First blood doesn't mean a thing, especially when it's a sacrifice readily made by an opponent. I might have been the first to break through skin, but the force at which I feel my head kick back sends a thrill all the way to my fingertips, and I feel my teeth click against the coppery tang of blood in my mouth. Whatever advantage I might have gained in that second's worth of time has been undercut entirely; if there's anything I've learned as the stars only just begin to clear, it's that this man's size belies his weight. That kick should have sent him flying against the wall. A fist from that angle and velocity shouldn't have had so much momentum. But as a quick glance over his person again tells me, while my feet twist to find friction with the ground and both gauntlets sweep the air in front of me in a protective swipe, that it isn't weight that he's strapped onto his person.

I wonder what he's hiding inside.

This, however, changes the game entirely. Without being able to visually assess all his strengths, there's simply too much uncertainty for me to waste my time here. Any other day, I'd be claiming more of a height advantage, a ledge, a shadowed corner—

—then again, there's a bathysphere standing but a few feet away.

Whipping my cape, aimed roughly around the man's shoulder level, the armored tips easily slice through air with a whisper before I try to bring an elbow across, aiming to land between shoulder and neck if I can.