Either by luck or his own speed, Kyle found the steely shaft of her weapon resting cooly against his gloved hand instead of empty air when he reached for it. The second he had felt his grip settle, his muscles had flexed and tightened, trapping that slender weapon firmly within his grasp. And it was no light hearted grip that would be broken easily either; Kyle may not have weighed much himself, but all his weight came mostly from hard-earned muscle. When his hand gripped down, it gripped with an steel vice that would have made a normal person cringe had that grip been inflicted on their flesh.

Instead, it made sure that no light attempt to tug the staff free would release it from his grip. Whether his opponent knew that or not mattered little, because her response was one that could have been determined with or without that knowledge. Not a moment after he'd grabbed her weapon was the woman moving, using the staff almost as a springboard to launch herself spinning into the air, her elbow coming back viciously with the weight of her whole body behind it.

The move made Kyle realize two things. One; she'd managed to avoid his incoming kick, prompting him to slam his leg down to asset his full balance again quicky. It sent a shockwave up his leg from the force of the impact, but that was easily ignored in lue of the other thing. The woman had left the ground. She was airbourne. And any fighter knows that once you got airbourne, you've committed to a strike. A strike that could pay off if timed right...or result in a painful return. Her strike was timed...wrong.

Kyle was reacting even before his mind had processed how to handle this situation. Experience, that's what was assisting him now. It was because of his experience that he was able to notice that, while she'd come driving for him hard with that elbow, that her other hand still held onto her staff firmly. She was trying to knock him off balance, to try and regain her staff effectively from his grasp. She was determined, he'd give her that. But that determination would backfire on her in this instance.

Kyle's blocking arm came up just in time, his open palm catching her elbow and preventing it from making a nicely colored bruise on his chest. That is where his counterattack came from. Moving an opponent on the ground is hard, for a number of reasons. Moving them while they have no solid base to stand on, however? That wasn't hard at all; gravity did most the work for you. You just had to shift them a little and gravity would help do the rest. Focusing, Kyle tightened his body, his stance locking and the muscles in his arms tensing for what they were about to do.

He pushed. Not forward, away from him. But sideways. The arm holding the staff pulled diagonally towards the ground while the hand that was now on her arm, shoved hard against her. Seeing as she was in the air, he was trying to force her to come at the ground at a bad angle, where her feet wouldn't be able to stop her from the fall. Or, at the very least, making landing more painful then it needed to be. He also released the staff when he had finished his sudden pull, using the backward motion to give a little more extra power into the move.

Landing a short step away from her, just outside the swinging range of that staff, Kyle waited to see if the woman would save herself the worst pain by taking a little...or suffering a nasty spill. And he wasn't even breathing hard yet.

Tses felt her luck finally run out, and it came in the terrifying momentum that was sending her towards the ground. Sometimes, when you realized a mistake in battle, it was too late to do anything about it and you just had to make the most of the situation. This was one of those moments. People say in a battle there are points where things seem to slow down. Your brain processes everything so fast it feels like slow motion. Tses felt something similar to this. It was like she could see the ground rushing up, and her legs scrambled to catch her, hands gripping the staff tightly like it was a lifeline to keep her off the ground. But the staff was falling as well. Nothing seemed to make sense, the actions were too quick and too precise.

Mentally, she rewound, and tried to look for what went wrong.

As her arm came back, she'd struck something solid but it wasn't the man's body. It had been his hand. The shove on her elbow had sent her sideways, and the jerk on the staff had further disoriented her. The sensation of falling was short but terrifying, and she did the first thing she could. As the ground rushed up, she jerked the staff vertical and let the metal take the initial force of the fall. It slammed pain through her shoulders as her body caught the recoil, and then her hands slid down the metal and first her shins, than her elbow hit. The buckles on her boots were sent back against her calves, the pressure stinging through the leather, but as the metal scraped against concrete, it spared her legs most of the fall. She still felt the sting on concrete against flesh on her right thigh, however, and her elbows cried out with pain as rocks and unyielding rock sliced into her skin. Blood moved to the surface even as she rolled out the last of the tumble, and landed in a partial crouch, one hand down on the ground to support her, the other using the staff to keep her upright.

