1 vs 1 Battle Arena

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The Knife spun out of her hand and plunged into a tree, sticking.

Alright. Okay. Fine.

She lashed out with her other arm, the one wrapped tight and bound.

[Philote]

Damian was feeling confident, things had been going fairly well up to this point, but ordinary beings did not come to matches like this so he had to remember to be careful. The girl was disarmed, that was good but she did not seem too worried about it. She came at him for another strike and Damian raised his still crimson ring to counterattack.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Her overhead swing was caught by the repulsion ring. She took the hit right in the center of her forearm and it flew away.

Her forearm. Not her fist.

The bindings around the arm had torn from the shock of the rings blow and it now stenches back like the rubber in a slingshot. The girls fist, for now, remained where it was. Then it warped, the bindings loosening as the finger stretched thin in an instant, tearing and gripping at the front of his shirt before her whole arm could be deflected. Then the fist to, and Damian by extension, were thrown back through the air behind Maria.

You could see it clearly, in that instant. Maria's arm. A ugly, wretched appendage, grey like old metal, shifting like jello or the waves of the ocean.

[Philote]

Damian found himself in the air, the world was almost still around him. Almost. In less time than he could blink, he had made contact with the ground was sent spinning across it out of the girl's grip. He gets back up on his feet, he was bruised but not defeated just yet.

"That's a nice arm you've got there, I've been wondering when I would see your talent" Damian says. He looks down, the larger ring was gone, must have dissipated at some point while he was in the air. "I didn't introduce myself earlier, but the name is Damian. Now that that is out of the way, I can introduce you to someone else."

Damian raises his right hand, the one with the ring. The smaller ring was more detailed than the one he wielded before. The action is quick, but the ring expands, separating into parts before shrinking down and biting into Damian's flesh. Blood from the wound begins to spread out and cover Damian's body. "Meet Red."

Crimson fur sprouts from under the blood and Damian's body increases in size. His fingers twist and expand into claws. His face elongates and fangs form. The blood is absorbed back into the body, but the body is no longer Damian's but that of a large werewolf's.

The werewolf places all four of its limbs on the ground and prepares to leap. "I hope you're ready" the werewolf speaks in a voice that is eerily similar to Damian's.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

She flinches subtlety when he points out her arm. The her face is a mask of terror as he transforms, only to quickly be replaced by a look of anger and disgust.

She whips her arm back, it flying out behind her, stretching, growing thinner and it goes.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF?!" she cries, outrage and pain lining her every word. She jerks her shoulder and the fist reels back, flies forward with the speed and power of momentum behind it, toward Damien.

[Philote]

Damian and Red's minds swim around each in the pool of the werewolf's body. The girl was attacking wildly out of anger, this made her attack unfocused but gave it the speed and power needed to strike him at the distance they were at. Red's mind pushes to the front to make use of his quicker instincts. The two of them had been partners for long enough that the switching of control came naturally.

The two had no time to answer the girl's question, only enough time for Red to lift up his left arm defensively to reduce the surface area she could strike.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

It wasn't a whipping motion Maria through. Her fist didn't sail in an arc, it sailed in a straight line and impacted with the forces of a meteor hammer before retracting, leaving it's imprint the wolfs arm.

It whipped Maria around when it came back, and she struggled to regain her balance.

[Philote]

Red's back paws dig into the soil as the force of the girl's attack sends him sliding back. Somewhere in the werewolf's mind, Damian is glad that he switched, an attack like that could of crushed his human lungs. The two minds work together to survey the landscape. The girl was still reorienting herself, so the two had a small chance of improving their situation before she attacked again.

They could leap towards her, but she would just strike them again as they did. There were plenty of trees around, but no stones large enough and within a distance they could reach to be effective. The werewolf squats down as the two make their decision. Using their enhanced strength, the werewolf leaps straight up, grabs a branch in the canopy above, and swings up to crouch on its surface.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

It takes a moment for her to re-orient herself, but she's already scanning around the instant she does. She here's a whistle, and looks over to see Snow on her fallen tree. Snow raises a finger to the sky, and Maria looks up to see the wolf crouching on a branch high above.

