19th Exploit: Slight of Sight Zaine 2

A Chapter by Jeffrey J Dotson

Zaine is quick to show off his 'change' over the three years to his despised adversary, meanwhile Bo's resolve proves to be a bigger challenge for Jason and Clarice then either thought it would be

19th Exploit: Slight of Sight Zaine Pt. 2

Bo directs Jason's foot upward as it comes toward his head from the left and follow's through with a palm strike toward Jason's chest. Jason parries it with his wrist. He swings his other arm down while bringing his fingers toward his wrist; he's wearing the accessory he had on during his confrontation with Dante. The prongs attached to the glove on his hand nearly wrap around Bo's extended arm, but Bo quickly rears his hand back and takes a step backward. Without a second's past he lunges forward once more and throws his right elbow at Jason's face. Jason rears his head back and narrowly avoids the point of the elbow, just barely skimming the ki around it. Clarice looks toward the direction Antonio had ran earlier.

Bo is perceptive and notices. He corner steps toward Jason's side while simultaneously plucking a rock from his pouch and flinking it toward Clarice's head, perhaps hoping to take her out while she isn't paying attention. While in the motion of flinking the rock he also forces his other arm back, trying to strike Jason's kidney with the point of his elbow while his back is facing him. Clarice swiftly draws her sword and cuts the rock down, but there's a black waxy substance coating it and it combustion as soon as the blade goes through, Bo is also successful at nailing Jason in the side, who barely managed to protect himself with aura but not enough to feel the blow. Jason stumbles back. Bo quickly turns his attention to Clarice, who is still recovering from the sudden explosion.

"Don't even think about breaking through to pass." Bo smiles lightly. "I'm not so lenient as to let a plan even pass my defense."

"I suppose not." Jason's fighting spirit twists around his arm and weapon, mingling with his natural electrical attribute. The spiked weights hanging off the strings begin to spark, as though excited. "Holding back against you is out of the question."

---

Antonio tries to get a read on Zaine through his fighting spirit, but the dark cloud is being used both as a smoke screen and in tandem with his ki to further throw off Tony. The fighting aura quickly begins to approach Antonio through the cloud and seems to have strengthened in presence.

"DIE!"

Antonio slides his left leg back and his right arm begins to rumble with fighting aura. As the outline of Zaine reaches near the edge of the cloud Antonio thrusts his ki infused palm forward and twists*, nailing 'Zaine' right in the chest with enough force to blow away the clouds, and its instantly apparent that the Zaine Tony had struck was a fake, an outline within the cloud. The real Zaine's directly behind the 'clone'.

"What do you take me for Tonio?!" Zaine thrusts upward, through his now nonexistent cloud 'clone' and pasts Antonio's forearm. Zaine brings his ki imbued shin fiercely upon Antonio's abdomen, trying to use the force of the strike to send Antonio hurtling back**. "Too bad your s****y bro wasn't big on dodging lessons!"

"No, but-" Antonio's left leg digs into the pavement behind him, absorbing the blow and cracking the ground underneath, keeping him from even budging from the blow. It suddenly shoots up. Tony's foot clips Zaines chin. "-he was always drilling into us the importance of action and reaction, counter and defense-" Antonio's arm once again begins to rumble with ki. Zaine panics and shoves his palms toward Antonio's face and blasts him with clouds while falling back toward the ground, but he's utterly defenseless otherwise. "-and more importantly-" Antonio drives his palm down on Zaines chest, through the veil, while twisting his arm*. Zaine coughs as hes sent twisting 70 degrees into the ground. "-to be ruthless in the follow up!"

Antonio holds Zaine down for a couple seconds as the pavement behind him cracks. He notices the clouds disappear as Zaine closes his palms in anger and pain. Zaine just barely manages to hold his consciousness, having protected his back at the last second with his fighting aura. Antonio removes his palm from Zaine's chest and stands triumphantly over him, looking down at his old peer with fierce tenacity.

"Maybe you should've paid more attention during his lessons." Antonio speaks with arrogance. "Now, where is Sarah and that smug piece of trash Clark?"

