John Poppins vs. Canaan Noble

Men's Room

Doesn't matter if you're a female contestant, this dirty, dingy place is requiring a new fresh paint of red on the walls. Some random derelict bar let its nasty Men's Room be used as an arena. They can use the extra cash to fix the screwed up piping.

Terrain

General: This place is nasty. Most of the stall's doors are about to fall of the hinges. The urinals haven't been cleaned in years. The middle toilet is clogged. There's holes in the walls where duct-taped pipes are visible. The one of the sinks is on the ground. The whole space is 50-by-25 feet. Not much space.

Weapons: Toilet seats. Piping. Broken sink.

Bonus Features: None.

“Oh no, I seem to ‘ave dropped all me rocks.” The skittering sound of rock on tile filled the dirty bathroom as a literal deluge of small stones bounced through the suddenly opened doorway. An entire bag’s worth, in fact, as the Brit up-ended his misleading pouch and watched the stones fill all the little nooks and crannies and spread out to about ten feet into the toilet. There wasn’t anything in the rules about him throwing his own ammunition onto the ground from the outset, after all, why wait until things were getting hairy to get them out of the bag.

When John came into sight, strolling gingerly into his clean new surroundings, it would become immediately apparent that he had his cane resting behind his neck, clutched in his two arms almost like a bar weight with the hook over his left shoulder. Other than that, he looked like his relatively normal self, gritty and dirty looking with his annoying cap and his patched up jacket, standing at about average height despite his age. Ironically, the toilet was clean by comparison to what he was used to, so he looked around with a certain wonder at the interior plumbing. Sure, it was obviously a bit ramshackle, but still years beyond what you’d get in Victorian London.

Oh, that was where he was from, if the rest of his attire didn’t already give that away, what with his boots and tough brown trousers and old fashioned shirt. Never mind that though, the adolescent had people to beat up and money to make and blackmailers to satisfy. So who was today’s lucky winner of a free beating from Britain’s best?

Well, he couldn’t describe the guy because there wasn’t anything to go on, he was just leaning up against a sink some distance away, though John guessed it was about twenty feet from his current position just inside the toilet, with the rock he’d dropped at his feet.

“Alrigh’ ma’e, you los’ or somma’? Cor, course you ain’ you ‘ere to figh’ me ain’ you! Well, le’s ge’ on wi’ I’ den.”

Truest Valor Wrote:

Not even gunna chat then? Guess he only likes joining fighting tournaments to fight people, what a boring fucker.

There was an audible cracking sound as Canaan moved towards the Brit. He split his own weapon in half over his back and held the pieces ready in front of his body, the broken end of each piece seemingly forming a six inch spike. The left hand chunk of cane had a make-shift hand guard due to the hook, but the right was basically just a spiked pole of rock a foot and a half long. As Canaan was devoid of anything resembling armour and running at him with his fists, John was happy to oblige him with a free helping of impalement, but he had to let him run into range first, and he might very well pussy out when he saw that John was now equipped with two pointy rocks, dangerous weapons indeed. As for his stance? John was stood holding his two rock-weapons vertically in front of him, his right foot and right side were leading, but not excessively, he looked relatively relaxed and nonchalant. Which he was, of course, who would be afraid of a guy who didn’t even sit around engaging in some healthy banter first?

Oh, and if Canaan did dally, then those rocks at John’s feet would start shaking with excitement, so he was screwed either way really.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Canaan in fact did the exact opposite of dallying, so John wasted no time or concentration on manipulating the rocks at his feet and put it all into manipulating the rocks in his hands. Emphasis on hands, as he effectively duel-wielded two spiked batons made of rock. That meant he had one spare as he made to thrust in succession at his foe and the first was nimbly knocked off line by an armoured forearm, only for him to follow up with the weapon in his left hand. Knocking one of his weapons off-line was a decent move, but Canaan probably should have dealt with both of them, as the second could easily exploit his opened up guard, and he did just that, sending the point of the left-most chunk of cane hurtling towards Canaan’s stomach, a few cm’s above and to the left of his naval. Not fatal by any means, but it would pack a wallop, and with his forward momentum driving him onto the weapon it could easily result in full impalement.

