Duel:Shishi v Scandal, Round 2, 2019 Hero of Freedom Championship
Duelists: Shishi vs Scandal Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 15 minute posting limit. Stakes: Auto-hit to the winner. Judges: Daath, Brynhild, and Magik
Larket’s Youth Sports Center
Following a natural disaster, Larket’s northern wall was rebuilt to expand the city limits around a large grass field and, even further north, a new stone gymnasium. On the fields: Several white lines painted onto the grass here demarcate three identical playing fields that could accommodate a number of different sports. Nets, bleacher seating, and other field accessories are stored against the northern city wall and moved into place when needed. North of that is a track and field ring with 8 lanes for runners. At the north end of the sports complex is the gymnasium that is equipped for indoor athletic activity. The stone structure is built so that the city wall acts as the back of the building. The gym houses one swimming pool (competitive swimming only, no horseplay!) and various smaller playing courts as well as a treasure trove of sporting equipment. Balls of all shapes and sizes, bats, sticks, clubs, boxing gloves. You name it, Larketians likely have access to it here. The inside walls of the gym are decorated with artwork featuring renowned Lithrydelian athletes that hail from The Hard City. Beneath their likenesses are quotes that may or may not actually be attributed to them. All quotes promote patriotism, tough values, and ‘service’, meant to sway the hearts of the Larketian youth through their heroes. Should that happen, the complex conveniently provides a recruitment booth for the Larket Military.
Environmental Challenge
The Larket Academy of Magick has chosen the race track and its central oblong field as the arena for tonight’s duel. Bleachers are arranged around the track and field and vendors hawk snacks, pennants, and foam fingers to the rowdy crowd. Each duelist is given one amulet to wear throughout the fight. Percival explains that the amulet provides them protection from all magical and physical attacks, but makes them very vulnerable to attacks made by specific sports-related weapons provided by the Larket Academy of Magick. Percival gestures towards the racks of sporting equipment that lines the perimeter of the track. The following items have been enchanted to deal a lot of damage to duelists wearing the amulet: 2 discus, 4 dodgeballs, 2 cricket bats, 1 pair of boxing gloves, 2 vaulting poles, and 2 jockstraps armed with 5 bean bag ammunition each (so 10 bean bags, 5 for each jockstrap that can work as a sling). For clarity’s sake: Any attacks made by the duelists without these enchanted sports items will still land and hurt someone wearing the amulet, but not as much as intended. The wearer of the amulet has resistance to any non-sports-weapon attacks. However, the wearer of the amulet is extremely vulnerable to attacks made by the magical sports weapons. A full on throw from an enchanted dodgeball could easily break a rib.
Optional Introduction
Shishi shows up about 20 minutes before he is meant to begin his fight against Scandal, and is ushered into a waiting area for the competitors. He's wearing a near identical outfit to the one he was in for his previous bout, but those who were present for that one will know that this has to be a new white shirt, because the vampire tore a few holes in the old one to give himself extra limbs against Jinfeng... Autographs are signed, hands are high-fived, and all the rest of the duties of the two time Titan are performed on his way into the venue...
Scandal sat at the corner of the field. Like a black scaled brooding hill. Scandal stood at nearly 100' tall and nearly twice that in length not including tail. It hadn't been his plan, but like all the times in the past, he had to work with it, and also he had been forced to hand his talisman to a friend before he took his place, mainly because he didn't think it was fair to change size randomly during a fight. Built like a fortified fortress, and but having gone with the slim scales approach, he was trying to prevent any sharp objects today. Because he assumed his combatant would rely more on magic. Which he realized, he just have to work with. He gave a huff, which sounded like thunder. But also a sigh.
