"Welcome back to the Block A semi-finals of this here tournament! Things are really heating up, we may see a heavy and destructive showing in this match as two Gorons have made it to this round! Presenting himself with a deadly combination of power and poise is Armostos! His strength may become the stuff of legends! You saw it here first folks! In the other corner we have someone no less a powerhouse himself, will anyone be able to figure out his mysterious skills!? With a shocking surprise he turns fights on their head! But will tricks be enough to stop the rock?!"
With his helmet already over his head, Armostos entered the ring, waving at cheering fans. His armor polished and repaired, he looked a little like he was wielding a mirror, rather than a sword. With slow steps into the ring, Armostos looked around, trying to find Zaruud in the crowd. When he spotted her, he lifted his helmet slightly, revealing his mouth, blew her a kiss and smiled. He was determined to win this battle and show off to her. He once more put on his helmet and gave a respectful nod to the statue of the goddess.
"Please watch over me again, dear goddess." Only after all that had been done, he turned to his opponent (one of them, anyway). Looking at the Goron opposite him, Armostos said
"I don't know if I can live up to my reputation, but let's make this another great and fair fight!"Gorn walked into the arena after the break period. The large crowd cheered for them and their challenger, Armostos. The former SBC Merc. Gorn whispered to his friend,[color=orange]"I may recognize him, there are only so many goron's with his stature and armor. What's the plan this time?"[color] As they got closer the armored goron spoke and Gorn smiled in response,
"This battle will be remembered regardless, friend." Gorn took his place and prepared himself.
Confliti entered the arena atop Gorn's shoulder, taking their opponent in. Another goron, and one that wore a very heavy set of armor. This guy was definitely beefy. The extra armor was good for conductivity, but unfortunately since gorons were more or less living rocks, that shot down his usual strategies.
"Shocking won't be that effective, and he's probably seen us fight in both our rounds. The rito was ready, so he likely will be too. My suggestion? Get in close and put those fists to work. Just grapple, don't injure." He narrowed his eyes, looking for any kind of weakness he could exploit. The eyes were always a favorite, but that usually resulted in death or blindness. On monsters it's fantastic, but in a friendly tournament? Overboard.
The mystically conjured horn sounded the beginning of the bout.
Slowly, but ridiculously steadily, Armostos walked towards the middle of the ring. He opened his arms, and swaggered forward for the last few steps, his zweihander sticking out far beside him, yet carried as if it weighed no more than a toothpick. After his little swagger, Armostos slammed down his shield, making it stand like a tombstone beside him. He balled his (now free) left hand into a fist and punched the air in front of him. A sole finger rose up from the fist. Pointing at Gorn, Armostos grinned an invisible grin, then he spoke again, in a tone far more serious than before.
"I'll teach you a lesson you won't soon forget, come at me."Unlike what one might've expected from the slow giant who'd started every fight so far by simply walking up to his opponent, he stood still in the middle of the ring, striking an odd resemblance to a great oak near a forest spring. The stance might even have been considered a serene or tranquil sight, if it wasn't for the fact this was a fighting tournament, and that he was actively taunting his opponent.
It appeared that Gorn would be the one taking the fight to Armostos. He had most definitely seen some of their tricks and wasn't taking any unnecessary chances. Perhaps they could use his confidence and pride against him. After all, it did not seem likely that he would turn down a challenge. Gorn slowly lumbered forward with a glint of determination in his eyes. Then he unloosed his chain ball and dropped it to the ground with a loud thud.
"Surely a Goron of your strength and prowess would not be opposed to a wrestling match," Gorn smiled pleasantly and continued,
"Let's give the fans something to enjoy!"Confliti licked his lips as he unsheathed his greatsword, keeping steady on Gorn's shoulder with one hand. As soon as the dup got within melee range, he'd take the opportunity to jump onto Armostos's armor!
As Gorn issued his challenge, Armostos couldn't help but stifle a chuckle.
Wrestling, in an actual tourney? Perhaps we should do that later. For the moment, Armostos placed his hands by his side, pointing the huge sword forward.
"I'll pass for now." was all he said before falling quiet. The rest of Armostos' stance had changed too, he wasn't standing at full height like before. Instead, his knees were bent slightly and he leaned over, ready and expecting to intercept an attack soon.
Gorn continued forward leaving his weapon behind. The crowd was most likely confused at the gesture and his expression changed to something of disappointment as he loudly replied so that everyone could hear,
"That is unfortunate! I hadn't taken you for a coward before!" He raised his shield and steadily moved closed ntil he was two swords lengths from their opponent. He was prepared to respond to any movement or aggression.
