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Post by Event Admin on Jul 5, 2016 11:21:47 GMT
Contenders: Solomon Moon (RLR) vs. Liona Mimiko (Syne)Arena:Half Finnek Forest, Half MeadowRules: Each participant has 10 posts each to prove their skills as hunters, less if one participant has no way to escape a certain loss. Stats, HP totals, and MP totals do not exist. Dust is provided. The arena environments are not affected by Semblance. There will be no Godmodding, Metagaming, or Powerplaying, every action made must be reasonably justified. Participants have 24 hours from the time of their opponent's last post to post or themselves or face possible disqualification. DQ can be avoided by alerting either site's staff about a valid reason for one's absence. Final posts (the 10th post for each contender) must be an exit post that includes the bell that ends the match. The match MUST begin by tomorrow, July 6th 2016. For every day the match doesn't start thereafter, both participants will lose one post each.Battle Start! (P.S. Since Finnek finally got rolled, I feel like now is a good time to explain that it is a forest on Bellmuse that Parallels Vale's Forever Fall, except that it is blue rather than red.)
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 6, 2016 2:08:23 GMT
The furthest end of the concrete corridor yawned ahead like the slack jaw of and indifferent giant. Beyond lay a blooming light that spilled through the threshold, a blinding radiance that seemed utter and complete as Sol's eye, shrouded as it was in shadows, struggled to look directly upon it. Along with the light came the muted murmuring of a thousand voices blending together until their words were just as distinct and utterly overwhelming as that sight searing brilliance, buzzing like the droning of a titan mumbling in a restless sleep. As his eye adjusted slowly to the glow, the shadows around him seemed to grow deeper, until all that he could make out was the distant opening and the white shaft of incandescence flooding through it, and it was at that point, completing again the ritual that had defined much of the past hour as he had waited patiently in the gloom, that he averted his gaze once more.
The process served more than to simply pass the time, and his aversion was more than Sol simply having uncomfortable memories of lights at the distant ends of tunnels. Soon he would have to pass through that gate, and into the arena, and he did not want to be caught by the blinding shift in illumination, blinking slack jawed like some unwashed peasant, but at the same time he could only bare to look at it for so long before the feelings of nausea that gripped him at the thought of facing that ignorant horde welled up within him, and so he sat there, looking for as long as he could stand it, then shutting his eye and looking away, trapped in the cycle of shadows and light.
To say that his last passage into that arena had gone poorly would manage a handy paradox of both being a gruesome understatement as well as a patent mistruth. Sure, he had been declared the winner of his last bout, all without even drawing his sword, or even needing to strike his opponent, but by the time he had hurried himself back into the corridor, like a snake slithering for the sanctuary of a hollow log, the crowd had been rioting in the stands. He had been victorious in the technical sense, but Sol could not think of it as such, not after gazing upon a crowd united in their ire for him, those of which not locked in heated argument among themselves, throwing accusations as well as beverage containers and insults at him. He could not think he had "won" after being forced to flee like a wretch for the very real fear for his own personal safety.
It had been a harrowing experience. Few men knew the special kind of terror that it inspired to have a thousand voices curse oneself, by name no less, and while he might hope that the crowd had enjoyed enough show from the other matches to forget their disdain, Sol would never forget how the sounds of their words had fallen like a crushing weight, a force of such monumental might that he could do nothing but turn his tail and retreat from it. He would not easily forget any such shame.
He looked down to find the leather of the black glove covering his right hand beginning to creak as it clenched unconsciously into a solid fist. Feeling almost as if trying to will the hand of another man into motion, he commanded the appendage to relax, and after an uncertain moment it obeyed. His heart pounded so clearly in his ears that he could count the beats, while his breath seemed to slip away like water through fingers. His nerves were getting to him again, and he'd sent Dallas and the others to stand guard at all the potential entrances to the narrow corridor in which he currently crouched, so there was no one to snap him out of it with a good blow. With his left hand he slapped himself hard enough to send sparks dancing through his vision.
The world seemed to solidify in the wake of that strike, and the flooding of endorphin in response to the pain served to quiet his frayed nerves. He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, checking for blood. It was a good thing he hadn't used his other hand, because that might have unhinged his jaw.
"SOLOMON MOOOOOOON!"
Sol caught the last few syllables of his introduction, the most important ones, though he did absently wonder if the announcer had bothered with any of his titles, as much with his ears as he felt the rumble in the concrete against his back become still, as if the giant were suddenly holding it's breath in anticipation, and he rose to his feet.
Brilliant golden eye snapped to the mouth of the corridor, focusing down until that blinding square of light was all that seemed to exist. Nothing existed to him but lay beyond. He would not, could not turn away, because there was nothing else to turn to. That was his destiny ahead, and the concept of not claiming it was such an impossible notion that Sol did not even consider it. Nothing existed but the battle to come. He steeled himself to endure it.
The overlapping oiled bands of his breastplate, lacquered a deep royal blue, shimmered in the light like the belly scales of serpent as Sol marched into the blinding bar of light. As the sudden shift in radiance seemed to bleach that world around him, he did not flinch, and holding himself to his full height of just below six feet as he seemed to glide from one polished black steel capped boot to the other, whilst the high collar of his finely tailored waistcoat rose to frame his square jaw, he possessed all the deadly fluid elegance of a king cobra slithering tall across the cobblestones. The long sleeves of his waistcoat, a brilliant blue to match the bands of his armor, bore the stylized shape of legged serpents that coiled around his forearms, rendered in such clarity that as their mouths opened towards the cuffs, one might have expected dragon fire from within the sleeves as much as the black leather wrapped hands that were present. A similar golden form punctuated the space between his shoulder blades, coiling through the silver fragments of Remnant's broken moon, and as the wind of his flowing stride caught the sparrow tailed ends of his coat and the fabric rippled, that golden dragon seemed to wriggled and writhe, as if alive and mere moments from tearing free of the garment and taking flight.
Sol tossed his head, as if trying to jerk his eye free of the blinding light that surrounded him, causing the bed of jet black hair that bordered his face to flare briefly, as if in imitation of the manes that decorated the heads of his three embroidered dragons. His face was a collection of hard plains. Golden eye, staring blankly ahead with the unblinking intensity of a snake's, currently half lidded against the light, was cast in deep shadow by a noble brow currently knit with concentration. Paradoxically the shadow only seemed to enhance the eerie gilt glow of his eye, made all the more striking by the lack of it's neighbor, baring a patch of simple leather over where his right eye would otherwise have been. Broad, full lips, were drawn into a thin and determined line, chin thrust forth as he ground his teeth in uneasy anticipation.
The reaction of the crowd was immediate and volatile, as if they had been waiting for the moment since the conclusion of the announced introduction of this tournament's least popular fighter, as if the stands were a pool of oil and Sol was the match carelessly cast upon it. A thousands voices rose at once in a chorus of boos, and jeers, that utterly flattened the mere suggestion of what other sounds the stadium might have contained. Spectators who had not taken up the almost unanimous decry of the challenger found their own voices swallowed up, and silenced in the uproar, as those in the nearest seats to the force field surrounding the battleground were forced to cover their heads as drinks and rubbish and bags of food were thrown by those behind.
Meanwhile, Sol endured it, teeth gritted so hard behind his thinly drawn lips that he could hear his jaw bone groaning. He could do nothing but suffer the acrimony in silence as he awaited the appearance of his opponent.
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 6, 2016 5:55:39 GMT
The lights were almost blinding as Liona first stepped onto the Arena. They radiated heat as if they were underlings to the mighty sun itself, making the hot summer day hotter under their artificial rays. Of course, such was to be expected when it came to illuminating a large scale event like this- every audience member in amity needed a clear view after all- but Liona did wish she were a little more prepared for it.
Though this would mark the beginning of the quarter final competition, This would be the lion's first real battle. A bye in the first round, a forfeit in the next, Liona almost started to believe she would win the competition without seeing any sort of action, and how fun would that really be? She wasn't here to win, she was here to prove herself to all her peers. To show everyone that she was a forced to be reckoned with, one that would only grow stronger as she progressed through her huntress education. To keep winning by default gave the young woman a rather irksome feeling of unrest. 'What if i never get a chance to show what I'm made of?'
