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Post by Skylos on Jan 25, 2010 10:30:24 GMT -5
Having anticipated another such attack, Zephyr raised up a Dimension barrier around his mind which interestly enough redirected the attack back at Yamiken just as any Dimension hole might cause an attack to appear behind an enemy. While Zephyr was safe from the attack, he bent the dimension around the area so that to those up in the air would feel like they were freezing! Normally this would only happen if one were very high up in the sky, but Zephyr had made it much closer to home so that they would have to stay towards the ground.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 25, 2010 11:48:26 GMT -5
Yamiken, apparently caught unawares by this return of his attack, cried out in surprise and was destabilised, plummeting down amongst the spires. He was only just able to steer himself enough to prevent himself being impaled - even then he was lucky. Of course, once on the ground, the frictionless state of affairs made it rather difficult to get up again; in the end he had to drive his katana through the ice yet again in order to push himself up. At least down there he was somewhat saved from Zephyr's freezing attack.
The same could not be said of Naga, who felt the temperature around him dropping quite considerably. At first, being a Wind Human and someone quite used to high altitudes and the temperatures that came with him, he considered just taking it, but eventually he found it becoming too cold for even him to bear, and was forced to come down, landing nimbly upon the side of one of the ice spires. During all this, he'd been careful not to lose track of Yamiken's position. Now, he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, sending a wider blast of wind in the samurai's direction which would also shatter the ice spires as it went, attempting to rob him of places to hide.
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Post by Skylos on Jan 25, 2010 12:10:22 GMT -5
Zephyr hopped around on his ice, not seeming to slip on it at all. As he postioned himself on as of yet destoryed spire, he held up his hand, which then glowed blue along with the Dimension Stone around his neck. Immediately, a howling wind came through the spires. A few seconds latter, it began to snow. The snow quickly turned into a full out blizzard! And it wasn't just snow in this, there were more ice spires coming down with the snow.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 25, 2010 12:22:45 GMT -5
At this point, Yamiken decided upon a tactical rethink. Having his sword, he decided, was no longer as useful as having his Dimension powers free. Therefore, having withdrawn his sword from the ground, he cast it aside, removing his cancelling over Zephyr's powers in the area around its hilt. This allowed him to vanish using his Dimension powers just as one of those ice spires came down to impale him, also dodging Naga's attack. His form reappeared, panting, in another spot. This still wasn't good. He didn't even appear to have any energy left over from dodging to attack...
Naga, meanwhile, seeing Yamiken reappear, decided it was about time to end this if he could. Gathering wind around his right forearm so that it formed an invisible - but still deadly - spike, he leaped through the air towards Yamiken, preparing to try and impale him once he got close.
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Post by Skylos on Jan 25, 2010 12:36:08 GMT -5
As Zephyr noticed Yamiken's new location, he shifted over to a spire that was just over him, but still a few meters from him. He put his palm out, and a clear liquid fountained from his palm, streaming down at Yamiken like a geyser. In fact, this liquid happened to be liquid nitrogen.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 26, 2010 16:08:27 GMT -5
The liquid nitrogen spat down and froze... precisely nothing. Because Yamiken wasn't there - it was just an illusion. Naga pulled up short in alarm once he saw this and looked around...
... as Yamiken slipped out of his subspace some way away and raised his hand in Zephyr and Naga's direction. "Biparti," he incanted grimly... and the five places where Yamiken had previously stabbed his sword into the ground, now revealed to form a roughly equal-sided pentagon, lit up with violet energy, then shot out more energy so that before long that entire area, with Naga and Zephyr still in it, was enclosed by a thin, translucent wall of energy. "Welcome," Yamiken then spoke to them in a weary but now faintly triumphant tone, "To the Pentagon of Reduction. It's a spell which will keep all occupants inside of it... until half of them are dead." A tiny smirk bent his lips. "In other words, until one of you dies, you're stuck." Indeed, any attempts to break out would be repulsed, painfully though not fatally... whilst any teleport magic which tried to take Naga or Zephyr outside of the confines would also be nulled, unless it was extremely powerful.
