Duel:Cresente v Lita, Match 12 of the 2023 Titans of Winter Tournament
Duelists: Cresente vs Lita Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 20 minute posting limit. Stakes: Standard, autohit delivered by winner with allowance for final reply. Judges: Valrae, Magikrios, and Meri.
Kelay-Cenril Bridge
Meri :: For those who were in attendance of Mathollak versus Jaxson, the seating arrangement for the crowds is very much the same. The floating stands are making one final appearance for today, except there is one minor difference today that could be easily overlooked by those who are not magically inclined. For those intune with such things, they might be able to sense that a magical barrier has been set up to keep the spectators safe from the battle. It might have something to do with the challenge that has been set up for the combatants today. Safety first. Warm food and delicious beverages, including the famous ales that are brewed up in Frostmaw, are available for purchase with plenty of vendors available to the crowd to select from. Meri is present today, on time and sitting in the fancy booth that has been set up for the hosts today. The tattooed blonde is meant to try and help start of the duel today, but she is not going to manage to do it flawlessly. Trying to project her voice, Meri announces, “Fighting today we have the amazing Lita against….” Shoot. Meri should have made notes, written this down in advance. “Croissant.” One of her other hosts should correct her.
Magikrios says to Meri, “It's pronounced qway-sawnt.”
Meri says to Magikrios, “Ew, I don't like it when you try and sound like Kasyr.”
Magikrios says to Meri, “Weewee or whatever he says.”
Lita is here in usual fashion, without frills or fanfare. Dressed in the ever trendy little black sundress and barefoot, with raven curls tamed into a braid over her left shoulder. With a leather bracer on her left forearm styled in the shape of an outstretched crow's wing extending from wrist to elbow, a length of braided leather cord criss-crossed along her right forearm, and an anklet on her right foot, she doesn't appear to be carrying any weapons. Looks can be deceiving. Or maybe she just plans on annoying him to death. At least the scenery is decent, nevermind the bottomless chasm, just don't look down. The blackbird might have a bit of an advantage on the bridge then, depending on the environmental factor. Just no moose. She'd have preferred the dragons, actually. She had no idea who came up with those ideas. Maybe Val pulled a word out of a hat and ran with it. Maybe the mayor just got some bit of fun out of watching the contestants squirm. She'd admire the latter. For now she turns to watch the crowds that continue to hustle to fill the stands in the distance. She'll be glad to see some familiar faces.
Cresente rolls his shoulders with a series of satisfying pops and crunches as he enters the arena. His usual trench coat is caked in blood, and his ebon hair is tied back to keep out of his face. “Took bloody ages to finish that commission in time for tonight.” He grumbles to himself. The avian looks like he could use a drink… or twelve. Tonight, a fine layer of heat-resistant metal scales protect his wings; while they are folded and closed, it is clear that there is something else affixed as well, perhaps additional weapons or another layer of defense. He scans the audience as if looking for something, then withdraws something white from his pocket. “Oi Sob Story.” Cresente calls out, lobbing something up at Khitt. It appears to be a feather carved out of a dragon’s tooth. “Hold onto this for me. I’ll take it back once I’m done beatin’ yer arse.” Cresente looks across the field to his opponent. “I’d make a comment about not going easy on you, but I’m not too keen on being turned into a stuffed tattoo dummy tonight.” Was that an attempt at humor? The avian rolls his shoulders one more time and takes his stance, hands hovering over the holsters of his belt.
Meri :: The duelists have a chance to make their presence known, try and hype the crowd, bask in the cheering (or not) before their spotlight is stolen by their environmental challenge for today. A total of four ballistae constructed from black ice are wheeled out onto the bridge in pairs, with one set coming to a halt on the eastern side of the bridge and the other on the western side. Both ballistae are capable of rotating, giving their operators the freedom to take aim at the duelists regardless of if they are positioned on the bridge or in the sky. For the tournament, your ordinary ballistae were not brought in. To try and up the ante for the duelists, these siege weapons have been enchanted so that time does not need to be wasted reloading. Every time a shot is fired, the slider at the top of the ballista glows a bright shade of blue and when the light dissipates in a matter of mere seconds, another round is in the chamber of the large weapon. The ballistae on the eastern side of the bridge are firing oversized and compacted snowballs, while the pair on the western side of the bridge will be firing ice javelins. Both vampire and avian will have to be on high alert and prepared to dodge mid-fight, unless they want to be skewered or concussed.
