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Well, ain't that ********' peachy.

Mooo was about a foot and a half away from Blade when the impact hit--he'd gone around the column of flame and had only made about 3/4 of the way around it when the rocks practically turned to dust--a few larger chunks flew back and bounced stingingly off Mooo's guard, but the second impact was what really got him. It swept far under his usual combat line of sight, hitting him in his outset right ankle and knocking him off-balance, causing him to stumble forward.

Forward.

As in, toward Blade.

Where he'd wanted to go this whole time.

Mooo's left leg took a shaky step to catch his balance, and that he did--he was right next to Blade now, too close to use the swords (at least to the effect he probably wanted, anyways--by the way his hand was hovering over the hilt, it was obvious whoever taught him how to use a sword didn't train him hard enough, because those ******** should be out, with Mooo's guts on the floor already if he was using them right) and so close that any fancy spinny-kicky s**t Blade pulled would be rendered moot.

As his left foot crashed into the ground, his right leg still hanging suspended behind him and his right arm cocked back, Mooo regained his balance in the best way possible--a chopping right using the full weight of his body.

Turning sharply on his left foot, Mooo's upper body swiveled hard, bringing his right arm diving down in a sharp ninety-degree angle, his fist crashing down toward Blade's temple--if he ducked, the punch would hit him square on top his head, smashing Blade's face into the floor of the arena. If he simply swayed back, the punch would strike downward into his rib cage and possibly cause a heart palpitation. If he went the full mile and stepped back, he was still in reach--Mooo would simply step forward, maintain infight range, and let loose with another punch. If Blade went to his right, he'd get clipped in the knee and possibly go off-balance on natural reflex alone--a chopping right started high to Mooo's right and cut diagonally down to his left. Only by going to the left was Blade 100% safe of the attack and could catch Mooo on a dead angle--and that was what Mooo was betting on.

Once again, Mooo was clearly shown that his opponent did not want to stay close-up. His opponent wanted distance, his opponent wanted to work on Mooo's major weakness--range--and prey on that.

Of course, this wasn't what Mooo was thinking as his footing was swept out from under him like a rug in a slapstick act--it was more something along the lines of "oh ******** no, not again," and as he was not only denied the satisfaction of punching the idiot who dared to make this entire thing completely idiotic with his "don't play with fire" crack, but also receiving a hard impact akin to a car ramming into him from behind, sending him sailing off a good three to four feet, bouncing hard along the ground before he settled in a heap of smoke, soot, and a shirt that had definitely seen better days.

Dragging himself to his feet, Mooo winced not in pain but in annoyance at the high-pitched sound carrying through the arena--some of the audience members had hands resting at their ears because of it--and honestly, Mooo had no idea where it was coming from other than the fact that it had something to do with Blade.

So Blade didn't want to stand and trade punches. Mooo could deal with that. If only this kind of crap didn't happen so early-on in the tournament, though... that was Mooo's only real gripe.

Interlacing his fingers, Mooo took a deep breath and squared his stance. Now, he didn't have to keep this stance to do what he was about to do--but he did have to follow certain guidelines and have very good timing. He figured he'd expended enough adrenaline to try one of these--and it'd been two years since he had--and he'd also picked up a few new tricks with it since then.

Mooo pulled the energies from his center out to his arms with his exhalation, travelling then to his legs, and sucked them back in with an inhalation. This process took a few seconds as he let his inner energies course through his body, effectively massaging the chi pathways in his body to better performance--he was keeping the channels open, like pierced ears.

Mooo's hands slowly separated, moving down to his sides as he took a step forward, the ground beneath him starting to first crack, then lift up with each step, Mooo's chi gaining force around his arms and legs, almost as if a barrier of thick, invisible pressure were wrapped around them from the elbow down, and the knee down.

Step one, done.

Part of the easy part of dealing with a pyromancer was that fire really had no physical force behind it unless it was actually given a means of locomotion--flames from an explosion were propelled by the concussive force of said explosion, and flames from a flamethrower were propelled by the flammable jelly that was spit out the nozzle of the weapon. Blade's flames had one common trait--they all started with initial propulsion, but beyond that, they were just walls of flame.

And hadn't Blade already seen that Mooo's skin was tougher than most? Bullets didn't do much to his skin--fire was more of an annoyance that he preferred to avoid, mainly because he hated having to keep buying new clothes. A couple hours after this fight and some Neosporin and he'd be good as new.

