Round 1 Veteran: Leopold Vs Chibimon Blue

[Silence Sei]

Battle begins tonight at Midnight CST. Good luck!

[Leopold]

I leave the arena, and the context of our engagement to my opponent.

“Why do I feel like I am being shafted?” Leopold spat.

Ruby Winchester turned curtly to glance at her husband’s sabre-spear, and then looked back at her husband’s tie. She tried, very hard, not to make a witticism at his expense.

“You are doing this to honour Duffy’s memory, and to learn how to grow a pair,” she finally said. It was all she needed to say to put him in his place. He slouched in her grip, and remained defences against her nimble fingers as they finished off his neckwear into a neat bow.

“You are welcome to join me,” he replied smarmily, but only when she had stepped backwards and out of kicking range.

Ruby frowned. “I am far too old for these games Leopold. You fit right in to the notice category, though.” She pointed at the large noticeboard behind him, and smiled with a flash of mischief. He turned to read the pairings.

“’Chibimon’?” he groaned. He looked back to Ruby, and buried his hands in his overcoat pockets. “I’d wager he’s no swordsman.” He pictured a mage, weak and feeble, and imagined himself presently on fire, or frozen, or lingering in lightning. He was not looking forward to the afternoon’s endeavour.

“Look,” the redheaded spell singer began. She bit her lip, paused, and compiled her thoughts. Emotions were high enough with Duffy’s funeral looming. She did her best to contain them, for his sake, and for the baying crowd. “The Magus Cup was the first event we began to realise who we were, and what we could do about our…predicament.” They had been hoping over the centuries for the spark. It gave them strength. It gave them independence. It also gave the plucky bard an arrow in the knee and a fear of elves.

“He lost,” Leopold, retorted. He moved to pick up his spear, and set the butt of its black shaft into the blood and piss soaked sawdust. “The only memory I am honour-“

“-ing is that of a brave, tested man on the edge.” Ruby finished his sentence with such severity and burning passion, Leopold did not attempt to fight her growing irritation. “You are stepping into the arena, Leopold Winchester. You are going to fight, for once in your life, like a man.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, took a deep, drifty intake of beer-scented air, and clenched her fists. “The Magus Cup is not going to him.”

Leopold was wise enough, despite his many faults, to try a second guess to whom ‘him’ was referring. There were countless despots, dickheads, and dangerous braggarts in the pairings. He was certain they had all wronged his wife over the years. For now, he would wade into the arena and weed out which one exactly had garnered her wrath the most. He hoisted his spear.

“I am fairly sure it won’t be going to me, neither,” he sighed. He turned. He advanced to the gates, hobnailed boots trudging, and quiff of greasy black hair bobbing.

“You can damned well try,” she shouted. She folded her arms across her leather bodice, tapped her expensive shoe on the floor, and stared him through the gates. Her hair began to smoulder, her shoulders blaze. Through Leopold Winchester’s eternally painful trial and error, Ruby Winchester was beginning to accept that Duffy Brandybuck was dead.

“The esteemed Merchant, Leopold Winchester!” the announcer cajoled, as the debonair waif crossed the threshold. The crowd roared. “And his opponent-” the gates slammed shut.

Whatever awaited the cigar smoking, whiskey long men in the Magus Cup would seem trite and jovial, in comparison at least to his wife’s disappointment if he was not exemplary.

[Chibimon Blue]

“--Hsa Eulb!” the announcer finished, the boy looking up at the mention of his name. His right hand held in it a small ball with a single button in the middle, the object seemingly shaking in his small hand. He reached behind him and tightened the strap on his baseball cap, making sure the accessory was secure before he continued on. He stepped forward into the arena, and smiled when he realized both he and his opponent were in the middle of a giant flower field.

Pollen swirled through the air all around them in such thick clusters that they resembled honey colored smoke clouds. The reds and blues and purples of the various types of flowers rose up to the child’s midriff, roughly above the knees of his foe. He clutched his Chibiball tight in his hand, touching the button and tossing the sphere onto the ground. “Rhinosaurus, go! Let’s show them that we’re already prepared to take on the Magus Quartet!”

