Scene #8604: Look if you don't handle that spear least twice a week

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Everybody knows all territory outside of a Nest is too dangerous for ordinary people. Even though L Corp's sovereign territory qualifies, most of its real facilities are belowground, with the surface city being little more than an economically convenient facade of energy management and distribution infrastructure that people happen to live alongside. It doesn't take much of a commute to arrive at the grey area between Nest and Backstreet that most don't like to travel unless they don't have a choice. Which is functionally a nonconcern for Petra. If her appearance and aura hadn't turned ne'er-do-wells off before, her ability to beat the everloving shit out of the once-in-a-while goon would. It's not as if she has to tresspass the territory of a notoriously powerful gang or something of the like. A brain-off commute through bleak urban skeleton is probably even kind of enriching. So Petra knows she isn't dealing with one when something rips by her ear and a smouldering, half-melted bullet hole appears in the concrete ahead of her. Guns are barely used in the City in the first place, but she'd recognize the distinctive punch-shriek-hiss report anywhere by now, never mind the jingle of solid gold clattering against pavement. "Be a little less eager to get home, Petra. You wouldn't want to waste such a valuable resource as my time, would you?" says the girl who just casually littered six hundred dollars worth of gold on the ground, and doesn't ever bother to pick it up. "I know your work isn't training you sufficiently. You just got off, didn't you? So think of it as overtime." Oddly, when Petra looks, Lilian is already re-holstering her weapon. "Ah, it's sort of a pain you went and made yourself so fragile again, but I suppose it's better to do that now rather than to downgrade halfway through. Now there's even more reason than ever, for you to learn how to handle that thing, as if you aren't a fumbling amateur."
Petra Soroka	Petra's daily routine requires so many odd deviations from rules and traditions, and even laws in the broader scope of the City, all for the purpose of allowing a lifestyle that would seem insane to anyone else. There's a reason that no other employee at the main headquarters of Lobotomy Corporation is allowed out into the City-- the operations of the Wings are meant to be kept strictly secret, especially their Singularities. So when Petra leaves her job that she wouldn't normally be allowed to work at, to commute back to her apartment that she isn't legally allowed to rent, through areas of the City that she's absolutely unwelcome in, she does it without her EGO gear equipped. In that vulnerable state, unequipped and made of fragile meat, it's probably unwise of Petra to be wearing earbuds while biking her way home. It's never been a problem before, though, and Petra is confident in her abilities (stupid) enough to trust that'll continue. When the alchemical beam sears past her head, Petra flinches and cuts off midway through singing disconnected fragments of the melody to herself. As a habitual, if not particularly practiced, motion, she slides the electric bike around to a halt while reaching for her gun in her bomber jacket pocket, not fully caught on to the situation. She draws it halfway up, then finally looks at her target and startles when she sees who it is. Petra is caught in the simultaneous motions of balancing her bike, drawing and then lowering her gun in surprise, pulling out her earbuds to listen, and reflexively trying to stand up at Lilian's presence, and fumbles every single one of them. Off-balance, her bike wobbles and falls to the ground, and Petra lands face-first in the asphalt, her earbuds skittering across the street. "Lilian?! O-oh, wait-- training? With-- right. Right! Um. Ow. Sorry." Petra pushes herself to her feet, hands scraped up, and then pulls out a compact mirror and flips it open. She presses her hand to it and then pulls it back, drawing out the black glass spear, with an identical hand gripping it on the other end to help her get it out. Qetra's hand, poking out of the mirror, waves excitedly at Lilian before Petra snaps it shut again. Pillar of Creation doesn't rest as easily in Petra's hands as it did before she was deroboticized. She's a lot weaker than she was, of course, but being the Silver's Warrior also gave her ingrained familiarity with the weapon, that she only retains by cognitive memory, rather than muscular. She holds the spear at the ready, and then wobbles uncertainly. "D-do you just-- should I just attack you? Is that what we're doing? That's not how training works, is it?"
