"JACOB!"Few complaints, and nothing pressing, so I'm gonna post, so Silas can acknowledge what will amount to be a couple of problems.
He landed, and as he did, just out of the debris, Maus realized a couple of things immediately. One, someone was just behind him, closing in close enough that he would soon be able to strike at him; the second was what saved him from that oncoming strike, however. The fist aimed at him required that he stop by way of his strike against Mr. Fireballs-On-High. Seemed his adversary had enough of a tip-off to jump back a couple of steps, meaning that Maus stumbled forward as well. Until he caught himself. Until a blow aimed too precisely for one particular object and circumstance missed entirely because of that precision.
Well, not entirely. It brushed him, not even striking him in the way one thing struck another to do any damage under ordinary circumstances. These weren't ordinary circumstances, however. And evidently, as he found the ambient force around the blow bruise him as deep as his collar-bone, he wasn't fighting an ordinary man.
Or being chased by.
No time for snippety thoughts. He was caught between someone that could toss aside a universalist mindset for a singular one at a moments notice, and he had someone that could hurt him badly even when he missed him. He had no idea where Ya Zhen was, and if he'd had time to really think it through like that, he'd know he'd have to keep his head, and move his feet.
He may not have had the time to think it through, but his body already knew what he ought to do. Despite his body screaming for rest, every muscle having donated athlete level and beyond of effort, every neuron already taxed, and every joint and bone probably to be swollen by tomorrow, if not within the hour, he fed on his andrenaline, before it could consume him, and moved to fake right, intending to gracefully slash at the man behind him (Silas), before less gracefully, and more abruptly, charging Jacob with his cylindrical carrying bag against his forearm.
Less damage, more results.
Something happened, as he was faking, however, that gave one action some pause, and the other an unintended and potentially lethal haste and power. He didn't really have time to comprehend it, as he noticed the airshift with the rudimentary makings of mystic force given embodiment, but was thankful that he hadn't been there, because of what happened next.
His sword, incidentally, was in the path of one of the bursts, however, the one intended for his torso. It caught his sword tip, and depending on where the venerable Master was that had been chasing Maus this-far, might very well have cleave him higher up on his body, as the other (or perhaps both, depending on form and power of the) burst of force lashed out at him, rather then the fleet-footed form of Maus.
Whether finding himself sprayed in blood, or simply stumbled from yet another intrusion on his handiwork of feint and distraction, however, Maus would still proceed to drive at Jacob. Not with the sharp point of his gold-worked, ebon blade, but with the broad and soft cumbersome-ness of his bag, a much more certain strike, if also much less dangerous.
You can lose everything, an ominous inner-voice whispered. Not the Patron. Not Knox. No one he really knew. Not himself, either.
Submit Thread for Judgment