Welcome to Gaia! ::

Two things.

Dana finally made her move, Dark's grunt acting as a signal of sort. Her left hand, in a fluid motion, traced an arc toward the side of Dark's neck. The side of her fist, unless meeting any resistance, would strike straight in the general area where the big vein whatchacallit was hanging around. She couldn't really aim with any real precision on it, what with the man being covered heavier than an Inuit mixed with a mummy. Meanwhile, she reached of her right hand to retrieve the sword at Dark's side, the one he used to attack her earlier. Her goal was to grab, pull and let go, just to throw it out of his reach.

All at the same time with a small shout around when her left fist would connect.

One out, waytoomany to go. Normally, he would've tried to stay as close as possible to the man, where his swords would have a hard time reaching her, but the oddly-shaped hilts could become a problem.

Oh well. Can't always have everything. Without losing another second, she lunged at Dark again. Her body, compared to his, was a little to his right, with her left fist extended. Clearly, she was gonna strike with that hand. What would be a little less clear was that her right fist was ready to strike too, and that everything would be played in her footwork, one that allowed her quick, precise breaks at any moment through her dash, to avoid getting slashed by a simple swipe.

Dana dived to her right, toward the blade to slide under it. At the same time, she spun around to face the sky and threw her right hand up, trying to catch Dark's wrist. Chances are she'd miss though, the fist being at quite a distance by then already. If she did, she'd just land onto her back and slide a bit further away, facing Dark and ready for more.

If she did manage to grab Dark's wrist though, she'd keep hold of it as hard as she could. Her other hand would grab hold of his fist to keep the sword out of reach, and she'd let herself land a bit mor roughly, smirking.

While she never reached the weird blade, thus keeping her fingers intact, Dana had indeed forgotten to take account of the second blade, which would prove to be quite a dangerous mistake, as that very same blade was now cutting right through her side, cleanly slicing her shirt, swiping at her tender belly and ripping it open.

Dana's eyes went wide open. She didn't know it was possible to feel that much pain in a single instant. Only, she was proved further wrong, for it hurt even more when she landed onto that same side, spilling blood onto the grass below her.

So much that the cry she let out was very faint.

::Well it was true. That shaky motion of the right hand made it very difficult to tell where a punch was going to come from. But then again, he didnt much did he? He lunged. Its like telling someone to look at the birdy and then throwing the bird at them. They definately see it, and Jack definately saw it. You see Jack didnt try to just read fist, he tried to look out for things flying at him.

Now, this style that this red haired man was using...Jack had never faught it before. So of course when entering the fight he was completely oblivious to what was going on. But now...he figured it out. What he was waiting for now was the loud shrieking "Wataaaa!" which should have followed this forward lunge. But maybe Jacks just funny that way.

What he had to deal with now, was a very fast right handed poke, and left hand that was just plain ready to strike. This was a tricky thing, if he did any sort of move to his right, it could easily be defend in some manner by his opponents left hand. So that left him, one singular option. He stepped to the left, out side of the mans reach and turned as he stepped to face, as the fingers jolted in on him. As he did that, his right arm flew up, and snatched the two oncoming fingers.

Why? Well as Red Hair moved forward, Jack would move to the side, and bring his fingers with him. So that as Red Hair moved forward, unless he found a way to stop dead in the middle of his lunge, he would be bending his own fingers back very far, if not breaking them. That sort of hurts. Or of course this motion could cause the man to try and change the angle of his arm to fix the bending issue, which would of course lead in him having to turn towards Jack.

What Red Hair might or might not notice is that as Jack did this, his left arm extended out a bit, and went sort of slack.::

Excellent.

That was all that was required, part one of the set-up had been complete. Take away their attention, and you win. He had definitely stolen attention away from the old man.



Except there would be nothing to snatch at.

It was true, very true, that there was no absolute way to halt himself mid-lunge. He had committed himself fully to the movemet after all, and it would go through.

However, his right arm was a different matter altogether.

Have you ever held a whip in your hand and attempted to crack it at sometime in your life? I have. If you have as well, you know there's always that sudden "snap" as the whip reached full extension and how quickly the whip returned?

Now visualize the whip cracking. Imagine that strong, jolting snap as it cracks and returns toward you faster than it went out. In that same principle, he transfered what you just imagined to his arm and snatched the finger jab back as quickly as he possibly could, as if it were the whip and it had just cracked!

The entire jab had been thrown out in a manner that it could be retracted, if need be, just as quickly as it had been executed-- as explained in the previous post.

Now, you'll recall that as he lunged forward, to complete the lunge, his rear foot glided forward, enabling him to resume the on-guard position?

From that position, it was easy to begin phase two.

It was true, the old man had stepped outside of his reach. But not quite exactly out of reach. Still in the same timeframe, he would then make use of his longest weapon to the nearest target.

And so he would proceed with his interruption(still in the same timeframe) during execution, after his opponent's attack was already on the way-- which in this case would be his opponent's attempt to "Catch" his fingers. He would utilize the outside slip, to let the old man's right arm, should it have been far enough, to pass harmlessly on the right side of his head, his left hand sort of buffering that arm, so it was semi-parried into it's position.

Now, have you ever seen what happens when water from a fire hydrant is turned on full blast and the water surges into a hose? The force of the water causes the hose to suddenly jerk to a straight position in the direction that the water is flowing. This happens very quickly, mind you.

The opening in the fire hydrant would be his hip joint. Once again the water is surging directly toward the target. He allowed his left leg to jerk straight to the old man, as if hit by the powerful surge of water. If done properly, he would feel a powerful snap at the completion of the "heavy knee", just as if the water was really there. This enabled him to impart maximum force to the man's knee, considering the proximity that the both of them were in.

In theory, this would be enough to cause the old man to lose his balance, as his knee would collapse backwards, from the force directed onto it.

This in turn, would cause the old man to "fall" into the straight lead punch that erupted from his right fist, into the old man's head. His right arm would use a sliding leverage, against the old man's right arm, basically "riding" the arm, to deliver the blow more accurately, with his left hand keeping the old man's right arm in place.

With the proper body mechanics, it was much harder to see strikes coming and much harder to block, parry or intercept. Where does the power come from? Proper use of the waist, hips and correct footwork for the range of execution.

Due to this directness, strikes are extremely fast and deceptive, as just demonstrated.

Well, that was interesting to say the least. Silver went etherial. It wasn't expected for him to use that ability so soon in the match, but these things were always full of surprises. Luckily for yudo, things weren't that bad. As he fell, he landed on a floating chunk of platform, and leaped onto the other half which was floating with its tip up about six feet away. He gave Lethe his powers back and he regained his psychic abilities once more.

He could now sense where Silver was, so he prepared himself for a future encounter. He began to charge up psychic energy for when Silver decided to show himself...

Meanwhile in the etherial realm, Silver was going to say hello to an old friend. Lethe grunted as he saw the fighter's form materialize into one of the many realms his form fluctuated between, and moved his wavelength to better match the etherial plane. The ten foot tall beast then spoke, its white eyes glowing.

So we meet again I suppose...?

Lethe then began to charge energy for his attacks...

Lethe "grinned" or whatever passed as a grin for him. He continued charging energy for an attack not yet seen...

Its going quite well, actually... My Master is fine as well, and in good enough shape to take you on. If I remember correctly, was it not HIS attack that sent you scampering here in the first place?

Lethe's tone was deep and disembodied as usual, as he kept charging. With only a look of daring in his eyes, as if daring Silver to do something about his comeback.