WAOA Arena

[Chungus]

As the new arrival appeared, Laminus caught his cane, and cocked his head towards the woman. "Ah! " Laminus answered, although still spoke in Latin, as his charm was still turned off. He would continue to speak such, flicking the charm half way through. "--And that's when I decided to add slug slime." He finally answered in a way the woman would understand. Although "understand" was to be taken lightly, as it was obvious he was talking about something completely different then the woman was asking about. It wasn't until some off ten seconds later that he, as a clear after thought, decided to add, "Oh, and you've been brought to this arena here, because I don't know."

Phyros stared at Laminus incredulously as he rattled on, and would've interrupted him to give a more sensible answer, only refraining from it, knowing the woman probably wouldn't understand him.

 

[Zepherus14]

[color=00c0c0]"Slug... slime..?"[/color] The woman repeated, not looking very happy about Laminus giving her quirky information. She was about to ask Laminus again what was going on as he beat her to it, her wings buzzed slightly behind her back and her grip tightened slightly as she listened. [color=00c0c0]"Oh ho ho, you are not seriously expecting me to believe that. What kind of fool would take an answer like that, so keep talking! Who are you and who do you work for?"[/color] She ordered him.

[color=00c0c0]'This is damn embarrassing, when I get back to Azmot I won't here the end of this.'[/color] She thought as grit her teeth, her lips pulling a bit farther than one would think they should.

 

[Chungus]

Laminus looked to the woman with a cocked eyebrow, staring at her with a puzzled expression for a moment, then shrugging. "Well, you go on believing what you want to believe, doesn't really matter to me. But, ah who wants to talk about that old news, anyway. Terribly dull, it is. Es-pecially when you've gone through the motions already." As the woman curled up her lip, it going the way it did, Laminus leaned forward slightly, then hummed to himself, and turned around, poking Phyros with his case. "Are you about done yet?! Cats spend less time licking themselves then you do!"

After being poked a few times, Phyros caught the tip of the cane in his beak, showing it to the side as he jerked his head. [color=FF3300][/color] he answered, his mid-tenor-ranged voice eeriely ringing out without him moving his beak. Phyros licked the last bit of blood from his feathers, when the arena announcer spoke.

Fighters have entered the arena! Jinzi Rolmer will be fighting Phyros and Laminus!​

Phyros looked up to the ceiling, ruffling his feathers in bemusement. [color=FF3300][/color]

Contestants, commence battle!​

With that, the arena changed; Becoming the ruins of what looked to be a stronghold, half crumbled,and largely overtaken by nature. Large white trees sprouted from the walls, vast networks of thick roots weaved through the masonry. Few bits of partially intact columns and piles of debris were scattered around the dirt floor. Outside of the ruins, was an endless grassy field. The full moon shone down onto the courtyard, providing illumination the night.

Spoiler: Stage:

Laminus uttered a soft snicker, and turned into a cloud of cohesive fog. Phyros, meanwhile, clacked his beak, then had a three-metre long shadow-y tendril sprout from the shadow cast by the woman, now identifiable as Jinzi. The tendril lashed out at Jinzi, aimed for the artery running through her inner thigh. If it hit, the tendril would leave a 5cm deep gash. Hit or miss, the tendril would slink back into the shadow that spawned it as quickly as it came, after lashing out.

 

[Zepherus14]

Both Laminus and Phyros would be able to tell Jinzi had not been expecting the raven to say anything, her mouth agape as she took a step or two back. The announcer was next to catch her attention, her head tilting down somewhat as she seemed to be listening to it. [color=00c0c0]'So they do know who I am!'[/color] She scowled, now thinking it was probably a good idea just to shoot the two and get things over with.

That is until the arena came to life, at which point Jinzi launched herself into the air with remarkable amounts of acceleration. Although she didn't say anything, it was clear she wasn't entirely convinced if she was dreaming or not. She'd be well out of the tentacles range far before the transformation was even done. [color=00c0c0]"Azmot, can you hear me? Hey!?"[/color] She seemed to call out to no one. After a brief pause, Jinzi groaned before letting out deep breath and smiling rather wildly. [color=00c0c0]"Fine! You want to dance buzzard, let's dance!"[/color] She announced to Phyros as she fired off one shot each from her pistols, one aiming for the retreating tentacle, and the other aiming directly for Phyros' skull.