She was loosing ground now, and as blood ran down her arms and her leg, her eyes narrowed. He wasn't even breathing heavily. And that made her angry. Angry enough the green energy she held back rushed to the surface, and licked its way across her arms, curling around her blood like an animal eager to be used. She gingerly stood up, and glared. "Fine. If that's how this is going to be."

Without waiting for his reaction, she drew the energy from her left arm into a condense orb in the palm of her hand, and sent if flying at the other fighter. It glimmered a golden color in the air, and then exploded a few feet from the man. The force would be like the recoil of a gun, or the tremor from an explosion. It was kinetic energy, rushing through the air. No flame like dynamite, and no fire. Just energy, on a collision course. She raised her staff and straightened her stance into a combat pose, waiting for retaliation. But now this battle would have more explosive results.

Whether that was good or bad in the end would depend.

There were many different outcomes that branched from the set of actions that led to the woman going sprawling towards the unyielding concrete below her. A power yet unseen might save her, she might get a foot under her and negate most of the damage or the fall altogether if she was quick enough or countless other reactions that differed only in the slightest. The woman, however, ended up getting one of the worse ones.

She landed hard.

Not as hard as Kyle had been aiming for, which would have stunned or otherwise incapacitated her. But the result was hardly against his favor. Using the staff she held, she managed to slow her falling momentum from crippling to painful, but functional, bracing her body for the fall by placing the staff upon the ground first. It rang out as metal met earth and then her body rushed down to join it. She barely made a sound, but her face twisted in pain as soft flesh met hard concrete, red splashes marking the areas where flesh was torn asunder.

In the end, she managed to roll out of the final part of the fall, preventing her from smashing and bouncing off the ground, which could have whiplashed her head into the earth as well. She sat there, panting, one hand on the ground and another gripping her staff in a white knuckled grip. Kyle stood motionless through all of this, knowing all too well what a wounded foe might attempt. He would attack would it was in his best and capable interest to do so.

That might have been what saved him the worst of what to come. He stood there, arms held loosely at his sides, as he studied the woman struggling on the ground. Kyle saw when her body language changed, saw the angry tension that suddenly overtook her muscles. His own body tensed in preparation, but even he couldn't have predicted what came next. Her arms suddenly hissed and glowed his green, which flowed up her arms like a child eager to go out and play. And then she let the child out.

In the time it took to blink, a green orb appeared within the empty palm of her left hand and flung it at him, as if she were pitching a baseball. Narrowing his eyes, Kyle felt his own energy flowing up into his hands, preparing to send his bat against her baseball in an attempt to knock it aside. And then the green orb exploded with the force of a gun just short of him, forcing him to instead brace his feet and shield himself with his arms. The force still knocked him back a couple of steps and when the burst of energy faded, Kyle looked through his arms at the woman and lowered them slowly.

Beneath his mask, a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before fading back into obscurity. "Impressive." That was all he said before he suddenly shot in towards the woman, dashing hard and then suddenly pivoting sharply on the heel of one foot to come at the woman's unarmed side, his left fist coming in fast and hard. He'd test out this woman's powers a bit more first...before he revealed his own nasty little trick.

There was a point in every game where you had to admit defeat. The cards you held turned sour, the gap in the score was too high. Right now, her anger was the only fuel keeping her going, and the energy was dwindling and fading from her veins, and that less Tses in a bad position. As her blood started to stain her clothing, Tses tried to figure out how much time she had. But her thoughts didn't get far as the man moved forward, and a fists came flying at her body.

Raising her arm defensively, she braced her legs and flinched as her forearm took the impact. The bands around her skin helped absorb some of the force, but it was by no means enough to prevent the painful sting that splintered across her arm. She had fought some strong people in the past, but the force of the punch surprised even her. It didn't break any bones, thankfully, but with the blade close to her face, that seemed to be the last thing she was worrying about.