'What if I get to the end, only to get decimated by someone who actually worked to get to the top?' These were the types of thoughts that ran through her mind uncontrollably, Building up the nerves up until she got onto the stage.
Liona was the second challenger to walk into Amity's arena for this particular match, so she was able to get nice look at her opponent, Solomon Moon. In order to Keep some sort of advantage, or at least make the most of her time waiting for a real battle, the faunus girl had been watching the match that would bleed into her bracket, the one that had been between Grenal and Solomon. Unfortunately, such a plan did absolutely nothing for her in he end. That battle had been thrown, and so Liona had left the premises before it had officially ended. Though of course if you ask her, it never actually began. In any case, It was like she was going in blind, and this made her even more nervous than she already was, though she wouldn't dare show it intentionally. She just prayed that the bullets she was sweating would be taken as a reaction to the heat, as opposed to her own butterflies.
Other than his name, the only thing she knew about her opponent was that he seemed to be Human. This was just great. Liona was looking forward to a FUN fight, not a grudge match. Now she felt the need to constantly be on guard, making sure he didn't pull any tricks. Of course on the other hand, it could be fun to beat up a human, and actually get applauded for it. Back at school she would have probably gotten scolded, so this was for sure a pro. Still, even with its upside, This was not the cat's ideal match up and much to her surprise, The massive audience seemed to agree, Booing Solomon as soon as he had been introduced. Well wasn't that interesting? A real Morale Booster there. "...And Liona Mimiko of Syne Academy!" The Ref Shouted her introduction despite the microphone already amplifying his voice. Liona smiled and waved as the crowd roared in her favor, the nerves beginning to float away. Just walked in and she already had a fanbase! Who cared if it only existed because she WASN'T Solomon? It was enough to make her feel a little better.
Now, what REALLY made her feel better was the stage reveal. The floor opened it's gaping mouths as the two environments rose up. Half of the arena became a simple field of flowers, a boring battle field but technically a battle field all the same. But no, it was the OTHER half that turned nervous excitement into joyous excitement. As soon as she saw the blue treetops a huge wave of relief washed over her, watering the flowers on the other side of the map. "Yesssss.... Home territory, this is good." she said softly to herself. Finnek was her prime hunting spot. It was like she never had the pre game jitters at all. As the arena finished up its configuration, Liona looked right at Solomon, Gauntlets at the ready, Dust strapped to her belt, and assuming a steady battle position, fisticuffs style, ready to dash into the forest at any given moment. "I feel obligated to wish you luck so there you are. Expect this to be my only kind gesture, Human."
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 7, 2016 1:43:36 GMT
Sol's gaze fell, as if driven to the floor by the weight of the discordant symphony that protested his presence. Defiantly he kept his back straight, and it was only the slight bowing of his head that suggested he heard anything at all, that, and the haunted light in his golden eye, which stared unblinking at the paving stones. Their voices filled his head, infected his blood, grasped his heart and squeezed. He bathed himself in their ire, drawing it in like breath, like a blank sheet of steel soaking up the heat of the forge, waiting to see if the purity of his alloy would shatter or temper when the shock of the quenching trough came. A sword could not fear, a sword did not feel pain, and a sword could not be shamed, no matter how many unwashed ignorant peons yelled curses at it. He was/would need to be a sword... Their hatred shook the air, pounded in his ears, made the earth itself tremble beneath his feet, and within himself he became a blank beneath the hammer of animosity, and with each blow it pounded him into shape. He endured it, as a sword must endure the forge, knowing that on the other side lay a truer temper, a strength and hardness that could only come of anguish. If he broke, if the shock shattered him, then he was too weak, not of sufficient mettle, and so he made himself harder, like a stone weathering the rains, and as he had many times before he crushed something inside himself, something that had over time become small and malnourished, snuffing it out. And just like that, a thousand voices were nothing but noise. He was a sword. Above the uproar rose the voice of the announcer, declaring the arrival of a challenger, but Sol did not hear it, all he heard was the rushing of blood like molten metal in his veins which made even the thunderous bellowing of the crowded stands seem small and insignificant by comparison. Someone was speaking to him, a fact of which he was only aware due to proximity, a single voice laid across the others, addressing him directly. It was a futile courtesy, a token gesture when sufficed by her use of the word, "human" in such a way as to twist it into an insult. It made his lips curl into a sneer. Faunus were always so quick to call him a racist, a bigot, and a butcher, but the were always the ones that seemed to make it about species. His unblinking golden gaze rose from the pavement to meet the yellow gaze of his opponent, and he did not speak to reply. His gaze held within it everything that might have been said. That haunted caste took on a lethal light. It was the kind of glance that made hardened soldiers shy back, the kind of gaze that was stained by the sights upon which it had fallen, a window beyond which lay only an engine of destruction suspended like a flame in bitter darkness. His face had the inhuman suggestion of an entirely antipathic alien intellect, that is, the wordless, all consuming bone deep hatred one typically found in the eyes of the creatures of Grimm. He looked as if he chewed horseshoes and spat out nails, and slowly he raised his hands, each a massive gloved paw that looked powerful enough to hold coals between the fingers and make diamonds simply by pulling a fist, and chorus of rippling cracks filled the arena as he loosened up his knuckles and provided his answer to the faunus' insult. His former match, as well as this feline's introductory statement had set the tone perfectly already. Words would be useless. There was only one thing these savages understood, and they would have it. MuseWithout allowing his golden gaze to wander a single degree from the lock it had on Liona's eyes, wide and full like a bottomless well of flame with his fury, he made not as single sound save that of the rustling of his clothing as he laid his left hand upon the mouth of his weapon's scabbard. The sheath was heavily customized, stylized to resemble a legged golden serpent coiled around a shaft of cracked red earth surrounding a semi translucent blue core, but most any faunus would recognize it as the kind of katana wielded by faunus officers during the great rebellion, now appropriated for the hand of a man who was, among some, considered a walking symbol of the kind of oppression that had sparked that horrific conflict. Two and a half hands of hilt rose from the rondel guard, and ended in a long point that would make even the pommel of the weapon effective for striking. He oriented his body to the side, perhaps to provide a more narrow target, or perhaps to give his faunus foe a good look at the weapon itself where it clipped to a clasp on his left hip, and with flowing strides that possessed the grace and threat of sudden mortal danger of a black scaled taijitu he closed the distance between himself and his target. He moved slowly at first, carefully placing one foot across the other in a way that resembled dance as much as it did the laser precise strides of a blademaster, until he was within twenty feet of his foe before springing ahead, clearing the gap between them with two successive lunges with the speed and accuracy of a snake strike. He crouched low as he landed before the cat girl, collecting his legs beneath himself before uncoiling and swiping upward with the scabbard of his weapon, in a manner that would have been an uppercut had he been closer to his target, but instead used the gripped shell of his sheath as a club.
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 8, 2016 4:42:30 GMT
Solomon was silent as he responded to Liona not with words, but with some sort of death glare that would probably be intimidating if the lion faunus were affected by that sort of thing. She smirked. What, was she supposed to be afraid of him, a human? Never. She knew how they all were. Whatever he could do would be nothing new, so there was nothing to be worried about there. In fact, she found his strong gaze amusing. Of course, this also meant that he clearly was not in any kind of mood to chat, which Liona supposed was better for her, as she didn't want to engage in any sort of conversation with him. Still, something about his silence just seemed... rude. It made Liona angry, despite the pettiness.
His gaze remained locked on to the cat girl's eyes, though Liona would not return such an action. Instead she would be keeping a close watch on his body, making sure to react to any kind of move he made. As he turned to his right, the girl instinctively took a step back, just in case. It was then that she saw his weapon, or maybe he wanted her to see it? The sheath WAS oddly familiar in a way that subconsciously angered her even more. Where did she see that before? No Liona, Don't think about that. Think about more important things. That is a sword. Swords are good. Her mind worked to prioritize and keep her head in the game. Solomon began his patient stride toward her, and with every step forward she took a step back, each step bringing her closer and closer to the blue treeline. She stopped under a tree, allowing the gap to close, and when Solomon got close enough to her, he began his lunge.
