Duel:Lionel v Kreekitaka - Finals of the Acolytes of War Tournament 2016

Duelists: Lionel vs. Kreekitaka
Location: Strange Shipwreck
Judges: Pilar, Skylei, Iengris
Duel: 5 posts each, with final defense. 15 minute posting limit. Final round of 2016 Acolytes of War.

An old ferry, The Seref, has washed up on the shore, forcing Harold to relocate his thriving business. The shipwreck's come to a rest still half-submerged in the water, while the rest of her has run aground and lies wedged between the ever-shifting sand and the craggy rocks. The bowsprit of the skeleton ship has broken in half, and her hull has visibly cracked and split open; yet these are not the sole signs of destruction. The bilge is missing, great sections of its bottommost deck simply torn away to reveal the seafloor below. Inside the wreckage, there are signs of the lives once lived here: a seaweed covered sextant, a telescope rusted and tarnished beyond repair, crates of cargo that have rusted shut, a mariner’s compass, and nautical maps that have been stripped of all color and information tucked away in a watertight cabinet. The aft section of the ship, where the water rushes over the deck during each high tide, holds the perpetually-submerged captain's cabin and crew quarters. As tradition and even vague maritime law dictates, the captain went down with the ship, and his skeleton remains behind even to this day. The once extravagant window of his cabin has been shattered, allowing the water to pour in and fill the space. The wreck appears well-preserved despite the apparent carnage it suffered, as though no one has yet dared to investigate for fear of offending the pervading sense of otherworldliness that clings to the ship like the mist that creeps upon the shore from the sea just before a storm.

Fight!

As the waves crashed around and below our pair of fighters, the camera panning slowly upward from the shore to the upper deck of the Seref, Kreekitaka bowed lightly to his opponent with a clench of his facial crushers and a shiver of excitement running visibly up and down his paddles. This was going to be a battle worth celebrating for a long time to come, regardless of the victor. “May we each finDAH! honor here,” he said, and then swirled his cape to the side—rather than allowing it to detach as he had in previous battles. This time, the cape itself was covering the arm that usually held a shield, somewhat like a bullfighter might wear. There wasn't a shield on his arm this time either, but the rest of his equipment was present—twin water tanks, each with two throwing-drills in their holsters mounted to the sashes that held the tanks to his chest. A holster on his back that held his favorite weapon—the jawblade, a long, heavy shaft of bone with shark teeth grafted to the leading edge, reinforced and weighted with metal. Yet, curiously, none of these weapons leaped into his claws. Instead, Kreekitaka began the battle by turning sideways, raising his leading claw and snapping it open, then charging—much like a smaller crab might do. He feinted forward and back a couple of times to try and keep his opponent off-guard as he approached, then suddenly snapped the arm inside the cape up, flaring the garment off to the side at the same time as he moved in for the final gap-closing. The idea was simple—use the sudden motion to get Lionel to dodge right into his leading claw, which was primed to clamp down on an arm or a leg, should such an appendage move into his reach.

Lionel stance seems off-kilter here at the bow of a half-sunken ship; he's leaning forward, perhaps the result of a boat not quite horizontal with the sand and sea beneath its tattered hull. The man taps a booted left foot against a crate leaning somewhat sideways and stares across the craft to look upon his crustacean foe. He's dressed in simple blacks, a loose-fitting long-sleeved dress shirt disguises him as wholly unprepared for a life-or-death struggle. Well-kept mithril chainmail fits snugly beneath this shirt, however, and runs down his hips and legs beneath runner's slacks. Still standing strangely, he lifts two blades from their placement at his back and slides steel against steel in an ear-piercing sound. "Honor," the Catalian repeats, nodding amicably despite his form. Lionel remains stoic as Kreekitaka motions; in fact, his eyes do not even seem to register the shifts and pivots. Still he stands, as Uyeer rushes up cargo and through crevasse, each time Kreekitaka alters angle, Lionel merely stays his hands, his swords held to a protective "x" which swooshes through chilled air and crosses anew in a downward slope to catch his rival's incoming claw with precision. It's not enough to escape the full brunt of the strike – Lionel's lack of momentum means he takes the far side of a would-be body slam as at last he moves – but move he does, swiftly and effortlessly, like a dancer to the Uyeer's right, then like a lancer as he vaults from a broken box up to the top of a semi-sturdy roof above the stairway to the hold. Now he's poised, some meters above the crab, and he leans at the right knee and swings one hand over that knee. Almost as if out of ether, a combat knife latches to the hilt of his first sword, then at the tap of his thumb it shoots off from the blade – a kind of "gun blade" if you will – and its target is Kreekitaka's head. Even as it flies through the night, Lionel is right behind it, seeking to descend upon the creature with his blades like pincers to the mandible.