"D-Damn it!"

~~~

Thirteen Years Ago

Standing tall and donning the same kind of Gi Luke would later adopt is the head teacher of the Rio Arts Dojo. The adoptive father figure of Antonio and Maxine, and Lukes best friend/brother-in-law; Bruce Dorison. His face is young and smooth, aside from a deep scar from his cheek to his forehead crossing over the bridge of his nose. His hair is mostly black with a slight tint of red. Standing beside him is Luke, the then assistant teacher and with shorter hair then he would later have (but still the same style), and in front of both of them are twelve relatively strong looking kids of various ages who were signed in for the four year duration.

Three of the twelve are recognizable, despite their younger ages; Antonio who is 8, Maxine whose 9 and a 7 year old Zaine, Zaine who is the youngest one of the group. Even this early in life he has a bit of a receding hairline. Bruce steps forward and lifts his head confidently.

"Welcome to the Dragon Rio Dojo. You all have been entrusted to our care and discipline for the next four years. In that half of a decade Luke and myself will will ensure that your minds, bodies and hearts are fine tuned to handle what may come your way in life, regardless of the path." Bruce smiles warmly. "Speaking somewhat frankly, the pass rate for the dojo isn't high. Sometimes it does take two attempts for some of our more determined students."

Luke eyes Antonio and Max with a slight smirk. Tony just picks at his ear, but Max glares almost hatefully back as his much older brother. Bruce continues his introductory speech. "There are plenty of former students who haven't passed who have still applied the teachings you all will be blessed with and lived successful lives, so you will garner something from this tutelage regardless, if you're willing to that is. Don't get too discouraged if you do fail the first attempt. Most of the successful students go through two terms." Bruce points his thumb toward Luke. "This fellow here did when we were peers and he turned out fine."

"H-hey, we can't all be super prodigy's like you." The class laughs. Luke scratches the back of his head and smiles. Zaine nudges Antonio in the side and snickers.

"Oh man, that's pretty lousy. I don't think I could possibly take someone seriously if they can't even pass in one term." Zaine continues to snicker, not knowing the same fate that would befall him twice. Tony turns his eyes toward his younger peer. "I'm definitely not gonna listen to anything that green haired dweeb says. No offense of course."

"Perhaps the circumstances were weird, or the dojo is just that difficult, you can't just assume-"

"Oh I can and I will. No matter what might happen's you have to be ready and willing to deal-"

"AH-HEM!" Bruce clears his throat loudly. Zaine immediately straightens up. "Socializing is good for developing conversational skills, but there's a time and place for it, and doing while your master is speaking is not that time. This is understood, yes you two?"

Zaine and Antonio lower their heads while the others poke fun. Max just mutters 'idiot' toward his younger brother angrily. "Understood, sensai."

"Now, as I was explaining..."

---

Six Hours Later

Eleven of the twelve students pour out of the dojo and scatter in several directions, with only Maxine remaining inside the dojo. Zaine grabs Antonio by the shoulder.

"Hey, hold up for a minute." Tony sighs impatiently and turns around. "You wanna hang out for a bit? My dads gonna be gone for the night so he wont be around to bug us." Antonio sighs again.

"I can't, Ive gotta run to the log workshop and and grab some wood for tomorrow."

"Pffft! Fine. Maybe next time, right?" Zaine extends his hand forward. "Anyways, it was cool to meet ya!" Antonio looks down at Zaine's hand for a moment before turning his head from it. "Hey-"

"You were bad mouthing my big bro all day behind his back. There's no way I'm gonna shake your hand." Zaine looks shocked.

"HUH." Zaine lowers his hand and balls it. "I guess it should've been obvious that you two were related. Does he dye your hair like that? I guess that other one with the anger issues is related too?" As if on que Maxine steps out and tosses something in the air toward the two.

"Hey you won't get far without Lukes wallet you dumb idiot!" Antonio gets ready to catch the wallet but Zaine, more on instinct and not actually trying to do it on purpose, grabs it out of the air on instinct. "Hey!" Zaine catches himself and lets go of the wallet while wearing a comical expression.

"Oh, Sorry!" Antonio bends down and picks up the wallet. "Its a weird force of habit I developed since my dad's always throwing things at me. Every time I see something like a beer bottle or his shoe coming toward me I'm impulsed to grab it to protect myself."

