Pollux vs. Kori Kahn

[WhiteFireRodan]

(I know have been away for a while, but I figured I'd get this out of the way before midterm cramming kicks in. Hopefully I'll be able to update faster after the exam is through.

Kori's fangs met empty air as I dive-rolled out of the way and whirled, screeching in response to his own challenge. I knew I wasn't that fast a flyer, because my wings were not built for speed like my brother's. But I was lighter and therefore I had less weight to throw around, which was important. Furthermore, the blizzard was dying down, which made the playing field more even as far as I was concerned.
Kori circled once and then dived, ready to strike. I managed to roll aside and then slash at his shoulder, my huge talons sinking past the tough scales and hitting the bone. At the same time, Kori achieved his original goal, grabbing my neck in his jaws as we tumbled towards the platform below. I disengaged just in time before hitting the ground hard, with Kori braking and at least managing an awkward four-point landing behind me.
In the air, I owned the sky. Fighting on land was more of a challenge, though. Kori's talons slammed down on my back before I could get up, but as his jaws came down upon my head, I managed to swing it sideways and out of the way. The last thing I wanted was to stay still, and as Kori attempted to keep his hold on my body I swung at him with wings, talons, beak, and tail, eventually scoring a blow to the snout with my wing claws. The slash of said claws caused him to falter, also carving some deep scars into his face and even scraping the bones of his skull. I wondered what he'd think about this move, but then again, he'd struck me down first. Anyways, this distraction allowed me to roll sideways and then launch myself at him, driving my claws into his own underside and clinging to him this time. The ice dragon reared up, trying to dislodge me, but the force of gravity helped in ripping six deep gashes down his chest and belly. As he threw me off, he only succeeded in tearing his flesh even further as my claws came out at an angle, hooking into the muscle and skin.
I skidded across the platform and almost fell off the edge, managing to hook onto the cliff with my claws. Kori lunged at me, ready to bite, but I disengaged and free-fell, gliding to the next column which was taller than the one he was on. Turning my head, I could see the dragon ready to follow, and started climbing once more, aiming for the strategic higher position...

[GI Jho]

My eyes were locked intently on the pterosaur as he ascended higher into the heavens. Cold mist swirled forth from my maw, as I beat my wings harder, ascending higher towards my assailant. My beady gaze soon met with Pollux's eyes, before the pterosaur dove down towards me, his form becoming engulfed with an eldritch shroud of magic. Thinking fast, I unleashed my frosty breath, coating the winged beast with a layer of freezing cold ice.

But it wasn't enough to halt the warrior's charge. Before I could react, his icy and shadowy form collided with mine, sending me reeling across the sky, losing control before I collided back first with the rock pillar in the center of our mountainous arena. I growled in pain, shaking my form to recover from the sudden pain.Suddenly, I saw the mighty sky soldier's form approaching once more, claws ready to slash their way across my hide. I roared, before I beat my icy pinions, avoiding the blow, before I rotated my body around and slammed my tail into the pterosaur's form.

A thundering crack resounded, as the pterosaur's shrill cry pierced the heavens like a spear tore through flesh.The blow knocked Pollux off balance, and nearly sent him spiraling down into the earth. Thankfully, he recovered faster than I anticipated, before he ascended once more in an attempt to assault me. I simply grumbled to myself, getting slightly irked by his tenacity by this point, before I spat a flurry of ice spheres at my winged opponent. The spheres were evaded by the pterosaur... all but one. Upon impact, the icy sphere released a cloud of cold mist, obscuring my foe's vision for a bit. I snarled, before I swooped in like the angel of death and slashed my claws toward him...

[WhiteFireRodan]

I barely managed to swing my own claws forward to counter the blow, and next moment, we were locked claw to claw. Majesty and power, strength and skill, the two of us began freefalling, spiralling downwards through the sky in an aerial dance as deadly as it was spectacular.
My hindclaws were locked with his foreclaws, momentarily immobilizing his vulnerable parts. Instead of marvelling at the feeling, I took the most instinctive action I could think of, locking my beak across his throat. Kori's strangled snarl fell on deaf ears as I worked the sharp edges through the soft skin of his underside, tasting his chilled blood. The beast tried to throw me off, but I was on the front half of his body and, at the moment, out of harm's way.
At least, that was what I thought. I had bitten the base of his neck, leaving his head free to swivel around and chomp the base of my own. As he tried to pull me off, however, with the ground speeding towards us faster and faster still, my beak serrations ended up tearing through his flesh even further as I yanked off, resulting in a set of deep, bloody wounds - not deep enough to kill, but at least enough to slow him down for a while.
They also gave me an idea.
Disengaging at the last moment, we banked upwards and flew level to level, dodging the incoming pillars. One of them zoomed between us, with another coming straight at me; I banked sideways, veering right above him before driving my claws down into his back. Kori gave a roar of surprise, and I could tell that he felt impressed by my ingenuity, though a little miffed that I wasn't down just yet. Safely out of the way of his claws and spikes, I was able to hang on tight as he zoomed upwards, climbing up one of the rock spires.
Just as he cleared the platform, though, I made my next move, flashing my beak downwards once, twice, nipping fiercely at his wings. I didn't intend to break any bones, just keep him from going higher; the sting caused him to falter and he ended up skidding onto the platform, with me right on top.
The dragon's struggles had widened my claw wounds, as I had intended. Kori and I locked gazes for a moment, appreciating our respective skills, before my jaws lunged once more for the back of his head.

