3kul vs. Goron

[Goron40]

((December 15th is fine with me. Let's use a standard arena, with a few large boulders in it. I will be using my trademark character, feel free to use whatever. (I know Goron and HE have dueled at least twice before now.) Umm, as for a judge... you can pick that.))

A blue portal opened on one side of the arena, its swirling mists emanating as if from nowhere. Goron stepped forth from the portal, katana in hand. He thought he was starting to get pretty good at this whole portal thing, but retracted the impulse as it was a dangerous thought to have. Last time he had thought in that fashion his very next portal trip had granted him a large gash on his face.

"(3kul's character) should be along any second now and..." Goron stopped mid-sentence as he realized he was babbling to himself.

~I really have to stop doing that,~ he thought with a grimace.

[3kul]

((Sorry Goron, been a little distracted lately, though you'll hopefully be pleased to notice your shiney new blue belt

I'll be using HollowEyes, since as many times as HollowEyes and Goron have faced off against each other I don't think there's ever been a decisive victory from either side.

As for judges, I was thinking of choosing Shaon, but she doesn't seem to like you that much and I wouldn't want that to influence judgement, so I'll have to think of someone else. Judges really don't matter until the end though, so we've got plenty of time to decide.))

HollowEyes had fought Goron a few times, but something had always managed to get in the way before they could settle things. Remembering how Goron had gotten in the way during the attack on Dojopolis and the Olympics HollowEyes had accepted the challenge without much hesitation, curious to see how things would go in an uninterrupted environment like the Challenge Arena.

Stepping out from behind a large boulder to face his opponent, the Parasitian felt somewhat eager to get things started. "I've actually been here for a little while now Goron, since I didn't have much else to do today." In truth he'd only arrived moments earlier, after spending a great amount of time searching through the EC records for every scrap of information on Goron that he could find.

With a single yet ever-so-slight movement of his four arms, he had several charms in his hands and was ready for his opponent. "I'm ready whenever you are..." He said in a rather calm manner, wondering just what kinds of tricks Goron might have up his sleeve.

[Goron40]

"Wonderful, let's begin."

He personally had nothing against HollowEyes, but their Evil Council/Guardian relationship had meant that they had never been friends. Goron could recall the last two duels and how they had "ended," both of them still very much alive. The first time they fought HE managed to down Goron, who proceeded to stab him as he performed his killing move. On the other occasion, Goron could remember HollowEyes' control of the Ruby Dagger gave him the upper hand.

Goron hurled two shuriken at HollowEyes, then stepped behind a rock and vanished into its shadow. From within the shadow realm, he waited, just to see how HE would react to the shuriken. A low hum emitted as his katana slid from its sheath.

[3kul]

A loose beetle charm that HollowEyes had released the moment Goron had attacked stuck to his horn as he slammed it down on the two shuriken, pounding them into the ground. Removing the charm, he paused only to make sure that the throwing stars were bent badly enough to prevent them from being used again before running towards the end of the arena, attempting to put as much distance between himself and Goron as possible.

He needed to buy himself a little time to get used to the arena. It was fairly obvious that Goron had selected such a place for the numerous shadows cast by the boulders around them, as it gave him a lot of flexibility with his shadow travelling, but HollowEyes couldn't properly gauge just how much of an advantage this was.

Unfortunately, time was not of the essence for that kind of thing, as previous experience had taught the Parasitian that his opponent was not one to waste any kind of opportunity to attack. Leaping up on top of one of the boulders, he decided to put a couple of his old favourites to good use. As the black smog billowed out from the demonic squid charm that he'd just used, around twenty identical copies of HollowEyes split up from out of the murky darkness and scattered throughout the arena (having emerged from the charm of the reflecting waters that he'd used right after that).

[Goron40]

~I suppose there are only so many tricks one can use... myself included,~ Goron thought to himself as he watched almost two dozen clones emerge from the smog. It had been a while since he had seen these, however, and Goron's mind was clouded by time. He scratched his head, trying to remember what they were made of.

