It’s a liability.
Having analyze the movement of opponent’s force, understanding it, and how that force is being used to make changes into reality.
In a battle up-front, opponent barely gives time to think.
Marcellus needed Universal Nullification.
But there’s no such thing as universal nullification. There can never be.
Every core circulates force in a unique manner, acting on its own unique principals of conversion.
Oscillation is frequency based. It’s mere vibration, which can feel intimidating at larger scale, lethal when used surprisingly, but against a ready opponent it lacks the same effects.
Marcellus lacks defense.
A combatant can use their powers in diverse manner.
A spear made for direct offenses can be used in defense against swords because its bare staff is sturdy.
But a scout, or a support with a dagger can be at a disadvantage against both a spear and a sword, in direct confrontation.
The analogy is same for those who have mastered their powers since awakening. They know how they can use that power as a defense and offense.
Marcellus never practiced his powers. Oscillation is lethal, but not practiced enough to be used regularly and efficiently.
Which he duly noted. But at this moment he needs power. A defense that can prevent him from taking lethal damage. An offense which can inflict lethal damage.
And Marcellus had succeeded in one.
’The answer...had always been in front of me,’ Marcellus thought.
There was never a need to understand the conversion, rate, and intensity of force being circulated. He just needed to know its path.
[Axiom]
The world changed.
Everything became transparent.
The bare bodies, their skin, their bones, their organs, their core and the circulating force.
Force moved through Rafe in interlocking paths. From his core into his nerves, to his limbs down through his feet, into the ground, then back. Again and again and again.
It was a never ending loop.
Rafe’s entire technique depended on that circulation continuing uninterrupted.
Every attack made the flow clear, every movement provided a new angle.
An impeccable defense can be made in two ways. One that protects the person, or another that can prevent their opponent from completely utilizing their cards.
[Observation: Force Mapping.]
From the beginning. Marcellus understood that the system never helped him. It only allowed him to execute what he had already understood.
It wasn’t a companion that was helping him grow. It was an execution system. Something that recorded his observations and helped them execute those observations to their finest form with current limitations of his body capping them.
Marcellus’s eyes allow him to see what others cannot. All he needed was to create a negative field.
To sabotage the core of his opponents, Marcellus infused his own force, and circulated it against the force control, precisely.
[Observation: Reverse Flow.]
A negative of the pattern.
Instead of copying Rafe’s control, he infused a reverse flow of his own force, completely sabotaging the core of Rafe.
A feat which is impossible, unless you can really see how the force of your opponent moves.
But for awakeners, even feeling every single ounce of their own force is a feat worth praises.
[Current Capacity: ~90%]
The ground engulfed him, but his eyes did not waver from the force of Rafe.
Light ceased to exist inside the stone orb that seemed to put enormous pressure on his body.
But oddly enough, it felt bearable. As the original Marcellus had worked on his endurance a lot.
Marcellus pushed his force outward.
He connected the trail of Rafe’s force, he let his force flow into the interlocking pattern of his force.
He shaped the flow of Rafe like a mirror. He flowed his own force into the path completely.
And then...
[Observation Recorded: Zero Point.]
He reversed it.
[Execution Available.]
[Zero Point]
[Executing: Zero Point.]
But he felt the resistance almost immediately.
The orb made of debris, that was crushing on him, suddenly began to fall.
[Current Capacity: ~87%]
The resistance was unbearable.
Marcellus’s core burned. His lungs, abdomen, ribs, felt the crushing pain and raw burn.
The enormous mass shattered, the stones fell and light illuminated his surroundings once again.
Rafe’s eyes widened in shock. He couldn’t control his force.
He couldn’t control something he spent his life learning and controlling.
Something that belonged to him, did not listen to him.
Marcellus hopped back on the ground as the last of stone fell.
The arena had turned completely silent.
No one dared to scream or interrupt.
They didn’t know what was happening. But all they knew was that Marcellus had appeared unscathed from the signature move of Pretoria family. A move that even Romanos are fond of.
"H-how?" Rafe murmured as fear creped up on him.
[Current Capacity: ~81%]
Marcellus exhaled, and finally closed his eyes for a moment.
The reverse flow stopped, and the burning sensation of his core started to soothe again.
The rate at which Zero Point exhausted the core was disastrous.
More so for someone who’s whole life has been dwelling on wanting to learn a combat style force control, but never been able to.
The sudden toll of combat technique on the core had made him feel the pain and burn, the same burn of muscles being overworked.
He opened his.
Marcellus right now, did not have the usual expression where he would consider everything humorous.
Rafe looked at him in the eyes, breathing heavier, and relieved that his force was again listening to him.
Marcellus raised his one hand, as the several tears in his black T-shirt revealed slight trail of blood and skin beneath.
"Again."
Rafe clenched his fist and groaned aggressively.
A crack formed near his foot.
He stomped his foot and the floor vibrated.
The next instant, he closed distance between him and Marcellus.
A fist covered in compacted earth came straight towards Marcellus’s face.
Marcellus raised his forearm, and twisted, pivoting, allowing the punch to pass across his guard.
His other hand came from below with a short southpaw hook.
[Executing: Oscillation. Rate: 19%]
Rafe pulled his head back, and the punch missed by an inch.
Marcellus stepped in again, but to counter his movement Rafe made the ground swallow his feet.
[Executing: Zero point]
The movement of the ground stopped, and Marcellus’s fist struck Rafe’s chest.
The force of oscillation traveled through his knuckles, and for the first time, Rafe’s body skidded to a stop.