If not, he might have a follow up to deal with as the hook of the cane was facing in his direction, and it would be easy for John to move in and lift his arm to deal Canaan a vicious upper-cut, which he very much intended to do at a later date.

The initial strike with his right-most cane had been just under shoulder height, where-as the second was lower, he had obviously intended to test Canaan’s ability to deal with the point of two weapons at different angles, but as Canaan only took steps to defend against one of the weapons, he could very well be in trouble already. Unless magic saved him, or his reactions, anything was possible really.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Trade then, because John was always planning on stepping in and slamming that hook-guard into his enemy’s face, and he’d provided the opportunity. As the tip of his weapon slipped and Canaan stepped in, he stepped in on his left foot rightward and turned his body following the momentum of his cane, lifting his arm and driving his elbow up in what would approximately be a high sabre guard, not unlike what Ogelsby had demonstrated to him earlier on. Though John’s usage of it was a little more primal, as he intended to ram the hook of his cane into Canaan’s chin and follow through into his face with enough force to break his jaw. In terms of what would hurt more, ribs or jaw, it was hard to say. There wasn’t much John could do to defend himself from a punch with two weapons in his hands, so the super-energy punch was going to land as intended, only slightly stifled by him moving into it and cutting apart Canaan’s wind-up.

Thing was, John’s own strike was going to land at roughly the same point, as the first engagement had taken place outside of punching range they would come together at rib punching and jaw crushing range at the same time, and there was no reason why they wouldn’t land simultaneously. For John, this culminated in an energy charged super fist driving into his ribs, despite the rock-like nature of his skin and bone the audible crack dictated he had suffered a fracture from the blow, which would promptly be followed by bad bruising. Not debilitating by any means, as the Brit bit down on the pain, but bad enough to want to get the fuck out of dodge.

Which he’d promptly do after launching his own follow-up attack, first by driving the weapon in his right hand bottom first towards the left side of Canaan’s head, using the shorter side more like a bludgeon to compensate for the unfavourable range. This would come in shortly after the hook-thrust, offering up another threat as he took stock of the situation and the pain rushed in. Hello old friend.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Pain tended to focus John, and he knew he’d suffered a disproportionate amount of it even as he swung the rock in his right hand only for it be blocked by Canaan’s bracer. He’d landed solidly with the cane, giving him a moment of respite as his enemy reeled, having your brain rocked around your skull was never pleasant. However he realised then that he couldn’t stick around and brawl with the guy, even if he was forced to fight in such narrow confines he had to utilize his advantages better or he was going to lose. He shot back on his left foot, the rock beneath him grinding under his boot rather than sliding like it would for his enemy. It was that which he planned to use to his advantage, as to gain the space required to re-threaten Canaan with the point of his cane he focused on the rocks below him, timing it so that when Canaan’s forward foot fell down the stones would slip from under his feet. A momentary distraction at best, but enough for John to obtain perhaps four feet of space between them with his right side slightly forward, and level both his weapons. Ready to threaten Canaan again with the points.

If Canaan continued to charge at him, in an ungainly fashion presumably because after stepping into John’s ‘territory’ so to speak he was almost bound to slip somewhat, John should have time to level his weapons and force him back with another two pronged assault to his lower and upper torso, with left and right cane respectively. Regardless, his actions should be sufficient to make Canaan’s crosses unviable, at least for now, if he pressed forward past John’s obstacles things could very well be different, as there wasn’t much space left before John would be backing up out the door and forfeiting if he wasn’t careful.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Fuck this

John struck with both canes simultaneously, just on the off chance his enemy was quick enough to bat both points away again with his bare hands. Turned out he was capable of such a feat, which was rather unfortunate. Regardless of Canaan’s intent to whip his right hand back into a guard position while batting the cane out of John’s right hand the act would be impossible, so for a brief moment his guard was completely open, and in that moment John burst forward off the stone at his left foot, using it like a spring-board as his weight rapidly increased, briefly turning himself into a proper bruiser like. The cane in his right hand had been discarded rather than contesting the disarm manoeuvre and fell off to his right somewhere, but he kept hold of the piece in his left.

