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Post by Alchemist on Jun 26, 2014 5:56:55 GMT
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Post by Paladin on Jun 26, 2014 6:31:13 GMT
The streets of the city were freshly barren. Buildings were void of life. Cars were abandoned where they lie, clogging the veins of the cities streets. A fresh rain had just recently graced the urban metropolis, its dew still shining bright against the colorful lights of a city that never slept, and the silver moonlight that gave those lights definition. The urban main street seemed to have been trapped in time, As though it were alive, and then just.... took its last breath. And very well, you could hear the sound of the police- force off in the distance coraling the civilians to safety, outside of the city center. Because there, two giants were preparing for a showdown, the likes of which could easily put those innocent lives at risk. There Euphaire stood, just on the edge a rooftop of an office building, and from her perch, she could see her quarry. Oh what a show it will be! This must be fate! The divines must have brought this meeting together. Euphaire just knew it. "So. We meet again. You still got my hair?"
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Post by Faustus on Jun 26, 2014 7:24:18 GMT
"I do. Been keeping it safe right here."
Faustus patted his pocket twice before reaching in and pulling out a loose coil of off-silver hair that breezed with life as a wayward gust picked up. The bright street signs coming down from Times Square reflected off of the slick-black Batman, Mobile-esque Lexus IS 350, and more so, the golden, shimmering eyes of the man who stood atop of it.
"We do meet again. I can't say I'm suprised. I knew you'd end up being my opponent. Fate has a funny way of reuniting me with people of whom I have unifnished business."
And with that, Faustus aimed to finish that business. A light forward leap brought him from the top of the car, onto the street. No sooner than his foot touched earth, did the asphalt rise up like snakes from the street, and lift his car with them at alarming, but not particularly spectacular speed. The car vaulted forward with a sharp creeeeeak aiming to crush the Dark Templar. Though there was something special about the slick-black lexus. Stabbed within its gas tank was a scalpal, singular, and glossed with a blue film. Once it was in range, a single electric spark would ignite the tank, and swallow Euphaire in a maw of steel and flames.
As the attack transpired, more tendrils of Asphalt came forward, whirling and snapping viciously around Faustus.
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Post by Paladin on Jun 26, 2014 19:39:13 GMT
So quick to get into the action, this man was! Euphaire was shocked, but far from suprised. She had met this man before, and as rare as the occasion to dance with the same fellow twice was, she made a point to remember all their fancy moves. Faustus had good footwork, and came with something new. He was dancing to a new beat. Fair enough. Euphaire would show him how to really tap dance.
Carnot Shell. Activate.
While it would be odd to suggest that using heat could make an area freezing cold, Euphaire made it a point to exploit those who would overlook 'ridiculous' stratagems. She'd waste no time prancing around making merry. This was the grand ball, and by gum she was gonna' dance like it.
The heat was stolen from the area in the most absolute of ways, drawn into Euphaire's field of influence(Her immediate body. In other words, she's friggin hawt!)casting a supernatural cold stretching out 15 feet from her. Now while she was not inherently talented with cold based magic, if Light, and heat, and electricity were all considered 'positive' energies, then surely negative energy would be cold, right!? She'd assert that dominion. Negative energy branched out into the cold night, and formed a great berg of deeper than black ice, which severed the car in twain as all its momentum crashed bodily into it.
Doubly, if lightning is just light and positively charge particles, then negative energy(in this case the black ice) was negatively charged. The two bounced off of one another like a Newton's cradle, disabling the electric burst from Faustus' scalpal. The result would be a car split in half vertically passing by either side of Euphaire, never touching her, though managing to create a gust that danced in her hair.
Now for the return. How rude it was for him to fling a car at her! She'd get even if it was the last thing she did. A bubbling, frothing, viscous glob of shadow came from Euphaire's hand, until taking the form of a true black, wicked grenade launcher. She depressed the trigger thrice.
"Shadow bomb, I choose you!"
Faustus would be met by orbs of shadow that exploded on contact in a wave of heat, and snaking tendrils that would bind him in place, and blow him all over the street. Of course she did not aim directly for him, but instead the three cars around him! How ingenius! He'd be trapped in a sphere of shadows, and fire.
