"Hm. As you wish."

This is not quite action faster thought. If it was, there would have been no time for a pithy one-liner. Say rather that this is action faster than [i]consideration.[/i] Before calculation, before the chain of consequences can be unraveled or resolved. This is action before justification.

Or perhaps it is merely the consequence of a very intense dream. If that is the case, Timtam has nobody to blame but herself. 

Step One: shift weight toward back foot, begin rightward roll off of Timtam. As body shifts, switch grip from sword to grab target by the collar. Grip tightly and lean into spin. Jerk upward as momentum peaks, grab hold with second hand and initiate full spin. Repeat for two rotations, plant foot. Torque hip and release opponent into air.

Step Two: follow with backflip. Extend left foot and snap kick at point of balance inversion. Heel connects with opponent's jaw, disorienting. Juggling. Regain eye contact with ground, plant feet. Light-assisted leap into air. 

Step Three: Momentum of own body causing mid-air twirl. Pull arms toward chest to accelerate movement. Wheel around and, at pinnacle of spin, extend right leg and connect full-on with boot in maximum hip rotation kick. 

The kick connects with a flash of blinding opal light not unlike a bolt of lightning (if one were to pass through this transit hall on its way to some distant cloudy sky). Thunder roars after it, furious and deafening. In fact, the arc of light follows Timtam as she sails helplessly through the station until it and she both crash into a wall and leave a comical hole where they pass. Eclair Espoir does not believe in codified combat, but the principles of the first strike the handmaiden of Heron had shown her that first night in the Chrysanthemum were simple enough to emulate. And inspiring enough to try. 

In truth what she'd done was little more than simple brute force. Nothing but burning a significant portion of her Light into raw energy and kicking it out with the use of several heartblades. Nothing of mastery and nothing of technique. Timtam is skilled and well armored enough that the strike will be far from lethal. Impossible to calculate the effects beyond the here and now. But within that lense it has most certainly rendered her unconscious. The fight is finished.

Eclair lands heavily on her side, having committed so much herself to the strike that she had nothing left for the landing. She pushes up off the ground with both hands, but it is a struggle until she can pull her left leg under her and firmly plant her boot on solid ground. The right has gone almost completely numb. Consequences of channeling so much of her offense so directly through her body. 

Action before consideration indeed. She tilts her head toward the ruined sword in her hand, its length twisted and warped beyond the point of use. She tosses it aside with a loud clatter and brushes her fingers across her thigh.

"I see. So that is why you channel it through the medium of a weapon."

Her forehead splits open, oozing blood around her left eye and down her cheek. She touches the fingers of her glove to it to check the flow: not enough to be worth the bother of attending to. She simply dips her head so that nothing drips on the floor as she turns away from the quarry she can no longer chase and turns her attention back to the people she came here to protect.

It's an easy sacrifice to make, in the end. She had not come here to win. Neither had she come here to return to the Manor. She came because somebody was in trouble. She came because nobody else was positioned to do anything about it. Now that she has discharged that duty it is time to collect the people here who need collecting, and to leave.

No more attempting to jump to the end of the game. She stoops, hiding the struggle as best she can, and throws the Idiot over her shoulder. 

"If you need to be carried as well, this is the moment to admit it."

Very romantic, no?

[if it's necessary the Fight roll is an [b]11[/b]]