Lilian Rook	People really do like to gasp and whine about how Lilian and Petra are inseparable friends now, for mysterious (false) factors beyond their control (false), so it really is sort of typical that no one is around to see Lilian smirk at Petra tottering off her bike and smashing her face on the road. By the time she's scrambling upright, Lilian is already trying half-heartedly to hide her laugh behind the back of her hand. "Oh, that's a much better reflex than I expected." she says, residual mirth still ringing in her voice. "If still far too slow. You know you won't handle being hit from behind as you did before, right?" Continued poor wording aside, Lilian watches Petra produce her mirror with her hand on her hip, posture tilted restive and waiting, possibly expecting that Petra is, actually, checking makeup before getting her ass beat. An eyebrow twitches up ever so slightly when Petra draws the spear from it, having not seen her actually produce it before, but her pose remains steady. "You look unaccustomed to the weight." she says, eyes trailing down Petra's arms. "As expected. People are so frequently surprised at the reality of carrying a weapon. Simply carrying around a scabbard interferes with your movements and weighs on you. Even I eventually found it tiresome. Perhaps you should have that experience too? Carrying it will familiarize you more with it than only bringing it out to fight." The fact that she then pulls Night Mist from her neck, dispelling the glamer in a smoking plume of blackness away from her straightened arm, clearly isn't meant to be read into. Petra just happened to miss the year she still physically carried the blade everywhere, unwilling to let go of it for a second. "What sort of training did you think I meant? You can practice forms and exercises on your own at home, can't you? Obviously I'll send you material after this, but first I have to gauge your proficiency." Lilian sighs. "You'll never be ready to meet my Master with that attitude." This time, for once, her fingers touch that thin scar deliberately. "You certainly won't get off better than I did." "First, take a deep breath. Use your diaphragm to get it all the way to the bottom of your lungs. Don't tense to hold it in. Allow it to soak into your bloodstream, and focus on the feeling of trying to send the air out from your chest, and into your extremities, while slowly releasing the pressure through your mouth. Try that three or four times until it starts to feel like heat running through your muscles. Perhaps an electric tingle in your biceps, thighs, fingertips, and feet. Once you get it, or give up, speed up your breathing. Keep using your lower chest, but don't fill your lungs so hard that it strains." "Then you can try to attack me. Breathe in sharply just as you begin to move, exhale only half as you run, and force it all out at the moment you strike, then regather it quickly. Keep your center of gravity low as you move; push forward with your feet, not up. And tense your core muscles, not just your arms, when you swing it; don't relax them until you need to turn suddenly."
Petra Soroka	Petra's actually glad to be laughed at-- in this specific instance, though her tendencies towards feeling that way in general is one of the "mysterious" reasons they get along so well. The alternative reaction to her pathetic display would be disappointment, which would hurt more than the fall itself, and hearing Lilian's laugh, no matter who it's directed at, gives Petra a spike of dopamine. That moment of being flustered might be why Petra defiantly answers the way she does, despite or because of the euphemism. "I-I-I can still handle it. I've been practicing. It just hurts a little more now." "I mean, I used to be stronger, but--" Petra starts to protest, gripping the spear more tightly to show how good she is at holding it, then stops. "I guess I am way more used to holding guns all the time, huh. It's different, when it's, like... a full size weapon. Not that guns are miniature, they just feel more natural to have ready all the time. I've got, like, four on me right now." Texan pride, baby. "Oh, I should..." Petra retrieves the compact mirror again, and then one by one, withdraws each revolver-half of her gunblade from her jacket pockets, the colorful plastic transteam gun, the vial of Silver morphmetal she still doesn't know what to do with, her original revolver from her hip, and then the pistol from her ankle holster, depositing each of them in the mirror with Qetra's awaiting hand. Finally, she pulls off her jacket, folds it up, and gestures for Qetra to pull that inside too. Underneath, Petra's wearing a simple black tank top along with the black leather collar, exposing her brutally marred skin, knife wounds and burn marks scarred and upraised in hard white-red lines, but healed over, finally. Stripping down a little seems to help Petra focus. She listens attentively throughout the rest of Lilian's explanation, nervously nodding at the mention of her Master. The idea of following in Lilian's footsteps always inspires the best of Petra's determination, which Lilian is well aware of at this point. Petra settles into her stance, sliding her boot back along the ground and lowering the spear tip to angle it down in front of her. She dutifully takes a deep breath in, gradually becoming aware of the way she naturally tenses up in response. Paying attention to her own body is something that Petra has some amount of practice in, albeit under different circumstances, so the breathing exercise comes naturally to her. Deep breath in, oxygen filtering through her lungs into her bloodstream, blood flowing back through her heart to spread throughout her body and give fuel to her muscles, messy and inefficient, the way it should be. "Okay." Breathing does hurt a little, though. It's only through focusing very hard that Petra doesn't collapse into a coughing fit and ruin the posture she's built up. After a moment, to really make sure she's breathing exactly right, Petra shifts her weight forwards, then dashes to close the distance between herself and Lilian. She's not as fast as she should be, barely even qualifying as 'athletic'. She releases the last of her air as she swings the spearpoint up into Lilian, following up with a jab from the butt of the haft at Lilian's stomach to give her space out of Night Mist's reach. Petra did spend time learning to fight Lilian specifically, she has a solid grasp of how long Night Mist is compared to her own weapon, though the extent to which that helps when she still knows almost nothing about swordfighting is questionable. If she's given the chance, Petra uses the opening and recoil from the followup to bounce back away from Lilian, flying lightly backwards to land on the pavement again. She's really only used to pressing the attack when she's mad.