 

[Chungus]

As Jinzi shot up into the sky, Phyros looked up to her, tracking her movements with his eyes, while Laminus blew a whistle. "Well, isn't she a quickie." he remarked, taking pause to snicker at his innuendo, before adding, "so you go deal with that, and I'll be monitoring the situation! Closely! From cover." With that, Laminus slinked towards the wall, his foggy self slipping through the cracks and gaps in the wall.

As Laminus spoke, the bullet Jinzi fired at the tendril only made the tendril flick around more, then retreating back into the shadow. The shot fired at Phyros did connect, striking him on top of the head, at a bit of an angle. The bullet went through his feather and breaking the skin, but nothing else. Shaking his head, the bullet was moved, and fall down besides Phyros' feet.

While he had gotten lucky that the bullet hit his hard bone, Phyros didn't want a repeat of his fight with Maya, repeatedly getting shot. To that end, Phyros spread his wings while looking to the sky. Soon after this, a unnatural fog manifested over the ruins, and beyond into the fields, thinning out, there. The fog was thick enough that inside it, one couldn't see one's fingernails if extending an arm out in front of them, and the temperature inside the fog bank was lowered by 3°C. When the fog was summoned, Phyros fixed his eyes on Jinzi again, being able to see her through it perfectly well. He waited to see what she would do next, while walking around.
Although he left rather deep footprints in the soil, Phyros' movement would be silent.

After slinking into the ruins, Laminus turned physical again, and for a moment thought on what to do. As the fog rose, he got an idea, and brought the flute to his mouth, playing a sharp 8-note long melody, that covered Phyros' talons in weightless pieces of rock that moulded perfectly around them.

Spoiler: Battluh Moosac:

 

[Zepherus14]

[color=00c0c0]'You can't be serious!'[/color] She was stunned as she didn't see the bird flop down from the gun shot, bringing both of her guns up to look at them. [color=00c0c0]"That's not possible."[/color] She angrily stated to herself, feeling like someone must have messed with her guns without her knowing.

She didn't have much time to consider this however as Phyros generated the fog, making her instantly start climbing in altitude to stay out of the thick of it. As she ascended, Jinzi turned one pistol skywards and another one down to the ground. The upward one was to check to see if the ceiling was still there before she bumped it, expecting the ceiling to within several meters of where she was. While the lowered one was more aimed waiting for Phyros. She wouldn't remain in one spot exactly but she did orbit around a relative area as she started to estimate where the things around her would be.

Jinzi's head turned a bit to the point where she was looking away from where Laminus was, although she continued to move around above the fog. [color=00c0c0]"What was that?"[/color] She mumbled to herself as she noticed the sound of the flute among the silent night.

 

[Chungus]

As the ceiling of the arena had vanished, Jinzi could go on for a long time, and never hit a thing.

Seeing Jinzi stay up in the sky, Phyros stopping moving around, standing still, while still looking up to Jinzi. From his own shadow, Phyros had two 20cm-long leeches made of shadow rise up. The two leeches swirled around Phyros for a moment, making soft hissing noises as the did, then shot out towards Jinzi, at nearly the speed of a bullet, although the size might make them a little easier to spot, fast as they moved. The shadow leeches has minor homing capabilities to them, allowing them to steer a little, but not make sharp turns, or turn around.

The leeches would seek their the nearest bit of exposed flesh of their directed target, and if they could, latch on to the area with their mouth that was 4cm in diameter. They would then drill their mouth-bits into the flesh, and drain as much blood as they could over the course of four seconds, with a draining rate of 250 millilitres per second, each.
As this was the attack had an element of its own, Laminus' earth endowment didn't go into affect.

After playing his melody, Laminus stayed where he was, the fog inhibiting his sight as much as it did anyone who wasn't Phyros.

 

[Zepherus14]

Without a ceiling to worry about Jinzi would have ascended a bit higher as she wasn't sure what the fog was doing other than being a real nuisance to her, and moreover being higher up meant she could move around a lot more freely without having to be mindful of what was around her to bump into in it.