Naga's eyes widened somewhat as heard this. What? A trap! Curses! His gaze automatically went to Zephyr, looking to see how he reacted. He also wondered how hard it would be to break out without killing one another... surely they'd be able to do it eventually. He was pretty sure they were both individually stronger than Yamiken, let alone together. But would Zephyr be willing to devote the time and energy to finding out whether they could when he could just kill Naga and be done with it? Well, not that Naga wouldn't defend himself if that was the case, on the other hand...
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Post by Skylos on Jan 26, 2010 16:16:55 GMT -5
Zephyr only crossed his arms. To him, the move was pointless because he was there to kill them both anyways. And for the fact that Zephyr wasn't technically a living being, Naga would be up the creek anyways. Besides, it's not like he couldn't just attack Yamiken from inside. His Dimension Power could appear anywhere. With that in mind, a portal appeared behind Yamiken, along with Zephyr's lance that flew right at him. In fact, one should have been able to guess this since Zephyr had crossed his arms just moments before, meaning he no longer had it in hand.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 26, 2010 16:42:13 GMT -5
Naga breathed a slight sigh of relief as it seemed Zephyr was still focusing his attacks on Yamiken. He then turned his own attention towards this prison they were in. Of course, it would've been helpful to be able to have used his lance at this point... seeing as he was much more effective with it than without. But oh well. It couldn't be helped. He figured their best bet for breaking through the walls was to try and focus attacks upon a single point. This in mind, he flew over to the nearest wall and stabbed towards it with a wind spike similar to what he'd been hoping to hit Yamiken himself with just earlier.
Speaking of whom, the samurai warlord was a little taken aback by the lance appearing... he'd have thought that would be restricted too. Maybe it was just Zephyr's power level... at any rate, he wasn't caught totally off-guard and so spun around the moment he sensed something and attempted to knock the lance away with one hand surrounded by Darkness energy. Damn... I'd been hoping to recuperate whilst they were fighting. Maybe if I can just deal with this thing...
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Post by Skylos on Jan 26, 2010 17:19:04 GMT -5
Zephyr's lance then appeared back in his grip. He paused, thinking of a way to get through this. It then occured to him that time was on his side, since Yamiken would have to do something eventually if they did nothing.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 26, 2010 19:43:37 GMT -5
Naga's attack was repulsed; a sharp but not too severe pain ran up his right forearm. He flew back a little, then glanced at Zephyr. "Master Guardian," he spoke. "Can you help me? I know you don't care for my assistance in this fight, but surely until we found a way out of this fix we can work together somewhat?"
Yamiken was fairly relieved when Zephyr gave up attacking him like that after the failure of his initial ambush, but at the same time was somewhat disappointed to see that Zephyr apparently refused to fight Naga. His hope had been that the dragonslayer would be killed, leaving him with a single weakened opponent to finish off. But it seemed that was not to be... well, whatever. If Zephyr Cadge thought it was a good idea to wait Oda Yamiken out, then he had another thing coming. It was only a matter of time before he'd be able to come up with another plan. With this in mind, Yamiken crossed his legs in the air and went into a state of light meditation - still alert enough to spot any raids before they harmed him, but far away enough to regenerate his energies and turn most of his thoughts towards concocting a new plan to deal with his foes...
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Post by Skylos on Jan 26, 2010 21:12:58 GMT -5
The interesting thing about all of this was the fact that everyone seemed to forget that there was a blizzard going on, and Yamiken had made it to that it was only attacking him. "I don't work with anyone. Never needed to." he stabbed at the forcefield with his Dimension infused lance and tried to break the attack at the dimensional level, trying to make it not even exist on this plain of existence.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 26, 2010 21:23:56 GMT -5
The barrier gave a violent shudder... but held. It was a strong spell, and Yamiken, whilst maybe not on the same level as Zephyr, was no slouch. His forcefield could probably stand a few more attacks like that. Eventually, though, it would fall.
