1 vs 1 Battle Arena

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Poor thing doesn't even know what happened yet.

Extending an Aure out, focusing your spirit into a blast, was difficult work. It was much easier when you had a conduit, if you were touching your target. The moment they had fallen upon her, she had pushed with all her might, smashing through their defenses and extending up their necks, shoving her spirit into them. Pushing it down their throats.

They froze, solid and brittle and all the way to the base of it's necks, the point where all three heads converged. The third head, the one that had ripped at her side, had been lucky, had moved to fast for her to work. But the two that had made dedicated attacks were frozen and dead. The third hadn't gotten off that easily either, ice from the base had inched it's way up the creatures neck. Even as the globs of spit hit her and froze, it would realize that it couldn't breath, and as it circled around the other heads broke off with a sound of crackling glass.

(An auto hit for an auto hit. Don't anyone say I don't play fair.)

[Philote]

Philote wrote

Damian shifts again. The flying snake splits apart at the head and three new ones grow out. The heads grow Hydra-like as Damian dives towards the girl. Large fangs and spikes grow as the first head bites down on the girl's arm. The second moves in and rips flesh from the girl's side while the third, poison streaming from its mouth, engulfs the girl's head.

Damian hopes the hallucination will hold as the winged snake circles around the girl and spits out a green glob towards her.

(Just want to make sure we're on same page. I'm not sure if I made it clear enough. The first paragraph is over the top because the entire thing is the hallucination. The second is what is really happening, him moving behind and spitting, so nothing had hit yet and I was letting you choose how effective hallucination was by saying he hoped it would hold.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(Oh, I get it. I though the fangs were poison or something, and that would make her hallucinate. Snow thinks she's winning and is emanating cold in all directions., go nuts!)

[Philote]

(  I should of made it more clear. Just to make sure: He is not the hydra thing, but still the winged snake)

Damian circles further back from the girl to easier air. The air was growing colder, but luckily it was mostly directed away from him.

"Hydras" the other mind says to Damian

"What?"

"She is fighting Hydras!"

"I'll never understand how you hallucinate other people's hallucinations"

Damian coils through the air, keeping on the move to try and stay warm.

"Prepare some poisons, we are going to try and hinder her as much as we can before she realizes what is going on" Damian instructs.

The serpent spits again, sending out a couple shots in a state somewhere between the original gas and the recent green glob. Each shot is a mix of a different poison as the two test to see which is most effective. One for the slowing of muscles, one for pain, and one for disorientation. If all else failed, the poison would at least begin building up in the snow around her.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The final head had made a stupid mistake, trying to get in close like that. But she hefted the frozen reptile mightily over her head, letting out a cheer. Maria came out of the woods, falling to her knees and draping herself around Snows legs. "Oh, Snow. I've never seen this side of you before. So decisive."

"Yes." she says, hands smugly on her hips, head held high. "Next time we're in trouble, just leave everything to me. I promise I'll always be there to protects you."

"Ohhhhh Snow." Maris stood up, held her close....

and then backhanded her across the face.

"Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Ow ow ow owowowowow!"

Snow awoke in a world of pain and dizziness, down on the ground, something like mucus coating the side of her face. She pulled her hand away from here she touched it. Green goo was already spreading fire through her fingers. She froze it, all of it, and scraped it off. But the pain lingered on, an she couldn't see straight. She tried standing up, and felt her muscle struggle with it, slow and sluggish.

What? What had happened? Everything felt hazy, like waking up from a dream. She remembered winning. She, she....

She saw him, souring around like he owned the forest. She thought about the mucus. Poison. She'd been poisoned. No wonder felt like crap, something that had absorbed thorough her skin. She tried to get a bead on the flyer, but couldn't control her vision. He was everywhere, multiples flying in formation. Even if she could see him clearly, though, it's not as though she had anything that could hit him with how fast he was.

She leaned against a tree to steady herself. Then she had an idea.

Trees explode sometimes, the bark and wood splitting as though something were trying to get out sending shards flying quick enough to kill a man. Lot's of them. What happens is simple; the sap inside the tree freezes, expanding. The tree, unable to take or bend with the increase in internal pressure, simply blows up from the inside.