However durable Canaan was, his footing was on a rock strewn tiled floor in a shitty toilet with leaky plumbing, aka, not good. John would weigh over 100kg as he slammed into him at high speed, having used his spring-board technique to rapidly gather momentum in a short period. His right forearm was covering his head even as his right elbow threatened to go right through Canaan’s face and his body threatened to clear him out. The question was if his magic armour would stop him bailing on the floor when John’s weight suddenly hit him, or if he’d have time to get a punch in, probably unlikely, he wasn’t in the best punching position after aggressively launching a five kg cane out of his hand, not to mention he’d have taken his eyes off the prize in favour of watching the two pronged and incredibly speedy cane-points, unless he had superhuman observation, which was always possible. Regardless.

Flying rock-thief engage.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Amazingly, Canaan managed to stay on his foot despite literally taking one of his legs off the ground to try and knee John as he steam-rolled him. How he managed that was anyone’s guess, as John had utilized his rock-springboard to almost double his speed past his ordinary Olympic level acceleration, one could assume he was colliding with Canaan with no small amount of energy despite the paltry distance. That, coupled with the fact that he was at least equal to Canaan’s weight on contact, actually made his ability to maintain stationary with one leg on the ground… impossible.

Unfortunately, even though Canaan got off his awkward knee strike, it wasn’t going to stop John’s forward momentum, and he wasn’t going to bounce off Canaan, John weighed more. All that force had to go somewhere, presumably if Canaan wasn’t going to budge a muscle he was getting an elbow to the face, John’s own skin negated 25% of the force acting upon it and it didn’t make that much difference, so now his rock-solid elbow was going to land cleanly and probably fuck up the guy’s face with the weight and strength of a much bigger fighter behind it. For John’s part, the knee seemed to land badly, possibly because his body was turned leftward to deliver his right armed elbow strike and the knee came in from the right, when it would have been better suited from the left. It span him around a little and glanced off his side and down his back as he flew in, winding him pretty badly, probably bruised as well. The force carried through to his fractured rib, but anything that wasn’t going to put him down wasn’t going to be enough to stop his elbow landing.

Meanwhile, John was simply holding the cane in his left hand rather awkwardly underneath the guy’s right arm. Or at least he was, but evidently trying to use reach wasn’t going to work against the superhuman reflexes that Canaan possessed. So, John had the cane lose structural integrity and roughly coinciding with the following crack of his elbow going through Canaan’s face, there was a crack as a foot and a bit of cane snapped away from the hook, leaving only a small splintered knife-head attached to the handle.

Truest Valor Wrote:

John didn’t want to go, he liked it here, right in front of Canaan, his arm up and right in front of his face. Blocking his view. It would be fair to say breathing was less of an issue right then as his mind had barely caught up with the damage done to his body as he rode a wave of adrenaline on his way to brutal… brutal victory. Of course, if things continued on the shallow-nature of his breathing brought about by fractured ribs could pay dividends, but right now nothing had put him down or even particularly slowed him. Except his own ability of course, which upon increasing his mass had reduced his movement speed, making him downright sluggish compared to his usual high octane agility. That same mass was leaking away almost as soon as it reached its peak, but the effect would be noticeable, and Canaan would have probably been able to stop him pretty easily… if he could see what was going to happen.

