Silver Dragons vs Smash & Sass [Page 3]

MagnusXL Wrote:

> Rance talked a big game, but was clearly misunderstanding the nature of this competition. Martial abilities were a large component, but terrain use, teamwork, and proper spacing were equally important. In this regard, Moonblade figured it was a noblemen's duty to lend their knowledge to the peasantry. > > > > Ammiel removed his right hand from Lun-Dransil, slowly yet firmly pointing the weapon lower to ease the burden of wielding the spear left-handed. In a simultaneous action, his stance shifted, bringing his left foot and forward as the right half of his body shifted back. The magus drew the ornate elven longsword Silmacil with a resounding ~SHEEN, bringing the shinning weapon around the side of his body and over his head. He was careful not to block his own face with either weapon however; the magus jutted his head and neck forward not unlike a dragon unleashing a gout of flame on their foes.

And there it was.

The first tickle of mana showing from the mage pretending to be a fighter made Rance grin wickedly. But the magus wouldn't have the chance to make his quip. Moonblade talked a big game, but he clearly misunderstood that Rance just didn't give a ******, and running away like a pansy-a was boring. And that's why he'd charge straight down the throat of hell to cleave the demon in half from the inside out. Moonblade made a neck motion like he was fellating a different kind of spear and a bunch of green s**t flew out of his mouth. Luckily, Rance's blade was at the ready position.

Quote: Wrote:

> "You need to learn to--"

Quote: Wrote:

> Runebreaker: > > In their study of martial training and through their understanding of how a caster uses their magic, those of the Runebane Style can actually break through magical effects as if they were physical objects. Lightning bolts or magical beams can be shattered, fireballs can be carved in half and rendered inert, and magical defenses can be cracked and broken like reinforced glass. Using this requires that the spell or effect be attacked instead of the caster themselves. If this ability is used to attack a magical item’s constant ability or enchantment (like a flaming sword, or a constant shield of force), if Rance’s blow hits, said ability or enchantment is nullified for one round, after which it returns to normal, giving Rance an opening to strike. This ability cannot be used to counter instantaneous magical abilities, such as a blast of fire “appearing” on him with no real warning. (Usable only with The Blackblade)

With a vicious swing, the breath was actually struck, and like so many before it, the gout of frigid flame whisked away to nothing, leaving Rance no more cold than before, and the ground no less slippery. The only difference was that now Rance was a much happier guy, and much, MUCH closer to carving Moonblade a new orifice to fellate things with.

Rance blasted through the breath weapon like it was made of fancy green tissue paper, and kept right on going. He was the one who put the Smash in "Smash and Sass". Since the attack had been utterly eradicated by Rance's Runebreaker technique, there would be no residual energy to charge either of Moonblade's weapons from the attack, unless he could pull more mana from his stores to do the same thing. Either way, it would cost the mage more of his resources, and in the meantime, Rance was within spitting distance.

"Let me show you a REAL fight, Caster Boy!!" Like a freight train surging down the tracks, Rance's entire body would turn into a weapon. One thing Rance knew well was momentum and how to use it to his advantage. His swing with his blade had left the weapon to his lower left side, ready to strike again should it be needed, but his main goal now was to use his thick armor and armored spikes across it like a battering ram to bullrush and crush Moonblade's tiny noodle mage body. With only one hand per weapon, there was virtually no chance for Moonblade's attacks to pierce through Rance's plate, chain, and gambeson underneath, especially at such a close distance where he'd be able to get the least amount of force behind such strikes.

[3]

'Ryugi Kazamaru" Wrote:

> But the magus wouldn't have the chance to make his quip.

Shows what he knew. "You need to learn chill out there Lance." The magus allowed himself a sharp laugh, undeterred. "Ha. Get it?" In all seriousness, the breath weapon getting nullified in a single stroke, even though the majority of the field was still actively coming out of his lungs and ergo his mouth, was a surprise to say the least. At the very least though, he gaining general understanding of how the knight's anti-magic worked.

