Ironhide wastes zero time and leaps toward me, but this time around, I can see it coming. He reaches out to grab me, but I sidestep and deliver a kick to his stomach.
Bait and counter.
"Hitting me in the stomach is pointless, you know. You can't break my defenses. Give up." Ironhide pleads.
"I'm not trying to," I say as I deliver another kick to his stomach. This time, he counters with a straight punch to my chest.
Clank!
"My power again?" He asks.
I don't respond, but I'm glad that worked. I wasn't sure if it would. I can now use two powers at once. Miss Claire and I came up with a strategy for my fighting style, centering around two different styles. Each style has Mr. Eun-ji's power as its core. One of them is a combo of Ironhide and Mr. Eun-ji's power, and the other is a combo of Mr. Eun-ji and Miss Claire's power.
A defensive mode and an offensive mode, that, alongside my improved physicals, give me a small chance of victory.
Ironhide swings again with a right hook, and I duck under it. I am tempted to counter, but I use precognition instead, the words that Mr. Eun-ji told me a few days ago when he swung by to help with my training and give me my mask back. "Use it like I do. Precognition isn't effective in higher levels of combat; you won't be quick enough to see their full movements before they do it in most cases. Use it to see slight twitches and movement to predict their next move." I hear his voice in my head.
I use precognition and see a slight twitch in his right leg. So I assume he is going to throw a right kick at me as a follow-up, so now isn't a good time to counter. I jump to the right to avoid his kick, moving out of the range of a right kick. But I get hit in the side with a left kick. It causes me to stumble slightly, and Ironhide takes that opportunity to swing at me with his right fist.
3…
2…
1!
I switch to my offensive mode and make a portal below me, and I fall through, landing behind a car so I can catch my breath slightly.
The strategy that Miss Claire and I made. I'm not good at switching between modes yet. It isn't something I'm used to. So change between them in two-minute intervals so Ironhide can't get adjusted to fighting any specific one.
I make two shadow tendrils under the car I'm behind and use them to fling the car at Ironhide. The car nails him right in the face. His nose is bleeding.
I rush in and throw two more tendrils at him directly, and he lifts his arms to deflect them. I take that opportunity to hit him with a one-two combo before sidestepping and jumping up to kick him in the chin at my new angle.
He grabs my leg and swings me around before throwing me into a concrete pillar, sending me straight through it.
When I stand up, he is already right in front of me. He swings with his right fist. I bob under the punch and send four tendrils at his back. It causes him to glance behind him, and I take that opportunity to jump up and deliver a kick to the chin. Landing on the foot I kicked him with, I spin around and hit him with a back kick to the stomach. It doesn't do much thanks to his defense; however, the idea is to get him tired.
The main idea of Miss Claire and I's strategy. Get Ironhide tired, outlast him in stamina. Using your powers, no matter who you are, will strain you, and you'll eventually have to deactivate them. Different people have different amounts of stamina when it comes to that.
Outlast. I must outlast him. Somehow.
Targeting the iron covering his body can help with that. Bait and counter, make him strain his power against me. In theory, switching between powers consistently should make me strain different parts of my aura, thus outlasting him. And my experience stretching my aura in different ways might help too.
Ironhide grabs my leg. He throws me towards the nearby cars. I hit the windows and fly through the glass. I hear it shatter as the glass goes flying, and some of the shards stick into me. After flying through five cars, I land on my back, struggling to stand.
I see a car above me, a looming threat that is going to fall on top of me. I make a portal below me. I reappear right above Ironhide. He grabs me by my cloak. He slams me onto the concrete.
I slowly try to stand up. He is just standing there, looming over me.
"You aren't winning this. Give up." He tells me.
At this rate. He's right. I won't. I need to reinvent. What can I do?
I fully get back up on my feet. I probably should have switched to my defensive mode by now. But there's one thing I want to try. I'm unsure of whether it's selfishness or a desire for something new in battle.
I jump back, glass still sticking into me. I make a portal in front of me and ten portals around Ironhide. With both Miss Claire's and Mr. Eun-ji's powers, this should be possible.
I punch through the portal as Ironhide proceeds to get hit by ten shadow fists in different places on his body. Two on his face, one on his back, three on his legs, and four on his front. I waste no time and switch to my defensive mode. Causing the glass in me to shatter. Ironhide leaps towards me and lands a hit directly to my chest with his right fist. Following up with a punch from his left with two layers of iron coated on it.