"Earth? No... Are they part of the smog? No that's not it either," he mumbled. Then finally, "Oh of course! The clones are made of water."

He was unaware of how this would help him, as he had never actually fought one of the clones before. Goron figured that breaking the surface tension with his sword might do the trick, then again, it could simply do nothing at all. Not one to let an idea go unexplored, he sat in wait for one of the HEs to pass.

It was not long before Goron watched a HollowEyes figure zip past the shadow he was hidden in, and it sparked him to action. He leapt forth from the shade and jabbed his katana straight foward at the back of the Partisan.

[3kul]

((Nice change to your avatar Goron, looks cool ))

The clone burst the moment Goron's sword pierced it, splashing all over the nearby boulder. Another HollowEyes charged at Goron from behind as he exposed himself, aiming to ram him right in the back. Should it be a water clone, it would simply burst the moment it collided with him it and spill out as the water that it was made of, but Goron wouldn't be able to tell that until it happened. To add to the confusion of the situation, this HollowEyes appeared to have a charm in it's hand, whilst the clone that had just been destroyed did not.

Noticing what had taken place, two more clones change directions and head towards the real HollowEyes, as he'd instructed them to.

((Just so you know I'm not going to be saying "that was a clone" for every HollowEyes that you attack, I do intend to play fairly ))

[Goron40]

((Thanks! Working on keeping the colors in line with my belts.))

"Damn," Goron stated as the water from the clone splashed to the ground. These water clones were always a real pain to deal with. At least his odds were improving. Of course, he'd been wrong about odds before.

As if to drive this point home, the patter of feet alerted him to yet another approaching HollowEyes. Much to his dismay, Goron noted this one had chosen to approach him from behind.

Thinking fast, Goron waited until the figure was just out of arms reach, then dropped to the ground, spinning 360 degrees as he did, and extending his right leg in an attempt to trip the HollowEyes as he passed.

((I wouldn't expect anything less. ))

[3kul]

The clone suddenly found it's legs disappear from beneath it, the watery limbs bursting the moment Goron kicked them. No longer having anything to move about with, the clone collapsed to the ground, the rest of it's body following the suit of it's legs.

The charm that it had held in it's hand floated harmlessly to the ground, having missed it's target... or so one might have assumed. The moment it hit the ground, a large vine whipped out from the charm, lashing out at the nearby Goron. Whether it managed to grab a hold of him or simply whip him senseless the vine did not care, as it barely had a mind of it's own, but it seemed pretty intent to get at least one of those two in.

[Goron40]

"Hah. Vines again..." Goron grinned as he watched the charm spout its deadly appendage, "Now... what did I do last time..."

Last time he had relied on his instincts. Here he would have done well to do the same. Ironically, the very attempt to remember how to defeat the vines caused his lack of defense against it. The vine took a firm hold on him, holding him to the ground by his torso. His sword fell from his hand directly beside him as the impact with the ground left a large bruise on his knees.

"Right. Now I remember," Goron grunted with a wince of pain.

[3kul]

The direction in which the clones had come from to warn him as well as the location of his charm's energy and the rather erratic changes in Goron's most recent thoughts all allowed HollowEyes to get a pretty good idea of where his opponent was now. Taking into account just who his opponent was, HollowEyes knew that he'd be a fool not to take advantage of any given opportunity.

Moments after Goron hit the ground, three HollowEyes leapt over out from behind a nearby boulder. Each one had four charms in their hands, though all of them acted differently. The HollowEyes to his left hurled all four charms at Goron, and continued to charge at him. The HollowEyes directly in front of him adopted a similar strategy, but only threw two of it's charms, keeping the other two in it's hands. The HollowEyes on his right threw two charms at Goron and stuck the other two on itself, and although these appeared to make no physical changes this HollowEyes also continued to charge at him.

[Goron40]

Goron's right hand twitched, seemingly involuntarily. His console lit up and the energy sword extended from it shredding the vine and its charm. Goron rolled over, picking up his katana in his left hand. After a short double-sword fury Goron was back on his feet looking at the three HollowEyes with shreds of paper falling to the ground.