With the man at close range, her hand curled as she formed an explosive in her palm, and swung her staff at his side. In the same motion, she took a step back, swung her stinging arm, and released the explosive inches from the man's face. It happened in an instant, but she felt like she could feel it all unravel in slow motion. He was close enough she could see the light glimmer momentarily off his face, then she curled away, bracing herself for the force of the blast and scrambling a few feet away as it exploded. The ripple of energy propelled her and extra few inches, and she stumbled slightly, but there was no time to stop and ponder what to do next. She just whirled around, grabbing both hands around her weapon once more and readying for retaliation. At this point, she wasn't even waiting to see if he would strike or not. She just prepared for the foreseeable conclusion.

If the blast hit him, it would have hopefully knocked him back a few steps, as it had her. That would create the distance between them she was looking for. But he was unpredictable, and changes were he could have partially deflected the blow, or already be retaliating. Her actions were growing slow, her breathing heavy, and her hands shook slightly on her weapon. She was edging backwards towards the fire in the alleyway by now, desperate for some form of escape. But she had waited too long, and was starting to think escape was already a lost option.

The best fighters in the world were the best for several reasons. Perserverance, determination, experience, training...many things made a fighter strong or tough or fast. But the best fighters were the ones that had gone through a baptism by fire, through trial and error had found what worked, what didn't and how there was always someone better. And most importantly, how to think steps in advance rather then acting on the heat of the moment all the time. Exploiting a weakness, finding a flaw in someone's technique, even something as simple as knowing where your own openings lay so you could protect them.

All of which Kyle had been well versed in via the school of hard knocks known as life. The moment his fist had smashed into her blocking forearm, the wince telling him all he needed to know about how much that hurt her, he was reading for what was to come next. So when that staff came swinging around, his right arm rose up to meet it, metal meeting metal in a grinding of sparks. But he'd taken full advantage of that and blocked in a downward swing, skirting her weapon off his to deflect it down to the ground.

Leaving her weapon in a bad place to recover from. And his fist in the right place to strike.

She was quick though and he had to be sharp. Her staff wasn't the real attack; the sudden flash of energy inches from his face was however. His eyes narrowed for a brief moment and then, with a sudden motion that made even his head queasy, he snapped his head to the side of the blast, an action that made him have to shuffle a few steps to the side. He stepped aside...and drove his fist into her midsection while she was attempting the same.

No weapon saved her this time. His fist hit with the force of a sledgehammer into her solar plexus and Kyle all but heard the sudden gasping as the air was propelled from her lungs like Kenyan's on Power Thirst. His blow had winded her and for the next few moments, she would be gasping for air and trying to recover before he recovered from her blast.

He recovered faster. And he showed no mercy at all. His other arm came around and drove his fist into her kidneys, making her flinch awkwardly in pain. Then his elbow drove down hard to the hand that still clutched her staff, hitting the point between wrist and hand with a cracking sound that stole the life from her fingers, the staff clattering onto the ground at their feet. Finally, he drove his knee into her gut again and as she doubled over, he pushed her onto her back with his boot.

Kyle didn't even give her a chance to recover from that. His boot came down gently on her throat and he applied just a little pressure, enough to make it harder to recover air and hurt just a bit. Then he coldly looked down at her and with disinterest in his voice, he spoke. "This match is mine. No further harm will come to you if you put the money aside. But make no mistake; if you should try to blast me again, I will crush your windpipe before the thought even exits your mind. Do you understand me?"

His cold glare waited for her acknowledgement.

In hind sight, if asked to recall what happened, Tses wouldn't have a clue how to describe it. One moment she was in a defensive stance, the next there were blinding moments of pain and amidst the agony she found herself on the ground. So many actions happened in quick succession, but the effects lingered in her mind like the echoes of a roll of thunder.

After her blast exploded in the mans face, and the sparks of their colliding weapons glittered off her staff, she felt a moment of hope. But then his fist contacted her solar plexus and it was like a blinding rush of pain and all the air was gone from her lungs. Her stunned diaphragm seemed just as dazed as herself, and she felt her body crumpling in an unnatural way. Tses had fought with several experienced individuals before, but she'd never had someone strike her with so much force and accuracy. It was only the beginning of an assault she would remember for years to come, and the pain mingled with humiliation.

His fist slammed into her once more, leaving a torrent of screaming nerves, and she tried hard to defend herself, frantically reaching with her staff for defense. Elbow met wrist with a crack that resounded through her body, and her fingers lost all control in the ensuing ripple of anguish. She had no air to cry out with, no voice to scream with, and no air left as his knee doubled her over in a twisted mastery of hand to hand combat.

