[IC] MONSTORY

[Dead Cruiser]

"Unfortunate. Truly unfortunate." This was Theurge's response, delivered as stoically as ever. "You would have risen in our ranks very quickly. I would have been unseated as the leader of our cadre in no time at all. But that is of no matter." He outstretched one of his hands in a beckoning gesture, made all the more intimidating by how he could palm Izzy's head as if it were an orange. "Let us begin, pitiful girl. You have no time to waste, correct?"

[Riven Wight]

It took Izzy a short moment to register exactly what Theurge had said. Had he really just told her he thought she, a scrawny twig in comparison to his bulk, could actually oust him from his leadership position? All he had to do was fall on her, and she would be a pancake.
But she could not afford to think like that. Her brothers had never won a match by doubting themselves, and that was simply for the fun of it. This was a matter of life or death.
She would beat Theurge. She would win. And she would retrieve Cerasus’ left arm. The man-child had enough confidence in that. And if Theurge thought she could be that powerful, it was now she needed to prove it, to both the hulking monster before her and herself.
Izzy inhaled, a look of stiff determination on her face as he spoke to her the second time. Fearing she would lose what bit of courage she had if she opened her mouth, she nodded in answer.
She sized him up. She knew his bulk did not hinder his speed, and she still did not trust his apparent lack of weapons. Just because he was not holding his sword did not mean he did not have something else hidden on his person. But everyone had a weak spot, and perhaps she could use his weight and momentum against him, somehow get his legs out from under him, even if they were thick enough to make tree trunks jealous. After all, she could punch through brick walls now.
She exhaled through her nose, then charged toward Theurge, keeping low and ready to dodge his massive arms, watching for any weaknesses or an opening to try bringing him to his knees.

[Dead Cruiser]

Just as Izzy charged, Dramatic Theurge also charged. His bulk utterly belied his speed; he was even faster than Izzy seemed to remember. He rotated his arm forward, throwing a punch with all of his weight behind it, not unlike a pro boxer. It was only by the benefit of Izzy's vampiric vision that she was even able to see the attack, but she still found that she could not move her body quickly enough to avoid it. His punch connected, hitting her in the left arm, and she was sent barrelling away on the ground.

There was a certain sensation of... emptiness that possessed Izzy. She didn't feel any pain where she was struck. Looking to where she had taken the blow, she saw that her left arm was gone. The punch had not ripped it off, or shattered it, but completely pulverized it, and there was now nothing left. Starting to panic, shock creeping in, she looked back at Theurge, slowly advancing on her, and looked back at her missing arm. Except it was there again. Perfectly formed, as though she had never lost it. The fact that the sleeve of her shirt was still missing made it seem all the more miraculous. So this was... vampiric regeneration?

[Riven Wight]

Adrenaline buzzing through her body, Izzy shouted in shock at the sight of her now missing arm. She scrambled to her feet, the action awkward with the off-balance of only a right arm, the grass damp beneath her palm and knees. At least she had not felt it, not in the traditional sense, anyway.
She looked to Theurge with wide, panicked eyes, not wanting to lose sight of him for even half a second, then glanced back to her arm. She did a double take when she realized it was, in fact, there again. She took a fraction of a second to wiggle her fingers and flick her arm, testing out her newly regenerated limb, but that was all the time she dared spare in awe at the vampiric power.
Though such strength came as no surprise--it was blatantly obvious she was not match for him in that--she had underestimated his speed. Again.
Inhaling and doing her best to not think about what had just happened, she darted toward him, slower this time, hoping to allot a short span of extra time to register his movements before their opposing forces met.
Just before the last possible second, in a single movement, she crouched as low as she could and sprung at his weight-wielding leg.

[Dead Cruiser]

Izzy sprung at Theurge's leg, successfully ducking under his wrecking ball of a fist. Her body collided with his meaty leg, sending him skidding back a couple of feet, but he did not lose his balance. Unfortunately, this placed Izzy directly in range of his next attack, and his fist came down on her from above, striking her in the middle of the back. Izzy was knocked to the ground with a resounding thud, and was then kicked in the ribs to once again skid some dozen feet away. Dazed, on the ground, Izzy realized for a few seconds that she couldn't feel her legs. The fist in her back had probably broken her spine. This paralysis didn't last long, though, and she was back on her feet, if a bit unsteady, just a couple of seconds later. Clearly attacking him from the front wasn't going to work; this was the advantage his experience gave him.

