Meld was awake earlier than usual in part because of excitement and in part because there were certain preparations that needed to be made before proper sparring could commence. After having a healthy breakfast she returned to her room to begin the painstaking task of wrapping cloth around each of her many claws, including her tail. It was slow going, both in ensuring that each and every claw was covered in enough fabric to prevent its lethal edge from cutting and to make sure she didn't accidentally cut herself in the process. One of the many disadvantages of not being able to feel was the fact that she was prone to gaining small cuts and bruises without realizing it, a problem made even worse due to the fact that she was covered in blades.

Eventually, however, she was satisfied with the job she had done. Each blade was carefully turned from a lethal weapon to a blunt weapon while still maintaining effectiveness in the limb itself. Not being able to move it completely fluidly would have been a problem. While she was confident in her combat skills, Hunter was quite unlike any opponent she had ever faced. It would prove to be a most interesting exercise.

Meld walked out into the main room and waited for her opponent to appear. Win or lose she was sure to learn something. As long as nothing unforeseen happened.

Hunter was in fact in the training room before Meld. He’d been running through a warm up routine in preparation. Without his powers he could no longer just throw himself into things anymore. Instead he needed to prepare his body for strenuous activity. He’d learned that the hard way in Tibet.

Hunter had been running the numbers so to speak in his head. With metal limbs Meld probably outclassed him in strength. He was unsure about her speed as the metal didn’t seem to slow her down at all. Technique he knew he was better at but by how much he didn’t know. He nodded appreciatively at the wrapped blades.

“If we’re ready,” Hunter said bowing to meld before taking a ready stance. He would let her make the first move. It would let him begin to analyse her physical abilities as well as her fighting style before he committed to a counter attack.

Meld bowed to Hunter respectfully, never taking her eyes off of him. Bowing was a sign of respect and was something that had stuck with her from her long ago days of official training and competition. Her later experience dealing with the criminal underground, however, had taught her the merit of always keeping your eyes on your opponent. Not that she expected anything dishonest from Hunter, but such habits were instinct now and almost impossible to break.

Meld took a battle stance a somewhat unusual battle stance, shield arm protectively in front of her. "We're ready." She usually started a fight slowly, allowing her opponent to make the first move but she could see that Hunter was intending to use the same technique and against him she doubted she had the patience to wait it out. Instead she opted for a more active feeling out process.

Meld took a step forward into her opponent's space, aiming a punch with her flesh and blood hand. She had had little opportunity to fight since gaining the limb and was still used to fighting with 2 metal hands instead of just one. It felt vulnerable but she didn't think it appropriate to wear the gauntlet she had forged for it in this situation. Her shield arm remained in its defensive position.

The moment Meld took her stance Hunter’s mind was analysing everything. She kept her metal arm up defensively. The bladed shield would make a frontal assault difficult at best. He’d need to lure that arm away to get a body or head strike. The metal claws were only a few inches in length, a neglidgable advantage as Hunter had fought clawed mutants before. You gained little extra reach and they could be avoided and deflected like punches.

Speaking of which she was throwing one now with her mutant hand. It was her left and this was little more than a jab. Hunter weaved to his right bringing himself round to the opposite side to her shield. He threw back a little jab of his own. This was a probing attack to see how she reacted. While he was keeping an eye on her in general it was her tail that interested.

Thick, strong and flexible with four six inch blades and an eye in the tip it was an interesting weapon/appendage. He wasn’t really sure which the melds came under, probably both. What he wanted to know was how skilled she was at using the thing. If good this would get hard fast. But if not then he might be able to use the tail to his advantage.

Meld hadn't been expected her exploratory punch to hit and would have been disappointed if it had. Hunter claimed to be an expert with years, perhaps centuries of experience so she knew that victory wouldn't be easy, even if he was without his powers. Plus, she wasn't sure exactly how decreased his powers were. Was he truly at merely human levels or was he simply less now than he was before? If the latter, things could prove rather difficult.

