I'm in the first wave as we go in, and the target I pick is the skinny guy in red and orange dragging the lady towards the broken door that leads into what looks like it used to be some kind of knicknack parlor. A part of my mind can't believe that he's planning what he looks to be, and another is ready to quite literally have his throat out for it, but mostly I figure that with that color scheme he's likely to have some kind of fire powers - big trouble if he's a Brute or Tank, worse if he can throw them around, since, unlike in the game, fires don't just 'go out' once they've been started.
I push my speed up as hard as I can - a traffic light flashes by on my right, a delivery van goes by below, both close enough to reach out and touch, and then I dive slightly and start a forward somersault about twenty feet away from him. It's perfectly timed; my legs and spine come into straight alignment just as my feet catch his shoulder, transferring most of the forces and spreading them out through my body. Even with the boots bracing them the impact makes it feel like my feet and shins exploded, and conclusively demonstrates that even the miraculous bras of the superhero of tomorrow have limits. Ow ow ow ow ow.
On the other hand, even with the hairline fractures and the friction burns, I think I come off much the better for it. My target goes tumbling, and shrieks at the top of his lungs. His pain tolerance isn't half-bad, seeing as he's still concious when his shoulder felt and sounded like stepping on a pillowcase full of packing peanuts.
I ignore him for a moment and pull the lady to her feet and point her towards the police cordon, then turn towards her attacker and see a stone mallet coming at my face.
Ow.
I roll with it, of course. Some of my - Brightsky's - trainers had beet truly brutal about making sure that their friends' kid had been ready to cope with the dirtiest tricks a viallin could throw out. So even that split second of warning was enough to throw myself back and start to instinctively try and push the thing away.
But my zone of control is very thin, and something that size has plenty of mass and inertia, so it still sounds like the bells of Saint James and looks like the Fourth of July.
By the time my vision clears he's almost ready to swing again. Must've been a speedster, or unreasonably strong - that hammer had to be nearly as big as I was, though granted that's not saying so much, now - or he wouldn't've been able to swing the thing so quickly. Quick enough to make my life difficult, especially since he actually seemed to have half a clue how to fight with a weapon like that, bringing it back and over and around to get into position, rather than stopping and reversing and then having to stop again - just as fast or faster, and much less work.
I tuck my legs up and let the hammer go by under my feet, then uncurl and lay a heel straight into his nose. It just pisses him off, of course, but it also puts him off balance and gives me the impetus to slide back a little and start a real kick. Without traction on the ground you'd think that that couldn't work, but you'd be surprised how quickly a few Gs of acceleration can get you moving even in that small a space.
Mostly it makes my foot hurt, though I'll admit I missed my target point by a little.
He reels back and shakes it off. "Bitch," he says. "Not so easy against me, is it?"
Against him? "You make it sound like I'm the bully in this piece, hypocrite."
He blinks, then sneers and tries to hit me again. And I dodge again, then hit him again - twice, this time, but not to any more effect than my first couple tries. "'Just like a baby's kick,'" he snipped, then threw the hammer at me - it stung a bit, but not really enough to slow anyone, since it was already going to pieces even before it hit - and followed it with a pair of rocky knuckledusters swelling over his hands.
Guess he'd forgotten that Ryouga lost that fight.
Of course, not being a character in a shounen manga I was bound by the laws of physics, but...
I slip outside the reach of a couple clumsy punches - he's not nearly as good with his fists as he was with the weapon - then touch down like a sprinter about to launch and focus as best I can, squeezing...
Presented with an immoble and tempting target, the sucker takes the bait and brings the hammer out again and drops it straight at my skull.
It comes down and I bring my arm up and to the left, and my being ready for it this time makes all the difference in the world. His eyes get real wide when he sees the chips go flying off of his weapon's shattered head, and then I push it out of the way and slam my other palm into his chest.
I'd needed that pause to focus and start squeezing the air clutched in my right hand. Because of the way my powers work, there'd been this whistling vortex as more and more of the air around it was grabbed by the fringes of my hand's fields and sucked in, like a miniature model of a black hole. None of it actually ended up as degenerate matter - my powers are nowhere near that strong - but except for the lack of shrapnel ahead of the blast it was almost like I'd put the business end of a claymore mine against his breastbone and set it off.
Not even the toughest tank or brute can shrug something like that off. His breath whoofed out and he went tumbling, then started to haul himself back up. "Fucking cunt," he snarled.
Several seconds of freedom while he concentrated on pulling himself back to his feet were not to be wasted. Of course I kicked him again, a flying side kick that certainly can't've done his attempts to regain his breath any good at all.
It didn't do his ribs any good, either, from the way he yelled as I bounced off. Then... well, he pulled what looked like a quarter-ton of brown rock out of thin air and wrapped it around himself.