Right away Liona lept up into the tree, grabbing the branch above her and running up the trunk to quickly get up, her artificial claws temporarily unsheathed in order to maintain a good grip. Immediately she Jumped off the other side of the branch, still holding onto it with declawed gauntlets, in a swing that would result in a powerful kick to her opponent, though aimed at his back specifically. Of course, she would take whatever she could hit. She kept a good eye on his sword in her descent, Ready for whatever could potentially come next.
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 8, 2016 6:03:57 GMT
A deathly hush fell over the crowd as the subject of their ire cracked his knuckles and closed the distance between himself and Liona. She might have been immune to the grim depths of that thousand yard stare, but a single glance at the video feeds was enough for a common sole to flinch away. The uncanny, inhuman, intensity was not the worst of it, nor was it the lack of emotion that gave it a mask-like suggestion, rather it was the grim understanding conveyed without words or even intent that Sol did not see Liona the way they did. He did not see that cheeky sneer that mocked his focus, nor did he see a young woman warrior, nor did he see her golden hair or golden ears. Like a switch flipped in his brain, he saw nothing but flesh to pulverize, bones to break, and an enemy to defeat. That was the worst of his gaze, the way he looked at and through the living, breathing, thinking, and feeling entity before him, as if it were just a thing, an object, without soul or merit, something he could decimate without guilt, could destroy entirely without regret. It was the same gaze one might find in the eyes of a soldier who had huddled in the trenches while the shells fell and shattered the lines of his forces, at the same time that it was the gaze of one who had committed sins beyond count in the name of self-preservation, as well as that of a man who had given in to the savage nature within himself more than once and enjoyed it. Those were not the eyes of a man, they were that of a machine, an automaton, whose single purpose was warfare. Liona's inability to see that, her lack of the fear any reasonable person would have for it, was mere ignorance of the kind that a child might stand before a storm and not realize the danger until far too late. Liona thought she was fighting a man, but she was not, she was fighting a living weapon, a weapon that felt no pity, nor remorse, for the pain it was about to inflict, because in Sol's mind, she was not merely less than human, she was less than faunus, or Grimm. Liona was already dead, and had been the moment she was matched to fight him. This fight, this "battle", was a mere death rattle before oblivion.
Of course the organizers would call a stop to the battle before anyone could die, hopefully, but that did not change the fact that Sol was approaching the situation with the very real intent to kill. He could not help it, any more than a sword could keep it's edge from drawing blood, and if somehow he did manage to kill or maim the faunus, it was merely her fault for trying to stand against him.
As he coiled up to deliver his upward slash with the stock of his scabbard, Liona first turned, and the scrambled up the trunk to her back, allowing Solomon, by pure virtue of the numerous steps in her flight, ample opportunity to track her ascent, even as he followed through with what might have looked like a fruitless strike. In actuality, it had been a probing assault, to apply pressure to the girl, who was mostly an enigma to the one eyed swordsman, and force her to reveal how she responded under duress. It had done it's job, Sol now knew the nature of the girl's weapons, claws, a style of weapon that seemed ever favored by the bestial faunus. In fact in recent memory alone, Sol had nearly killed another clawed faunus huntress, and he was intimately familiar with the weapons strengths, and weaknesses. In fact he still wore a reminder on the flesh of his chest from that battle.
Claws were an inelegant solution to warfare, in Sol's opinion. They were short ranged, and using both at the same time forced the wielder to present a much broader target by squaring their shoulders to their intended target, and while capable of amplifying the force of the user's thrusts and slashes by positioning the point of leverage parallel to the forearm, as apposed to the perpendicular positioning typical of most weapons, this came at the cost of freedom of motion between the forearm and wrist, ultimately eliminating the use of an entire third of the arm's mobility. Yes, an inelegant weapon to be certain, favored by savages without the skill or patience to master a sword, or by weaklings who relied upon the superior leverage of the weapon's position and edge alignment to supplement their own lack of physical prowess.
All this, Sol knew by instinct from the first appearance of the retractable claws, and before Liona had even reached the canopy, he had already come up with the appropriate fighting style to blunt the weapon's strengths and exploit it's weaknesses. Range was his ally, because his sword was just as dangerous at five feet as it was at the two feet where Liona's claws would be effective, and he could further exploit his reach by wielding his weapon in one hand and angling himself to the side in order to present the smallest target while adding the full length of his arm to his overall reach.
That would all have to wait, he had to deal with her counter attack first.
Allowing the upward lunge of his slash to carry him into the air, Sol leaped towards the trunk of the great azure tree, body twisting with the momentum of his swing and planting both boots against the bark, the spurs in the heels biting for purchase well enough for him to kick of again and make use of what remained of his momentum to rise even higher. There was a simple solution to flying kicks, that is, height. Unless a foe could somehow defy gravity, a flying kick meant a steady descent towards the ground, rendering the possibility of responding effectively to any threat coming from above all but impossible by virtue of simple physics. This was the concept which Solomon was betting on as he took flight and twisted to meet Liona's incoming heels, first rising up and over her and then unleashing a hellish hay-maker by way of his right arm as she passed beneath him.
The crowd gasped in shock and dismay...
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 9, 2016 5:10:56 GMT
So as it turned out, Throwing oneself into a locked route in battle was a bad idea, as Liona would learn the hard way. As she swung herself down, Sol decided to allow himself to go up the same tree. Liona did not quite have enough time, nor was she in any position, to defend herself from the surprisingly powerful punch that came from the man's right arm to her gut. She let go of the branch, landing on the branch, but took a few disoriented steps back, almost falling over completely. it was a very painful attack, one what would have probably done some severe damage if her Aura hadn't been fully generated. Such a punch would not come from a normal person, no matter how many work outs. Not unless it was buffed by a semblance or...
Liona looked up at Solomon with a smile of triumph-- even chuckling a bit, though still slightly hunched over a bit from the pain. She felt it. It was faint, the vibrations muffled by something as Solomon came into contact with Liona, But it was there and she had felt it. The arm isn't real, that one anyway. That's good too. She was suddenly glad Solomon had succeeded in his attack, because now Liona was fairly confident she wouldn't get hit again.
With her opponent in such close quarters now, Liona threw down a vial of green air-type dust. A raging wind swirled around her about 10 meters high with a 3 meter radius, as she stood safe in the eye of the tornado. Unfortunately, such a haven would not be offered to Solomon, and hopefully this would create a gap between them, allowing Liona to hit the metaphorical reset button. With her new found knowledge, she was pretty confident now. She hoped that Solomon's one punch was satisfying, because it would be the only one he would get.
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 9, 2016 17:34:35 GMT
Despite not being any taller than average, just shy of six feet, Sol was still built like a tower, and between his broad powerful chest like two anvils side by side, that face of chiselled granite frozen in a mask of grim indifference, as well as his seemingly single minded obsession with inflicting destruction upon his foe, it might have been easy to imagine that there was nothing more to him than violence and cool rage. However while it might have been perfectly justified to assume that his focus was borne of a mental simplicity that precluded the ability to become distracted, or to believe that his cold detachment was somehow a symptom of an unhealthy mind, the reasons for both were actually much more sinister.
He'd not always been this way, and once upon a time had been considerate of the positions of others, as well as sensitive to his surroundings, subject to the fears and doubts that were natural of those finding themselves in stressful situations, but over time he had slowly smothered those things out of himself.