There was a short second she was looking at the ground through watery eyes, then she was shoved onto her back and she saw sky. Back met concrete, and somewhere one of her ribs gave in from the combined abuse, leaving the raw fire in its wake. She was drowning in the cries of her nerves, blackness of consciousness grasping the edges of her vision and trying to pull her under. But the foot resting on her throat stilled the sobbing she wanted to do.

Bravely, she raised her chin at the figure towering above her, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Her body shook with pain, her chest heaved as it tried to recover the lost oxygen. Not lost, stolen. He had stolen the air from her as she had stolen the money. It was a fitting punishment for her crime after all. But Tses' pride was such a part of her she refused to cower and beg for mercy. She refused to be the victim, refused to be weak. She looked up with smoldering eyes, teeth clenched against the outrage of her broken body.

"I understand." She hissed, and then with cough ripped through her body and the smallest bit of blood appeared on his boot. She swiped at the corner of her mouth, smearing the red and with her only good hand, planted the money on his shoe, the crimson staining the edge of the dirty $50s. Perhaps it was a small last glimmer of defiance, confirmed by a small pressure on her throat. But it was as close to a surrender as she could muster.

Kyle watched, calmly and without passion, as the woman glared at him from the ground. He could see the pain there, the injuries that plagued her mixing with her own helplessness at the current situation, how her eyes clouded slightly with tears that wanted to come but she stubbornly refused to let them. A woman who valued her pride, that's who he'd managed to haul down into the dirt beneath his boot. She was beaten, she knew it and yet her pride refused to let her end this thing without making some kind of show of defiance.

It was almost cute.

Watching her place the money on his boot, he almost felt sympathy for the woman. Then again, he'd given her a clean out before all this went down, not once but twice. With the heat coming down from the riot, even the tiniest action by a mutant could set off another attack on any one of them and the last thing Kyle wanted to see was another mutant put in the hospital over an insequential about of money. Hence, his slightly more then violent rebuttal.

Still watching her closely with his boot on her throat, Kyle leaned down and picked up the money, then placed it within his own pocket for the moment. Slowly, he withdrew his boot from her throat...and then knelt down next to her, examining her injuries. "Know that I harbour no ill will towards you...but what I did was nothing compared to what the humans would do to another of us if one of us was caught stealing. And if you think nothing would have happened, you'd be wrong. The humans are just waiting for an excuse now, those that are truly dangerous to us now. It doesn't matter if it was small or big...just that a mutant did it."

Then he did something even she would not have expected. He helped her to her feet and put her good arm around his shoulders to support her. "I'm taking you to a place where you'l get medical attention. Don't fight me. Your injuries aren't too serious now, but any further physical stress could make them so. So, for your own good, just keep on walking and keep your rebelious thoughts to yourself." With that, he'd start moving her towards the bus station, since the Sanctuary wasn't that far off.

There was a moment as they stared each other down, Tses as defiant as she could manage. Inwardly, she was humiliated. Being crushed under someones shoe like this was degrading... and slightly humbling. Then, as he took the money and knelt next to her, she felt a low growl form in her throat. "So you.... beat me up...so I wouldn't get beat up?" She gasped, still struggling for air, each breath bringing pain from her ribs. As her diaphragm struggled to function normally, she felt too dizzy to try moving away from him. She didn't understand his reasoning. It was just money, she stole all the time. She stole all her life. But now, suddenly, people were calling her out on it, but it was ... different.

Colt had tried to convince her to stop stealing, even offered to give her a job. She had considered it back then, but then Ty vanished and she'd reverted back to her old ways as she tried to use the adrenaline rush to hide her pain. Now, this mutant went out of his way to call her out on her stealing, and claimed he did it to protect her from humans. She felt confused and angry, but instead of continuing her angry rant, she shut her mouth and gritted her teeth. For once, she outspoken female was holding back some of her words.