After moving aside easily from her attack, Hunter through an exploratory punch of his own. In one fluid movement, Meld dodged the attack, stepping to the side, and brought her leg up, aiming for his shin. She could all ready tell he was fast, though how fast she hadn't yet ascertained. She knew that she, herself was faster than human, but not significantly. It would be an interesting fight.

Meld kept both her shield arm and her tail in reserve. They were the weapons that no opponents were truly familiar with or prepared for, the ones that made her fighting style so much more unique than most. Although she had proficiency with her tail, it was still new enough that she didn't have the complete mastery of it that she did the rest of her body and the rest of her flesh melds. The shield was another matter entirely, being just as skilled at using it, both offensively and defensively, as she was her natural limbs.

Meld dodged Hunter’s jab just as easily as he’d dodged hers. She swiftly followed up with a kick. Deciding to go for a more unorthodox counter Hunter brought his left arm down as it retracted from the jab as he continued to circle to his right. He was aiming for his wrist to connect at around mid shin level, spin his hand under her leg letting her momentum carry it past and then shove upwards fast and hard.

Best case scenario, Meld was thrown completely off balance and fell over. However Hunter had spotted and easy counter for her to use. If she braced her tail into the ground she could maintain her balance despite Hunter’s efforts and then push off her tail to counter attack. He mentally prepared himself for that counter attack even while he was still bringing his left hand down for his own counter. Martial arts was a lot like chess, best to plan ahead.

Meld hadn't been expecting Hunter's rather creative counter to her kick and had she been a less experienced fighter it may have turned into a potentially fatal mistake. However, one of the first things she had learned was that one should never commit to only one style or only one action. The trick was to be constantly adaptable, to take whatever your opponent gave you, no matter how unexpected, and run with it. Being able to adapt was being able to win.

Meld felt her balance teeter and knew there was little she could do to get her foot back under her in time to save her from toppling to the ground. Instead of even trying she brought her tail around, attempting to wrap it around the ankle of her opponent. If she was going to fall to the ground then he was going with her and they would remain on equal terms. His choices were either to move his hand from her leg to defend against her tail and thus prevent her own fall, or to keep going with his current action and fall right along with her.

Rather than utilise a defensive strategy Meld decided to try and bring Hunter down with her. Rather than use her tail for support he darted it forward aimed for his ankle. Interesting and inivative, which also happened to be a good summary of her fighting style.

However she wasn’t the only one who could adapt. Meld’s assessment of the situation wasn’t quite right. There was a third option. Hunter jumped. He kept he left hand where it was still intent to topple Meld but he was now trying to dive over and past her as well in an effort to avoid the tail. His aim was to land about a meter behind her, roll to his feet and turn back to face. Unfortunately this would give Meld at least enough time to get onto her front, possibly even a crouch. Still her crouching and his standing still gave him the edge

Once again Hunter opted for a surprising strategy, doing neither of the things Meld had expected him to do. Instead of either defending himself from her tail or allowing her attack to succeed, he had continued through with his own attack and then proceeded to jump behind her. That certainly clarified her suspicion that, while his powers may be far less now than they once were, they were still better than human or, at the very least, the pique of what humans were able to achieve.

Meld felt herself topple to the ground as her leg was forced out from under her. There would probably be bruises from the hard floor when this was over, but any such injury was completely negligible even if she had been able to feel them. A mere instant after ending up on her back she jumped to her feet in a crouch and swiveled her tail to blink at the man now standing behind her. It wasn't the best for judging range, but it made it almost impossible for her to be taking unaware.

The tail eye meant that Meld had saved time by not turning round and just did a quick jump back into a crouch. Time for another quick test. Rushing back in towards meld he threw out his right hand towards her tail eye. Hi intent was to obscure her vision and distract her. If the blades around the eye started to snap shut he’d pull his hand back.

