KOV Round 3: Eclipse VS. Longshot

Everything hurt. That was the best way to put it. The thought of battle still hung in every fiber of his body, he hadn't rested since he'd first stepped through the portal onto the alien world that had that eerily accurate recreation of a Victorian village and chapel. There was his first opponent, the one with the staff that fired lightning, stunned his leg. Somewhere in the battle, she'd wounded him badly, pierced his side and made him bleed. Seconds after he'd blacked out, he awoke face down in the mud, chained to Eclipse, an acquaintance of his whom he'd fought alongside before. They'd fought on some bloody backwater world with a storm that was, to his disbelief, sentient. There was a sun. A miniature sun. He was burned. His legs and arms stung. He was cut. Every joint in his body creaked and cracked as it moved. He was hit. Hard.  
 
For the longest time, he just lay there. He just lay perfectly still and let the concept of relief wash over him like the tide slowly coming in at the beach. When was the last time he'd been to the beach? He'd never been to a beach. He'd been beach-adjacent, but never on a beach. Why was he thinking about beaches? "Ow." he groaned under his breath. He brought a hand up to his temple and massaged it. For a moment, the ringing in his head from the clap of thunder and the ferocious crackling of a flaming sun boiling his brain on the inside subsided. If only for a moment, the pain was gone. He wrapped his hands around the inside of his knee and thrust himself upright, staggering to his feet. His eyes were still closed. "Ow ow ow ow ow."  The pain was back. 
 
He limped with two bad knees, eyes still closed. The ground beneath him felt sturdy and flat. He wasn't on a mountain and it wasn't muddy. Before his eyes returned to him, his ears did. He caught the sound of vapor being expelled from vents all around him. There was water passing through dozens of tubes just above him and the echo of his feet falling on a metal grate. He was indoors. Perhaps some sort of factory power plant. He forced his eyes a bit open and managed a narrow glimpse of his surroundings. Exactly as he guessed. It was a hallway leading somewhere and the end of the tunnel was up ahead. He opened his eyes all the way and looked up, about to see where exactly he'd been taken. Perhaps it was a mine or a spacheship or... a prison. He'd been taken to some futuristic, industrialized prison. The hallway had  lead him to the cell block, a column of locks and doors and bolts and chains rising far beyond even his eyes, up to what he assumed was the surface. Each layer of the column had its own narrow walkway winding around but they weren't connected to one another by ladders or stairs or anything. He could hear the moans of misery and desperation carrying all the way up into the skies. There were no guards, no warden, no anyone. Had the prisoners been left to rot in their cells?  Were they aliens? All of this made him uneasy. He'd gone out tonight, or perhaps it had been months since he'd left, for what he assumed was a tournament between humans on earth. The keywords being 'on earth'.  
 
Suddenly, a metal ball flew in front of him. It hovered in the air and spun around, revealing a big lens and it stared at him, zooming in. He recognized it. It was one of the automated cameras the proprietor of the tournament had installed in every arena. Usually, they remained in the shadows or far off. They never got this close and they rarely tried to make their presence known. "Participant: Longshot is to report to the arena." it declared in an high pitched, digitized voice. They didn't usually talk either. Just as he was about to ask,  the door before him, the heavy, reinforced steel door at the base of the cell column, slid open. He raced in and looked down. On all sides, the room sloped inward, like the indent of a cone. It was built like stadium, and in the center was a giant chain link dome on a platform. This was the arena. They'd brought Longshot to a massive futuristic prison to fight in there. It seemed like an awful lot of show for a cage match.  
 
With the camera flying up to the ceiling with the others, Longshot walked casually down towards the arena, looking around to ensure that his opponent wasn't coming up behind him. Up the short staircase he went, walking through the open door, the only door on the cage. He looked around, surprised that his opponent wasn't there. "So what am I supposed t-" before he could finish, the door slammed shut and locked. "Hey!" he shouted to whoever might hear him. "Dammit." he sighed.  
 
The archer turned around, preparing himself for the coming battle. He was in a cage, a big cage, but a cage all the same. A confined space. He'd need his agility. Without two ticks of his heart, he unbuckled the metal breastplate and dropped it to the mat along with all his other armor he'd been wearing in the previous round. He pushed it all to the side of the cage and began to examine his surroundings. He pounded his foot on the mat. Reinforced. Why would they need to reinforce a mat? Then, he looked at the cage walls themselves. They were steel laced with a veneer of vibranium and had the capability to turn electric. Why all these specifications? What could possibly require a simple fighting cage to be built like this? He looked to the locks on the door and it tied it all together. These locks were similar to those on most superhuman containment modules. This cage was built specifically to contain meta-humans. This changed everything. Now, Longshot had a strategy. He could use the arena itself against his opponent. Suddenly, there was a sound coming from overhead and a metal hatch at the top of the cage opened up. A body fell through and came hurtling down to the mat. Longshot caught a glimpse of his opponent and groaned. "You've gotta be kidding me." 
 