Sol had once been much like Liona in that respect, confident bordering on arrogant, calculating, cocky, and no less competent for it, but the difference was that Solomon had been born into a life of violence, to the point that it was not only common, but expected of him to be able to endure the strain of constant battle. House Moon, the popular method for referring to Sol's family, could trace it's lineage directly back to legendary mercenaries that predated Mantle itself, and had sold swords and soldiers to the lords of the ancient world, shaping the land that would eventually become the Kingdom of Mantle through violence and bloodshed. As that now defunct kingdom had risen and eventually fallen, House Moon had ascended to prominence in it's own right, controlling vast territories and leading a well equipped and expertly trained private army. The fall of Mantle, while catastrophic to the clan's influence and territories, had lead directly to the clan's evolution into the private military contractor that it was today, and during the great unrest that followed Mantle's fall it had played pivotal roles in the resultant conflict and established itself as a stalwart ally of the Atlesian Military. Today, much as their ancestors once had, House Moon sold swords to the highest bidder, and that meant fighting enemies of Atlas, often sent to settle issues seen as distasteful by the "Honorable" Atlesian Military, which in turn often meant squashing faunus rebellions along the Mantelian periphery, or directly combating The White Fang, or other Anti-Human insurgencies.
Needless to say, responsibilities of being expected to embody that storied history, the pages of which written with a sword in the blood of enemies of the state, as well as with the loss of his father, Terrel, in one of many skirmishes with The White Fang leaving seventeen year old Solomon as the Lord Commander of not only his clan but Moon Military Contractors, had provided little, if any room for notions like compassion, uncertainty, benevolence, and weakness. Perhaps Sol had been kind once. Perhaps he had regarded battle with anything other than clinical detachment from the savagery of his own actions. Perhaps once he had seen enemies as people, and not merely as obstacles, but shortly after the death of his father, as well as his own maiming at the hands of cruel fate, Solomon had amputated those things from him along with the ruined remains of his right arm. In way, both he and his father had died that day, and the man who had eventually returned to lead MMC was merely a reverent, an undead creature fueled by a quest for revenge, and in another way it was simply the final step in achieving what his short life had been making him into, that is, a soulless weapon, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, and capable of striking down that buyer's enemies without mercy or remorse.
Whereas it was relatively uncommon for hunters, much less the students for which this tournament was held, to have ever used their academy training to kill another human or faunus, Solomon had trained in battle for exclusively that purpose. While a competent hunter, Sol's true purpose was as a warrior and tactician to secure order in Atlas by force, and it was in that way that he stood apart from the wide-eyed idealists that one so commonly found among academy students. Perhaps it did not place him in a league above the others, though it was worth mentioning that in his own year at Titan Academy there was not a single other student who was his equal and perhaps not even the among the third years either, but it certainly made him another breed from the rest. Sol was less a warrior than he was a weapon, and less a man than a force of death and destruction.
When his eye held the murderous light that dominated the gilded orb at the moment that his fist landed in the gut off his opponent, those that truly knew Solomon Moon treated him with caution and weariness, and Liona's lack of either would prove her undoing. Her willful ignorance of the danger she was in, would kill her as surely as Sol's sword.
A thrill of satisfaction surged through Sol as he felt that blow connect, and watched as his enemy folded around the impact like a sapling around the final swing of the lumberjack's axe, as all the inhuman strength of his artificial arm delivered enough force to pulverize concrete directly to Liona's gut like a jackhammer. The ecstatic satisfaction of that cathartic impact rattled through his bones alongside the vibration of the of the titanic collision, almost indecent in its rapturous exaltation. It felt good to momentarily wipe that knowing smirk off her foolish slip of a face, and it felt even better to let this arrogant faunus know just what a "human" was capable of, to let her taste the mechanism of her certain defeat. He was not just any "Human" after all. He was Solomon-Daton of House Moon, and he taught manners to upstart faunus for a living.
But that insufferable grin returned, broader than ever and along with a knowing light in her yellow eyes, and Sol crushed down the ire that clawed at his insides with fishhook claws. The expression he returned was as cold and without quarter as the grave itself, eye settling upon her like a headsman's axe reaching it's apex. It was then that he decided he would not simply defeat this girl. He was going to break her. He was going to show her what it was like to be afraid, to believe that your enemy truly meant to kill you, and only then would he give her the privilege of defeat.
As she produced a green vial, Sol did not let up in his advance, and merely clipped his scabbard back to his belt as he planted the spurs of his boots into the branch and did not break stride again. As cold and implacable as the advance of a glacier, Sol forged ahead, even as the first tongues of hundred mile an hour winds sent the swallow tails of his waistcoat fluttering, and he did not break his gaze away from the doomed faunus as his lips parted in a seemingly too wide sneer that split his face in two, and from between his teeth, liquid flames of a sanguine red, deep enough to make fresh blood seem pale, that withered into wisps of royal blue shadows, flowed out and slowly consumed the surface of his body. The sheer strength of his aura was a crushing blow in an of itself, that seemed to slam outwards into the rising gale, holding it at bay as the speeds of the rushing air reached it's peak, before being carried up in the torrent and swirling around the pair of them, surrounding Liona near instantly in a field of cold fire within which the only sign of it's source was the light of a golden eye piercing the veil like a lighthouse beacon upon the shores of the River Styx. Using his activated aura to manipulate the mechanism of the bracer upon his left wrist, Sol ejected a purple crystal into his palm, and as suddenly as the field of blue blaze had appeared it was drawn towards the dust shard, drawn into it's core and seeming to condense down upon that single minuscule point until the silent fury of that unholy inferno seemed to exist entirely between Sol's fingers. Curling up to resist the rising wind, Sol raised the point of blinding blue and red light before himself and then, with a sudden flex that caused the muscles of his forearm to stand out beneath his sleeve like iron serpents coiled around a shaft of steel, he crushed the crystal. Instantly a half sphere of solid purple light, six feet in diameter, expanded away from the point of ignition and into the howling gale, deflecting the fury of the winds away and around Sol as he continued his mechanical, terminal, advance. While his aura alone was not sufficient to fend off the forces of a hurricane, it did provide enough time mount a response and his unique semblance, "Volatile Ignition", a hereditary feature of his prestigious line, combined and focused through a gravity crystal served to parry the worst of the tempest and provide an opening.The entire display took less than a moment.
Eye still aglow with that eerie gleam that seemed to rise from the socket like a candle-flame, Sol fixed his gaze upon Liona as he cracked his neck from one side to the other, wordlessly announcing not just the girl's failure to halt his charge, but also the fact that in doing so, she had in fact trapped herself in a hurricane with him. As the shield cracked and shattered behind him, causing the wind to once more return to being a ring of howling air surrounding them, Sol raised his right arm, palm towards his doomed foe. The sleeve of his arm had started to smoke, and the fabric suddenly caught fire, along with his glove, as the limb beneath it began unleashing a shrieking wail to rival that of the hurricane surrounding them both. Abruptly a cone of fire, three feet in diameter, erupted from his palm like a massive arrow shot from the bowels of hell itself, as simultaneously a directed jet of flame sprang from Sol's right shoulder blade to counteract the blow-back of the blazing bombardment sprouting from the aperture in his palm. Hardly bothering to aim, Sol swept the cone of fire back and forth at head level, sealing off Liona's most likely avenue of escape, as trying to drop from the branch would likely drive her into the very storm of wind she had created, a fate made even more terrible than suffering the blaze directly by what would happen next. Ignited fire dust, that which did not make contact with the target, continued on into the swirling winds, and within moment the pair of them were encircled by a roaring conflagration that utterly obscured all sight beyond the borders of the infernal storm. Hardly content to leave his victory up to the force of a single weapon system, Sol took up his scabbard again, and this time held it more as one might hold a sword conventionally, and swung awkwardly at Liona's lower leg, hoping to catch her ankles and trip her into the funnel of fire.
Sol's lacquered blue breastplate, as well as the bracers on either wrist and the greaves upon his shins, seemed to shine more deeply as the metal, treated with blue dust, resisted the immediate and oppressive heat, and the man himself held his breath, as the inferno tried to greedily suck the air out of his lungs. He was prepared for the forces of his assault, between a semblance that provided some protection from extreme temperatures, to armor and clothing engineered to remain cool, as well as an understanding of how to fight around fire, in a way that his enemy simply was not.