His chi pathways were open, his mind wasn't entirely clear but was getting there, and he saw no way to avoid the incoming attack, so he did what he'd done for the past few minutes of this fight--charge on in. He needed to expend a bit more of his own energy before doing what he wanted to. Taking deep, even breaths, he juked to his right to avoid the flaming gout headed his way, then left to try and avoid the next one, only to hit a searing wall of heat as he rammed into the third one on this path. Mooo himself was still relatively unhurt, but his clothes were covered in soot, and his skin still stung quite a bit. He managed to avoid the fourth flame by tripping and falling into the fifth, its initial burst of pressure forcing Mooo back onto his feet and bouncing him into the sixth wall.

He was about halfway through the spiderwebbed cracks of flame that Blade had sent his way, with a decent distance to go--and then there was the huge aura that Blade had surrounding him. No physical substance, but the energy itself probably had a crushing pressure to those unfamiliar with it and probably oppressive heat, seeing as how this guy was probably the type to do something like that. Mooo sweated bullets, his soot-caked shirt starting to clean off to a tiny, tiny degree. That little glimmer of cleanliness was his glimmer of hope--he was ready.

Still halfway into the flame-maze, Mooo stood tall, proud, and defiant as that characteristic grin split his face in half. Lowering his head, keeping his eyes on his opponent, he relaxed his stance, his shoulders slumping a bit as all the flames suddenly wafted in towards him, as if winds from all directions were somehow pushing them slightly in his direction--then a sudden, violent gust forced them hard in the opposite direction, putting those closest to him out and leaving those farthest from him almost pushed against the ground away from him.

Mooo's hair blew wildly, arcs of electricity starting to rise from his fist to his elbow, from the bottoms of his feet to his knees. A few drops of sweat slid from Mooo's forehead down to his chin, but as they left his body and made contact with the air, they popped, each in a small shower of sparks. If one looked closely, the air around Mooo's forearms and shins was hazy, like seeing through a blur of heat or dry air.

"Initial Evolution--GLADIUS INSTALL!!"

Dammit, he didn't want to use this until the fourth round, at least.

Point of fact, Mooo was not finished with his Evolution--names had power, and it was a psychological thing for him to say the name of his Evolution to increase his focus and his intent, thus lending more strength to the Evolution itself.

He took a step toward the now-charging Blade, noticing the bend in Blade's right arm, the way the hand was set rigidly atop the same-side weapon. Don't tell me was gonna--

--yeah, he did. There was a reason most sword schools shunned the reverse-grip, a very very viable reason. After lending that last oomph of power to his Evolution, there was a cooling period of a few seconds before the Evolution actually took place--Mooo hadn't clocked it, but it was somewhere between four and six seconds, which was enough time for a sprinting Blade to close distance and start his attack. Thankfully, it was just enough time for Mooo not to get cut in half.

Mooo's left arm bent a bit as his body glowed brightly, the ground beneath him first buckling, then shattering--this tremor would disorient Blade slightly and probably steer him a little off-course, but nowhere near enough to stop his attack any. The light spread outward, then filled the arena--the column of white light could easily be seen coming from the arena's center for miles around, but it had no effect on others beyond filling their vision with white for a moment, and leaving spots in their eyes for a few seconds afterward.

As the light faded, the arena was filled with dust clouds from the shattered ground, which spread out around Mooo for ten feet in every direction--the ground itself wasn't obliterated, just damaged--and then the sound of metal meeting metal broke the silence.

Going in an outcircling whirlwind, the dust clouds cleared away from Mooo and Blade, the only things in the arena now the pair of them, and the massive conflagration of golden fire a decent distance away from them which were barely affected by the sudden rush of wind and energy that cleared out the dust from the arena.

Mooo had activated his Initial Evolution, something unique to humans able to tap from seventy-five to the full hundred percent of their latent abilities. The energy that he drew from within himself was channelled through his body, then applied where it was needed most, and finally solidified into actual matter. Now bound by physical laws, the energy had become large gauntlets and greaves that covered his fists, forearms, shins, knees and feet, dull-brown in color but gleaming all the same.

Warm to the touch, clouds of steam rose and dissipated off the gauntlets and greaves, with Mooo standing and blocking Blade's sword-swipe as if a piece of grass had hit the windshield of a moving car. Well, not exactly.

Mooo had used his left gauntlet to block the sword-swipe--a reverse-hand grip delivered speed in an attack, yes, but it also delivered fundamentally less power, since it only used the muscles of the arm to strike instead of effectively using the back and shoulder muscles to aid in the cutting motion. To make matters worse for Blade, his left hand was cocked back, and high, too--that telegraphed an obvious, shoulder-driven punch.