He fired two arrows with knockout gas attachments at the ground around his opponent then jumped through the air, firing one straight through the thick cloud of anesthetic fumes, straight at the target. This was going to be a rough one.

Longshot heard Eclipse rolling around in the fog and the sound of the arrow shaft splintering as it was crushed beneath his gravitational manipulation. The arrow was tossed to the mat with a spot of blood still dripping from its point. He stood there, crouched and ready for a return attack, when suddenly a sharp wave of pain shot through his right arm. He clutched his shoulder, gritting his teeth at the sudden sting. During the last fight, he'd dislocated his shoulder after a fighter named Nova attacked him with a sword, narrowly deflected by his armor. It still hurt whenever he put too much on the shoulder, but it was better then losing the arm entirely. What good was an archer without his arm, anyway?   
 
Eclipse emerged, seemingly unaffected by the smoke. As the gas dissipated from the Champion's body, Longshot spotted the new addition to his suit, an air filter covering his mouth. The archer smirked beneath his mask with a faint chuckle. "You magnificent bastard." he muttered to himself. Immediately after Eclipse rose from the haze, the same camera droid announced loud and clear, " Power Dampening Activation In Ten Seconds." Of course! This was, after all, a superhuman containment cell. They'd outfitted it with technology that temporarily neutralized the metahuman gene. Odd, as the supposed purpose of this tournament was to just see people get slaughtered. It would make sense if they just let Eclipse punch a hole through him, but at least he was on an even playing field. He watched as Eclipse fiddled with something on his back, perhaps his suit was chafing. There was an obnoxious buzzer like the kind at a hockey game and Eclipse dropped to his feet. It was mutually obvious that they were both injured, tired and above all, tired. Alas, neither would concede after coming this far, sacrificing so much to prove that they were worthy. Longshot had no knowledge of Eclipse's motive to compete, but if he stood in his way, there was no chance Longshot would concede to him. 
 
Suddenly, Eclipse's arms became lined with a row of crescent shaped blades and a small black tube in his hand shot out from both ends, turning into a rather intimidating bow staff. In the moment the two stared each other down, Longshot switched the lens in his eyepiece to X-ray. With the Teen Wonder standing perfectly still in the last moments of calm before the fight, he managed to snap one photo and saw, beneath billions upon billions of nanites making up his costume, a row of pouches containing all the archetypal equipment of the street-level crime fighter Eclipse once was. If there was any hope of winning this, it lied in getting that belt away from him. The Champion charged with a speed and grace that impressed Longshot, but he still seemed a bit off, as though he was walking for the first time in a long time. As he ran, Eclipse flung his blades through the air, twirling across the arena with amazing speed, aimed straight at Longshot. As the first couple blades came within range, Longshot swung his bow, holding it in the center and used it like a staff, knocking the blades off course before they hit. As an overwhelming wave of blades came towards him, he dodged instead of deflecting. For every one that passed by, there was a faint crackling of electricity behind him. They kept coming and one of the blades struck him in the side, just managing to slice through his coat, coming only inches short of a pad that would have protected him entirely. Longshot stifled, his legs beginning to wobble beneath him. He held his side as blood began to trickle from the wound. It hadn't cut him deep, but enough to impair his movement. He steered clear of the final metallic crescent and reassured his stance, doing his best to cover the wound. 
 
As he glanced upward, Longshot saw Eclipse sailing through the air, but not flying, about to swing his bow staff down with a devastating strike. At this exact moment, the archer realized that he was going up against the protege of Nighthunter and he was overcome with joy. The air parted ways around Eclipse's weapon as he struck. With the staff just narrowly evaded, Longshot raced to the side and put all his weight on his right leg, kicking straight at Eclipse's wrist in an attempt to knock the staff from his grasp, if not fracture his wrist. Before the sound of the staff harshly striking the mat could even reach the walls of the amphitheater, Longshot bolted around Eclipse, swinging his bow straight towards his upper back and dove across the arena, landing on his back and rolling over flat on his stomach. He drew three arrows and fired, aiming for his opponent's triceps and right shoulder. Judging by the trajectory of his attacks, Longshot assumed he was right handed. The arrows ripped through the air, and if Eclipse had been at all fazed by his attacks, he would be hard pressed to get out of the way in time.