She whips her arm upwards, Wrapping around a branch in the tree right across from his. She kicks off the ground, just start, and lets the elasticity pull her up onto it. She crouches across from Damien, waiting for his move.

[Philote]

The werewolf reaches down and breaks off the far end of the large branch and hurls the heavy object in the general direction of the girl. Damian looks over their shoulder to survey their surroundings before Red takes back control to watch the movements of the girl. The two leap again, though not as far this time, and land behind them on another large branch that Damian had just spotted.

"What do you think about our arm?" Damian mentally questioned.

"Still has enough power in it to keep going, I'm built to take a beating" Red replies

"Do you want to switch out?"

"Not yet, I'm going to sniff her out some more"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Clever.

To get from branch to branch up here, the wolf had to travel through the air, jumping. Able to neither properly dodge or defend himself from Maria's attacks. In essence, Maria had this whole area locked down with the range and power given to her by her arm. He was trapped. To move, even to get down, would open him up to Maria's attacks. He could try to get out of her range, but she could follow. He could try climbing down, which would expose his back. He could leap at her, and she could scythe him down. Even if he made it to the ground, he would still have to come up to engage her.

Unfortunately, he realized this. That's why he had tossed the branch. If he was smart, that was the only way he would attack. Maria would be able to strike them out of the air all day, but that would only lead to a stalemate. She could attack him from here of course, but that would give him the opportunity to grab her arm, rip her from the branch and back onto the ground where her advantage wasn't as godlike. There would be no chance of that if she wound up again, but that took time. Time enough to cross the gap with a powerful leap. She squared her jaw.

The branch hit her full in the face, flinging her over the side. He hands flailed out and she let out a stifled scream, her fingers finding purchase on the branch and preventing her plummeting to the ground. She felt the strain her bones placed upon her muscles, and fought against the weight dragging her downward. The fingers of both hands gripped the wood, her deformed one boring holes into the wood with it's claws. She struggled in vain to pull herself upright, and looked round wildly for the wolf.

[Philote]

"She didn't try to dodge" Damian points out

"Does it matter? We can't see her on the other side of the branch so we need to act before she prepares something" Red replies.

The werewolf hunches down and pushes off the branch. The force of the jump cracks the tree limb and sends it falling to the ground below. Red aimed right for the tree branch, there was no need to leap over it, he had enough force behind him to break through to where he last saw the girl.

"We may need to switch out soon" Damian thinks as they fly through the air.

"Do you want to do that this early? No, I'll push her more and see what she can do"

"And what if she stabs you with that arm of hers?"

"I'll be careful, we don't want that coming out yet"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

She heard the sound of a breaking branch. She figured that was the best indication she was going to get.

Hook...

Maria dropped. As she fell, the wolf came into view above her, shooting at the branch she had occupied moments before. It had taken the bait.

Line...

With only moments to act she swung her arm, willing it to be fluid, feeling it expand with that strange sense of touch it had....

And Sinker!

And brought it slicing around in a sweeping arc above her toward the wolf. She didn't bother aiming for the head, that could be dodged with a jerky movement of the neck. The arm would impact at center mass. Gravity would have to do the rest.

"FALL!"

[Philote]

The werewolf let out a gasp of pain as the strange substance of the arm connected with his side mid-jump and continued to push him through the air.

"I'm pretty sure that broke flesh" Red snarled in their collective mind

"This isn't working Red, I've got to start the shift" Damian replied

The claws begin to retract, the wolf snout grows shorter and the crimson fur begins to recede as the girl hurls their body through the air.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

She doesn't see where the arc of her blow takes it. Not before hitting the ground.

