Excursion 6: Near-Perfect Preparation

Black Hawk's abilities confused Flick and Jasper.

"How does he keep disappearing?" They both thought to themselves.

"Well now, I'd love to tell you how I did it, but I can't just let go of trade secrets, so you're going to have to speculate a bit more," said Black Hawk.

In that moment, Flick began evaluating everything he had learnt. He knew three things, one, he'd only disappeared in intervals of ten seconds; two, he never did anything to them while disappearing and three, he was never too far, always just around them.

Jasper was too overwhelmed with adrenaline to go beyond his instincts, but Flick knew that just a few more times and Jasper could get a read. So Flick conjured a patchwork plan, whose first step was getting Jasper to learn his pattern.

Flick told Jasper, "run at him. Don't stop, keep him in place, jump away on my cue. Don't let up!"

"Got it," replied Jasper.

Jasper than began running to Black Hawk, his sword ready to slash him from the side. He block the slash with his knife and punched him in the gut, but Jasper head butted Black Hawk right in the head.

Black Hawk then disappeared, and reappeared right behind Jasper bashing him in the head with the handle of his knife, but Jasper was undeterred. He then did a leg sweep, but Black Hawk jumped, avoiding it. But that wasn't the end of Jasper's attack.

Jasper had prepared another special technique, the Blood Bullet. He had focused a large proportion of the blood in his blade onto its tip, densely packing the blood. He then thrusts the blade towards Black Hawk's throat, and a dense pellet of blood zooms towards Black Hawk's Adam's apple. Unfortunately he slices the pellet with his knife splitting it in two.

But this started a chain of events which presented the perfect opportunity for Flick to execute the plan. First, the splitting of the blood bullet made the halves diverge. Then, the two halves hit two different objects, the gas station sign and a brick wall of the neighboring building. Then, those two objects exploded thanks to the sheer internal pressure of the blood, drawing the attention and shock of Black Hawk for a split second.

Jasper capitalized on the opportunity and punched Black Hawk right in the gut, causing him to fly back a few feet, landing on his back.

It was now. The perfect opportunity arrived. Flick called out, "Special Delivery!" And suddenly, eight meters above the ground, a used SUV began falling right on top of the downed Black Hawk.

Black Hawk seemed to be in a precarious position, if not for his second gift. It was called Judicious Equality, where for half a second, Black Hawk creates a transparent five meter radius hemisphere which allows him to transport himself anywhere within that sphere. Of course everyone apart from Black Hawk in the sphere was frozen for that half second. There was a catch however, any action which causes any sort of effect to a person in the hemisphere happens in equal proportion to everybody inside the hemisphere, including Black Hawk himself.

Using this gift, Black Hawk disappeared once again, and reappeared five meters in the air.

It all clicked for Flick in that moment. He thought to himself that, "if he could teleport somehow, why wouldn't he be able to teleport atop the car? It must imply a maximum range, I finally see it!"

Black Hawk then sliced apart the falling car allowing it's pieces to fall onto the ground. But Jasper running on sheer instinct began jumping on the broken parts, climbing up as if the parts formed a stepladder. He reached the very top, and landed a third blow, punching Black Hawk right in the face.

As the two descended to the ground, Flick gave the cue for Jasper to jump back, and he called once more, "Special Delivery!"

A second SUV descended once more, under the belief that Black Hawk's teleportation was once again on cool down. But, Black Hawk once again teleported behind behind Flick, and he simply said, "you thought I couldn't do it again? Hahahaha let me tell you something, deception is a key to winning these battles!"

He pressed down the button once more, and ten wounds opened up on Flick's back, causing him to fall forward a few feet.

Jasper, still conscious and ready to fight, directed his blank stare towards Black Hawk, and began walking towards the felled Flick. Black Hawk then ran up to him, but Jasper's subconscious grasped his fighting pattern. He swiftly dodged all of Black Hawk's knife swings and continued walking unperturbed.

He hovered the blade of his sword over Flick's body and the blade consumed Flick's gushing blood. The blade now reached a new form.

As Black Hawk immediately started running towards Jasper, his blade morphed into a two-handed claymore. He focused the blood, densely packing it towards the edge and swung once more. His swing lobbed a more powerful wave of blood towards Black Hawk, and instictively used his ability to teleport behind Jasper. But Jasper's instincts predicted this, and just as Black Hawk slashed Jasper vertically on the shoulder, Jasper turned around and cut Black Hawk diagonally along his torso.

Black Hawk detonated the cut on his shoulder, causing a new wound to appear, but thanks to Jasper's state, he was unphased and continued walking towards the downed Black Hawk.

Black Hawk then realized he could use a disarming technique he called the Blade Slash. The Ghost Blade had another property, cuts that are detonated later are twice as powerful as slashes made without detonation, so in last ditch efforts, Black Hawk realized that with this property he could get close, cut apart an enemy's blade, and detonate it to slice the blade in half.

So as Jasper leaned in to take a swing at Black Hawk, instead of dodging, he passed the ghost blade through Jasper's blade, and took the slash, which cut a second diagonal onto Black Hawk's skin.

And as Jasper went into further cut apart Black Hawk, he detonated the cut on his blade, and split the claymore in half.

Damage to this degree undid Jasper's high adrenaline state, and brought back the sensations of pain. He couldn't take it and he passed out falling to the ground.

*** Meanwhile, back at the house ***

Weeping Sam awakens in the dark basement of the house.

"You're finally awake, good I have some questions." Said Doc.

… To be continued.