Run straight at him!

Oh, fooey! You're not waiting around any longer -- you've got a melee weapon, and that's no good if you can't get in there and melee with it!

Leaping up from your cover, you begin your sprint around the pool to reach Jace. As you move, he fires bolt after bolt at you. A few miss, but the ones that hit really hurt. Like, a lot! As the third bounces off of your chest, smushing and stinging at your boobs, you start to slow down. Huff, puff..... why's he still so far away?

Another shot launches out. The blunt bolt catches you right in the hip, and you stop running entirely as you lean your hands down onto your bent knees.{if Armour == 2}{else} Man, this armour's heavy.{endif} It's a bit embarrassing, but.... you think you might be done. Running at him without being fast enough meant that he was able to shoot at you a bunch, and that wasn't good at all. That was so quick.....

".....Over?" Jace cups a hand to his mouth and calls over to you, as you stand a distance from him still panting.

"Yeah." You admit back, permitting yourself to fall backwards onto your bottom. Oh, man.... that was really disappointing, you were expecting a big spectacle.{if Armour == 2} It's super hard to block something like a crossbow bolt with bracers, so this match-up was at a bit of a disadvantage for you.{else} And you were kind of hoping that your armour would absorb the shots a bit more than that, but you guess there were just too many.{endif} At least you know that you need to work on your Speed a bit, if you want to go about fights this way.

Jace jogs over to you, unstrapping his armour plate and removing the bolt from the crossbow. MAN, like, sorry that you keep talking about it, but you're actually so disappointed right now. At least you know what to expect from fights, but you're all sore all over and you're not feeling happy and-

"Hey, you were really hard to hit! I hit targets exactly where I want pretty much every time, but only three of those five shots hit you."

............

Well, as you were saying....

"Even then, when it's a target I know exactly where it'll hit, but with you I had no idea where the shots would land. You've got a real knack for this stuff! It's easy to build up the physical bits you need, but the mental bits are really hard, and you've already got them in the bag."

........................

Alright, fine. You had fun.

With a grin, Jace reaches down his hand and helps you up to your feet. The soreness is all disappearing now, and your determination's all coming back, so that's awesome! In fact -- hey, this is just motivation! Now you need to beat Jace at fighting. And when you do, you'll know that you've gotten better! Yeah, you're gonna kick his ass next time! Maybe even this time, if you went again right now, that's how motivated you are. He's dead meat!