Singles Round 1: Swix vs Mitsukai14

[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: EnDSchultz))

[EnDSchultz]

A lone Yaut'Ja stands in the middle of the eerily quiet battlefield. He is dressed in ceremonial armor, as well as a blood-red cape which flutters in the light breeze. In his right hand he holds an ornate staff, which, just like the armor, is only used for special occasions. Around him, the environment goes on for miles, but through the miracle of Psychotopian holograph technology, it is all contained within an average colloseum. One could walk in the same direction for hours, and never know that they had hardly moved. His booming voice echoes as he proclaims, seemingly to no one,

"Citizens of the Dojo, welcome to round one of the 2007 Olympics! The match you are about to witness is surely to be full of suspense and excitement. The warriors in this match...Swix, versuuuussss....Mit-sukaiiii!!!"

He looks from one side of the holographic arena to the other, and the two opponents are suddenly warped into their respective starting locations.
"Combatants...let the battle....begin!"

With that, he disappears and warps into the Judging Booth, eagerly awaiting the carnage that will soon ensue.

[Swix]

DM crouched in the branches of one of the few trees in the clearing, her bright yellow, slitted eyes sweeping the area for her opponent. Her eyes had a glow to them, primal energy pulsing just beneath the surface. Fangs slightly poked out of her mouth in her otherwise human looking face. Her skin was pale, contrasting sharply with the long, straight black hair that fell down her back. Her wings that were also black and were half furled, open enough to allow her to jump quickly out of the way, but closed enough so she didn't make too big a target. Her black scaled tail swung lazily from side to side behind her bent knees and the branch on which she perched, making her look relaxed.

She wore a t-shirt and trousers, both her clothing and her boots matching the colour of her scales. She clung to one of the higher branches with a pale arm, the claws that she had in place of nails were unsheathed and slightly dug into the rough bark.

Fearing she may be caught off guard again, despite the relatively good view she got from this particular tree, DM began to concentrate. Slowly but surely what appeared to be a large transparent bubble encircled the draconic mutant. It soon became solid, shimmering slightly at the change. Both her wings and legs were accommodated for this time, as holes had appeared close to where the respective limbs left her body.

[Mitsukai]

Nynaeve forced herself to calm down and breathe normally. Why did I enter this again? she asked herself, hoping that the boulder and her invisibility cloak wouuld provide sufficient protection.

Normally the cloak would be of a midnight blue colour, but because it was in use at the moment, the cloak showed the scenery behind it. That was the key in the workings of the cloak; it mimicked the scenery behind it rather than making the wearer actually invisible. So... unfortunately for her, sudden movements would show as a quick distortion in scenery and the cloak would then be useless. Better than nothing...

In addition to the cloak, the only other weapons she had were a pair of enchanted, amethyst encrusted throwing daggers with silver plating that she had neatly hidden away in her sleeves. Her clothing was modest and tight fitting- a long sleeved tunic and leggings made of sheded dragon skin, amour that would not get in the way of her movement. Her alliance with them had not been without perks.

She had been watching DM for several minutes now, memorizing where the creature was and noting that she had put up some sort of barrier that did not protect the extremitites of the creature. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, evisioning DM, before muttering a prayer to the Goddess and then muttering an incantation. "Kaji seishou tame mai kyuujo... Hinotama!" A blazing ball about 10 cm in diameter formed at her raised her hands and flew out from behind the boulder towards the wing of the creature.

[Swix]

DM had a brief moment of surprise, quickly taken over by an adrenaline fuelled desperate dive off the branch and down onto the ground in order to avoid the fireball. She couldn't afford to have her wings too badly injured at this stage, it was far too early.

It still just passed the tip of her black wing, making her suck in a breath in pain as her body free-fell to the ground. Just before she hit she flapped a couple of times to slow her descent enough for her to land safely. What was with people and fireballs these days?

