Finally! He smiled in triumph as she bolted forward, bolted of course being a relative term. Had she been an otherwise normal human it would have been extremely impressive, but neither of the people on the roof were anything remotely close to normal. They were so far from normal, in fact, that 40 mph was merely a brisk walk compared to what he guessed her top speed was. And what he knew his to be. Unless he completely missed his guess, she was still holding back. Poking at his defenses to find out what he was really capable of. Unfortunately for that tactic, she already knew he was fast, and that's all he would need to turn her attack to his own advantage.

Stepping forward and to his left, and keeping his right foot where it was, he widened his stance and crouched lower, dropping his head below the level of the strike. He didn't stop there though, and extended the staff as he gripped the base with his right hand, using it as a pivot to send the far end driving toward the right side of the girl's ribcage with enough force to crack bone and create an electrical jolt strong enough to give her heart and lungs a moment's pause.

Aurelia was, to say the least, surprised that Evvie had managed to dodge her attack to such a degree. It only strafed her, giving her a tiny burn on the back of her neck and some singed hair, but nothing that could be felt.

If small attacks aren't going to cut it... She jumped back once, then twice, making some distance between them and dodging the flaming breath sent her way at the same time, though not without singing her cloak badly.

Once there, she took her scythe in both of hands and started to gather power in it. She knew it would take a few moments, maybe a minute, to get what she needed, but if she could just stay out of harm's way for long enough then it wouldn't matter where that Dragonness was or how tough she was. She smiled grimly from beneath her hood, watching with wary eyes for whatever Evvie's next move would be.

Celinli vs Niks

---

"Who, you ask..." Niks replied to the woman who somehow circled back, no doubt the doing of the fog. "This....is a regular occurrence. I already told you that something unpleasant could happen, losing your way in this town at this time, would you risk something else to happen? Come, stay for awhile...."

********************
Ryomi Fiett Leitannia vs. Bloodshot (Match 1)
********************

Pain signals from the vessel's body flooded into her mind. So that's what it was like to feel pain. It had been so long since she had been connected and received damage. Her face contorted into a grimace as she stumbled backwards, feeling the breath taken out of her and her heart surge with pain as well, although as long as the heart wasn't destroyed it still served it's purpose of being the dwelling place of the spirit. Now if it had been fried by a more powerful electrical blast they'd be ejected from the vessel, an automatic loss because they couldn't go back in until that problem was fixed. They'd probably need a replacement heart surgically inserted in it's place and if the damage was too severe. That is if this man didn't do something else to their body before friendly forces could arrive and retrieve it. Then it complicated matters even further.

Such a hassle. She didn't want to loose this one. As she stumbled backwards she kicked her left leg upwards as fast as her body could move, sending it up right between his legs as he squatted in front of her. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to react fast enough and would certainly be surprised how she could recover so quickly from a zapped heart, unless he knew how vessels operated.

After her foot connected, which she expected, or missed, she would fly away from his staff's range and regain her breath once her lungs stopped quivering. Her broken rib would be a literal and figurative pain if she were to try and maneuver around with it, so she'd given up a fancy melee battle by now. She'd destroy this man some other way.

********************
Cellinli Lienfeld vs. Niks (Match 1)
********************

"Umm...s-sure," she replied, pretending to agree with him. She couldn't trust him as far as she could throw him, so would have no choice but to take him out before he did the same to her. She kept her dual weapons in hand, hoping that wasn't too suspicious, as she walked as casually as possible towards him. Surely he wouldn't expect her to disarm herself, even if she did trust him, due to all of the danger around. It was her rigid muscles that were more likely to give away mistrust, prepared to dart away at the slightest hint of danger. But that goes with the same explanation, right, how dangerous her surroundings were?

"Looks like you're the only one I can trust here," she lied, looking around at her surroundings to try and put on the act that it was indeed something else frightening her. "Maybe we can find out who's causing this and kick his butt or something?"

