Acradius vs. Joker pt 3

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Pain took on physical form as a strong flurry of moves ended with a backhand to the head. The two warriors had broken from their deadly dance of steel when Acradius made a masterful move and knocked the Vampire clean on his back. Joker flipped himself back up and leapt forward twisting his body in the air as he approached the warrior unarmed. A small cut under his left arm and few more on his back and abdomen had been sustained during his sword exchange with Arcadius and his most formidable Quantum. And the portion of his skull that was struck by Arcadius’s backhand continued to throb with pain as he landed in front of his opponent ready to employ a special maneuver of his own. Joker swung his right arm at Arcadius hoping to connect to the face but the sudden shift in time that Arcadius would counter with always allowed him to evade the most devastating of blows.

“ONLY ONCE” the Vampire Lord thought to himself as he now tripled his speed at the risk of having to lessen the strength of every blow. His hands, legs and in fact entire body had become invisible to the human eye. He was speeding himself up to a pace that moved out side the spectrum of light and still……still, he was not fast enough. “DAMN YOU !! ONLY ONCE!!” Joker poured his frustration out in his movements, using the back snap of a punch to redirect one of his blows into a consecutive flow of three strikes. The amount of power behind each kick or punch was not important, he only needed to strike with the most gentlest of grace for what he was trying to employ. Both forefinger and middle finger on each hand was extended as the Vampire struck out with combination after combination each ending with deadly accuracy and aim. But the strikes that the Vampire was truly trying to make always seemed to miss, the ones that would block certain nerves in his body were shot out in quick sporadic bursts of five blows. And it was those five blows that Arcadius always evaded. That is until Joker decided to call to his weapon which still lay far behind him on the floor as if forgotenly discarded. The Vengeance Blade lifted into the air and came spinning towards the two fighting warriors with out warning. Joker stopped in mid strike, bent backwards out of the way and fired off a kick to Arcadius’s stomach. Arcadius had heard the weapon coming from a distance and motioned to move from its path but just as he did so Joker nailed him in the gut with a kick. With the wind knocked out of him and having missed his chance to move the swirling sword came rushing at him and then stopped on a dime pointed right at his face. ‘The Journeyman’ looked down away from the blade and saw Joker kneeling low with his left hand extended forth and embedding his two fingers through a small opening in his armor that allows for movement of the waist. A devilish smile was on the Vampires face and the cold grip of numbness crept over Arcadius he realized that the he had fallen for a distraction. Joker had made the one strike he was looking for and had applied a crucial hit to a severe pressure point in the warrior’s nervous system.

Only his head was able to move, while the rest of his body became dead to his commands. Joker slowly rose up and brought his face directly in front of Arcadius and took hold of his sword. He leaned in close and sniffed the air around the immobile warrior, he paused for a brief second and then leaned back to meet the ‘Time Warrior’ eye to eye.

“I smell No Fear”

Arcadius’s face remained expressionless….

“That will change…”, Joker slammed his forehead into Arcadius’s nose with all the strength his barbaric anger could give him. The breaking bone from Arcadius’s nose released the blood that had been blocked by the ‘Nerve Tap’ Joker had performed allowing to him be free from his previous state of paralysis. Slumping back from the hit Arcadius kept his balance not allowing his knees to buckle under him. Joker roared and then swung his sword at Arcadius forcing him to defend. This time however, Joker had the advantage of fighting an already dazed opponent and was able to make the necessary nerve blocking strikes to inflict the ultimate equalizer. Joker dealt the final strike after using a series of combinations with his sword and fist. Nerves behind Arcadius’s left ear, right armpit, lower inner thigh, and pelvic backside were all struck at least once through movement openings in the armor plate. That specific combination of nerves being blocked resulted in a stuttering heart murmur. Arcadius did not realize that such a murmur was possible until he tried to swing from his defensive stance and take an offensive strike. Trying to ‘Time Boost’ himself in order to turn the table on the Vampire, Arcadius felt the sudden pull on his heart as if it was beating backwards reversing the blood flow in his body. Arcadius quickly pulled out of the ‘Time Boost’ and came back to normal clutching at his heart as if going into cardiac arrest. Jokers head rang with a painful swoon as he found himself with enough time to gather his strength and ready for his enemies reply. Arcadius was quickly recovering from the short reversal of blood flow as he was now back in the normal stream of time and the murmur having ceased showed him that each 'Time Boost' will result in the same affect.

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Damn. Pulled out one of my aces too soon. Gonna have to rely on something else for awhile. He tucked Quantum into its sheath with the usual flourish to clean the blood off. Good thing I've still got the other. Slowly, he rose to standing. The blood clouding his vision was fading fast, which he couldn't tell if it was a good or bad thing, considering that it was probably just going out his nose. Focusing through the pain of the nerve strikes, plus the wounds from the swordfight, he glowered at the vampire. His lower ribs, right hip, and left shoulder were still trying to scab up from that. Slowly, assuring that nothing would prevent him in doing so, the Time Warrior assumed his Thai Kwon Do fighting stance. He could see Joker tense up, as if expecting something bizzare, or maybe another Time Boost at a great hazzard to his opponent's health. Seeing none of these things, the vampire also sheathed his blade, and dropped into a martial arts stance. After staring each other down, and sizeing each other up, the two combatants charged at the same time. Knowing an all-out brawl like this in either of their conditions could prove very, very bad, Acradius took the high road. Seven feet from where they would have met, the man took a mighty leap. A full twenty feet in the air, and back down in a dropkick. Joker saw the attack coming from miles away, and simply took a step back, letting Acradius hit the ground in a crouch a few feet from him. Taking advantage of the situation, the vampire brought both of his fists down in a strike to the blonde man's back. Though the armor there was tough, Joker could still hear cartilage snap and pop beneath. What came next could have been expected, seeing as Acradius was already in a crouch, but nowhere near the magnitude it was. The Time Warrior ripped out an enormous uppercut to the chest with his right hand, at the same time forcing his opponent up with his mind, and discharging a point-blank burst of energy from the Elue ring on his right middle finger. The result sent the King of Vampires sailing up with such great speed, that he impacted into the very roof of the Great Hall of Moria. The glowing of both the ring and his eyes ceased, as Acradius dropped back into his fighting stance, and waited for Newton to prove himself yet again.