"I had expected some kind of ruse," Dramatic Theurge called out to Izzy, "I commend you for your lack of guile."

[Riven Wight]

Her attack far from successful, the breath knocked from Izzy’s lungs when Theurge’s fist slammed into her back, then slid a few yards away from a kick, pain prickling through her ribcage at the initial attack. She laid in the grass for a couple seconds after the feeling returned to her legs, stunned.
She shakily got to her feet. This was not working. She needed to strike from behind him somehow, not head-on.
“Like I said,” she began uneasily, unsure whether she should take Theurge’s comment as a compliment or an insult, “all I want is Cerasus’ stupid arm. No gimmicks. No trickery.”
Once more, she ran toward him, only this time, she veered off, making to run a circle around him. She pushed her legs to move as fast as they could, then even faster, to circle him a few times, hoping he would turn just a moment too late and give her an opportunity, no matter how short of a window, to land a blow to his backside.

[Dead Cruiser]

Theurge did not move as Izzy circled around him, but she could see his crimson eyes tracking her each time she went around. She slowly closed the distance between them as she circled, and eventually tried to strike at his back. Theurge whipped around to knock her senseless as she struck, but Izzy was able to anticipate the blow and ducked under it. He had turned too much to attack his back, but she could grab at his extended arm if she wanted to.

This situation seemed familiar, somehow. Perhaps she had seen one of her brothers use some kind of move like this? Izzy then remembered the little that she had managed to read in one of the martial arts books she had picked up. Maybe, "Aikido for Beginners." If she wanted to, she could pull him into an arm bar. How did that go? "Step 1: Take opponent's arm. Step 2: Pull them toward you. Step 3: Slam your opponent down as hard as you can!"

[Riven Wight]

Even though he did not turn, his gaze never left her, showing he held a confidence even with his back to Izzy. When she fully closed the circle and went in to attack and Theurge whipped around, she saw his arm coming and ducked beneath it. She felt the wind of it on her skin.
Thankful for her quick reflexes--and even quicker memory recall--she gripped his outstretched arm with one hand on his wrist and the other at his elbow as she had seen in the illustration, and pulled toward her, using his own propulsion to aid in hurling him against the ground. Should he fall, she braced to land a kick of her own to his head, before leaping away.

[Dead Cruiser]

As soon as Izzy came to grip his arm and yank him forward, Theurge's eyes widened in surprise, but his face otherwise remained as stony as ever. Rather than allow himself to be fully pulled to the ground, he grunted with effort, and after a second, was freed from Izzy's grasp. Izzy felt a sharp pain from... whatever he did, and stumbled backward. She suddenly realized that this was a lacerating pain, as she looked down at her arms to see that they had both been severed just above her wrists. She saw her hands, lying on the ground just where they had been struggling. They quickly melted into a reddish sludge, and then evaporated into thin air. No sooner had her severed hands disappeared from sight did her hands regenerate on her arms. It felt as though they had just been replaced, not regrown entirely.

Looking back to Theurge, Izzy saw what he had done to cut off her arms and free himself. Below his elbow, both of his arms had been transformed into large, steel blades. Vampire transformation! She recalled Cerasus saying something about that before. He hadn't just hidden his sword somewhere; it had been a part of him the entire time.

Theurge assumed a defensive posture, and called out again to Izzy, "Too clever by half. Guilelessness served you better. You seem to still be clinging to the common sense you acquired as a human. But that's only natural. I understand, I was a human once, too!"