It was a dream for all Chibimon trainers to take on the Magus Quartet; a group of four of the best Chibimon trainers to ever come out of Althanas. However, in order to even qualify for battling the Quartet, a Chibimon trainer was required to either succeed in winning the Magus Cup Tournament, or collect the eight trophies from the various Arena Bosses throughout Althanas. Hsa Eulb knew he did not have the money for extended traveling, so that left winning the Magus Cup as his only option.

A white light flashed from under the river of flowers around Hsa and his foe, shooting up as if to try and reach the heavens themselves. A large form appeared amidst the beautiful battleground, a large leather skinned beast roughly the size of two carriages. At the tip of the creature’s face was a large horn with tiny spikes surrounding it, the sharp point steadily spinning around like a barber’s pole. The animal howled its arrival to the sky, a thunderous roar that shook the very ground around the two combatants.

Rhinosaurus’ cry caused Hsa to stumble backwards, and fall promptly on his bum. His small form had quickly disappeared beneath the multi-colored platform of combat. He stood back up rather quickly, trying to not give himself an unfair advantage over his foe. “I am Hsa Eulb, future Hall of Fame Chibimon Champion! This is your first and only chance to give up now! If we make eye contact, we –have- to fight! It’s the rule!”

[Leopold]

The second it dawned on Leopold that his opponent in the first round was not his quarry, he sighed with relief. The crowd, expecting a triumphant battle cry, were shortly perplexed. Why come to this place to avoid confrontation, they pondered. The boy’s words echoed in the merchant’s head for a few seconds, before a second welcome dawning arrived; he was, for once, the skilled of the pair.

“Well I can’t give up if we’ve,” he minced his words to feign anxiety and fear, “’locked eyes’ now, can I?” He chuckled, throwing aside the mask that gave the boy just a fleeting glimpse of hope.

A long time ago, in another life and another body, Mr Winchester would have high-tailed it-the-fuck-out. There would have been no reason for him to pick up a spear, ensorcelled to slay the heavens themselves, and ‘stick it to ‘im’. He would not have cared if ‘Hsa’ were a future champion or not. He would have only have shown concern for his well-tailored suit, wide-girth, and proximity to good, viscous bourbon.

“What’s your name?” the Chibimon trainer roared with gusto.

Leopold ignored it shortly. He turned his gaze to the creature to the boy’s side, and realised his initial assessment of how much pain he was likely to end up in had been, as usual, horribly self-serving.

“I’m Leopold,” he said dryly. At that juncture, he vowed to ignore the boy in his entirety, until the monster, or whatever it was, was nothing more than an adornment for his sabre-spear. He mouthed a half-arsed complaint that the creature had horns, and not wings, and then began to advance.

The creature snorted as the merchant went from advancing to trundling. When the man broke out into a full-blown battle-charge, bond between trainer and ‘Chibimon’ became all too suddenly, and painfully apparent. Ignoring the boy cost Leopold Winchester much in the way of ease of advancement and a short trip through the infirmary.

“Hey - you locked eyes with me!” Hsa heckled. If he was going to be the ‘very best’, then he had to show this ‘Leopold’ that his Chibimon were not game for hunting. Leopold was too busy trying not to fall over the taiga to hear. “Rhinosauraus, ready?” he challenged loudly.

As Leopold neared his ‘opponent’, and levelled his spear forwards in a cavalry charge, Hsa called out the all-too-familiar opening move of every well-to-do, battle-hardened Chibimon. Gone were the days of Horn Attack and Leer. Now, having come this far to the league, he shouted out “-

[Chibimon Blue]

“Rhinosaurus, bury yourself underground!” Hsa shouted as he pointed towards Leopold, “We’ll attack him with burrow!” The giant seemed to obey instantly, its horn spinning at a much faster rate as it stuck the drill into the ground and started clawing at the floor with its feet. Clops of dirt and flowery debris flew in every direction as the monster made a tunnel beneath the earth, disappearing from sight completely.