Jason was out of shape. Not only was he having a hard time adjusting to his legs, even though he had only lost control of them a short time ago, but he hadn't fought like this in a long time. He'd had his powers since the day he was born and was always subconsciously using them. Nowadays he tended to keep his distance in battles, to wave his hands and let his powers do the work while he cheered on his team-mates. Yet even in the days when he was hiding his powers, pretending to be human, fighting on the streets... Even then he used his powers. It was barely noticeable but he was always distorting his gravitational field, allowing him to leap through the air with ease and even giving his attacks more power, more impact. In fact, the majority of Eclipse's agility came from his manipulation of the gravitational force. Without it, he wasn't even close to peak human. Longshot was fitter, stronger, faster and better trained, with a more accurate ranged weapon to boot. Eclipse only had one possible advantage: his smarts. 
 
While he had received training from Nighthunter, not all of that was fight training. Jake wanted his apprentice to be able to hold his own in a fight if he ever lost his powers for whatever reason, but he knew that Jason wouldn't be able to maintain the level of fitness or fighting ability he needed to be anywhere near the league of any of the skilled martial artists in the world. With incredible powers at his fingertips, Eclipse would obviously rarely use his fighting skills and so he wouldn't be as effective in that area. Instead, Nighthunter chose to focus on developing his student's tactical mind. The teen hero had always been a great inventor, all of his gadgets were crafted by his own hand, and he was incredibly intelligent for his age, despite never attending school. The duo set about crafting new gadgets that would help Jason if he was ever up against a threat his powers couldn't handle. They came up with battle strategies and plans. This was going to be the hardest battle of the Teen Wonder's life, and he was going to have to use his brain more than ever. 
 
His bo-staff sliced through thin air as the archer dodged the blow, delivering a kick to his attacker's wrist in an attempt to disarm him. Eclipse swiftly spun his staff around his hand, swatting the threatening foot out of the way. But there was a surprising amount of force behind the kick, and it caused the staff to continue its rotation with great speed and smash into the hero's knee. Wincing at the horrible feeling in his leg, Jason started to wish he hadn't fixed the connection in his spine. He felt Longshot's bow slapping him in the back as his opponent natrually tried to regain some distance. Before the leader of heroes could even turn around to face his enemy, he felt a sudden pain. Blood spattered as an arrow sliced through a section of his upper arm, continuing to sail through the air, along with another arrow which barely missed a similar target. Then, agony erupted in his right shoulder, as Jason snapped his head around, eyes wide, to see that one of his opponent's weapons was embedded in his flesh. He quickly used his left arm to try and reach around to tear the stalk off, but he couldn't get his arm around far enough to get a good grip. 
 
Grimacing, Eclipse span around and faced his opponent. His nano-suit responded automatically again, forming a sling out of his costume for his right arm to rest it, as the bo-staff retracted and was hidden in the folds of the suit. For the time being, that limb was useless. Running through his list of gadgets in his head, Jason selected three jet propulsors from his belt and they were immediately carried by the nano-bots, attaching to his left wrist and both ankles. These jets were never designed for sustained flight, but in such an enclosed space Eclipse didn't need that, he just needed a way of closing the gap between himself and his opponent. While his sling was being formed and his propulsors were attaching themselves, he also directed three explosive crescent-rangs to his left hand. Tossing them in Longshot's direction, they all missed him by a long distance, scattering around the arena randomly. Cursing under his breath to make his performance more convincing, the hero was sure that his opponent would simply believe that Jason had no aim with his left hand. The truth was that he was equally skilled in throwing from either hand, this was all just setting up the next stage in his plan. 
 
Activating the jets in his feet, Eclipse was hurled across the arena, soaring horizontally around 5 feet above the ground. Pulling back his left arm ready for impact, it only took a second before he was close enough to his enemy to strike. Activating the jet on his wrist, his fist was sent flying in a rocket-powered punch, directed towards the side of Longshot's jaw. The speed of his approach combined with the speed of his fist would make this a particularly devastating blow. After this attempt to shatter his enemy's face, Jason pulled back with his torso, allowing his feet to continue on their path in an attempt to deliver a harsh, double-booted kick to Longshot's ribcage. This combination of a punch and kick all happened within the space of a second. If the kick was successful it would knock the archer backwards and cause him to end up right near one of Jason's 'failed' crescent-rangs, which was embedded in the mat. Once Longshot was close enough to the device, Eclipse would use his nano-suit to send a mental message to it, causing the projectile to detonate. Regardless of whether this attack succeeded or not, the teen hero would summon another rang, this time an electrically charged one, and hurl it at the archer, seeking to embed it in his upper leg, the same place Jason was originally hit by Longshot's arrow.