She wouldn't notice the hissing sound, her wings definitely making enough noise that coupled with the distance, her own hearing and the softness of the hiss she wouldn't have picked it up. This however didn't stop her from being a bit cautious about the situation, and used her open space to move around more. [color=00c0c0]"Come on out, you monster, quit hiding!"[/color] She shouted out to him as the leeches launched.

Luckily for Jinzi, the solid nature of the leeches meant they'd be disturbing the fog on the way up, which given there size was enough to give Jinzi conformation that something was going on. As the leaches launched from the clouds, Jinzi would barrel roll away from the one leach, while firing her down turned gun at the other. Even with the standard ammo she was currently using, it would still pack a punch, but if the leech still managed to survive it would meet the carapace of her one arm before it got to her belly. If that happened, Jinzi would promptly blast the leach off with a shot.

 

[Chungus]

Decidedly not build for sturdiness, as Jinzi shot at the leech, the bullet would tear through it, whereafter it disappeared. The leech Jinzi evaded began to slowly turn around after it shot past Jinzi, but also vanished long before it could complete the manoeuvre, its allotted time running out.

Noting Jinzi becoming a dot in the distance more and more, while noting the gunshot ring out, and sensing his shadow leeches hadn't been successful in attacking Jinzi, Phyros put two and two together, then took a moment to think of another approach. He summoned two more shadow leached, but held off on firing them, the two merely air-swimming around Phyros. He then spread his wings, and jumped off the ground, beginning to fly up. While his footsteps were muffled, however, his wing flaps were not.

Heading straight up, Phyros broke through the fog bank, opened his beak, and fired a entropy beam in Jinzi's general direction, the pulsating grey shooting out with a buzzing noise with a low undertone. The beam wasn't aimed very well, however, and was practically guaranteed to miss Jinzi. This was as it was meant as a distraction, with Phyros sending out his shadow leeches after discontinuing the beam being the real attack.

Bored of simply standing around, Laminus leaned against the wall, and brought the flute to his mouth, playing an upbeat tune, not to bestow a elemental empowerment on anything, but simply to pass the time.

 

[Zepherus14]

[color=00c0c0]"The hell was that thing?"[/color] She said quietly to herself as she considered what she'd just seen, in the light only telling that it was something to shoot at and not entirely convinced what the leach had actually been. She continued to circle around, not staying in one spot for very long.

[color=00c0c0]'So that's his game.'[/color] She thought as she noticed the much slower moving raven finally appear from the clouds, spotting those large objects around him. Seeing the laser fire from Phyros' beak however made her jump and otherwise confirmed that the raven was totally some crazy monster thing, perfect for gunshots to make into swish cheese. She would pivot to her left as the beam passed her on the right, and as Phyros was about ready to fire the leeches Jinzi shot at both with each pistol, and then an additional shot with right at Phyros himself.

As long as at least one of the leeches were shot with this volley, Jinzi would use both her right arms to reload the pistol, the magazine disappearing and another reappearing as they were swapped out. She'd also be sending steady shots towards Phyros, making sure he had time with each one to get into a stable flying pattern each shot while she kept her distance.

[color=00c0c0]"Your fuzzball of an ass still hiding down there, is he?"[/color] She called out to the raven.

 

[Chungus]

After his leeches were shot, disappearing into nothing upon being struck as before, Phyros, not going to idly remain in the open, turned into a shadow. From Jinzi's point of view, it would seem Phyros simply vanished, as his shadowy self appeared on the ground beneath the fog. With Phyros turned into a shadow, there would obviously not be anything to shoot at, but if Jinzi still fired, Phyros would remain a shadow until the shots stopped coming.

When things calmed, Phyros became physical again, although in turning a shadow, he had lost Laminus' endowment. Looking up to Jinzi, Phyros re-evaluated his strategy, his leeches failed to take her by surprise, she was too fast to effectively snipe with his entropy beam, and not manoeuvrable or fast enough to make trying to out-fly her a viable option. While he thought things through, Phyros would bide his time, doing nothing further.

Laminus continued to play his flute, idly stepping around, but not moving much.

The fog began thinning out a little over the fields, but still hung thickly over the ruins themselves.