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 10, 2016 17:03:32 GMT
It looked to Liona like Solomon really was putting up a challenge. In fact, she was actually impressed when her small hurricane opened up and he entered, almost as soon as the windy walls went upward. Of course she would never let her opponent, a human, know that she was impressed with him. Still, it was visible on her face anyway, whether she wanted it to be or not. The expression she held was a bright one, one of pure joy that only grew as the match went on, and they had not even been fighting for that long. Liona was having fun. It had been quite a while since she had felt like she had to work this hard, and the anticipation she had built up in her wait for this moment had only amplified this. What nerves? She was never nervous, no way. This is all she wanted out of this tournament, and so she would give her opponent the same feeling back, not caring about race for the first time in a VERY long time.
That said, Her original plan with the wind dust had failed, clearly. Not only did it not create that gap that she had been hoping for, but now both contenders were trapped together, closer than ever before. Thank goodness for Plan B. After all, one would be a fool not to think of a counter to any contingency-- you know, twice. As soon as he had entered the whirlwind, Liona had watched him, the way he cocked his head to side to side as if this meeting was a point in his favor. When his right hand went up, hers went to her belt to grab a small vial of granulated earth dust. A the hurricane she had created was set ablaze in a spectacular display, Solomon grabbed his sheathed sword and tried to take a swing, a swing that liona could see coming in her watching, and it definitely helped that the swing was very awkwardly controlled. hopped upward with both legs together, which would not take her very high initially, but it was okay. Yellow Aura flaring, She activated her magnetic semblance and targeted the metal of the blade within the scabbard, pushing it down making it stop beneath her. She landed on it, and pushed the blade upward in a makeshift mini launching pad that boosted her next, proper leap high enough to Press down on Solomon's head with her left hand to propel her over him, using her right to throw her dust to the ground below. This would have her leaping through fire, but she would pass through anyway as if it were nothing. Of course it did some damage, as it was FIRE, but her favorite dust type was fire. In fact it the first dust type she had ever gotten. A little extreme burn never hurt anyone, unless it did. At this point she was used to it. In any case she landed on the bottle, shattering it so that a spherical rock formed around her. She no longer could see, but this form would not last long anyway. All she needed to do was run forward a few meters, rolling the ball as if it were a hamster's transportation. As the Liona-sized rock passed through the swirling inferno, She would be protected from the heat (an added bonus), and the hurricane would be cut off at it's source, the dust on the ground that created it. This would break the wind and it would disperse, no longer concentrated enough to keep the fire going besides a few trees that would need some fixing up. Fortunately, the two fighters never got too far into the forest, never leaving the edge of this half of the arena. Liona had only backed into the first tree she saw, after all.
She kept running forward as she punched the sphere with her claws, allowing it to crumble. The whole process from the moment she created the rock only took but a few moments. With a quick drifting pivot that kept her momentum going, She turned to face Solomon, outright laughing now, running at him on all fours in order to face him directly.
(OOC Note: Both Solomon Moon and I have mutually decided to proceed with this match as if we are both on the ground, rather than the branch, due to my own typo in my last post.)
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 11, 2016 4:49:10 GMT
The onlookers watched with baited breath, the general mood of the stands having become somber and bleak in light of how the first few moments of the fight had played out. What had begun as cheering for the blonde lioness and zealous heckling of her foe had descended into shouted warnings and in a few cases, outright prayer. Clearly Liona still had the undivided support of much of the spectators, a fan favorite if ever there was one, at least as far as this match up was concerned, especially when the other option was nearly universally reviled by all those in attendance, and every last one of those that had attended his previous match. However their unilateral acrimony for the golden eyed cyclops had taken back seat to a sense of profound concern for their chosen champion. The fact was that Solomon was controlling the pace of this battle, and from the very first step Liona had been forced into fighting on her heels. She was a strong fighter, having lasted as long as she had against someone as ruthless as the One-Eyed Dragon was a shining testament to that fact, but it had reached a point where the latter had accumulated so much momentum that it hardly looked like victory was even an option anymore for the golden haired faunus. Sol had already landed a cringe inducing strike, that would have killed a dozen common men, and the crowd was readily aware of that fact and could only begin to imagine what kind of condition their herald was in as a result. Her attempt to escape had been met with seemingly bored indifference by her enemy, and had barely slowed him down. By the time a funnel of fire twenty feet tall swallowed up the dueling pair, the only reply the onlookers could muster was that of crushing despair, certainly it meant the end for the promising young woman, and many could not be certain that she would survive. The rules of the competition could only do so much to argue with what they had seen, and instinct told them that they were looking at someone being strung up beneath the gallows.
A man could have the popular opinion after all, and the support of an entire army at his back, but all it took to finish him was a sword and a bit of luck, and Sol knew this fact better than most. After all,at one point or another, he'd been both the man and the sword. Had he been able to recognize the hopelessness he was inflicting upon the citizens who had come to witness the might of the four kingdoms, he likely would have regretted what he was forced to do, but as it was, nothing existed to his mind apart from his sword and his enemy, and the lethal dance in which they were locked. Guilt, remorse, regret, those came later, surely as midnight must follow the sunset, but in the moment, there was only the battle. It was not a choice that his brain could make, hard wired as it was towards the ideology of war. In fact he could not even perceive that another choice existed. As far as he would ever know, if you fought you did so without mercy, otherwise what you were doing was not fighting at all, and if you weren't fighting, then you were surrendering.
Unseen by the crowd of spectators, Sol's arm jerked downwards as he unleashed a swing to hack Liona's legs out from beneath her, and he watched in the first genuine surprise of the match as his own weapon betrayed him and assisted her in leaping through the curtain of fire he'd unleashed in the direction of her head. Her hand settling into the bed of his hair was insult to injury, and enough to cause him to stumble ahead as she surrounded herself in a shell of earth and retreated through the wind wall to his rear. The shell of stone and soil slammed through the hurricane's wall, and like a tower suddenly finding it's foundation compromised, the swirling winds collapsed around Solomon as he turned on his heels to face his departing foe and her peculiar choice of transport.
More than anything, it was the question of how she had parried his blows that prevented him from giving chase or firing a few parting shots into her back. He was almost certain that the betrayal of his weapon was somehow Liona's doing, but he had not seen anything that would provide a clue as to how she had accomplished it, apart from her aura flaring to life at the exact moment that his weapon veered off course. Was it her semblance? Had she the power to manipulate objects remotely, or could she somehow alter probability in her favor to make a certain misfortune possible to escape? Either one could make her a much more dangerous foe than he'd initially expected.
Elsewhere in the packed stands, a collective gasp of surprise and doubt when the wall of flame had gone up, became a cry of startled surprise and horror as a flaming shape tumbled free of the firestorm, still trailing streamers of fire and smoke. The lamentation of what was almost certainly Liona being thrown through the barrier, or perhaps leaping out herself to escape the one eyed horror within, deepened as pieces began to crumble away and smolder in the long grass, until abruptly becoming cheers of joy and celebration as Liona herself bounded free of the last of the boulder, slightly singed it seemed, and still smoking, but alive and no worse for wear as far as the distant spectators could tell. By the judgment of the crowd, and partly to that of Sol as well, the escape was nothing short of miraculous, and it was met by a rising chant of the girl's name, discordant at first but quickly resolving into a single deafening voice.
As she spared nary a second to spin about and charge back to meet her enemy head on, that chant became an explosion of joyous approbation.
Sol, even as single minded as he was rendered by the waking meditation of battle, could not ignore such a response, and briefly his gaze rose to the crowd, and as impossible as it seemed, his expression grew even harder. He would never be loved like that. After all, he was a monster, and a butcher, and a filthy cheat in their eyes, and scum like him would never be able to compete with the kind of approval shining stars like Liona attracted just by being herself. By being himself, Sol was reviled, characterized by the atrocities of wars both ancient and new just by the virtue of wearing a uniform, accused of corruption and nepotism for coming from a noble line, considered cruel for the responsibilities inflicted upon him by the station of his birth. He could never be a hero to the common folk, not when he was everything the unwashed masses hated, he would always be a sword to them, or an iron fist, or a tool of an unjust system. Anyone would sooner have sympathy for the devil than they would for him. They looked on the ruin of his right arm and eye, and how every man who had ever been born into his family had breathed his last on some battlefield, and they called it justice, and they looked on the skill he had with a sword and the power he wielded, and the loyalty and duty he had towards Atlas, and they called it a crime.