Lilian Rook	Lilian does her very level best not to swallow her own spit at Petra's insistences. She successfully decreases it to a sudden, awkward cough. "Correct. A firearm is, typically, significantly heavier at an equivalent size, but because all of the weight rests in a combat shape, especially when fully balanced around the grip, you feel it far less. The length of a proper weapon is what allows its striking end to get up to speed-- by leverage-- but is also what makes it lever against you, under gravity and otherwise." She watches Petra exchange items in and out of the mirror for a little while with obvious interest. "Oh? So you carry her around with you? No, I suppose that if she's your reflection, she must already be . . . ontologically co-extant with you." That sure is a word, but shockingly used correctly. "That's a very interesting thought, now that I see it for myself. I wonder if she begrudges you for using her like that, or if perhaps you have some more agreeable arrangement?" A pause. "I'll have to play with her after this." Petra removing her jacket is about the point Lilian starts looking at her-- upon her-- more seriously. She remains silent for a moment, watching as Petra breathes, as if she could follow the flow of physical and allegorical 'air' with her eyes, then begins slowly unbuttoning her own coat, watching Petra for the slightest lapse in concentration at the sound. When Lilian says "My my, that's better than I expected." Petra can open her eyes to her already down to just the sleeveless white summer blouse beneath. Just old enough to be a little bit tight around the chest and shoulders, and a little billowy around the waist. "But the difficult part is not losing that sense as you act. If it slips away from you the instant you move, all you've achieved is a slight boost to your very first motion. Regulating your breathing, circulating that 'air' throughout your body, keeping everything down to your fingertips full of warmth and energy; that will be something I drill into you over time." Lilian glances down to Petra's grip on the spear. She takes Night Mist in both hands and turns it down on the same side as Petra's dominant hand, point facing backward and away from her, without quite touching the ground. A guard position she uses very rarely, and never against monsters. She seems very confident in it, compared to even a year ago. "Come." It's almost strange to see. Without Lilian instantly moving around anywhere, without the flash of magic or crackle of esoteric sword techniques, it's actually almost harder to follow, for someone accustomed to watching her. All it takes is Lilian pulling down with her left hand and clockwise with her right, a short rise and extension of her arms, and a perfectly synchronized step in, and Night Mist flips up from her side, well over her head and into her center line, crashes down on the outside edge of Fragments, and completes the same perfect arc cleanly into Petra. The flash looks like a solid crescent moon, contemporaneous with the sound of metal. That single stroke leaves the spear pinned to her shoulder and the edge of Lilian's blade against her neck, held down by the disparity in strength. There's no way to swing the butt. Moving backwards causes Petra's ankle to connect with the lead foot Lilian had stepped with, now angled between Petra's legs, and the easiest possible backwards fall to the concrete. Putting a blade point to her chin is practically an obligation at that point.