Round One
Lita | The blackbird's entrance draws her attention as an afterthought and dark eyes give him a once-over but she's only picturing his smug face after he'd defeated Gore. She'd wanted to punch him then and it had only been by the grace of a pirate that she hadn't reached across the table and done just that. His words do manage to draw a smirk across her features though. "Alright, we'll skip the tattoo part then." She stretches her arms out in front of her and cracks her knuckles. "Besides, I charge good money for those and I don't plan on this being too much work." She offers a playful wink before turning to watch the four pillars of black ice being wheeled out to the ends of the bridge. Great. Well, at least falling to her death might be the least of her worries? She's already making quick calculations in her head. Assuming whomever might be aiming those weapons had a decent aim, or if they were magically inclined, the distance between the pillars and herself, the distance between where she stands and where Cresente is now. She taps her fingertips against her hip, counting seconds, staring up at the ballistae before she turns to face the avian and breaks out into a sprint in his direction. She's banking on a little preternatural speed being quicker than his ability to unfurl his wings, since they looked like they were currently being weight down by something. She doesn't brandish a weapon to aim at him, so maybe she's aiming to just knock him directly off the bridge? Until at the last moment she crouches about two feet in front of him, launching herself upwards into the air and with any luck, over him entirely, into a mid-air somersault that will land bare feet against his back and kicking him into the path of one of those frozen javelins that is screaming through the air behind her. That will leave her having to dodge a giant snowball, sure, and she'll scramble a bit with the landing, trying to find her footing and also dip low enough to get under the snowball, but she'll take the dirt landing over the alternative, rolling onto her stomach to see how the blackbird has faired, pushing herself up to her feet simultaneously in case she might have to dodge more incoming weapons.
Cresente || When Lita approaches, Cresente opts not to defend with his wings, at least not yet. Instead, he opts to face her head on with the double daggers at his hip. He matches the vampire’s crouch and draws them to reveal the reddened blades and the unmistakable scent of blood imbued into them. Try as one might, an avian cannot perfectly match the pace of a vampire, so the swing of his blades in a crossing pattern hit nothing but air. The attack is not a complete loss for him, though, for his back is entirely covered by metal-plated wings, and it takes little more than a flex of musculature to reveal their extra line of defense. The metal scales flip over to reveal each one covered in spikes like a reversed iron maiden, their tips encrusted with the same dried blood that sullies his trenchcoat and has been imbued into his daggers: the blood of a dragon. Cresente feels a pressure on his back as Lita attempts to push him forward, but does not waste time to see how many spikes impaled themselves through the barefoot vampire’s feet, if any. Instead, he allows himself to be pushed forward with what feels like little more than a nudge through the armor and musculature, and into the path of the javelins. Flexing his left wing outwards in a quick motion, one javelin is knocked off-course slightly by the impact of the counter, while the other misses its trajectory by aiming where the duelists had been before. Instead of hitting Cresente directly, it crashes through one of four support beams that are keeping this bridge standing, causing the entirety of the bridge to shake violently and tilt slightly downwards at one angle. While the ballistae reload and the bridge’s tremors come to a settle, the avian turns on his heel and feints a jab to the face with one dagger. As soon as his arm has reached its apex, Cresente pivots on his other foot and swings the other dagger across and upwards, as though to impale the vampire straight through the gut.