She continued to walk closer. If she could just get within swiping distance at him she would take the opportunity to lash out as quickly as possible with her right blade and cleave straight through his neck, if he had a neck. He was still concealed in the cover of darkness, but he spoke and had eyes, so he almost had to have a neck to cut to go along with this.

********************
Evvie vs. Aurelia (Match 1)
********************

The young woman's hasty retreat was enough to dodge her fire breath, but at least it bought Evvie enough time to get back onto her feet, which was the original purpose of that attack anyways, after all. She snapped her jaws shut to stop the flow of fire as she did just that. Her armor and body got quite dusty from her fall, but it was not an unusual state to see her in. It was nothing that a little rain couldn't wash off later on.

But enough of all this funny business, she wanted to do some actual damage for once. Maybe with an actual plan? But plans were hard work. Her muscles were much easier to get things done than by waiting around using plans. Maybe she could solve this problem by just running faster this time? She could fly pretty fast and could maybe corner her in this difficult, rocky terrain. Hmm...yeah, that might work, and for her the most simple plans would tend to work the best.

She jerked her wings up and down with a couple of powerful flaps, sending her up around 20 feet in the air in a matter of a few seconds. From there she began to close the distance between the two, unless her opponent began to move away some more. If she did than hopefully Evvie's plan would work and going by air would indeed be able to catch up. If upon catching up she would try to dive down toward her, swooping into her body rather than straight at the ground with her arms outstretched to try and grab onto the scythe's handle at the same time as she crashed into her. Hopefully in all of the chaos she would be able to yank the scythe free and knock the woman to the ground on her back with Evvie on top of her. Evvie considered that she was tough enough to better handle the collision, and the meaty padding of her opponent would help protect her against the impact with the ground.

If she did get slashed at with the scythe while moving in she should still be able to continue her attack, although this was admittedly very dangerous, and hopefully wouldn't regret such an action or be taken by surprise of some other form of attack she hadn't anticipated happened.

He didn't know how vessels operated, but he DID know that whenever you were dealing with a meta, you didn't take anything for granted. Including electrical incapacitation. Was he expecting her to literally try and hit him below the belt? Not really. But he wasn't completely unprepared for a counter-attack either. When her foot started rising, he pushed his staff, which was at his waist, straight down to intercept the blow, preventing her from removing any chance he had at kids one day. As if he even wanted any of the little bastards.

With the damage averted, his next move was to release the staff with his right hand and make a grab for her ankle, moving as quickly as his superhuman muscles allowed. If he succeeded, his next play would be to swing her up over his head like a human club and smash her into the roof on the other side of himself.

Aurelia's eyes were locked squarely on the dragonness, making sure that she didn't get the chance to do anything without her seeing it first. While her focus was on Evvie, her magic continued to pour into the scythe, building up power for what she figured would be the decisive attack.

Then, without warning, Evvie took to the sky and, after gaining some altitude, started a steep dive towards her. When does she learn? She thought, tilting her head back as Evvie continued to fly higher up.

She let go of the scythe with one hand, and split her stream of power into two like a river forking into two smaller streams; one going towards her scythe and the other stream saturating the air around her with magic. Working as quickly as she could, Aurelia took hold of the shadows around her and stretched them. Guided by her free hand and magic, they extended upwards and in front of her, surging towards Evvie as a group of sharp spikes that would skewer her, if she continued her mad dash towards the sorceress on the ground.

"As far as I know, this is natural. Nothing you can do other than wait it out," Niks answered as he stepped inside his place. "And it's perhaps easier for you to wait it out by talking to someone other than being so rigid all the time?"

The interior of the place was dark, courtesy of unlit lighting, although outlines of furnitures with objects scattered on top of of them can be seen. It didn't look that it bothered Niks however. Fortunately for Lin, it appeared that Niks slowed his pace to guide her in.

