made brought him two steps back. He was actually making negative progress, sliding down the hair strand until he was at the very tip now, doing his best to hang on the best he could. But soon enough, a bead of sweat would join him on that same bit of hair he was clinging to desperately. The massive wall of water slowly crept down, but he was out of room to go any further down, less he felt like going through a several mile drop down to the ground.
The tiny rookie panicked for a moment before collecting himself. Critical thinking was also a factor in training. And that’s when he realized, there was more than one hair. He slowly began to build up momentum, using the last bit of hair as a swing, rocking himself back and forth, timing it so that he would vault during the peak of Marisa’ push-ups to maximize his height. And once he was close enough, he leapt from his strand and grabbed ahold of another one, turning those hairs into vines like he was navigating a jungle. It was going smoothly at first, taking time to catch his breath between swings, jumping to the next strand once the next bead of sweat was descending closer towards him, but eventually he mistimed his jump, causing one of his legs to wind up stuck in-between two of the hairs. Another glob of sweat was creeping down on him, and he needed to act fast to escape this predicament.
“Ninety-nine…one-hundred.” Marisa stood up after her quick little session of push-ups, shaking her head once more to get rid of any sweat. Thanks to the ring she gave earlier, she could tell that her little protégé was still somehow hanging in there. Marisa effortlessly plucked the hair that her minute training partner was holstered to and brought it up to her face, having to go cross-eyed to focus on the speck stuck to it. “Time for the final lesson for today. You better go all out for this one.” she smirked, lowering herself back onto the ground. All the minuscule fighter could do was let out a sigh of relief as he was able to endure long enough for winding up drowning in that oncoming lake of sweat.
Marisa laid on her back, holding the piece of hair above her stomach. She shook it, causing the rookie to fall right off and land on her abs. As he expected, this new land he was on was very firm from all the exercise she goes through daily. The land was surrounded by more sweat droplets scattered across her abs. The small fighter was worn out at this point, not sure how much of this he could endure. But she did say this was it, so it was almost done.
But that didn’t stop Marisa from going all out either. She got into position and raised her knees up and rested her hands under her head. Now it was time for her to do crunches. This instantly caused the minuscule trainee to go flying up and down the wrinkled skin of her abs as she moved. Blobs of sweat crashed into him now, soaking him in the hard work Marisa had built up to this point. His body kept getting caught in the folds as she moved inward, and catapulted every which way as she brought her body back down. He wasn’t even sure what this was supposed to teach at this point, but all he could focus on now was not ending up as a stain on her body.
Of course, moving across the body at this state was nigh impossible. Every action Marisa took completely overwrote what he had planned. He was powerless to do anything about this, but that didn’t stop him from trying. As his only choice, he tucked himself into a ball, bracing for impact as he tried to use the momentum to guide himself down south. It took a lot of swaying through the air, but eventually he reached his goal, which was Marisa’s belly button. Once he arrived at the base, he rolled forward into the deep chasm, protecting him from the outside elements that her sit-ups were involuntarily causing. That solved one problem, but not every problem. The beads of sweat from outside began to roll down into the hole as well, splashing down on top of him. The impact was heavy for someone his size, and the density of the sweat was heavier than water at a normal swimming pool. Determined to make it through this, he fought against the watery forces and swam upwards, wading in the sweat, swimming around to keep himself afloat as the beads of sweat jiggled around to match Marisa’s actions happening outside.
“...and one hundred.” Another set completed, Marisa stood back up one more time and looked down at her stomach. She could again sense him down there, tucked away in her navel. She let out a hearty laugh at his predicament before lowering her pinky finger down into her belly button to retrieve him. All the sweat that was built up caused the little rookie’s body to be more adhesive, causing him to be stuck to the fingertip as she brought it up to her face one more time. “Oh ho, you made it through. But this was just the first day, there’s still six more days of this left.” The minuscule fighter was shocked to hear this, although his facial expressions weren’t warranted as he was much too small for Marisa to notice. “If you keep this up, you just might make the perfect husband someday.” She smiled down at him affectionately. Marisa had always wanted someone who can keep up with her in the arena, who would have figured it would have been someone she shrunk down.
Marisa then opened up her locket that was adorned around her neck and stuck her pinky finger inside, shaking it around so her rookie would fall out and land on the cold, metallic ground inside her jewelry. She then closed it off, restricting his view of the outside world. “Since you’re with me for a while, I’ll be making you into my little pet for the time being. Now then, I’m getting pretty hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.” she spoke down to her training partner, laughing joyously as she exited the Colosseo. Her locket bounced against her chest as she strolled around, once again never giving the little rookie a real chance to rest. All he knew at this point was that this was going to be a very long week.