The beat was set, but could Faustus dance without getting his toes stepped on? Stay tuned to find out!
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Post by Faustus on Jun 26, 2014 20:37:24 GMT
While Euphaire was intent on dancing like some wild buffoon, for some reason fixated on trying to get them placed last, Faustus offered back the opposite; Precise, careful, practiced steps. It was the difference between a child swinging around a sword randomly, and then watching a master cleave through solid concrete. The judges would be wow'd. That's for certain.
Though he had to offer it to her, despite her brutish ways, she had to put a great deal of thought into whatever she had done to not detonate the car. Maybe there was a brain in that tin can after all.
Just as Faustus saw that frothing, hungry shadow material build up around the woman's arm, it didn't take a genius, which Faustus was, to figure out what was happening. All about him he called the command of even more asphalt, the Gaia Markings wreathed upon his thumbs glowing sonorously. Like a great egg, the asphalt tendrils wrapped around Faustus, incubating him from the blasts of turbulent, raging crimson tongues that surrounded him, though his shell could not last forever. It cracked, allowing a bright sliver of heat and light in, the cracks growing more cumulous until the egg all but shattered into obsololetion just as the explosion had finished its roar, the force of which propelled Faustus back, at an upward angle, also bringing him out of the range of the whipping tendrils of short lived darkness.
He levied himself sideways against the window panes of some office building, standing there as though the laws of gravity had inversed horizontally, no doubt by some means of infernal sorcery. Two stories up, looking diagonally to the Dark Templar. Euphaire would definitely take stock of the glowing faceplate of his watch. As his feet came to contact with the window panes, his knees bent, and he brought tucked clenched fists to his sides, and the structure of the glass seemed to warp inward, then up and out like rippling waves in the ocean, only to finally burst forward into a million tiny shards. Faustus' hands shot forward, directly controlling the volley of glass, tainted black by the faculty of his Xynicht taint. If Euphaire touched, or even exerted a metaphysical influence over the glass, she'd find herself nothing short of braindead, slaved to Faustus' will.
In the commotion, Faustus slipped inside of the office building, taking cover behind a workdesk, his back pressed taut against it at an uncomfortable angle so as to prevent even the faintest sliver of flesh from being revealed. He picked up a large piece of shattered glass offered to him by his previous volley, and held it out with reserved care, to try and catch a glimpse of the reflection of what was going on outside. He could only see a haze of smoke from the impact point.
"Hey, Sweetheart!" He mocked. "You still alive out there!? Don't tell me this is all you got!"
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Post by Paladin on Jun 27, 2014 18:05:15 GMT
And we're back!(Dragon Ball Z narrator voice)Last time on "The Crucible", Euphaire and Faustus face off for the second time in a destined showdown that will be told through the ages. After quick words, Faustus goes on the offensive, only to be outsmarted by the dangerously beautiful Euphaire Lancaster, but it turned out Faustus was just as smart when he delivered his counterattack! Will Euphaire survive the power of the Xynicht Taint!? Find out now on "The Crucible"!Episode 6: (N)uphaire's true colors
As the light of her explosion faded, her negative iceberg crumbled, and the dust had just weighed itself down enough to make sight not a chore, she was vexed to see a cracked, and useless half-shell of street and pavement, but not blood or body parts! Her shadow tendrils drifted into translucence, then vanished entirely. She smiled with reserved intention, as she put his little scheme together. He used the asphalt to protect himself! While perfectly feasible, she had not thought of that as a viable means of defense, simply because that is not what she would have opted for. She took mental note of that. Think like him, not yourself."This little snake is quick on his feet. Now Where did that bugger go!?" Her eyes scanned with an automatic precision and movement that almost made her seem more autonomous than human. And then she had him in her sights. The side of the building, at an angle that allowed her to look down at him. How did he get up there from the street!? Before she even had time to contemplate it and put it all together, she was met with a face full of black glass. She had a second and a half, maybe a tad less before it hit, but that was just enough time to recall back to her previous gesture of not thinking like herself, but him. Euphaire had never been faced with the Taint before, but she's heard of it. Who hasn't, for that matter. A cauldron of power that