No longer did John hold a cumbersome rock cane, but a rock knife! Six inches of sharpened stone on the hook of his cane, clutched low in his left hand with his right arm in Canaan’s face. His attack had earned him a moment, being hit in the head when you don’t expect it always gives a few moments pause. Which was unfortunate, because the same thing was about to happen to him. As his left hand shot across in a sharp left to forward right motion that could only be described as shanking, aiming to deliver multiple stab wounds across the right side of Canaan’s body before he realised what happened, John was stopped before he could stab more than twice at his lower torso, which could still very well perforate some important organs. Canaan’s fist rocketed up under his outstretched right arm, clipping his bicep and slowing somewhat as it caught on his loose jacket, sharply raising his arm before the fist bounced off and glanced across his jaw and face. Unconsciously he pulled away from the punch, but he was too slow to stop it forcing him back, perhaps having done some damage with his shanking none-the-less.

John stumbled back and raised his arms in front of his face in a standard right-handed boxer’s guard, the handle of his cane-knife serving as a decent enough knuckle-duster, he’d be able to see blood on the point unless Canaan had stopped him somehow, but when John was using rock to inflict a wound, his attack was usually swift and incredibly forceful. His breathing wheezed a little before he forced in a proper breath, grinning as he clicked his neck, he didn’t want to take another punch like that full on.

Truest Valor Wrote:

Naturally, upon pulling back John had retracted his right arm in front of his face, which allowed Canaan to launch his pin-point accurate straight cross despite having just had an elbow blocking his view, but also offered him a handy forearm with which the deflect it. Or rather, block it, as parrying a punch wasn’t really in John’s skill set the same way parrying a spear was in Canaan’s. His right forearm crunched under the enhanced force of the blow, but fortunately for him, his skin was flecked with rock and rock isn’t so bad a match against magical steel. Which is roughly what he’d realised he was up against, that blue aura around Canaan had actual physical mass to it, which was why he wasn’t dying from two stab wounds to his organs, whichever ones happened to be in the spot John had stabbed, he couldn’t tell you their names.

His arm splatted into his own face briefly and knocked him back further, his right foot crunching through rock and shattering it into dust at his feet, as every step he’d taken on his rocky floor had done. He was barely even in the toilet at that point, about three feet from the open door standing in his meagre rock field, guard up, feeling unpleasant about the situation. The issue was that he wasn’t cheating enough, so now it was time to really ramp up the tricks. Before Canaan could follow him and unleash more super-punches, he started to concentrate on the gravelly remains of crushed rock beneath him. It took barely a second to gather, being of minimal mass, and as he did so he picked out the remains of his spiked cane just off to the right threatening to slide under one of the weird flappy doors. It was about six feet away from him, just off to Canaan’s left in his current position, and he wanted it.

“Open dem peepers dick’ed.” He yelled, as dust rose all around them and gravel and rock shot towards Canaan’s face, somehow finding its way around raised arms and outstretched fingers, leaving no option but to clamp up tight or close his eyes. It didn’t really matter if his armour offered up a reduction to physical damage, because that wasn’t really the intent. The intent was to get a shit-load of gravel and grit in his eye-balls, causing severe irritation and even blindness. John would have a full view of the success of his attempt, if Canaan attempted to close on him before he could do it, he’d have just moved the rock under his feet rather than trying to throw it into his eyes, destabilising him long enough to produce the same effect. If Canaan avoided being distracted at all by his gravel, he’d have to keep his guard up and think of something else, if not, he’d begin moving forward and to the right.

Truest Valor Wrote:

In a way, his plan basically did crumble. As the energy blast screamed towards him escaping it was basically out of the question, the only option available to John was to tighten up his elbows and bring his arms together, an easy enough thing to do from his guard position. Which was exactly what he did, not that it helped much as the force threw him off his feet and his elbows slammed into his own chest, sending waves of pain down through his fractured rib, which turned itself into a neat little break upon landing. He skittered straight out the door and slid through discarded peanut-shells over a fairly smooth wooden floor for about five feet, pain and shock suffusing his body. In an act of somewhat petty defiance, he re-asserted his control of a few rocks by the entrance and painfully bent upwards, pulling them from beneath Canaan’s feet again to halt any advance he could make to claim the front door.

