Ishala vs. HollowEyes

[alakin1]

The branches swayed slightly in the light breeze that blew through the forest. Apart from this, the forest was silent, no squirrels scarpered through it, no birds sung from it's branches. A few insects hung around, but that was all.

Ishala trudged carefully through until she reached a certain spot. The undergrowth thinned here, facilitating movement, light shone through the trees, illuminating certain parts, while leaving others darker. It looked quite ethereal to someone raised on a bleak and cold ice world, but she didn't show it, her face only showed the cold, neutral face she had been taught to show. She brushed stray insects off her large, out of place, fur coat.

Scanning the area, she patiently waited for her foe, the one known as HollowEyes.

((1 week starting from your first post 3kul.))

[3kul]

"Ishala, I presume?"

The calm voice of HollowEyes is quite clear over the silence of this part of the Wilds, and so it shouldn't be too hard for his opponent to hear him even if he didn't speak very loudly. This was a bit of a strange place to choose for a fight, HollowEyes though - asking an EC member for a sparring match in a place with no witnesses? This girl didn't seem to have an awful lot of sense about her, but fortunately HollowEyes was one of the more merciful members of the Council. He wouldn't kill her if she didn't try to kill him (though of course, he'd never simply tell her that or it'd spoil the fun).

"I don't think we've met before, though you probably know me as HollowEyes." He continued, emerging from his hiding place behind a rather large tree to get a good look at his opponent. "Do you want to get straight to fighting, or shall we exchange some sort of pleasantries first?" To some people this might've sounded like an insult, though HollowEyes was being quite sincere. "Some folks think it's rude if you start beating them to a pulp straight away, others think you're a complete moron if you spend more than thirty seconds without swinging a punch. I find the whole process is a lot more painless if I just let my opponent take the lead."

[alakin1]

Ishala kept her cold face, betraying no emotion,
"Those who talk of rudeness in a fight are fools. Let us begin." she raised her left arm in a gesture that traditionally marked the beginning of a fight on her planet. Without waiting, she jumped back, moving surprisingly fast for a middle-aged lady in a large fur coat.

Shedding the fur coat, revealing a simple black shirt, she began changing her right arm, a thin coat of ice covered it as it began to change. Her face still neutral, she faced HollowEyes,
"I hope you do not feel the cold, for you fight the cold today."

[3kul]

"How unfortunate for you," HollowEyes taunted Ishala, immediately feeling that he'd have the advantage in the fight. "The cold is one of the things that's never bothered me - not since I was given this."

After speaking, he opened his mouth and extended his tongue a little ways out. The scarred organ was wrapped around the glowing red Ruby Dagger, which he'd taken from Caton exclusively for the purpose of using it in this fight. He'd initially planned on using it as more of an ace in the hole, thinking that he probably wouldn't need it, but now he was glad he'd thought to bring it along.

Of course, there wasn't an awful lot of fire that he could manipulate just conveniently burning away here, and he was much too far away to call on the lava that lay in the volcano, but HollowEyes had realized this and brought some with him. Two small burning red orbs burst out of the ground one after another as the Ruby Dagger glowed - small amounts of lava that he'd brought along with him.

Now HollowEyes was not terribly skilled with the Ruby Dagger, and he hadn't really planned on using it, so he hadn't dragged a lot of lava here with him - there were these two orbs, plus a third that he'd left underground just in case (though he was still forced to use the Ruby Dagger's powers on it to prevent it from cooling and solidifying). Once all three were burnt out though, that was it, so he knew he had to make them count.

He flung the two orbs at his opponent using the pyrokinetic powers of the Ruby Dagger. One was aimed at her right arm that was now turning to ice, the other at the fur coat that she'd just flung off - if he could set that alight it would give him a bit more fire to work with.

[alakin1]

Ishala's face betrayed no fear as the burning orbs appeared, she cursed her mouth and jumped gracefully to the side, dodging the orb aimed at her arm, the other landed squarely on her coat, setting it alight,
"Oh look, now you've destroyed my coat. This really is starting well." she said, not specifically to HollowEyes, but more to the orb itself. She huffed at the Parasitian,
"So you have heat to fight my cold. It seems this will be a dance of flame and ice." The ice fell from her right arm, revealing in it's place, a steel-like blade instead of a hand, smiling at HollowEyes, she called up a mist, clouding the area with a thin, but concealing, fog, though the air around the coat-fed fire was clear. Her smile gone, Ishala silently moved to the left, before rushing forward, slicing with her sword-arm before her.

[3kul]

"Forgive me but I'm not much of a dancer." HollowEyes responded truthfully. Much to his regret, it seemed that Little Sister was the one who held the genetics for smooth moves.

The area suddenly began to fog over, though it couldn't cloud the heat given off by the burning coat and the two blobs of molten lava that HollowEyes was now attempting to manipulate. The flames shot across the grass, moving quickly at first but slowing down as the ground began to dampen thanks to Ishala's fog. Tch, there goes that plan... HollowEyes thought, allowing the fire to fizzle down to little more than a smouldering jacket.

In this time though, Ishala had slipped about to his left and now lunged at him, pitting her sword-arm against his armblades. HollowEyes hadn't expected her to strike so quickly after concealing herself, and so found himself caught off-guard. He stumbled backwards as Ishala's knife-like hand sliced mid-way through one of his boney armblades, only stopping because HollowEyes forced himself to fall over.

"If I'm to fight blind here, then you may as well do the same..." He muttered angrily, sticking a demonic squid charm to the ground as he rolled around behind a nearby tree. The piece of paper spewed a thick black smog out into the light fog, the pitch darkness contrasting greatly with the blurry whiteness.