Round Two
Lita doesn't notice the dragon's blood until she tries to stand, putting weight on her left foot causing her to limp and since slightly at the sudden surge of pain. She glances down to see a little puddle of blood forming beneath her foot as well. She leans her weight back to her right foot but there isn't time to try and baby the wound, with Cresente thwarting the ice javelins with seeming ease and turning to face her again. Now that she knew the dragon's blood was there, it was all she could smell on him and she wrinkles her nose at it. Not that it was her first run-in with the stuff, by far. She bad habit of putting herself in its trajectory as of late. As one of those javelins crashes into the bridge's support beam, sending their arena pitching slightly, she crouches to one knee to try and keep her balance. She leans back to avoid his first dagger and as he shifts his weight, with his arm moving, she can practically see where his next strike will be aiming. Hand to hand combat is definitely more her preference. If she could keep him on solid ground, she might have a chance. Instead of moving away again from the second dagger, she tucks in closer to the avian's body, one arm reaching upwards around the first arm he'd outstretched, her other arm moving outwards to throw his other hand away from her in a wide arc. Springing upwards at the same time, she brings her left knee up aiming for his stomach and hopefully some squishy part of the avian. But there were still those snowballs to worry about. She tries to count the seconds again in her head. How long had it been since the last one was fired? She can't quite see the ballistae over the avian's shoulders so she tries reaching for one of his daggers with her left hand, uncaring if she grasps part of the blade or not, just trying to distract him long enough to stay in the path of those next shots, even as she'll push away from him again at the last moments to move out of their paths. Still keeping her weight balanced on her right foot and only the toes of her left, her foot already going numb with the feeling of pins and needles. "Cheap trick, birdman." She murmurs, not quite impressed but certainly not offended by it.
Cresente pulls his wings in once the javelins have been deflected, though a good chunk of the spiked armor is missing on the left side, along with a good amount of feathers that are long on their way to the bottom of the abyss. The avian gives a pained grunt as Lita’s knee connects with his abdomen, and counters with a swing of one dagger that Lita does manage to grasp the blade of. He is not about to spend precious time wrestling with her over a simple melee weapon, though, and so he lets go of the handle, allowing the imbued blood to do its work. “No such thing as cheap if this were any other fight.” He quips, holding his now free right hand to his stomach as he jumps back to put a few feet between them. The avian gives both sets of ballistae a consideration before he decides to force a position trade with Lita. Cresente mirrors her bullrush attack from before, using his spiked wings as a battering ram to force her to move out of the way. With little room for movement on either side once his wings are outstretched, the only ways out are over or under the avian. Or, of course, allowing oneself to be impaled on the spikes, which seems the least likely scenario here. Cresente slows once he’s reached the western end of the bridge, close enough that the black ice towers cannot angle downward enough to shoot javelins his way. The avian’s crossing of the bridge is all it takes for the ballistae to have reloaded and fired again. Cresente goes to take a stance, to make another attack, but suddenly teeters, spitting up a bit of blood. It seems that Lita’s kick had more power behind it than he originally anticipated. ‘Blasted vampires and their ill-gotten strength’ echoes somewhere in the back of Cresente’s overtly avian-supremacist mind. It would be a mistake to allow Lita to gain that kind of proximity again. With a giant snowball hurtling towards him, and two javelins headed straight towards Lita at angles that even her fast movements cannot avoid, the avian braces for impact instead of dodging out of the way. He fully intends on catching this oversized and compact snowball with both hands. There is a snapping sound as he takes the snowball head-on in both hands, and with his wings popped forward to aid him. The avian slide backwards several feet as he attempts to keep from being knocked prone by this. Cresente slows to a halt, having just barely stayed inside of the arena, and with the giant snowball obscuring his field of vision. His wings fall inert behind him, having taken the majority of the force for this experiment of an attack. The avian sticks his remaining dagger into the snowball and utters an enchantment, allowing the dragon blood to be released from blade into the new conduit, which turns a deep, dark red. Already, the ballistae have reloaded, and so Cresente kicks the snowball into the air, where it will likely cross paths with the next ice javelins and rain bloodied snow onto the vampiress.
