![]() Sophie was so good at what she did that she would pit her skills against any opponent, trusting herself and the abilities. The broad-spectrum learning from skill books was a good fit for him. For him, the movement and stealth techniques were just as important, if not more so, than the martial arts. He adapted to his circumstances, environments and enemies, using spells, direct combat, sneak attacks and skirmish tactics as he needed. Jason simply couldn’t dedicate the training time Sophie could to a selected subset of techniques. While it was an important cornerstone of his combat technique, it would never be the foundation that it was for her. He had dedicated considerable time and work into making the style imprinted on him his own and not just a series of programmed responses, but would never have Sophie’s focused mastery. Only through using skill books was Jason able to enjoy the level of proficiency he had obtained. This was his conclusion after several years of searching for remnants of the style, with dozens of subcontracted adventuring teams investigating the ruins of the fallen order. Only then, with the skills magically imprinted, could the full style be mastered. ![]() He had hypothesised that the style was originally intended to be learned through skill books. She took what she needed, discarded the rest and was the stronger for it.Įmir Bahadir had studied the style more than most outsiders to the Order of the Reaper. ![]() As she moved through iron and bronze ranks she had expanded her repertoire, continuing to make the style her own without attempting to grasp the whole. Sophie came to it through training, taking a subset of the whole and building a style perfect for herself. Sophie and Jason both practised the Way of the Reaper, but in very different ways. There weren’t enough hours in the day for the practice required not just to master but maintain that level of skill. There were too many techniques to remember without the enhanced memory of a magically-enhanced spirit attribute. Its practices dipped into gymnastics, acrobatics parkour, stealth, climbing, even sleight of hand. The myriad techniques and variations of his style went beyond martial arts. His fighting style, the Way of the Reaper, was too comprehensive to be mastered by ordinary humans. His current strength was the product of battles with monsters, anomalies and the risen dead vampires, superheroes and even other essence users. Jason had been through thousands of enemies in hundreds of fights. Despite the precision and efficiency of their hand-to-hand skill, their lack of improvisation and imagination made their attacks predictable and their defences vulnerable to Jason’s unorthodox style. He was still only beginning to use his aura feints effectively, but the minds of the clone-like anomalies turned out to be as bland as their appearance. As his aura told one story, his body told another while the truth was something else entirely. It hid his unconventional movement, which was made all the more deceitful by feints. Once he was in melee range, Jason's cloak was once again key to his defence. Jason was long past the point where even moderate injuries were a distraction. His regeneration and drain rapidly healed what damage still made it through. His cloak intercepted bullets, and while many punched through its silver-rank protection, his blood robes soaked some more of the impact. Jason was almost able to match them in speed and had a full host of powers to pit against them. Although the anomalies had gold-rank speed and strength, it was on the lower end of the scale and they lacked any exotic abilities. Once he had killed and drained enough to accelerate his speed, Jason was confident enough to engage them directly. In close, they used a martial arts style that was fast and efficient, but robotic and predictable. They fought with what looked like ordinary pistols, although they packed a gold-rank punch. Identical human men in identical black suits with sixties tailoring, they were a clone army of men in black. Just as the territory was a bland version of a human city, the anomalies were a bland version of human. Uniform concrete buildings were set out in plain, hard lines, like a distillation of Soviet Bloc design. The territory was another city, but the very opposite of fantastical. ![]() The sky was bleak, grey and sunless, reflecting the architecture of the city. ![]()
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