[IC] Paradox vs Xavier Bloodbayne

[Paradox]

Venue - Williamsburg Bridge


Information
Time: 4:31PM
Location: New York
Date December, 22th.
Weather: Clear sky, slightly windy
Temperature: 59°F

Williamsburg Bridge: A high-rise complex constructed with various quantities of steel beams above the top most platforms, where pedestrians roam above a train line that leads back and forth from between boroughs.The deck below contained an additional pathway for motor vehicles to precede to-and-fro on a two lane highway. What safe guarded each walkway were steel railings before a fence that walled individuals from plummeting onto the speeding traffic. The upper layer’s path doubled as a bicycle lane, and overlooked the secondary layer that protrudes further.

Now assuming a curious bystander faced the opposite direction, they could see a railroad platform underneath sectioning off the opposite bike route by a railing guard identically across. A bolder individual might attempt to scale the thick truss’ pipes connecting the support structures, as security is at a premium that enabled death-defying antics to be explored. The overhead of steel arrangements acted as platforms for workers that are accessible by a ladder or merely climbing either fence as it was only less than ten feet above. It certainly was an astonishment of industrial ingenuity, a labyrinth of cold metal stacked parallel or perpendicular to one another.

The bridge towered colossally above the east river, giving anyone a splendid view of the horizon up north for about a mile to see. One could definitely testify equally about the other walkway that had its own southern tapestry, a large body of water on both sides motioned tranquilly with what little boat activity occurred. Another interesting note to any observer is how this bridge is supported. Using only two edifices located at the east and west wings, the mass array of trusses aids the bridge’s massive length and weight.

An arctic chill sluices from the west. Any bystander travelling to Manhattan would inevitably feel a stingy cold to their face. It was by-far the least congested rush-hour this winter and not a soul in sight, but only cars sped across as their numbers were in scarcity. The rail tracks occasionally roared with the thundering two ton metal monster zipping across on schedule before receding back underground. This afternoon seemed particularly abnormal considering how robust the weekday traditionally is, but this Thursday afternoon reek with suspicion. Dawn started to settle beneath Manhattan’s walls of project tenements and skyscrapers that obscured what would be a beautiful sunset. There was still enough sunlight to any one person leaving Brooklyn to chase the star if so desired, but their surroundings were thick in a cornflower blue, with the exception of the vehicular tunnel. It was only 5:00 P. M. and far too soon for the bridge’s lights to shine an amber fluorescence.
~Credit to Mobius - TZDL2009 Tournament semi-finals

[Paradox]

One could not be sure whether it was due to the frigid wind whistling through the air, or the preternatural sense of foreboding that lingered heavily around the Williamsburg Bridge, but the giant metallic structure that stretched over New York's East River was unusually deserted on this late December afternoon. It was just before the time when the sky would begin to darken with winter's lengthy nights; there were but a few souls who were intrepid enough to brave the chill and explore the city, to see what adventures could befall them as dusk began to fall.

One person in particular would be likely to catch a passerby's eye as she walked steadily across the bridge; a young looking girl, seeming to be late in her teenage years at the very most, but with steel-grey eyes that hinted that she was either far older, or had seen far too much within her limited lifespan. Long, dark hair fell in slight waves around her face, contrasting starkly with her fair, cool skin. And if one were to look closely, focusing on the area of her throat just above her collarbone, they would be able to see a silvery line of scar tissue stretching across her delicate-looking neck.

Her figure was petite, barely reaching five foot tall, and slender in stature. Her clothing, whilst not scant by any stretch of the imagination, was not particularly bulky nor suited for winter. In fact, beyond a long-sleeved (but lightweight in appearance) top, combat trousers, and heavy black motorcycle boots, she wore no other layers to shield her from the seasonal weather. And yet, the young woman was seemingly unconcerned with the plummeting temperatures, striding purposefully along without so much as a shiver as the air around her seemed to pulsate with invisible heat.

As she walked, her mind methodically reviewed the information she had already been given, scant as it was. Interpol had a target, most details unknown, but codenamed the Fifth Apocalypse. Who this person was, or why he was a target... these were details that either her department didn't know, or just didn't see fit to tell her. It was yet another one of those "you'll know them when you see them, now go!" type of missions. She sighed deeply - Interpol were not making sense lately. They wouldn't even allow her partner to accompany her on the trip, claiming he was urgently needed on a job elsewhere. Rakhana has every faith in her ability to get the job done, but she always felt better when she had Jack Miles watching her back.

Moving without pause, at a steady but measured pace, it was only a matter of time before the young woman reached the end of the walkway on the bridge. Turning to face the bridge before pausing for a moment, she withdrew a gun (a modified, sawn-off M1 Garand) from a holster strapped to her right leg - her left sported the same holster with an identical gun, but this one she kept sheathed for now. Extending her right arm to hold the gun straight in front of her, she sent some wordless, motionless commands through her neural system to the injection system embedded in her lower spine. Though these commands produced no outwardly visible changes, she felt a difference almost immediately; time seemed to slow before her eyes as her adrenaline spiked to inhuman levels from the first command, the activation of her controlled adrenaline rush. The second command caused her skin to produce a microscopic layer of transparent, heat-reactive superfluid which provided a layer of armour all over her body, without restricting her movement or altering the skin beneath at all.

And, with her weapon drawn, her attention focused, and her defenses up, Rakhana Vakarian was ready for the next fight. All the young Interpol agent had to do now was to wait for the Fifth Apocalypse to arrive.