He was mostly glad he’d avoided stabbing himself with his own rock cane as he started to swear profusely and tried to push himself to his feet, his voice shaky from shock and injury. His rib was bad now, tightening up his chest, causing his breath to come in gasps. From somewhere above him a mechanical voice started to count down, but he paid it no mind at first. He had ten seconds, but Canaan was going to get to the door first, and there wasn’t much he could do to force his way past the brawler, he’d tried that already.

John put his time to the best possible use, at the eight second mark, he started to gather rock. This time though, there was only one thing he had in mind, and it was going to take him about four seconds to obtain control of, lurking just beneath a toilet stall, weighty with a vicious point, and more importantly behind Canaan. John had no idea about his ability to sense magic, but even then, he would have to do something, he couldn’t stand there and wait John out, not yet.

Ring Out Wrote:

> 8 Seconds remaining

Four seconds passed in an awkward stand-off, John taking the time granted to him to get his breath back. He’d have been in trouble had Canaan come toward him and fought him outside, seeing as how he’d have lost first from the countdown. Instead, he was playing it safe, guarding the doorway. Which gave John the time he needed to get his breath and point the cane-spear, tilted up off the ground like a stake in rudimentary fortifications, from its position behind Canaan and to his left.

First though, he needed a decent distraction, so the cane-knife had to go. With a sharp, practiced throw, he launched the object across the scant six feet dividing them, even as the machine counted four seconds remaining. It bounced off the door-frame and the hook span towards the left side of Canaan’s head. All of this was really unimportant however, as John sped forward and the cane-spear launched from hiding from behind the man, aiming to skewer him from a low angle right through the small of his back and through his spine, accounting for any small movements he made in dodging the thrown projectile. In fact, John was hoping for some attempt at evasion, Canaan would naturally dodge right to avoid the projectile, so the cane coming in from his left at his roughly 8 o’clock would be hard-pressed to miss him, and the low angle and target allowed for something excessive like a roll or simply diving prone. The four kg cane had a sharp point and was flying at almost eighty mph, so there was very little chance that magic armour alone would save the man this time. That cane sang of crippling injury, it was filled with such promise.

If Canaan’s movements were extreme enough or lucky enough for him to avoid the cane, John was probably fucked as he ran towards the open door-way, trying to re-enter before time ran out. His stride was severely stunted by injury, but he should make it in pretty comfortably at the two second mark, unless things went horribly wrong. The one thing that wouldn’t be happening was John getting hit by his own cane, if it ended up having to fly toward him to get a hit on Canaan and he avoided it, John was ready with a contingency.

This wasn’t quite his last gambit, but if things went pete tong he was definitely in trouble, he had only three seconds left as he sprinted forward and his cane flew towards its target.

Truest Valor Wrote:

> Ring Out: 3 Seconds

Well, there was one thing John could do. His attempt to distract Canaan with his knife-cane was a ruse to flush him out of his position, but the cane-spear did not immediately fire into the side of the door. Remember, John controlled the cane and could throw it at will, seeing Canaan running toward him he would not fire it pointlessly into the side of the door-frame, he had in fact intended to judge his shot on what Canaan did to his knife. Instead, the cane re-positioned itself directly behind him as they closed together, and John ran at him full-pelt while unleashing it. There was a reason why John had a contingency in case he had to shoot his spear directly from behind Canaan and risk piercing himself, why would he have had that contingency if hitting the door frame was an option?

So that eventuality played out, they rushed each other and the cane shot from directly behind Canaan at that same low-angle threatening his back, albeit a tiny bit delayed which meant Canaan was a little further away and also out of the arena. He would no doubt feel the cane launching, but having come toward John his evasion options were now limited. The seventh second ticked away as they made ready to collide, if Canaan committed to grabbing John he was going to be impaled. If he didn’t, John was going to slip around his left side and run for the open door, taking advantage of whatever evasive manoeuvres Canaan was forced to make to avoid being disabled.

