1 vs 1 Battle Arena

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Neat." Maria responds, diving back behind the tree. She feels the impacts more than sees them. Then she test the knot she's tied. She takes her arm in her hand and pulls. There's a screeching, shaving sound as the the arm slides past itself and moves around the tree, tearing bark.

The end attached to Ini pulls, very slightly, toward the tree.

Maria puts her back to the tree, and takes off running. The slack on her arms runs out, and Ini is pulled towards the tree.

[Philote]

Ini pouts at the girl's reaction along with the fact that the initial gambit that she fell into has grown into such a problem for her. The metal arm was strong, and she doubted she could resist its pull in any way that would be constructive to the fight. If she had the use of both her arms then something could of been worked out, but under the current circumstances she would just have to focus on her counterattack.

Ini twists in the air with some difficult as the metallic hold resists her movements. Upon completion of the motion, another imprinted blast of wind arcs around the tree. Her view was slightly obstructed now that the girl had moved behind the tree, but she was determined to harass her opponent as much possible before she got drawn into the tree.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The Blast of wind whips around the tree and hits Maria full on, lifting her off her feet and throwing her thought the woods.

The chainsaw sound of the arm scraping against itself reaches a fever pitch as a Ini was pulled into the tree incredibly quickly.

[Philote]

(I think we can bring this to a close pretty soon if we want. I'll finish up Ini quickly then we can have one last brawl with Damian's next form to finish this.)

Ini blinked her eyes open after a moment and entered into a world of red. Blood way running down into her eyes from some point on her face. She leaned herself up slowly, which was as fast as she could go without causing herself to black out. The first thing she saw was the blood marks covering the tree adjacent to her. The second was that her left leg was not supposed to be twisted in that direction.

The good news was that the broken leg had been twisted free of the metallic grip. She placed her remaining palm down on the ankle of her right leg and with a quick burst of air, freed it too from grip loosened by the impact. She took a moment to prop herself up after that point. Extending her wings, she rose into the air, letting the wind carry what her wings could not lift and letting her broken leg hang free.

She did not have to worry about draining the health pool at this point, she only had to last as long as she could. "I'll have to tell Damian to stop saving me for last" she said to herself with no real force behind it.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Maria pulled herself to her feet.

She was messed up. This was a comment on the state of her opponent, not an observation about Maria herself. It could have easily applied, though.

Her opponent was in the air, and could control wind. And everything maria could do had to go through the air to get to her. So if she through her fist out at her, it would be basically saying "Do whatever you want with it, Ini. It's yours to play with." which sucked.

Her wind up might have enough momentum behind it to keep it from being blown off course, but there was no way to angel it up into the air. She could, but the distance from her to the earth wasn't enough room for the momentum to build up properly. She couldn't climb a tree, not without being blown down.

She had an idea. She through her fist back, aiming with her other hand.

[Philote]

Ini hovers her way around the blood stained tree until she has a good view of her opponent. The girl was definitely planning something. She had thrown her hand back in the same way Ini had watched her do during Damian's earlier fights.

Ini did not have the strength to face her directly. Instead, she points two of her fingers towards the tree. A stream of wind rustles the leaves of the tree free and guides them down to swirl around her opponent to blind her vision.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Darn it, she couldn't see. What if she had moved?

A weapon like Maria's, rubberish and flailing and slightly uncontrollable, required a great deal of spatial awareness. This might hit her, this might not. All that mattered was that Maria had already sighted her target and played the attack out in her mind. She just had to hope the wind wouldn't throw it off, that the momentum was enough.

The fist flew past her and forward through the stream. Maria couldn't see, but it hit the exact spot she had been aiming for: a tree. It clipped the side of this tree and bounced left with little loss of momentum. It clipped the fallen tree and shot into the air a an acute angel, sailing at the opponents back.

[Philote]

Ini fell quickly towards the ground as a portion of the wind supporting her gave away. The wind picked her up again before she made contact with the ground, pushing up on her chest instead of holding her from her now nonexistent wings. The claw had clipped her wings, adding another source for blood loss to her body.

The blood from her forehead was still running, and her vision was starting to blur on top of that. The large blob of green and brown gave her the general area of her opponent within the cloud of leaves. Ini extends her hand forward, pushing a ball of air and throwing herself back as much as she threw the air forward. Landing as a crumpled mess upon the ground, the last of Ini's strength gives out and her bruises and wounds begin turning black.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(How did I forget about this?)

The wind slams into Maria dead on, throwing her back into a tree before her arm wheeled itself back in. The metal appendage sliced back out of her control, part of it slamming into her stomach like a high tension cable that had snapped. She hacked as it returned to it's normal state. It came up bloody, and she collapsed back against the tree.

Maria was resilient, but there was only so much she could take. There were two surefire ways to put her down: either you drown her, or you bleed her. This was the worst kind f bleed.

[Philote]

(Probably because I made this carry on too long . You've got him pretty much beat at this point, if you want to call it as a victory for your character that is fine by me, or I can carry it out a little longer if you want.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(I can't think of any way to justify her standing back up if she get's knocked down again, and I think I've run out of tricks. Even if Damien is still all jacked up, I could honestly still see this going either way.)

[Philote]

(Well Damian used up all of his life pool first. I could have him shift to the black undead form that saved him earlier but that would feel like me cheating in an extra life)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(Then I think this might be a double knock out.)

[Philote]

(I'm still going to say you won, Blaine got knocked out before she did. Plus I did not make the best strategical decisions for which order to bring his forms out.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(If you'd only been up against one of them, you'd have won.)

[Philote]

Potentially. I think we can can stop talking in parentheses now. I'll leave Blaine passed out and recovering in his Black form.

Any questions about this character?

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Why are there a ton of other dudes in him? How did that happen?

[Philote]

He was the main character of this story I thought up a while before joining the forum that I never fully fleshed out.

In his world, there is another dimension where all the demons hang out, like those that he shape shifts into. A while back in the past, Humans and Demons got into a big war and the ring he wears is an artifact built out of both magic and technology from humans and the souls of nine demons that was meant to end the war, which it sort of did.

The final battle in the war, between the wearer of the ring and the main big bad demon was so catastrophic that time reset itself so that the final outcome could not be played out. All those involved in the war became stuck in a time loop up until Damian's time.

In Damian's time, demons are more of a myth because most can not cross over because of the time loop. The ring however is the catalyst that restarts the loop, every time it gets a new bearer the events of the war start over from the beginning. Normally, the time loop happens again, people forget the war and the world goes back to normal until the ring passes on to someone else.

When Damian gets the ring, he meets up with a squad of humans who are supposed to protect him until he gets up to the final battle. These humans exist as part of the time loop so they only exist while it is active and they also have memories of every time it has failed.

As with all the other versions of the time loop, Damian is the wild card because he is not the same ring bearer as the one in the original iteration of the events, thus some of his actions can alter outcomes.

The main big bad demon is a Flesh Ogre like Damian's black form. Most other iterations of the time loop failed because the ring bearers only managed to draw power from eight of the souls within the ring, the eight being the Flesh Ogre. Damian however was able to make contact with all nine of the souls, the final being Damian's White form which I did not make it to before he lost in our match. Damian was able to form a bond with the demons in the ring as well as with the humans trapped within the time loop and was able to alter events so that the end of the time loop could finally be played out. Once it was finished, everyone within the time loop were freed to live out the rest of their lives in Damian's time and Damian was able go back to his life while still keeping his memory and the ring.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I like stories like that, with the staved off inevitability.

Anything you were curious about?

[Philote]

Not really, you already gave a good explanation since you explained their relation to that one RP you had planned.