Duel
Shishi tilts his head back and forth, cracking his neck once or twice as Scandal’s large form rumbles into position opposite him. Vampire’s don’t need to breathe, but who wouldn’t let out a huge exhale when matched up against something larger than 99 percent of buildings in Lithrydel? As he lets out that, unnecessary, exasperated breath his eyes go through their accursed color change from oceanic blue, to faintly glowing red. He holds onto the amulet he was given, looks at it, then looks at Scandal, and then back to the amulet. Yes, this will definitely help against this opponent, he thinks to himself as he shoves the magical item into his pocket to keep it on his person and its effects active. Shadows around the track sway unnaturally in reaction to the assassin’s unique curse, as if they were being blown by the dragon’s breath that washed across the field. The assassin looks at a rack of sporting equipment, walks over, picks up a cricket bat, practices a swing, and tosses a pair of boxing gloves, laces tied together, over the back of his neck so that they drape over his shoulders. With that he breaks into a light jog, that turns into a run, that turns into a sprint, that turns into a vampiric athleticism fueled dash. He’s got the handle of the bat held in both hands as he moves impossibly fast towards Scandal like some deranged child playing ‘pretend dragon slayer’ in his backyard. But this is real life and the deranged assassin takes a left handed baseball swing at Scandals draconic front kneecap after a rather large hop that gets him in range with the towering monster’s joint...
Scandal grumbled to himself as he realized just how stupid being a fisherman’s wharf actually was when he ought to have done something about his size before he came. “This is what I get for being such a nice guy, forgetfulness.” He was neither fazed by the shadows that were being controlled obviously by the vampire, he assumed combatants would use magic, it was almost impossible to find someone who went all physical these days. Scandal picked his choice of sporting goods, dodgeballs, or rather spitballs in his case scooping them in his mouth he rolled them around as his opponent moved. Scandal was a fast dragon, even in large form, but didn’t make immune to the tiny vampire by comparison, whose speed was aided by his short stature, taking aim for the vampire was intending to hit would have been the best move, preparing to meet the vampire with his left foreclaw, intent to whack the opponent from his target. If he succeed. But thats always an if, if he dodge, he would have exhaled aiming the dodge ball for the vampire targeting it with intense force.
Shishi gets knocked down out of the air by the dragon claw, sending him bouncing onto the ground before a quick roll and extension of his body pushes the vampire back onto his feet. The amulet works, because it seems the assassin wasn’t hurt nearly as much as the last time a dragon thwacked him. Still holding the cricket bat he turns and glares a vibrant red glare back at Scandal just in time to take a dodgeball directly to the chest. The classic dodgeball sound is there, the harmlessness of the audio starkly contrasting with the violence of the impact that sends Shishi flying straight backwards an absurd ten meters. He looks backwards as he’s moving to spot his landing and manages to skid to a halt, only having to drop to one knee momentarily to stop his momentum. That hurt, but there’s no time to dwell on the pain as another red ball whizzes past his head to the right. He expertly side steps the next playground projectile and instantly moves into a batting stance, mean mugging the dragon throwing bean balls his way. Shishi steps backwards one step and then unleashes a vicious uppercut swing that connects sweetly with the incoming dodgeball and sends it flying right back at Scandal’s face with wicked velocity. He continues this batting practice for the next couple of balls, sending each back at Scandal with greater speed than what they came at him with. Then the last spitball Scandal sent out looks like a curveball, and Shishi swings and misses, catching the thing in the ankle, causing him to crumble to the ground in pain…
Scandal winced as the pain from the returning balls struck him first in the shoulder, and then one straight down the throat. He gagged causing one of the balls go into a curve, and unintentional move, but one that seemed to score nonetheless. His voice raspy from having a ball literally go down the wrong tube. “Oh, thats gonna hurt in the morning.” He coughed causing blood to pool in his mouth, obviously it must of torn open an old would lana had put in from the past. The ball in his court...er mouth, soaked with dragon, blood he thinks not twice as he tries with pain in his throat and shoulder to launch the ball at the downed vampire. Then attempts to move forward, his shoulder blade in his right shoulder taking the heat of the pain. He growls in anger. Taking a menacing step forward, and bending his tail over his body and using it like a whip, should the vampire attempt to escape the ball.