John’s left hand was open in a circle in front of his chest while his right was high, aiming to bat away Canaan’s hands if they went for him. Though if they would even have time to tussle before the cane made its presence felt was hard to determine.

Truest Valor Wrote:

What was John’s contingency?

Jump directly over the top of his own cane, obviously. Which he did, launching himself off the ground in a leap-frogish fashion before they collided, which pleasantly carried him directly over Canaan as he reached for him. It wouldn’t have been possible usually, but Canaan was slowed down by his super-steel magical armour and had to dive from long range to reach a low enough stature before the cane hit, so he wasn’t as fast as John. There was a reason John aimed low with his spear, and this was it. There was no way Canaan was expecting him to leap directly over the top of him, his hands slamming down onto Canaan’s back as he thrust himself up and the spear went between his arms and legs. Evidently he hadn’t even thought of it, but he had fell for the only way in which John had a hope in hell of getting past his foe and back inside. Getting clean past him was never going to work unless he took a ridiculously low posture, which he did to conveniently avoid the spear, which hurtled off with the sound of smashing glass as John hit the ground running with a wince and a cough and carried himself right back into the toilet with a second to spare.

“Haha.” He wheezed.

Truest Valor Wrote:

> Rage engage?

Canaan had forgot how leapfrog worked.

show spoilerhide spoiler

For one, John’s groin was a significant height above him due to his superhuman strength and relatively light stature so the boy had launched himself a goodly distance out of Canaan’s range. Unfortunately for him, the entire point of leap-frog was to spring-board oneself over someone else, which involves having both hands on their body straight down, which conveniently places both arms in the way of ones groin. Subsequently, Canaan’s kick did fuck all, his arms gave way as a boot and leg slammed into them but that was about it. Fortunately, he’d already pushed off the man, and so the result was simply the boot wiping his arm clean backwards, ironically into his own groin, though not with enough force to be debilitating. With a nasty crack that could have signified another fracture or simply a painful impact John winced at the blow to his arm and his pride. Regardless, it didn’t stop John in his desire to get back inside, and as a decidedly average man could cover six feet in a second, John covering it in two despite the hindrance was hardly surprising.

At which point he started gathering every single rock in the immediate vicinity of the door, with which he planned to completely barrage Canaan when he made his own attempt to regain entry. He had the disadvantage of having to recover from his roll and forward momentum before he could get to his feet and run back inside, a misadventure that would cost him at least two seconds, and give John almost half the quantity of stone at his feet to play with.

Truest Valor Wrote:

John was suffering more from cracked ribs and a fractured arm bone than anything else, all the damage he’d taken was taking its toll. Unlike that which he’d inflicted on Canaan, who had strangely forgotten about the three inch deep hole in his side that had to be bleeding profusely from all his strenuous activity. Not to mention the fact that he’d been hit clean in the face twice, once by the end of the stone cane. The guy was evidently superhuman though, and John was too busy trying to stay alive to worry that much about what the other guy was up to. Unlike Canaan, who seemed overly concerned with speculating on his condition.

Canaan showed remarkable agility for a man who did not claim to be able to run exceptionally fast in his GCL admission file, not that John had peaked at it or anything. Jumping up onto his feet, turning and pursuing John without a moment’s pause, right on his tail as he sprinted into the toilet. John wasn’t turning just yet with the guy right behind him, not with his left arm sending out pangs of pain to warn him that if he tried to move it nothing good was going to happen. Thing is, the guy was just going to make the same mistake he’d been making throughout and run straight over his rock field again without a moment’s pause, and that’s when he was going to get a little payback.

John could tell from the different sound of the man’s footfall when he was in the toilet, and when he did he turned his head and timed a very special rock assault just for him. The stones at Canaan’s feet simply shifted and swirled while those directly below him shot upwards at high speed in what looked like a pillar of debris. There wasn’t much volume in it, but ten or twenty smallish stones flying directly up into your groin at over seventy miles per hour was going to sting, which was exactly what Canaan deserved. What sort of man kicks another man in the balls?