In doing this, Leopold’s pole arm actually completely missed his prey, finding nothing but air and a large hole in the ground before him. Hsa crossed his arms and laughed while looking at his foe. If he could distract the merchant for just a couple of minutes, Burrow would complete and the devastating attack would send the man flying through the air. It was now completely up to the trainer to buy time for his Chibimon.

“If you think for a moment Rhinosaurus and I are going to go easy on you, you’re wrong, Mister!” Hsa announced, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing several more Chibiballs. “And if for some reason you beat him, I got several more Chibimon waiting in the wings to finish you off. I hope you ready; because I am going to fight the Quartet no matter what, and there is no way you’ll ever stop me!”

Hsa had come to learn since his exchange with Max Dirks and Sei Orlouge that he was long winded for a child his age. It was a weakness he was now trying to turn into strength. If Leopold was arrogant enough to sit there and engage the kid in conversation, even for just fifteen or thirty more seconds, the child’s largest Chibimon would make his presence known with an earth shaking Chibimon-style uppercut. Hsa hoped all those potassiums he had fed Rhinosaurus paid off, and the large beast would be able to destroy the competition in one hit.

[Leopold]

Leopold flipped the spear-sabre full-circle, bringing it to a stop with the blade flat and away from Hsa. Horizontal to his vertical and lanky form, it felt heavy in his hand. He made it centuries ago, and lost it to wartime. When he had remade it, the memories of his former life had swarmed into his mind.

“I’ve met people like you before, kid,” he quipped. He had seen them sputter bloody lies at his weapon’s tip. “All talk no action.” He grinned. “Prove history wrong and-”

History, suddenly finding itself quite incorrect, erupted upwards. In his naiveté, Leopold had expected the creature to hide. He had expected, perhaps, a flank attack. Born of the skies, he knew nothing of the ground to see the obvious as it rose through the mantle and tossed him skyward.

He span at the apex of his ascension, lingered in the air, and then came crashing down unceremoniously. The floor of the arena loomed. His black overcoat, a staple part of his cavalier days, flapped tails in the wind like a comet’s trail. His spear disappeared in a swirl of black magic and abyssal light. Vermillion ribbons laced with the effervescence, carrying it free of the calamity.

“Ugh,” the merchant whelped. He would have screamed, but all the wind left his lungs as he thudded into the ground. His shoulder jarred so heavily it slipped from its joint. His musculature on his left side instantly bruised, marking out the places were rubble and rock drew blood.

The monster smashed and stomped aside the falling earth, and snorted through odious nostrils over its victory. Brief as it would be, for a moment, ‘Rhinosaurus’ and Hsa punched the air, bellowed with trumpet like lungs, and revelled in their fight against their long standing lack of self-confidence.

“Let me…rephrase,” Leopold spat. He opened his eyes, closed by the impact, and the sycophantic rush of pain that sparked his senses and ignited a whirlwind of ecstasy. He rolled over, slowly, and stared at the youth. He ignored the rocky bulwark of his pet, realising the puppet master through a web of strings.

“Keep talking, and let me keep knocking you down!” Hsa cheered.

Leopold raised an arm, a spidery limb of defiance, and pushed himself to his knees. With a blooded lip, and darkened eyes, he continued to burrow his gaze at the trainer. He rose further, until he was upright once more, and conjured the spear back into his right hand’s grip. He set the tip into the rubble, and leant against it for support.

“-put up a fight for a change,” he continued. He was not trying to suggest Hsa do the same old routine. Sei had told him enough times about the other members of the Ixian Knights to know the kid had pluck.