********************
Ryomi Fiett Leitannia vs. Bloodshot (Match 1)
********************

His grip was firmly placed around her ankle, but it was time to see how long that would last once she started unleashing more attacks on him. She started things off by raising her right leg above the height of the staff, able to not fall over because she was floating, and then quickly front kicked towards his face while he was still in the reaching down position. Blunt force trauma to a head, even if helmeted, was sure to hurt. Of course it would hurt her leg at the same time, plus causing pain shooting through her body yet again by the movement of her damaged ribs. Hopefully this attack would prove worth it. She didn't have time to charge up any powerful magic before she would be swung into the roof.

********************
Cellinli Lienfeld vs. Niks (Match 1)
********************

"Alright. I'll do just that," she lied, continuing her approach. Once she got within range she wordlessly carried out her plan to slash at his neck with her right weapon. Without waiting for the results she planned on leaping backwards and retreating to around 10 feet, all the while keeping her eye on the darkness, to make sure he didn't rush out and take her off guard in a counterattack should he still be alive.

********************
Evvie vs. Aurelia (Match 1)
********************

Seeing magic being charged up she had no choice but to dodge it by closing her wings, allowing her to drop below the spikes and land heavily on the ground with her feet. At least she had covered some of the distance between the two, so she'd just have to try and cover the rest of the way on foot before the young woman could charge up any more powerful magic to be used against her.

With that plan in mind she rushed forward yet again. If she got within range she would try and use her hands to deal with the scythe while kicking at her body with her right leg.

Quick and resourceful, he liked that about her. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be enough to save her. He jerked her towards himself as her leg came up, and drove his forehead into her kick before it could build up to its full momentum. One of the perks of superhuman durability was being able to pull off crap like that without having a dozen chiropractors on standby, a perk he thoroughly enjoyed on a regular basis.

In order to prevent such an occurrence again, he retracted the staff as he performed the headbutt then promptly swung it hard toward her right hip, before continuing his original plan of swinging her over himself and into the roof. The jolt from the staff should be enough to disorient her until the shock of collision hit.

"You never learn," Aurelia muttered, letting her left hand fall into the folds of her cloak, hidden from view. She shook her head even as Evvie continued her charge, although it was on foot this time. Time and time again she had proven that blindly charging her would do her no good, and only result in a certain defeat if she did not come up with anything better. Maybe, maybe it wasn't possible to have a fight with someone who relied only on brute strength? At least, not a fight like she wanted it.

With a heavy sigh, she readjusted the grip on her scythe and waiting for when Evvie came near, charging up for another blast in her left hand. She knew it would take a long time for her to charge up enough magic in her scythe if she kept redirecting her magic like this, but she was tired of just jumping away. She made a sweeping movement with her scythe -avoiding Evvie's attempts to grab it - and spent a little of the magic she was still gathering in her scythe, increasing the force of the swing. It hit Evvie's leg with enough force to stop the blow.

She took a step closer and looked up, locking her gaze on Evvie's and revealing the crimson eyes of hers for the first time. "You never learn," she said, almost as if it was a death sentence in and of itself. "You've tried again and again to charge at me blindly, but it's never worked." She was close enough that she doubted Evvie would notice her moving her left hand. If she was transfixed with her red eyes, then she was sure not to notice, Aurelia thought.

"Learn, girl!" She placed her hand on Evvie's chest and, without warning, unleashed a blast of magic powerful enough to knock her at least a few metres away.

********************
Ryomi Fiett Leitannia vs. Bloodshot (Match 1)
********************

Both of her legs were now all used up in their offensive capabilities for the time being, but on the bright side she had recovered from her missed sword swing during that time so would be able to carry out another swing at any moment. She had planned on using this chance offensively, perhaps striking against his exposed neck, but she noticed him pulling back his staff to deliver another hit. Properly defending herself took priority when she was already too banged up for comfort and had no guarantee that he could be killed in that armor before he managed to carry out his attack. She lowered her raised leg out of the way as she swung her blade from left to right, diagonally downward to clash against the staff aimed at her hip.

