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The hand with the dagger goes wide and he simply continues on, brining on the reaction of the staff coming down to his skull. Instead of striking him, however, his free hand intervenes as his head slides to one side to catch the staff with a series of cracking sounds from within his hand and wrist. This, however, would not affect his grip as his body twisted in the air, pivoting on the staff. His legs would be brought in close to then spring out at the unnamed man's head and chest.

((...you posted with three minutes to spare. h8 XP))

The chain would slightly blunt his strike, but not enough to not make it hurt like a b***h. The movement of the staff would force him down, but when the unnamed darted into the air IV would be taken with him. As opposed to causing him pain, or even doing further damage to his leg, it would be giving him an advantage. The hand holding the dagger would plunge it into his chest before sweeping down to spread open the opposite side of his leg and pull the chain through. This would effectively be tearing the the chain away from the unnamed. From there he would shove it into his chest to then remove the blade again. At this point he'd pretty much be hanging from the staff and the chain that now connected the two.

IV's leverage against the chains would make taking them away from him nearly impossible, and would only further cement his position up close and personal to the unnamed. He'd not be going anywhere in the aftermath of the kinetic thrust as the chain would simply be growing too short between them for him to go anywhere. Each kinetic thrust after the first would end abruptly at his leg and thus do nothing at all beyond that point. Bone would weave through the links and begin absorbing the kinetic energy as it travelled down the chain. That chain wasn't going anywhere and was, effectively, a lost cause for the unnamed man to even consider anymore.

With his grip only shaken but once he would still be hanging onto the staff, now pulling himself up against it. From the unnamed man's perspective it would seem like he was trying to pull the staff away from him, but that was merely the effect of his strength and weight. His unencumbered leg would swing up and attempt to reorganize the man's face. The dagger seemed to be growing slightly longer and the area around them seemed to be brighter, in fact the entire arena seemed brighter. It must have just been an optical illusion being dispelled by the field and returning to the norm, right?

Genetics. The base foundations of life, and even unlife. These simple building blocks are well founded in science and altered from afar by the forces of magic. What happens, then, when one's own genetic code begins to evolve without the direction of an outside force? What happens when a simple strand of triple -yes, as in one more than double- helix DNA is far more than simple fragments of protein and sugars? If the unnamed were the one being observant he'd notice subtle shifts in the frame of the beast, subtle shifts that had been indicated previously and were on the verge of cascade. The greatest sign of change had been that of his skin, crawling and shifting, but now a tint of jade would exist within the coals that smouldered in the recesses of his skull.

Evolution. Darwin's surely joygasming in his grave.

The bone blade continues its fun little growth pattern as the bones within IV get a little bit squishy. Though hell, by the way these babies are constructed the chain wouldn't be making nearly the progress assumed. Superman wishes he had IV's bones, and Wolverine would be glad to have the trade off of not being Magneto's puppet now and again. Though I doubt Wolvering would survive the exchange, even though IV would be happy as a clam in the interim. Being squishy was fun too.

IV begins twitching the blade toward the unnamed, as if trying to pick out the best parts to stab him. While he's apparently waiting on that his foot retracts and strikes out at the unnamed man's face again, this time aiming to take a few teeth and implant them in the walls or ground somewhere not quite nearby. He could have fun all day kicking at the guy's face, it was actually rather funny that he just took it, all that wonderful focus on the blade IV planned on stabbing him with.

This was the point where IV seems to stop being IV. Great wings burst from his back as his flesh seems to tear away from his body to build the majority of the wings' membranes. Under where his flesh had been is a lithe form which is quite slick and rather amorphous. That which had been altered by the chain attempts a revision while the surrounding tissues alter beyond the scope of bone and organic tissues. A sort of quarantine would form around the chain to disallow spreading of the effect with inorganic membranes and what seems to be a stone based composite foreign to this world.

The two would begin spinning quite wildly as IV's wings beat in hopes of generating a chaotic spin. The bone blade continues its own shift in length as IV's leg retracts, but only for a short distance. The strike this time is an attempt to land a two taloned foot with a third facing the opposing direction directly on the unnamed's chest. This may seem quite odd, in both form and function, as that would seemingly require IV's leg to not only change shape drastically but bend backwards. What made it within the bounds of logic was that these terms were exactly the case. If the foot made contact with his chest a fluid would be left behind that would begin a dissolution of the molecular bonds of whatever it touched of foreign origin. The dissolution seemed to be working on a subatomic level, some unknown particle within the organic compound adversely affecting the quantum mechanics therein.

The wings of the beast continued to expand while a second pair began to work its way out through his back. This second pair, however, was vastly different from the first in that the first were normal batlike wings and these second seemed almost insectlike, vibrating the moment they were grown. The unnamed would begin finding it more and more difficult to maintain control of the spin the longer IV was left to evolve and adapt to the situation at hand. The pinning of his leg against him would be rather useless as its size and shape continued to change. A new joint was afforded to his leg as it bent to lash out at the unnamed man in any way possible, the acidic substance still waiting to dissolve away what it touched.

The strikes against IV's torso are met with little resistance, only the first one connecting with the second one simply not happening. After the first the unnamed would, quite simply, be stuck to IV by his shin and thusly be unable to deliver a second kick. The advance of the chains would be halted as the molecular acid began flooding the quarantined area. By now IV's leg with the chain in it would be quite massive, rather bulbous due to the abnormal growth. The air around the two would seem dry, if anything on the unnamed man's side could determine as such. The bone blade continued its growth as the two pairs of wings continued their growth and began trying to steer the two to the north.