[Round 3] James vs. Vincentius

Description: A mountain plateau, one of many that lies in a mountain range north of GTB known as the Tophead Mountains, is the fighting spot for this round. Moving from the standard of being inside a stadium surrounded by people, Midus Sonners has decided to make up for throwing the fighters into a fight full of bad weather and has taken them to a spot that is nice and warm with nice breezy winds of the fresh mountain air, and a good amount of water surrounding each plateau, with various other hills present throughout, including some land and a background view of the higher mountains. Each fighter will be in a location far away from the other matches, so neither will be capable of seeing one another, unless someone launches a pretty large technique, be it visually or by magical sense. Cameramen rest in flying helicopters and on islands out in the water to keep a close watch on the fights taking place for all to see from the safety of their livings and the large screen present back at the GTB stadium.

Grass and rock is the terrain, with a few small ups and downs that keep the plateau from being perfectly flat. The edge drops down in a curve toward the waters, the plateau raised at a height of fifty feet above water. The slope isn't steep, so if one slips down the hill, they can easily catch themselves and start walking back up, though not without some effort.

How The Fighters Arrived: All fighters were transported via helicopters, one helicopter per fight with both fighters being transported in the same vehicle.

Special Conditions: None.

Field Measurements:

Here is a visual of the field measurements, with the assumption that the plateau is circular on its top.

Ten Count Boundary: The moment someone goes goes outside the 30ft diameter, meaning touching the slopes, the ten count starts. To show where the ten count starts, a holographic barrier surrounds the plateau in a half opaque orange color. For reference, the distance of the slope from the edge of the top to the water is 15 ft.

The flying rule remains.

Vince was known for being a some-what outlandish fighter, mostly berserker-esque until he decided that it was necessary to bust out the magic. If he did bust out the magic, well, it was still more or less wrapped into or tied into his melee usage, and it was deadly nonetheless. James' opponent arrived at the same time , however, not in the way that one would suspect. The massive beast of a man literally, despite the pilots' warnings, jumped from the helicopter which was meant to touch down and drop him off. True enough that the helicopter was only thirty or so feet from touching down, but Vince just wasn't going to wait any longer to get into the heat of battle and show his opponent just why he deserved to be here.

When Vince smashed to the ground, there was basically a huge thud as his right fist slammed into the ground. He was in a typical kneeling position, one leg back, the other forward, and his hand was placed on the ground in-front of him, black-plated gauntlets having smashed up rocky terrain during the impact. As Vince stood up, his massive great-sword touched scraped the ground, and even though Vince's height was that of a very tall basketball player, 6'11", the sword didn't hang much off the ground. It was very evident in this that despite James' sword having length, it wasn't longer than Vince's.

Infact, the swords pretty much evened out. Vince, however, seemed to have a slight reach advantage with the blade being six feet long in length and the hilt being a foot and a half long or so. The hilt stuck up over Vince's head, and with a yank, Vince ripped the sword free from the straps that held it to his back. He pushed it forward in his right hand so that the tip of the blade touched the ground a few feet infront of him. The massive warrior standing to 6'11" and weighing in at roughly 250 lbs was ready to get this show on the road.

Vince of course had sensed earlier on that James had some sort of magical energy to him originally. However, as the flames manifested themselves around James' hands, Vince's right eyebrow raised slightly. Of course, it wasn't every day when you seen a man wielding a giant sword and making magical flames fly about his hands. Then again, Vince had seen something like it before in the Dark Tournament in his own fight against one Gold Alexander who used magical flames with physical property which burnt through even Vince's natural, specialized armor.

The giant of a man shrugged, and instead of rushing James, took a very slow step forward, the sword dragging along the ground infront of him. As this happened, Vince's magical energy began to manifest itself, however, not in the form of an offensive ability just yet. Instead, the ground around Vince's very slow moving feet began to tear itself up, sending rocks and grass flying up into the air to float around Vince's knees. A very small amount of energy was amassed for the time being, but it would grow more potent, and eventually, make the man a humanoid tank.

