[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce nodded at Jeff and Mikey on his way out, waving to signal to the wind sage that his advice warranted no thanks. He smiled, already set on preparing his body for the new abilities he'd have to learn before the final encounter.

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~ End Of Chapter 151 ~

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~ Chapter 152 ~

_{Five Strikes}

Mikey guided Jeff towards the battlefield. "Could you set it to basic? I don't want any environmental advantages on way or the other," Mikey asked, setting himself up on one side of the Arena. "Today's session will be a little strange. I'm going to set a single parameter that you must follow without fail..."

[SuperFlash]

""Ah sure, one moment.", Jeff said as he pulled put his tablet and began to put in a code which caused the earthly battlefield to fade and be swapped in for the regular metal one which normally remained there. He was a tad curious to what Mikey had in mind for him in this situation, but considering how everyone else's training so far felt more up front he couldn't help but question just where this was going.
"Strange huh?" the sage blurttered out finally as the room finished its transformation. "Just how so might I ask?"

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"You, and Jenso, seem to need more specific training in regards to your actions during battle. So, I've prepared a personal test for both of you, rather than simply taking your battle results from a 1-on-1 bout. I've already collected a great deal of Data on the both of you. That being said, here are the rules..."

"You will only be allowed to attack me five times during each session. I will have an unlimited amount of attacks, and I will be allowed to do as I please. If I can hit you twice, we will start over. Your goal is to either knock me out of the ring, or hit me twice before a match ends. We'll repeat this until you can consistently defeat me, over the next few hours." Mikey rose his hands and summoned his geyser gauntlets. "Blup will assist you throughout the battle if you need his help. Speak with him freely for advice and active tutoring. I won't be holding back, or helping you at all, though. Rely on Blup, and your own intuition to win."

[SuperFlash]

"Just Five!?" Jeff repeated out of disbielif, last time he baily managed to get in a strike with the 3 of them teaming up and now he was expected to pull this off in 5 strikes on his own? To be fair, the wind sage didn't like the odds not one bit, but it wasn't like that much mattered. This was the situation now and he was gonna be forced to have to work with it.

At this point, Jeff just let out another sigh before doing his best to calm his emotions. Obviously rushing in wouldn't be the plan for this fight so he just prepared to enter sage mode and push away his worries on this fight in order to be able to maintain it. "Well, if you say so... I guess I'm ready when you are."

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Mikey immediately launched a slicing wave of liquid towards Jeff with a swing of his right arm and began running across the arena.

[SuperFlash]

As the slicing wave of liquid approached Jeff, he didnt even bat an eye as he swiftly swung his arm upwards and cut the wave in half with a wind slice of his own that then dispersed the rest of the attack. The fact that he was allowed to use his power to his full potential made countering things like this much easier. He then proceeded to keep his distance by strafeing around Mikey while building up the wind around him for other potential techniques. With him now able to use his full speed now, it was easy to keep Mikey from gaining any distance on him.

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Mikey smiled and rose both his gauntlets to his face. "I guess I'm not allowed to hold back, otherwise this wouldn't be much of a test!" He shouted, well aware of the disadvantage he was at. The rules were there to encourage a more strategic approach from Jeff's side, it was true, but that was only half of the reason. Without the handicap, Mikey wouldn't have stood much of a chance against Jeff's speed. As talented as he was, his abilities lacked the raw power of the trumps. He had to do his best to emulate the Chaos crew, while allowing them to fight with all their strength. Mikey crossed his arms, following Jeff with his eyes as best he could. "I've always been curious about the sage-mode transformations," Mikey muttered, just loud enough for Jeff to hear, "You and Bruce pull out elemental affinities that make me completely envious. But I paid a visit to the great chasm, and had a chat with Chief Choofa." over the course of a few seconds, both of his gauntlets began to encompass his entire body, moving up his arms, over his shoulders, and down his torso, until every point of his figure was covered in a sheet of glowing liquid, similar to his Arki gauntlets.

"He told me I didn't have nearly as much power in me as you did, Jeff. But what little he could pull up... Well, it might make this a little more fair!"

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~ End Of Chapter 152 ~

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~ Chapter 153 ~

_{Imperfect Sea Sage: You Only Need Two Hits, Jeff!}

Mikey's body flashed, and released a flurry of water bullets in all directions, covering the entire scope of the battlefield with a continuous rapid-fire of projectiles that emerged from every point of his body, while he waited patiently for Jeff to approach.

"Come on!"

[SuperFlash]

"So you finally went to meet the chief huh?" Jeff smirked as his hair and eyes flashed blue as sage mode was activated. The sage had planned on releasing it in sudden burst in order to catch Mikey off guard like with that block earlier, but figured now that the circumstances had changed,a constant wind sage mode was entirely neceasary. "Have to say, I wasn't expecting this."
Jeff then spun around and whipped up a focused sphere of wind which surrounded him before expanding in burst to deflect any water bullets that came his way. If there waa one thing to know about attacks that hit in all directions, it was that they usually are the ones more easy to defend against. Still, just in case, the wind sage kept his guard up and was prepared to dodge any that somehow got through the wind shield while allowing his nanos to prepare something in his bag.
"It's gonna take more then that to get me to strike Mikey! Show me what you can really do!"

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Mikey's smirk tightened and he began running forward, continuously channelling his rain dance technique just in case Jeff lowered his wind barrier. Keep his guard up, Mikey suddenly bounded upwards, off the ground, as if he'd had his bubble boots active. But, without his battle bubble, he didn't stay up there like a balloon. From above, he began launching singular spear-like attacks composed of water with enough force behind them to pop most barriers.

