**The Wheel of Moderately Priced Goods | Ruined Studio - Some time after 1pm || - Fortissimo**
Maximos' home world of Aria was a beautiful place, but it was also rife with war. To survive, the shadowborne had sewn combat and conflict into their culture and trained it's youth's in it as early as possibles. At four years old Maximos took his first life. This was victorious battle, it was a murder. He and other children of his class were each brought prisoners of war bound and helpless and had to kill them. The Shadowfather commanded it and so it had to be done. At ten years of age battlefield training began, this included courses on how to survive a battlefield live with weapon and magic fire without heavy armor. One class was something like dodgeball, only with arrows. Children had to learn to dodge or catch arrows shot in volleys at them. Shadowborne were not human, and had more natural agility and quicker reflexes than a mundane human but this served to make the feat possible, not easy. Gruesome injuries befell Max and his fellow students, sometimes even death. Thankfully healers were always on hand to immediately remedy the injuries and send them directly back into training. Healing removed the pain, but left the psychological trauma and eventually deadened them to it. The arrow didnt stop just because you were hit once, or twice. Learning to dodge or catch and to persist became a matter of desperate need. And then cold apathy. And finally muscle memory.
Some fifty or so years later that instinct had not faded and it left him with a few unhealthy habits. Maximos took an injury, but his mind still raced with thoughts of how to press forward, adapt, keep pressure. His left hand slapped the ground as he shoved off his weight off right foot launching himself forward - a sharp pain shot up his left leg like an angry hot knife but forced himself to power through it. His hand should have made a meaty slapping sound when it hit the hard tile floor but instead it made no sound at all. Somewhere in the interim between between taking the blow to the leg and now Maximos' shadow had become jet black, lying between the two men like a length of tar of completely pitch sheet of carpet. Much like Maximos' hand if Gustave tried to adjust his footing or even hop up and down dramatically while atop, he would find that his footsteps made entirely no sound what so ever.
But that was a side detail, Max was moving now. His right hand acted without any thought or consideration to the consequences and whipped forward and then much like an arrow snatched the mace out of the air just beneath it's head, with a flourish of his wrist he brought it around once letting it slide down his grip so that he was holding it properly. This mace could have been a bomb, a trap, an illusion, set to trigger spikes, chocked full of magic and ready to pour flame all over his face - really any number of things that cost him exceptionally in a battle. He didnt take the time to think of those things and left himself open to any of them.
Gustave was barely a step in front of him. That was Maximos' time to move and he was going to come at this man with his full - his opponent deserved no less. Maximos' left hand came up until it was just above even with his right shoulder, and then a jolt of white lightning zig-zagged into his hand held tightly in his grip. The raw stuff of electricity diffused as if it was the glow of molten metal leaving a weapon in Maximos left hand. This was Mjölnir, the Hand of the Thunder God another member of the Nameless Armory. Although possessing of a fantastical name, this Mjölnir was not the deific weapon of the thunder god Thor. This Mjölnir was a bearded axe, not a hammer at all, and hewn from the arm of one of the thunder god's self proclaimed avatars, a man by the name of Johnathan Tomorrow. While Tomorrow was once a close friend of Maximos', once removed by Maximos in combat, was skinned then cleaned and finally enchanted to make this grim trophy. The axe is 2.5ft long from pommel to tip, and it weights approximately 5lbs. The weapon's haft is a set of bleached white arm bones detailed with black leather wraps at key hand grips near it's rear, and up about it's neck. It's pommel is made of Johnathan Tomorrow's fist grabbing a golden dagger-like spike. And it's blade is cut from a portion of Tomorrow's extraordinarily large scapula (shoulder blade). The weapon's blade and pommel was been sharpened to a vicious keen edge, which he then treated with gold for the sake of conductibility. Black nordic runes were carved been etched up and down its length lending the bone the strength, durability of Gaian steel. As a harkening to its namesake, Mjolnir has been perfectly balanced for throwing.
Even severed, treated, enchanted and bastardized through grand heresy, the arm retains it's host's volatile nature. The act of simply running a hand along the blade is enough to feel it's electrical buzz and make ones hairs stand on end. In Maximos' grip it bristled with thin white arcs as run off from it's summoning. Upon contact or at the end of each strike contact the weapon lets off an electrical shock. While this is not sufficient on it's own to incapacitate someone clashing against it, exposure can cause nerve pain (1 strike), cause muscle spasms and surface burns (2 strikes), or cause someone to drop their weapon especially after repeated exposure (3 strikes). It held a single other ability, but Gustave would learn of that if or when it actually came into play. For the moment, it was just an axe.
As the Shadow attacked Gustave, he pivoted at the hips presenting his left side first and his arms moved something like a wheel. His left arm came up and slashed down as if he aimed to hack down and cleave Gustave's face in twain. This was a fake, as just before the axe was slated to hit Maximos pulled the swing short. His real goal was to hook the beard of the axe against the lip of the shield and tug to lock it in place. Where the two met, thin white jagged lines would dance along the face of the axe and trickle atop the shield causing nothing more than a cosmetic effect. Gustave would not be able to see Maximos' left arm as ugly black varicose veins bulged beneath his pale white skin, but he would be able to feel it as he channeled the Might of the Shadowfather, forcibly infusing his arm with superlaxitive strength for one action. The ritual was unnatural and would exact it's cost from Max's flesh, but that would come afterwards.
Maximos' aim was not to rip the shield out Gustave's grip but to remove it from the equation for a half a second by not allowing it to move up and in the way of his strike or toward him. Moving with but shortly behind his left, his right arm came up then down aiming to send Gustave's mace into it's owners face. It wasnt in Maximos' plan to beat a man with his own weapons, it was in his plan however to force a defensive action of some kind.
Of course, his entire action had been reckless. He was assaulting a fortress head on. Gustave could have stepped forward at any point and met and even countered him with superior defensive capabilities. He expected to quite literally get stonewalled part way through and while this was a known factor - Maximos had, perhaps foolishly, left himself open it. If there was truly strategy here it was beginning to veer into the unorthodox. Or maybe it was just the thrill of good fight ringing in his ears and rushing hot blood through his veins. He could not accept the idea of Gustave as a target, or prey. He felt a rare emotion in this fight, respect. Respect outclassed the considerations of a tournament and things such as scoring or victory. This was about the skirmish. Respect meant he would throw all he had to give against this man's skills and see truly and honestly where he would fair, good or bad.
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show spoilerhide spoilerNameless Armory - | 1/5 Sword Summons Available
Dementia Pugilistica -| 2 Swords
Left Glove: 5 Charges
Right Glove: 4 Charges
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Mjölnir –| Two Swords
Thunderstruck: Available
Spooky Mittens Wrote:
