With speed and reactions honed from years of brutal combat, the Masked Warrior spun his whole body in a jumping heel kick that landed squarely in the middle of Inframan's chest plate. Though there wasn't much of Science Officer Hayama left under the armour to be injured by such a strike, the force behind it was enough to throw off his jump and he was sent sprawling across the roadway outside the University of Hong Kong. The ancient computers wired into his brain were working overtime analysing the power of the blow which struck Inframan as he picked himself up, just as he focused on the shape the move had taken, identifying the technique with almost the same precision. Win-Chung Kung-Fu certainly, but with elements of less rigid and more brutal styles mixed in. Adjusting his pose, Inframan was again ready to fight.
Reading his foe's movements, the Masked Warrior started to dash towards Inframan and the pair clashed at a rate of knots, the shock-wave rippling through the police who had cleared a circle around them, unwilling to get between two superhumans. Despite being composed of cutting-edge cybernetics, Inframan was decades out of date and hadn't had a proper overhaul since the '90s, so the Masked Warrior was working rings around him and raining blows. The Masked Warrior was strong for a human, but still all too human, so his blows did little to shift Inframan, but in return, Inframan was far too slow to get a hit in himself. If the fight continued at this stalemate, it was Inframan who had the advantage, though his battery power was limited, it was measured in days, much longer than most humans could reasonably operate at the same level. Unless the Masked Warrior had a nasty surprise awaiting him, Inframan was confident in his eventual victory.
From the Masked Warrior's perspective, however, this was just another in a lifetime of fights where he was outgunned and had to rely on skill and cunning to win. As he had rushed to Hong Kong without a large amount of time to prepare, most of Chen's equipment was out of date, which rendered a lot of it too dangerous to use. Sweaty gelignite, leaky gas canisters and damp flash powder would have to be disposed of properly at some point, but for now, the Masked Warrior still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Dashing forward, Chen used his momentum to kick up and off Inframan, gaining some vertical distance and flinging a slender but strong throwing blade into the wafer-thin gap between his foe's shoulder and neck armour plates. Chen had had the blades made decades ago when a Shanghai gang he was battling had the bright idea of building suits of armour to protect themselves from police gunfire. Whilst Inframan lacked too many human parts for the blade to injure, the delicate mechanical joints under his armour were an obvious weakness.
Almost immediately, Inframan's right shoulder seized as the socket ground against the high-tensile steel alloy of the Masked Warrior's blade. Not giving his opponent time to breathe, the Masked Warrior followed up the first knife with a second to the knee and a third to the left elbow. Collapsing to one knee, Inframan twisted in panic as a stone-faced Masked Warrior closed in, drawing another small explosive from his jacket and preparing it for use. Taking his time, Chen leaned in towards Inframan, putting his face close to what passed for the cyborg's ear so that he would be heard over the commotion of the clashing police and students.
"Do you bleed?" mocked Chen as he placed the explosive on Inframan's head, "because you will."
Facing probable death and certain serious damage to his long out-of-date robotic upgrades, Inframan was forced to unleash his ultimate weapon, the Infra-beam. Even during the worst of the Kaiju wars, Inframan had never used this devastating beam of concentrated energy against a human target, and had no idea what the effect would be, as it was designed for killing giant monsters, but he had precious few options remaining. The Infra-beam operated on the same atomic reactor that powered Inframan himself, so it took only a fraction of a second to charge, unleashing a vivid scarlet beam of energy just as the Masked Warrior stepped back to discharge his explosives.
The beam split the pavement below Inframan, scattering asphalt across the area of the conflict and blasting the Masked Warrior backwards. Despite his dire situation, what remained of Science Officer Hayama could not bring himself to kill another human being. Using the limited motion remaining in each arm, Inframan snapped off the blade protruding from his knee joint, giving him enough movement to launch himself into the hole blasted by his Infra-beam, which had cut right through to Hong Kong's intricate sewer system. In the chaos caused by the blast, few saw Inframan escape and none were in a condition to pursue him, including the Masked Warrior, who painfully picked himself up, a significant distance from where he had left the ground and fought down the painful ringing in his ears. Whatever fight had been left in the mob was gone, the protesting students had retreated behind their barricades and even the police had begun to withdraw.
Cursing the cowardice of the police and the failings of his own aging body, Chen drifted stiffly into the smoke and made good his exit, swearing revenge on Inframan when they next met.