Naga frowned, but said nothing. He saw the futility of trying to reason with Zephyr on this - particularly seeing as the guardian seemed far better suited to the task of breaking free than Naga. So he held his tongue and turned his gaze out towards Yamiken...
Yes, Yamiken was in a blizzard, but his Darkness did afford him some level of immunity to the cold. He'd survive, for the moment; probably Zephyr would break out before he passed out from the cold. But his thoughts were racing. I'm outmatched in terms of power. Zephyr far surpasses me in his abilities. Naga too appears to be stronger than me. Even against just one of them, I'd likely fail. I need to outsmart the both of them, somehow. The last trick didn't work... what else can I employ against them? He ran through any options which would level the playing field. I could try somehow controlling Naga... he may have more power than me, but could I break into his mind if I tried? Hm... but even if I did, would that be enough? I'd say Zephyr is the stronger out of the two of them... and if I was devoting most of my energies to controlling that dragonslayer I'd probably not be able to contribute much myself. Still, what else is there...?
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Post by Skylos on Jan 26, 2010 21:31:41 GMT -5
Zephyr then moved off from his spot and struck at the barrier at a different spot. Once he finished there, he moved onto another spot and hit there as well. It seemed like he was up to something... other than him going around the barrier, he didn't appear to have any other tactic in mind.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 27, 2010 15:08:59 GMT -5
The new point Zephyr struck reacted in much the same way as the first. However, the overall strength of the barrier didn't seem diminished very much. Zephyr would have to focus his attacks on one point to get through... unless, of course, he had something sneakier up his sleeve. Naga speculated that he might, and continued to watch without saying anything.
What of his weaknesses? Yamiken was continuing to speculate meanwhile. His element is Water... hmph... I've little which can take advantage of that. Lightning-based powers would come down to a sheer contest of strength, after all, which it's clear I'd lose. What about his Dimension side? The natural opposite of Dimension is Time... which he also controls... interesting. But also quite useless to me. Elemental weaknesses were out them... what about character ones? He's calm, focused and he's got nothing to lose. In short, he's nothing less than the worst opponent I could face, save only for the fact that he refuses to work with Naga... and doesn't care if he gets caught in the cross-fire... Hm. There was an idea there, he was sure of it. But it was swimming about just out of reach... he needed something more than all these dead ends!
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Post by Skylos on Jan 27, 2010 15:18:30 GMT -5
In fact, he did have something in mind. As Zephyr flew around, he stopped and struck at another place. In fact, if Yamiken or Naga were looking closely, they'd find that Zephyr was striking the barrier in the same shape as Yamiken had made it, albeit it was so that it would make it a decagon. Once he made his way over to the last point, he shooved the lance forward. The Dimension Stone glowed blue and then a blue pentagon appeared, connecting where Zephyr had attacked. The sheer force of this disruption in the barrier was to cause them to both collapse.
Omni chuckled from wherever he was. "He copied my magic circle."
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 30, 2010 18:12:40 GMT -5
Well, this move worked just fine, and the perimeter collapsed. But the energy from it, rather than just dissipating, immediately rushed off to one end of the battlefield as Yamiken gathered it in a sphere on the palm of his hand, ready to be used again.
Truth was, the samurai warlord felt in a bit of a fix. He had a few disparate options to throw at his opponents, but no master plan of any sort. It was frustrating, and worrying. Well, I guess sometimes one must start a fight to see the way to win it, Yamiken thought to himself grimly. In that spirit, he immediately snapped the fingers of his right hand, causing the orb to fly straight up into the sky. "Incuborum prospectus!" It exploded, pouring sinister violet spectres of smoke over the battlefield - and more specifically, Zephyr and Naga. If any touched them - and they did seem to be attracted to the pair - they would feel a weird, icy feeling starting to spread through them - you know, standard part-and-parcel darkness affair. Some things never change.