Kreekitaka was tracking Lionel as he moved, his body rotating to face the man who was now behind and above him. The arm beneath his cape reached up to the clasp at last as his opponent got a bit of distance, and he allowed the garment to fall—right before snapping his claw shut before it could leave his reach and catching the roll of fabric. One more, he swirls the cape, though this time it's both an offensive and defensive measure. Not -quite- quick enough to catch the knife, the weapon was only half-deflected and found itself caught in a very irritating position between two of his paddles. Almost digging into a gill slit, and he feared that if he didn't remove it soon, it might, but for now, he was hoping that the swish of fabric would catch the projectile Lionel, a twist of his claw attempting to wrap the man up in the cape and at least catch his swords. The motion had another purpose, besides—to hide the claw that went for his jawblade. Hauling the weapon out of its holster and raising it high, Kree followed through on his swing of the cape by continuing to shift his body and bring the jawblade down towards the man in a colossal overhead swing, beginning before the cape-arm had even finished moving. Blunt, metallic-side forward, as he had no intention of ripping the cape to shreds before it would be useful.

Lionel has lunged into wars untold – but never has he ever leapt into fabric. Cape catches wind like a sail above a fallen vessel and he's held at bay from his intended prey; quick thinking keeps most of the man's body from getting wrapped up in this folly, but at the cost of his swords needing helter skelter slices to tear the cape into ribbons even as he falls gracelessly to the wooden planks beneath his feet. It is with this alacrity that Lionel might dispel Kreekitaka's pending scheme, but it won't save him from a terrible end if the jawblade's braver assault goes unnoticed. With pieces of cloth all around him like feathers, the hero straightens his back and hangs his swords high above his head as he collapses to one knee and then rises sharply, swerving backward in the rising. Even as he evades the Uyeer, the jawblade's heft and size mean he still must block – and in blocking, one of his swords shatters to the damp floorboards, useless. It strains his right arm, too, and a dull throb means a painful grunt. Lionel's eyes do not change. He hastily lifts the hilt of his broken blade such that it balances upon his boot and then he kicks it forth into a spiral. It veers for Kreekitaka's crustacean left eye, but Lionel himself strafes to the side, only to then shove off dilapidated railing with hopes to lodge his functional sword into any soft spot he might find on the being's backside.

Kreekitaka flared his facial crushers as the sword rushed towards his face, and he managed to save his eye by sacrificing one of those. No, it wasn't cut clean off, but the carapace there was weaker and he found half of his prehensile moustache impaled. That part promptly went limp, the blade stuck inside it. Dropping the now-useless cape, Kree turned again to face his opponent—though he wasn't quite fast enough to get a good angle with his claw as Lionel flew towards him, and instead lashed out with his manipulator tentacles—five small tendrils which shot out of the center of his claw to try and wrap around the man's ankle or wrist. Regardless of whether he found himself with a solid grip on his opponent or not, there was suddenly a blade in his torso, caught in the gap between two segments. Kreekitaka hissed loudly in pain—and then suddenly the crustacean flexed his body slightly and locked the blade down with his carapace. Even if Lionel were to have evaded the tentacles the first time, should he hold onto his blade he might find that he'd be far too close to Kree for comfort for just a little too long. Meanwhile, below their feet, the rotten timbers of the deck were starting to creak very ominously. Between Lionel's launching himself off of the scenery and the crabman's weight and downward blow, the ship was beginning to tire of having them up on top...