Armostos meanwhile, stood still and laughed, his laugh thundering through the arena.
"Trash talking won't do you any good, you're not the first to try! Besides, I do believe this was not a wrestling tournament, so you might want to pick up your weapon."Meanwhile, Confliti scurried down from Gorn's shoulder to the top of his shield. Once they began trading blows, he shouldn't have any problems jumping to their opponent's sword, then getting up to Armostos himself.
The goron wasn't taking it. Perhaps he wasn't as reckless as Gorn originally thought. That, or he simply wanted to show off to the crowd. Gorn smiled at him, shield raised,
"I won't be needing a weapon for this match. My friend has that part covered," He took a few more steps forward, but showed no signs of aggression..yet.
Armostos scoffed at Gorn's comment, dismissing it as arrogance. After all, there was no "friend" in sight, at least, not one that could help him in the ring. Perhaps he'd meant his right arm? People sometimes did that after all. Without worrying all that much about the aforementioned friend, Armostos waited for Gorn to close in, and little before he reached punching distance, Armostos charged, once again removing a hand from his blade--the right hand this time. He used the free hand to forcefully push aside the shield, looking to create an opening and bringing in the zweihander to fill said opening.
Armostos had actually reacted even better than Confliti had hoped for! Instead of just swinging with his sword, he actively tried to push aside Gorn's shield with his hand. That would save him the trip across a bridge of steel! The little minish took the opportunity to jump right onto the goron's hand and scurried upward along the armor. He intended to reach the neck, where armor would be thinner.
The force of Armostos' shove was powerful. Gorn was by no means weak, but this goron took strength to a new level. It took both his arms and body weight to hold his ground and maintain his defensive stance. Gorn kept one eye on his enormous sword. He did not want that thing making contact with him. The sword struck his shield and created an ear splitting noise of metal on stone. The ground shook all around them. Gorn's shield proved true as the sword glanced off the side.
After failing to hit Gorn with the strike, Armostos drew the Zweihander back with the same wide trajectory as the initial swing. At the end of this swing, Armostos let go, sending the sword flying and sticking in the ground several feet behind him. With his other hand still on the shield, Armostos closed in even further and swiftly sent a triplet of jabs directed at Gorn's face.
Confliti got lucky. The armored goron whipped his arm back for some jabs, allowing the little minish to take advantage of the momentum. He jumped up and let inertia carry him the rest of the way. Once he got up to the neck, he crumpled his face in annoyance. This guy had a metal collar latching his helmet to the body armor. Who does that? Annoyed but not dissuaded, he began looking for an alternate means of attack, but this guy was armored like a... Like one of those guardian things he saw a few thousand years ago.
"By the Light Force, I will find a way to hurt you!" He scurried up to the face plate, grabbing hold of the eye opening, and cast his Conductive Charge spell, sending a stream of electricity through the metal armor on Armostos's face.
Gorn was surprised to see the goron toss aside his primary weapon after only attempting a single strike. The metal mountain tried to surprise the shield raising goron with some jabs to the face. Before his fist connected, Gorn managed to turn downward so that the strike hit his skull rather then his face. After the first strike Gorn managed to raise his shield and block the other attacks. Despite the protection of his very hard skull he felt slightly jarred.
While he'd been punching, Armostos had felt an odd tickle across his face. It was definitely annoying, but with the ordeals he'd been through already, and the inconductivity of his rock-hard skin, it wasn't exactly enough to be called pain, a sting at most.
Zaruud's strike hurt way more. Armostos thought to himself as his fist hammered in on the shield. With the shield now raised, Armostos saw his chance and tried driving his knee into Gorn. A good hit to the guts should have some effect, at least.
Ah fiddlesticks, the charge didn't hurt as much as he'd hoped. Confliti knew that the stone-like bodies of the goron would be a bad fit for the attack, but had hoped that the conductivity of metal armor and the proximity to Armostos's eyes would mitigate that. Sadly it did not. With a sigh that transformed into a raging battle cry, the minish attempted what he had hoped he'd be able to avoid. He stabbed his sword through the eye slit he hung from. The tournament would have good healers, and after all, he was a minish. He was sure he'd be able to find something that could help the goron recover so long as he wasn't hurt too badly.
Armostos' knee came into contact with Gorn's body with quite a bit of force. Fortunately, his armor managed to take most of the blow. As he began to lurch forward slightly from the blow, he brought his shield straight down onto Armostos' knee with all force. It looked like Gorn got exactly what he wanted after all, a hand to hand all out brawl!