He wanted to put across, through bruised ribs and heavy, pained breaths, was that only Hsa could re-write history. Only Hsa, and his connection to his strange beasts, could prove Leopold Winchester and the whole world wrong. He gestured for the kid to try again, and this time, he would try to aim. He cocked his spear, unhooked the sword, and held blade in right hand, and quarter staff deftly in right. He remembered his formative years in Salvar's militia. He remembered all the horses, beasts, and bastards he had toppled before the weight of his responsibilities made a man of him. For a brief moment, he wished he was still excited about life as Hsa. He wished he, too, still had something to prove. He spat. He snarled. He snorted.

He was ready to die.

[Chibimon Blue]

“Yes, the attack had a Great Impact!” Hsa announced as if nobody could see the damage done to his foe. It had always been a cardinal rule in the Chibimon world that Chibimon were not to engage in combat with humans unless both were part of a tournament. Chibimon were creatures far too powerful for normal warriors, and as such, a good Chibimon Trainer could theoretically rule the world with a decent team. Hsa never had these thoughts of world domination, but after seeing Rhinosaurus’ blow to Leopold, the boy saw how others could think of it.

“Rhinosaurus, come back! You’ve gained enough experience for this fight!” Hsa pointed his Chibiball at the Jurassic beast, a line of white light billowing forth as the ball opened up and enveloped Rhinosaurus. The creature roared once more as it was sucked into the ball by the light. Hsa smiled, grabbing another ball and throwing it outwards towards Leopold. “Goldbish, get yourself some credit for this, he’s weak!”

Another light appeared, this one forming a much smaller shape on the ground. Due to the previous Chibimon digging up the land around them, the animal splashing around in the dirt could easily be seen by both Hsa and his enemy. A fish with golden scales wiggled back and forth on the land, droplets of water splashing off of the aquatic animal’s body as it ‘gasped’ for air. “That’s right Goldbish, use flop one time and I’ll switch you out!”

The fish listened with all its pathetic heart to its master, flopping off of the ground and towards Leopold’s face. If Goldbish connected, it would not have done much damage to the merchant, other than to his ego. Goldbish was for all intents and purposes one of the most useless Chibimon, but the sheer potential when he transcended was enough to make Hsa throw him into the battles. “You have just a few seconds before my Chibimon finish you for good, Mister! Then, it’s on to the Magus Quartet!”

[Leopold]

“The problem with animals is they often don’t look half as frightening as they really are.” Leopold smirked. He stepped towards the…fish, slowly. He was bruised, bleeding, and belittled. He was not going feel berated by anything that crawled out of the sea. No sir.

Taking his own statement to heart, Leopold began to change. Truth told what Hsa saw form about the merchant was only a shadow of his former self, but a terrifying shadow all the same. Flickers of great wings appeared in the corners of the boy’s eyes, and then exploded into nothingness. The wind, fell and furlong, whipped up black feathers from behind the man’s back. Just like that, as the fish’s tail slapped the merchant square across the beak…no, the cheek, he was back to normal.

“The only thing being finished in this arena,” Leopold sliced down with his sword, missing intentionally, and watched the fish flop back out of harm’s reach. “Will be salted fish and whiskey plum sauce.” By way of exposition, he plucked a wax plum from a shadowy vault, deposited the spear shaft into the space with the same movement, and threw it. It trailed in a lazy arc towards the Chibimon trainer.

Immediately, still red-faced, he fired a shadowy sphere born of Berevar not at the creature at his feet, but at its master. He knew all too well that the puppeteer was deadlier than whatever sharp fangs and feeble parlour tricks the puppet could bring to bear. All the same, the fish had caused more of an injury than the hulking Rhinosaurus, and one Leopold Winchester would not forget in a hurry.

[Chibimon Blue]

Goldbish flailed to and fro on the ground, helpless to defend its loving master as the sphere and plume both made their way towards the trainer. Hsa also saw the projectiles and responded by grabbing a Chibiball in each hand, hitting the button in the middle of each. The Chibiball in his left shot its light to Goldbish, returning the useless aquatic animal to its home. The second released a new creature entirely, a wolf of pure white fur and the sharpest of fangs.