[GI Jho]

The beak of the winged warrior raked into my neck's icy scales, drawing blood from my body as ice particles drifted down off of my body. I grumbled angrily at the bird, before I unleashed a sudden, close-range pulse of frozen energy. I did not know the looks on Pollux's face when this happened, but the dreadful sound he made as he relinquished his grip painted a look of raw pain and horror. The hapless Pterosaur relinquished his hold on me as his body began to spiral towards the earth, ice weighing down his torso and rendering his wings immobile.

I could have let him fall, but this warrior was too honorable to let die. This world has a shortage of respectable warriors, and we don't need to have any less than we already do. I dove down after Pollux, gathering speed like a meteorite, before I slammed my tonnage into him, inflicting grave pain as my nose spike drove itself deep into his gut, sending blood squirting form the wound as the sky beast gave another cry of pain. But I soon let up. I pushed myself off of Pollux and grabbed him in my talons, hoisting up into the sky. The impact had shattered the ice on Pollux's wings, freeing him from his cold prison. I spun around, tossing Pollux up and slamming my tail into him simultaneously, sending him hurtling upwards into the sky.

Pollux soon regained his barrings and came diving down towards me, claws shrouded in black magic. As the warrior of the night raked his claws at me, I swerved to the side to avoid before countering with a quick slash of my claws across his back. The damage was minimal to him ,but it got my point across. Pollux made I wide turn, locking his gaze with mine. He let out a piercing screech, to which I replied to with a thundering roar. Before long, I spat a trio of ice spheres at my opponent...

[WhiteFireRodan]

Technically I'm a pterosaur, so birds are only our distant relatives, heh... Anyway, as I swatted the ice bombs aside with my left wing, I felt a spot of appreciation for Kori. He respected me and vice versa. Said respect would have to wait, however, since part of my wing became encrusted with ice again. Flapping madly at first I managed to snap out of it and spread my wings into a controlled glide. At least the ice wasn't thick enough to weigh me down as I hitched the next thermal and followed him skyward again.
Just as I caught up with him, the dragon smirked as he seemed to vanish into the clouds high above the field. I whirled around wildly, trying to see where he went, but he was thankfully concealed by his pale body color. I wasn't going to let him get away with this for long, though. The moment I saw the flash of movement, I aimed a Night Slash at it. However, showing surprising speed for such a heavy beast (no offense of course), Kori evaded the attack completely, circling around with almost alarming agility and nailing me in the back with an ice beam. I retaliated at once, of course, as he swooped in for a melee attack, which was a mistake as I closed my talons around his jaws. The two of us grappled in the sky yet again, each intending to thrust the other aside. Said grappling degenerated into Kori simply shaking me around like a ragdoll, only that said ragdoll had enormous curved talons that had sunken into his already wounded head. I made sure to put some extra pull into the claws as he finally threw me off, leaving his face more scarred than before.
Making as tight a turn as I could, I managed to land a fourth Night Slash on his right flank, tearing yet another deep gash. Of course, his tail came up to meet me again, but I managed to disengage just before it swiped. We broke off, nodded once, and then Kori dived towards the earth, wagging his tail all the while as though beckoning me to follow. That was just what I did, readying another Shadow Smash so that when we collided, we would collide hard.

[GI Jho]

I was not such a fool as to be unaware of my foe's prowess and the danger his attack posed to me. I was simply planning my own stantegy against the winged sky beast, a grim smiel spreading across my scaly, ice crusted visage. As Pollux descended towards me like a blackened meteor, I prepared myself, wings beatign to keep myself aloft. As soon as Pollux came close, I struck.

My massive, spiekd tail struck the hapless warrior head on, sending him into a spiral. Thankfully, howeve,r he managed to recover, a low cry of pain erupting from his beak. I growled before I flew after him, my muscular wings beating rhythmically. I swiftly moved in for a close ranged swipe of my claws, a squirt of blood verifying my strike. Pollux cried out in pain, the bird quickly divign to avoid my second strike, to which I followed with a dive of my own.