Goron grinned, and was about to make a smart remark, but he stopped short with his eyes transfixed on his right arm. Not one, but two charms had managed to land themselves on him. Goron winced with one eye closed as he waited for the impending result.

[3kul]

(( You're letting me choose which charms hit? Hm... I'll definately make the most of this ))

HollowEyes was surprised at his incredible luck and Goron's horrible misfortune - two different charms had stuck themselves to his arm and had created an exceedingly inconvenient effect together, something which HollowEyes had previously never thought of. High up on his right arm just below his shoulder was a charm of the irresolute jellyfish, which was no doubt already dissolving the bones in his upper arm, whilst down lower closer to Goron's hand was a charm of the petrified beetle, which was encrusting Goron's lower arm with heavy stone as HollowEyes thought about this combination. ((If you're struggling to think of what this is like, imagine that your right arm is made of noodles, and that those noodles are tied to a rock (your hand + lower arm) .))

This was not an opportunity to be missed, as not only was Goron's right arm virtually out of commission but he was flinching from it too. Sticking one of the two charms that he'd kept with him to his right leg, and the other to his throat, the middle HollowEyes swung his now petrified leg around hard at Goron's unchanged left arm.

The two HollowEyes copies to the left and right of Goron, as well as those wandering around the arena, burst into a cloud of mist, as HollowEyes considered their work to be done.

((Funnily enough, I couldn't decide which charms I wanted to hit you, as given the current situation there's a lot that I wanted to put to use, but in the end the coin toss commanded me to use one beetle and one jellyfish. ))

[Goron40]

The combination of charms might have been worse... much worse. But this combination was less of a hinderence than Goron believed it was intended to be. With a few complex lurches of his shoulder, he had his arm twirling about like a flail ((This is making me sick thinking about this )). Thankfully due to his tougher skin given to him at cloning, he was able to take the force that this generated.

With his katana still in his left hand, and his right arm twirling about rather disturbingly, Goron propelled himself up and over HE's oncoming leg. The arm took a little getting used to, but the overall weight had remained the same, with the stone making up for the missing bones.

Once he was sure he had cleared HollowEye's strike, he twirled about, striking out first with his katana in his left hand, then bringing his "arm flail" down towards HollowEyes in a powerful overhead swing.

[3kul]

((A boneless arm flail is a fairly disturbing idea Goron ))

HollowEyes was quite surprised by how Goron had turned his own move against him, but seriously doubted that his opponent could keep up such totally idiotic movements for very long.

Adding to this surprise though was how Goron had managed to overcome his initial shock at the charm attack and formulate this new and strange method of using his arm with enough time left over to dodge his attack. Fortunately for HollowEyes he already knew that Goron was pretty quick like that, so all it took for him to be prepared for his opponent's next move was for him to simply continued his kick around so that he spun around almost 180 degrees.

Leaning over slightly, HollowEyes felt the sharp and instant pain of Goron's katana piercing the flat topside of one of his armblades. With the power that Goron had put into that swing it drove all the way through the tough structure of the armblade, but it was certainly a lot better than being stabbed in the side or something like that and Goron would find it a bit tricky to pull it out like this. Staggering a little as he continued to lean, the opposite armblade managed to stop the movement Goron's boneless arm flail simply by striking upwards towards his upper arm, though it had still packed quite a whallop, small pieces of Goron's stoney fist chipping off as it hit ((don't worry, this isn't damage to your own fist, just it's rock coating)).

Now HollowEyes needed to make getting stabbed in the armblade and bashed by an arm flail worthwhile sacrifices - his mouth swelling with ink from the previously applied Demonic Squid charm ((previous post, the charm on his throat)), he spewed a large amount of the black sticky substance straight at his opponent's face.

((Hopefully his movements aren't too hard to picture, but HollowEyes has basically been stabbed in his left armblade and arm flailed in his right (his centre and back armblade are fine). Now he's spitting ink in your face .))

[Shaon]