*Thunk!*
"Fuck." Rafe grabbed Marcellus’s shoulder, and the ground beneath them hardened. Stone crawled over his ankle.
Marcellus looked down, his foot was trapped regardless. Rafe had adapted in an instant.
He somehow figured out that Marcellus was stopping his powers at end moment.
But earth type has a slight advantage against Zero Point.
Rafe can create a sturdy shape, and by the time zero point affects his powers, the outcome of that power will stay. Instead of actively using his powers, he was using it as a terrain.
Rafe’s fist came towards Marcellus, and Marcellus twisted his torse, as the fist grazed his ribs, tearing apart the T-shirt from his chest.
Pain exploded through his side, and he exhaled sharply.
The fight had switched to bare hand-to-hand.
Marcellus drove his elbow into Rafe’s throat.
[Executing: Oscillation. Rate: 3%]
The stone around his foot shattered, and Marcellus stepped out, leaning in.
Rafe create a guard made of earth just in front of his neck and Marcellus’s elbow shoved into the guard with oscillation active, shattering it.
Rafe backed out slightly, recoiling from the shattered guard.
He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and stared at Marcellus.
’No...this is not enough,’ Marcellus thought.
[Current Capacity: 71%]
This was a problem.
The spontaneous use of oscillation and zero point, both, was exhausting his core continuously.
Rafe now knew getting close was dangerous.
Marcellus was undefeated when it was hand-to-hand combat.
He stomped his feet again.
*Rrrumble*
A wave of vibration travelled across the arena.
[Axiom]
Marcellus could see the force affecting every piece of ground beneath them.
Several stems of force travelled underneath.
He carefully stepped at a plane where stems did not pass beneath him.
And suddenly...the whole arena shattered in fracture again. This time, the gap in fractures was deep.
But Marcellus stood on a plain which was unaffected by the fractures.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed.
"You can see it." He murmured.
Marcellus didn’t answer. Instead he looked down at the cracks. If someone were to trip in them, they’d fall into a brutal trap of earth.
The whole ground was a space of Rafe.
Pretorias techniques used the ground as their own space, and when facing one, the edge was real.
Rafe was in a way controlling where Marcellus could stand.
"Impressive." Marcellus said.
Rafe scoffed at that.
"I’ll take that as a compliment," he said, and snapped.
Suddenly, the untouched section beneath Marcellus shifted.
His eyes widened. The ground beneath him wasn’t breaking. It was moving.
He suddenly stepped right to another plain, and the slab of stone he once stood on rose at a disastrous speed.
Another slab rose from the side.
The one beneath him was beginning to rise.
[Executing: Zero Point.]
The rising stone stopped for half a second, and Marcellus landed on another.
"This...this is annoying. What is this?" Rafe groaned.
Rafe charged, and Marcellus met him head on.
The first punch was redirected to side again, Marcellus also shifted the weight of second punch easily.
Wing Chun specializes in diversion. And boxing was for the raw output. The original Marcellus had created a perfect Martial Arts by combining two of the masteries into One.
Marcellus stepped inside, and gave a direct hook to the lower chin of Rafe.
But, just beneath his chin, a stone guard had appeared.
[Executing: Oscillation. Rate: 5%]
Rafe’s leg buckled slightly.
Marcellus followed with another punch.
And the combat repeated in brutality.
The moment Rafe tried to raise the stone labs, Zero Point would stop him.
The moment he put up guards, Oscillation would break them,
But this was mere hand to hand combat.
Punch.
Guard.
Elbow.
Block.
Knee.
Counter.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Their movements became faster. Unknown to both of them, they both had adapted to each other’s fighting style.
Rafe had the greater raw power. Marcellus had greater precision and diversions.
Rafe tried to control the arena. Marcellus stopped him from using his powers.
[Current Capacity: ~63%]
Marcellus’s breathing had become heavier.
And Rafe was noticing this.
His own movements were turning sluggish.
His muscles were starting to feel the same burn as his core.
He had never trained. Even if his body could keep up, even his mind could keep up, his will could not.
He was a theorist, not a fighter.
The mentality affects battles at a great margin.
But at least. He never gave up.
Rafe stepped away, and Marcellus followed.
The ground behind Rafe rose in a wall.
Marcellus stopped and another wall rose behind him.
Then another, and another.
His eyes moved as a circle of wall fence formed around them.
Rafe wasn’t simply controlling earth. He had been preparing it.
He was someone who just like other awakeners had trained in combat since his awakening unlike ’Zavian’.
Every fracture he’d made, every section he’d hardened and every single piece he had moved.
The entire arena was already a part of the technique.
Something drilled into combatants.
Never make a move that could be considered useless.
"You...you’re pretty impressive for a support. I guess Severans did grill you for you to not fall even against a combatant." Rafe said.
"But there’s a limit to everyone. Yours is already visible," he said.
"See...Look around you...Look all you want. But that wouldn’t change anything now, will it?" He said.
The ground beneath them began cracking, every fracture that had been already made began engulfing a larger plane.
This fence...it all was a trap. It was acting like a compression chamber.
[Executing: Zero Point.]
[Current Capacity: ~58%]
"Defeat...is inevitable." Rafe smirked.
Marcellus core burned even more. He felt like tearing apart the skin of his chest, as if there was a fire he needed to put out in his lungs.
But he held.
[Current Capacity: ~51%]
He needed a way out.
He needed to think of a way.
Not defense, or diversion.
Marcellus...needed a power of his own.
He groaned in pain.
And closed his eyes, trying to calm himself of the pain.
He needed an offense.
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