For now, however, he would be satisfied with gaining a bit of his own magical build up while slowly, and very slowly, walking towards James.

Charge = 1

Sword position: Infront of Vince and diagonally touching the ground two feet or so infront of Vince slightly to his right side, James' left.

Did Vince have trouble with Gold Alexander? Not so much. Basically, Gold Alexander managed to get Vince in a choke hold and complete it, at the cost of his life basically. Shattered ribs, all of his muscles were torn with absolute monstrous electrical shock, and his arms and sides had been ripped to living fuck by something other than Vince's sword. Something more natural that James would feel very soon if he kept playing games. True enough he was building up more of his magical fire, but Vince was gaining strength, and before long, his monstrous strength would be a little bit more than doubled.

"Aha, how about you tell me what you are? You seem to me like you're some sort of fire demon, yet I sense no mythical pansy-blood running through your veins. You're a little bit less awesome than my first opponent. Apparently he was some sort of angelic half-vampire with the ability to turn himself into a brick of titanium." Vince was more than content with giving James a bit of banter, and while he did so? You guessed it, bigger chunks of the ground began breaking up from the floor to float around Vince, however, this time the rubble was floating around Vince's chest, and not his knees.

His energy was at about 66.6% of what he needed to unleash his most potent form, and all James was doing was allowing him to build that energy. He of course kept walking very slowly towards James, his sword scraping the ground infront of him as he did so. It's not a wonder that the massive man needed his sword sharpened before he came into this match; he treated the beautiful black blade as if it were a beginner's bronze sword. Treated it as if it were a toy, and perhaps, in the man's eyes, it was. After-all, he was using it in a tourney for sheer sport, and that must have been as much of a playground as any; why not bring in the toys, then?

His very slow, sluggish walk had now brought him to about ten feet away from James instead of the original fifteen. He was really just toying with his opponent at this point.

Charge = 2

Sword position: Same place as before.

Alright. This was getting to be a literal fight of "My power beats yours!" and Vince was getting a bit antsy to start the show. True enough that he should have started it before James built up this massive amount of energy which involved the man literally scorching the ground and wrapping his weapon in spiritual flames, but again, this was simply another Gold Alexander. True enough this guy was seemingly stronger than Gold Alexander, based on the energy that was coming off of this guy as Vince's energy grew. Unfortunately for James, Vince's energy was reaching its cap.

This time, as Vince took one more step forward, Vince's energy broke its maximum level. This time massive amounts of rock flew up from the ground to float around Vince's torso, literally hiding his torso from view. His arms however came down past the shrouding of rocks, and the sword was still visibly sticking out from the rocky armor that Vince had apparently donned. Not only did the rocks get larger, and float around Vince, the ground seemingly.. flattened.

An area in a five foot circle around Vince seemingly smashed itself into the ground, flattening stone and grass alike, but doing nothing to the over-all scheme of things. Vince's blood seemingly ran cold as he felt his power pulse through his veins, and with a blink, he looked at James and the magical flames which flew every which way. However, if James were to pay close enough attention, he would notice that Vince no longer had human eyes, nor were they brown any longer. His eyes were sharpened, almost squinted, and in the middle of a now green iris, there was a serpentine pupil.

Whatever Vince had been doing would become apparent if James gave him anymore time, and since James had been bending his knees and prepping his weapon, he obviously expected Vince to move at him, and to do so with his own weapon. Oh, Vince would come at James with a weapon, but it would be like nothing James had ever seen before. Or perhaps he had, but the creature he'd fought then was nothing like Vince. Who took one more step forward on his newly created flattened surface, and closed the distance down to eight feet.

Charge = 3

Sword Position: Still as it had been.

Needless to say, James guessed it correctly. Half of it, anyway. Vince's eyes maintained the green serpentine slit as he began walking towards James even as he began to kneel. This was fine. It was all good and dandy that the energy that James had built up was being consumed in order to make himself stronger in some way, whether that was physically, mentally, or magically yet, Vincent wasn't sure. However, it didn't really matter. He had a feeling now that James would be much more limited in how he attacked now that he'd gone and driven the sword into the rocky ground they were standing on.