Round Three
Lita is in no hurry to make friends with Cresente's wings as he barrels towards her with those things outstretched. Her foot is still numb, the feeling spreading upwards along her left leg, but at least that meant the pain was less. The pain would be tomorrow's problem. She tests her weight on it, and it feels a bit off, like the limb isn't quite there, but she doesn't topple over. And for now she'll use the lack of feeling to her advantage as she runs to meet Cresente head on, sliding onto her left hip as she ducks betwixt his legs to avoid those menacing wings again as he runs. She pulls herself to her feet and there's no time to focus on what he's doing behind her, not with those javelins barelling towards her. With little time left to dodge out of their way, she instead leaps towards one, extending her body flat over the first one, the cold of it searing its way across her arms and stomach. Turning over the top of it midair, she lifts her left arm to shove the second one away, narrowly avoiding being impaled by it but taking the brunt of the force damage, the impact shoving her sideways and rolling across the bridge, narrowly avoiding sliding clean over the edge and into darkness entirely. She groans as she struggles to her feet again, convinced that the avian is probably already making his way back towards her, so she can't stay down very long. But no, he's fighting with his own snowballs. That leaves her with a few seconds before the next round of javelins are fired off. She draws her left arm across her chest to unravel the length of leather from around her right forearm. One end of it remains attached around her wrist, a four-pronged arrowhead on the other end, about two inches long. Inspired by previous duels and enamored with a certain yo-yo artist, she'd had this little number fashioned just for Cresente in anticipation of his preference for flight during his duels. Since his back is still towards her, she's able to advance a few feet towards him again. The length of cord is a combination of thin leather and metal strands, al woven together and more than likely nearly impossible to cut through. She sets the weapon spinning at her side, gaining momentum and getting longer with each rotation, before finally launching the arrowhead towards him. The cord trails behind it but she's not aiming to impale him, not with that armore he's wearing. Instead she's aimed it so it would wrap itself around the base of his wing where it connects to his back. Once the cord has wrapped itself a few times, secured beneath the ends of those arrowhead points, she yanks hard to tighten it. He's launched a snowball into the air and she's not sure what is in it, but it is definitely not the color of snowand she's in no hurry to find out why. So with the cord in hand, she heads sideways and leaps over the edge of the bridge into seemingly nothing. More than likely, Cresente will either be scrambling to keep purchase on the bridge and she'll be able to loop beneath it entirely to appear on the other side, or he'd take to the air. Either way she'd hopefully miss most of that bloody snowball.
Cresente resists the overwhelming urge to take a knee after having expended so much energy on that suicide mission of an attack. He cannot rest now, not when the vampire is still standing and the battlefield is still rife with dangers. Cresente withdraws his one-handed crossbow from within his trenchcoat, and gives it a brief glimpse to ensure that the right kind of bolts are in the chamber. The avian takes aim, but is forced to cough blood again from his previous injury again, a mistake that may prove fatal as he suddenly screams out in pain from the force of the leather whip coiling around his more damaged left wing. Was he getting too old for this? Before he can reach up to untangle the whip cord, Lita is already dragging him along, forcing him to keep up or risk his wing being ripped off entirely. When the vampire jumps, Crescente draws his shortsword with his right hand, and keeps his crossbow in his left. With a frenzied swing, the avian attempts to sever the cord to no avail. Just what kind of leather was this blasted thing made of? Unable to use his wings with the added weight, he aims a bolt and fires as soon as he sees her ebon curls coming from the opposite side of the bridge, sending a bolt imbued with fire magic her way. As Lita draws closer from her loop, Crescente catches sight of another javelin headed their way. Twisting his body, he drops his sword and grips the whip with his right hand, keeping it taut and lifting it up so that the ice javelin slices clean through. The second it passes between them, Cresente has raised his crossbow and aimed for the other side of the bridge, where half the connectors hang uselessly. He can barely fly, but she can’t fly at all. With that thought in mind, he sends another fiery bolt at the other wooden support beam of the bridge, where it strikes clean and shakes violently to send them both to the bottom of the chasm. “Vampires don’t take fall damage, right?” He asks in that half-arrogant, half-joking tone, though the impact of it is lessened by the clear strain and anguish in his voice of having his wing nearly torn off. With that, he jumps backwards and unloads the armor from his wings, hoping that it will give his crippled wings just enough power to keep him aloft long enough to get back to the cliffs while Lita decides how to handle the bridge falling down.
