Singles Round 1: Panther vs 3kul

[GBE]

((Arena: It is a vast green land, with the occasional tree spotted about, and a forest just on the edge of the green plain circling around from the right to the left, in a semi-circular fashion. To the right is a large lake, several metres deep, and at least twenty feet in length and thirty feet in width. Around the plain there are a few boulders spread about randomly. There are most likely rocks and stones spread around somewhere.

Judge: Yoshimasa))

[Panther385]

Panther's green fur blended into the plain's grass seamlessly.

Except, for the fact that the grass was only several inches high and that she stood out like some giant, cat-shaped pile of grass clippings.

Nice, Kiri, real nice... She hissed. The mother dragon had told her the grass would be at least waist height... Never trust a sleep-deprived dragon. She finally concluded, her fur shifting back to it's normal sky blue tone. She'd managed to cover her left arm with extra flaps of skin during her 'camouflage', but now she left it shine for all to see.

"Hey, Little Sister!" The shapeshifter yelled out- she couldn't really see her opponent, and didn't take to time to really look. "Where are you, you yellow-bellied Medusa?!"

[3kul]

"Keh, don't be so hasty to die Panther!"

Little Sister dropped out of the sky, landing on top of one of the randomly placed boulders. The landing was rather rough, but more destructive than awkward, sending small chunks of rock bouncing off into the grass. She looked nothing like the usual Parasitian that Panther was used to seeing, but now bore a great resemblance to a human. This was the Murtedusa, supposedly the most powerful weapon developed by the worshippers of Noten, and though Little Sister herself had doubts about this they'd insisted that she use it for the Olympics.

Truthfully she hadn't had much practice in this mech yet, and given how different this form was compared to her usual body her movements felt strange and unusual. No matter though, she could learn as she went, Little Sister believed that Panther was a pretty weak opponent for her to come up against in the first round. She moved her arms about a little, testing out the movements before finally clenching her fist, confident that she'd gotten the hang of this part.

Grinning wildly at Panther, she leapt down from the boulder and darted across the plains towards her opponent. She stumbled a little as she got used to running with only two legs, but quickly got the hang of that two - one of the many benefits of being a Parasitian was possessing a highly adaptive mind. "Here I come!" She shrieked with glee, swinging several thin tendrils of hair out as she began to quickly weave them. She decided to start off with something simple and painful, charging Panther with four thin lances sticking out in front of her.

[Panther385]

Panther clapped her hands together and rammed them into the ground with a small flash of light. A wall composed of mainly rock shot up- it was about the size of Panther, albeit a little thicker.

I hope that slows her down for a moment, The shapeshifter worried, taking quite a few steps back. Her fur molted into a rusty brown and clung to her skin, giving her the appearance of a seal. Her flesh limbs were swept into elongated scythes while her automail was moved to her spine- A slightly smaller arm soon burst out to replace it.

The transformation wasn't finished, however. Her body bent into the vague shape of a deer or horse, forcing the dagger-arms digging into the ground. Her skull formed into a dog's with a long, tapered snout that was full of needle-like teeth.

Panther readied herself to attack the Parasitian as soon as she burst through the wall.

[3kul]

"Keh, how dumb do you think I am?"

An extra boost from thrusters on the soles of her mech suit's feet allowed Little Sister to simply leap over the uselessly small rock wall. It wasn't so long ago that she would've stopped to rage against the rocky defensive set-up in an attempt to break it down, but she played a slightly smarter game now, and she was almost certain that Panther would be caught off-guard by this.

As she flew over Panther's head, she suddenly noticed the changes that the shapeshifter had made to herself. From her positioning, it had seemed that she truly had expected Little Sister to come crashing through the wall like some kind of mindless brute, something that was both insulted her intelligence and boosted her confidence - Panther had no idea how Little Sister did things now, but had previously thought of her as a moron. Just for that she'd make this extra painful for the shapeshifter, and twisted the woven lances slightly so that they came to resemble oversized corkscrews.

After taking a moment to decided where the best place to strike would be, Little Sister thrust the four woven corkscrew-lances towards opponent, aiming for each of Panther's four arms. More specifically, she was aiming for somewhere about the middle of these new limbs, hoping to hit a something like a joint in the strangely misshapen limb. For now it seemed that Little Sister wasn't using her optical abilities, as in her opinion Panther wasn't worth it.