Longshot watched as two of the three arrows hit their targets. His aim was a bit off from exhaustion and few people knew how difficult it was to fire three arrows at specific targets at the same time. Keeping his feet planted on the mat, Longshot tossed his bow to the side of the cage, tightening his fists, ready to take on whatever else Eclipse had up his sleeve. As much as he wanted a good sparring match with the apprentice of Nighthunter, this was nothing like a simple practice fight. They were in this to win and it killed Longshot on the inside to cause his ally so much pain in order to obtain victory. Eclipse remained standing, even as the brunt of the pain started to hit him. As much as he'd become reliant on his powers, Eclipse still had a mental discipline that Longshot respected. Taking a short moment to collect himself, Eclipse's nanobot suit formed into a sling for his injured arm and he started to fly. At first, Longshot was perplexed as to how he regained his powers, but he soon noticed a number of miniature jet propulsors placed around his body. Without even a moment's hesitation, Eclipse flung three of the same bladed projectiles at Longshot. He was determined to not let them do the same damage as last time. He had managed to stop the bleeding, but the cut was still quite painful.  
 
As the blades whisked through the air towards the archer, they all went off in their own directions, striking different parts of the cage. Eclipse muttered a swear under his breath at the sight of the incredibly drastic miss of his weapons. It didn't seem at all like him to miss by so much distance, but then again, he was tossing with his left hand and in flight. Most people didn't know how significantly wind could interfere with a shot. Eclipse was quickly closing the gap between them and coming up fast, ready to make up for the miss. Longshot was still hard pressed to get that belt away from Eclipse, he just had absolutely no idea how he was going to do it. As he came within feet of Longshot, Eclipse activated another propulsion device inside his wrist and his hand was sent flying, clenched tightly into a fist, directly towards its target, Longshot. "Wait, what?!" Longshot blurted out, too confused by the fist simply flying off of Eclipse's arm to remember to duck. He was struck across the cheek with incredible speed and strength, the force of the blow being enough to send him stumbling back as he felt a spurt of warm blood spring up against his tongue.  
 
Before even getting a chance to fully recover, Longshot was struck in the chest with devastating force as Eclipse threw his feet out in front and used his momentum to kick his opponent off his feet. The archer sailed through the air and crashed down on the mat, rolling and tumbling towards the cage wall, stopping just inches short of the fence humming softly with electricity. "Unh... N-Not gonna... lose." he whispered to himself, laying a hand down on the mat and struggling to get himself to his feet. His chest ached and he took deep, wheezing gasps to get even a bit of air. With his back turned to his enemy, he rolled up his mask over his nose and spat out a mouthful of blood, staining the white canvas mat a deep shade of red. He wiped his lip and got his feet under him, hopping to his feet. Trying to get his bearings again, he looked around and what he saw made him realize that he may not have been fighting the greatest fighter in the world, but he was going up against one of the greatest tactical minds of the last twenty years. One of the blades was lodged in the support beam of the cage right beside him, and it was cunstructed just a bit differently then the ones previously aimed at him, it was a bit wider to make room for something. Something like... an explosive! "Oh crap!" Longshot exclaimed. He turned and jumped into the air, but not fast enough to get out of range in time. The blade detonated in a massive fireball that shook the entire cage. "GAAH!"  Longshot was caught in the force of the blast and sent flying through the air. He was tossed about like a rag doll as he plummeted to the ground below. With a harsh SMACK! he landed face down on the mat, his costume tattered and burned in places as a thin trail of smoke rose from his unconscious body.  
 
With a sudden, sharp gasp, he came back into consciousness, awakening to a world of pain. About half his arrows had fallen from his quiver and lay strewn about the battlefield. For a moment, all he wanted to do was slip back into unconsciousness, even for a little while. No more fighting. No more struggle. No more pain. No. He wouldn't let anything stop him, not after coming this far. If Eclipse had no trouble hurting him, then he wouldn't hesitate either. He rose to his feet, determined and ready to fight. At least in his mind. Currently, he was laying face down, still without the strength to get back up. He was willing to keep going, but this physical strain had finally stolen his stamina, the archer had to face that he'd reached his breaking point.  
 