"Let this answer your question!" Vince yelled out with a chuckle following as the massive stones which flew around his head began to break and crumble, and then all of a sudden they were thrown in every direction. The rocks flew upwards, downwards, sideways, and pretty much scattered all over the arena as Vince's energy manifestation broke and went into his technique. As Vince began walking towards James, and as soon as the rocks started breaking, Vince's body began to alter itself. His muscles began to compound and grow a bit larger, his skin even, started to change.

His slightly tanned skin began to have scales crawl up his arms and down his neck. The scales quickly covered his form, changing him from slightly tan to literally green. Not only this, but four things of note happened. There was a shredding of metal as claws burst from Vince's gauntlets and from his steel boots. The claws on his hands dangling from where his fingers were. This made gripping Vince's sword slightly awkward, but it was done easily enough when the claws cut into the hilt, creating more of the tears in the new hilt that had been present in the old hilt.

The claws on Vince's feet just shot out of the boots and were there, menacing, sharp, and could be used to tear at things if he were to kick or drag his foot down something. From his back burst three things. A pair of veined leather wings with green scales were the first to manifest themselves as they ripped through the back of Vince's thin tank-top. The second thing was from Vince's lower back as the dragon's tail snaked it's way down and hung idly behind Vince, massive, thick, what you'd imagine a miniature dragon to have.

The most stunning change, however, was when Vince' face changed. His face jutted outwards, his mouth and nose literally turning into something which resembled an alligator's snout. His new serpentine eyes sat in their original position, however now more menacing when viewed with the entirety of the beast's body. With a roar and a swelling of the dragon's throat, the dragon walked slightly faster towards James.

By this time, he was roughly five feet away from the crouching James, well within range to use his sword. However, the sword didn't move.

Charge = 0 (Transformation = 3)

Sword Position: Still in the same place.

Breath weapon use: Prepped due to the throat swelling; not used.

Well, needless to say, James was making this much easier for Vince than he should have been. This arena was only thirty feet in diameter. Both opponents had been fifteen feet away on opposite sides, and James kept backing up? How much more space did he really have? Or was he trying to get Vince over to the edge to try and push the much heavier opponent down the slope? It really didn't matter, because James was making some stupid decisions in the long run of things.

He didn't try engaging his opponent, who now was building more energy. This time, however, things were being done differently. Vince was no longer gaining energy for his transformation, but instead, he was powering his elemental skills. There were different elements that Vince could control, and one of them happened to be stone. As Vince began to walk forward, once more slowly, towards James, shortening the distance once more down to five feet, rocks from the broken and smashed ground once again pulled themselves upwards, but this time, they stuck to the sides and bottoms of Vince's steel boots. Why in the hell was he doing that?

Powering the element of earth that he was able to control, obviously. Now, this wasn't all he was doing. He was finally giving his stance a switch. Now, his left foot slid forward, his right slid back, and it more or so looked as if Vince's left shoulder was facing James, Vince's right shoulder and sword arm was back, with his sword having shifted so that it's tip was touching the ground a few feet behind Vince with about the middle of the blade parallel with Vince's hip, and the blade being held a bit infront of it.

At five feet, Vince waited.

Sword Position: Changed so that Vince's left shoulder is infront, Vince's right shoulder and sword are back, the sword touching the ground with it's tip behind Vincent.

Breath Weapon Use: Prepared

Elemental magic: Charged for one use in earth.

Needless to say, explosion or non, it didn't really matter. The sword had been a few feet away, perhaps two or three. James had backed up only a few feet, after-all, and originally had been directly behind the sword. Now, if Vince were to stand idly by and watch as a sword erupted into a dazzling pillar of flames, well, then yes, he was obviously retarded. However, as soon as felt the magical energy erupt, he of course countered with something that he had hoped not to use so soon. Didn't really matter, though. Vince's right foot lifted about an inch off of the ground and smashed back down. This brought a rumble beneath Vince as stone and chunks of ground ripped themselves from around him, and even snatched stone from the air to use in the grand scheme.