A bad move on my part. I dove down quickly and without forethought, which led to me gettign a pair of razor-sharp claws jammed into my jaw. I let out a roar of pain, quickly withdrawing from my foe, before I lunged forward, blasting my foe with a blast of icy breath. A layer of ice soon covered my foe's chest, weighing him down, before I whirled my body around, swinging my massive tail towards my foe once more...

[WhiteFireRodan]

I rolled just in the nick of time, and Kori's tail swished just inches from my head. My chest was less lucky, and a tail spike managed to graze the ice and through to the skin, leaving a shallow cut. At the same time I stalled and was forced to land. Kori was still in the air, so naturally he dove at me, but I managed to leap sideways and sink my wing claws into his chest. The dragon whirled, trying to dislodge me and earning four more gashes in the process before flinging me up and away; as I tried to dive at him again, he countered by headbutting me right on my ice shield. The ice itself shattered, but at the same time I was slammed into the side of one of the pillars.

Which cracked and started to tip over.

This had a domino effect on several other pillars, and I realized that due to our actions the whole platform set was beginning to give way. I knew that I didn't have long to remain on stable ground and if I didn't move fast, I would be crushed. Kori pulled up out of harm's way while I started climbing as fast as I could, scrambling up the falling debris. I barely managed to seize Kori's tail in my beak before I fell, unfortunately pulling us straight towards the rockslide...

(OOC: Sorry, late post is late. Just a heads up, I'm going to make the posts somewhat shorter because I wish to keep this match going all the way until the end so that Kori and Pollux can be open again, with the full number of posts. Also, if Soundwave allows it, the spread of the domino effect started on this turn will continue until the end of the match; players will have only a limited time to stay on any of the falling rocks before having to take off again.)

[GI Jho]

OOC: Forgive me for the wait... I've been getting lazy lately...

I was horrified by the sight before me, my wings working overtime to lift both of us up from the collapsing stones. With a whip of my tail, and forced to him relinquish his grip, the pterosaur thankfully managing to reagin control. Both of us had to play safe now; our arena was literally falling apart- all becuase of both our follies. The pterosaur caught me in a moment of ponderance, slamming into me like a shadowy freight train, the pillars of stone collapsing around us. I recovered quickly, and thankfully too, as a massive peice of the pilalr was flung off where I was but moments ago.

I dove towards my foe, quickly slashing my claws across his body as I began to fly up, avoiding rubble and debris in my ascent. Pollux was at my side, the pterosaur in hot pursuit. The shadow-wielding sky beast lashed out at me with shadow shroued claws, but I maneuvered out of the way, my body's rotation causing the Pterosaur to be struck by my tail. He recovered, but was left with a deep wound in his side. Both of us danced across the skies like ballerinas, flying past the destruction as it erupted beside us.

It was a mighty confrontation... it brought me back to the days when I was in my prime...

I flew straight forward, Pollux following suite, the arean crumbling around us as we charged towards each other like knights in a joustign tournament. As he approached, I suddenly swerved into him, my greater body mass causing him to spiral violently through the air, nearly getting crushed by a chunk of stone in the process. I turned my body back towards him, before I spat a trio of ice spheres at my foe...

[WhiteFireRodan]

Kori was right - the arena was collapsing, thanks to our actions. True, environments being affected like this were often inevitable but not to this extent. I had to think fast or I would be crippled by the debris!
One, two, three ice spheres came in at 2 o'clock; whirling in mid-air I smacked with my wing, and they glanced off just in time to collide with the boulder heading towards me from the opposite direction. It froze and as I dived out of the way, Kori barreled through it after me and reduced it to snowflakes. His jaws flashed and then struck at my leg, trying to find purchase, but suddenly he had slipped off, leaving only a few shallow cuts. I thought I'd lost him until I turned... and I saw that a falling boulder had caught him and was dragging him towards the abyss below!
If I didn't do something right the hell now, Kori would be crushed in seconds. Folding my wings I swooped, faster than Kori could have due to my lighter weight. The dragon struggled to get free of the mass pinning him between itself and gravity, but it was proving difficult as the rocks below came closer by the second. Suddenly he felt my claws sinking deep into the back of his neck and instinctively thrashed his head, catching hold of my ankle at last. Locked together, my wings beating hard, I pulled him towards the heavens.
The boulder seemed to spin in mid-air as I managed to yank my opponent loose. We had only moments left, and I knew it. There was a crash far below as the boulder shattered to gravel on who knew what, but there were more on the way. Swerving and banking I spiralled straight up as fast as I could, dodging everything that came at us, all the while digging my talons deeper beneath the white scales, forming a deadly cage that gripped firmly upon Kori's neck. I was just about to pull through when the last boulder came at us, closing the gap! Terrified, I looked down at the struggling Kori for help, but he too gazed helplessly up at me and the rock heading for us, a silent indicator that it was up to me. Turning back to the boulder, my Night Slash charged faster and harder than ever as I came at the obstacle at top speed, ready to blast it to rubble. It was now, or never.