Armostos cursed loudly as he reflexively grabbed for his eye. He had no clue what the hell had happened, but something was off here. Armostos couldn't believe for one second that Gorn could both pierce eyes and smash knees at the same time, which was further reinforced as his hand hit something, something that shouldn't have been there since his vision had been unobstructed before. Armostos felt like throwing up as his hand motion accidentally drove the sword slightly deeper in. Now that he'd felt the invisible minish, Armostos tore him away from his face with a violent motion, but holding it tightly. Meanwhile, Gorn's blow to the knee had come at a really inconvenient time, forcing Armostos to one knee.
With a sharp battlecry, Armostos rose back to his feet and balled his fists. Whatever the squirmy thing in his hand was, it certainly wasn't magic, and it had just stabbed him in the eye. All the pieces currently available caused Armostos to conclude this Goron in front of him had cheated, for which Armostos was furious. He'd need some way to turn the tables back in his favor, though...
"WHAGH!" Confliti called out, his cry quickly muffled by the large semi-stone hand clenching around him. He held tightly to his sword, feeling it forced in a little more by the victim, accidentally of course, but he refused to leave his blade there. The minish greatsword pulled free from Armostos as Confliti was yanked from place.His body was being compressed greatly by the goron's superior size, knocking the wind from his lungs and blurring his vision, but he managed to spy something of note from the cracks between Armostos's fingers. The mighty goron went down on one knee, as Gorn recoiled his shield. Gorn had struck their opponent, and with a powerful, crippling blow as well! This infuriated the minish. It angered him far more than being crushed. They. Had. A. Plan!
Using his sword for leverage, Confliti opened up a little space between Armostos's fingers. Not enough to escape from under normal circumstances, but normal circumstances did not call for a use of his Lightning Rush spell. Supercharged with electric magic, the tiny invisible fairy-like creature shot forth from the goron's hand, free and into the air. He quickly switched out his sword for the leaf he kept as a paraglider, then called out to Gorn.
"We're done here! I forfeit! The plan was that I fight the tournament and you defend yourself!"Gorn looked incredulous as he yelled,
"What?!! I was defending myself! And I even used a shield at that!" Gorn slowly lowered his shield, no longer in a combat stance replaced with a slouch of resignation. Trying to convince Confliti of something, after he had made up his mind, was like asking a goron to swim.
"Fine then! We forfeit the match." And just like that, Gorn turned towards his fallen chainball and began lumbering over to it. The crowd was dumbfounded. Immediately after dropping a stone shield on his opponent's knee, he forfeited? What madness was this?! After arriving he picked it up by the handle and looked back at Armostos,
"It looks like you were more skilled after all! Congratulations," he said with a grin. Gorn's demeanor changed from sullen to content and happy once more. Life was too short to worry about a bout like that. Though he wished he could have gotten his friend further along,
"Next year then." He quietly muttered to himself.
Armostos was every bit as shocked as the crowd was, if not even more so. The invisible critter he'd had in his hand had popped up into the sky like a firework and right after that Gorn forfeited the match. The match had been "won", but it didn't sit right with Armostos, he was still pretty damn pissed.
"What shit..." Armostos cursed to himself as he limped back to his own gear. He'd have loved to continue fighting Gorn one-on-one, but he doubted even he could win in his current state.
After picking up his zweihander, Armostos pointed it at Gorn on the other side of the ring, well out of Armostos' reach.
"Gornfliti!" He shouted.
"I'll kick your ass properly, one day." With that said, Armostos started carrying himself out of the ring, leaning on his zweihander to not fall to his knees as he slowly made his exit from the ring. He'd go see a healer first thing now, his knee'd be fine, eventually, but he wasn't willing to risk permanent damage to his eye due to negligence. Still, he'd need one hell of a healer for this one.
As Armostos began to leave the arena, he beheld a strange sight. A few very healthy looking rocks carried on a small bed of leaves crawled toward him on the ground. Confliti had found some healing food for the goron with a little minish blessing. So long as Armostos ate these stones, he'd find himself healed and rejuvinated.
As Armostos saw the rocks sliding towards him on a bunch of leaves, he wished it had been the weirdest thing he'd (barely) seen today, but with the battle he just had, this wasn't the case. A little dejected and confused, Armostos picked up one of the rocks and sniffed. Nothing seemed to be weird beside the way they were presented, so, curious as he was, Armostos decided to try one. It turned out to be one really tasty rock, and it made him feel a little fuzzy inside. After sheathing the zweihander and eating all of them on his way to the healers' post, Armostos already felt better, rocks truly were the best comfort food. Naturally he'd still go for a check-up, he'd need to be in top condition for the next fight.