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

Three Hours Earlier

Passenger Cabin of ShinRa Private Jet

En Route to Teterboro Airport, NYC from Melbourne Airport, Melbourne AUS

---

The sun looms high in the sky at just a quarter of an hour shy of 2 O'clock in the afternoon; bathing a sleek private jet in rays of sunlight, which the matte finish of its black paint job ate up greedily as it tore high above the countryside of Northeast Mexico. On the tail of the plane there was a simple stencil tag that read 'ShinRa' in dark red paint; a private military corporation operating from undisclosed locations across the world. The people need only call-out to them with the right amount of cash on hand and the forces would swarm to their aid. Beyond that; their planes and helicopters can be seen picking up and dropping off seemingly random personnel for unknown reasons. It's a mystery as to where the planes or helicopters come from; but they always seem to have the proper clearance to come and go as they please with little warning. Today the jet had appear almost spontaneously in the airspace south of Melbourne Australia; giving air traffic control a brief scare before their clearance was called through immediately after their appearance. They had come to pick up one of their operatives who had been away on vacation for quite some time.

The man within the passenger cabin of the plane was Leo Maxim; his head hanging back in his seat while his light blue hair jostled gently in the circulating air. With arms crossed over his naked and chiseled chest he slumbered on as he rocketed towards his destination; electing to rest his feet and black denim covered legs upon the table in front of him rather than getting up and moving to the sofa in the back. Already he had been bothered to show up at all; why should he bother with anything else til arriving?
Then, as though sensing his general outlook upon the entire operation, his right front pocket gave off two quick and hard vibrations before going silent; Leo’s arms flinched and visibly loosened their grip upon each other as was startled into awareness. When his pocket sounded off with two more vibrations after just two seconds his arms lost their hold all together and slumped to his side. While sounding off an exasperated sigh Leo fished into his pocket and pulled out a black Samsung S7 (awesome phone) and proceeded to chuck it into the area behind him without even glancing at it.

“I’m not here!” he grumbled angrily whilst flipping the bird to the still airborne phone. Crossing his arms over his chest with a huff Leo proceeded to listen to the phone vibrate again and again and again. At some point the phone stopped vibrating and he managed to doze off once again, unsure of which had happened first.

“M-mister Maxim..?” a gentle, feminine voice awoke him this time around; causing his eyes to dart open and his head to spring to attention.

Glistening light blue eyes seemed to peer into the soul of the young, blonde haired stewardess that stood no more than 6 feet from him in the onboard kitchen. The sight of his eyes caught her off guard and the woman could feel a bit of heat rising in her soft cheeks; bring about a small smile to Leo’s.

“The Company just radioed ” she began quickly, staring deeply into his eyes as she did. In her hands was a vanilla folder sealed shut at the folds with red tape that read ‘Classified’. “They said that I should give you the hard copy of the files they had given the Captain Incase they were unable to reach you.”

Leo never lost his smile, but sounded off with a soft sigh as he began to shift his weight; taking his feet off the table so that he could stand upright in front of his seat. At attention, Leo was an impressive 6ft 1 and had the muscular definition of a heavyweight fighter. The sight would have struck the woman dead in her tracks; if she was not first drawn to the multitude of scars which dotted, lined and zig zagged along his upper body. Eiher one on their own would have constitutes a freakout of their own variety, but together they helped to create a kind of normalizing effect; though she could not shake the blush from her cheeks as he walked over and stood before her. With a shaky hand she handed the folder over to Leo and left without waiting for a reaction from him and it only made the smile on his face that much bigger.

“Some women fluster so easily.” He said aloud to himself as he watched her walk away; swatting his hand gently with the folder absentmindedly. As soon as she was out of sight Leo pivoted upon his foot and fell backwards into the seat across the aisle of where he had been sleeping. A quick glance at the front of the file shows that it reads 'THE FIFTH. With a shrug and a quick flick and pull of the wrist, Leo removed the Teflon exterior of the security tape; leaving a streaky red and white mess in its wake to show it had been opened. Leo is a man who had almost seen it all; but when the file fell open so did his jaw.

At the top of the envelope was the mission header “Gather Intel on 5th Apocalypse”
The first image he was greeted by was the above the waist profile of a woman living in NYC who’d been bound to a chair in what appeared to be a living room. The woman’s head was visibly being held up for the photo by a pair of blue latex gloves; the fingers having to grip around the nail hammer which had it’s claw embedded in the top of her skull. Upon the woman’s forehead and face there were innumerable scratches and gouges of varying lengths and depths that stemmed from the empty sockets where her eyes should have been. Her jaw hung limp at her neck in the photo as the lower portion of the jaw was visibly dislocated and the flesh binding it to the upper portion had been torn apart; creating a horrific sight that churned Leo’s stomach just abit.

This was simply the first photo of the case, the pictures would go on to reveal that the woman was surrounded by 3 other bodies that would be identified in the report as being her children and they were all maimed in similarly gruesome fashions. Leo flipped as quickly as he could through these but still could not shake the sight of the bloodied children from his mind. Finally, he would arrive at the police report itself, where the story was finally put together.

The husband had recently started seeing a psychiatrist after a trip he had made to the Wisconsin area to see his dying father. Therapists notes say that the man mentioned seeing a 'flash of red light’ while flying back from the Wisconsin area and that the plane suddenly suffered electrical problems that caused it to plummet momentarily. During the plummet the man claimed that his life flashed very vividly before his eyes and even went beyond that point to show him that he would not die on this plane. But that he would instead be killed at the hands of a large, barbarian looking man who wanted to break his bones and eat his face off. When he was finished with that, he would tear him limb from limb and throw them to the demonic forms of his friends and family while their voices screamed ‘Beware the Fifth Apocalypse. The Fifth is now! THE FIFTH IS NOW!'

When the ordeal was over, the man remained visibly shaken and is reported to have spent the remainder of his flight muttering “Beware the fifth…” over and over; even tearing the nails from his fingers trying to engrave those words into the seat rest infront from him. No one else on the flight could verify the red flash the man claimed had started the entire thing; there wasn’t even anyone that could testify that the plane had suffered any problems at all and the man was left to deal with the problem on his own, to the aforementioned end.