“It’s time MysLight!” Hsa shouted as the canine stood in front of its owner, growling at the coming onslaught. Hsa gripped the fur of his dog tightly as the plume and sphere slammed against an invisible wall. The dog barked, its echo roaring and scarring off several crow-like birds from their hiding spot in the field of flowers. The air around the duo seemed to crack and break, shattering into many glass shards that floated temporarily in the air around the team.

The glass flashed with a blinding white light. Hsa closed his eyes to avoid the flash of MysLight's Mystic Protection ability. “Now MysLight, capitalize with a Bite attack!” The dog instantly obeyed the command of its owner, leaping towards Leopold, barking so rabidly that saliva flew in every direction. Leopold had almost broken a cardinal rule by attempting to hurt his master. MysLight wanted blood.

The dog’s large maw opened as it fell towards the foe, its sharp fangs looking to clamp down on the merchant’s arm. With any luck, the severe bite would be a critical hit, and completely sever the limb from Leopold’s body.

[Leopold]

Leopold’s sword arm dropped to the ground. Against convention, Leopold did not drop along with it. Whilst the merchant caught up with the sorry state of affairs, blood ran, fingers twitched, and eyes glazed. Everything about the last few seconds had to replay several times, just to make sure.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled, through a bloodied grin and gurgled trill.

When Leopold fell forwards without grace, he gave no thought to preserving his life. He was quite dead. As he descended, he caught Hsa’s shocked, but triumphant expression. He hoped; hand on heart seeing that was worth Ruby’s incoming wrath.

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa’s eyes widened as Leopold fell to the ground. MysLight stood over his kill proudly, howling into the air in victory. It took the boy several moments for everything to register in his head. After he finally realized everything that had happened, he jumped into the air, fist clutched tight. He had found victory.

He ran to his Chibimon, wrapping his arms around the arm of the blood stained wolf. Out of all of his creatures, it was the one he had started with that would save the day. No, more than that; this had been a team effort. Rhinosaurus’ strength, Goldbish’s helplessness, and MysLight’s skill were all to thank for the win here. Hs laughed as MysLight began to lick his face.

It looked like he was going to be the absolute greatest, like nobody was before.

[Max Dirks]

No major comments on this one, as I believe you both know how to improve. Individual comments are below. LW is Leopold & CB is Chibimon Blue in the comments.



LeopoldChibimon BlueNotes

Story
5
3
CB: Replace "Hsa" with its anagram "Ash" and this battle would be like reading a fan-fiction with a dinosaur instead of a electric rat. Since creativity is a major factor on Althanas, you've been docked here as well as in other locations due to how similar your battle here was with Pokemon. I've seen Hsa develop a personality & storyline that is far removed from his inspirational roots. I advise you to get back to it.



Setting
5
4



Pacing
4
5



Communication
5
4



5
6
5



Persona
5
4



Mechanics
6
6
LW: I'm actually impressed by how much you've reduced your run-ons. In fact, I caught CB using them more than you. Kudos. Oh, and run-ons are grammatically incorrect in any instance.


Clarity
5
6
LW: You overuse the conjunction "and", leading to little variety in your sentence structure that could be used to control pace & improve the story. Also, your excessive comma use tends to distract from the action you're trying to convey. For example, "As Leopold neared his ‘opponent’, and levelled his spear forwards in a cavalry charge, Hsa called out the all-too-familiar opening move of every well-to-do, battle-hardened Chibimon" could be written without two of those commas. "As Leopold neared his 'opponent' WITH his spear pointed forward in a calvary charge, Hsa called out in the all too familar opening move of every well to do battle hardened Chibimon trainer." My example flows much better simply by changing a conjunction & cutting down on some excess wording.


Technique
6
6



Wildcard
5
3


Total
Total
50/10047/100



Leopold advances to Round Two!
Chibimon Blue is alive in the Loser's Bracket.

Leopold gains 1250 EXP and 50 GP
Chibimon Blue gains 375 EXP 47 GP

[Lye]

Exp & gp added!