Team SRDS (Stardust)

Chapter 18: 'Woodn't' Mind a Battle

Steele's Location, Emerald Forest

"Diamond, Ruby, if you two would be kind enough to take care of Silver's acquaintance, I'm confident Blake and I could apprehend Silver."

"You'll never beat me!" Silver exclaimed though he was waiting for them to come to him, quite to the surprise of Steele. His demeanour was synonymous with the lone wolf. The lone wolf with complete and essential mastery of the wild. Thus, he didn't waste time on worthless insults. Nor did he let Steele jab at his pride and provoke him such. He waited for Steele and Blake to charge him and struck with vicious fury, though Steele was quick to parry.

"Wait!" Jade called out, but it was too late as Silver charged at Steele, his focus turning into ignorance. Jade sighed and sprinted towards her adversaries, her daggers floating in the air behind her. She flung two of the projectiles towards Diamond, who shredded the daggers with bullets.

Steele slowly started stepping backwards, firing a bolt at his opponent, who deflected it with his sword like clockwork. Silver noticed another bolt and switched his sword to the Assault Rifle mode and fired. The bullets decimated the bolt. He flipped it back to sword mode. Silver kept running. At this distance, Steele could only fire one more bolt before Silver closed the gap completely, and the bounty hunter knew it. He expected Steele to come up with something radical.

Instead, Steele fired another bolt. Silver grinned.

Easy...

He slashed at the bolt with his sword, but Steele had planned this thoroughly. This bolt burst into smoke, thick grey clouds of it which prohibited Silver from seeing anything. The thing was, it was raining and windy, so the smoke cleared quickly. Not quick enough for Silver, though, who kept running and slashed forward, expecting to come in contact with Steele's blade. But he got nothing.

"You think you can run away from me, Steele?!" he yelled, instantly met by a kick to the face.

He hasn't changed, thought Silver.

"Running isn't my plan."

"Glad to see that at least something's different about your 'plans'," Silver said as he witnessed Steele pull out Comet, his shortsword.

He heard a footstep behind him and slashed with his sword to see Blake's clone disappear into black smoke. The real Blake used Gambol Shroud to attack Silver from afar, using its chain to her advantage. Silver deflected the blade, but a calculated tug from Blake resulted in the chain wrapping itself around Silver's sword arm, restraining him and allowing Steele to knee Silver in the stomach, swiftly following up with a punch to the temple.

Right before Steele thought about placing Comet against Silver's neck to threaten him, he saw his opponent's eyes flash through the dark shades.

Shit, thought Steele even as his arm was already in motion. He managed to move it a few inches away before Silver grabbed it with his free arm and twisted it, delivering a kick right above the knee which hurt his stomach. As Steele kneeled, Silver released his arm and kicked him away, now pulling on Gambol Shroud. Blake felt herself being overpowered in terms of raw strength and was forced to withdraw her blade, opting to fire rounds from her weapon's pistol form to allow Steele to recover.

Steele grunted in pain as he rose, grabbing his shoulder to try and subdue the flaring sensation across his arm.

Silver rotated the shoulder of the arm that was restricted by Gambol Shroud, "I see your pain tolerance is still abysmal, Steele. Even if your reaction times have gone down. How pitiful."

Sensory overstimulation. That was his weakness, and Silver knew it. Steele simply picked up Comet and assumed his battle stance as his opponent approached him.