Snow ducked down as low as she could and waited for the snake to make another pass. When it did, she forced her aura up into the tree. The sap froze rapidly, and with it came the rapid sound of gunshots as the tree began spitting out it's deadly ammo in all directions.

[Philote]

(I'm glad you picked up on it being absorbed through the skin, I was trying to think of a way to make that clear. It is why I started the hallucination thing because she caused the first poison to snow down around her.)

Shards of wood puncture Damian. He had become too confident and flown too close. The fight was over, he had been sure, the girl did not seem to be taking the poisons well and he had not expected it within her power to explode the tree and now he was paying the price.

The largest shard of wood pierces one of his wings and becomes stuck there, causing Damian to crash down into the snow away from the girl. The snake lifts its head up, it was grounded. Damian would have to shift again in just a moment, but he was going to try and get a couple more acidic shots off first while the winged snake was still functioning.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

There it was. On the ground. All 6 of him. She lifted herself up on the distended trunk of the tree as the snake raised itself/themselves up. She didn't know if she was still hallucinating or if her eyesight was that wonky, but six head drew themselves up.

She stuck out a hand. There was no way to tell which one was real, so she had no choice. It would lose some power, but at least it would hit.

A wide cold arc spread our before her, less a beam and more a shotgun spray.

[Philote]

Damian does not see where his acidic shot lands but he suspects that it was frozen. The wave of cold hits him and pushes him back and Damian remembers something about reptiles not doing well in the cold.

"Crazed Eye, you did well and we made a lot of progress but I think you're out of this fight" Damian thinks

"Alright, see you later boss"

Wood shards pop out of Damian as his flesh moves them out for the transformation. The growing cold subsides some as he switches to a body more suited for the weather. When Damian rises back up out of the snow, a blue-coated penguin rises instead. One of the crested kind, with its coat growing out into a gold-red crown. The most noticeable outward difference is that its wings end in an almost primitive version of a hand.

"I did not want to fight you Ice to Ice but with you poisoned like that I might have a chance."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Penguins were everywhere.

"That's adorable," she stammered. She shook her head back and forth. When she looked up, there were still 4 of him. He moved unsteadily, collapsing against the next tree. Placing the freaky green snow that had made together between her and it.

[Philote]

Ice builds up under Damian's feet, growing into a platform and lifting him up until he felt he had the proper angle on his aim. The penguin opens its beak and a light blue light shines from within and out shoots a perfectly spherical cannonball of ice.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Snow throws herself back to the ground as the cannonball slams into the tree behind her, leaving a circular crater in the tree. She gulps vincible, and half run half crawls to the tree she was last at, trying to pull herself to her feet using it as leverage.

[Philote]

This time, Damian tries for something that will fly faster. Knives of ice jump out from the penguin's call. The girl was playing into his hand by moving further away.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

She waves her hand wildly in the air, sending out another wave of cold. Not to stop them, but enough to blunt them.

Three chunks of ice hitting you center mass is still enough to knock the wind out of you though. Snow is back on her knees and struggles to get her breath back. She sucks in just enough to turn and spit. A single needle of Ice flies from her lips at the creature.

[Philote]

The needle stabs him in his side and blood begins dripping down his coat. His mobility was not the best in this body. A quick puff of freezing air coats the wound to stop the bleeding. Only a temporary solution, but better than bleeding out. The penguin blows out again, growing the ice in front of him into a wall for him to launch projectile over while being relatively safe.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

It was good that he was turtling up. She was starting to feel better, the vertigo fading. She guessed only a bit of the poison had gotten inside of her before she froze it. She stood shakily up, and was glad to see only one wall of ice instead of the three she had expected. She would try right at him, but she would have to pass through the pile of green snow slowly melting on the-

A wicked idea caught hold of her. She formed her hands into half cups, and willed her spirit out over them. In seconds their was a thin layer of ice coating he palms and forearms. She stumbled quickly to the green pile and scooped a handful of the snow up, packing it into a ball. With a heft, she chucked it over the penguins defensive wall and got to work on another one.

