His eyes grew wide as he watched Brisa suddenly stand as tall him. Mergo tried to jump back, but her haymaker had too much momentum. He could feel tiny bolts arcing from her fur straight towards his face, and a dozen memories ran through his head at once. The strongest amongst him was amidst a storm of sand and snow where a single punch just like that could have meant his life. Instinct took over, and without conscious input, Mergo's hands clapped together. A veil of golden light consumed him, and then he was gone.
Some thirty yards behind Brisa, he reappeared beside a tree deeper into the park. A hand ran over his face as he checked for any sort of grazing injury. None, thankfully, by the skin of his teeth. He supposed though if he hadn't dealt with something exactly like that, he would've been too puzzled to evade in time. Perhaps he had something to thank Danithan for after all.
Even still though, it frustrated him. Two attacks in a row that he had to use techniques to evade? Mergo grimaced. While so far not a single blow had landed true for either side, by Mergo's own rules, he was losing.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Mergo called. The grimace was replaced by the faintest of smirks, and his head was tilted back to give a sense of being stared down at. A wind swept through the woods, carrying with it petals and leaves and blades of grass as the trees around them started to groan and sway.
"Now..." His back leg slid away and to the right as he dropped the stick. His fingers locked together and his elbows extended to form into razor-sharp blades. "Before we break each other's jaw, I'm curious what you've taken away from this.
"You seem to me to be straight-forward, but not one to brute-force your way through. You want to see the best in people. You push others to be better and stronger, but you have limits for what you can take from others. The sense of camaraderie and connection that comes with battle is one of your prime motivators. Another is getting to smash in the faces of arrogant pricks like me. And for as much as I have to admire all that, I can see those very traits making you vulnerable to manipulation."