He looked up at his victorious opponent, hovering above the mat a couple feet away. He held in his hand another boomerang and tossed it towards Longshot. Suddenly, a spark ran through him. A rejuvenating spark that pushed him just enough to get moving again. He rolled across the mat, getting clear of the blade's range then hopped to his feet, lunging past Eclipse and jumping through the air, grabbing his opponent from behind. He stood on the propulsors attached to Eclipse's ankles, pressing down hard on them as he wrapped his arms around Eclipse's neck and pulled his chin up, stretching his body tight and growled into his ear, "Going up!" With Eclipse's body aimed straight up like an arrow, the miniature jet engines sent them both flying straight into the ceiling of the dome. As they drew ever closer to the electrified cage, Longshot let go of Eclipse and dove off. He landed on the mat, not so gracefully due to his impaired movement, but mostly unharmed. With only a split second before he was sent careening into the electrified fencing, Eclipse would have to act and think fast if he wanted to get out unharmed.

Eclipse grinned as all of his attacks proved successful. His punch collided, his kick knocked the wind out of his opponent and the explosion did its job too. This battle was going surprisingly well, even if he did have no powers and an arrow in his shoulder. Yet even as Longshot lay there on the floor, unconscious, Jason knew this battle was far from over. He had worked with Longshot too many times to think for one moment that he would give up. When the Warsman declared war on Earth, Longshot was one of the few heroes to meet the goliath on the field of battle, standing alongside men like Eclipse, Slight and Tank, with their incredible natural powers. Armed with only his bow and a quiver of arrow, Longshot fought valiantly against someone ridiculously out of his league, using his brains and keeping his distance, out of sight, crippling the alien invader with his projectiles while the others created the distraction he needed. Longshot was a man who wouldn't back down, even against impossible odds. No matter the mission, he would never give up, even if it meant he had to participate in a muscial hosted by his arch-nemesis DaggerKlutz, alongside his friend Eclipse... Good times. 
 
Still, Jason knew that for a superhero, an explosion like that was nothing and pretty much any injury they sustained during the battle would be healed once they got back home. So he wouldn't hold back and he knew that his opponent wouldn't either. As the young hero predicted, his archer friend snapped back to reality with a sudden intake of air, returning to the waking world while the Teen Wonder hovered above the mat with his jets, waiting for Longshot to make the next move. Or rather, waiting for the Bullseye Bowman to get back up. As he tossed his electrically charged crescent-rang, Jason smiled as Paxton rolled out of the way of the attack. The leader of the damned still had some fight in him yet. Eclipse was surprised by his friend's agility, as he always was, when the archer leapt up and wrapped his arms around the teen's neck. Jason always had a hard time remembering that the bowman actually had some superpowers. 
 
At first, Eclipse panicked at the thought that Riggs was going to snap his neck, before calming down a little as he realized that, King of the Vine tournament or not, his friend wouldn't try to outright kill him like that. Or maybe he would. The two heroes didn't know each other that well, really... Jason made a mental note to ask Paxton if he walked to get some pizza once the competition was over. As it turned out, Longshot was not trying to snap his neck. Instead, standing firmly on the jets attached to Eclipse's heels, he said "Going up!" as the jets propelled the duo towards the ceiling of the arena. Struggling to gain freedom, Eclipse was forced to resign himself to the fact that Longshot was a lot stronger than him and had no choice but to go wherever the archer wanted to take him, silently cursing the fact that he'd allowed the guy to get the drop on him. 
 
Once they were close enough, Paxton released his opponent and fell back to the ground, as Jason was sent hurtling towards the ceiling of the cage, like one of Longshot's many arrows. Unlike the rest of the cage, where the electrical currents were hidden behind the wall and not easily accessed, electricity danced across the entire ceiling, apart from the access hatch in the centre of the arena, from which Eclipse had entered the fight. Immediately throwing his arm upwards, so the jet so it was pushing him back down to Earth, Jason soon realized that he had gained far too much momentum to stop now. He braced himself for impact and muttered "Plan B, then." Rotating his body through the air, he directed his legs towards and roof and fired the jets up to their maximum, facing vertically downwards. This way he would hit the ceiling with much less force, but nothing could really stop him at this point. Simultaneously, he used his nano-bots to carry his grapple-gun from his belt to his right hand. He had no need for a grappling weapon, with his powers, but as he only carried the belt in case he was depowered he constantly had it with him anyway. Pointing his arm down to the ground, the wrist jet now deactivated, Eclipse aimed at Longshot and fired, as the claw rocketed down to the ground. 
 