"FIRE? IS THIS ALL YOU HAVE? FIRE?" Vince let out a bellow of laughter as the stones quickly manifested themselves into the shape of a giant stone wall, which of course, was thrown up in Vince's face. Of course, no, the wall wasn't seven feet tall. It was only nearly four feet tall, and of course, Vince was forced to react even further. The flames ripped towards Vince, and Vince's sword was ripped to the front of his body, and slammed against the rock wall, even as Vince's body bent and smashed against the wall.

What Vince had done, of course, was reinforce the wall against the explosion by bracing the sword, and then, braced himself against the wall and the sword with bent knees, hiding himself behind the wall. The fire and explosion would rock the wall, and some of the flames would of course rip into Vince's face, and would heat the sword to the point of where it scorched his scaled hands, however, no serious damage was attained. Unfortunately, this did leave Vince unaware of where James was at the time, but he could be easily found.

Sword Position: Braced against the rock wall that was created using Vince's stored energy in the earth element.

Elemental Magic: Down to even, no charges in any element.

Breath Weapon Use: Still prepared.

James had a plan, but see, it was a bit.. well.. wrong. Seeing as how Vince had originally been walking at the sword, and James had been directly behind it, and had simply stepped back, well.. That would still leave James directly infront of Vince, albeit.. just with a stone wall blocking Vince's vision. Of course, if James had been jumping before the wall came up, and even as the rumbling beneath Vince's feet slightly threw him off balance, then it was pretty obvious that he was going to get caught by the wall suddenly being thrown up.

If of course, James waited and took a leap over the four foot wall, well.. that was a different story, and Vince was going to have to pay for his foolish decisions. However, James wouldn't get a dagger shot into Vince's snout. If anything, due to how Vince had to force himself to brace the sword against the magically created wall, he'd clip the side of the snout as he fell past Vince, or he'd clip the top of it as he fell ontop of Vince. After-all, if he was coming down from above, or "The sun" as James referred to it, he'd literally be forced to jump over the wall, or again, he wouldn't be anywhere close, simply because he'd have gotten smashed by the wall as it flew up.

Now, if he was coming down, he'd be facing Vincent, half-way turned to his side so that his left arm and shoulder was against the rock wall, and his right arm was bent in a somewhat awkward position, coming across his snout to push against the blade of the massive sword, which, also, stuck out at the top of the rock wall due to it's length. So Vince's snout was turned sideways, almost directly into Vince's right arm, and for James to be able to stab the end of his snout from that position, while falling ontop of him? Well.. it'd be almost impossible.

That.. and there was something else that Vince was going to surprise James with. A snap! signaled Vince's right wing bursting outwards and bending upwards slightly, covering part of Vince's head. Of course, the position while pushed against the rock was awkward, and it would prove hard to move, but while James fell, Vince continued looking at his right arm as the heated blade of his own sword proved to scorch his hand. Didn't matter, because James' attempt at stabbing him in the end of the snout was a failed attempt, and depending on how James kept moving; Falling down on Vince or otherwise, though falling seemed the most likely, the blade would either smash into his newly interposed wing, or it would catch the right side of Vince's snout.

As for falling on Vince, if it happened, well, they'd go for there. If James jumped past Vince and followed through with trying to stab, Vince would turn to face him. No move could be made until everything was figured out for sure though, right?

Sword Position: Still braced against the rock wall.

Breath Weapon Use: Prepped and ready to go, if needed.

Magic Use: None.

Damage: Bit of a minor burn on Vince's right hand from being pressed against the heated blade. Bit of a scorch on the left side of his snout where the scales are very thin, and his left wing is a bit burnt, but nothing for sure. Damage on the dagger will depend on how James follows his motion.

[Sorry about that, just wanted to make sure everything was alright.]

He was ready for whatever, and apparently, Vince wasn't. Everything the dragon was doing at this point, especially with James so close to him, was going to have to be done on a split second decision. So, when James' knife, fueled by the fire, and by the concussive force that had been described earlier, slammed into Vince's wing and ripped through the scales and hit Vince's thin wing bone, Vince reacted. The fact that the dagger had drive through the wing meant that, yes, James was very close to the dragon. Obviously, he was right above the hunkered form of the draconic being, and being so close, Vince's sword was obviously of no use.