Before she could do anything else she was sent flying overhead, then smashing into the rooftop. She used her freehand to help her from knocking her head into the cement, but it was still quite a painful experience. As soon as possible she turned to the right and swung her sword at his arm that was holding onto her ankle, hoping to cleave his hand off in one fell swoop. Meanwhile she used her floatation ability to try and fly as fast as possible in the other direction to make sure he couldn't pull her into the blade's path before her attack could be completed.

********************
Evvie vs. Aurelia (Match 1)
********************

Evvie was sturdy enough to not be harmed too badly by the interception, maybe a bruise that she'd quickly heal, but far more importantly it did manage to halt her powerful attack, so it was still a major surprise to be able to do even that much. Perhaps that weird magic of hers was able to make her much stronger than the average human was capable of, at least in that single blow she had made. She had to admire her impressive feat of strength. And here she thought she was just fast and had magic.

The girl's eyes were indeed strikingly beautiful, but it wasn't like red eyes were strange enough to completely distract her when she met very strange things on a weekly basis during her travels. She was distracted by the lecture, however, and it was quite irritating. She gritted her teeth. That big meanie! Who was she to say such things? She wound her right fist back to hit her while they were in such close proximity, but the woman's hand movement worked it's magic, literally, before the punch could be unleashed. The metal of her top armor cracked, but managed to remain intact, as she was sent flying backwards. She tried to use her wings and tail to slow down and right herself but it was too difficult in this situation and she ended up taking a tumble backwards anyways. At least she was able to correct herself enough to get onto her feet after only two rolls across the ground.

She briefly examined the new cracks in her armor, wondering if it made her look more cool as some sort of a battle scar would or less cool because it was now in worse shape and proved she had taken a ton of damage. Whatever the case this woman would pay for this one way or another. It was her only article of clothing that she owned, having nowhere to carry anything else.

She put her attention back to the woman. How to proceed when all of her charging attacks failed? She didn't want to carelessly just start spouting fire for fear of causing serious injury. Then what other method of attack did she have at her disposal? Her environment...and then it clicked. She was strong and there was plenty of objects to use her strength on. The rocks! She let out a smile at her cleverness as she picked up a rock a little larger than her head, an effortless task for one such as herself. She lifted it above her head and then flung it towards the woman. Without waiting to see if it would hit her, she rushed over to another waiting rock and threw that one as well, keeping up throwing rocks of various sizes as long as nothing was done to interrupt her.

Lin vs Niks

---

Lin's attack proceeded as she hoped although probably not to the result she was expecting. She felt her blade connecting against bone without first connecting with flesh, but what would be more surprising to her was the fact that the sound she heard was not the sound of a head falling to the floor but that of a metal meeting metal. The blow had also seemed to be enough to threw Niks several feet further into the room and crashed into the silhouette of a chair.

Niks rose up and turned to face Lin, his flames flared brighter. "I suppose I should've expected this," he muttered as a gassy substance formed. "But at least that confirms you're not with them. I do wonder what you're expecting to accomplish with trying to murder me, the fog would still stay."

What could pass as a proud smile bloomed on Aurelia's lips. It was immediately noticeable that Evvie had stopped relying on brute strength, and had instead started to actually think her actions through before she attacked.

Good girl.

Her smile, however, soon froze as a large rock came rocketing towards her. She dodged to the side, avoiding it with only a few centimetres. She felt the rock graze her hood. She had very little time to recover before another rock was thrown at her. It was close already, far too close. She raised her scythe and cleaved the air in front of her, splitting the rock in two before it hit her and stopping the attack.

The two first had been avoided, but she wasn't to be so lucky with the third. She sensed it more than she saw it as it was thrown at her. Quick reflexes was all that saved her from several broken bones; a barrier of darkness sprung into existence in the path of the rock, a spiderweb of cracks appearing on its surface, only to crack completely as a fourth stone impacted on it, sending Aurelia flying backwards, clutching her scythe to herself.

She groaned as she stood up, veering to the side and avoiding yet another rock. Only a little more time, she mused, glancing at her scythe. She could feel it almost full with magical energy.