Mooo's right hand tucked down, chambering into his waist--he'd meet an obvious attack with an obvious attack of his own. Shrugging aside the blade with his left gauntlet, Mooo slid forward, his left leg invading Blade's space as he kept his shoulder less than an inch from Blade's torso, left arm and gauntlet held close to his body, ready to block another poorly-executed reverse-grip strike. Torquing from the hip, he transferred power from hip to back to shoulder, his right arm twisting sharply as it was loosed in a powerful reverse punch, aimed in a straight line for Blade's stomach--this attack by physical standards would go faster than any full-force punch Blade could perform with his left hand arced back in such a position, for even if Blade were to change the chambering of his arm and execute a proper punch, it wouldn't connect before Mooo's, what with the added inches of reach to his gauntlets. Also, if Blade were to try and throw a straight punch from an arced chambering, the punch would lose more than half of its damage potential upon leaving its chamber, along with the possibility of Blade throwing out his shoulder or injuring his elbow or wrist on impact from not throwing the punch correctly.

Mooo's opponent obviously hadn't realized that he was fighting a human tank.

The wind that was pushed out from the Evolution's start was in fact regular, plain ol' wind--the kind caused by a sudden push of air, the same way that there was a puff of air when something heavy dropped down next to a person and dust was kicked up. The only energy it carried was plain ol' kinetic energy--not latent, not uncontrolled. Simple, direct, beginning and ending kinetic energy, which would only give Blade's flame a little push, and not actually try to blow it out--unless of course Blade's flames even fed off kinetic energy, which would mean that its own flickering and moving would in turn create more energy and it would feed itself until it covered the entire universe completely on its own.

With Blade's flames nearly filling half of the 100-foot diameter of the arena pit, Mooo went for the attack first against "Blade," aiming a punch square for the body of that which he did not know was a duplicate.

Well, he found out soon enough--the explosion certainly wasn't like a space shuttle crashing into him, but the thunderous impact of his fist, and the strengthening force around it, and the driving force behind it meeting the kinetic force of the explosion itself, created a deafening boom that filled the stadium, kicking up a massive cloud of dirt, debris, all ending with a stinging crackle of electricity and a slight humming noise.

The debris cleared, showing Mooo standing on a neat little carved-out cliff of his own--the explosion had torn into the arena floor, caving it in at least eight to ten feet, the small outcropping Mooo was standing on jutting from the base floor of the arena, Mooo's right fist still shaking slightly from the titanic force of punching an explosion. Mooo himself was relatively unhurt, with a few minor scrapes and bumps from debris and bits of the explosion itself getting through, but the haze around his gauntlets made them difficult to see clearly, even when one was looking right at them. The low hum that hazy energy made occasionally popped off a spark, and as the haze faded, his right gauntlet, now in an extended, drawn-out shape, pulled back to its original size and released several small bursts of electricity and a hissing ejection of steam.

When Mooo had met the explosion head-on (or fist-on in this case), his right gauntlet's knuckle-guard slid farther down on his fist, revealing an energy emitter that caused the bottom forearm guard to split and move to the sides of Mooo's forearm, then slide farther back and extend the size of the gauntlet, then fan out for better aerodynamics and stability. The topguard of the gauntlet convexed up, forming a broad, angular fin to aid in the speed of the gauntlet's impact. Finally, with all the pieces in place, the "fins" and now-modified topguard vibrated in sync with the energy emitter, creating the haze of chi that allowed Mooo to deliver such an astronomically strong punch to protect himself.

Mooo still had that grin on his face--his opponent was doing big move after big move, and would eventually tire. Mooo'd gotten a good look at him, and his opponent wasn't particularly big--lean and a bit muscular, yes, but Mooo had stamina reserves to spare. Being a close-in fighter, he had to have monstrous reserves to be able to operate at peak aerobic and anaerobic performance while getting the living crap kicked out of him. All Mooo needed was patience, something his opponent clearly didn't have in his desperation to take him out, regardless of how much damage he'd caused the arena or what he might do to the audience. Hell, some of them were pretty damn close to passing out from the heat already.

The average sprinter crossed forty yards in under five seconds. Assumedly, Blade would make it in just above four seconds, giving Mooo enough time to hop down from the outcropping into the crater he and the exploding duplicate had made, then get into tight upright stance in preparation for Blade's incoming attack.

Once again, Blade was going with the reverse-grip, and was obviously prepared to whip out the second sword, also in a reverse-grip. God, did Mooo hope his opponent would whip out the second sword. Most dual-wielders were also the type to kick a lot--Mooo had seen that in his opponent's initial moves. On a hand-to-hand level, Mooo could see through his opponent's attacks already, he could see Blade's technique down to its undeveloped core.

A running thrust like Blade was doing was usually an airtight attack that forced the opponent to either side--if the sword was braced properly. However, reverse-grip tilted the arm in such a way that even if the pommel of the sword was pressed against Blade's chest, the turn of his wrist wouldn't allow for proper stability upon impact--with anything.