ultimately destroyed a god? The Golden eyed man who usurped it from him? Move. Don't block. The tainted glass peppered into the side and roof of the building like bullets from an MG42, collapsing it at an angle, sending the front face toppling down onto the street, sending up a cloud of attricious smoke. But Euphaire was already well out of the way by the time any of that destruction could be applied to her. But she was not on the street. Not even a parallel building. Where did she go!? Suprise!She blasted through the glass face nearest Faustus with a metagravitational(hint hint!) attraction. "DID YOU MISS ME, SWEETHEART!?" Her aim was to impale him in the left rib with her left heel, and his right arm with her right heel. All the other appendages would be met by hers accordingly. But what would come barreling through that window would not be the same Euphaire that Faustus recognized from before. The close call with his tainted glass ripped and destroyed her clothes, leaving her shamefully exposed! If he was lucky, he might have even caught a glimpse of her undies! They were pink today. Enter Aphotic Plate!The speed at which Euphaire shunted herself through the window, and the time it took for her armor to fully materialize were uneven, so the bottom half of her aphotic plating was fully formed and functional, while the top was simply a transparent glob of misty shadows, vaguely revealing her pink and white striped bra. Though Faustus wouldn't have the time to relish in her almost naked beauty. Euphaire, with Faustus pinned in place, seemed as though she looked to run him through the heart with naught but her fist, though the angle at which her hand came in would be the only warning that this was something far more sinister.
Gravity: Euphaire slung herself around, and then in through another side of Faustus' office building, aiming to lock him in place with her enhanced weight.
Aphotic plate[1/2]
Item: ?
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Post by Faustus on Jun 28, 2014 0:01:11 GMT
Faustus, taking a break from his next scheme, which took the form of two scalpals stabbed into the grey carpet of this floor of the office building, faint-verdure energy coallescing between them, took another look into his third set of eyes; the shattered glass to see the fate of Euphaire. The dust had just settled, and where he expected to see either a mangled corpse, or a hideous zombie, he saw nothing! That could only mean two things. She was either sheared into anatomical nothingness, or she had moved. Faustus knew the former wasn't even a slight possibility. So, that brought him to the most obvious question; where was she?
Then he heard it. The call of power. The sound of metal grinding against gravity and wind. Most would assume that in these situations, the enemy would opt for the most logical place to strike, the back. It only made sense. It offered suprise, and gave the enemy superior positioning. But Euphaire was a different type of monster. The right!
Then the glass shattered, and the human cannonball came right at him. His head snapped to the right, and he twisted his torso, hand held firm on the hilt of his sword, and with the practice and direction of a true samurai, Faustus drew his weapon from its pitch black sheathe. It took only a second to realize what was happening. His luminal blade passed through the 'gate' created by his scalpals, and a faint-verdure weave of energy spread out in a wondrous blast that budded like a flower, then plumed back out of the window Euphaire had entered from. The result? Faustus' edge had collided with Euphaire's -invisible- sword. With her top half, which Faustus took stock of, but was far from being impressed by a cheap thrill he had already tasted once, being unprotected, she'd be blown in half.
It was, in fact, an accident. Faustus knew about the Dark Blade Eden Raid, but had never seen it within its sheathe. Call it luck. Call it intuition. Either way, Faustus lived.
Not only lived, but thrived.
The positive energy granted by the scalpal gate all but destroyed Euphaire's containment sheathe, but she came with a force he was not prepared for. As their blades met, Faustus was pushed with a deep thud offered by Euphaire's gravitational superweight. Boy was she heavier than she looked! Her gravity, which should have been a boon for her, actually became a fortuitous condition for Faustus. It gave him space.
He was sent flying backward, and he tucked himself into a tight backwards roll, building strength and momentum in his legs, pushing out of the opposite ended window Euphaire, and out of the building. Edge gleamed bright in against the street signs and flashing lights of Time Square, and with the strength of a beast, he swung, and that light-gilded edge was cast forward in a searing hot horizontal path, and beamed completely through the lower half of the building. Its support cut through like a knife through butter, it was more than enough to collapse it all in a blink, with Euphaire still inside.