And then there was Liona, grinning, smiling now, laughing in the face of doom, because she had the support of thousands to justify her victory. Body a perfect example of the peak of physical fitness, unmarked, unmaimed, perfect, whilst her face was a glowing example of beauty, fine lines framing a gorgeous countenance that wore a crown of golden hair and a set of full lips given easily to laughter and smiles, even her large feline ears, currently pinned back by the speed of her charge, seemed to belong there, and finally were her eyes, her perfect golden eyes, splendid and wide, and seemingly alive with a light all of their own, like living gold, unmarred, unbroken, unstained by the true horrors of a real battlefield.
This was a game to her, this was just a fun little distraction before she went back to her life of being loved and surrounded by those who bathed in her light, whereas to him, defeat here at this tournament would shame his entire family, and would dishonor him before not just the countless generations of his ancestors that he represented, but before the Kingdom of Atlas, and the Titan Academy as well.
How different he felt than her in that moment, standing there with one golden eye locked upon her two, his face slowly twisting into a mask of grim suffering as his artificial arm dangled at his side, exposed by the ruined remains of his sleeve as the unnatural and monstrous appendage that it was, a flesh-less network of fake muscle of faintly translucent blue allow, surrounding a black carbon fiber skeleton, and protected in an irregular shell of red ballistic ceramics. The limb hissed and boiled, as steam generated by the awful heat of unleashing the previous jet of flame spewed from the joints and the vents at palm, elbow and shoulder. He often tried to hide that awful prosthetic, but once he started fighting it was impossible to hide what he actually was, a crippled monster.
Sol realized with a start that he was jealous of this beautiful creature that he'd been sent here to destroy, this work of majesty that seemed to exist as the shining argument against all that he was, and he did not simply resent her for that. He hated. He loathed her.
HE. WOULD. DESTROY. HER!
"DIE YOU FILTHY ANIMAL!" He roared in a savage, booming declaration that would be the first words he'd shared since coming to this fight, the inevitable release of pressure that had been building since first laying eye upon her, a promulgation that rang like the blast of a howitzer, hanging in the air like a bloody banner as he fell into a run towards her, as a red light filled the artificial arm from shoulder to wrist and a fist sized globe of boiling red plasma took shape in between his fingers before streaking towards the incoming shape bounding through the grass like a ball from a cannon.
The sphere of red energy traveled ten feet and the convulsed shortly before striking the ground directly in Liona's path. The earth erupted in a shower of flaming debris, as a fireball two meters across bloomed like flower made of undulating flame, setting a line of earth ablaze and sending tendrils of fire racing through the grassland around the point of impact, as a deafening report rang out like an entire barrel of fire dust catching fire. Sol placed his smoking right hand upon the hilt of his sword, forgetting how Liona had manipulated it before, and quietly daring her to try it again as his other hand settled around the mouth of Whisper's scabbard, the index finger of which settling upon the tongue of the stylized serpent coiled around the vessel, and as he reached the curtain of fire and smoke that completely obscured sight beyond at just about the moment he expected Liona to be doing the same, he leaped into the air and coiled up like a spring around the twin weapon systems of his arm and sword, currently united, locked and loaded, like the firing pin of a rifle, and waited for his enemy to appear.
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 12, 2016 4:19:23 GMT
Well Solomon wasn't very nice, was he? of course, Liona had expected as much, what with him being Human and all, But at least he was more tolerable silent. However, he must have been getting frustrated with something, probably the match given the context, because the first words he had said this day was him ordering Liona, the "filthy animal", to die. Liona frowned and could not help but slow her her speed to a halt to process what he had said. This was the issue with his kind. Everything had to be about race. They couldn't have a fun little match?
Now it was Solomon that had started Running at her. She could see that his fake arm was glowing red, and it did not take a genius to guess what that color meant. Again moving to her belt, She took a crystal of a deep blue water dust, tossing it up in the air and punching it with her gauntlet as it fell in her path, breaking the crystal and sending a wide stream of water to meet the fire powerful fireball that had only just landed in front of her, probably would have hit her had she still been running. The thick, opaque smoke was created with steam, as opposed to ash. She smiled again, this time not out of the pure joy of friendly combat, but instead a sickly smile at the anticipation to breaking a mortal enemy. She knew he had to still be running, as he had been last time she was able so see him, and sure enough it only took moments for him to emerge from the smoke above her.
As soon as she saw him her aura would flare on and off, and she would target the sword once more, only leading it to a specific spot on the ground next to her, not quite controlling it directly (though definitely keeping it pointed away from her). She was simply trying to shift Solomon's landing trajectory so that it would look to the audience and feel to her opponent that he had just missed a better landing spot. After which she would take a quick but powerful jab at him, unsheathing her claws only at impact for a stab before retracting them as she pulled back. "I was having fun, too. You had to go and ruin it with your Humaness. Now this will be fun for a different reason."
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 12, 2016 22:39:14 GMT
A wall of undulating black smog sprang up between Sol and his enemy, but he could not have broken stride if he had wanted to. Urged on by his frustration and anger for the way the girl mocked him with her laughter, a howling gale could not have kept him from closing to engage with her. She thought she could laugh at him, grinning insipidly as a thousand voices yelled encouragement, but how broad would that grin be if roles were reversed? How brave would she have felt with a hundred score of voices united against her? How much fun would this be for her if literally everyone else wanted her to lose? It was a feat nothing short of miraculous that Sol had controlled his temper for as long as he had, but like anyone subject to that crushing pressure coming in from all sides, cursing him and each success that he struggled to achieve, whilst celebrating and lording the mere nominal accomplishment of his enemy to merely remain in the fight, he had cracked, and beyond that hardened shell that surrounded him like a granite cage around his heart, lay an endless well of outrage, stored under terrifying pressure. Forced not simply to endure the assaults of his foe, but also the relentless rage of her supporters, crushing in on him from all sides and flaying at him like a storm of unseen razors. It was terrifying, to be the focus of so much ire, and it had been since the very moment he had stepped into the arena. The feel of their eyes upon him made his skin itch, their united disapproval of him resting between his shoulders like a hundred ton dagger balancing on it's point, and the unbroken droning of their chanting made his ears ache. It was so familiar to him, too familiar, too much like the chaos of a battlefield raging around him, too akin to the battle-cry of enemy soldiers, and too similar to facing down an entire army by himself at the same moment that he must face that army's chosen champion. If not for the subtle differences, if not for the blue leaves on the trees, this could have been that forest in the Perses Unlands where Sol's had been ambushed by Fang snipers hiding in the brush, if not for their civilian garb, the stands could have been filled with the gruesome masks of the Fang's primary force arriving to mop up the survivors, and if not for her beautiful features and exposed face, Liona could have been Yoshi Yamahatta himself.
For a brief and terrible moment, Solomon was sixteen again, covered to his elbows in the blood of enemy and ally alike, driven beyond madness with grief and all but certain that he was about to join the dead that surrounded him. For an instant the pain that wracked his body like a suit of barbed wire, the exhaustion that turned the corners of his vision black, the soul crushing despair of the damned, and finally the shame and despair that dwarfed all three that came with facing the one who had taken everything from him because he'd been too slow and too afraid, and to bloody weak, to give the order, were all as real to Sol as they had been in that distant battlefield, more than a year hence.
But Sol did not break stride, he did not falter, and he did not hesitate to leap through that veil of shadow and soot, because as real as that horrific memory was, if he had to go back and do it all over again, even knowing how it all must end, he would not have made any choices different from those that had been. The strength of his leap, augmented by the incredible physical fitness of all hunters as well as his own aura, carried him well over ten feet straight up in the air, and would clear nearly twice as much in distance.