 

[Zepherus14]

[color=00c0c0]"Shit!"[/color] Jinzi swore as she lost sight of Phyros again. She would have only fired the one shot at Phyros himself, as firing more, no matter how much it would make her happy, didn't seem to be the best option for her at the moment. Instead she started to buzz around a little more quickly, trying to get a sense for if the fog was getting smaller at all. As she did this she took the opportunity to reload her right pistol, and if she had time before Phyros attacked her left as well. [color=00c0c0]"This blows! Seriously, this fog is a drag!"[/color] She complained, getting a bit frustrated there was such a gigantic hiding spot for the birdbrain to scurry off to whenever he felt scared.

 

[Chungus]

While the fog wasn't getting any smaller, it did start to thin out more, the trees and largest bits of the ruins now visible as silhouettes, while the ground became visible over the field.

Phyros didn't attack Jinzi as she was reloading, rather, flew over towards Laminus, having come up with a plan. [color=FF3300][/color] he requested, landing in front of the wall Laminus hid behind.

Laminus, in turn, stopped playing his flute and lowered it, but kept it close to his mouth. "So long's you're hurrying this along. The novelty of this change has worn off.", he stated, boredom in his voice. Bringing the flute to his mouth again, Laminus played another sharp eight-note long tune, enveloping Phyros' talons in pulsating grey fields.

With this, Phyros stepped to the centre of the field, and cast another spell. This covered him in a shroud of shadow that covered and warped around him, expanding and contracting unpredictably in all directions. While Phyros kept his physical form, the shroud would make it near-impossible to pinpoint Phyros' exact location with with the naked eye.

Having cast his spell Phyros spawned a murder of ten red-eyed shadow crows from the shadow he himself cast. The crows began flying towards Jinzi, with Phyros himself jumping up and flying behind them, zig-zaging around to further lessen the chance of him being shot.

 

[Zepherus14]

[color=00c0c0]"It's slow, but I think it's retreating..."[/color] She commented to herself, not entirely convinced that it wasn't some sort of trick by the bird to get her to come down, but at least there was the chance it was subsiding. Her head looked up to the sky for a moment as she paused. [color=00c0c0]"It's quiet, wasn't that fuzzball playing something?"[/color] She murmured to herself as she realized it had become quite quiet again for a moment. This was short lived as Laminus played his buff melody. [color=00c0c0]"Speak of the devil then."[/color] She sighed as she noticed the melody cut through the still night and soon the accompanied sound of the murder's wings flapping in the air.

While she waited for the murder to peek through the fog, Jinzi changed her arsenal as she placed her right pistol to her hip and grabbed the shotgun from her back. Once the murder in fact cut through the fog, Jinzi would start firing at the birds in the group pegging them off as she moved to the left to get a better look at it from a different angle. Given the chance she'd try to land a shot gun spread against any grouped up crows that were around Phyros' cloud, just to see what that did.

 

[Chungus]

With her pistol fire, Jinzi managed to peg two crows, after which the murder began flying in more erratic patterns to make them less of an easy target. The murder of crows hadn't picked up a lot of speed yet, and were still somewhat distant from Jinzi. This worked in their advantage, in this instant, as the distance spread the pellets out to much to catch many, only hitting two shadow-crows, which disappeared upon being hit.

In response to Jinzi's changed tactics, the murder of crows spread out more, although each crow continued flying in an eratical pattern. Continuing flying towards Jinzi while gaining speed, steadily drawing closer.

Meanwhile, Phyros took careful moments to aim as he flew, staying behind the murder. After aiming, Phyros opened his beak and fired his entropy at Jinzi, only firing the beam for a second so to not give away his exact position for too long. As such, the beam would only sap a little of Jinzi's energy, if it hit. With his shadow cloak, Phyros would look the same from the angle Jinzi had moved herself in to, as the one she was at before.

By now, the fog had almost entirely cleared up, only really making small-to-mid sized things difficult to see.

 

[Zepherus14]

Moving to the side of murder had proved more helpful in just affirming that the Phyros' cloud wasn't part of the murder itself but something following instead, and now with it firing off a similar beam as had been shot before it made it all the more clear what that shadow cloak was for. [color=00c0c0]"There you are!"[/color] Jinzi exclaimed as she pulled herself, down and to the right of the entropy beam. She would then accelerate towards shadow cloak, pegging a few more crows that would get too close, which she'd roll to a different position in mid flight if it was needed to hit a target that was flying more above her.