His return sent, Faustus dropped back down to street level, cushioning his fall by bending the knees and stopping on his hands. He looked to the pile of destruction he had left in his wake. He waited for anything. A subtle movement of debris. The faint sound of someone gasping for air. He wouldn't take any chances.
"If you're still squirming around in there, if you think that little show back there was going to get me all hot for you, you're wrong! Your breasts are way too small for me, and oddly misshapen. I can do a whole lot better than you, don't ya' think!? Besides, you could lose a little weight, you nearly crushed me back there!"
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Post by Paladin on Jun 28, 2014 2:21:38 GMT
Oh no! How did he know her sword was there!? She thought she had managed to deliver a proper variable into the situation! Something new, that Faustus had not grasped before. How clever he was! Or perhaps it was more luck. In any case, it didn't matter now. She had more pressing issues to deal with, like the face full of explosion coming her way. Luckily for her, the destruction of her sheathe offered two situation-specific advantages.
The first was that the field of invisibility around Eden Raid was actually far larger than the sword itself, by about four times in width and length, and thus was able to absorb a good bit of colatoral from Faustus' strike. Perhaps she had under-estimated his skill as a swordsman. It had been quite some time since she came in contact with someone who actually knew what they were doing with something like a sword. As it was going, it seemed like swinging around swords and pretending to be masters was something all the cool kids of the new age were doing. This was a pleasant change.
For two, the quick destruction of the invisibility sheathe caused a rapid release of huge amounts of pressure, creating a shock-wave of super sonic force, that shunted her out of the building just afore its collapse at the hands of the light gilded edge of Faustus' sword. What a day this was turning out to be!
She found herself in a daze just moments later, still buried underneath a foot or so of rubble, but managed to avoid the tons of pressure and material from falling on her that would have been her fate if she had stayed in the focal point of the collapse. She tried to move, feeling her arms coated in that sleek-black metal of a fully formulated aphotic plate. Thank the lucky stars!
She could hear the mans goading in the distance. And then she could have just snapped. Did he just call her fat!? She played his remark over in her head, building fury in her veins. Besides, you could lose a little weight, you nearly crushed me back there!
He did just call her fat! Had he no manners!? She knew this was a fight to the death, but did that mean he had to have no honor!? He'll regret this!
Her arm twisted and convulsed, clicking and cracking in the tale-tell signs of snapping bones, and progressively became more mechanical to the ears than biological. From beneath her coffin of rubble, her right arm had transformed into a moderately sized ion cannon! But where were the ions? Coming right up!
The air heated, to almost impossible temperatures all around Euphaire and her prison of stone. The heat sent waves of distorted, hot air throughout the whole square, accented by spark of crackling blue electricity, most accumulated at the area where the power emanated from, and less and less the further away it got. The air ionized under the heat and pressure, and her arm began to siphon it in like an bottomless well of power. As the power grew, the earth itself seemed to be energized, rising and floating in the air in suspended space.
And then, like a beast from the depths of the undervserse, Euphaire sprang from her prison, cratering the earth beneath her under her immense pressure, crackling electricity surrounding her glistening arm, which she had successfully converted into something akin to a parametric electron amplifier.
With a single flex of thought, the cannon released its full bounty in the form of an sinusoidal wave of ionized oxygen. Destructive, but focused, right for Faustus, and the entirety of the one way street. The glass upon the buildings lining the street shattered in the waves wake, and the earth scarred beneath its triumphant path. It was not overly powerful, due to its haste, but where Euphaire traded power, she gained scope.
"I'm not fat. YOU'RE fat!"