Shifting forward, placing his weight on his left leg, Mooo simply raised his left fist, using the curvature of the gauntlet to aid in his guard--a curved surface meant less actual contact for the weapon on the armor, and as it left a charred line across where it actually hit, Mooo snapped his shoulder and elbow into a strike, backhanding the weapon hard and possibly knocking it out of Blade's right hand. A reverse-grip, again due to the turn in the wrist necessary to keep the weapon aligned, wasn't as strong because the sword was held up by the muscles of the wrist and hand as opposed to the muscles of the arm. The turn in Blade's wrist because of reverse-grip was a big liability for him because of its inherent physiological weakness, and a high price paid for relying on "unexpected" unnatural movement. With the force Mooo's shoulder and the gauntlet were adding to the strike, it was very possible that if Blade held on to his weapon, his shoulder would get disconnected from just how far out it would get snapped.

As he completed the movement of his guard-attack, Mooo's left leg slid out to close distance with Blade, placing his left foot between Blade's, effectively putting his stance right into Blade's positioning, sealing off Blade's kicks. Of course, Blade could try and kick, but then he'd simply be kicking from the leg, and not putting his hip into it--dull hits that Mooo could weather without even flinching. Were Blade still running, he'd plow cleanly into Mooo's left shoulder, as Mooo's right hand still stayed at a high guard, elbow tucked down to cover his body. Even if Blade were to get his other sword out, Mooo's gauntlet was large enough to effectively cover most of his upper body, and his stance was tight enough to where he could turn to a guarding posture with minimal effort--and then punish Blade severely.

(OOC note: Mooo didn't shoulder-check Blade--he placed his shoulder up-close as a strategic move. If Blade continued dashing toward him in the way he was, he would have rammed into it, but that didn't happen as per your post. 3nodding )

In proper stance, one didn't look at their opponent straight-on, nor did you look at their eyes directly. Your eyes wandered, shifting from shoulders to hips to feet back to eyes and at their hands, and you never looked directly--it was always out the corner of your eye, or glancing slightly upward, which caused a fighter to rely more on touch and instinct than what he could see.

His left hand retracting from backhanding Blade's weapon out of his hand, Mooo's head was turned laterally to Blade, watching his opponent out of the corner of his eye as he started shifting his weight downward, guard up with his elbows not hugging his ribs any more in defensive preparation of any kicks or knees that might come in. With his entire body turned so his left side faced Blade, he started dipping in low to start doubling up--but as he did that, there was a sudden and blinding flash of light, causing him to stumble in his slide, his forearms moving up as he tightened his guard reflexively.

Mooo's slip was a controlled one, however, as he was able to regain his balance--but not his eyesight--in time to prevent a nasty spill. He could see okay--but spots still filled his vision, and Blade wasn't there--but a jarring impact from above on his left gauntlet, inadvertently moved by the reflex action of tightening up his guard, forced him down to one knee, causing the ground beneath him to crack from the sheer force of the strike--and again from training, when an attack came from above, that usually meant that the next was coming in the direction opposite of where the opponent initially was--Mooo turned on his knee, turning his gauntlets forward into a strong peek-a-boo block, the tops of both gauntlets completely covering his face and a bit of the top of his head--from his turn, he felt another strong, cutting impact hit the gauntlets, pushing him hard onto his back.

While recovering for a moment, Mooo took note of the long, thin slash cut into the tops of each of the gauntlets--Mooo was surprised in that he'd never seen the gauntlets take any sort of damage before, and now was completely clueless as to what might happen next. Worrying about it was pointless, though, as he had to focus first on dealing with his opponent, who hadn't landed yet and was somehow able to get his other weapon back--most likely through some kind of Force Pull or something to that effect. It didn't matter--Blade had both weapons again.

This still wasn't too difficult, but from the damage to his gauntlets, he figured that blocking straight-out wouldn't be a viable solution any more--not that he should have even been doing that in the first place. Arching his back, Mooo prepared to roll up to a stand and meet his opponent head-on, once again aiming to control the distance and this time prevent any acrobatic tomfoolery.

(I actually did respond to both strikes from above. The first was from a raised arm turned at an angle--it's basically a high men-style karate guard, but the force of the blow dropped Mooo onto one knee. Since an opponent starting at one point and then moving to attack from above won't drop back into the same spot, Mooo took that into account, shifted his guard into a peek-a-boo guard as described, and pivoted on his knee to turn in the same direction you were--the size of the gauntlets does cover up his shoulder if he tightens his guard and turns it in the proper direction slightly. This damaged both gauntlets--the way that your post was written made it sound like after those two strikes, Blade landed and went for a third, which I also responded to in effect. Please clarify this and I'll edit accordingly. xd

Edit: I'll also delete all this OOC after we're done.)