The therapist reported a lessening hold on reality on the man and was leaning towards institutionalizing him for his own safety and the safety of his family. It was that very night that the man would home and brutally murder his wife and children before scuttling away to the basement where he would scratch and claw at his own ears and eyes until they were nothing more than scraps of destroyed flesh. Using the blood from these wound’s the man painted the phrase ‘Beware the Fifth!” all over the walls before he succumbed to blood loss – the final blood smear being only two letters 'XB'.

“Wow…” Leo said softly, turning his body to face the table before throwing the file onto it. “What the fuck is going on here.”

With a heavy sigh Leo shut the file and shoved it to the end of the opposite end of the table. Upon peaking at the next attached police report he saw only that the woman in the next picture was the therapist the man had been seeing. When he could stomach to continue reading later in the flight, he would find that she had reportedly stumbled into a children’s hospital soaked in gasoline and holding a flip-open zippo lighter; the night after the murder suicide. That terrible story could practically tell itself. In the woman’s home police would find tons of carving on the walls, floors and ceilings that said “The Fifth is now”.

But for now, Leo would let the file fester at the end of the table while he wrapped his mind around what he had just seen and read as he leaned backed against the planes enterior wall; rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

“So, I guess I’m to investigate these death scenes and figure out if there’s anything stranger than the deaths themselves at play.” He let his head roll back against the wall of the plane and shut his eyes; taking in and releasing a deep breath. “Should be fun.”

Mentally Leo was constantly reciting the words and phrases that had been written and carved in numerous ways in the report. “The Fifth Apocalypse…”

---

“How long is this damned bridge?!”

Leo had only landed in the city an hour ago; but already this was proving to be one of the worst places he had been to in a long time. It wasn’t even the city itself that irked him, but the bitter, stingy slap of winter air that hit him square in the face when the plane door opened earlier. They had brought him all the way from his Australian summer to a Manhattan Winter?!

Regardless of how he felt about the entire situation, Leo still knew that there was a job to be done and a specific reason he had been chosen to do it. So the moment that door opened; Leo was strapped and ready for bear. From shoulders to boots Leo had equipped, latched and fastened every piece of painted armor that was brought with him. None of the paint was gaudy, one would be hard-pressed to notice the paint job at all, but rather subtle and resembling the colors of a natural suit of armor. (There’s a lot of pieces to describe… so I will leave it at he’s wearing them all lol)

For an hour Leo walked and walked and walked around this freezing city; visiting first the office of the therapist and the various places she habited in her life as she was the closer of the two specimens. At every point of interest there was at least one mention of 'The Fifth' to be found around the areas or blocks away from them. The further south he traveled through Manhattan and the closer he got to the main point of investigation, the more frequently he began to see The Fifth Apocalypse being mentioned; even taking note of a large, graphic mural depicting several dead bodies contorted into the letters 'XB' that was being painted over in an alleyway.

At the present moment it was around 4:45 and Leo was halfway finished crossing the Williamsburg Bridge and for the first time since he arrived in this city it seemed he would have a moment with his thoughts; and he was aimed to use this glorious moment curse this town and it’s damned bridge

“It’s cold as tits out here and you want me to walk over a mile in these unholy windchills?!” he screamed practically at the top of his lungs while shaking his fist into the air. “Beware the Fifth?! Beware my foot in your ass, more like!”

Practically stomping along the cement walkway, Leo reached up to his left shoulder where the large metallic piece of armor know as the Guardians Pauldron was located and he began to fish underneath the metallic lip. Rummaging for but a moment, he pulled a glowing orange orb from a strap located on his upper bicep and moved it quickly to the buckle of his belt. With a high pitched clink of metal on glass this glowing orb sank into the depression on his belt buckle before it was grabbed hold of by 4 thin metallic arms to hold it in place. An orange glow rippled outwards from the belt buckle to spread across the armor plating he wore and the skin beneath it; leaving the orange hue in its wake. When the flow reached Leo’s neck, both the armor and his skin began to produce gentle plumes of steam and he quivered visibly in his step.

“Oooooh yea-ah” he sighed out in relief as the warmth passed over him, his now unnaturally warm breath creating a thick plume of steam with his sounds. “Next time; I’m demanding a helicopter for cross city travel. This is some bullshit.”

Despite his angry words, the force of Leo’s steps began to lessen and the natural little smile that his face adorned began to return as his body was warmed. Perhaps this trip could turn out to be – who the hell is that scary little girl in the middle of the walkway?

Leo was still a quarter mile away from her, but even from that distance his eyesight was impeccable and he could visually pick apart the child that he saw before him. The hair, the face, the mouth, the eyes- those eyes! No matter how young she may have appeared to be; Leo knew what it looked like when it someone has already endured a lifetimes worth of torment. Joining her rough demeanor, out of place clothing style and the strange long barreled pistol she held forward; Leo surmised that she would have to know something of the elusive Fifth. If she wasn’t the Fifth Apocalypse herself!

Reaching up this back, Leo grabbed hold of the blade attached to his back by the holy; releasing it’s clasps and freeing the blade into the frigid air. Upon contact with the holy, Leo’s already glistening eyes picked up in lumens as the energy coursing through his body practically tripled; his hair taking on a light glow that accented the blue strands and their red tip highlights. With but a thought this time, a glowing brown orb fell from the strap upon his bicep and dropped freely through the air for a moment before Leo swung his blade around to catch this orb in the slot on its handguard with expert grace and precision. There was no way he was going to take the chance that she would be friendly; she sure didn’t look like the hugging type.

As he drew within 60 feet of Rakhana he called out to her, deciding to test the waters of her hospitality with a snarky remark.

“Hey you!” he yelled, pointing his free right hand at her. “Come over here little girl! You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself! Besides, I have a couple of questions I’d like you to answer for me!” Leo would not stop walking as he spoke and it probably wouldn’t be to long before he was within touching distance; with every two seconds bringing about another 2foot stride.