Lilian Rook	"That was a strong start. But weren't you far too slow for having all that energy?" says Lilian. "It looked to me as if you were committing to fend and void-- to push me back and create distance even before the thrust. Am I wrong? You had too much breath for one thrust; you'd never get it back in time." A subtle reminder she cannot actually read Petra's mind; and that fighting itself tells her plenty. "It's a common mistake to strike too conservatively, or to begin pulling force too early, if you already have a chase-- a combination attack in mind, from anticipating how you'll have to handle and redirect the weapon after." "You'll be learning not to fight against the weapon. First to redirect the force already inherent in it to maintain its speed, then to control it with the minimum amount of strength, and then to see the strike in which you defend and attack simultaneously without redirecting it at all. But I'll tell you this straight away: you cannot afford to probe and fend and skitter back from a superior opponent. Not on fundamentals alone." "Feeling out an enemy is essential when you might yet stand evenly matched, but opening yourself up for anything less than a decisive strike against a stronger opponent is committing suicide." The fact that Petra hasn't seen Lilian test and probe anyone (that she was there for) stands without saying. "You're not Silver anymore. Every commitment is risking death. Every twitch of hesitation increases that risk. Just like the rest of us." Lilian physically backs away, adding a few more steps to give Petra a bit more distance this time. "Don't try to get fancy. You aren't half bad, but you'd need to be excellent to try that with me. Regather your breath, stabilize your body, balance your gravity, and this time, visualize a way for your spear to reach me within the space of that one exhale. Without a stop, or a second step; without changing course by more than forty-five degrees." Back to face Petra. This time she preemptively takes a middle guard, pommel at her right hip and blade angled to hover at eye level ahead of her. "Spread your hands further apart on the haft, too. Having your grip closer to the head provides more fine control, but you can't rely on that as a crutch. The closer it is, the more you force the spearhead to move no quicker than you could swing a fist; that's just physics. You never see me swinging my whole arm into anything but a finishing blow, do you? You have even more of an advantage than me, in that regard. Trust that the point will penetrate wherever it lands."
Petra Soroka	Petra does understand the concept of levers, now that Lilian says it out loud, but hearing Lilian explain something can only ever deepen her understanding of it. She nods and hums in acknowledgement, holding Pillar of Creation flat out to her side for no reason other than demonstrating a tactile comprehension of the concept; active listening through body language. Hanging on Lilian's every word is a constant state for her, but it's still important to let her feel like none of her sentences are being wasted. "She's... um... yeah, she's always with me, but it's like.... It's not like my reflection always was alive or anything, but she's obviously got plenty of memories from stuff from before the Train...-- made? tapped into?-- her, and sometimes different opinions too. But she didn't exist back then, and she says she doesn't even exist now most of the time either, so... I-I don't really know." Petra stares at the cover of the cheap compact mirror after shutting it, trying to wrap her mind around what Qetra's consciousness is like-- which is probably the wrong thing to think about for her anyways. "She's mostly just stupid, though. So she only begrudges me for stupid things." "A-a-and, well-- i-if you want to talk to her, I can just-- you know, it's probably best for me to be there, since, like, o-otherwise, like, wh-who even knows what'll happen." The idea of Qetra and Lilian alone in a room without her is anxiety-inducing for multiple reasons, and Petra closes her hand around the mirror to hide it, then shoves it into her pocket. Realigning her mental state with the actual main reason they're here centers her focus enough to block out the distraction of Lilian undressing. The slight bit of praise-- backhanded as it is-- does slip through a crack in her focus, though, and she exhales a fraction of that built-up air and potential energy in a small, triumphant huff. Being countered so cleanly halfway through her envisioned motion breaks Petra's focus and control with a gasped 'wh--' on impact. Her first instinct is to try to keep going and force her way out and away, the momentum of her forwards step not frozen to a dead halt just yet, but her core muscles tensing to twist back lock up when Night Mist presses against her neck, and her boot only scuffs backwards an inch along the asphalt before being pinned down. She stiffens up to keep herself stuck in place, and wobbles before her weight resettles. Stunned and entangled, Petra focuses her eyes on Lilian's face to listen to her, and when she opens her mouth to respond, a warm, breathy giggle accidentally slips out instead. "Ehehe-- um. S-slow... oh, yeah. Commit to one thing before committing to another. Like a, subconscious thing. Okay." "But if someone's stronger, doesn't it make sense to..." Petra's brow furrows, and she twitches like she's automatically trying to gesticulate, but Lilian still has her pinned. When she trails off mid-sentence, it's a demonstration of the one skill that Petra has worked the hardest to hone when it comes to Lilian-- the ability to step back from her immediate gut feeling and not feel the need to defend it to her. "Okay. Yeah. Because it's more likely that a stronger person will be able to take advantage of me trying to retreat, than it is that I'll get away with it enough times."