The draconic mutant shook her head before looking around to where she thought the attack had come from. There were a few large boulders and some much smaller ones around, but the place whereabouts the attack might have originated seemed to be nothing more than bare ground to her.

She sighed before getting an idea. Since she knew the general direction of where the fireball had come from... yes, that should work.

The draconic mutant hurried back over to the tree, now with a fire started in it's branches, and moved behind it. A few seconds later and she emerged... from both sides! DM had created an illusionary copy of herself, and was using it to help her.

The illusion wasn't perfect as DM could never manage to get faces right on illusions that were meant to look living, so this one's face was a little blurry and distorted. It would however be impossible to tell the difference unless you were right next to it.

The two DM's split away from each other, both moving forwards in the direction DM thought the fireball had come. They were headed for Nynaeve, although both bodies were a little off her actual hiding place.

[Mitsukai]

What?!? Bloody ashes- there's two of them... how on earth could that be? This is a singles event... one of them has to be a fake...

Starting to feel slightly apprehensive, Nynaeve began to bite her lower lip. She needed a plan. Fast.

Surely one of them is a fake.. but... I can't risk losing my cover this early...

The two DM's approaching her acted as her hourglass and every step they took was like a grain of sand tumbling down from the top half to the bottom. Time was running out...

After a moment's hesitation, she began to chant another incantation. "Mizu seishou shoshite tei seishou tame mai kyuujo... Chi Uteki Kiri!" A fog began to form... starting at where she was before spreading and enveloping the surrounding area. Contrary to the belief's of many non-magical humans, she had not summoned a fog from somewhere else to this place. She merely made the water droplets in the air condense, thus forming the fog. The fog was not thick enough to hide her, and the two DM's, completely from view so a blurry, shadowy silhouette could still be seen, but the fog would be able to overcome the flaw in her cloak which would allow her more mobility. At least, that's what she hoped.

With no time to waste, she backed away from the boulder and, after bumping into it, hid behind one of the trees. Crouching down while still on the balls of her feet, she placed both of her hands palm down on the ground. Now to wait for them to get in the right spot...

[Swix]

"Oh great"

The real DM muttered under her breath as the fog began to form and envelop the place, the clone copying her and halting as well. She was now sure that the boulder the fog had come from was where her opponent had been, but now this had come out there was no telling where this Nynaeve would be.

As the real DM walked forwards far more cautiously, she constantly flapped her wings. At least she could provide herself with a little more visibility. She'd considered making the illusions wings solid so it too had a bit more visibilty but decided against it. She couldn't afford to spare any more concentration on anything yet, she had to preserve some of her energy.

As she moved closer DM spotted the tree, and opening her wings wide she flapped down hard as she jumped, propelling herself up into it's branches. She hoped the fog would be thinner up here, so she could avoid being attacked while she was almost blind.

On the other hand the illusion continued it's journey.

[Mitsukai]

Nynaeve almost fell backwards when she heard something move close by... too close for comfort.

What on earth...?

Trying to calm her breathing so that she wouldn't begin hyperventilating, she restored her balance and quickly glanced around her before looking up. To her surprise, there was a shadowy figure atop the tree. She resisted the urge to listen to her flight or fight instinct screams for her to run far, far away and instead concentrated on the task at hand.

Ah well... I guess this'll have to do...

The orginal plan had been for DM to take a visit at her old hiding spot, chant a spell for the ground to become like quicksand, and DM would then be trapped. Effective with little bloodshed. Well, that just goes to prove that things don't always go as planned.

Unfortuantely, electricity would be out of the question as well. There was too much moisture in the air because of the fog, and thus there would be the risk of self-electrocuting. Not a good idea. Fire would have the same amount of effectiveness as electricity would, so that was out of the question too.

"Tsuchi seishou tame mai kyuujo... Sekijun!"

A deep rumble underneath her feet threatened to heave Nynaeve into the air, but somehow she managed to keep from being tossed up like a ball by swiftly doing a backwards roll back onto her feet so that she was a good distance away from the tree. Calmly she watched as a stalagmite shaped rock pushed its way through the ground and quickly worked it's way through the tree, quite similar to a hot knife though butter.