The concussive force of the flaming dagger, along with the fact that it was on fire, caused the wing to jerk even as the top bone snapped from the concussive force. That was alright, really. While the shot to the wing was painful, and the dagger would draw quite a bit of blood eventually, the fact that he'd scorched the wound and seemingly burnt and dried the blood around the wound helped to slow bleeding for a small amount of time. Aside from the fact that yes, the dagger had caused a breakage and bone, and would result in bleeding, Vince was pretty much good as new on his actual body.

To avoid being landed on, Vince actually relied on the broken and unstable earth beneath himself. The sword that his right hand had been pressed against was pushed against once more as Vince threw his weight away from the stone wall. The wall caused the earth that it was assembled from and on to shift downward, pushing Vince's feet downwards as he pushed off of the rock. Why in the world would he cause the land to collapse even more even though he was standing on it? It was simple. He'd thrown himself away from the rock, pushing off of it with his right arm and with his feet, and caused the ground to collapse further.

Reason for collapsing it was that Vince would be clear of James' landing, although by mere inches due to the fact that his feet obviously slid when the land started collapsing further down. Where would this leave Vince? Facing James as he landed, his body evenly facing James with a sadistic grin on his face. The dagger would be ripped from Vince's wing as he jumped, causing more damage and more blood to be shed, this time not burnt, but it didn't matter. James was now face to face with a clawed dragon, albeit unarmed, it didn't matter.

Sword Position: The sword fell with the rock wall; currently on the ground approximately two-three feet from Vince, closest to James.

Magic Use: None

Breath Weapon Usage: Prepped but not used.

Damage: Still the scorching from the earlier explosion; new damage caused by the dagger stabbing into Vince's wing, breaking the flimsy bone and shredding the muscle at the top of the right wing.

Finally, James had figured out Vince's weakness. Knock out his massive sword, disable his method of spamming magic, and keep the pressure on. However, there were a few things that James hadn't accounted for in his attack, especially attacking so hastily, even though his opponent clearly was watching him now. After-all, Vince had jumped away from James after he stabbed, and so, it would take a moment for James to land, turn in Vince's direction, and then come at him. Not to mention.. Vince had made it so that the land that James was landing on would collapse farther, making James' footing even harder to grab than it should have been.

Did it matter at this point, though? They were in the heat of battle!(Quite literally, as far as Vince was concerned). Either way, it was about to get much more heated. Vince was free of his sword, and as so, he was free to move his arms and his body about as quickly as he could, which, was rather quickly for his size. He'd proven this to Emkay in the first round, and although James wasn't going to sit there and make a huge note about Vince's speed, he would definitely noticed that he wasn't slow.

It was approximately two, two and a half feet between the two; not a huge distance in any hand to hand fight, but it was enough to where James would at least have to take one step forward, especially since his arm wasn't getting extended all the way outwards in the uppercut. After-all, isn't that the glory of the uppercut? Explosive power using both the force of your biceps and triceps like you were literally doing a one-armed curl and blowing something away whilst doing so? Didn't matter.

As James was insulting the dragon in some foreign language, presumably Japanese, Vince watched closely as James moved with insane speed. Not too bad, but it was still quick, and it was explosive, just as an uppercut was planned to be. However, uppercuts were pretty bad if they weren't used in the right situation, and given the fact that James was a tad farther from Vince than would have been ideal, this wasn't the right situation. Vince waited until the uppercut started in proper; James' initial movement down with his shoulder, and he moved.

Rather, his left arm moved. As the uppercut came up, Vince's left arm came from the outside and across his neck, pushing away the uppercut. At the same time this happened, Vince's right foot pushed off the ground to Vince's right and threw his body to, you guessed it, the left. What would be happening would be that Vince was pushing James' right arm towards the middle of James' body while he pushed himself to the outside of James' body. This would effectively eliminate the uppercut as it would place Vince on the outside of the possibly critical shot, and it would place Vince in a favorable position if not for a second or two.