Naga wasted no time when he saw the spectres and quickly summoned up a cyclone to blow them away from him. At first, this seemed to work rather well, as the things were essentially gaseous; unfortunately, when they hit the ice on the ground, they didn't stop; rather, they sank in through the ground like it wasn't even there and continued travelling on, safe from the winds now, towards Naga. At least the ice allowed him a partially transparent layer through which to protect them, so he was able to jump up higher into the air before they reached him. But that distracted him from maintaining his cyclone...
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Post by Skylos on Jan 30, 2010 18:22:53 GMT -5
Not that Zephyr would particularly even notice the icy feeling due to his main Power being Ice, but the effects would still be there; sometimes numbness worked against you. Zephyr at first didn't move, but then after much scanning, seemed ready to move. As he flew through the air, apparently capable of some sort of levitation (or possibly he could just fly), portals of Dimension would tear open to swallow the specters up before they managed to touch him. His lance was pointed forward, and he was headed for Yamiken. Seemed he was ready to joust.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 30, 2010 18:43:02 GMT -5
Naga was caught my a single spectre in the end, but it was enough. That feeling began to sweep up through him; he squeezed his eyes shut as the mental attack began to take effect. I shall be strong... this shan't stop me, Yamiken!
Yamiken himself meanwhile locked eyes with his attacker as the Dimension Guardian approached. At the last moment, he suddenly teleported out of the way of the lance - straight behind Zephyr, in fact; he then immediately unleashed a blast of dark lightning to destabilise his foe.
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Post by Skylos on Jan 30, 2010 18:50:35 GMT -5
But as the lightning hit, it became apparent that this wasn't Zephyr at all! The form seemed to stop moving, then the move Yamiken had just used would seemed to work in reverse, coming back at Yamiken. There was a trace of Ice Aura in the attack, so absorbing it could possibly lead to undesirable results, results such as freezing - again, numbness could work against you. Zephyr himself came out of a dimensional hole above Yamiken, and to the side. He stabbed down at a diagonal angle towards Yamiken's neck.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Jan 30, 2010 19:16:42 GMT -5
Yamiken quickly cottoned on and twisted his body round, narrowly avoiding the lance. At the same time, he bent space around him so that the redirected lightning attack was redirected once again at Zephyr - the real Zephyr this time.
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Post by Skylos on Jan 30, 2010 19:29:55 GMT -5
Now that it had Ice in it, Zephyr managed to simply freeze the attack in mid-air. If Yamiken wanted to tussle with the attack, it was fine with Zephyr; he could continue to keep it back all he wanted. To mix things up a tad from the real, Dimension wrapped around Zephyr's lance and it seemed to... bend. It snaked towards YAmiken's chest this time, also seeming to get longer.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Feb 10, 2010 17:31:06 GMT -5
Yamiken flung himself backwards, but appeared unable to dodge. The lance pierced his chest, making his eyes shoot wide open...
... in time for the real Yamiken, rather than the illusion, to drive his sword towards Zephyr's core from behind, having recovered it whilst Zephyr battled the fake and was now handling it the same way as before. Still, he hadn't needed his Dimension powers to sneak up behind the occupied Dimension Guardian and attack, this time.