The moment it was fired, Jason felt his skin and flesh around his lower legs start to burn. He had made contact, and the electricity was starting to flow through his entire body. If the grappling claw made contact with Longshot it would grip him firmly, and the electricity would flow down through the metal cable and into Paxton too. Eclipse would be hit by the brunt of the electricity, but Longshot wouldn't escape unscathed if the grappling claw hit the target. As the electrical current surged through his legs, Eclipse's eyes widened. He'd been hit by lightning before, he thought he could handle the pain. Obviously his power over the electromagnetic force had lessened the effect of an electrical attacks he'd suffered before that point, because the pain he felt was totally overwhelming. He felt like the millions of nano-bots covering his skin had become an army of wasps, swarming over his body and tearing into his flesh with their razor sharp stingers. He tried to block out the pain, focusing on other things, happy times, as Jake had taught him. He thought of his first friend, Arach-Knight... Then as a a jolt of pain flashed through his body, his thoughts shifted to his feelings when Andrew disappeared and he abandoned the Titans himself... He thought of CellPhoneGirl. More pain. Blair was mourning the loss of her best friend Moonglow, a death Jason felt responsible for...  War Killer and Talon. Agony. Charles and Laura were left at the mercy of Gambler as Eclipse was pulled away from the scene against his will... 
 
Electricity racked his entire body, filling his mind with numbing pain and twisting every happy memory he had into death and misery. This was the life of a hero, after all. Moments of happiness were fleeting and few, while the hero was forced to solider on and brave all the horrors the world had to throw at them. The electrical blast reached Jason's spine, and flowed into the gap between the two halves. His entire body went into spasm, as his legs violently kicked out against his will. It seemed to last an eternity, but eventually, the power of gravity prevailed, and the Teen Wonder finally fell from the ceiling to the safe ground below. Barely conscious as he fell, his mind was still on the battle as he crashed into the ground, at a loss for what his next move should be with no idea whether his grappling claw had attached itself to Riggs or not. Feeling returned to his body, along with the agony of the electricity combined with his fall. Sensing something near to his leg, Jason slowly looked down, his head juddering as he did so. With a hysterical chuckle, still lying flat on his side, Eclipse grinned as he lifted his right leg into the air and pushed it out behind him. He had landed right next to one of his three explosive crescent-rangs. Swinging his foot across, his boot collided with the boomerang, snapping it off the edge which had embedded itself into the ground and giving it enough force to soar through the air, as it span through the air towards it's target: Longshot.

Longshot watched as Eclipse twisted and maneuvered in the air, trying to get the propulsors ahead of him in order to break his momentum to no avail. With his body about to crash straight into the electrified fencing, Eclipse aimed a grapple gun and fired, aiming straight towards Paxton. The anchor of a grapple gun was intended to pierce concrete. If it struck its target, even on one of the carbon fiber plates protecting his body, it would puncture him and quite possibly prove lethal if it hit anything vital. Not to mention that the second Eclipse crashed into the fence, he would become a conductor and pass the electricity through directly into him. With the adrenaline flowing in the heat of battle, Longshot's brain was in overdrive and he had already fully considered the effects of the attack while the cable was unfurling and the hook sailed through the air towards him. As if his mind had been on pause for a moment, everything got fast again and he ducked nimbly to the side, narrowly evading the grapple as it struck into the mat, sending a majority of the electricity through. It provided a ground for Eclipse, so he wouldn't be entirely devastated by the shock. There would be no severe nerve damage, speech impediments or blindness or anything else of the sort, but that wasn't to say it would be painless. The teen wonder cried out and convulsed, the random spasming of his muscles forcing his legs to keep pressed up against the fence. Paxton knew his pain. He'd been electrocuted before, dozens of times. It was part of his training when he was young. In the middle of the night, his trainers, the Horizon assassins, would take him from his room and he would awaken in a dark room where they beat him and cut him and spat in his face. They said it was to teach him not to give in if he was captured and tortured, but he knew it gave them a sick pleasure only that kind of person could have, the kind of person he used to be. But he didn't know pain. He hadn't learned pain until the day he went rogue, the day he tossed down his weapon and said no more, the day his insides burned and his skin tore and blistered and his hair fell out in clumps with blood in the roots. From that day on, he carried a mark that could never be denied, a mark that showed his penance and condemned him to a life of atonement to repay all the wrongs committed in his past. Horizon had stolen him from the life he could have had, but they gave him one gift. They trained him to be the best. Even as he fought to tear down everything they stood for, he used that training. Now, standing up against one of his own kind, fighting in a competition observed by the scum of the earth, he was fighting for one reason and one reason alone: to prove that he was the best.  
 