[Riven Wight]

A sense of satisfaction bubbled in Izzy’s chest when she saw his eyes widen, but the feeling lasted mere seconds. Izzy let out a yelp at the sharp stinging that erupted just above her wrists when Theurge freed himself. She stumbled away, horror struck at the harrowing sight of her hands on the ground, before she remembered they would grow back. No sooner had she recalled such, then they did.
She looked back to Theurge, alarmed, and took a few quick bounds back from him, wondering where he had pulled a weapon from. Her mouth opened slightly when she saw that his arms themselves had turned into blades. She had thought Cerasus was mocking her statement about turning into a bat when he mentioned transformation, but it would seem he had been quite serious.
Her hands clenched and unclenched as he assumed a defensive position, wondering if she could do something like that, and how.
She had all but forgotten that Theurge would have once been a human as well, with the way he acted. But he did make a point. She was no longer apart of the human side of the world. Here, the rules were different. She could count the number of them she knew on one hand. As long as Theurge did not chop it off first, anyway.
“Ever think about trying to turn back?” she grumbled, her voice low and shaky. She only half payed attention to him as she tried to concentrate, imagining her own arms mimicking his.

[Dead Cruiser]

"Hmm." This was Theurge's only answer to Izzy's question. She wasn't expecting a serious answer from him, but from the look of contemplation that crossed his eyes, he seemed to be considering the question carefully. It seemed improbable that he actually desired to return to being a human, but none the less he seemed to be thinking over very carefully.

Izzy did not have much luck with the transformation. It was a very abstract thing, and not something that she felt coming to her naturally. As it was, her arms just stayed as arms. She considered her options, now that transforming seemed to be beyond her. Coming in close as she currently was really wouldn't work. He had the advantage in reach, speed, and strength. If she could keep her distance from him while still attacking, then she might be able to inflict some harm on him. Izzy looked around, trying to find something that she could potentially use on him from a range.

"Well? Are you giving up?" Theurge asked, questioning her apparent inactivity.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy gave a frustrated growl when nothing happened. Only when Theurge asked if she was giving up, did she realize two things: first, he had not come at her to attack as she would have expected in her distraction, and second, she probably looked ridiculous just standing there in the middle of their rather one-sided fight. She glanced quickly around the field, hoping to find something to use as her own weapon against him, but the only thing there was a soccer net someone had forgotten to bring in.
The unfairness of the whole wretched mess settled over Izzy, making her snarl.
“You’re a coward, you know that?” she snapped, bearing her fangs. “I get one good grip on you, and you need to bring out those?” She gestured to his transformed arms, then noticed a flagpole without its flag about eighteen feet tall at the end of the field behind Theurge. She had forgotten about the flagpole.
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” she muttered under her breath. With a quick glance to Theurge, she made a run for the pole. Though she doubted it would do much especially if she could snap it, at least it would be better than standing there like a nitwit with nothing and giving up.
In reaching it, she jumped and reached up to grip and break the shaft higher up so it would not be too unwieldy, the metal giving a squeal in protest as she broke it in passing. She marveled for just a moment mid-air that she had actually broken it.
She landed back on the ground none too gracefully and, gripping her roughly nine-foot-tall makeshift staff in both hands a couple feet apart, she swirled around to face Theruge. Its pointed gold-colored tip facing him and the shaft extended as far out as she could make it without compromising her grip, she advanced on him, watching his blades with wary eyes.

[Dead Cruiser]

Wordlessly, Theurge advanced on Izzy, blades drawn to strike. What Izzy immediately noticed that he was much slower with his arms as swords; they were both massive, and seemingly just as heavy as steel despite being made from his body. He probably weighed 400 pounds normally, now his weight had to be at least 650. In any case, he was inhumanly fast, and Izzy's reflexes allowed her to just bring up the flagpole to block his blows. The impact rang Izzy like a bell, and she gripped the steel pole so tightly that she felt her hands warping the metal.

Theurge snorted, possibly in frustration, and lowered his posture to make himself more steady. Then, almost like a baseball player, he swung with his hips, trying to bat the pole out of Izzy's hands. However, her hands were far too deeply sunk into the metal at that point, and as a result, Izzy was sent flying with the pole. Working completely off of instinct, Izzy was able to twist acrobatically in the air, and landed on her feet, much like a cat. However, she didn't have time to marvel at her newfound agility, as Theurge was advancing on her yet again.