[SuperFlash]

Jeff dashed forward as Mikey jumped, keeping his wind shield up to counter the barrage and used his speed. The rain dance had made his initial plan of attack a tad more difficult as having a constant attack striking everywhere made the mirages not an obvious option.
"Hey Blup", Jeff whispered to the small blob that somehow remained on his shoulder just find through all thisn "How likely is that water armor to stop my improved wind spheres from knocking him flying.. and the wind scythes too, could that get past you think?"
He continued to dodge the attacks while blasting the water away from him as he waited for an answer. The sage had a plan at this point, but he needed to know how likely it would work, especially seeing how few chances he would have at a success.

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"Blup! Head on? Likely hood of injury is fair. Though Mikey will likely disallow attacks from striking him if he sees them coming!" Blup bleeped. Mikey let himself plummet to the ground and land with a hard thud. He then turned to Jeff and ran directly towards him, still channelling his rain dance, which eventually began to leave behind a thin coat of water all along the arena's floor.

[SuperFlash]

"Well... maybe this will work then" The wind sage responded to Blup as he quickly spun once more before shooting his hands outwards and blowing all the water back out of the arena including the bit that had gathered on the floor. Jeff then split into 3 mirages which he then covered by a large wind sphere to block the rain dance along with placing two small wind spheres hidden inside the mirages. The Middle one being a mirage acted as the real one as it then prepared to launch the nanoshield to block any direct attack that Mikey would try while the left, being the real, and right mirage prepared to counter attack or dodge if necessary. 'I'm only gonna get one shot with this before Mikey figures whats up with the mirages.. he might see through them being fake, but he shouldn't be able to realize the attacks hiding inside them until it's too late...'

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Mikey didn't stop, extending both of his arms into sword-like appendages. He jumped over the middle clone, and slashed at it with a graceful flip, landing behind it regardless of if his attack hit or not, and careful to avoid its barrier while jumping overhead. This clone technique wasn't something easy to flush out. Mikey didn't have any energy reading abilities, and even if he did, trying to pick the real Jeff out of the trio would've been difficult. So the other option? Just hit them all! As he landed, Mikey spun around and slashed in a circular motion, aiming for all three of Jeff's clones, assuming that the first one he attacked was the real deal, so that he could at least read their movements, and possibly double-strike Jeff.

[SuperFlash]

The middle one did his best to duck the initial slash, but still was scratched slightly by the jump attack. Thankfully, it all didn't mater too much as it was indeed one of the fakes. Jeff's plan now was entirely in motion as Mikey turned in to slash all three of them with a horizontal strike. The three took no time hesitating with the the left Jeff jumping over the slash and the right going under as the middle one grinned as he launched the nanoshield out and allowed it to make direct contact with the slash.

Instead of blocking like you think a shield would do, the shield simply was sliced in half before exploding and creating a thick smokescreen that blasted right in Mikey's face which the left and right Jeffs took full advanatge of to charge in at full speed. "I bet you didn't expect that Mikey!" The middle mirage yelled before fading out.

The left real Jeff then using a mega burst of wind launched himself fullspeed fowards and aimed to swoop and slash Mikey with a swift and sudden strike while the right one fased back to reveal the wind sphere inside of it which like a large bullet launched itself at Mikey from his lower left side, planning to make contact right when the real Jeff was to strike.

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The middle clone was sliced in half immediately after its shield exploded, clouding Mikey's vision with a thick smokescreen. What happened? Mikey didn't take time to try and think over the possibilities. As soon as the smoke scattered, he dropped his body to the floor, the only possible evasion he could use if Jeff was on his way to attack. With his body flat against the floor, Jeff's wind-sphere struck the side of his armour leaving a small dent and forcing him to roll over. Jeff himself, would miss his slash. Of course, with all the water projectiles still spouting out of Mikey, and Jeff's own wind barrier displacing the smoke, he was able to react accordingly. Mikey clasped his hands together and rose his feet, before dropping his right arm to the ground, and using it to spin and propel himself up into Jeff with a screw-driver spiral kick.

While this happened, a great deal of the water bullets that were still in midair, stopped and redirected themselves above Jeff, combining into a single stream of water that quickly launched itself towards Jeff from above. Of course, as all this happened, Mikey's rain dance slowed down, and came to a stop.

[SuperFlash]

Upon Jeff's second attack missing, he couldn't help but be a tad unsatisfied then his plan didn't go off perfectly, but at the very least he did manage to catch him off guard enough long enough to land a first hit. Thus he shook it off and began planning how to make use of the last 3 strikes he had left. The wind sage kept with the momentum of his previous attack positioned himself to land against the side of the wall where he would then rebound off of it and blast himself to the wall on the other side full speed in order to get far out of range of Mikey's attack. Just in case the attack was able to keep up with his speed, Jeff readied another nanoshield and collected the nanobots which lied on the ground as he passed by them.

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Mikey's attack struck air, and his body flew up slightly, until he flipped onto his feet and faced Jeff. He rose both his arms and the water around his body began to flow around him like torrential streams, increasing his body size slightly, as if he'd just received a power boost. "Alright, no more fooling around!" Mikey shouted, lowering his left arm. He rose his right hand forwards, palm outwards, and his left arm began forming a bubble around itself that barely allowed any light through. The transparent barrier seemed bouncy, but shared the properties of his battle bubble on a smaller scale. The water around his right hand began to funnel towards the center of his palm like a miniature whirlpool, until it inflated slightly, like it was physically bending with elastic force. Then, a single projectile shot out of it. It seemed different from his usual variant of water bullet. Jeff's perception was barely enough to detect it. The sheer speed at which it ripped through the air created a sharp banging noise, like an actual bullet, and it flew towards Jeff at its top speed. Mikey might have not been too fast himself, but his water was another topic altogether. For what he lacked in raw power and speed, he made up for in flawless technique.