It knocks me back, but it deals little damage due to my own iron coating. He leaps forward and swings at me, and at the same time, I swing in return. We trade blows.
We proceed to trade blows again. And again. And again. I go to punch him in the stomach, but he dodges and kicks me, sending me back again as he moves in and grabs my leg, throwing me into a nearby pillar.
As I slam against it. He rushes back toward me, he throws a jab with his right, but I roll off the pillar in the nick of time.
The pillar shatters, and the debris goes flying everywhere, obscuring his view of his surroundings. I take that opportunity to get behind him. I attempt to copy the technique he's used multiple times. I decoat my left leg and move it to add extra coatings of iron onto my fist.
Huh. Not hard.
I swing at his back—the hit lands, causing him to stagger. I don't move in and take advantage. I move back and run up to the next floor of the parking garage. Switching to offensive mode, I summon as many tendrils as possible on the floor below me and have them shoot out. I make a portal and fall through it, returning to the floor below. However, I do not see Ironhide.
He's gone?!
I turn around and see him towering over me. A menacing glare shot down at me. "It seems I underestimated you again." He says plainly, as his face comes into my view, I notice some small cut marks on his forehead, cheeks, and jaw.
My first tangible damage. I've probably worn him down a bit by now. But according to Mr. Eun-ji, he fought Ironhide for six hours. I can't do that. There's only one way out of it. Deal more damage than Mr. Eun-ji did. I need to wear him out faster before I am the one who gets worn out.
He takes a swing at me, cocking his fist back. I sidestep it. That's something I've noticed. He doesn't have proper fighting technique. Has he always simply relied on his superior defense so he could fight like that? Technique-wise, I'm better. But he still has me beat in every other facet. I jump back again.
I realize my mistake. I should have moved forward instead of backward. Ironhide closes the distance. I am standing on the edge of the parking garage, with Ironhide right in front of me.
I'm cornered.
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do until I hear a voice ring out: "Hey, kiddo! Look!" I turn my head and see Miss Claire down there on the streets, fighting every D and C rank hero at once, and Cain, too, I guess. She purposely isolates Cain and draws him nearer. I can get a clear look at his aura movements.
Oh. That's what she wants me to do. Smart.
I turn back to Ironhide, using my instant copy to copy Cain's power and shout Ironhide away.
Ok. So from now on I should keep an eye out for Miss Claire drawing another hero toward Ironhide and I's fight. I should limit myself to instant copying each power once. It's too dangerous to go beyond that.
New strategy. Got it.
I make a portal in front of me, and five portals behind Ironhide. I punch through it, replicating my move from earlier, combining the two powers in my offensive mode.
They land, and I go to rush in and I go to kick him. When I swing my leg, all I hit is air. Before I can register why that was, I feel a metallic fist connect directly to my side.
Shit! He is taking me more seriously now.
That causes me to go flying back, but I make a portal behind me, reappearing in front of him, using the momentum to kick him in the chin. Miss Claire warned me about this. Try to get him as tired as possible before he starts taking me seriously. This is bad.
It is now absolutely necessary for me to read his body twitches with precognition to stand a chance, instead of testing that out like I was before.
I began to repeatedly activate precognition, barely dodging the incoming assault from Ironhide by moving slightly preemptively.
"How cruel of you, Ironhide. You're a damn hypocrite. Bringing all of these lower-ranked heroes here to die. You claim to be righteous, but you pull this? You aren't stupid; you knew the results from the beginning." I say, attempting to get in his head. At this point, I need to play the mental game.
"Oh? But that's where you're wrong. Claire won't kill them because she wants you to copy their powers. So once I take you, we can all retreat alive." He replies.
I turn my head. Noticing a shadow in front of one of the heroes Miss Claire is currently fighting. I send a large tendril, piercing straight through the hero and killing him instantly. I turn my head back to see the look of horror enter Ironhide's expression. I walk up to him.
"Listen here, you naive, bald hypocrite. Did you delude yourself into thinking that this was going to be a fight without casualties? Well, just because Miss Claire won't kill them, doesn't mean the same for me. Take your pathetic fantasies and bury them, before I kill them myself." I say, delivering a kick to the chin, knocking him off balance. He slowly falls to his knees.
Ironhide is at a clear loss for words. The thought of this clearly never entered his head.
Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.