[Paradox]

Though Rakhana waited for her quarry in near perfect stillness, her mind was buzzing with thought; not about the Fifth Apocalypse, whom she had next to no information regarding, but upon the absurdity of the entire situation she had found herself in. What on earth were her superiors thinking? Sending one member of a team on a solo mission, with next to no information about the target other than the fact that they were extremely dangerous... it was a suicide mission. Or, it would have been, had Rakhana not been much more able to take care of herself than the average agent, despite all appearances to the contrary.

Her musings on the dwindling competence of the once-revered international policing agency were cut short, however, as her eagle-like eyes spotted a figure approaching from the Manhattan side of the bridge. Her eyes locked on to him, adjusting her firearm aim ever so slightly as he moved closer, so it was trained squarely on his torso, waiting to do maximum damage at a moment's notice should it be required. She could have dismissed his unusual hair as nothing more than a particularly individualistic personality, but given his physique, armour, and the weapon upon his back, Rakhana knew that the man was no misguided civilian. He was some sort of soldier, here for some unknown purpose, and she had not lived this long in her danger-fraught life without exercising extreme caution in all things.

As soon as the man drew the blade - a reasonable size for any well-built man, so it would have constituted a heavy weapon for a normal person of Rakhana's slight stature - the young Russian simply narrowed her eyes slightly, every single, painstakingly altered muscle in her body coiling and tensing in preparation to move at a moment's notice. She would take the unsheathed weapon as a direct threat, even if it was wielded in direct answer to her own unholstered gun. The argument could be made that America was notorious for its general stance on firearms, and a young woman wielding a gun (presumably as a means of defence on a dark winter's night) was not a particularly unusual scenario.

"Hey you! Come over here little girl! You shouldn't be out here all by yourself! Besides, I have a couple of questions I'd like you to answer for me!"

Only Rakhana's impressive command of her reactions and facial features prevented her jaw from dropping slightly at the stranger's address. She was aware that he was in fact not much older than her, and she was in no real danger just because of their physical difference - but to the untrained eye, this was a very large and imposing man addressing a solitary young girl with some of the creepiest approaching lines known to man. Honestly... she thought to herself with some disdain, "Come here little girl?" "You shouldn't be out here all by yourself?" He might as well have offered to show me where the hidden stash of ice cream was in the nearest alley... He was not the first man to underestimate her based on her size, and he would not be the last.

She wouldn't let him approach any further than that, however - Rakhana answered his dialogue with a simple, sharp movement, utilising the tension in her muscles to launch herself back in the blink of an eye. At the same time, a layer of the heat that cocooned her peeled off of her body, leaving a momentary heat echo in her place, and her movement through the air was briefly concealed through a heat haze distortion of the air - the illusion being that she disappeared and reappeared with a little more distance between the pair, the movement path angled so that she landed about twenty feet back, and five feet to the left of her original position.

"Don't come any closer."

Her voice was simple, her tone cold. The inflections of her words were clipped and precise, with a very similar accent heard in the British and European areas of the world, the only hint of her origins being a very slight Russian accent underlying the words. And as she spoke the words, she sent with them a wave of blistering heat towards her opponent - not necessarily immediately lethal, but enough to cause serious third-degree burns over a large swathe of his skin, especially those parts trapped beneath armour. she could have burned it hotter, but for the moment she intended it more as a severe warning, to emphasise the seriousness of her words. A second pulse of heat continued to cocoon Rakhana, enveloping her in a heat aura burning at several thousand degrees, enough to melt most ordinary metals. He would most likely never have the speed or reflexes to get close to her, but she would not take any chances on that front.

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

Obviously, Leo hadn't given much thought to how his words could have been misconstrued given the exact settings in which their paths had crossed. It was shortly after he opened his mouth that the specific context of the moment began to set in and he could feel a proverbial foot being shoved into his mouth; the fat toe causing him to choke on a correcting response.

"I-I don't mean.. I'm not like a...I..."

The rambling was cut short when Leos eyes picked up a brief twinge of movement from the woman's body before it seemed to fade out of sight and reappear a good distance away under hazy cover. The sight caused Leo's pace to slow and the woman's voice and words stopped it entirely; had he found the Fifth Apocalypse after all? Or had his words simply rubbed the right person in the wrong way? Before he could discern this, Leo's eyes picked up another disturbance in the air; a faint line of smoke seemingly streaking towards him from the sidewalk between them. Further examination showed that a hazy cloud of air rocketed infront of this initial disturbance and was just about to make contact.

Shit.

The hand which held unto the large sword tensed and began to raise both hand and sword in a seemingly terrified and defensive fashion; as though he were attempting to shield his face from the incoming blast of heat and this would be half true. As the blast of heat made contact with Leos body there was a magnificent light show of glittering orange as the wave came into contact with the layer of Fire Materia that had coated his body for temperature control just moments before. For just a moment Leo could feel the cold sting of singing nerve endings before he focused on shifting the action of the Flame Materia in his buckle to a defensive nature which would cause the light of the orb to dwindle as it's power was used. As for his face, Leo was able to raise his blade to cover it and caused the majority of the heatwave to disperse around it; subjecting his bareskin to but an instant of a portion this heat as he followed through with the upwards motion of his sword, which would cause the skin of his neck to visibly redden. Leos right hand had been nearly practically entirely protected as it was now behind his back, grabbing hold of one of the daggers upon his back.

The orange glow that had been fractured just an instant before began to condense as the heat was rejected and Leo's left arm continued on with its movement without losing its momentum; a quick twist of his wrist swinging the blade over his head in one swift movement so that the tip would curve around to be pointed behind him. A brown light glistened very subtly in the light of the bridge just as Leo torqued his wrist and fired his hand forward in a blur of movement; releasing his blade at the end of this action so as to fire it through the air seemingly towards Rakhana.