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Post by Skylos on Feb 10, 2010 17:38:43 GMT -5
But did Zephyr even have a core? He was only a phantom, after all. However, it did stand to reason that something was sustaining his existance. As the sword passed through him, it became evident that it did not actually pass through his body, as the blade length coming out of the other side of where he had been stabbed was just as long as the actual length of the blade. Being so close, Yamiken might note that Zephyr was covered in Dimension, something he couldn't have felt before because it would have just appeared to have been his aura. What Yamiken needed here was either Time, or risk fighting fire with fire. Zephyr sent a wave (now totally aware that the real Yamiken was behind him because of the sword that was going through his chest) of ice up the blade, which then passed back through the dimension that was covering Zephyr. This ice would work its way up the rest of the sword, and try to catch Yamiken in it.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Feb 10, 2010 18:56:45 GMT -5
Yamiken quickly released the blade, letting it be frozen in its current position 'through' Zephyr. But actually, this played just perfectly into his hands... provided this next little trick worked. But first, a bit of a surprise for Zephyr: the illusion he'd just stabbed exploded... into more of the spectres which had attacked him and Naga just minutes ago! There were three of them in total; they were probably too close for Zephyr to just avoid like he had before. Probably. Yamiken himself meanwhile hung back a bit, charging Darkness energy in one hand and Dimension in the other. [1/2][1/3]
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Post by Skylos on Feb 10, 2010 19:06:04 GMT -5
Remembering these attacks (as they only were there a few minutes ago!), Zephyr wondered what Yamiken hoped to accomplish by using them again (as it was just specified that they'd just go through him without use of Time or Dimension), Therefore, he removed the sword from his body and snapped it into shards of ice, letting them shatter in the wind. As the spectres came by, they passed through im harmlessly. However, he was then aware that Yamiken was up to something. He hung there in the air, waiting.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Feb 11, 2010 14:49:32 GMT -5
Yamiken knew full well that they would go straight through Zephyr, but that was quite fine by him. As they came out the other side, he gathered them in his right hand, where he was charging Dark energy, and reabsorbed them; this gave him a massive momentary boost of power, effectively sending his Darkness charge level to four turns. [4/4] He poured all of this into an exception powerful mental attack directed straight at Zephyr; the move's power, combined with the advantage Yamiken was still reaping from having used his Nightmarescape technique just earlier (the one which had originally created the spectres), should have been enough to break through Zephyr's mental barriers that he'd erected earlier. The attack was pretty simple, and would just cause Zephyr to utterly lose concentration for a few moments. But that was all Yamiken was sure he'd need... just as he was unleashing the mental attack, he also shifted over to a certain other point on the battlefield. His Dimension attack was nearly ready... [2/3]
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Post by Skylos on Feb 11, 2010 15:30:52 GMT -5
Not quite expecting this turn of events, Zephyr was attacked mentally and felt strain upon him. So he lost concentration for a few moments, but he hadn't been doing anything to begin with, so his recovery would have been quicker since all he was focused on was Yamiken. But again, Yamiken probably only needed those few moments.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Feb 11, 2010 15:37:38 GMT -5
Indeed he did. The spot Yamiken had gone to was where Naga had previously dropped his lance. Using the same trick he'd used to keep a-hold of his katana before, Yamiken now, in one swift, smooth motion, picked it up and hurled it straight at Zephyr, using a little more Dimension to cheat a little and keep it on aim - hey, he had many talents, but javelin throwing wasn't one of them. Then, the moment it had left his hand, he unleashed all that energy he'd been building up in the Orocrystal. This had one effect - nullifying all Dimension powers in the area. Again, only for a brief moments... but if he'd timed this right, that would be just the moment the lance reached Zephyr...
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Post by Skylos on Feb 11, 2010 15:45:50 GMT -5
to run him through. Being without Dimension for a few moments was quite scary for this form of Zephyr, being that he was only be sustained by Dimension anyways. With only a small life force to keep him whole, the lance would go cleanly through him, something that would have probably killed a normal person. But being that Zephyr was in no way normal anymore (in fact, no blood came from the gaping hole in him) his form merely started to glow entirely blue. An immense build up of energy was coming off of him, and this energy swirled violently, losing the humanoid shape, at Yamiken like a swirling mass of pure chaos.
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Post by Mumiyoshi on Feb 11, 2010 15:58:52 GMT -5
Well. What to do when faced with that? Yamiken shifted away the moment he saw it coming towards him, retreating towards the edge of the arena. He watched the maelstrom which Zephyr had become with a carefully controlled anxiety. Was this merely the cataclysm before victory? Or was this in fact another test he had to overcome to win? Because he wasn't at all sure what he could do to contain this sort of power. And so for the moment he tried to wait it out.
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