[Panther385]

Well, at least she's smarter now...

Panther used the front to 'fling' herself backwards from the lances. The form wasn't fast gallop-wise, but it could keep up this awkward movement for quite a while.

As she skidded backwards, the automail arm seemed to slip downwards to Panther's stomach area. It dug a finger into the ground, starting to draw a line as the shapeshifter moved around ...

[3kul]

((Is the stone wall still around?))

Little Sister smirked at the shapeshifter's awkward manoeuvres as it just barely avoided her attack. Good, she thought, at least she's willing to make this interesting for me... Not that she'd ever put it that way when wording her next insult.

"Shrewd moves Panther, you've all the grace of a crippled Cornelius!"

Panther's arm movements hadn't been missed by Little Sister either, as if there was one thing that her many fights with HollowEyes had taught her to do it was to take notice of the tiniest movements, especially the unexpected ones. The cork-screw lances that she'd made her hair form rewove themselves into two long flat blades, so that they were more or less similar to a machete in shape, which Little Sister then swept low and fast towards Panther's legs.

At the same time, she opened her Dynamo Eye, now knowing to expect magical attacks of some kind. Against a shapeshifter like Panther, Little Sister felt that her Red Eye would be useless, as Panther's anatomy was no doubt totally messed up, but the Dynamo Eye would hopefully help her to anticipate some of her opponent's attacks.

In addition to this, the extra observant person might have noticed one of the eyes in the cluster on her forehead twitch as Little Sister got herself ready to activate the Minuteman Eye. The left arm of the Meurtedusa also appeared to be undergoing some sort of change that was like a reconstructive routine, as it was beginning to take on a very different shape, but it seemed to be taking it's sweet time in doing so.

[Panther385]

(( Yes. ))

Panther's ego took a slight blow- it would have been larger if she hadn't known what Little Sister was like.

She increased her pace when the blades came swinging towards her. If she rushed the circle, then there could be some dire consequences if she messed up writing something.

Okay, new plan.

The shapeshifter launched farther this time, causing her to tumble into a ball of spindly legs and brown fur.

Insect wings burst from the skin on her back in a small shower of blood droplets. She'd suffer some recoil from shifting this quickly, but all that mattered right now was escaping those damnable swords.

The wings buzzed and pulled Panther into the air without much hesitation. Changing mid-air seemed to be her best bet, right now, so she went right to it.

The fur was the first notable transformation; each hair turning into a long, black striped quill. Her legs mashed into vague paw shapes, each tipped with an off-white blunt claw. Flat blades sprung from her wrists and reached over the claws, covering them slightly.

Her head sprouted a small 'shield' structure from the edge of the maw that curled around to the back of the head. The rest stayed the same- devoid of the metal-tipped, whip-like tail that grew from her rump.

Again, Panther kept it in her mind that sometime soon, there'd be a mass of pain that would knock the wind out of her, but she guessed that the match might be over by then.

[3kul]

Little Sister's tongue whipped itself out to lick up some of the drops of Panther's blood, though this was more just to disturb Panther than to serve any real purpose.

"You taste like crap Panther, though that's not really all that surprising."

Little Sister figured that she had at least a second or two to glance at the patch of ground that Panther had just been standing on whilst her opponent shifted shapes, and she hoped to confirm something in doing so. The Dynamo Eye was still strange and unfamiliar for Little Sister to use, the massive range of energies even here in an open field made seeing through it incredibly difficult, but if she hoped to make use of it in later rounds it'd be in her best interests to get a bit of practice in using it.

From what she could tell, it seemed that she'd been correct in her earlier assumption, as Panther had indeed been trying to make some sort of magic seal, though she'd abandoned this attempt after being interrupted by Little Sister's clever attack. Satisfied with this, the Parisitian turned back to face her foe.

Panther looked like she was trying for a different approach, she seemed to be hoping to fare better in the sky than on the ground. Little Sister grinned maniacally at her opponent - back before she'd met Noten it would've been a smart move, but to try something like that against the current Little Sister would prove to be suicidal.