Upon firing the blade forward, Leo would do the exact same to his own body and with a quick tense and release of his lower body he was in motion; darting diagonally forward to his left in the blink of an eye and leaving a faint trail of smoke in his wake as small amounts of paint on his armor began to burn away. Soon after this, his blade would be set to make contact with its intended target; the ground around halfway between the two of them and just to the left of where he had been standing before where. In perfect timing with its impact with the cement the blade passed its stored energy into the ground and erected a bouquet of cement spires that would grow to 7 feet tall and encompass the walkway and sight down it as the blade embedded itself further into the ground, until the brown light finally dwindled away.

Under this cover Leo would dash forward with the intent of covering the ground as quickly as possible before she could reposition herself for a good shot; a yellow glow emanating from his left shoulder whilst he began rubbing his hands together. The tips of his hair seemed to become frosted with blonde at this moment

"So this is how we are gonna play it, huh?" Leo said aloud but more to himself.

Without losing momentum Leo would have himself into the air above his erected cement structure and the crossbeams of the walkway overhead. Needing but a fraction of a moment to designate his target; he would clap his hands together with minimal effort but the force which tore from his hands would be awesome. The instant his hands were brought together, the electrical charge building within them was released and given Rakhana as an intended target; a single yellow bolt of lightning lashing out to embrace her from Leo's airborne position.

[Paradox]

Though the man before her had tried to stutter out some clarification to his words, they fell on deaf ears with Rakhana. Not literally; she was still perfectly able to catch the gist of the rambling (subsequently cut off during her quick manoeuvre), but no matter how sincere the man sounded, trust was too valuable a currency to spend so early in this encounter. Truth be told, even those she trusted most in her life were only given partial access to her trust, compartmentalised as it was.

As her opponent raised his weapon to meet the wave of heat, he seemed to glow with a bright orange light, and took no more damage than perhaps a mild sunburn, by the looks of the slight flush on his neck. Not an ordinary man, then... she thought, allowing a slight frown to mar her face. She had suspected he was no simple bystander, coincidentally following her to the otherwise deserted bridge, but it was always easier to confirm these things. And to note that he had some form of resistance to heat was a useful piece of information as well... though that had only been a warning shot. If she needed to push herself to her limit - or gods forbid, push herself into the mental no-man's land that was the Hyde complex - she suspected that he might not find himself so well protected.

At the movement of Leo's arm and release of his blade, the near-invisible aura of heat surrounding Rakhana turned somewhat translucent as the intense heat started to generate a cloud of plasma, boosting its protective properties even further. As she spotted the spikes erupting from the earth at the point that it struck, she bounded backwards again, maintaining the safe distance between herself and the concrete spires and keeping her gun at the ready. Each move backwards to maintain the distances included a movement left or right, as she saw fit in that split-second, resulting in an unpredictable zig-zag pattern that would preclude any further attacks, but she didn't bother to try to camouflage her movements this time - better to save the full amount of her strength for the aura cocooning her.

In her mind, the reaction of the elementalist (which is what he seemed to be, with his command of both fire and earth - it would be wise for Rakhana to assume he could wield other devastating powers until proven otherwise) cemented his guilt. This man was either the Fifth Apocalypse, or some sort of associate, and although she had been kept ignorant of the details of his crimes, Interpol did not assign these kind of contracts to individuals unless they were criminals of the most vile kind, the worst specimens that mankind had to offer. And she was sure that, if his crimes were revealed to her later, that she would only wish she'd made this death slower and more painful than it had been.

The man responsible for all the carnage launched herself into the air, high above the carnage of her previous attacks. But the young Russian was ready for him, and as he clapped his hands like thunder, the lightning that arced towards Rakhana would be directed harmlessly around and away from her body by the plasma aura, which could deflect most energy based attacks but was especially proficient in stopping electricity-based offensives due to its natural Faraday cage-like properties. At the same time, the aim of her unsheathed Shiva, still extended in front of her despite all her previous evasions, was trained on him, and as he travelled up towards the crossbeams, she pulled the trigger, sending a round of pure plasma speeding directly towards the centre of his torso.

No more watered-down warning shots - this one was playing to kill, it seemed, and so would she. The superheated "bullet" moved far faster than the speeds achieved by regular ammunition, and burned at several thousand degrees Celsius, at the same intense level as her plasma aura. It would almost certainly be lethal - if not an immediate killshot - if it connected in the manner she anticipated. It would also be incredibly difficult to dodge, given that he was airborne - Rakhana knew from personal experience how difficult it could be to change your position when you were flying through the air.

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

It was shortly after the massive arc of lightning had left the tips of Leo's fingers that he began to realize he had made a rather large mistake; the Mako Blade had not been retrieved in his last course of actions. Continuing to battle without it was a fool hardy venture, he would have to sacrifice any ground he had gained in these last seconds so as to obtain it. With this thought in mind he began to separate his hands as quickly as he could so that he would be able to reposition them.

Still 'floating' through the air, Leo watched as the bolt of lightning smashed home with a brilliant display of light and sparks; but it had been stopped and it's energy diverted before it could connect with the woman. Well, that happened. Leo thought to himself while watching the lightshow. As it faded away he could see the gleam of the woman's barrel as it was trained upon him and his eyes began to narrow. At this point, his hands were around shoulder width apart and just about even with them in height as well; still raising into the air as the woman's firearm went off. Leo had been expecting a mundane firearm that would operate in much the same manner as anything he had seen in this town, but there was a surprise awaiting him within the barrel. There was a quivering mass of light purple energy tearing into the world and it was pointed straight at Leo; causing his eyes to begin to widen.