Her eyes found Evvie again, and she knew that she had to do something about the dragonness. She pursed her lips, then smiled.

With one hand she lifted her scythe above her head and brought it down. A ripple of dark energy spread out from where she stood, leaving a copy of herself every few metres, resulting in twenty copies of herself just standing there, watching. And then, all at once, they teleported, re-appearing in a difference place leaving no indicator for the real one's position.

Aurelia stood a good 20 metres behind Evvie between two others, a very faint glow around the hand holding her scythe being the only clue that she wasn't an illusion. She smiled from beneath her hood. It wouldn't be long until she had gathered all the power necessary to finish this fight.

The sword struck his gauntleted arm with a dull thud and little else, the force of the blow and sharpness of the blade unable to overcome the durability of the armor, potent as they were. With her sword occupied by the attack on his right, she had left herself wide open to another attack from the staff in his left hand, and he brought it crashing down toward her right thigh with enough force to break the bone and send a lethal jolt of electricity coursing through her body. If she were human, at least. Heroes like her had an annoying habit of being more durable than they should.

********************
Ryomi Fiett Leitannia vs. Bloodshot (Match 1)
********************

She had planned on charging up energy, but the strike of his latest attack caused her to cry out in pain and loose all focus on that task, making it all but impossible. She could almost instantly tell that she'd no longer be able to walk until her vessel could be repaired, but that was the most miniscule of problems she was facing at the moment; a combination of the electricity and the horrible position she was in. As it turns out she had severely underestimated this man both in his strength and sturdiness of his armor. She had never seen anything like it; the current tech of her world advanced but not even close to what this was capable of. Even if she lost her body as a vessel, it was still highly important to get this information so that they could come up with a plan on dealing with him later should he become a serious threat. Unless he had more tricks up his sleeve it was unlikely he could stop her and her sister's spirit forms from slipping away in the event that things did come to that, as it appeared all the more likely as this battle waged on. Her heart was indeed taking a beating from all this electricity. Another blast and she'd be done for.

She reached out with her free hand, pointing her index finger at his face and began building up energy. She'd follow his head with her aiming finger and unleash her energy just as any of his sudden movements made it seem like he'd try to do something to stop her, but only then would she do so in order to build up energy for the maximum length of time that he gave her. She didn't know if it would be enough, but it was her best shot now.

********************
Cellinli Lienfeld vs. Niks (Match 1)
********************

She was both frightened and surprised how the being managed to survive her surprise attack with minimal damage. Unfortunately she couldn't get much stronger than that; physically at least. She'd have to form a massive compression of air and then pop it next to him in order for a more powerful attack, and that would take a lot of time and effort. Perhaps 20 or so seconds would be good enough. That could work if he was as slow as he looked, but then again it would still be difficult no matter how slow he was.

She began to form the ball of compressed air in the doorway, which he would see as a normal bubble without any liquidy texture to it. Normally it was a disadvantage that he could see her attacks forming well in advance, but in this case it would hopefully have the bright side of confusing him or making him cautious to approach, thus blocking the primary way in and out for him. If he could just be pinned down in that building while she worked on making this bubble larger and more powerful she might just have a chance to pull this off. Of course there was a lot that could go wrong with this plan but it was the best idea she had of getting out of this situation alive.

While she began to form the bubble, which was now the size of a golf ball, she spoke to try to buy even more time.

"You're clearly a bad guy. I just need to destroy everyone around here like you and maybe I'll be able to find a safe way out of this mess," she answered, voice slightly strained due to her focusing on her magic at the same time. "But I'll gladly accept a surrender if you are so willing."

********************
Evvie vs. Aurelia (Match 1)
********************

Evvie's tail perked up in surprise as the one opponent turned into multiple opponents. It was just like before, only a whole lot worse and more confusing now. She couldn't even use her hands to count how many there were, but it was likely double or so her amount of fingers. Her eyes darted around between them, watching to see if they were going to do something else fishy to her now that they had her surrounded. For now they just stood around, watching her as she watched them. They were stalling for something. She didn't like just standing around for very long, so she'd have to start bringing the fight to them again no matter how many there may be. With both hands she picked up a boulder about the size of her entire body and chucked it towards a grouping in front of her. Hopefully as it hit the ground it would roll around and take down at last a couple of them in the process.