This proved to be problematic.

Ammiel would have to be very, very crafty to even land damage on this sort of opponent. Paradoxically, though most heavily armored opponents had mobility too low to keep up with the magus, the majority of his offensive magics faltered against metal and other inorganic materials. This would prove... problematic against someone who could cleave away the rest of his arsenal as though it weren't there. Save a gimmicky gambit with Lun-Dransil that might not even work, he lacked the means to get through Rance's tough exterior.

Fortunately, Heaven or Hell wasn't a straight slug-fest. He had options; he merely required the time to implement them.

Ryugi Kazamaru Wrote:

> "Let me show you a REAL fight, Caster Boy!!"

Moonblade tensed his legs once more before taking off, jumping back twenty feet once again. Rance was close to a melee engagement that time, but not quite close enough. "Or at least force me to use my weapons!" There was a chortle from the magus.

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He didn't stop with a single jump. Barring a circumstance where Rance started raining arrows on him, Ammiel would briefly survey his surroundings and, seeing terrain that interested him, bounded yet again back and to his right (Rance's left) towards a dilapidated conveyor belt clearly used to box the infamous Ryugi-Os."Seriously though, if your grand strategy is simply to run forward like an armored tank shouting 'FIGHT ME', I'm going to be sorely disappointed!" The last part turned into more of a yell as he got further and further away from his opponent.

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Character Status Wrote:

> Mana: 35 (25 + 5 Natural + 5 No Cast Bonus) > > Silmacil: 3 > > Lun-Dransil: 3 (Gibbous) > > > > -Impact Shield is recharging [3 posts remaining] > > -Breath Weapon is recharging [4 posts remaining]

3 / 20

[4]

For an instant, Omi's features turned into an unsettling and smug look as though he had won some great victory.

He did not know precisely how wounded Cypher was. But if he had to wager a guess by the sound of the boy's vocals, pain had to truly be setting in harsh. Excellent.

Then, crouching down as he had despite zero damage to his legs, Omi knew there was only one logical response. Perhaps Cypher had more ranged attacks than the one deployed previously, but in his line of work, he found that people tend to lead with their "dominant hand" in these kinds of duels. That is to say, if a strategy seems to work the one time, you repeat. If you're hurt by some hot liquid, you've some partial cover, and you have a fast way of dealing ranged damage to a target that seems to have condensed their body into a single easy to strike zone... why not take the shot?

It was logical. Even Barsait would, circumstances differing, have done the same. Take that shot. Worse comes to worst, it acts as cover fire for your re-positioning while you try to gauge how much damage affects your mobility if any.

**However, The Serpentine Artist transcended such banal logic. He twisted and perverted it to his advantage.** That projectile, that insect-like missile, hurt. The damage reverberated through him.. but so what!? He memorized the flavor of it now. If it cost Omi a few bones, if it cost him his entire damned arm; no! If it cost him every limb he had, Omi'd gladly let his bones turn to paste and his blood course through the arena just to show his opponent their eternal reward. And unfortunate for the Smash and Sass champion whom in such a short time he had grown to admire for his pluck, that meant there wasn't a price too steep to put him down.

And there.. it.. was.

The lad went out more into the open. A shot was fired at Omi. This time, only his left arm coated the broad of his torso, and with all the clutter in their way.. there was no chance of the snake reaching his prey this time. Not unmolested at any rate.

"SNAKESPEED DASH!!!" roared Omi as his legs suddenly burst to life with snake flesh popping out from the rear. A grotesque mockery of "Lightspeed Dash" by Ryugi Kazamaru, a well known contestant within Heaven or Hell. Though Omi's perversion carried him at an absurd 80 MPH, aimed at a 45 degree angle off the ground.

3 Tokens spent, 15' variant Snakespeed Dash, 6 turn cooldown.

The chitin nightmare bullet crashed into Omi's lone left arm with a sickening crack, rocking bone within and flailing off onto the floor behind him with a rattle. His bracelet on that arm appeared to have cracked, and with it, the arm flesh beneath visible was a dark purple along the length; blood pressure gushed to the surface.