Finally, Eclipse plummeted to the ground, muscles still twitching with a spark. Longshot listened in and heard his heart racing at an uneven pace like the gallop of a lame horse. Paxton raced across the ring towards his fatigued and wounded adversary. He decided that if Eclipse was unconscious, he would remove the arrow, stitch his wounds and call off the fight. If he was awake, he would deliver the knockout blow. Suddenly, the young hero began to chuckle and swung his trembling leg with enough force to snap the blade embedded in the ground. He was definitely awake. Suddenly, the remainder of the blade flung through the air. It didn't soar or glide or anything it was designed to do, it simply had enough force to... hit Longshot. As he ran, he dove through the air headfirst, letting the blade fly right beneath him. He broke the fall with his hands and rolled forward as the explosive went off. The force shook the ground beneath him and he fell on his side before he could get to his feet, but it mostly didn't hurt him.  
 
Recovering from the explosion, the archer lunged forward and landed over Eclipse, pinning him down, bringing his face right up to his opponent's. He grabbed two arrows from his quiver and drove them into the ground at either side of Eclipse's head and simply whispered to him, "Defend yourself." before slamming his head into the boy wonder's forehead. He immediately jumped off and backed away, drawing another two arrows and holding them as close range weapons. This was where he would truly test Eclipse's mettle. No jets. No bombs. No gadgets. Nothing. This was when the real fight began.

As he raised his trembling head, Jason noticed that both of his previous attacks had failed to do much. He hadn't factored in how much the electrical shock would reduce his accuracy, but was incredibly grateful that it hadn't affected his mind or caused any brain damage, since that was the only advantage he actually had over the archer. Unable to react or move out of the way, Eclipse was helpless as he opponent leapt on top of him, pinning him to the floor. The hero struggled against his old ally, but if he was too weak to hold him off before hitting the ceiling, he was certainly too weak now. The Teen Wonder was powerless to resister as two arrows were embedded into the mat either side of his head and Longshot brought his own head crashing down, smashing it into the forehead of his opponent. As he felt Paxton sand up and back away, Jason's mind was swimming from the harsh blow to his skull. He squinted at Longshot and tried to focus, but as he did so, memories of his mentor, Nighthunter, flashed into his mind. The two images overlapped each other as both Paxton and Jake's words echoed in Jason's mind... 
 
"Defend yourself." 
 
 
"Are you kidding me?!" Jason had yelled at his mentor, as they stood in a huge metallic room. A loud humming noise was rumbling throughout the structure, as machines worked to suppress the powers of Eclipse. This was a few hours after the attempt to rescue Sovereign Son's body from the clutches of the Order of Santa Camisia. Eclipse, War Killer and Talon had engaged Gambler in combat, and as soon as Jason had delivered a single kick to the King of Kings, a failsafe in his nano-suit teleported him to this room. Nighthunter had implemented this, to activate whenever his apprentice was up against a threat he wasn't yet ready for. 
 
"You need to learn to fend for yourself without your powers." Jake Hamilton replied simply, circling around his student in his own nano-suit. "This room is proof that they can be suppressed, what happens when someone not-so-friendly gets their hands on technology like this?" Rushing forwards, Jake swung his bo-staff as Jason withdrew his own, and the two staffs clattered together. With his superior reactions, Nighthunter leapt backwards and swung the staff again, this time knocking the learner's legs out from underneath him, as the young Dodd crashed to the ground, his staff rolling away. "Again." Nighthunter demanded, kicking the pole back to Eclipse. "Defend yourself." 
  

Shaking his head like a dog ridding itself of water, Eclipse returned to the present to see Longshot standing and waiting for him, wielding two arrows like knives. Feeling his nano-suit prickle all over, Jason realized that he hadn't considered the effect the electrical shock from the roof would have had on the technology of his costume... He heard a robotic voice echo in his mind. "System Reboot Commencing: Defensive Procedure Activating." Frowning, Jason wondered what defensive procedures it was talking about. But before he could question this, he was stunned into silence as his arms were both lifted into the air by an unseen force. His eyes wide with concern, Eclipse felt his hands tighten around the two arrows embedded in the ground and tear them out, wielding them in a similar way to Riggs. Casting his eyes around for the source of this intervention, it was only when his body automatically took a fighting stance that he realized what was going on... The nano-suit was controlling him. 
 
