Though Brad took only a fraction of a second to go from unconscious to fully alert, by the time he tried to adjust his landing point in midair, he was astonished to see that X had already been waiting at his calculated landing spot for some time.
Damn it! How was I supposed to adjust in time?!
Before Brad could think anything else, X caught him, pivoted once, then stamped one foot into the metal floor to bleed off the momentum. His other leg instantly rose, driving a knee into Brad's chest.
Brad felt all the air in his lungs squeezed out by the sledgehammer-like impact. Before he could draw another breath, a hook smashed into his face.
With a tremendous bang, Brad went flying back the way he had come.
An image from Future Sight flashed through Brad's mind.
Shit, it was Quicksilver playing ping-pong!
Sure enough, just as his trajectory began to dip, a high whip kick cleaved across Brad's waist. The immense force folded him into a V, then sent him flying in the opposite direction.
Brad was batted back and forth through the air like a ball more than a dozen times.
Only when he finally managed to curl himself into a ball midflight, forming a genuine spherical shape and spreading the force of one of X's attacks across his entire body, did he catch his breath during the next brief flight.
Bionic Mimicry Ability, peacock mantis shrimp! Hummingbird! Electric eel!
Imitative Martial Arts! High-speed incendiary bomb!
Brad brought his hands together, his fists colliding and crossing several times in less than a blink.
More than a dozen air bullets flew toward X.
Then, just as X reached out to swat them aside, every air bullet burst, becoming more than a dozen fireballs burning at several