HollowEyes stuck a vine charm to the tree trunk before quickly moving away, as Ishala would most certainly follow after him to the place she last saw him at.

He cursed silently to himself as he found himself another tree to hide behind, trying to slow his breathing back down in case it betrayed his location. The armblade that Ishala had sliced into was causing him a considerable amount of pain, and the fingers at the end weren't moving - she'd severed the nerves that made it an arm, making it about as useful to HollowEyes as any sword made entirely of bone attached to his body. Sure he could swing it around, but he wouldn't be able to throw charms or anything with it for the rest of the fight.

He tried to keep his focus on the lava orbs, but the one left with the jacket had already hardened and could no longer be controlled by the Ruby Dagger.

The one remaining lava orb moved about slowly, in largish circles, being the only visible thing in this blinding mess. HollowEyes hoped that Ishala might somehow give away her location if she spotted the magma lantern, but he didn't think it was terribly likely, and so he tried to plan for some other kind of sneak attack.

[alakin1]

Ishala unconsciously took a step back as HollowEyes deep smog covered her sight. Thinking quickly, she blundered of to the side, away from the remaining lava orb that hovered nearby like a will-o'-the-wisp. She hadn't expected her foe to control any kind of flame, and therefore her plans and strategies were useless, a foolish oversight on her part.

Ice crawled down her left arm, coating it in a layer of frozen water. She needed some kind of ranged weapon. Wincing, she cut the hardened ice, as strong as iron at least, from her arm, ignoring the pain as the ice was pulled of while it tried to change her arm. She had around 15 rough, and relatively sharp, pieces, the rest were useless. While it took longer to melt, being hardened demokl ice, it would eventually, and soon, she had to act quick.

First she needed to deprive HollowEyes of his weapons, the lava orb was one. Taking the five sharpest pieces of ice, she carefully aimed and threw. She had no doubt that they would be useless against the lava, she needed something to draw the Parasitian out into the open. More ice covered her arm, this time she didn't hack it off, letting it take root. She needed to see. She called off her fog, it was still hard to see, but at least she could now roughly see at least a metre before her. If she gave herself away, she had no doubt HollowEyes would too. Grimacing, she rushed towards the lava ball, slashing her blade-arm before her.

[3kul]

The lava orb hissed horribly, and HollowEyes 'felt' it losing a great deal of heat through the Ruby Dagger. The Dagger glowed a bright red as he forced the lava to heat back up again, hopefully melting the blade that Ishala was using to cut it.

He peered out from the tree that he was hiding behind, seeing that the mist was gone and only the black mess of smog remained. He could see the orb glowing very faintly in amongst it, and whilst he couldn't spot Ishala he knew that she was currently attacking it, most likely with the same ice-sword-arm move that she'd used on HollowEyes earlier.

Quick as a flash, he flicked a devouring locust charm to the side of a nearby tree, and the charm activated itself instantly. Unlike his locust fiend charm, the devouring locust charm simply ate away at whatever organic material it was applied to, which in this case was the tree trunk. The trunk appeared to be decaying in on itself from one side, and it wasn't long before the huge tree began to topple, falling straight towards the inky cloud.

HollowEyes attempted to manipulate the lava orb once more, moving it so that it could lead Ishala to a spot where the tree might crush her. However, this proved to be quite difficult to do if he also hoped to maintain it's high temperature as Ishala continued to attack it, and so the orb sort of jolted a little, starting and stopping. The Parasitian doubted that the tree would crush her, but it might at least scare her out of the smog and into the open.

[alakin1]

((Sorry for my absence, since the week has passed, shall we extend the time, or simply have it judged now?))

[3kul]

((Making it go for a few more days is fine with me.

Any ideas on who you want to judge this yet?))

[3kul]

((So... Another week has passed. Are you interested in continuing this fight at all alakin1?))

[alakin1]

((Excuse me, again. Family matters have a way of keeping people away from RPing. 1 more week? As for judging, I'm thinking Swix if she's available.))

[3kul]

((Fine with me, so long as you post this time ))

[alakin1]

Ishsla's ice-blade melted as it struck the heat of the lava orb. She silently cursed, although she had anticipated such a reaction, she could feel the ice on her right arm now dislodging, and she quickly held it above the orb, letting the ice fall onto the lava, revealing another blade which she quickly moved away from the heat.

Holloweyes had yet to show himself and Ishala could hear something. She looked towards the sound, a tall shape was looming towards her, a falling tree! Leaping out the way, Ishala kept her eyes on the location the tree had fallen from, Holloweyes was, or perhaps had been , there. Now was the time to strike. She bounded forwards, clumsily swinging her blade before her in a large arc. As she done so she cursed her so-called 'strategies' that had been useless.

[3kul]

HollowEyes smiled as he watched his opponent move exactly as he'd predicted. Spinning about the tree that he was hidden behind, he waited until he could get a clear shot at Ishala's back, for even though he had the opportunity for a more aggressive surprise attack, he didn't want to use it just yet. From his experience in these sorts of fights, usually it's enough to show the opponent that they can't win, rather than to go all out and get himself badly hurt in the process.

He went to flick a beetle charm at his opponent, though seconds before he released it he hesitated. If she can freeze parts of her body, turning them to stone won't make for much of a disability... HollowEyes thought to himself, figuring that Ishala was used to having heavy limbs. He had no idea how much the ice that she used weighed, but it seemed that a beetle charm mightn't be the best way to go. Rethinking his strategy, HollowEyes selected a couple of jellyfish charms instead. Even if she could freeze her limbs, she wouldn't be able to use them all that well without her bones... Or at least, this was what he was counting on as he flicked the two charms at her shoulders.