Lionel wields his single sword one-handedly and twirls it indelicately in an effort to deflect as many of the Uyeer's tendrils as possible in a too-slim margin of time. His right arm, still numb from the blow that shattered his first sword, raises defensively to shield the man's heads from tentacular imprisonment. It's enough to at least postpone the arrival of two of Kreekitaka's manipulators, and Lionel's weapon slices clean through another, but two more yet seek to grab, and they both strike true, one to his right arm's wrist and another which buffets him in the chest when he angles slightly westbound to avoid his other hand's capture. All this is meaningless next to the greatest source of the hero's current woe: the creature's carapace has clamped down upon his blade and he's now held to suit his opponent's needs. Cursing a guttural curse, arm outstretched to maintain a grip on his sword while Kreekitaka's sole successful tentacle clings to the other, he shifts all his strength into the tentacled wrist, prying against considerable force to loose a knife by its tip from his breast pocket. The force continues to pound at him, his body beginning to strain under what may, if left unchecked, verily pull him apart. Yet below, the planks buckle further, and both battlers abruptly crash down to the cargo hold five meters beneath death. In falling, the Catalian's carapace-caught sword catches the edge of an old sailor's rope which joins them in the plummet. It's enough to purchase scant seconds for Lionel even as his slacks fray at the knees and blood jettisons from quick-bruising thighs; against fate, he keeps his poise despite the piercing pain, cuts into the tendrils at his chest and his arm, and throws himself at that coincidental rope, tugging it around his hilt to loose his weapon desperately from the crab. Gravity compels him to slide across the wrecked ground, but his rope is tossed with his free pain-pulsing hand to wrap around the Uyeer's form like a lasso. Flicking the knife to Kreekitaka's eye – what is it with the eyes, anyway? -- Lionel continues to run wayward, perhaps dangling his opponent along like a horse in so doing...

Kreekitaka had very sensitive manipulators and losing one entirely hurt like very little else he'd ever felt before. Pulling at Lionel, the rest of his manipulators going in to try and grab at him as well, he was robbed of the golden opportunity he had when the floorboards broke beneath them and the pair fell. This was, in fact, one of the luckiest five-meter falls in five-meter fall history. That rope slowing Lionel's sword slowed him, since he was hanging onto it. And even though it did inevitably come free, he wasn't shattered when he hit the floor. In fact, his arms and legs were still in fairly decent condition, all considering. Slowly climbing back to his feet, Kree was just a little too slow to deflect the rope. However, the question became whether Lionel was prepared to drag around almost nine hundred pounds of unwilling carapace and bone. This time his knife found its mark, its edge grazing one of his eyes and inciting a roar of absolute rage. He'd had his facial crushers marred, his tendrils slashed and now his eye was wounded. Lowering his body, gathering his limbs beneath him, Kree bull-rushed right after Lionel, grabbing the rope with his own claws as best he could. This wreck was half-sunken, he knew from seeing it as they approached, and now they were in the lower levels. Kreekitaka was a creature of the water. Lionel was not. If he could chase the man towards the watery parts of this ship—possibly even drag him in with the rope—then he could ditch his water tanks and show his real strength.

Lionel is less willing to drag around almost nine hundred pounds of unwilling carapace and bone than he'd initially assessed; there is no pull even in these spirit-blessed arms that will make such a feat happen here or on any other battlefield. It's a fool's errand, but a handy tumbler stopgap and a sufficient distraction nevertheless; the failed quest obscures Lionel's full-bodied sidewinder leap behind ten crates stacked high despite their poor condition. The Catalian's evasive maneuver pivots him like a human corkscrew behind the broken-down containers – he is tapping now into championship abilities he'll need to harness to the fullest if he should survive the onslaught of an enranged Uyeer. Still he clings to this damnable rope, like a tether of his own making to the hellish combat conditions awaiting him beneath the waves if he should falter, and even in his partial escape there's no hope for the man to avoid the rest of the rush given Kreekitaka's considerable size. Ten crates go flying; zero crates return. A mess of wood and pottery crashes down hard on both competitors, even as Lionel O'Connor's left side from his hip to his stomach tastes enough injury to send shockwaves of purple and pink bruises. Mithril does its job, holding back what it can and preventing laceration, but with the breath knocked out of him it's all the hero can do to carry that rope as he moves with haste to the creature's back, hoping momentum is on his side what with the end of Kreekitaka's bullish blitz. His legs are bloodied and his bones are begging him not to move so fast, but he tosses the rope around the space between the crab's chest and cranium with enough thrust that it might wrap and coil and choke. With both hands free once more, he wields his bent and battered sword like a bat, swallows hard against the agony in his thighs as he kneels, and then he leaps in an effort to hold onto Kreekitaka by his aft and skewer his sword into the enemy.