She lands badly, on her back, and it such a way that, were her bones not lead, her spine would have shattered like a Ming vase. Lights swim in front of her vision, black twinkles drifting in the afternoon sun, as her brain was jostled in it's metal headpan. There was a promise of pain to come from the muscles, dulled only by the rush of adrenalin. It was times like those that made her truly grateful to have Snow around. Nothing eased an ache quite like her touch.

She knew he might still be up, but right now she was content to lay here ad watch the lights.

[Philote]

A large clay hand pushes Damian's new body up and out of the small crater he had fallen into after the girl's last strike. Red's mind had faded into the background of Damian's brain and a much different one was now coiling around Damian's own.

"Come on big guy, I'll take the lead on this one" Damian thinks softly to the presence.

The new body begins to lumber forward. He could not see in this form, but his other senses let him know exactly where his opponent was lying.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Maria!"

Oh, Snow was calling. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, the ache already spreading well past her shoulders and down to the small of her back.

"Maria!"

She brought her head up through the fuzzy cloud of her thoughts, looking up to see Snow. She was standing up. She was pointing. She brought her hands to her mouth again, and her frantic warning cut through the haze the fall had thrown up over her brain.

"Maria, he's back up. Look! Look! Hurry up, please just get back up. He's going to cream you."

She stood right up, and whirled around. This, as it turned out, was a bad idea. The sudden turbulence reminded the brain of the bouncing hell it had gone through. Maria stumbled, normal hand on her head, but managed to keep upright. Through one eye she spied her attacker.

He'd changed again. He could do it at will. He could probably change back. With this realization came a surge of relief that almost brought her back to the floor.  She couldn't help but voice the elation.

"That's great.' She said, words that might have been sardonic from any other person upon seeing the clay figure striding purposely toward them. "I thought you'd disfigured yourself to fight me. I never would have forgiven myself." She tried to pull herself upright, stumbled again, and tried to take a few deep, steadying breaths.

[Philote]

The girl was speaking to him now, but he could not answer back, not in this body. A new consciousness floated around him in his brain, bigger yet slower than the last one. The new consciousness was good, great if you could get it focused, but Damian would have to be the one in control of the ship for now.

The girl could see him clearly now as he got closer. His clay body was much larger and thicker than his last one. Veins, a lighter tint of orange than the rest of the body, bulged across the body's surface. The strangest thing about Damian's new form was its face, which lacked all features except a large gaping worm-like mouth with a circular row of clay teeth.

"I suppose I better try to end this match before she reorientates herself" Damian thought "No point in waiting"

The golem raises a hand back towards where it fell. Behind the creature, one of the branches broken from their fight in the canopy begins sliding across the ground before rising into the air and jumping to the golem's hand. With weapon in tow, Damian moves forward to strike the girl.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Right, no point in exchanging pleasantries during a fight.

She couldn't run yet. To dodge would only cause another bout of dizziness, and this close he was sure to catch her on the second swing. For now she had to meet him head on.

She thought of the arm, willing the horrible thing to become less elastic, more fluid. It filled out, it's jagged edges and fingers disappearing as it widened slightly, as it's sides became flatter, and the end became rounded. Things like fingers began to sprout up all along the edge, before beginning to move very quickly, vanishing back into the arm and appearing on the opposite side once they reached her elbow.

Maria gripped her deformity right at the point right below where the teeth vanished. She had never seen a chainsaw before, never even knew that such a machine existed. However, you would never be able to tell from the impressive facsimile she had worked her arm into. It roared with an organic screeching sound, like the chorus of a cat-piano.

With this, she met his swing.

[Philote]

The girl's arm rips through Damian's improvised weapon, leaving only a stub of the branch remaining in the golem's palm. The branch was useless as a bat now, so Damian tosses the remaining wood towards the girl and opens his palm towards her.

Pebbles and lose dirt begin to slide away under the girl's feet as the golem points its hand towards her. The branch that Damian had tossed moments before begins to gain velocity as the repulsive force increases.