You Should Know Not to Metal with Fire

[Flamebird]

Pun totally intended! Closed to MetalDrago.


When life gives you lemons... chuck them at someone else. Because that makes perfect sense.

Not?

Well, that was what Felicity was feeling at least. Her mentor was... changing... at the least. Unintentionally, Felicity was adopting her bad tempered ways - such as letting off steam by walking into that dreaded Citadel in Corone. Felicity tightened her fists, her white wrappings sweaty and wet, as she entered a room.

Inside that room was - well, nothing. It was an empty room. A big room. A cold room. A stone hall, carved out of ancient rocks, was what came before her eyes. Massive pillars of granite held the spacious room together. Through a single side of the grand halls, moonlight shone through archaic stain glass windows.

The room was chillingly cold. From the stone to the air itself, it felt like Salvar in there! For a moment, Felicity pulled her hands up and hugged her arms for a moment. She winced, already hearing her teacher's disapproving response in the back of her mind.

A true warrior does not falter in any weather! Felicity, you have a fiery warmth in you, spread it around! You are not some pathetic weakling... even if you seem like it.

Felicity pulled her arms down, attempting to maintain a straight posture. "Wight. Fiya. Fwames..." A silence spread across the eerie chambers for a moment, then-

*Sling!*

An arming sword was ripped from its sheath, gleaming in the multiple colors cast down through stain glass. It seemed to have cut a wound into thin oxygen; the sound echoing down from Felicity's spot and into the darkness.

Felicity entered a simple posture, ready for combat. It was a posture drilled into her by both books and grueling training sessions. All that training, all this recent frustration with her mentor, was it worth it?

She was about to find out.

[MetalDrago]

“A little girl’s in there? You seriously want me to fight a kid?!” the Dragonian barked at the monk. He just stood there, taking it all in, knowing that the almost demonic being before him couldn’t do anything to him and still be able to use the Citadel afterward. The older being could barely contain his indignation. Fighting a child was beneath a Paladin of his standing, much moreso someone of his advanced age. A growl escaped his lips.

“And why would I agree to this?” he spat.

Eins, aged monk and handler to the Dragonian Paladin, merely rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. There really was no reasoning with the creature when it was unhappy with something that they had done. He just patiently waited for the beast to finally calm down. When it seemed like the worst was over, he walked across the hallway and planted a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“You should fight her. She’s a warrior in her own right. Age never decides who is worth the time and who isn’t. Besides, I will personally guarantee, on my life, that this one is worth your effort,” Eins said as he motioned for the larger being to follow him. Their footsteps echoed down the hallway before and behind them, one the soft patter of soled shoes, the other the rough clanking of metal boots.

The door to the arena opened slowly. Darkness filled the heart of the door, a limitless void with no feeling, no limit. The nothingness it embodied was astronomical, and far beyond the philosophical capabilities of the warrior standing before it. All he knew, all he needed to know was that the doorway into darkness would open up into his new battlefield, a field within which to hunt his new prey.

As he began to walk into the door, he frowned and turned his head over his shoulder.

“If you’re wrong about this, Eins... you will be keeping your guarantee...”

The door slammed shut behind him. He completely lost all of his senses for a pure moment, existing only in his own thoughts before he appeared on the other side of the doorway, in a desolate, uninhibiting room. On the other side stood a young woman, at least a foot shorter than the Dragonian but solid as a brick wall. She was wielding a sword at least as tall as herself, and seemed to have no trouble hefting the giant thing’s weight.

Between the two of them, the air stood still, the heaviness of the situation lying between them both. This was a meeting of warriors, a battle between wielders of the blade no less. A clawed, gauntleted hand came up to the Dragonian’s face and he slicked back his long, silver hair. Without a word, he unsheathed his serrated katana, the Dragon’s Betrayal, and swung it once experimentally. Satisfied that she would do her job for him, he wasted no time.

He swiftly closed the distance between himself and the small woman, swiping with his blade in a long, horizontal slash with enough force to decapitate most people.

I hope you’re as prepared for this as the monks seem to think, child. I won’t be holding back.

[Flamebird]

Felicity was shocked when her opponent showed himself so fast. She had gotten a good look at the man, a silver haired man with odd eyes. he obviously carried himself in a manner. The shock of him suddenly, swiftly, racing up to her did not stifle her resolve though. She pulled her other hand to her hilt and moved her weapon, blocking her opponent's.

The swords screamed in the friction of their own battle, metal unstably rubbing as Felicity looked at her opponent closer. He indeed had odd eyes - and this was saying a lot as Felicity's mentor had two different colored eyes. His expression actually reminded her of her. He looked cold, emotionless. Somewhat a sage in the knowledge of war and its ways. Felicity's own eyes narrowed in understanding - she was dealing with a veteran.

The cold of the room wrapped her body and caused goosebumps to form. They got even larger upon the chill this man sent down her spine. The redhead refused to be moved though. All those beating when training, all those times she was knocked back... the blades were locked for one more second before her opponent pushed her blade aside, winning the lock. Felicity still gripped her weapon though. Yes, she was dealing with a veteran.

This just meant she had the honor of fighting him.

She instantly pulled her sword into a defensive posture, sword pointed up and in front of her body. Felicity pulled out another weapon just like it in a second after. She crossed the swords briefly before pushing an offensive. As much as she was good with a single blade, she was also a good duel-wielder. In a technique passed right down from her own teacher, she threw a series of strikes, one blade immediately followed by another, at him. These strikes were, for now, aimed towards unbalancing him. However, when the timing was right - or if she even got far enough - she would suddenly change tactics towards swinging at his chest.

There was a seriousness on the young girl's face, she was growing up. She did not speak with her usual, confident strides. This entire fight was wordless, even if words proved to be excellent weapons themselves. The only weapons used, by far, were three swords.

[MetalDrago]

MetalDrago felt his sword meet her own, and watched as she expertly maneuvered herself out of the reach of his blade. A smile crossed his lipless mouth as the young woman drew her second blade and began hammering him with a series of strikes. He crossed his own blade with her first swings, and countered the following series of swings with his opposite arm. The clash of metal on metal rung through the stadium, echoing through the chamber as though Armageddon itself were taking place. Intentionally, he left a small opening in his defenses, just big enough for her to cross her blades over his chest.

Without a word, he stepped back and allowed his opponent’s swords to graze lightly across the thick steel plate on his chest. The sound was a divine cacophony. There was no other way to describe it. His ears perked up beneath his hair as that grinding, unnatural noise reverberated through his bones. A grim smile crossed his mouth as he was pushed back by the force of her blow. He increased the distance between them with a backstep of his. Orchid eyes slowly began to brighten to an almost white azure as he reached behind his back and drew the second of his prized weapons, the mythril katana known only to its master as the Shadow of Light.

The beautifully crafted silver blade and rough-hewn black serrated blade of his two swords, seemingly light and darkness incarnate, were held across each other for only a moment as the scaled Dragonian stepped forward. Bright white teeth glowed through dim light of their arena as he rushed forward once again, swords poised at the ready.

With a speed unheard of for one so heavily armored, the larger being swung the swords haphazardly, one down and to the left, the other horizontally, then he brought the first one vertical and swung down, before finally coming from the bottom left toward her center of mass before swiftly changing the direction of the cut to a straight horizontal slash.

Knowledge of a martial style was one thing, but being unpredictable was just as important in battle. If your opponent could recognize your forms, it was better to change it up than it was to keep attempting the same set of attacks and hoping it would work again.

The Dragonian merely hoped that the young woman got the message.