Petra Soroka	Petra automatically takes a step back when Lilian releases her too, the command still queued in her brain from earlier. She nods and closes her eyes, bouncing on the balls of her feet to let off some of her excited energy, then focuses on restabilizing. This time, Lilian can see her squeeze her hand around Pillar of Creation, tensing the muscles and then releasing them in series up the length of her arms, doing the same process simultaneously with her legs, in a clearly well-practiced ritual to establish conscious awareness of her body. She breathes in and out, then in, and the focal breath is accompanied with a brief ripple of itch radiating out of her. Her arm twitches like she got shocked, and she opens her eyes again. Three steps close the distance between them, more decisively placed but still dragging with the physicality of a girl whose body is, temporally, only a couple weeks recovered from solitary confinement and starvation. 'Not trying anything fancy' means trying something straightforwards and blunt instead-- Petra swings Pillar of Creation wide at Lilian's neck, and when Lilian inevitably parries it, pivots with the motion to transition into a jab at her core, slipping her forward-hand's grip down the haft to thrust it out to its full length with her other hand and core. Committing her entire body to the attack means stumbling to a halt when it's countered, but she's not entirely helpless. The color-splashed haft of her EGO spear is made of the same seamless material as the blade; which is to say it's something unidentifiable, but very, very tough, which she trusts in entirely when pulling it back to try to block Night Mist with the haft. Maintaining leverage to avoid another grapple, despite her, um, not-so-distressed reaction to the prior one.
Lilian Rook	'like, wh-who even knows what'll happen.' "How interesting." says Lilian, and somehow sounds like she means it. Crisp English politeness, in that vague and upper crust sense, comes naturally to her in the voids of outwardly calcuating thought; learned camouflage for thinking about something she shouldn't show, especially including herself. "It sounds familiar. That it would be a reflection for you, instead of a shadow; a replica image you can only see when it's looked at, rather than a negative imprint you can only ever see turned away . . ." Lilian smiles faintly to herself, about some unknowable connotation. "I'd be speaking to you, but a little dumber, a little less fucked up, and a little more inclined to fall into your natural state of being shaped by others, wouldn't I? So I think she'd be a bit more fun, and a bit more boring." 'Commit to one thing before committing to another. Like a, subconscious thing. Okay.' "Correct. You grasped that easily." says Lilian. 'Okay. Yeah. Because it's more likely that a stronger person will be able to take advantage of me trying to retreat, than it is that I'll get away with it enough times.' "Ninety points. Another good one." she continues. "Of course, you can't help the wait and see approach against an enemy with a completely unknown, battle-defining power, but if you ever aren't certain how to approach a superior enemy, your best option is to wait for someone else to reveal a weakness, or create an openng. Failing that, you should run. And if you're backed into a corner, do something stupid." Lilian says. "At least, if your desperate gamble is something nobody would ever do, you might take them by surprise. They say the best swordsman fears second best less than the worst." It's nice of her to wait and watch patiently as Petra cycles through each of her built up physical mnemonics. This isn't the sort of training that would benefit from suddenly pouncing her-- building foundational skills comes before practicing keeping a permanent guard up-- but the attentiveness to each individual clench and breath is oddly encouraging; even if it feels as if Lilian's gaze could be painlessly slicing apart her skin and watching each bone settle under gravity it's invigorating to know that she wouldn't waste any time by guessing wrong about Petra's flaws. Though it happens quite quickly, Petra is pretty sure she sees Lilian's look at her turn just a little interested at her sudden heavy swing, even if her guard doesn't ch-- no, it does just a little; she elevates slightly, to a position less suited to ducking under a haymaker that might otherwise be a gimme. It's a short and efficient motion to guard against that blow. As tempting as it might be to simply let the spear whiff on something easy and instinctive, the discipline involved in Lilian staying aware that her sword is less than a foot out of place, and needs far less time to defend than her entire body; and the confidence in pitting strength against strength rather than trying to keep her head comfortably away from the point; is immediately apparent.