"I'd tell you to keep your eyes open Panther, but you probably won't see this coming anyways."

Swinging the left arm of the Muertedusa in front of her, Little Sister pointed the barrel of the newly formed gun at her opponent. Both her Red Eye and the Minuteman Eye snapped open, allowing her to almost instantly pinpoint Panther's vital points and movements, and she opened fire. She clearly intended to toy with Panther some more, as she was exclusively aiming for the centre of shapeshifter's new tail, hoping to shoot it off.

((Just in case it's not entirely clear in LS' profile, bullets fired from the Muertedusa have almost the same effects as regular bullets, without the actual bullet. Simply put, Muertedusa bullets are almost impossible to deflect as you can't actually see them, and it basically drills right through whatever it touches.

There are ways to counter and avoid them of course, I wouldn't go creating a weapon that's a massive powerplay, but I'm not going to say how to get around them here as I'm in the middle of a match (judges are free to ask if they feel it to be necessary, though I'd prefer it to be done via PM).))

[Panther385]

(( Sorry it took me so long to post. Apparently I hadn't read the whole thing, and I thought you were aiming for Panther's vital points... And I spent three good days trying to plan a counter attack.

Dangit I want those days back. >_< ))


Panther rolled her eyes. She'd gotten over taunting, especially when Rai had poked fun at her during 'training'. She needed to be knocked down a few notches, apparently.

Moreover, she would have hoped to do that, if it wasn't for her tail suddenly being amputated via bullets.

Well.

While the stump of a tail spewed blood, she snapped in the dragonfly wings, plummeting to the ground.

Now, a regular creature would have been wounded on impact- broken bones and the like.

But, when Panther collided with terra firma...

She literally melted into it.

Panther sunk into the soil, mixing her form with it. She intended to use this form's 'melting' ability for both defense and offense.

Or, right now, revenge for costing her a perfectly good limb.

It was like losing her arm all over again.

Speaking of which, since the automail wasn't part of her ‘natural’ form, it'd been sucked under through a hole in the earth that was quickly sealed up afterwards. She’d have to lug it around underground, but that wasn't too bad.

After some silent ranting and hissing, the shapeshifter unveiled her first trick.

Immense spike exploded from the ground around Little Sister, attempting to skewer her.

[3kul]

((Sorry for the late post, I'd kinda forgotten about the Olympics ))

Little Sister felt immense satisfaction as she watched Panther's expression change as her tail was blasted clean off. Blood spurted from the remains of the shapeshifter's tail as she dropped like a stone, Little Sister grinning at the thought of her opponent's imminent and certainly painful collision with the ground. However, such a collision did not happen - instead, Panther sort of... morphed her way into the ground.

This was an unexpected manoeuvre of Panther's, one that managed to catch Little Sister off guard. Her eyes were flicking back and forth, trying to figure out where the hell her opponent had just gotten to, when a giant stone spike suddenly shot out of the ground, aiming straight for her head. Maximizing the output of one of her thrusters enabled her to narrowly avoid being skewered by the first spike, though it sliced right past her face leaving behind a long gash just behind her right-most eye and severing a couple of thinly woven tendrils from her head.

Activating both thrusters now, the Parasitian launched herself upwards as more rocky spires burst forth from the earth. This required a lot of tricky movements, quick dodging and the like, the kind of stuff that Little Sister was not used to in this body. Because of this, the Muertedusa took quite a beating as she ascended to the safety of the sky, and whilst most of it appeared to be superficial damage there was also a gaping 'wound' in her right leg, leaving the inner wirings and circuitry partly exposed.

This didn't seem to slow her down though, as once she was above the spikes she wheeled about and opened fire on them. She didn't seem to be concerned about where she was firing or showing any restraint, as she had a practically unlimited supply of ammo, she was just firing at the spikes and wherever she thought that Panther might be underground.

She didn't know just how effective her shots would be on her opponent since Panther was underground, but at least this would stop the spires from reaching her. Little Sister was getting the feeling that from here it could turn into a battle of stamina, though judging from Panther's extravagant moves Little Sister was sure that she'd come out on top.