Confronting him directly simply wasn't working. She may not be able to beat him in strength or skill, but she now seemed to have the edge in speed. At the very least, Izzy was confident that she would be able to outrun him.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy gritted her teeth against the metallic ringing that echoed through the field, filling her ears and buzzing unpleasantly down her arms when metal struck metal. Thankfully, the bar held against his strike save for where it distorted beneath her vice-like grip, and her body remained intact.
When Theurge swung at the flagpole and sent her flying, the only thing she could think about was not turning her back to him, unintentionally letting her body take over instead of her human logic. In result, she landed easily on her feet, facing Theurge, the broken portion of the flagpole still held defensively in front of her.
Now, it seemed, she had the advantage of speed, and the hard metal of her impromptu quarterstaff granted her a sense of security, of confidence. Despite its thickness being greater then what she was used to, the pole-turned-staff felt familiar. Though she was no expert in the matter, she had watched videos (and played one too many video games) and implemented a few of their techniques to the best of her abilities with her own walking staff upon occasion. After all, it never hurt to be capable of defending yourself against wild animals. Or little brothers. Or mountainous vampires.
A look of fierce valor settled over Izzy’s face when Theurge came at her again.
Think like a vampire, she told herself, then ran as if to meet him head-on once more, her pole held in both hands at her side.
Before she came within his swords’ reach, in one fluid motion, she stuck the pointed end of the pole into the ground at the side, used it and her speed to catapult and swing around to get near Theurge’s backside, pulled the pole from the ground as she landed with her legs slightly bent, and used the momentum of the entire maneuver to strengthen a blow aimed at behind his knees. She was ready to either to bring it for another swing toward his head if the first succeeded in at least making him stumble, or leap away and run from his fury should it fail.

[Dead Cruiser]

At the metal pole struck Theurge's leg, there was a sickening crack, and he dropped down as the knee that took the blow bent at an uncomfortable angle. However, Theurge did not falter, as he swung back in a wide arc with one of his swords, the blade level with Izzy's throat. Only by her advantage in angle and reach was she able to jump back in time and keep her head on her shoulders.

The metal pole was stuck, wrapped around Theurge's leg like a ribbon around a tree. Theurge was recovering slowly from the attack, gradually getting back up on his feet. This was apparently a trickier effort without the aid of hands. He pried the bent pole off of his leg, and then stamped on it, snapping it in two. Izzy was disarmed, but she had still managed to slow him further. She looked around for anything that she could use as a weapon. She spotted the athletic equipment shed not far away; it was locked, but the door was wooden. There was probably something she could use in there.

[Riven Wight]

The crack of a breaking bone made a shudder run down Izzy’s spine. She released the bar and only just managed to back away when Theurge lashed out at her.
Though he was currently incapacitated, Izzy knew that, if her body could regenerate entire limbs, then a broken knee would not keep him down for long, and with her weapon wrapped around his leg, she had nothing to land a second blow without risking her life.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the equipment shed. She took a few backward steps toward it as Theurge pried the pole from his leg, then turned and ran for the shed. She wrenched the padlock off, splintering the part of the door onto which it was attached. She pulled the door open, and raced inside.
Despite the darkness, she could make out the various bits of equipment lining the walls, from baskets filled with various types of balls, to a stack of uniforms and helmets. She needed something long-distance. Quick as a flash, she grabbed a basket of baseballs and an aluminum bat, and rushed back to the door.
Taking note of where Theurge was, she dropped the bucket beside her, quickly picked up a baseball, tossed it in the air, and swung the bat. With an earsplitting crack! the baseball sped toward Theurge as Izzy bent to pick up another one and repeat the action to pelt him with baseballs.

[Dead Cruiser]

Theurge had risen fully, and was advancing on Izzy slowly as she rummaged through the equipment shed. His leg was apparently taking quite some time to heal, and he was reduced to limping towards her, swords drawn. As Izzy emerged from the shed armed with baseballs and a bat, his eyes narrowed, likely trying to figure out what she was about to do. Izzy swung at the first ball, striking it with an enormous din. However, it seemed that the force of her strike had been too much for the ball, and it had exploded right as she hit it. The crumpled, leather remains of the baseball settled at Izzy's feet, and she discarded the bat, exasperated.

Time for something slightly different. Izzy went back to the basket of baseballs, and took one in hand. She tried to remember how Zach would pitch at his baseball games. She dug in her heels, wound up, and chucked the baseball with all of her might. It whipped through the air, the projectile much too small and fast for Theurge to block or avoid, and struck the massive man in the dead center of his chest.

