@clutch:
The Shogun’s black eyebrow climbed above the red blindfold that wrapped around her blinded eyes. Clutch had presented his back to her and walked, walked, toward his fallen comrade.
“Sure. I’ll wait.”
“Not.”
Every bone in her body screamed for her to strike while his back was turned.
And she did.
She lunged forward, intending to snatch the Wildcard in a suplex and shatter his skull against the stone floor. Mid-step a spark of pain bloomed in her abdomen. Nausea spread its tendrils through her belly.
‘Ribs,’ she thought.
Her flying and spinning attacks had placed her injured body under great stress. Though they had inflicted tremendous damage on her enemies the Wildcardz had injured her as well. Bodyshots always paid dividends later in the fight and the Human Hightlight Reel's masterful kicking combination had done just that, halting Ivana’s advance toward his back.
Her somatic reading allowed her to track the motion of Clutch’s hands, though she was nearly doubled over in pain and blind besides. The veteran mutant warrior knew he was moving something from his body to Tenjin’s body but she did not know what.
Until he hurled the Genshokage’s body.
A flash of sensation ran through her mind, like the shadow of a feeling. Impact, like a fist that slammed into her entire body at once followed by fiery agony. Then nothing.
It was a warning from her mutant nervous system reading; a warning from her own body a heartbeat in the future.
It was enough.
The Shogun spun into a crouch, her back to the flying body.
The explosion was tremendous. Fire boiled the water. A thunderclap roared through the tunnel. Dust fell from the roof and cracks raced up the stone walls.
Hell came to earth. Green and gold flames burned so hot they scarred stone. The scent of burned ozone filled the air. Steam, blistering hot, filled the tunnel.
Tongues of white hot fire licked at Ivana’s vibranium suit. Raw heat clawed at her face and throat but she had wrapped her vibranium weave cloak around her head. The shockwave fell upon her like the hammer of titan. The grandmaster felt her vibranium armor shudder as it absorbed the vast quantity of kinetic energy. Unfocused, undirected, it could not penetrate through her armor the way Clutch’s precision kicks had.
But an explosion of such power was more than just fire and a hammer. It also sent a wave of pressure through the atmosphere. Ivana still had to breath and as long as she breathed she was exposed to the wave of pressure that slapped through the tissues and fluids of her body.
Once more her repeatedly broken ribs came back to haunt her. For a moment Ivana simply went numb from the base of her rib-cage down. The mind could only process so much pain. Then, for a moment that seemed an eternity, she couldn't breathe.
She knew she was seriously injured.
Once more her mutant ability to read somatic systems warned her of the Martial Arts Phenom's drop kick. Spinning she drove her injured right arm downward in a Gedan-Barai block. The powerful karate technique knocked his legs off line, deflecting the kick and sparing her battered midsection from yet another impact.
The masterful acrobatic maneuvers of the Wicked Wildcard saw him dive backwards into a roll and rise with guns blazing.
A smirk touched the hard features of Ivana’s face as her somatic reading told her of every move of his hand, which told the veteran warrior the exact path of each bullet.
The twenty third Strigdae drew with a flash of steel, just as she had done years ago in the towers of Kamelot.
Her blade sang the song of steel as it soared through the air. Seven bullets were cleaved in half mid flight. Laughter rang from the lips of the Blind Shogun-
-then, at the apex of her bullet-deflecting cut her injured arm gave way. Clutch’s chain-blade and Tenjin’s poisoned sword had carved too deeply, damaging both muscle and bone in a way that no amount of technique could compensate for.
Her blade flew from her grip as her fingers went numb. Pride had its price.
A torrent of fire slammed into her body. Vibranium did its job; bullets touched her armor and fell straight to the ground, kinetic energy absorbed.
But not every bullet flew toward her body.
Her face a mask of pure focus the grandmaster twitched and wove, somatic reading and raw explosiveness on display as she slipped and swayed around fully automatic fire the way a boxer avoided a flurry.
The Future Soldier reloaded and opened fire again.
Even Ivana could not dodge them all. Red hot lead snipped off her left ear-lobe in a red spray. Another left a bloody line where it grazed her scalp.
And one pierced her neck.
She tasted blood.
It bubbled past her lips.
Her left fist snapped shut. Bloodbending. Crimson fluid hardened into tubes of solid hemoglobin that blood could flow through. Non-vital vessels were crushed shut with brute force.
It saved her life. For now.
The Shogun snatched one of her silver-tungsten alloyed tantos from her left boot. Mutant power infused the blade with tachyons, giving it the ability to cut through anything short of true adamantum.
Her right arm dangled uselessly at her side. Blood smeared the tattoos that covered her neck and dripped from her lips. Something was wrong inside her torso; something bad.
But her left arm was fine and her legs were fine.
The time for flashy techniques was over. Ivana just wanted speed and brutal simplicity.
And speed she had.
Knives were the swiftest bladed weapon. The Shogun might not have been the fastest mutant alive but she could very well be the quickest.
She tapped into Oceptratron. It was an esoteric style with one master and one practitioner: Ivana. The grandmaster had created it and she was the only soul who knew its secrets.
Oceptratron gave you one thing: instant acceleration. When an object accelerates normally it must start from one speed and accelerate up to its maximum speed. A car starts at zero miles per hour. Then it moves at one, then two, then three, and so on and so on until it is moving as fast as it can.
Oceptratron allowed Ivana to start at zero.. and then accelerate to her maximum speed without crossing the intervening speeds. She didn’t go zero to sixty. She went zero, then sixty.
There was no blur.
There was no flash.
One moment Ivana was standing several yards from Clutch and the next she was standing in front of him, her crimson cape cracking like a whip behind her.
The Shogun’s tachyon infused tanto flashed straight down. Whip-crack quick. Driven by the colossal speed the mutant grandmaster could generate it aimed to cleave through Clutch’s shoulder, carving through muscle and bone to separate his humerus from his scapula in a spray of gore.
Regardless of the cuts success or failure her blade flickered out once more, singing steels deathsong in the steam filled air as it left a silver after-image in the sky. Its all-cutting edge targeted the side of Clutch’s skull, intending to hack through his head at eye level, slashing through his skull, both eyes and brain, if successful.
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