They'll Never See It Coming (Yarkar/Kress)

[Kressara Thryn]

The force surged and so did Yarkar, charging the air like invisible sparks arcing over the water lapping at their legs with every move. For a second the brat’s own facade cracked and Kressara saw something truly disturbing underneath…a dark shadow in the surf, a clear thump coming from the closet in a quiet bedroom, noticing a predatory creature perfectly hidden in its environment nearly seconds too late. It was malice and the shade of trauma turned into hate, which looked rather devil-like to those who didn’t recognize what they were looking at. It was no surprise that Yarkar was fully submerged in the darkness of their world, but Kress had hoped he’d leave room for discovery before falling so far in…perhaps she shouldn't have been so absent. Her lip quirked in the way one does when they realize they’d left behind their favorite coat before a long trip. Not quite despair or full regret, but a look of wishing she had done something just a little bit differently. It too faded with the revival of his own mask, his words had made sure of it.

Quickened by the force, Yarkar clipped forward and posed one strike after the other, assaulting her blade which raised in defense with a trained, keen eye. He was putting Kress through her paces, testing reflexes an opponent hadn’t pushed in ages. Clangs and metallic shrieks enticed their onlookers, keeping the crow on her toes to avoid any undue embarrassment. A swipe to her coat, marking the fabric, a nick against her forearm between the armor which she withdrew from with grit teeth. Yarkar left no opportunities for anything other than defensive maneuvers, leading the dance, and so she decided to invent her own. She had been fencing with a rather textbook Makashi form and without warning, swapped. Energy shifted reminiscent of wind lifting a layer of dust off unused machinery, circuits firing to start the engine. The force jittered and sparked unseen, central to the single glinting ruby earring before traveling down her arm. In the midst of his relentless battering, the assassin struck out and caught his blade against her armored glove with a crackling, sizzling, unusually shifting resistance. A hush fell over the crowd, her smile prideful as iced over fingers closed around his hissing weapon from which water dripped and steam clouded. She leaned in, nose nearly touching his.

“They may have come to see you, but they’ll leave thinking of me~”

{Cryo} had been used once again, this time to harden and encase the drenched armor woven and plated glove in a thick layer of ice, frozen consistently to combat the heat of his vibroblade. On contact, her cold spell crawled from glove to weapon, causing it to whine and creak in ways those weapons simply never did while vibrating in vain against a sudden sapping of its heat. The cutting edge was held at bay, chinking into her iced covering which shook to hold his attack.

With his sword locked and her’s free, Kress dropped her noble Makashi influence and broke into the punk tactics with a taloned foot slamming down over his boot. Not wishing to risk her use of cryo failing her, she pushed his blade outwards before releasing it, balling her fingers, and jabbing at his face with an ice hardened, light plated fist.

[Yarkar Edetar]

Yarkar's foot lies pinned, talons piercing the thick leather of his boot. His blade forced back by the hand as she readied her attack, and the threat of a swing from her still hung high. He had to think fast, his mind empty save for rushing with possible next moves (Battlemind). Yarkar feels the Force slam through his body as he leans back from the punch with nearly superhuman swiftness (Enhance Skill), feeling the chilled air from the motion over him wash over his face. If he didn't have the minor precognition granted by the Force (Combat Sense), he would have surely taken that hit directly to his brow. The Force raged in his blood, in his mind, in his musculature. His senses screamed at him from the hundreds of possible threats that the crow posed. Every possible angle of attack, suddenly collapsing with every twitch of a muscle fiber as her intent makes itself clear with each movement. Split second decisions being made as time dilated, his mind felt slow, the two dancing as the gravitation of the Force pooled around them. He had never seen the crow so in-tune with her gift, it seemed as if something was knocking off the dust.

He doesn't go down easily though. Her taunts made clear of this. She was getting cocky, that punch made it so. To assault is to accept risk, and she had done so. Fighting with one's own limbs made them targets as much as a blade. In his dark soul, there was a glimmer that hoped she'd evade it, but she was the one that put herself on the line. He thought of his possible strike, of what he could do. He may put both hands onto his blade's handle, slashing horizontally from his chest, from her perspective the move going upward towards her elbow. To refuse to respond was to accept amputation. He almost gagged from the thought of permanent injury in a fight like this. On one hand, it would prove her a threat, but on the other, it would leave her less effective than before. There was no point to disabling a fellow Sith, not in these times, not for these reasons.