[Philote]

The penguin breaths out its freezing air and a missile of ice forms, hanging in the air like a work of art. This body was the artillery of the group, and its mind could pinpoint directly where it wanted the ice to land. Another puff of air and the ice formation is launched in an arc over the wall of ice. A second missile begins to form just as the snowball rises over the wall. The second shard of ice drops as the poison seeps into him, disorienting his world.

"Of all the ones we could of been hit with, why did we have to get hit with that one first. We'll never get off a proper shot this way" Damian thinks

The snow freezes as he copies the way the girl dealt with the poison, but his vision remains nothing but a blur. He breaths out wildly, letting the ice wall grow bigger into more of a dome around him, but he can not see the effectiveness of the ice growth. Damian bides his time and he works out how to counterattack.

(Not literal exploding missile, more like spear. I realized as I was writing this that I could use Damian's health pool to transfer over the poison to the snake who is immune to it, but Damian is disoriented for the moment so he wouldn't be able to think straight enough to come up with that.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Oh crap!

She dodged wildly to the side, but not quickly enough. The shard tore into her side, sending pain scorching though her body.  It was like when the snake had done it in her daydream, except more painful and with the slow disorientation that comes with massive blood loss. It was only her luck the caused the second missile to miss, the green snow already taking effect on him and throwing off his aim only slightly.

Of course, only slightly had still sheared the skin of the tip of her nose.

She put her hand to the wound, exposed to the elements through the whole sliced in her coat undercoat, and shirt. They were all ruined, the red-brown mixing with the light pink. She was going to pass out and bleed out if she didn't fix it. She would have to be ginger with it.

There was a snap and crackle, and steam rose from the wound as it was frozen shut. Of course, something like this could give even her frostbite. She rose up, holding it so that it didn't crack. She looked over at the penguins wall.

Or igloo, more like it. Her was perfectly encircled with ice. She wished she could do things like that, but she couldn't call Ice from nowhere. She stumble ran at it, lay her hands on the side, and pushed into it. The inside became a deep freezer as she filled the enclosure with her aura. There was a crackling along the walls, and a sense that things were getting smaller, more cramped.

She couldn't pull Ice from nowhere, but she could add to it.

[Philote]

Damian lines her up perfectly within his sights and fires. The cold he had been letting out becomes more focused, narrowing down into a beam that generates his icy projectile in the air in front of him. The ball is released as if from a cannon and the icy wall breaks open.

The disorientation completely throws off his aim and the icy ball breaks through Damian's prison a full thirty degrees from his target so that not even a passing shard finds its mark. Damian falls forward and the frozen icy needle reopens his wound but luckily the outer part of the needle breaks off so as to not do more harm.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

A blast of ice shatters the the encasement above her head, partials of it raining down on her head. This was a perfect opportunity. Chilled crackling comes from her free hand, steam rising from it as it is covered completely in ice, Not the brittle kind that she could easily break out of; Ice as thick and hard as rock. She would have to take a pick to it later, or lay in the sun for a few hours, to get it off. She looked down at it, her delicate hand seemingly transformed into a wicked claw. She slammed it into the top of the hole in his defense, and started to pull herself up.

Then she heard the cracking. She looked back to see the tree she had frozen before, impact crater resting about 1/3 of the way from the top. The wind blew and the tree sounded another crack, it's top tipping dangerously forward. It it's brittle state Damien attack had fractured it completely, and as she watched the top of the tree ripped itself from the rest and plummeted down towards them.

Snow dived off of the ice barrier, squealing as the wound on her side cracked, safely away from the impending impact.

[Philote]

Fangs sink themselves into Damian's neck. Not physical ones, but mental. The poison drains away, returning to its owner, and the world snaps back into focus. Several walls of ice slam together into a clear and focused one.

Damian looks around, reevaluating his surroundings and only noticing the falling tree after it is too late. One of the branches fall into the hole he had broken open and bashes him back against the opposite wall of ice. Damian tries to catch the breath that was knocked out of him as the world momentarily becomes as distorted as it was when he was under the effects of the poison. A chilling wind passes over the penguin's coat, freezing shut his wounds before he has time to check just how cut up he was.