I guessed that that was what Granite Armor looked like in person - I was wrong - and... well... got sloppy. Got too close, let myself get out of position... after all, it'd slow him down, give me time to react...
Wrong.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
I push my speed up as hard as I can - a traffic light flashes by on my right, a delivery van goes by below, both close enough to reach out and touch, and then I dive slightly and start a forward somersault about twenty feet away from him. It's perfectly timed; my legs and spine come into straight alignment just as my feet catch his shoulder, transferring most of the forces and spreading them out through my body. Even with the boots bracing them the impact makes it feel like my feet and shins exploded, and conclusively demonstrates that even the miraculous bras of the superhero of tomorrow have limits. Ow ow ow ow ow.
On the other hand, even with the hairline fractures and the friction burns, I think I come off much the better for it. My target goes tumbling, and shrieks at the top of his lungs. His pain tolerance isn't half-bad, seeing as he's still concious when his shoulder felt and sounded like stepping on a pillowcase full of packing peanuts.
I ignore him for a moment and pull the lady to her feet and point her towards the police cordon, then turn towards her attacker and see a stone mallet coming at my face.
Ow.
I roll with it, of course. Some of my - Brightsky's - trainers had beet truly brutal about making sure that their friends' kid had been ready to cope with the dirtiest tricks a viallin could throw out. So even that split second of warning was enough to throw myself back and start to instinctively try and push the thing away.
But my zone of control is very thin, and something that size has plenty of mass and inertia, so it still sounds like the bells of Saint James and looks like the Fourth of July.
By the time my vision clears he's almost ready to swing again. Must've been a speedster, or unreasonably strong - that hammer had to be nearly as big as I was, though granted that's not saying so much, now - or he wouldn't've been able to swing the thing so quickly. Quick enough to make my life difficult, especially since he actually seemed to have half a clue how to fight with a weapon like that, bringing it back and over and around to get into position, rather than stopping and reversing and then having to stop again - just as fast or faster, and much less work.
I tuck my legs up and let the hammer go by under my feet, then uncurl and lay a heel straight into his nose. It just pisses him off, of course, but it also puts him off balance and gives me the impetus to slide back a little and start a real kick. Without traction on the ground you'd think that that couldn't work, but you'd be surprised how quickly a few Gs of acceleration can get you moving even in that small a space.
Mostly it makes my foot hurt, though I'll admit I missed my target point by a little.
He reels back and shakes it off. "Bitch," he says. "Not so easy against me, is it?"
Against him? "You make it sound like I'm the bully in this piece, hypocrite."
He blinks, then sneers and tries to hit me again. And I dodge again, then hit him again - twice, this time, but not to any more effect than my first couple tries. "'Just like a baby's kick,'" he snipped, then threw the hammer at me - it stung a bit, but not really enough to slow anyone, since it was already going to pieces even before it hit - and followed it with a pair of rocky knuckledusters swelling over his hands.
Guess he'd forgotten that Ryouga lost that fight.
Of course, not being a character in a shounen manga I was bound by the laws of physics, but...
I slip outside the reach of a couple clumsy punches - he's not nearly as good with his fists as he was with the weapon - then touch down like a sprinter about to launch and focus as best I can, squeezing...
Presented with an immoble and tempting target, the sucker takes the bait and brings the hammer out again and drops it straight at my skull.
It comes down and I bring my arm up and to the left, and my being ready for it this time makes all the difference in the world. His eyes get real wide when he sees the chips go flying off of his weapon's shattered head, and then I push it out of the way and slam my other palm into his chest.
I'd needed that pause to focus and start squeezing the air clutched in my right hand. Because of the way my powers work, there'd been this whistling vortex as more and more of the air around it was grabbed by the fringes of my hand's fields and sucked in, like a miniature model of a black hole. None of it actually ended up as degenerate matter - my powers are nowhere near that strong - but except for the lack of shrapnel ahead of the blast it was almost like I'd put the business end of a claymore mine against his breastbone and set it off.
Not even the toughest tank or brute can shrug something like that off. His breath whoofed out and he went tumbling, then started to haul himself back up. "Fucking cunt," he snarled.
Several seconds of freedom while he concentrated on pulling himself back to his feet were not to be wasted. Of course I kicked him again, a flying side kick that certainly can't've done his attempts to regain his breath any good at all.
It didn't do his ribs any good, either, from the way he yelled as I bounced off. Then... well, he pulled what looked like a quarter-ton of brown rock out of thin air and wrapped it around himself.
I guessed that that was what Granite Armor looked like in person - I was wrong - and... well... got sloppy. Got too close, let myself get out of position... after all, it'd slow him down, give me time to react...
Wrong.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."