He was delayed a bit, his response a bit sluggish compared to the previously blurred strikes. Instead, he goes for a strike that was much easier to recover from if missed, pulling his hands inward, pushing the tip of his blade upwards and towards the wrist holding her blade. He meant either strike as a distraction anyways.

The one he truly cared about took advantage of her pinning his foot again, leaving him with a steady hold on the ground as he let his other leg lift up, twisting at the hip to snake his leg behind hers. He pulls the leg back, intended to grab her knee with his own. After all, half of a fight was footwork, she'd shown him enough of that for him to know taking advantage of it is paramount.

[Kressara Thryn]

For all the force and follow through her icy punch had, Yarkar dodged by the slimmest of margins! The risk was taken and of her success in this she was certain. Not only were her hits forceful, but swift. The fact her adversary managed to avoid getting his teeth knocked out by ice hardened fabric and sharp cold metal was more impressive to her than anything he’d pulled off thus far. Glittering irises complimented him with unspoken admiration, but it didn’t last long as she realized the grievous consequence of believing he couldn’t possibly be fast enough physically and mentally to avoid a potentially fight ending punch. Her off hand was vulnerable. She could try to guard it, but the chances of that doing anything more than making a pretty clank when he cleaved through her arm were lower than the pit her heart had dropped into. The Oh crap… look on her face said it all. This was the biggest blunder she’d found herself in for quite some time and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he was going to capitalize. Focusing all her defense on that one glaring opening, ice from her fist crackled down the length of her soaked through armor like a second skin, one that would do little to stop a vibroblade at that angle carving between the joints of her armor. Her fingers released the vibroblade and let it drop into the water where it hissed and popped at the sudden cooling. She had more blades, but only two arms. Her freed hand was now shooting to catch his sword arm by the wrist in a desperate attempt to avoid limb loss. He was unarmored. If she performed the move correctly, she might be able to twist his arm and stress his joints. What if he slipped it and struck with his blade? She’d have to dodge entirely without a weapon to block it….

He must have had the time of his life watching her panic to save her arm, knowing damn well he had other plans instead. Nothing she could do would right the situation and he knew it, the onlookers knew it. They expected to see blood and bone, and Yarkar chose to embarrass her instead. A blow to the ego that would undoubtedly sour things between them. Kress yelped when she felt a leg snake behind hers, hooking the knee and forcing her completely off balance with her other foot busy holding his hostage. She watched his face vanish into a suddenly spinning rainscape, sand shifting beneath her and gravity sending her crashing spine first into the watery ground. For all her talk, she ended up on her back, water up her nose, and without a sword in her hand. She sat up as quickly as she could and hacked up sandy temple runoff, made into a complete mockery in front of their peers.

She’d hate him now, wouldn’t she?

Maybe, if either of them considered the gathering of onlookers their equals. The way her wide eyes fixed on Yarkar as soon as she cleared her sinuses enough to breath, lacking menace and instead processing what had just happened with utter shock, was more akin to someone attempting to commit the moment to memory than someone who’d take insult and try to avenge it. That glitter caked brain of hers was firing all its cylinders replaying what had just happened and finding the faults in her part. It was true the girl had no shame, and oh how dangerously capable of learning that made her. The snickering crowd of judgmental acolytes didn’t even exist to her, at least not anymore than the rest of their environment. Yarkar had her focus, something few boasted the ability to capture.

Voice gruff and wet with accidentally swallowed puddle water, dirt and metallic filthy runoff tangy on her tongue, she coughed, “I haven’t been paying enough attention to you.” Clearly she thought she had him figured out from the start, perhaps since the very first day they met. He just proved her wildly incorrect.

She wasn’t down. Well, she was literally down, but not done. Lithe muscles tightened and her knees bent towards her core before bucking hard, her body rocking and launching upwards in a slosh and arc of water onto her feet. One hand shook off ice, the other drew a vibrodagger from her back holster. Frozen fingers flexed to regain feeling then did the same. She assumed a new stance, swapping forms from Makashi to a Euphornis influenced hand to hand style. Once again her eyes fell on his throat.