After the boulder was in the air she rushed off to her right side to try and start beating them all up with her hands and feet whenever the opening in their defenses presented itself. She'd try moving around to fight whoever was closest to her at the time, which she'd continue until they did something else, she was the last one standing, or they had defeated her.

He didn't give her much. Without hesitation, his staff jerked up from where it had impacted her leg, aiming to strike the wrist of the aimed finger and throw her aim off course. Had he been fighting anyone else, he might have laughed at the finger-gun, but he knew how dangerous her energy projection could be and his entire strategy thus far had been focused on not giving her time to use it properly. He was still somewhat surprised she'd fallen for his goading and come to fight in melee range. She would have had a better than average chance if she'd kept her distance, but with his combination of speed and strength the fight was all but decided the moment he got his hand on her.

The small group of illusory Aurelia's in front of Evvie stepped aside to let the rock fly between them, resulting in only one of them getting hit by it, and the other one avoiding it entirely. The one hit turned to smoke, disappearing entirely after a few seconds. They moved fluidly as if alive and aware of what was happening. Perhaps a little too much; as if they weren't walking on rocky ground.

The real Aurelia grinned underneath her hood, her eyes following Evvie without moving aside from that; the less inconspicuous she was, the less the chance that the dragonness would discover her. Her eyes briefly darted towards three of the copies off the the side, the ones Evvie was currently charging towards, and had them move. At first they jumped back, but they soon charged her from the front and both sides, scythes raised and ready to strike once they were within range. If given the chance they'd swing at both her arms and neck, but even if they were to hit would do no damage despite appearing as if they cut through.

Not much left, she silently mused, feeling the thrum of power emanating from her scythe. Her smile widened. Soon, Evvie would go 'night night', as she had phrased it herself.

********************
Ryomi Fiett Leitannia vs. Bloodshot (Match 1)
********************

She used her blade to clash against his staff just in time to stop it from knocking away her finger. Her plan was still to charge her attack up as long as possible so she held her position, sword locked against his staff until further notice.

********************
Evvie vs. Aurelia (Match 1)
********************

Evvie ducked below as all of the scythes soared overhead, not knowing that they wouldn't cause any damage. Continuing her struggle, she rushed forward to pounce on the one in front of her and beat it up.

Lin vs Niks

---

Niks cackled at the woman's reply, a laugh that unmistakably evil sounding. "True, if you find and destroy enough people here, you might spend enough time for the fog to dissipate on its own. However, what does that make you, someone who considers slaughter as way to pass time, then?" He paused before continuing. "Still, at the very least your offer does show you're not that mad, what can an old man with a stick do to someone armed with blades? Is that offer really need a consideration? I surrender."

Niks spread his arms to his sides, a posture that would make harmful motion hard to pull unless one only need a flick of the wrist to do so. Nevertheless, he still needed her to be closer to him. The question would be, should he approach her or make her approach him?

Aurelia smiled, a smile that grew bigger and bigger as she felt the power she was collecting near its peak. Her illusions were doing their job, keeping Evvie busy while she hid herself and did what she needed to to prepare herself. A faint chuckle escaped her as she witnessed Evvie duck under the attacks from the two illusion clones coming from her side, while rushing at the one in the front.

The illusion in the ground brought her scythe down, effectively impaling Evvie's back even as said dragonness ploughed through her, dealing no damage to either of them save, perhaps, a chill down her spine from having raw magical energy pass through her back.

"It's about time we finish this, isn't it?" She called, snapping her fingers and dispelling the illusions, teleporting herself to a place somewhere farther away from the dragonness as well. She could feel her scythe brimming with energy, a clear sign that it could hold no more. She twirled her scythe around with one hand, then slammed the butt of it onto the ground. "What do you say?"