[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Necrophage]

Oz rubbed at his chin. He didn't immediately answer like Jenso. "Discerning and taking advantage of their weaknesses. Assuming we're talking about a real threat you can't just throw anything at them."

[SuperFlash]

"To be fair", Jeff started to say thinking hard over the answer itself, "I truly think those results may vary from foe to foe and the situation in which you are facing could completely change how you should approach it. Given for one like this we really need to discover the weakness and do our best to exploit them without mercy. And hesitation could ruin this. But as a general rule, I suppose is making sure nobody is gonna be caught in the crossfire or to examine your target for weaknesses while keeping distance."

[tex]

"Good answers," Luke said, nodding and raising both his arms, "But yer all wrong! Initiative! That's the key to victory!" Luke flicked his thumb across his nose and smirked. He turned to Jenso first. "If you're angry, in despair, annoyed, or you panic, bam! You lose the initiative!" He turned to Oz next. "Even if you've got a strategy in the making, you've gotta think on your feet! Can you really discern an enemy's every weakness if you're on the defensive? Even if you could, how would you regain the initiative? Bam! Fighting defensively has its place, but it also puts you at an innate disadvantage, kids!" Luke turned to Jeff and shook his head. "But if you spend too much time thinking, you'll lose the initiative faster than you can say end of the universe. Balance is key!" Luke rose his arms and grasped the back of his head. "Initiative! That will be the core of all your strategic training! And, as it just so happens, you three have covered a few of the necessary steps to gaining and maintaining the initiative!" Luke looked at the three heroes and thought things through.

"Today I was asked to train you three in particular. Alvios and Bruce are apparently scheduled for individual trainin'. I don't know what Mikey's got planned, but the kid seems to have a better head on his shoulder than I do, when it comes to the big picture!" Luke shrugged and lowered his arms. "But never mind that! Today we're gonna be going over three key topics. The properties of initiative, how to spot weakness, and how to send false signals!" Luke looked at Oz and pointed in his direction. "Oz! What do you think initiative means!?" He seemed rather pumped, running on a diesel fuel unlike anything anyone had ever seen, from Luke, anyways. Perhaps unlocking his Ki had revitalised his manly spirit!? Was that it? Luke kept his finger pointed at Oswald, and waited. "Well?"

[Necrophage]

Oz gave him a textbook styled answer. "Initiative is the ability to act quickly and often times first."

[tex]

"Sure, if you're lookin' in a dictionary," Luke blurted out, moving himself backwards. "In a sense, it is actin' quick, but more importantly, it's actin' first. Even more importantly, it's actin' with the most actin'! It's being the one in control, even if that means you're moving real slow, or at the speed of light. No matter how you've got it, the initiative is all about being in control of the battle," Luke explained briefly. "You, Jeff boy!" Luke suddenly called out, pointing at Jeff, "How can you tell when you've got the initiative?"

[SuperFlash]

"I suppose when you've acted quick enough to take your foe off guard or manage to get in that first blow in on them." Jeff said casualy in response. "That first attack always makes the most impact and in a lot of cases and ultimately determine if you win or lose the fight!" Jeff then made the imatation of him punching something along with a fake explosion to boot with it.

[tex]

"Wrong!" Luke said loudly, "Scoring the first hit does not always guarantee the initiative! Especially not if you don't know what they're capable of. Against somebody three times your size, for example.. What if your hit did nothing? the recoil of your attack leaves you open for a swift counter, and bam, it's as if you never had the initiative to begin with. Either because your attack was too weak, or they were hoping you'd attack them," Luke explained. "A lot of the time, a first strike is pretty effective, though! What truly determines initiative? It's divided into three categories!"

"Attitude, Damage, and Knowledge."

"When a fight starts off, it's all about getting the opponent to fear you first! If somebody is unwilling to strike out of fear or caution, rather then informed decision, or they reveal their fatigue, clumsiness, or ignorance, they've immediately lost the initiative in attitude! It'll affect other types of initiative directly, masking or revealing your weaknesses. Remember, sometimes it's not that they're fighting on the defensive, it's that they're fighting at a fraction of their potential out of fear, or they're too damaged to give it their all. Don't get the three confused."

"Damage is a big one. It's simple. Who's dealing the most damage? Somebody could be confident and fighting at their full potential the entire fight, never giving up that attitude initiative, but the amount of damage they've sustained is not something they can ignore. If you've dealt more damage, you have the initiative in damage! Judge this by how hard their hitting, whether they've changed their strategy in a peculiar way, or they're slow down, or getting angry."

"But who knows how to damage the other person? You can throw attacks out all you want, they can connect, but whether or not a person is damaged can be hidden. Knowledge is a big one, and it's what determines most fights when power and skill are at a match. Who knows more about the other person's abilities, and who knows how to counter them? Knowing whether or not you're dealing damage is crucial. Knowing whether or not you can take any more damage is also crucial. Who knows more? That's hard to tell, and you can trick yourself into thinking you've got the initiative in the knowledge battle."

"With that in mind, Jeff, Oswald, front and center. I want you two to spar!" Luke ordered, walking next to Jenso and waiting for the two to prepare. "I'll be watching carefully. Jenso, I want you to analyse the battle, and tell me who has the initiative, got it?"

[Necrophage]

Oz took his position and raised his stance. One foot forward, one back. One hand raised in front, one held back at his side. Without waiting for any further queue he shielded himself with energy raised just over the skin. He was ready.