He was so angry that he wanted to explode, and for those that knew him, that threat should be taken frightfully literally, and as that vision of past battles took hold a roar rose from his lungs, just as it had then, silencing that of the faceless horde in it's wrath and defiance of cruel fate. A booming declaration that rose not from his throat or lungs, but from the fissure in the cracked exterior of his stone heart itself, eruptted forth like a volcano of sound that shook the air and was picked up on the stadium's sound system causing the magnitude of it to come from everywhere at once, like a sudden flood of fury drowning out the anathema of the crowds and causing many to clutch their ears in agony. It was a wordless, nearly feral, roar of utter and complete all-consuming fury, a mindless sense-obliterating expression of the purest form of rage.
The smoke rippled like the surface of water, before being driven aside entirely by the sheer force of that yell, as a blinding flash of light and force scattered the floating soot in every direction, as if even the impenetrable blackness of that smoke were fleeing in terror from the path of a much greater and far more destructive force. Sol's aura surrounded him like the corona of a red-blue star falling from the heavens, a lashing field of flagellating crimson scourges leaving midnight blue rifts like open wounds in the air around him, all burning so bright that an after-image remained in it's passing like a scar on the face of reality itself. Many of those that were not covering their ears to block the deafening thunder of his voice covered their eyes instead to block out the blinding light of his rage soaring towards the unfortunate object of his bottomless fury. Whilst at the center of it all, remaining visible, even as a nearly opaque cloak up to a foot thick in places of rolling soul-fire often obscured everything else, was that single golden eye, an unblinking beacon of savage frenzy that did not ever once depart from it's target. As he reached the highest point of his arching lunge and began falling, the flailing tails of his aura fanned out behind him, whipping and lashing at the individual specs of soot that remained close enough to touch, and for a moment he was utterly indistinguishable from a corner of the corrupt heavens, broken free from paradise and plummeting towards the earth surrounded in a halo of power and glory that promised only destruction for where-ever it landed.
"HELLFIRE METEOR!" Solomon's voice, a gravelly accent played at the volume of a bullhead's 2000mm forward cannon, announced the name of the technique that followed the same way that a judge would hand down a sentence of death, as he than squeezed Whisper's trigger.
A low hollow thump rushed away from the mouth of his scabbard, as within a shaped red dust charge detonated and a column of expanding air and flame and explosive force ejected the sword from it's vessel at the velocity of a large caliber handgun round, faster than even the quickest eye could catch. The mere act of grabbing such a projectile would have shattered the arm of another man, even if they had aura to soften the blow, but instead of grasping the sword with blood and bone, he did so with stone and steel. Black fingers with tips the shape of a barbed arrowheads closed around the hilt of the sword like a vice, locking in place via a set of ratchets that would prevent all but the most destructive of forces from freeing the handle from his iron grasp, and with strength only possible to find in the highest examples of military hardware, the arm unloaded the force it had been storing since the first moments of the jump, and swung the blade in a wide horizontal arch.
He was still more than six feet from his target, and it was clear that the slash was not meant to actually land, at least not yet. Being untethered from the earth as he was, the centrifugal force of the swing, combined with the blinding speed of the explosively assisted slash, carried Sol into a spiraling horizontal spin, that sprayed a fan of his blazing aura out in every direction, giving him the momentary appearance of a massive and horrifying Kathrine wheel suddenly come free of it's spike. Once, twice, three times he spun, and with each spin he ejected a red crystal from the bracer on his left wrist, which sailed free of the inferno, lost to sight in the majesty of the display and peppering the earth around Liona with fragments of stable fire dust, until with the fourth revolution, Sol touched down and cut through the fourth and final crystal with the glow red edge of his sword almost as soon as it was ejected from his bracer.
The earth shook with the impact, as Sol's monumental aura slammed against the ground and flattened out like fluid, and he extended his semblance towards the last two fragments of crystal still hanging in their air. The swirling field of ruby and lapis rushed towards the broken crystal, buffeting the tall grass and rising smoke like a stiff wind, and filling the cloven crystal in an instant with it's eerie light before the integrity of the gem failed and it shattered.
It did not matter that his slash had missed, because as Liona stepped in and threw a punch that rocked off of Sol's breastplate of banded mail, the earth beneath his blow erupted with the force of a hand grenade, and then setting off a chain reaction so quick that it appeared to happen simultaneously, the explosion triggered the other dormant red crystals lying in the earth around where Sol had landed, and a thirty foot wide section of the battlefield, centered on Solomon, was swallowed a shocking explosion of fire and force. The meadow was blanketed in flame as far as sixty feet distant, as chunks of smoldering earth flew into the woods and started fires of their own, whilst shrapnel of pulverized concrete and stone some as large as fists flew as far as the stands, only to meet the protective shield surrounding the arena and burst into flaming clouds on impact.
As the smoke cleared, Sol was left standing, half supporting his weight on the length of sword where it bit into the earth, clothes, save the specially prepared and dust infused materials of his britches and breastplate, reduced to ash by the blaze, surrounded by a crater nearly as deep as he was tall, and smoking wreckage and broiling wildfires consuming the land beyond that.
"Burn your fun..." He growled, panting slightly, the scarred flesh of his remaining arm, as well as the gruesome network of bolts and tubes where the other attached to still living flesh, singed and trailing smoke, as he wrenched his blade free from the blistered earth, "This isn't a game."
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Post by Liona Mimiko on Jul 14, 2016 13:35:25 GMT
Everything seemed as though it would work out for the blue eyed faunus girl, as she had tried to make sure she had a plan for anything. She did not even make any attempt to get out of the way of Solomon's jumping slash attack, because she had instead opted to counter attack. Besides, why get out of the way when she could make HIM get out of his own way instead? In any case, things were looking good. However, Liona was not expecting an impossibly large explosion that seemed to even reach the complete opposite side of the gigantic Arena, caused by an impact of fire dust that Solomon had apparently dropped, something that Liona did not see him do before she attempted her counter. He even seemed unfazed by the searing hot steam he had jumped through, much like Liona had done her best to ignore the pain of the fire from earlier. It was all quite impressive even.
Needless to say, Liona could not do anything to get out of such a massive explosion, and combibed with her damage from earlier in the match, her Aura dropped below the threshold. The buzzer sounded, a noise that was hard to hear for someone who wanted so badly to win, but knew she had not. The referee came out, placing himself between the two competitors. "Liona Mimiko is unfit for battle! Solomon Moon moves on to the Semi Finals!" Liona was breathing heavily, the adrenaline wearing off. All in all, it was a very challenging match that she was proud to be a part of even if the end result disappointed her. She looked over at Solomon, still in some pain but not injured as her Aura had not broken, and gave him a half smile, one as sincere as she could muster. "You were very amusing, for a human." With that said, she turned around and headed for the arena exit without another word.
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Post by Solomon Moon on Jul 15, 2016 4:08:28 GMT
Once he had wrested his blade free of the earth, he held the shimmering talon of super-heated red metal slightly away from his body, aloft in both hands with the point directed towards the pinnacle of the hard-light dome overhead, as if now that he had decimated the lands he intended to turn his fury upon the heavens as well. He watched as Liona staggered backwards, attempting to ineffectually protect herself from the blaze even though the worst of it had already done it's part and passed. The look of surprise, hinting at shock, on her face told him he had won long before the mindless machines could report that fact to the fight organizers, and were this a true battle, wherein Liona could not arrogantly rely upon the tournament rules to spare her of a rightly deserved fate, Sol would have had plenty of time to finish her off entirely, maiming or killing the wretch, before anyone had the presence of mind to stop him. How sweet it would have been for the insufferable chit to wear that look of confusion beneath her funeral shroud, and how appropriate, given that at no point had she managed to grasp the severity of her situation until it was too late. The girl needed to lose a couple of real fights, if she was ever to learn the respect for combat that was all but necessary for a warrior's survival. One did not fight because it was fun, or because of boredom, or to entertain, as many combatants at this tournament seemed to think one did. One fought to win, to survive, and many present seemed to have forgotten that they were baring live steel upon their matches, and that death or tragedy could strike regardless of how many safeties, and rules, the organizers put in place.