If LstPaladin was the God of Thunder, Nighthunter was the God of nano-technology. There wasn't anything the man couldn't do with a handful of the impossibly tiny machines, and it seemed that Jake had added yet another failsafe to the costume. In the case of a system reboot, the nano-suit would direct all its attention to controlling the body of the wearer and, in this case, the artificial intelligence controlling these movements was based on Jake Hamilton... With a grin, Jason realized that now, for all intents and purposes, Longshot was fighting Nighthunter. Had he been in control of his body, the movements of the Force of Nature would have been slow, deliberate and laboured after all he had endured. He was, however, on auto-pilot, and his body was moved around in whatever ways the suit saw fit... Regardless of how much pain it caused Jason to move his recently-electrocuted body and particularly to move his right shoulder, with the arrow embedded inside it. 
 
Rushing forwards and keeping low to the ground, Eclipse felt his arms push forwards and then to one side, attempting to knock the arrows his opponent wielded to one side. Simultaneously, he grimaced as his legs were stretched out, his left leg reaching high into the air as he rotated clockwise on the spot, his foot attempting to smash itself into the face of Longshot. Continuing the momentum from the kick, he continued the spin and, holding his right leg horizonatlly, tried to smash his leg into Paxton's hip. His right arm followed suit at the same time, lifting up into the air, before, as he regained his footing after the kicks, brought it crashing down, attempting to slice the tip of the arrow through Riggs' chest. Jason hadn't the slightest idea how deep this cut would be, after all, he wasn't in control of his actions, and the suit wasn't listening to any of his mental commands. Immediately rolling out of the way, to avoid any counter attacks, the nano-suit pulled Eclipse's arms back, behind his head, and then swung them down and forwards, releasing the arrows as they were fired at Longshot's torso. Jason then retreived his extensible bo-staff from his belt once more and waited, staff at the ready, to face whatever else the archer had planned for him.

Eclipse slowly arose from the mat, shaking his head, obviously in a delirious state. He could hardly stand and there was a weary look in his eye. They were both tired, beaten bruised and scarred. It had to end soon. The young champion ripped the two arrows from the mat and suddenly, he took a fighting stance and seemed revitalized. Paxton, in turn, took his stance and was ready to fight. Eclipse raced forward and with extreme agility, unleashed a flurry of attacks at Longshot, swinging his legs and jabbing and slicing with the arrows. Longshot was struggling to keep up, ducking as the sound of air parting ways around an arrow drew closer to his head and put up his forearms to block the wild kicks that didn't stop coming. This was impossible. You can't just go from broken to fixed in a heartbeat, and these techniques didn't match. Eclipse was good, but he was fighting better then usual, and many of these techniques weren't in his arsenal. It became immediately obvious to Longshot that he wasn't fighting Eclipse, he was fighting Nighthunter. 
 
With a moment between attacks, Longshot returned fire and slashed and kicked, but Eclipse started moving again and suddenly, a shockwave ran all through the archer's body, starting at his core and shooting out to this head, his fingers, his toes, then went on its way back, then it began to hurt. He glanced down to see Eclipse's shin crushed into his hip. He staggered back and all the other pains began to reach his brain over the deafening, pounding drumbeat of his heart. He was cut, bleeding. A dozen long slices ran across his skin. Eclipse was too fast, it was as if every injury he'd sustained in battle, every bit of fatigue Longhsot had worn out of him had been washed away and all that was left was pure adrenaline. Again, the Teen Wonder charged. Longshot evaded his attacks and somersaulted across the mat, gaining a bit of distance.  
 
With unparalleled skill, Eclipse flung both arrows at Longshot. He dove out of the way, but as he struck the mat, he realized that one of the arrows had pierced his shirt and was jabbed into his abdomen, just under his ribs. "Nnnn..." The archer gritted his teeth and groaned as he snapped the arrow shaft and staggered to his feet. He looked to the unstoppable fighter ready to finish him off and chuckled faintly. "Okay..." he said with a raspy whisper of a laugh, "I'm out of ideas." With that, he dropped to his knees. Eclipse drew his bow staff and Longshot leaned forward on his hands and knees, head bowed. He panted heavily. This was the end. This was his defeat. "Well, except this one." he said. Suddenly, he picked a cartridge from his bandoleer and hurled it at Eclipse's face, a gas cartridge. As it went off, it would shoot a heavy whiff of anesthetic gas into his face and momentarily blind him. Longshot lunged forward with his arms out, ready to sweep Eclipse's legs out from under him and send him face first into the mat. This was his last burst of energy and his last hope. If this didn't stop Eclipse, nothing would and Longshot would undoubtedly lose.