Thanks to the angle of his propulsion, he wouldn't just drop at the endcap of this burst-- after all, physics didn't stop applying to him in the aftermath -- instead easily arcing over the various crates and boxes that would have handicapped his approach to place him above and in front of the lad, one foot per crate of Fizzy Izzy's. The wood would dent in considerably, but not enough to break just from his landing impact to the point of caving in; shipment crates weren't that weak.

But... what of Omi's right arm? Why did he abandon dispersing force through both limbs to help brace himself?

Omi's hand had in the lurch of his movement upward, dug into his jacket pocket. He then used this grip upon dropping but before landing to drop the contents then reverse-grip-whip the jacket that was too long for a 5'11" man down onto his target's head. It was a thick leather jacket with a variety of physical objects inside of it, and would obscure entry line of sight even if Cypher immediately tore it aside-- ignoring that what was flowing down first... was [Pocket Sand.]

Or Omi's "Pocket Sand." A mixture of crushed glass, habanero powder, literal sand-- creating a painful cloud that would irritate and fleck flesh to the point of agony and cause problems if breathed in. The jacket acted as a powder containment wrap of sorts to help that initial drop and gust play out.

And the entire way down, his voice echoed out "MOONBLADE!! STRIKER HIM FROM BEHIND!!!" with a kind of laugh infused taunting set of vocals.

The Silver Dragons Vice-Captain could have tried to avoid taking another shot, hid, ran-- but that wasn't what a man does. And he had the gift to make his body the sort of projectile that could reach his opponent. He even allowed his arm the damage to even it out with wherever Cypher was boiled; he wanted a direct overwhelming confrontation now. Explosives or gasoline or whatever around them was a coward's weak excuse for not going all out! It was time for killing blows!!

Cypher could not see the future. Not really at any rate, things had to happen and then if he so chose he could see the most probable outcome given the current circumstances. Things like an arrow in flight for example he could track and tell exactly where it would land should nothing else happen to it along the way such as a telekine grabbing it out of the air. If he knew a fact like that in advance it wouldn't change matters, so as his opponent went shooting into the air at a truly absurd speed he wanted to know only one thing, where would Omi land?

Unfortunately he'd promised not to do that in this tournament, so he just guessed. His guess was that Omi would try and crush him by falling on him. So he began to roll out of the way on his side away from the Chordata-mancer as fast as he could, his vision staying fixed on his opponent while his head rotated(Reality is Perception) rapidly. Each turn sent fresh pain up his leg but whatever the aelven equivalent of adrenaline helped to numb some of that pain, not enough to get him upright but enough to roll him into the boxes of Fizzy Izzy at the same time Omi smashed into them like the worlds ugliest shooting star. He bounced the rough wood of the crates off his back less by design but more by happenstance and came up with both beetle-guns firing almost in tandem, though it'd be hard to tell at first.

He couldn't do anything about the jackets contents, didn't even know what it was to begin with, but he did hear the slap of the jacket on the ground above the hissing gas noise of both pistols firing. His left fire an Acid bullet and a second ahead of his right beetle-gun which fired another chitin round. His target? Omi's groin, from behind. More realistically it was kind of his taint area, the spot showing as green in the aelfs vision as both "barrels" zeroed and released their payloads. The acid wouldn't have much time to work, it took time to achieve the full effect, but it was enough to simply weaken the target area for the chitin round to punch through into the back of Omi's testicles, up, and if it penetrated the shriveled sack into the gods willing limp d**k of the man standing triumphant above.

For his part, Cypher resumed rolling without waiting to see or hear his opponent any longer, rolling flat back the way he came one rotation and sitting upright between Omi and the jacket. His attempt to get to his feet was slowed by the pain in his left leg and its unwillingness to support him alone but he was on his feet in roughly five seconds and turning with both beetles held low to his hips and pointed back towards his opponent. There was no moral quandry thinking about shooting another...man shape in the genitals. Cypher was above all a survivor, and a survivor took any opportunity available.