Leo's arms were raised infront of him at a 45 degree angle in relation to his shoulders when Rakhana fired; both wrists angled with fingers pointed to the sky and palms facing outwards as an almost unseen glimmer of light began to escape his Pauldron. In that same moment one might be able to see a ripple upon the skin of Leo's forearms as it was visibly displaced by the summoned energy being forced towards his hands.

As the ripples would reach his wrists Leo's position in the air would suddenly shift in perfect timing with a high pitched screeching the filled the air. When the energy reached Leo's hands he had summoned a pair of monstrous gales with speeds of around 45mph to come from the palms of his hands. Together, they would send him flying in a backwards diagonal path towards the ground as well as send him into a quick but controlled backflip from the kick of the action; causing the plasma round to fly harmlessly overhead with its own incredible heatwave trailing behind it. Would he have been so lucky if he hadn't had to go back for his blade? Leo could not afford to dwell on this question and put it out of his mind as the ground drew closer and closer to the soles of his boots; already a plan forming in his mind.

Just as he made impact, Leo commanded an orb to dislodge itself from the strap on his arm and a radiant white orb would do just that; falling from it's socket and actually began rising up as Leo's began to bend his knees and drop upper body very quickly. With a quick flex of his legs the movement was stopped and reversed almost instantly which would cause the orb to slingshot down through the air as Leo began to leap backwards. On impact, his arms would have dropped to his sides and now the left arm pivoted slightly so that the fingers were pointed toward Leo's back with the palm pointed up towards the sky. As Leo would leap backwards he would do grasp hold of the white orb tightly in his left hand, now ready for at least one more energy blast as he practically flew backwards through the air.

Without shifting his gaze from the woman Leo would land back behind his stone structure in just a few seconds; hopefully without being shot at once again. Once there Leo would shift the white orb into his right hand so that he could place it into the Guardians Pauldron of his left shoulder and draw his sword from the ground with the left hand; once again gifted with the surge of power that comes from wielding it.

Damn that was close Leo thought, I need to be more careful; obviously this Fifth Apocalypse woman is going to be trouble.

Digging his foot into the ground, Leo would sprint out from behind his stone cover; leaping between the stones and the right (Rakhanas left) fence so that he could hug the wall as he sprinted. A ranged battle was not going to benefit him this time around, the woman was clearly far better suited for that than he. But what if he could close enough to deal some physical damage? It would be tough; but perhaps not impossible.

With this thought in mind and unrelenting focus upon the woman, Leo would move in almost a blur up the right side of the walkway; aiming only to close the distance now that he had made so many small mistakes which had almost cost him his life.

[Paradox]

The glowing round of plasma sped through the air towards her opponent, but just as Rakhana had suspected, it was not only earth and fire at his disposal, as he seemingly used an intense gust of air to knock himself out of the path of the bullet in a movement very similar to her own thermochemical projection. The use of pure force to change one's trajectory in midair (along with her own honed gymnastic abilities) was something she utilized constantly in difficult fights like these, and she felt a brief flash of irritation in realising that she was not the only one in this particular fight who was able to competently use that manoeuvre. Perhaps we are more evenly matched than I thought... she mused, with a brief scowl.

As Leo plummeted towards the floor in his impressive display of dodging, Rakhana's nervous system kicked into gear, sending more bioelectric signals to the catheter at the base of her spinal column and activating yet another of her injections. She felt the slightest shift in her skin as it started to produce a different kind of sweat entirely. This new compound was toxic, and its effects ranged from exposed and tissue irritation at low levels, and debilitating to fatal at high enough exposure. The heat surrounding the young Russian would cause the colourless, odourless substance to transform into a gaseous state that could hang in the air, lurking ominously in the same position long after she had moved.

During the brief moments in which her opponent had landed behind one of his manufactured stone spires to retrieve his sword and rearrange those strange crystal spheres of his, Rakhana had coiled and tensed her muscles, accelerating the coolant that constantly ran through her system to abnormal levels as she sprang into movement once more. Each step propelled her backwards and diagonally in an unpredictable fashion as with her previous actions, however this time, something strange was left in the wake of each slight direction change - perfect silhouettes of the young woman, charred and blackened, mimicking the exact position of her body during each twist and turn.

So fast was her movement that, by the time Leo had emerged from behind his cover, Rakhana had put another one hundred feet and five copies between the pair of them. Each silhouette had been created by a layer of her armoured skin injection being peeled from her body (and then replenished) by the accelerated cooling function pulsing through her system, and every single copy was filled with a pocket of the toxic sweat gas - now exposed to the air and subsequently entirely reactive, to the point of explosive if triggered by a sharp, jarring kinetic shock. In short, Rakhana had just created five life-size land mines between herself and the aggressive man aiming to rush her.

And the land mines weren't even the biggest thing Leo would have to worry about. With all but one of her injections currently running through the system, the outward signs of her Hyde complex had begun to surface. All throughout her body, the blood in Rakhana's vessel had begun to flouresce, glowing visibly through the skin, bringing a complete change in her psyche and a huge boost to her aura's heat output with it. The plasma surrounding her radiated with an even brighter intensity, now emitting over eight thousand degrees Celsius, and Rakhana unleashed a wave of this searing heat towards her approaching enemy. If he managed to make it past the land mines and once again dodge her invisible, scorching wave attack - unlikely, but possible, she thought - he would have to come face to face with a woman whom he couldn't even get within melee reach of without being able to withstand a heat so extreme it could melt almost any ordinary alloy within seconds.

Let's play, pretty boy. she thought, a sardonic smirk tugging at the very edges of her mouth as her personality shifted to match the aggressive and amoral version aligned with her Hyde-self. You can fight all you want, but in the end... you will scream as you burn.