If unhindered, once she was withing range where her shotgun spray would cover a large majority of the shadow cloak, she'd break from her approach and circle around the cloak, firing some more shotgun shots at it.

 

[Chungus]

With Jinzi firing on the murder of crows, she managed to peg three more, disappearing as they were shot as before. The remaining three crows were now reaching their top speed of 60 mph, and closing in on Jinzi; two were closing in on her right, one on the left. They approached with their taloned claws raised towards her, aiming to lash out at her whenever the could.

After discontinuing his beam, Phyros flapped his wings harder, approaching Jinzi also, his flying speed a little slower then that of his shadow-crows, relying on his crows to distract Jinzi to have an easier time of getting to her. As they did so, Phyros climbed in altitude to put himself above Jinzi, then dived towards her, his diving speed a great deal faster then one would expect, due to his weight. From the dive, Phyros would try to rake his talons over Jinzi's upper torso, and as he lashed out, a burst of entropic energies would be generated due to Laminus' endowment. If the rake connect, in addition to the gashes the extremely sharp claws would leave, the burst would sap a large portion of Jinzi's energy.

Now, the fog over the ruins and fields had dissipated entirely.

 

[Zepherus14]

Jinzi seeing the pincer maneuver they were making, weighing her options she would initially bank to the right, pegging off the crow to left before banking back to the right and continuing that way as she dropped in altitude. With the crows avoided for the moment, Jinzi put the rest of her focus on Phyros who had started his dive, while she had started her own. Phyros would still be gaining ground on her, but she'd still have ample time to swap her pistols as he drew closer.

Once Phyros was within reasonable range again, Jinzi would fire two volleys of shotgun shots up at the shadow cloak, hoping to spot either the shots bouncing off of Phyros or some other tell sign for her to let loose shots from her pistol right pistol. The ammo in this one was different than before and would pack a far heavier punch than before. If she didn't see any sign of him in the cloak, she'd open her right wings slightly to pull herself away from the falling Phyros.

Phyros might have been able to clip her with his talons if he was able to make the needed adjustments to his trajectory, although it would be difficult given how much momentum he'd have to deal with due to his weight.

 

[Chungus]

Being so close to Jinzi, Phyros took almost the full brunt of the attack, with only a few pellets whizzing by him, but otherwise being struck heavily. Some of the pellets hit Phyros on the head, which, while breaking the skin and damaging the flesh, failed to penetrate his skull. Others struck his chest, sides and left wings, which penetrated more deeply, the ones in his chest and side less so, where the pellets only penetrated a somewhat small surface of Phyros' dense flesh. The second shotgun blast also peppered most of Phyros' left leg, some of his lower right leg, and further damaged his wing.
From the entry wounds, small droplets of dark red, semi-congealed blood, which might serve as an indicator for Phyros' position, although these droplets were small, and blended in with the darkness of the night.

While shot, Phyros didn't let out a scream, nor did the noise of the gunshots. He was still aware of the damage done to him, however, and rather then allow Jinzi more time to fire at him, became a shadow on the ground directly below where he flew, disappearing from sight. Once on the ground, Phyros' shadow self began slinking back towards the ruins.

The two remaining crows took a moment to bank around after Jinzi went into a dive, then went into a dive themselves, going after her.

Laminus hadn't moved from his spot inside the ruins, now idly drawing crude pictures in the dirt with his cane.

 

[Zepherus14]

Jinzi would continue her descent as she leveled off, not wanting to slam into the ground. Moreover she felt pretty good about the stupid fog disappearing, now she had proper vision of everything around her including the crows that were still chasing her. With the shadow cloak gone, she searched for any sign of it and when she found no trace of it, she was rightly annoyed. She could have assumed that the shotgun shells must have done something, causing Phyros to flee again, but after not getting the chance to fire her pistol at him really put her in a sour mood.

For now the pressing problem was the remaining two crows that were diving towards her. [color=00c0c0]"Where did he go, these clones he keeps making aren't all that fun to shoot anymore!"[/color] She moaned as she took the time the crows used to get closer to her to reload the shotgun, and would promptly take shots at the crows when they came within range.