It was a token effort from John though, Canaan would no doubt plough through it but John didn’t really have any tricks left. There was a broken length of cane-spear on the ground to his left, but he sprinted past it due to his injured arm. The toilet was only about fifty feet long, pretty big for a toilet, but not really enough room for John to do anything special. The ground underfoot was getting slippy as he sadly sprinted into the puddle leaking out of the clogged middle toilet. His breath was coming in ragged gasps as his lungs tightened up from the pressure of his injuries, but his eyes weren’t panicked. They were hard, cruel even.

“Fuck you.” He wheezed, coming to a careful stop just under twenty feet from the rock cane, which stood near the end of his trail of stones, just under thirty feet inside the toilet. He ripped a plastic hand-towel dispenser clean off the wall above the sinks and chucked it directly in Canaan’s path as he turned counter-clockwise. The ground was wet underfoot, it made any sudden stops dangerous. Canaan could run straight at him if he wished, but if John darted to either side he’d be lucky to arrest his momentum before he slid half-way across the toilet. He had turned to face the man, ready to dart leftward into the open and rather nasty toilet, though what good it would do him was uncertain. Maybe he could vault over into one of the adjoining cubicles? Maybe… if his fucking arm stopped hurting and his ribs magically healed themselves. He spat.

Truest Valor Wrote:

> Your character doesn't actually have a sprint speed, just be aware that John can technically run at 25mph, he's basically an Olympian, maybe knock that down to 20mph to account for his injuries, but Canaan should be at least somewhat hindered by his stab wound, so being hot on his heels would be quite the feat

“Or you could go fuck yourself ma’ey.” John swore, though the chances that Canaan would be standing around letting him work were unlikely. He had thoughtfully stopped before the wet floor, though he hadn’t even seemed to glance at it. He probably couldn’t sprint right at him though, that was to his benefit, because as per usual the earth-elementalist was trying to gather some far-flung rock. Namely, the second length of spiked cane that had once adorned the hook. It was a good twenty feet away from him, less so from Canaan, and the spike was helpfully pointing in his direction already. Only issue was that it still weighed a little over two kg’s, which meant John needed to buy two seconds to grab it. He hadn’t been able to work it out for certain yet, but the way Canaan avoided all his rock attacks seemed like he had some innate ability to… somehow… sense the attacks coming. Maybe he could see into the future?

“Wai, i’ da’ a thing?” He asked, his own train of thought spilling out into spoken word incomprehensibly as he stood there with his right arm up kind of pointlessly. No doubt Canaan would reveal his ability one way or another, coming at him again the moment he started to gather despite having just stopped to chat. Never mind though, John only needed three seconds from the moment he stopped, the cane would be about ten feet behind Canaan, ready to stab him just like the one before, maybe he’d have more luck with this one?

Truest Valor Wrote:

“No’ a big fan’o tryin the same trick twice me.” John replied weakly as Canaan power walked toward him, maybe making a lucky guess, maybe somehow aware of what was coming. He obviously couldn’t see into the future then, because that wasn’t what John had really been planning at all, not the whole of it anyway. So he could sense it somehow, sense it when he grabbed hold of rock and started making it dance like a puppet in one of those Punch and Judy shows he liked to take a butchers at now and again.

The rock-spike shook and suddenly shot forward at a low to high angle, threatening the top of Canaan’s left leg as it flew towards his back. Maybe John had been lying, there was always a good chance of that. If Canaan was paying attention, he might notice John’s right hand had sank a little lower and he’d slowly strafed leftwards, turning the left side of his body towards Canaan. The moment the cane started moving he took a step back but retained his stance. The cane wasn’t flying so fast this time neither, fifty miles per hour at most, still enough to send the spike of the weapon straight through the meat of the man’s leg, but not so devastatingly fast as before. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen quickly, Canaan was at most six feet out when the cane was likely to threaten him, if he put on a burst of speed towards John he could probably reach him at the same time as the cane threatened, but that hadn’t exactly worked out great last time. He also had to contend with John potentially re-aligning the slower moving projectile to account for small movements to either side.

