After closing his eyes for a few moments Axel didn't feel anything from the attack.
"What the?" Jeff said.
Lars looked up, expecting to find shards digging into his skin.
"How?" Lars said looking up at the shardss. They were levitating in midair held together by water.
He had somehow managed to create a small shield of water just inches away from his skin.
Boom!
A cascade of water came onto the cliff pooling around Lars on all sides.
"I made it just in time…" Lars thought. "But how is this shield of water protecting me?
As he lowered his hands the shield of water came crashing to the ground along with the purple shards.
"How did I even make that?" He thought puzzled.
Lars tried to assemble the water into a shield again but could only manage to get a very small sphere of deranged water to rise. He desperately tried to retain the spherical form but water began to leak from the sphere falling back onto the ground.
"Blocking my lithium attack with just water? That's Impossible!" Jeff remarked
"It's not just water," 6 said. "Not only did your shards go through a 2 ft. wall of incompressible liquid. It went through a liquid being held together by Axel's ether. It's still in its infantile state, but liquids held together by ether are netted in all directions making them much more resistant to force. With enough time, Axel's wall of water could become harder than your needles!"
"You're crazy!!" said Jeff, preparing another round. Lars noticed that the strands of liquorice usually on Jeff's skin were gone, almost as if he had to reload them. This time knowing what to expect he started to move back towards cover.
Jeff fully reloaded his stock of liquorish needles and shot them towards Lars once more.
Now at a further distance than before Lars had time to react and dodge the barrage as he continued to struggle to control his ether.
"If I can just combine the water like I did before…. I can knock him out in one punch! But I can't seem to get control over this stuff while moving!"
"Lars"! 6 yelled. "Pretend as if you're actually picking the water up! You don't do that with open fingers right? It would fall right through the spaces!"
"I see!" He said. It was finally making sense. Right now his grasp on ether was so bad that he had to envision himself picking it up himself and building it with his fingers until he had progressed enough. As it stood now, all he was doing was creating splashes and picking up a small amount at a time
"I wonder…" He thought.
Forming his hand into a wedged shaped cup, he focused ether into the water and pulled his hand back, then thrust it towards Jeff.
Seemingly a success, a large sphere of water soared through the air towards Jeff's face with great velocity.
As the blast came Inches away from colliding with his face, using his bare hand, Jeff sliced the attack with a swift chop, bursting it open. He laughed at the frivolous attack like nothing had happend.
Lars became nervous and hid behind a tree. What was he supposed to do against this opponent? He was outraged and outclassed. He needed more time, he still didn't understand how his powers worked.
"You're moving too fast," 6 yelled to him. "This is your first time fighting for real! You need to give yourself time to build up ether! Instead of thrusting immediately try to gather as much as you can in your hand at a time and then attack."
Lars looked down at his hands. He had forgotten the strings. He needed to gather all of the invisible strings in one place before he launched an attack.
Rolling out of cover, he landed in a crouched position. He focused his ether, gathering all the invisible strings into one area. As he began to channel his power a flood of water started rushing towards him.
"Like I'm going to just stand here and let you do that! I won't underestimate you!" Jeff said slowly covering his body in liquorish needles.
"Come on If I could just" Lars said
"Lithium! Jeff yelled again
Thousands of little purple shards spread out towards Lars . Leaping from branch to branch he swiftly dodge through the trees avoiding their trajectory.
Standing behind a tree, Lars tried to gather water into his hand once again.
"Okay…. Focus… remember the board" Lars said.
He began to feel a cool touch cover his arms, as the feeling of flowing ether went through his body. Forcing the flow into his hand, he felt the water collect.
"Yes, that's the flow! I've got it!" he said triumphantly.
He Stepped out from behind the tree and catapulted the Second Barrage of water towards Jeff's position.
Instantly he saw a change in Jeff's expression
"This one is strong," Jeff said as the sphere of water accelerated towards him. It was much larger and faster than the previous attack.
"I can't block it with my hand,'' he said scrambling.
"HA and you're out of ammo!" Lars said gloating at the lack of liquorish on Jeff's surrounding skin.
Booom!
A dense cloud of water erupted on Jeff shrouding his body in a splash.
"Nice one Ax!" the boy said
"Not bad but you'll have to do better than that". Jeff said
As the mist began to clear Axel could see that there was a large violet shield blocking his view of Jeff.
"How? You were out of ammo!" Axel questioned.
The shield slowly retracted back into Jeff slowly returning to its original place. As it began to shrink it drooped on the floor and slowly crept up Jeff legs and shoulders returning to his head!
"Well, now you know why I always wear a hat" Jeff said, displaying his liquorice head.
"Holy shit! Axel exclaimed
Jeff's hair was pointed completely vertical in long thick strands of licorice. The liquorish on his body was small and pointy like cactus needles but the ones on his head were long and thick like crystal shards.
"Yen go ahead and laugh! Kids used to tease me all the time as a kid!"
"But I don't think it's -"
"Kids used to chase me down, they called me candy land! They used to pull out my hair! And eat the liquorish off of my head! It was PB who gave me this hat, It was Pb who stood up for me! It was PB who made all those other kids disappear and they never bullied me again! That's why I always gotta stick up for PB! Your a D4 Loser! someone's from D4 can never understand what he's been through He's got every right to hate people like you to the bones!"
"Just what exactly did we D4's do to him?" Lars yelled
"Shifters from D4..." Jeff began. "Killed his father!"