Final Defense
Lita is always up for a good challenge and Cresente has certainly provided that, at least. She's almost surprised when she makes it to the other side of the bridge, reaching a hand up to pull herself up, half expecting to find the blackbird writhing on the ground. Should have known better. Instead she has to let go of the edge of the bridge to roll sideways across it, still dangling over the edge at the mercy of that leather whip as she avoids that first crossbow bolt. Stupid fire magics. She finds a grip on the bridge again and feels the leather against her right wrist go slack as she pulls herself back to her feet. Standing again, she takes a beat to catch her breath as she shifts her weight back to her right foot. She follows his gaze towards the bridge's support beam, watches as he raises the crossbow. It happens nearly in slow motion. She might have smiled a little. Maybe she should be a little impressed by him, after all. Probably not. There's not enough time for some clever retort, she's already turning on her heel and running for the edge of the bridge. She heard the crossbow fire, the crumble of rock behind her and the ground literally waver beneath her steps. Her right hand fumbles at the leather bracer on her left arm, drawing out the dagger hidden there. She reaches next for the end of the teather whip that Cresente had broken, tying it to the end of the dagger as she ran. This would be one heck of a hail mary. The pillar ahead fires another one of those ice javelins and she doesn't try to dodge it, instead she leaps for it, scrambling along the length of it as best she can, leaping from the end of it as she aims her dagger for the side of the ballistae, to imbed it into the black ice. The blade finds purchase in the structure and she twists her wrist to wrap the cord around her right palm. She crashes against the side of the pillar with a thud, the wind knocked from her lungs with an audible grunt and the sudden harsh pull of her weight tugging her wrist at an unnatural angle. But at least she was alive. Only a few yards up from the ground and only a few seconds from having to learn how to fly. But alive. Groaning against the pain in her right wrist, she pulls herself up and reaches up with her left hand to tug the dagger from the pillar, sliding to the ground and landing ungracefully on her feet, leaning back against the pillar to keep herself upright. She stands slowly, looking back towards Cresente with narrowed eyes.
Winner: Cresente
Auto Hit:
Cresente makes it to the cliff’s edge at about the same time that Lita does, his breaths heavy and ragged from exertion. If Lita’s condition is any indication, then its likely that she is feeling about as worn out as he is. “Bugger, I’ve seen that look before in your kind.” He wheezes, letting his wings fall limp behind him again. Although his perception might be impaired, he suddenly jolts, having sensed movement from Lita towards him. Without thinking, he raises his crossbow again and fires two bolts at her feet, which land squarely on her left ankle to keep her from standing again. Although the fire is not excruciating, it does burn hot enough when it lands to leave two burnt imprints upon her skin that resemble two blackened feathers, one on top of the other. Once her skin has had time to heal, the blackening will likely give way to a less conspicuous color, though the memory of this fight will still remain. The avian drops the crossbow and falls to his knees, the last vestiges of stamina gone. This fight is over.
Lita takes more offense to the bird's use of the words 'your kind' than she does to being shot at with the crossbow. She sucks in a sharp breath at the sting of the firey bolts against her skin. It's a shame Trix's dagger makes her more susceptible to fire damage. She flexes her fingers around the dagger and takes a few limped steps away from him. She doesn't have to look down to know those bolts have left some sort of mark. "Hope we get to meet again in the arena, little blackbird." She drawls with a smile.
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