The stakes of a fight, a real one, and not the fantasy that all these fools were telling themselves, were far higher than most gave them credit for, as were the stakes for this tournament of a far greater nature than any of these fools seemed to acknowledge, but Sol knew why he was here, as well as he knew the blade in his hand. He was not here to have fun, or to make friends, or to fight powerful warriors, or whatever other insipid symptom of ignorance the others used to justify their place in the roster. Sol was here because he was one of the most gifted warriors that Titan Academy had trained since the graduation of the senior Moon patriarch, Terrel, and he was here to showcase that fact. He was here to serve as an example to the other kingdoms of what a real warrior looked and acted like, and of the type of power wielded by the officers of the Honorable Atlesian Military. Let them taste defeat in a setting free of bloodshed, so that they would think twice before doing anything as foolish as challenging the mighty State in actuality. Amity had been constructed not for the purpose of fostering cooperation, or any other fanciful and childish notion such as peace and good will. No, whereas the unwashed, uneducated, and unmotivated masses had forgotten the wars that had drawn the original borders between the four kingdoms, those histories had been as much a part of his education as swordsmanship, and Solomon knew the truth of tournaments such as this.
It was never in doubt that he would win, because the choice simply had not existed to do otherwise. Failure would not have simply shamed his family and business, staining a flawless record of martial conquests, but also would have shamed the Mighty State itself, and that could not be permitted to happen. Sol owed everything he had, every comfort, every privilege, every moment of his continued existence to the Kingdom Of Atlas, and it was an overriding duty and obligation that he serve his purpose to the utmost of his ability. He could not fail, not again, the shame of doing so would kill him.
That was what these fools didn't understand. They saw nothing but a fancy suit and an expensive sword, and never took a solitary step outside of their own tiny minds to ask why, and that's why Sol would defeat them all. He knew why he was here. He was a sword.
"Liona Mimiko is unfit for battle! Solomon Moon moves on to the Semi Finals!"
Sol nodded to the announcement, as if providing it permission to state what should have been patently obvious, his face having returned to that stony mask of the kind of chilling stillness one witnessed in the eye of a hurricane as a storm laid waist about it, and slowly his gaze drifted back to the sword, held aloft and erect before his body. The metal had begun to cool by now, losing it's shimmering crimson flush, returning to an impenetrable black that seemed to be a polished chunk of midnight itself. Sol felt very much like that mindless piece of sharpened metal. Now that the rage of the flames had passed, and the enemy was vanquished, he felt empty, not lost, but simply having nowhere else to go, as if the fire had burned so brightly that it had scoured away a piece of him, leaving only ash behind. He inhaled deeply through his nose, as if to prove to himself that he was still capable of breathing, or perhaps just to fill that void in his chest with something, anything, and for the first time he smelled the smoking ruin that surrounded him. It was acrid, harsh, and heavy, the air sweltering and thick, but full of the fine particles of ash thrown up by the blast. He could smell the scents of seared meat, the blistered flesh of his left hand, which had been closest to the detonation, and the scent of singed hair, fetid, foul.
Unconsciously, unwillingly, his eye wandered across the landscape that surround him. The sight was hellish. He stood in a chest deep crater, that recoiled away from him like skin peeling back from the slice of a red hot knife, beyond which he could seed roving gangs of flames sweeping through the grass like cavalry running down infantry, blistering the land, laying and ever expanding field of ruin, as from those blazing skirmishes rose distorted specters of foul obsidian pollution that stopped against the protective dome and formed a seething mass of ashen miasma that loomed like a slouching devil overhead. In the stands, wide eyes were still watching him, voices silenced and antipathy replaced with open expressions of fear and disgust, as if the true nature of the man they had heckled to the point of bloodlust and madness suddenly becoming apparent was the utmost of the horrors they had ever witnessed. Sol wondered absently that if he could see himself right now if he would be afraid of what he saw.
That thought drew his gaze back to the black sword clutched in his grasp, and by extension, the false arm that still held it's hilt in a mechanical death grip. The arm had been red hot at that time of the strike, unable to function as a weapon due to the enormous buildup of heat from discharging the main gun, and it had cooled down enough by now to merely be ejecting a steady jet of steam from the elbow vents. It seemed that the heat shielding had failed during the blaze, and the nature of the limb, a skinless network of vaguely translucent blue artificial muscle through which a black skeleton could be seen, lay exposed for all to see from the elbow down. The relationship between the destruction that encircled him, the sword in his hand, and that terrible false appendage, seemed one and the same. The blasted landscape was a part of the sword, which was part of the arm, which was part of him, all separated by degrees that seemed insignificant and insurmountable simultaneously.
Sol's cheek twitched, unsure whether to smile or frown, and then his face seemed to grow harder, granite becoming steel, becoming that same black, light obliterating, chunk of tempered darkness that he called a sword. He was that sword.
He slowly, with practiced awareness for his body and his weapons, sheathed Whisper once more, eye not flinching or wandering from the spot where the sword had been, fixating on the emptiness left in it's absence.
Body aching, skin blistered and cracked, his aura having been absent at the point of detonation and only his specially dust treated jacket and armor sparing him from a horrific full body burn, Sol climbed out of the crater and looked down at himself as he became aware of the pain for the first time. He swallowed, as he touched the source of a pain that was different from the rest, a dull ache just below his left shoulder, midway between the armpit and the top of his hip, the fingers of his left hand finding a deep groove in the metal of his breastplate, the band there caved in nearly a half inch, and a nasty looking scrape stretching towards the mid-line of his thorax. It looked like it had been done with a blade, or claw, and the position and shape of the blow gave him chilling memories of another similar scar which lay hidden beneath the straps of tempered metal. That old wound had been inflicted by another faunus, using bladed gauntlets as well, only back then Sol had not enjoyed the benefit of body armor to take the worst of the strike, and now bore a gruesome reminder of the encounter that stretched from below his left arm, all the way to his sternum. Breathing hurt, and not just because the arena was slowly filling from the top down with choking black smoke.
He was reflecting on that battle, old and new, surrounded by silence, save for the whispering and crackling of the spreading flames, and the distant murmuring of crowds quickly departing the soon to be wildfire in the arena proper, when Liona spoke to him, her voice ringing crisply like a golden chime in the near stillness of the battle's aftermath, and the young man flinched at the sound, not simply because the sound came from his right, inside the blind-spot of his now absent eye.
"You were very amusing, for a human."
Sol's sneer was one of frustration to have forgotten about the faunus, to have been so careless as to allow her to startle him, as well as the patently bigoted tune of her statement.
"Arrogant, weak, and fixated upon race as an excuse for lacking the creativity or intelligence to properly wield the gifts that nature has given you." He replied, his voice the dull rumble of a forest fire, a sound not unlike the roiling within a blazing forge, "You are exactly what I have come to expect of faunus."
He turned towards the opposite end of the arena, choosing the war torn hellscape, the flame and battle blasted wreckage of a once breathtaking natural paradise, over the relatively untouched splendor of an open meadow, spared the ravages of war, and the company of a faunus.
As Liona marched towards the first exit and her future via a path paved in lush grass, Sol met his fate surrounded by fire and destruction
As he passed from sight he reached up and tugged at the hoses and bolts that fastened his false arm to the ruin of his right shoulder, tearing each free as he walked, seemingly in a daze, until with a dull clatter, as he was obscured by the smoke and eventually swallowed by the concrete womb of the arena's bowels, that senseless chunk of imitation flesh fell away from a razed stump, puckered and glossy flesh broken by and penetrated by spidering cords of tubing and conduit. He would send someone for it later, but right now he was glad to be rid of it's awful weight.
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Post by Event Admin on Jul 17, 2016 13:29:55 GMT
Victory to Solomon Moon who will be moving on.
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