[SuperFlash]

"oh geeze.." Jeff muttered to himself 'let the one whose known for being a wall and has abilty to fuck gravity fight the person who relies on speed to do anything. I guess we'll aee how this goes' He thought to himself as his eyes flashed blue and he readied himself as well with the wind stirring up around him.

[tex]

Luke looked at the two fighter and rose his hand. "Go for it boys!" He shouted, dropping his arm like an axe to signal the battle's start.

---

~ End Of Chapter 138 ~

[tex]

~ Chapter 139 ~

_{Speed V.S. Defense, Battle For The Initiative!}

[Necrophage]

Given the sign, Oz launched two force pulses from his hands at Jeff like a one-two punch combo aimed to hit him center mass. They were equivalent in power to an enhanced punch but were Oz's main tactic at probing his enemies' reactions.

[SuperFlash]

From the beginning, Jeff knew that the energy around Oz was potentially to be problem and that whatever he was gonna do with it, he knew that he shouldn't give it chance to build up and should try to interrupt it. Keeping in mind what he learned from Mikey he then aimed both of his hands and fired two orbs like bullets at the center of the pulses and attempted to counter them. From the looks of the attack you could tell they were slightly increased in density compared to before, but still needed much work to be perfect. On the decent chance that the wind orbs wouldn't be able to stop them, Jeff then followed up by boosting over to the other end of the platform with sage mode speed to get out of range of the potential oncoming force attack and then starts building up the wind once more by waving his hand around.

[Necrophage]

The force pulses ruptured against the wind bullets with a pair of small bangs eliminating both sets of projectiles. "You are indeed quite fast and accurate with that kind of response. How long can you keep it up?" Oz goaded. He turned quickly to Jeff as he was landing and launched another one-two force pulse combo at him.

[SuperFlash]

"I learned to be quick after being put in so many life death situations haha.. Geode knows, I wouldn't have survived half of them otherwise." He laughed feeling a tad better knowing the orbs were able to counter the pulses. The inventor then once again fired more wind orbs at the pulses along with doing a lower to the ground spin kick which launched a thick line of arki powered wind at Oz's legs with the intention of knocking him off balance.

[Necrophage]

Oz extended his front hand toward the ground, projecting a pulse of force directly at the wave in front of him and splaying it to his sides. He then raised the front hand directly toward Jeff and started charging something in the hand that he held behind him, away from any potential disruption. A sphere of energy began developing in the hidden hand. "Give me everything you've got. I can take it." Oz invited.

[SuperFlash]

"I'm sure you can... so fair enough." Jeff nodded as he then proceeded to kick at Oz from launching a sharp blade of wind at Oz before beginning to dash around the platform's edge firing 2 more in the process each being from different angles and also scattering tiny particles that would be unnoticeable to most people's eyes around him while doing so. 'If I'm going to be even able to land a proper blow on him, I'll have to go all out.' He thought to himself as he did the best he could to plan ahead for whatever Oz would throw at him.

[Necrophage]

Oz ducked under the first blade able to see it coming clearly, the second two were a bit more of a challenge. Jeff was clearly a faster opponent but he wasn't using anything with enough potency to cause real damage. With his free hand he projected a shield in front of himself that splashed the wind out to either side as it connected. He allowed the projected shield to drop as he brought his free hand down to the developed sphere of energy. "Luke, you might want to brace yourself." He warned. It was a clear warning to Jeff if he was fast enough on the uptake but this would regardless affect him. After all, he was going to be close to the middle of it.

"Vortex."

Oz chanted. The orb burst in his hands as the energy spread around Jeff's direct area and drew him toward the floor at his feet. Even the air in the large area was unsettled, drawing the unnoticed particles back to Jeff. The spinning force would pummel him as it slammed him toward the ground. It would either suppress him or he would need a way to overcome it, some technique - at least until Oz dropped the vortex.

[Jensoman]

Jenso cringed slightly as Luke asked him to judge his two companions. He did not like to do so. Both of them had their own unique fighting styles after all. Jeff was using his speed to his advantage to avoid attacks and attacking from different angles which may have been harder to counter considering the various angles, putting himself on the offensive while Oz remained on a well-prepared defensive stance which allowed him to charge up stronger techniques. "I guess...Oz has it for now? Since he's keeping Jeff's wind powers into account and using a charged-up technique that may be difficult to counter with wind?" He muttered to Luke.

[SuperFlash]

The second Oz yelled for Luke to take cover, Jeff prepped his hand gauntlet, aimed, and then fired it upwards at the ceiling using a burst of wind to strengthen the trajectory. It then grabbed hold of it by using nanobots which had shifted the onto head of the grappling hook to transform it into a super magnet, thus increasing the grip in order to help him overcome the gravity that was trying to ground him and allowing the inventor to pull himself to the ceiling where he would be hopefully away from the worst of the gravity's pull. Either way, he knew he'd most likely be able to feel at least part of the vortex, regardless of location, and would have to rely on sage mode for any super swift movements beyond this point.
"As expected... I knew this would be coming soon enough, but it's good to see just how exactly it works now.", the inventor stated showing high interest in Oz and his powers. This was clearly one of the most unique of the group's powers and he couldn't help but take more and more interest in this sparing match as time went on.
In the meanwhile, the particles that were being forced back to where the vortex formed then began to merge together and formed into a small sentry gun which then magnetized itself to the ground to stop itself from being pulled any further away. The gun then proceed to beep a few times as it took aim and then fired a small barrage of arcane bullets at Oz from bellow. This gave Jeff the time to magnetize his boots so that he'd be able to run on the ceiling and keep more so out of range of Oz.