"Sure." Tony stands up holding the wallet in his right hand. "I think you just got scared after catching it and decided not to steal it."

"What did you just say?!" Zaine gets ready to pounce on Antonio but sees Luke coming out of the doorway, past Max, at the corner of his eye. "Tch! I'm going home!" Zaine storms off.

---

Eight Years Later

Eight years pass since Antonio and Zaine had started their tutelage, and four since failing to pass the first attempt. They're in the middle of the second attempt, given there's a two year gap between each term. Maxine is nowhere in sight, as he's taken to his uncle by now for tutelage. Also missing is Bruce, who seems to have passed on his role to Luke by now. The class, which includes a 13 year old James and Sarah and of course Antonio and Zaine, are studying their assigned Rio arts manuals.

Zaine looks up at Tony and smirks. "Hey, slacker." Antonio gives his peer a cursory glance, grunts irritated, and looks back down at his book. "You ever think of going out with that Sarah?" Antonio continues to ignore him. "Well, I'm definitely thinking of her." Tony turns a page. "You really should stop hanging out with that super failure Jace. That wimp's so fragile he had to drop out before even six months, so why hang out with a pint-size who only makes you look all the lamer when you two share a table-" Antonio shuts the manual.

"Oh just shut the hell up Zaine!" Zaine smirks. Luke clears his throat.

"Quiet." Tony sighs angrily as he opens his manual back up.

A couple days pass. Zaine is walking past Antonio. Tony slaps Zaine in the back of his head.

"Hey!" Tony walks off as though he had done nothing while whistling. "Where do ya think your going a*****e?!" Zaine grabs Antonio by his Gi and yanks hard, forcing him to gag. Luke turns from the student he's counseling and yells toward the two.

"Zaine!" Zaine releases Antonio's collar and grits his teeth. "Thirty gassers from the dojo to the edge of the village! You too Tony, I have no doubts that you instigated this!" Antonio and Zaine glare at each other.

A few weeks pass and now the two stand facing one another in the triangular ring near the dojo. Zaine's nose is bleeding and Antonio's right brow is swollen over his eye. Jace, Luke, Sarah and a few of the other students stand on the sidelines watching. James walks up to the small group, seemingly having just finished his own studies, and gives a 'hmph' before speaking.

"They at it again eh?" Sarah gives an annoyed sigh and crosses her arms.

"Of course." Sarah shakes her head. "They're always fighting and feuding over something or another. It seems to get worse every time they fight too. I wonder when Luke sensai will step in this time." James chuckles.

"Later then he should, like always." Luke hears James but doesn't respond. "That said, it's always kinda fun watching them. They're the only two students in the dojo that can wield their fighting spirit properly."

"I guess that comes with being repeat students-" A loud scream comes from Zaine cuts Sarah off as Antonio nails him in the shoulder and makes him stumble back and fall onto his backside.

"Your shoulder's popped out of its socket now, you ready to give up you dumb b*****d?!" Antonio's hand has ki around it. Nowhere near as strong as it would grow to be in the future. Zaine growls as he grips his arm and pops it back in place, holding in another scream.

"As long as I breathe-" Zaine stands. his own hand becomes coated with fighting ki. "-and as long as its you I will NEVER give you a surrender!" Antonio pops his neck and smirks angrily.

"Your funeral then, Zed!" Zaine dives toward Tony and Tony stances up, ready to attack.

"I'LL BEAT MY NAME INTO YOU TONIO!!!"

~~~

Present

Zaine clenches his fist and gives a long angry growl. He's still trying to recover from the harsh Rio Corkscrew strike that Antonio had floored him with. Tony confidently looks down on his old rival and looks almost disappointed.

"So, where are they Zed?"

Zaine's eye twitches. An angry smirk crosses over his face as he begins to sit up. "Telling you that information would be my loss." Antonio raises a brow.

"Of course. Its pretty damn clear Ive outgrown you these past years, even with your weird cloudy 'science altered dna' gimmick you don't stand a chance." Zaine stands wobbly.

"You...probably don't remember." Antonio slowly begins to smirk. "If it were anyone else, then I might concede. But-" Antonio slams his fist, ki-less this time, into Zaines face and grins.

"If its me you'll never surrender, right?!?" Zaine manages to hold his consciousness, and smiles as blood drools from the side of his mouth.

"DAMN STRAIGHT!!" Ki imbued smoke bursts out of Zaines palms and pushes Antonio back, like a wall***.

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