[Swix]

DM nearly lost her footing as something violently shook the tree and ground beneath her feet, her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as she grabbed a hold of the branch above with her clawed hands.

Her grip couldn't keep her there though as a large stalagmite splintered the plant and scraped again the 'bubble' she had around herself as it moved past with enough speed to knock her out of the tree. Her claws tore the branch she'd been gripping as she lost her concentration, both the bubble and the clone disappearing because of this.

As Blue fell to the ground without protection, the draconic mutant received several cuts and scrapes from branches her body passed. Her wings remained folded against her back until she was close to the ground, when she snapped them open and flapped a few times to stop the momentum, although she did stumble as she landed.

As Blue brought her bright yellow, slitted eyes up to look ahead for anything, she found herself face to face with her opponent. Pulling her lips back over her fangs, she readied the claws on her hands and swiped at Nynaeve with it.

[Mitsukai]

Shocked that her plan had worked- in a way at least-, Nynaeve was in a bit of a daze and reacted much too slowly in response to Blue's attack. Luckily for her, the dragon armour provided just enough protection to keep her from receiving deep gashes in the mid-section rather than the shallow wounds she had right now. Not so lucky however was the fact that there was a huge rip in the dragon armour where she had been slashed at, so now her mid-section was even more vunerable to a fatal attack.

Although the armour had lessened the serverity of the attack, it did nothing to prevent Nynaeve from flying backwards with the air knocked out of her. Thud. Holding her hand across her abdomen in hopes of slowing the blood lossage, she bit down on her lip to keep from whimpering in pain.

The increasing loss of blood was slowly but gradually making her weak and dizzy. A healing spell would take too long, and with danger very nearby, it would not be reasonable to do the incantation now. The only choice left was to run, recover, and begin fighting again.

"Tei seishou tame mai kyuujo... Tatsumaki!"

Gradually picking up speed, a small gust of wind began spinning around her... faster... faster... til the point where it became a full blown tornado that rose several feet above the trees. The tornado began picking up loose leaves, twigs, and dust, further adding protection. Trees nearby strained against being pulled into the vortex. And, in the eye of the storm, she was safe- for the time being.

The blood loss was really beginning to take a toll, and she had difficulty saying the next incantation.

"Spirit of earth... wind... and water... Come... to my aid. Let me... use... your powers... to heal... this one... in need...," she managed to whisper, taking a breath between every couple of words. A soft glow of yellow light situated underneath the hand that was stenching the blood. She forced herself to concentrate on keeping the light on her stomach and not allow it to envelope the rest of her body, so that the wound would heal faster. Even so, this process was still quite slow. It was much more difficult to heal one's self than another person.

[Swix]

DM was, well, at a complete loss for what to do now. That is, except for holding onto the tree she'd been next to for dear life.

After her surprised attack had caught the human off guard and somehow managed to cut through the scaled armour she wore, the draconic mutant had been all set to advance on her.

The only problem was, after taking a couple of steps the wind began to pick up and clear the fog away. Blues gratitude for this had soon evaporated as wind became a tornado, and not having anything else to hang on to she'd grabbed the nearest thing that had come to hand, the tree.

DM had dug her claws into the bark so deeply that she was pretty much stuck there, even as sticky sap oozed over her fingers and Nynaeves blood. DM's black hair whipped about her face as she struggled to close her wings against the onslaught of wind and debris, this was the first and only time in her life she'd ever been grateful they weren't large enough for actual flight, otherwise she would probably have been torn off by now.

Her tail whipped about in the wind as well, the three limbs proving far more of a hindrance to her than ever while sharp sticks and stones further cut her bare arms and shredded her clothes.

[Mitsukai]

Gradually, the tornado around her begin to slow down to the point where she could begin to make out the scenery.

No... not yet...

She glanced down, noting that the spell- although working- was not done yet.