As the girl staggered back, she seemed to gather herself for a moment...and then the familiar ring of stars appeared above her head.  Aika's blow had Stunned the boss, and a familiar prompt appeared.<br/><br/><tt class="bbc_tt">Engage in Beatdown?  (Remove one Health Bar)</tt><br/><br/>"Joy, let's pass on this one!  I think we can take her without it."  The Beatdown would leave her with just<em>one</em>hit left, the next successful attack against her would do her in.  But...if she and Joy played it right, they could put her down now, and not have the risk of one more attack being made against them.  Aika knew precisely what she wanted to do, too.  As such, passing on the Beatdown, they moved towards the stunned boss and launched their attacks.  Joy's fists flashed about her body, solidly<em>thwacking</em>her in a 1-2 combo that drained her health bar, removed a star, and then sent the remaining single bar into, once again, the yellow mid-range section.<br/><br/>But Aika wasn't that far behind Joy, and she had decided to test another of her new Taekwondo moves against her, seeing as how there was no defensive response coming from her.  The Roundhouse Kick was a potent move recognized the world over - even your most basic no-expertise martial arts fan would know it.  (Or anyone who happened to enjoy a good Chuck Norris movie.)  Turning in place, Aika moved the leg and felt the powerful impact against the boss' head, and everything slowed to a crawl in time as her health bar drained, and she fell to the ground, defeated...<br/><br/>...but for a few moments, before time resumed its normal pace, something would happen.  As Aika resumed her normal stance, she felt (and Joy, if she was looking in Aika's direction, would see) something.<em>Joy</em>would see the slight wobble and bobble of Aika's ass, presumably from having executed the roundhouse.  Aika, on the other hand, would<em>feel</em>that...but it was for only a moment, and the moment they thought there might be something more to it, it was already over.<br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">STAGE 1-2<br/>-Road to Sengi Rail Station-<br/>COMPLETE</span></div><br/><tt class="bbc_tt">Do you wish to continue to the next Stage?</tt><br/><br/><tt class="bbc_tt">Number of stages left in this time slot: <em>1</em></tt>