[4]

[1 normal round left in right Beetle-gun]

[no acid rounds left in left Beetle-gun]

With a kiss for luck the slime began to do final mental checks as best he could. His organelles had all been put in place, the skeletal structure was solid, his limited abilities were all ready to go but he still was enthralled in the chaos that was going on around him, perhaps too much so. When his to be opponent taunted him, the slime just turned his head to look at him approach not doing anything. He was more interested in the fights going on around him, returning his attention to the the slime smiled a bit.

Watching each of his teammates fight, V began to stretch out his body, making sure his skeletal structure was in place. The slime didn’t like having one, it significant limited his movement but for dealing with most of the combatants in this tournament he needed one. A gooey body with no support was asking to be bent into all manner of shapes against his will. The slime couldn’t help but feel that this tournament was going to be great and that the first fight was sure to be nothing short of a good time.

The longer V watched his teammates though, the less the slime felt that way. It was when Hono was onset by his to be opponent that V realize he should have attacked far sooner. If the slime could sigh he would have. While the man with the weird can sprayed his stuff at V’s team mate, the slime took that moment to ready his attack. He had just walked in range, but barely of the slimes movement in his approach, so V then began to lumbar forward.

Charging straight towards his opponent, 3 meter tall surf board under his left arm, V closed the distance at a moderate pace and attempted to drop kick his opponent, both feat fully extended, 300 pounds of black slime ooze heading into the chest of his foe. If for some reason V managed to make contact with this opening gambit, the slime would try to latch onto the man with his right hand. More than likely his new friend would dodge and V from a crouching position would swing his surfboard in a circle around him with one arm, twisting his body from the hip up. The slimes spin twisted in an unnatural way to make it happen but the bones were not at their limit for bending or being stressed.

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[Stat Block]

Liters of Ooze Left:

5000

Organelles Damaged

None

Membranes in storage

5 Outer, 2 Inner

Membrane Generation Cycle

1 out of 2

Membranes Used this post

0

Damage taken this post

0 lbs

Wounds

None

Speed changes due to skill use

None

Current distribution of mass

Left arm - 17%

Right arm - 17%

Left leg - 17%

Right leg - 17%

Torso - 20%

Head - 12%

Surfboard Cooldown

Ready

[1]

It was, ultimately, the distance between them that kept Cypher from becoming mulch. Had the attack come from directly above he would have been caught full on with nowhere to go, the speed and the spread too much for him to overcome without some way of speeding himself up and definitely without knowing about it ahead of time. As it was he still couldn't escape all of it but the brunt would thankfully be too short given his closeness to the ground, the origin of the attack at the small of Omi's back, and the ensuing angle it would have to take to even reach him. Scales as sharp as razors tore into the flesh of Cyphers trailing and already wounded left leg, shredding cloth, throwing strangely thick amber blood into the air in a fine mist into the air, and opening up countless cuts on the meat of his calve and thigh to further reduce his mobility.

For his part, Cypher did feel a tugging that arrest his rolling, slowing him down but not dragging him back in as it would have had he been any closer. It wasn't until he stopped within arms reach of Omi's discarded jacket and tried sitting up that he realized his leg not only hurt more than it had before but also wouldn't support his weight, his right leg not enough to keep him in even the pseudo-crouch of someone trying to rise and sending him crashing back onto his butt. The pain was academic at this point. It was abit like a car accident, the pain was there and he was aware of it and it hindered his ability to move but it was just so distant, so foreign. Omi could see the confused and above all angry expression on the aelfs face over the shotgun razor-snake death wall between them and he could even see his shoulders and some of his upper arms, but the extent of the damage was mostly hidden.

Sap-like amber blood leaked from dozens of cuts across his already wounded left leg and ran in slow rivulets down his leg, never gaining enough momentum to drip, but causing the shredded fabric to cling to the wounds. He didn't waste any time in trying to figure out why his leg wasn't doing what legs are supposed to do, or why the snakes were to his mind suddenly burning between himself and Omi. He did remember one thing though.