Lilian Rook	She need only lift her hands from her waist to her ribs to catch Fragments on the stronger base of the blade, closer to the fulcrum; which, by virtue of seeing Lilian of all people doing it, tells Petra exactly how much the placement of taking the blow matters. A moment of silent teaching in a split second, sheerly by reputation. The way she rebounds the spear to create clearance is what Petra expects, and allows her enough force to build momentum along with her pivot, but Lilian also doesn't stick to holding her ground this time. From the instant she is pushing Petra's spear away, Lilian lunges forward. She closes the path Fragments had traveled down to the moment it's brought back around Petra's other side, her forwards motion naturally more efficient than Petra's backward. Far from exploiting the mythical 'inside reach', the moment Lilian oversteps the motions of a conventionally 'skilled' swordsman and into those of 'master' is a clean one; rather than throwing herself to the side or leaping back to get away from the clean thrust to her middle, Lilian uses the clean and stable control she still has over Night Mist from that minimalist guard to swing it down as an extension of her forward movement, catching just behind the head with the end of her long blade, and driving it downward away from her core and into the ground by excessive and perfectly-placed force. Again, more proactive than reactive. An attack that overrides Petra's. Only one that doesn't also serve as a clean and immediate defeat this time. Lilian stomps on the end of the spear to pin it halfway into the asphalt; an ostensibly necessary measure to keep it from being quickly withdrawn in defense; and kicks forward with a second, aggressive step. With her blade tilted down below her middle line, she wastes no time reorienting it for a cut, and only draws the hilt up to her shoulder while leaving the point hanging, allowing her to leap into a head-on tackle so that the strong of the blade is horizontally angled at Petra's throat. Still having leverage on Fragments lets Petra pull the shaft up high enough to catch the sharp edge, but not enough to stop herself from being thrown onto her back under Lilian. It's a deceptively short fall; smashing her head against the asphalt could decide a real version of this fight in an instant; something she can feel by instinct. Without wood to bite into, Lilian lets the edge of her sword slip against Fragments of the Universe, and deflect sideways, letting her slam her bare palm into the flat, and pin it against Petra-- and Petra against the ground-- again. There's no clean line to slitting her throat from here, but it's a given that Lilian, with martial arts training and superhuman strength, would win a ground fight onward. Still, after the moment of holding Petra down, her body pressed down against hers, the following tense silence, and the ritual exhalation, Lilian gets up again looking marginally more satisfied. "That was much better. You'd have lost control to a bind if you were using a blade, but you actually took advantage of the spear that time." Lilian says, a little warmth creeping into her voice. "You committed to being deflected from the start, and were ready to use the force for your real maneuver, rather than holding it back. If I'd ducked under it, you'd have most of your momentum left to complete the same pivot, and I'd lose time getting to you. That'd actually work against a journeyman, and keep a skilled fighter back for a few moments. You kept far better defensive control that time too."
Lilian Rook	Lilian walks back to her place with trace elements of bounce to her step, flipping her hair back to where it belongs as she goes. "The thing about feints, sequences, and combinations, is that they can't tolerate a weak link. A too-long pause where you don't exert any defensive pressure makes the entire thing fall apart if your opponent isn't intimidated or conditioned into defense yet." Lilian explains. "A thrust as I approach is actually more difficult to react to than a thrust as you approach. In that case, you have stability and I have commital momentum, even though we're moving together at the same speed." She pauses, then gestures airily. "Figuratively speaking." Lilian turns to face Petra again, ready one more time. "If the space in your actions is wide enough to take another breath, your opponent can too. The strikes can only tolerate an interruption just before you've completely broken down your opponent's defense and are about to launch your decisive thrust. When you engage a sequence of attacks like that, your goal is fundamentally to gamble your offensive energy against your opponent's defensive endurance; you have to overwhelm their reactions, or their planning-- ideally both-- such that you can break down their posture, usurp control over where their weapon is, and force it too far out of line to stop you; all with the energy you gathered at the start." "You're not advanced enough yet to know where you can slip in fractional breaths, or moments to recoup energy. It's far better to be as aggressive as you can accept when you're about to taper off, so regather your defense while your opponent still can't effectively attack you, than it is to leave them a chance to strike you back in hopes you might hit them harder after a moment's preparation." Lilian pauses, then twirls her finger downwards. "That spin, I mean." "It's a matter of . . . In the former case, you're at least defending yourself when your opponent's offense is at its weakest, and you might buy yourself a moment longer to think of something, or one more chance to see and exploit an opening; especially if they're too hasty in fending you off, which less veteran opponents often are, or if they get presumptuous and think your withdrawal is an opportunity to prepare their own heavy attack; which mediocre and overconfident Eli-- Enemies, are. Even if you're outmatched, it's better than the latter case. Someone decisive and experienced will make use of an ill-timed gap to take control of you instead."