This is when, as James had guessed, Vince released his breath weapon. From his mouth spit what appeared to be a stream of water. Just plain, ordinary water. However, it was much more than that. Using MetaBreath features, Vince's breath weapon had been changed from the acidic vapor of a green dragon to that of a cold, wretched white dragon. This breath weaponry, whilst appearing to be just water, would literally freeze you on contact. Maybe not permanently, or right away altogether for that matter, but you would definitely feel the sluggish, cold effects as the water smashed into you.

For James, who was coated in flames, and with his fiery aura and attitude, well.. it was needless to say how dangerous that breath weapon would/could be if it smashed into James. From the height that Vince was, compared to the height of James, it would likely hit James either in the face or in the shoulder/neck/chest area due to the fact that Vince had to look down.

Sword Position: Sword is still lying roughly three feet away from Vince.

Magic Use: None

Breath Weapon Use: Due to Metabreath Feature, the breath weapon was changed from that of a green dragon to that of a white dragon, favoring the ice/water attribute instead of acidic.

Breath Weapon Recharge: 7 Posts until next use due to the changing of the breath weapon's natural attribute.

What, with all the fancy references and pictures, one could get drawn away from the fight at hand. The fight between dragon and flaming man, the battle of quite literally ice vs. fire, and although it wouldn't be seen in full effect now, the liquid with the freezing effect sprayed by the dragon would make an appearance later on in the battle. For now, however, with the momentum that James had gone ahead and used to his advantage what with spinning towards Vince, well.. it was pretty bad. There wasn't a whole lot the dragon could do in terms of getting away from the shot unharmed, however, he usually did get right into the fray and as usual, received damage to deal damage.

First off, the breath weapon; quite literally a jet of water with magically imbued freezing properties, would connect with James. However, the momentum was allowing him to move now, and would only prove to harm James afterwards, however. Now, what James had done, and effectively made this so much more glorious, was spinning, and instead of getting the icy shower all over just his front side, it would now hit the back of his head, his neck, and whatever else was exposed by on the man's person. It even would splatter against the incoming left arm even as Vince sought for a way to protect himself from it.

This method of protection, of course, came from his own left arm. It had of course been stretched across his own body at about shoulder height to push off of James' right arm only seconds before. This left his arm, at about bicep position, directly infront of his neck. However, Vince was able to move his arm just slightly; no, not pull it all the way across his neck and move the hand to interpose, but so that the forearm was there instead of the bicep. This left Vince's elbow up and to the outside, and then effectively had the forearm take the damaging shot from the dagger that James had spun.

However, in all of this, James had not accounted for one thing. Vince's right arm, which was now parallel with the exposed back of James. True enough that he was unarmed; in the fact that he had no unnatural weaponry. However, Vince had natural weaponry, at close range, which was ten times for devastating than James' dagger. As Vince interposed his elbow, at the same time when James would make initial contact, Vince's right arm shot forwards. It shot forward and aimed to drive itself right into James' back, right between the shoulder-blades with those massive, devastating claws.

Sword Position: On the ground.

Damage: Dagger to the forearm, damage from before.

Breath Weapon: Currently exhausted, six posts till next use.

James would never get away. True enough that the dragon's left arm would be screwed; not any different from his first fight with Turnip. Apparently, the dragon was fighting people who had no idea how to limit use of power and/or were too powerful for a tournament of this level in any regards. No matter. The dragon's arm was infront of his throat, and not infront of his mouth in anyway. James' arm was, due to the fact he was stabbing with his back to Vince, straight in some regard.

James was obviously holding the dagger in a reversed grip, so yeah, he would have to have his arm straight in some area or else the dagger would be a fuckin' stupid attempt and not hit him, and obviously, a forearm was a place where it should be straight, no matter what. As James drove the dagger farther into Vince's forearm, obviously there was a roar of pain, which opened the dragon's massive jaw. However, in order to cause more damage, the dragon's jaws clamped down around James' forearm as he strove to do so much damage.