[GI Jho]

OOC: Can this be the last post, Soundwave? The battle's dragged on since february, and i'm sure we all wanna have this thing done.

The obstacle shattered upon impact, the blow striking me as well. Nonetheless, I was grateful for my enemy's chivalry. I was beginning to like this warrior, but we had a battle to finish. I let out a roar, before I nodded. Pollux nodded back, and soon, both of us flew out of the collapsing arena.

Pillars of stone were crushed, massive rocky platforms fell, and entire structures of rock were in ruins, a giant plume of dust erupting from below us. I gave Pollux a swift slash on the side, before I gave him a quick smirk. The pterosaur simply huffed, before both of us had massed over the destroyed arena.

The field was in ruins, and both of us looked out over the battlefield, somewhat glad that no one was mortally hurt. But, we still had a battle to finish, and that we would have. We both flew to opposite sides of each other, eyes locked. The pterosaur cawed and flew towards me like a meteor. I swiftly dodged to the side, before I kicked him in the back as he passed. The winged beast whirled around, flapping his wings, but this time, I struck forward, claws readied.

As I clawed at my foe, he clawed at me, and soon, both of us were bloodied by our fighting. I withdrew, the both me and my foe heaving for breath, as we circled each other one last time...

[Blerhwave]

The announcement speaker rises out of its resting spot dug into a mountainside to announce,

"Monsters, caese combat, the match is a draw! I repeat, the match is a draw! Prepare to be beamed back."

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this match ended up coming down too close to call, and both of you need to be proud of what you accomplished in the match. Not only did both of you pull off some pretty cool attacks, and some pretty effective attacks, and some pretty cool and effective attacks, but the style of telling the story that you two chose was actually pretty interesting, and you guys used good detail. Kori's superior bulk was a good defensive aspect, and Castor fought hard and valiantly DESPITE the size/weight disadvantage. Can't wait to see the relationship that comes from these two after this fight. I can actually say this one was truly a pleasure to ref, guys.

[WhiteFireRodan]

With a last, earthshaking crash, the collapsing arena finally fell still. Meanwhile my eyes widened a little in disbelief, I could've sworn I'd caused a lot more destruction, but as the whole thing had been an accident I decided to let it slide. It was somewhat disappointing, as I had wanted so badly to win this match and prove my worth as a battler, but still, it was better than a complete loss and, hell, by proving that I could keep up with Kori's battling skills I'd earned his respect, which I was certain would be important soon.
The two of us came to a landing on the stump of the rock column that had began the collapse. I looked down at the cracked, worn surface, a bit ashamed of my own idiocy, but Kori's approving snort caught my attention. His pose was no longer aggressive, but rather placid. I knew at that point that he was willing to accept me as an ally, due to both my honor and my strength. We bowed our heads once, as a sign of friendship, then each of us turned to take off, heading for home.

The beam of light arrived and transported me back to the hub, where I would find a healing tank to recover. I wasn't sure where Kori himself would go, but I made a mental note to speak to him in the future and, if possible, enlist his aid if there was anything wrong. Of course, I had only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg that was his nature. I was quite sure that if I was to get to know him further, I would have to contact him again sometime soon.

For now, however, the tip of the iceberg was good enough.

(OOC: Soundwave, I think you meant "Pollux", not "Castor." But anyway, great match, guys! I honestly expected a draw, though part of me wanted Pollux to win. Still, it was fun. I do hope Pollux and Kori team up against other enemies in the future. )

[Blerhwave]

Jul 11, 2012 17:26:34 GMT -5 WhiteFireRodan said:

Soundwave, I think you meant "Pollux", not "Castor."

yeah, i did. good catch xD

[GI Jho]

And so our conflict had come to an end. The arena, shattered and ruined, lay before us. The destruction that was screwn before us was horrifying, especially knowing that we had caused it. Yet, I coudl not help myself but feel satisfied with this draw. No one had to be the loser, and both of us had proven our worth. I looked up into the heavens, my eyes locked up at the clouds, before I spread my wings and prepared to return home. As the light from the sky brought me home, i thought to myself of the battle and this 'Pollux'.

Perhaps he will be a worthy ally in this hellhole of an arena.