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

Leo didn't have to use much time to retrieve his weapon, but it seemed that even a few seconds was more than adequate for this Fifth Apocalypse to make considerable changes. When he had darted back into hiding, the woman had been standing on the side of the street opposite of the Walkway exit. As he would throw himself from his cover he could see that there was still a distinctly feminine form in that location, but its features were blackened a its entire form was unnaturally still and fixed into a position of obvious muscular tension. In this fashion the copies would line the path between Leo and Rakhana with random placement; the only similarity being that each body was pointed roughly toward the one behind it. With eyes darting back and forth frantically Leo took in all this information before he had even made contact with the cement after his initial lunge; his right foot now landing gracefully upon the ground and carrying his momentum forward.

As Leo allowed his focus to fall on what he believed to be the real Rakhana, he noticed that there was something preventing him from getting a clear picture. Some sort of hazy disturbance…

It’s coming again! Leo screamed internally as he recalled the same visual disturbance he had seen before almost beimg burned just moments before. The trail of smoke seeping from the heated up objects and area between the two of them was the final giveaway.

Leo’s left foot hit home against the concrete now and as his attention focused for an instant on a small steel pole that was embedded within the center of the cement walkway; marking the beginning and ending of the path on this side. As the momentum of his stride was being carried through to his right foot, Leo bent his left leg at the knee so as to drop his body just an inch before he would quickly re-extend it; lifting his body into the air. As soon as his body was aloft there was a bend at the knee of his right foot as it readied itself for it’s own bound. In a flash Leo’s right would be atop the steel pillar of the walkway and then lifted away as he extended the leg out; sending him higher into the air at a diagonally left path from the pillar. The knee bending swapped legs once again as Leo prepared his left leg for another leap as its foot drew nearer to the top bar of a chain link fence at the end of the walkway. The hollow metal tubing withstood his step, though it couldn’t help but buckle under the force he quickly exerted upon it; leaving a small bend in his wake.

Like a kite riding upon a warm summers breeze Leos body would glide majestically through the air at a slightly faster pace than he had been sprinting; his actions appearing as no more than twitches. In his hand, the Mako Blades handguard was shimmering a brown color once again and one would be able to see him raise it up and over his head just before he would vanish from sight; landing upon the overpass of the Williamsburg Bridge that was beside them.

Upon landing, Leo would slam his weapon home into the cement and release the Earthen Energy in his blade in a controlled shockwave towards the guardrail of the overpass near where Rakhana would have been standing. When the shockwave would reach it’s target; just a second later, a series of stone spires would be created within the concrete and then expanded so as to tear a large chunk of it free. This massive chunk, roughly half the size of a car, would be plummeting down towards Rakhana.

Meanwhile, Leo would have removed his blade shortly after landing and would continue his distance closing sprint from the safety of his overpass cover.

[Paradox]

As the heat rushed towards Rakhana's opponent, the man used his obviously well-honed evasion skills once more, this time to jump above both the wave of scorching heat and the Rakhana copies littering the bridge and leaving buckled steel from a small post and a chain-link fence in the wake of his escape. Both were further weakened and distorted by the blast of heat, the links in the fence completely obliterated and the frame brittle and scorched, reduced close to nothing by the time the wave of heat had passed. Of course, the blue-haired man would have been well clear by that point, but if he chanced to look back at any point, it would be a reminder of her pure destructive capabilities.

Leo did not look to be landing with grace and poise either, and collided against the floor with all the strength behind his muscles and his weapon swing, the concrete beneath his feet practically shuddering at the forceful landing. Moments later, a chunk of the overpass was hurtling towards Rakhana, and her natural instinct was to drop to one knee to stabilise herself as she shifted the energy output around her from heat to kinetic, using a powerful blast of force to deflect the hunk of concrete out and away from her. Flecks of rubble splintered off as the boulder-like mass bounced to her left, only coming to a stop once it collided with the side of a building. This was turning out to be a more destructive meeting than Rakhana had previously anticipated, though in her Hyde-state she was less concerned with that than she might have otherwise been. At the moment, her only concern was to ensure that the Fifth Apocalypse never saw the light of day again.

Shifting her aura back to heat again the moment Leo's attack was successfully deflected, the young Russian noted him sprinting towards her, once again trying to close the gap. The man was fast, but Rakhana was definitely faster - with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she could easily outrun a speeding supercar, let alone this man whose top speed seemed to be well within a highway speed limit. She could lead him on a merry chase throughout New York, likely tiring him without even breaking a sweat. But she was tired of running, and tired of hiding from men who thought the world, and all the people in it, were theirs to ruin and destroy.

As Leo moved within a hundred feet of her (ninety-four feet, by the time he had reached the railing, to be precise), Rakhana forced the thermochemical energy constantly produced through her body through the foot and opposing knee in contact with the floor, throwing herself to the side as she once again utilised a layer of heat energy to leave an echo in her place and mask her movement. The movement only placed her a couple of feet to the right, just enough to throw him off balance with the heat echo and, hopefully, leave him open to an attack. Raising the unsheathed Shiva and aiming it at the opponent above her, she fired three rounds of plasma in quick succession towards her opponent's upper torso; even partially obscured by the rail behind which he sought shelter, the cover-penetrating plasma round would still pose a threat to Leo, albeit slightly mitigated by having to burn through the defence first. Between her cloaked movement, the decreased distance between them and the unnatural speed of the rounds, it would be rather difficult for him to evade this particular attack.

But Rakhana was prepared for even that eventuality, and the aura around her shifted once more, this time into a stratified, dual-energy cocoon. It started at her skin, pulsing outwards with a powerful kinetic force that then converted itself into a second layer of incandescent, scorching plasma. The heat and the kinetic shield beneath, the armoured superfluid atop her skin, and her surgically enhanced muscles that were coiled, tensed, and ready to deflect any attack that came her way. She had laid defence after defence, transforming herself into a near-indestructible bastion, ready to explode with her raw, overwhelming strength the moment her opponent got within range.

(Note: Edited with opponent's agreement to clear up some discrepancies on distance.)