Shishi narrows his eyes from his spot on the ground and starts throwing on the boxing gloves after watching the aftermath of his home run swings. -Dragons blood is bad for vampires!- That next dodgeball is soaked in the stuff and Shishi absolutely cannot afford to get hit with it. The gloves are on and he raises a hand, seemingly helplessly, up towards the incoming red sphere, but he’s not helpless, he has his own shadow on his side. Up from underneath the assassin, black, wispy darkness rises up like vapor to stand in front of him, and then instantaneously takes the solid form of a black wall, lined with dark pins. The dodgeball impacts violently and is pierced, sticking to the shadowy fortification and deflating with a burst of air. The darkness dissipates as quickly as it came and Shishi comes sprinting out from behind it, fists raised. However, he’s failed to notice that the amulet he dropped into his pocket fell out when that last dodgeball knocked him head over heels. So when he sees that tail coming, he’s not nearly as afraid of it as he should be, and as it comes swinging down at him, he raises his arms up like a boxer about to absorb a punch. Bad, bad idea. His right wrist shatters and he’s knocked backwards yet again, this time falling to the ground flat on his face. He howls in pain and bares his fangs back at Scandal. Before leaping to his feet and wildly charging again. His expression is feral as he dodges and subsequent tail lashing and leaps into an uppercutting punch with his one unbroken arm, rage and impossible vampiric strength is behind this devastating punch that is meant to knock Scandal’s block off and end this fight here and now thanks to the added power the gloves should provide…
Scandal finds some success, not in the ball, but the tail like he thought stood a better chance of success. Namely often you can never trust what you don’t already know, and you ought to know yourself before, you know anything else. But even still the vampire was coming the dodgeball was an impact, and gone, he had none more in his mouth, he didn’t dare risk using fire breath, not with that throat injury, but their had been rules for how high you could go, and even at his size with a hurt shoulder, he didn’t like stand a chance to jump, but what if he used his tail, like a lever, using his body like giant paddled like a shishi slapper. Yes that would work, the vampire was almost upon him, this was his chance, he lifted himself on his back paws, pulling back to try to evade the vampires uppercut, his tail coming up to the border line but not crossing it. His body angling itself preparing for the slam, his shoulder immensely in pain, so he holds his arms in tucking them in, and realizes he might not get to do much after this, as he was going to face plant. And then with a fall he falls forward whatever impact done would be tremendous, and very likely ending up having him paying to repair the damage to the field, but hey thats what that diamond was for right, right after the ball right? Right?
Shishi has figured out by now that he must have lost the talisman, so when he’s left hanging in the air after his flying punch he has only those accursed shadows to rely on. Thankfully Scandal is very close by and casting an apartment building amount of shade on the field. Practically all of that darkness comes rising up, ridiculously fast, outpacing the tail of the monster, and slams into The Blue Demon from below, forcefully pushing up farther into the air. It would have been nice to be holding onto the amulet still to mitigate the damage the shadows do with their dark shove, but even without it, this is a great tradeoff when compared with catching another tailwhip. Scandal slams into the ground and Shishi follows, falling like a feather, drifting down in a thick veil of shadow that just sent him up so high...
Winner: Shishi
Auto-hit Stake
Shishi slowly drifts to the ground while some of the shadows carrying him break away and swarm towards the racks of sporting equipment. They start snatching up javelins and discuses, and pulling back jock straps loaded with bean bags and proceed to unleash a hail of projectiles towards the massive dragon. The sharp stuff rains down and pierces scaly hide, some pinning the tip of the tail to the soft field ground, while the blunt stuff, usually not able to do anything to a creature of this size and resilience, causes dents and cracks up and down the monster, likely bruising the softer tissue beneath. Shishi lands and just watches the sporty onslaught, his right arm hanging limply at his side...