More rock, more flying spikes, maybe if John hadn’t been fighting in a toilet he might have been able to bring in a little more creativity. Not that he felt the need to, but if you’re gunna put on a show for some assholes you might as well make it good.

Truest Valor Wrote:

The cane flew past Canaan and slowed significantly, seeming to look like it would fly in front and past John at shoulder height. Until his right hand suddenly snatched it out of the air, gripping it tightly so that it stopped at the last moment with his hand at the far end away from the spike. He hadn’t been trying to hurt Canaan at all really, though hitting him a little would have been nice. In reality, he just needed a weapon to compensate for his injuries, and this was a convenient way of grabbing one. He ignored the slight friction burn, his rock-skin protecting him from any real harm, and turned to look at Canaan properly.

With practised ease he flourished the cane so that the point was now facing forward, ready for a rush from Canaan or whatever else he wanted to do. Now he had a weapon again, John was feeling at least a little more confident. It might have only been a little over a foot of stone, but it was something. Something he intended to fix up a little, as with a grinding sound the rock extended outwards, thinning slightly but lengthening to just over a foot and a half, with the same tapered point.

If he had a moment more, John would quickly switch to an overarm spear-grip, if not, he’d prepare to hit Canaan as he closed on him.

Truest Valor Wrote:

John clutched his spear in an overarm grip, perfect for javelin throws and upper-body jabs. Then, he stepped backwards and waited. Canaan popped out only a moment later with a ceramic lid in hand just ten feet in front of him, and John feinted a throw immediately at the guy’s upper body, wanting to see how he reacted to the threat. He was wary. He had underestimated weird punching magic before and had a plank of wood launched at him like a projectile by his fat opponent a few weeks back, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine Canaan doing something similar with the ceramic, so he had to be ready to move if Canaan made any sudden movements that made little sense, like clutching the object with one hand and thrusting at it with the other. John was wise to anything tricksky involving punching and magic, basically.

He strafed leftward, eyes focused, unsmiling. He feinted again, high, to see what Canaan did, if he reflected the feint’s threat by attempting to check with his impromptu shield, John would quickly redirect and launch the weapon low just above the knee of his right leg with enough force to penetrate and destroy the bone, using his ability to telekinetically accelerate thrown rock to absurd speeds of around eighty miles per hour. If Canaan failed to check the weapon, he’d feint low, and if Canaan showed no signs of moving to defend himself throw his javelin at the same target (his right leg) regardless. He might be capable of defending himself based on reflex when the javelin was thrown at his upper body, but if he didn’t move pre-emptively to defend his lower body he would be debilitated. That was a fact. Human reflex could not accommodate for a spear flying across a distance in fractions of a second. The only way Canaan avoided having a spear thrown at him at all was checking the first feint, ignoring the second and checking the third. Not an easy set of guesses to make.

Truest Valor Wrote:

John was given a chance, ironically his last as time was running out. He was hurt, but he had made the right pre-emptive move at least, after feinting he strafed leftward, just in time to avoid the ceramic cover flying towards him at considerable speed, considering its weight and poor aerodynamics. Reflexively, upon seeing his enemy rushing him with no implements to hand, he pulled back on his left foot and really put his body into one last throw. Not unlike when he accidently rocked Ogelsby’s world, he launched his javelin with all his strength, lowering his aim a little, and learning from his earlier mistakes. If the tip pierced right through the man’s lower abdomen and ruined his intestines and caused mass shock, he wouldn’t be dying immediately, only collapsing like a stunned cow.

Like a tease, the world freeze-framed. Canaan looking down the barrel of a loaded stone javelin launched with telekinetic and downright desperate strength, options available to him to dodge if he could but lacking any defensive objects other than that. Perhaps he could slip the object flying dead-centre by moving pre-emptively, it would be a tall order at such close range, but he wasn’t out of options. All of that had to be considered as the climax of the fight was unknown.

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