To top it all off, the mutant did the unexpected, and helped her to her feet. The world swam slightly with the movement, and she flinched as pain shot up her body as she tried to get her legs to support her. She curled her broken hand against her body, and her good arm was now across her attackers shoulder. The whole situation was messed up and confusing, but around mutants... that seemed to be the norm. Not so long ago a shadow mutant and her had gotten into a fight, and after a stray explosive blew up a car, the cops on the scene had cornered her in an alleyway. Rather than leaving her behind, he'd come back and rescued her, getting injured in the process. Once they made it to safety, he'd invited her to swing by the Sanctuary rather than stay out and about while the cops were on the prowl. She had turned him down, but the strangely positive note things ended on had taken her off guard. The current situation felt like an echo of that experience.

"I don't understand what's...with you all and your ... mutant loyalty." Tses said, breathing unevenly with the stabbing pain shooting through her side. She tried walking, the raw skin on her legs screaming out at her and the bruises starting to form where the skin wasn't torn away. "You all act like the world is... them or us. But that seems so black and white. There are good humans, bad humans; good mutants, bad mutants. How do you know I'm not the later." She grumbled, trying to keep her 'rebellious' thoughts to herself, but struggling with it a little. A wave of coughing cut her pondering short and she tried to curl her head into her shoulder, smearing a bit more blood on her sleeve.

"In a nutshell? Yes,that's exactly what I did, save for one minor alteration. I beat you up to keep you from getting killed."

Getting her to her feet was simple; she didn't weigh all that much and once they were standing, the woman was quite capable of using that staff to support her if need be. Still, seeing as he'd caused most the damage, Kyle took it upon him to support most of her weight and was almost carrying her along. Either by good fortune or just that simple fact that she hurt too much to do anything about it, the woman didn't fight him at all, save for in words and half-hearted growls.

"Loyalty? I wouldn't call it that. Them or us? I wouldn't say that either. And I don't need you to tell me that there are different shades of mutant and human. No woman, I did this because I am loyal to those I care about. My friends. Family. A conflict born of hatred and anger serves neither side any good and has the chance of dragging those not involved into it over the simple fact that they are mutant or human. So loyalty, yes, but not in the context you're thinking.

The simple matter of it is this; this uneasy balance between mutant and human stands on the edge of a knife. Unbalance either side in even the slightest and the knife falls...and it takes very little to tip that knife. So, if by causing some minor harm now prevents anarchy from forming later...I will do it. So watch your step, because others might not be so nice."

Placing her down, Kyle eyed the minor clinic that stood before him. He knew the people there would help her, for they were real doctors; the patient was the patient, mutant or human. It was not their business to turn aside those in need...it was their business to help. "This is the place. The doctors here will tend to you and they will only ask questions regarding your injuries, not how you got them. Be decent and let them do their job. Other than that, I hope not to have this conversation again." With that, he turned, signalled inside from someone to come out and started heading back the way they came, his helmet snapping back into its original form and the arm blades returning to standby.

Tses listened to the man speak, blood loss making her dizzy and making her thoughts harder to piece together. So, his actions were to protect those around them. That made more sense. Yet she was still annoyed to be clumped with other mutants, and to have someone attack her for that. Tses was strong willed, and separated herself from the people around her with all the individualistic selfishness she could possibly muster. Part of her cared little for what her actions did later down the line for other mutants. She looked after herself, and the consequences of her actions didn't bother her. At least, that's what she told herself. The more people she got to know, the more she started to question some of her personal ideas. She had little loyalty to mutants, but if her actions would endanger, say, Ty, what would she do? Change? Perhaps. The thought of her boyfriend made her cringe inwardly. He was going to have a cow if he saw her like this...

The confusion and frustration kept her from talking most of the time, listening to what the man had to say. She coughed a few times, pain crawling through her body, but she kept her face as straight as possible regardless. As Forte moved to leave, Tses glanced towards the clinic, and for the first time a small flicker of fear crossed her face. It sucked the remaining color from her face, and she tried to stop the panic inside her as someone started to come out of the building. I hope not to have this conversation again... He sad saying. Tses turned back to him, and her face was cold again.

"I hope so as well."

Then pulling herself together, she limped the rest of the way to the clinic. Rather than the determined female she had been at the start of the day, she felt like a humbled bird with a broken wing.

It would be a while before she would fly again....