After-all, he was slowed, partly, due to the icy breath that Vince had sprayed him with before. Not to mention, his arm was right next to Vince's jaw, and all Vince was forced to do was allow his arm to be pushed down a bit, and it freed up his jaw to get around James' arm. Now, once the powerful jaw of the dragon smashed around James' own forearm, rendering the dagger in that hand useless, due to the fact that he wouldn't be able to stab it into Vince's mouth or anything of the such, there was the fact that Vince's right hand had managed to cleave quite a bit with the massive claws.

Now that Vince had James' forearm in his jaws, in a very powerful grip at that, Vince's right arm shot for James' side now, seeing as how James was trying to dart away, however, he would simply succeed in yanking the dragon a bit forward as his feet bit into the ground to keep him from moving. James wasn't spinning, now. How was he going to explain the massive claws driving into his side?

Sword Position: Do you have to ask?

Breath Weapon: Five posts.

Damage: A shit load. His arm is wrecked, for this round at least. Bone was shattered, muscle was torn, and apparently, veins were burnt closed. /gg to James.

Judge Call

Strike asked me to look into the situation so I read the posts up till now and here's my judgement.

The fight starts from here:

After performing a reverse dagger strike into Vincent's arm, James turns around to take his right hand and assist in driving the dagger deeper. At this point, Vincent bites down onto Jame's left forearm, trapping it in teeth. I can see him pulling out the dagger, but what I cannot see is him actually pulling himself up and avoiding a close range strike from the right claws, and then driving a dagger into the neck. Not unless he wants to maim his arm from the hand up to the elbow.

The neck strike I can see being performed, which doesn't require any acrobatics. But doing such a feat in order to try avoid a strike, too? I don't see it happening, unless you wish to shred up your left arm, which would be pretty ironic to have both of your left forearms maimed to flesh. So you won't be able to stop a claw strike to the side nor avoid it, though I warn Vincent that he is capable of dealing killing blows at this point of the fight. The same goes for James.

So my call is that James will be unable to do a move like that, and must edit his post accordingly. After he edits, Fierach is to inform Striker of this change and proceed from there.

bangs mallet

NO U.

James could move his right hand fast enough to intercept Vince's right claw. If they were right next to one another, facing each other, he could definately see the arm coming out of the corner of his eye, and Vince was a big dragon. Bigger usually meant that the other proportions were bigger, like a big claw, which was a bigger target, and even easier to notice.

While Vince had gouged a gash or two across James's back, that was done by a thrusting strike, and if Vince wanted to sweep it across his front, normally, he'd have to draw his hand back slightly it before doing so to produce power. Its not like James was completely oblivious to the threat of the dragon's left arm. Added roughly to the fact that the martial artist was somewhere to the dragon's left, the dragon's arm would have even more distance to cross to strike James, which was calculated in the form of time.

Two, James had managed to leave the ice there this long because the point of his technique, Roar as One, was to absorb his ki into himself and greatly empower him. On the surface, James wouldn't nearly be as hot. And presuming that Vince was following Option 2:

Quote: Wrote:

> All James had to do, was to throw a surge of flame through his left arm. As super-cooled ice met super-heated flame, thermal shock would result, as well as James causing a small explosion right in Vince's mouth. The upside was that James didn't even have to sacrifice much energy to do so!

Magic working against magic did not leave out the physical aspects of things, and James did indeed use his energy. If Vince was immune to having his gums flayed by flame and force, well, obviously the man has never been to a bad dentist, nor did he realise the immense amount of nerves located in the jaws under the teeth.

Also likely never swallowed a small flash grenade. The dragon once again demostrates his resistance to massive pain.

Another point of contention. When the hell did James have his back turned to Vince as he was trying to get away earlier? Ever hear of moonwalking?

Alternatively, the narrator could be an uncompromising dick and say that James did get away because the dragon never had his arm in the first place because of the awkward bite style, and because James was a much smaller and more agile being. After all, who said that it was Vince's job to pick what James would have done?

This thread is locked. Judgement between what has happened in the clash will be discussed between the judges.