Kreekitaka suddenly found himself being ridden like the bull he'd just emulated. Rope wrapped around his head and neck, and he was saved this time by the fact that he gathered his oxygen not from air, but from water—and that his gill slits ran down his back. As the Catalian swung himself up on top of Kree, the crabman snapped his paddles down against his sides, reached back with his elbows and locked Lionel onto him as if he were giving the man a piggyback ride—and then leaned down and charged toward the water, attempting to go through a low doorway or something on the way and interrupt Lionel's sword-thrust. Then, hopefully carrying his opponent on his back, crashing into a more flooded room of the ship, he tucked his legs underneath him and plunged into the water, then rolled like a crocodile to try and bludgeon the man against the rocky seabottom—perhaps multiple times. He let up with his elbows at one of these rolls, releasing the man while he was underneath him, and drifted a little towards the surface, paddles flaring up, arms at the ready, jawblade still firmly locked into his claw. The idea was to position himself between his opponent and the air—while not in any way wanting Lionel to drown, this way he'd be able to tell where the next attack would come from.

Lionel is locked down hard upon the rough carapace he's latched. His sword is held at bay and he's being taken for a spin as loose planks catch and ricochet over the both of them, and he screams a defiant scream and lets go of his blade with one hand to pull forth his very last trick – an elvish ball of compressed smoke designed to mask the user's whereabouts for a limited period of time. On and on he rides, Kreekitaka's frenzied pace threatening to bring them both underwater; Lionel flicks what's left of his mangled thumb to pop the cap on the smoke and watches as it sends a fine misty overlay throughout the ship in short enough order to have had a dwarven touch in its engineering. Whether or not this benefits his cause, the Catalian will remain in place as they dive into the watery abyss, stabbing and jabbing with all remaining effort into one of those paddles to concentrate his counterattack and apply pressure enough to grant some measure of freedom. It's barely sufficient to save him from the worst possible angles as he's hoisted like a fish into the seafloor, but it's a boon to let his back take the damage, his head tilted forward to avoid deadly concussion. Just then, he's released entirely – instinct dictates that he swims to the surface posthaste, but training prompts him to a more gradual rise as he strokes a half-lap wayward of the Uyeer. His whole body now surges in protest but his face appears above ocean and he winces to estimate Kreekitaka's precise coordinates. "One more pass," he mumbles, and he lifts both arms into the air – both clinging to the hilt of his blade – and he grimaces as his legs kick haphazardly into the water, rocketing him in that trademark corkscrew manner up like a prancing dolphin and down into the sea. He's upside-down, moving like a dragoon's halberd to spear the crab like an expert wrangler as he plunges back into the freezing evening sea.

Kreekitaka watched as Lionel swam a little ways away—that was smart, he clenched his one good facial crusher in appreciation—and propelled himself a little lower, intending to finish this with an attack from below. His paddles rippled, his heavy water tanks fell away, he twisted his jawblade around, putting the toothed side forward—and then suddenly his opponent kicked upwards out of the water and launched himself downward—as if he were making himself into a throwing-drill. Kreekitaka managed to be just low enough to avoid having his body speared through immediately and he performed one more of those death-rolls, bringing his jawblade up to try and parry the blow. A moment too slow and he'd be speared through again and perhaps knocked back against the seafloor with the momentum, but should it succeed, he'd have more than enough momentum of his own to follow through with one last punch...

Winner: Kreekitaka! Autohit victory post:

Kreekitaka managed to catch the blade between the teeth of his jawblade and yanked down on it to disarm his opponent at the same moment as his free claw swung around in a haymaker intended to knock whatever air was left in Lionel's lungs right out of it. Such a blow, however, in such a place as this, could be lethal if not attended to immediately, and Kree's claw snapped open and latched onto the man's torso. With a flick of wounded paddles, body aching in more places than he cared to admit, Kree holstered his jawblade and swam to the surface, catching Lionel in a bear hug as he dragged both of them up onto a dryer part of the ship. With a little rippling of his paddles and a respectful clench of his facial crushers, he bopped the man on the head almost playfully and then gave him a shove to push him over. “I'm gooDAH! if you are.”