Fizzy Izzy burned.

Omi was standing on a crate of the stuff, along with other crates that surrounding them both. One spark would start a conflagration that would take most if not all of the factory with them, perhaps not immediately but enough to make escape difficult. This wasn't a snack factory it was a goddamn powder keg. But again, Cyphers only thought was for the Fizzy Izzy and how it burned. So while he had the time, while the pain was just a distant memory, he unloaded all 4 regular chitin bullets into the crate immediately to Omi's right(Cyphers right as well as he's sideways to Omi), not bothering to aim and never taking his eyes off his opponent.

The first round would shatter the wooden crate low to the ground, sending splinters of wood into the air and clattering across the ground, punching a divot in the wood that the next round made into a hole. There was the sound of glass shattering from within the box as the second round continued on into the contents and then a kind of gush of the now outlawed flammable soft drink. It ran over the treated wood and onto the floor in a spreading wave that became larger and spread faster as the 3rd and 4th round tore through more of the glass bottles. It wasn't a particularly fast spread but the sheer amount of liquid now outside of their containers made it move in a deceptively fast pool. Omi would have time to do....well, something, before it reached his crate in large amounts but not before the irregularities in the floor brought what was already there in contact with the flaming snakes death grinder.

Now what had been just a powerfully alcoholic puddle was now an inferno, fire racing back along the short path to the box Cypher had shot and was no longer paying attention to. The crates long exposure to the factory, the unsafe practices of management and workers, and the dangerous qualities of the product itself meant it was ripe and ready to take flame, and take flame it did. It wasn't like a bonfire, it was more like someone turned the burner on the stove. Where there had not been flames there suddenly was, heating up bottles and their pressurized contents, getting ready to let off one hell of a bomb. The fire is what prompted Cypher to do more than sit there like an idiot, waiting for Omi to release yet another attack. The most either man had to worry about at that given moment was some light burns. Once the fire spread? that would change.

It was likely accurate to say the cameras, wherever those were hiding, were focusing more on this combat than any other now. It wasn't enough that these two had begun to fight first but now it seemed they were getting ready to bring the house down. In countless homes across the continent Announcers shouted, discussed, gesticulated, and gargled at viewers in a number of languages and with any number of appendages. What happened next would change the battlefield.

What happened next would likely determine who went up to Heaven and who dropped to Hell.

[5]

[No normal rounds in left gun]

[1 normal round remaining in right gun]

"Can you fly?" Not with this little effort.

See, the knee is a very delicate collection of bones and tendons. Even the strongest man alive needs to wear straps to prevent his body from destroying his knees. Yancy is a student of the human body, a student for the sake of exploiting it's weaknesses and strengths. The girl had hit him, she had winded him, and now she was flipping him over her body with a foot to his stomach.

But Yancy was very fast, and she was very weak in comparison to the more dangerous devils he'd slain. Taking a hit to the head like this wasn't much of a problem, he'd shown this a moment before when he slammed face first into the concrete floor.

Yancy let the bag drop as she flipped him, hooking his free left hand around her ankle as she kicked into his stomach. His weight tipped and he was flipped a** over head, but instead of this going odd without a hitch he wrapped his knees behind and in front of her calf. The weight of his leg armor letting them droop even as she flipped him.

All of this weight would crash over her head, holding her ankle in a solid hold, but the ankle wouldn't be the problem. Yancy's entire weight would slam headfirst into the floor still holding onto her calf, the kinesiology of her own body would destroy her.

Her knee would fold the wrong direction over her shoulder as his weight slammed into the floor.

She would be lucky to not pass out from the pain, let alone draw her knife.

Truly a great match. No one was allowed to teleport out, the explosion was too powerful even for those fire resistant to survive, and Rance only lived for 30 seconds while his organs boiled like ramen noodles before he too joined his friends.

The End. [This is satire, in case anyone is confused. Raaaaagnarooook.]