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Post by Faustus on Jun 28, 2014 17:48:46 GMT
Faustus watched with bated breath for one moment. Then two. Then three. Then, finally he brought himself back up to full stock from his low-crouched position, wiping the sweat from his brow, and stray blood from his lip. He was sure that he had just emerged from the tournament the victor. He looked to the night sky that was slowly being gorged upon by the spotty, murky blues of a sun ready to break out over the skyline, and he turned his back to the pile of attrition and the cityscape, ready to leave in the quiet of dawn. But then, just as he had taken no more than two steps, he stopped in his tracks. Electricity had a particular scent. It was pervasive, and intruding. He'd recognize it anywhere. He turned back to the destruction, and sure enough there it was; the sparks of electricity arcing periodically, and he immediately knew what was coming. His sense of danger screamed, and just as Euphaire had emerged from her prison of concrete, Faustus had articulated a specially crafted defense. Lightning was his domain. Faustus' eyes scrolled to his watch, the glowing faceplate flashed a medley of colors, and then that light engulfed him and the surrounding area in its warm, bountiful wake. A transluscent, Dyson sphere of gyrating energy formed about Faustus' body. Its function was simple, but its polymorphism superior. Where a normal Dyson Sphere siphoned energy from that which it surrounded, Faustus' was reconfigured through the faculty of his spellwatch to siphon energy from third party sources, and transfer it to himself, or disperse it as thermal energy. Faustus launched himself forward, cratering the earth beneath his feet, meeting Euphaire's blast head on. The two forces collided like trains along the same path, and struggled against one another for a moment afore the bright-blue beam of electricity faulted, and constricted around the Dyson sphere like a snake constricting, creating a dome of crackling, glowing light. And then, it burst ed away, creating a deep depression in the earth, revealing the hidden pipelines of the undercity, water spewing forth and looking to fill the hole, though Faustus was gone. Though where did he go? Euphaire would have to find him to find out. But for all the readers, I can let you in on the secret. Faustus had changed the pace of the battle. Insanity is described as doing the same thing repeatedly, yet expecting a different result. While Faustus was nothing short of insane, he did not like making a habit of exacerbating the process of losing his mind, and mindlessly trading blows with an opponent who, so far, was matching him blow for blow was proving fruitless. Paradigm shift. Where Euphaire might have taken Faustus' disappearance as a precursor to some sort of suprise attack, he had actually escaped into the jagged, departed crater he had caused, and into the cities undercarriage, several meters away. He sat with his back propped against a wall, his watch glowing hungrily. There Faustus had begun chanting, meditation style with his legs folded, and his hands supported by his knees, thumbs meeting his middle fingers. As he chante with the precision and speed of an automaton, strings of azure power began to build and vibrate around him. Dyson Sheild: Field surrounding Faustus that takes in energy from third party sources and grants it to him. Energy is domestically stored at the moment, waiting to be called upon.
Spellcraft[*]
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Post by Paladin on Jul 8, 2014 1:45:00 GMT
Well, Euphaire could tell this fish wasn't going to get caught by the harpoon so easily! Not only did the man somehow manage to stop her wave of ionized death, but even seemed to absorb it! That just would not do. But what is a girl to do when her prize has disappeared? Switch tactics, of course! The Academy of Practical Magic Arts emphatically disagreed with brute force tactics, and preferred careful preparation and evaluation, but brute force had its place in the ecosystem as with everything else. She wouldn't risk being unprepared for some sort of sneak attack, she'd bring the whole block down if she had to. If the harpoon didn't work, then she'd use the net! Magic has this nasty habit of leaving long trails, and Faustus had made it quite difficult to follow. His magic was obscure and fractal, but it was still magic. She'd concoct a death particularly for him. She'd tasted his magic, it wasn't too difficult to suffuse the senses from one to another. "Cannibal Warp Blades." She whispered, but the weight of her words seemed to make the skyscrapers sway and teeter as though there was an f-5 quake going down beneath the city. Four phantasmic blades, glowing with a flame-like aura shot off like hound dogs given a scent, and would seek Faustus out, and skewer him. To boot, they'd lock his mana reserves if they made contact. They traded physical sharpness, for magical acuteness. They bulleted through the concrete and asphalt, looking to take the man by surprise and turn him into a shishkabob from above. "Can't hide forever, Faustus!" Her hand trembled with a caustic, vtriolic hand of inky blackness. Warp Blades: Blades of magic meant to sniff out and follow Faustus' energy trail. -- Cause metaphysical damage -- Inflict manaburn damage.
?[Charging]
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