Once he judged that he’d gotten obscured enough of the eyes he swung a kick with his left leg. Meld’s left side had significantly less metal than her right, making it the prime target for his attack. He was aiming to catch her in the side just below the rib cage and to try and drive the wind out of her.

It was difficult for Meld to perceive the distance between the end of her tail and Hunter's hand rushing towards it, a disadvantage to only having a single eye. Unfortunately she had no depth perception in the sense. Using the best judgement she was able to, she estimated the moment when his hand was in range of her blades and closed them swiftly. At the moment the blades closed she swiveled around to face him with her human eyes.

Just as Meld completed her spin, she spotted a leg coming towards her unprotected left side. She swiveled again but not fast enough to completely avoid the blow. She was fast enough so that she caught only a glancing blow from the leg but she knew he had hit and first damage had gone to him. Eventually the bruise might begin to take its toll.

The blow was deflected sufficiently that Meld's breath remained in her lungs and because of her lack of pain it didn't slow her in the slightest. At the moment of impact, she brought her right arm around, aiming to strike Hunter with the covered edges of her shield. Normally the action would cause an opponent massive cutting damage and blood loss, but with the cloth around the blades it would only cause pain and bruising. Hopefully.

Hunter only just yanked his hand back in time. Those blades were fast. Meld had turned and avoided the worst of the kick, but he’d still made contact. If that had hurt at all Meld wasn’t showing it. He knew that she lacked a sense of touch, probably her sense of pain as well. That meant he’d have to call this fight if he was winning before he did her too much damage.

The bladed shield was coming around towards him. Too fast to sided step or jump so that left Hunter with only one choice. He dropped flat on his back. The blades missed him by a hair’s breadth. If they’d not been covered they’d have cut through the top of his robes. Best take great care to avoid those. Hunter had little choice than to scrabble backwards to get some distance and try and regain his feet.

Hunter fell to the ground in order to avoid her arm and Meld smiled. Now this was what she considered fun. Good old fashioned sparring against a skilled opponent. How long had it been since she had truly felt challenged like this? Or maybe a better question was, how long had it been since she had truly felt challenged when it was only about the competition and not about her life and the life of her opponent being on the line? It probably hadn't been since her long ago sparring match with Aura.

When Hunter fell to the ground, Meld thought that he probably hadn't taken into consideration the fact that her feet were just as dangerous as her arm or her tail, even blunted as they were with wraps. She ran after Hunter, stomping down repeatedly with her metal feet, trying to make contact. He was fast, just as fast as her human parts but not quite as fast as her metal parts. An unexpected difficulty, however, lay in the fact that her wrapped claws weren't able to grip the ground as fully as she was used to and she her speed was slowed somewhat as she had to split her concentration between attacking and keeping her balance.

Meld’s metal talons could be problematic. He just barely avoided two stamps before formulating a counter attack. It was a good thing Hunter was adept at thinking on his feet, or back in this case, as she was getting closer with each stamp. He avoided her third stamp by splitting his legs apart. Just as she began to raise her other leg for a fourth stamp he began his counter.

He aimed to wrap bother his legs around her single supporting leg and take her down to the floor. Then he could roll away and get back to his feet. She’d be back on her feet before he could capitalise on taking her to the ground but at least he’d be standing as well. Much better odds than he currently had, especially as the last stamp was perilously close to his crotch.

Every stomp that Meld made brought her closer and closer to reaching her target. It would only take one good strike with her metal feet to turn the tide of the fight definitively into her favour. Another stomp landed just between his legs and she could see that there wasn't much room left for him to flee too because he was swiftly approaching the wall.

Unexpectedly Hunter's legs came up and wrapped themselves around her own. She didn't try to stop herself from falling and instead aimed her tail. As she toppled to the ground, spinning and rolling to avoid any damage, her tail came down in a swift strike, scorpion style, aimed at Hunter's exposed chest.