"Guhh!" Theurge grunted as he dropped to his knee again, the air knocked out of him.

Izzy celebrated internally as she tossed baseball after baseball at him. However, the first pitch seemed to be a case of beginner's luck. Each subsequent baseball veered off course, and struck the ground around or behind Theurge. They carved enormous grooves into the ground with their impact, burying the baseballs with the sheer force of her throws. They would probably need to be filled in later, probably with one of those big field rollers. Theurge had recovered from the initial impact, and was continuing his advance. He didn't seem to mind the balls flying around him, and he continued his slow march toward the shed. However, his speed seemed to be steadily increasing, as his leg was apparently healing.

Getting desperate, Izzy threw the last ball in the basket. Though she didn't notice at first, this ball was somehow different from the others. It flew in a straight line toward Dramatic Theurge, and with a clang and a crunch, nailed him square in the face. Izzy then noticed that this was not a baseball, but an iron shot put that she had thrown. Someone had mixed one in with the baseballs somehow. How careless.

The shot put fell away from Theurge's face, and blood streamed down from his broken nose. Beyond whatever damage that inflicted, he looked pissed. He continued his advance at a much quicker pace, seeming dragging his broken leg along as he went. Izzy was out of balls, she needed something to defend herself with when he got to her; it wouldn't be long. She looked back into the shed. Anything wood he'd cut right through. A bat was too short. What could she use? Wait... field rollers...?

[Riven Wight]

Theurge, it seemed, healed significantly slower than Izzy, which was good news for her, especially with her rather poor aim. When it came to the final ball, she gave it her all before realizing exactly what she had thrown. For the short millisecond between it leaving her hand and when it hit his face, she hoped that the force of it would knock him out, but of course she had no such luck. Instead, murder rested in his all too alert eyes and sent a chill through her.
Now, she was out of ammo, not that what she had had done much good. She turned to look back in the shed, to find something else. Sitting beside the shed and partially hidden under a tarp was a field roller.
That might work.
With really no other options available to her, she cast a quick glance to Theurge, his pace quickened in rage, then rushed to the roller, pulled the tarp off, and gripped the end intended to be attached to a tractor. Though it stuck for a short moment from its lack of use for the past while, she easily pushed it out into the open, around the shed, and raced it toward Theurge.

[Dead Cruiser]

As Izzy raced toward Theurge, a thought occurred to her. There was something that he had said earlier, "You seem to still be clinging to the common sense you acquired as a human." The sentence was stuck in her head for some reason. She thought to when she was hurling baseballs at him to no avail, and then how easily she hit him with the shot put. Then the pieces snapped together. The baseballs were too light and too soft for her. Her strength had increased massively, and putting her inhuman strength into a human technique simply didn't work. That's why after a lucky first hit, she couldn't even get close to him with the baseballs, but hit him with the shot put with perfect ease.

If she wanted to win, she had to abandon her common sense as a human. Izzy looked down to the roller she was running along the ground, and decided that simply rolling it was too much like what a human would do. Experimentally she picked it up, and found it easy enough to hold with one hand. She charged toward Theurge, and once she was close enough swung the massive implement like a baseball bat.

She hit air. The momentum of her strength and the weight of the roller nearly knocked her over after she swung through, but Izzy maintained her balance, and looked back at Theurge. He had stopped dead in his tracks, and held up both of his sword-arms. Sort of like a field-goal signal that a referee would make. But Izzy quickly realized that wasn't what he was trying to signify.

"I surrender." Dramatic Theurge said in his usual tone, with his usual stern face. "If struck with that thing, with your strength, the damage would be tremendous. It would take me a full two days to recover."

[Riven Wight]

When her swing hit nothing, Izzy feared she had miscalculated when they would meet, but as she righted herself, she saw that Theurge had stopped, his blades raised in surrender.
She eyed him for a moment, wondering if it was a trick, then slowly lowered her giant club as he voiced the reason behind his action. Triumph blossomed in her chest.
Standing tall, she stared him down... or up, depending on how you wanted to look at it, like a mouse staring down a lion. She kept one hand gripped on the roller, just in case, and cast his still bladed arms a couple wary glances.
“My prize, then?” She raised her chin slightly, her face stern.