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

“Get off the road ya fuckn' moron!” A man's deep voice bellowed from within a passing town car; its window rolled down so as to better deliver his almost sage-like advice. Without allowing a moment of silence, the man thrust his palm into the solid rubber at the center of his steering wheel; a low pitched and high volume honk sounding off in quick succession. The vehicle had been traveling in the right lane when Leo jumped onto the bridge and the driver simply saw nothing more than a hooligan climbing into the road and was now merging into the left lane so as to speed passed him. Leo threw the smallest of glances to his left as this vehicle came up beside him and saw a heavyset white male with black, messy hair giving “The Finger” as it passed him; the man's face was contorted into a look of absolute fury, as though he hoped to strike Leo dead with that stare alone. This look of hatred visibly softened as confusion and terror took hold on the man's mind; Who and why was this man running on the bridge with a sword and battle armor? The man slammed his foot onto the gas pedal and the car hastily drove away; swerving to and fro as the driver attempted to watch Leo through the rearview mirror

In the next instant Leo’s attention would snap back to the battle at hand as his gaze shifted back down to Rakhana; just in time to see the large fragment of the guardrail get thrown by some unseen force above her and collide with the building beside her. This one was chock-full of nasty surprises, and he had to say; he liked it.

From his vantage point alongside the guardrail, Leos eyes were able to pick up the faintest twinge of movement from the woman’s body before it seemed to lock in position; the exact same set of actions he had witnessed when they first met and her position had changed very quickly. There was also a faint, hazy glimmer in the air around her still form as though the sun were beating down upon it, but Leo had only just noticed it when Rakhana came back into view. The barrel of her gun was clearly aimed at him and it was all Leo could do to widen his eyes once more before the purple-blue energy exploded from the barrel. From the Pauldron upon his left shoulder there was a faint, white glow that sparked into life the very instant that Leo knew he was about to be shot.

Despite this white glow, Leo was relatively unable to defend himself against at least the first blast and in an instant it screamed through the air and tore through the cement barrier infront of him. At almost the same time, Rakhana let loose with another shot from her weapon and it was screaming towards him now. Some of the power that the first shot contained was lost as it made impact with the stone, but nonetheless it tore through almost unimpeded; smacking home against Leo’s chest in a brilliant display of purple and orange as its energy dispersed around Leo. Just an inch before the round was set for impact, the heat which the plasma round was trying to impose upon Leo was, for the most part, rejected by the Flame Materia that was residing within the buckle of his armor. The armor pieces which took the brunt of this hit (left Pauldron & pectoral and upper abdominal plates) were covered in flakes of pitch black soot where the paint had been burned away; exposing brilliantly colored pearlescent emerald streaks to the air where the paint had crackd away. As the energy was forced around him, Leo could feel stings and stabs of pain on his face as he was pelted with strings and strands of the deflecting power; lining his face with a dozen strand like blisters. The impact of the shot slamming home with his hand had sent Leo into a back pedal which his left foot was already shifting back to correct, while his right hand lurched through the air in what could be seen as an attempt to regain his balance; a white, smoky aura surrounding his open palm.

The second round that Rakhana had fired smacked home just shortly after the 1st; but just before impact had been made it was met by a previously unseen wall made of several translucent, white hexagonal sections. As the plasma made contact with this wall there was a brilliant flash of bright light followed by an ethereal shattering sound as the hexagonal sections scattered to the wind; carrying the energy of the plasma along with it. It was only the kinetic force of this round that would have any kind of impact on Leo, adding to the backwards momentum which had already caused him to backpedal. With a trust of his left foot down, Leo transferred his weight upon it so that it would act like a pivot; his body twisting in a quick blur of motion that would allow the third shot to careen passed his body and into the sky.

Leo would allow this spin to continue until he had spun around 360 degrees in only a half second, allowing his knees to bend during this spin so as to remove himself from the woman’s view. When the spin had finished, Leo’s armor was quick to dislodge three of the magical orbs to which it held; the Flame Materia in his buckle, the Barrier Materia in the Pauldron and the Ice Materia still resting within the strap on his left bicep . Before the orbs had traveled even an inch Leo was rearranging them; swapping the flame and Barrier Materia with one another and placing the Ice Materia into the last free slot on his weapon, which was instantly covered in a thin layer of frost. Meanwhile, beneath the Guardians Pauldron, a brief glimmer of light began to glisten.

I just need a little time… Leo thought quickly to himself; his mind picking apart the situation with minimal timing.

With naught but a simple flick of the wrist, Leo’s blade would glide through the air infront of him with a blur and a soft metallic pi-ing as it met the guardrail and slid through it like a hot knife through soft butter; simultaneously releasing the Ice Materia which had been stored within. With another blurred movement Leo’s right hand was thrust forward and a massive gale was born at the palm of his hand and tore down towards Rakhana. The sliced slab of concrete had only begun to shift out of it’s position when the temperature of the air around it took a sudden substantial drop, and a myriad of ice crystals began growing rapidly upon its surface until they became one large and thick piece of vibrant blue ice. As soon as the gale from his right hand slipped over the frozen stone, it joined with the ice Materia still present in the air and sent a wave of freezing air towards Rakhana around 60mph. In a mirror opposite of what Rakahana could do, Leo had released a massive cold front fueled by Ice Materia directly at his opponent; which would start out as wide as the swing that called it to life but would widen very quickly to a massive wave as it tore towards the ground below. Placing 6 feet between the woman and safe ground in whatever direction she would choose to move to.

On this day, with the bitter sting of winter already heavy in the air, Rakhana would be facing a cold front that boasted temperatures just shy of -400 degrees Fahrenheit; more than cold enough to coat everything it touched in a thick layer of frost and ice as it traveled.

[Paradox]

One of Rakhana's main rules when fighting was to always confirm if an attack had landed, provided it didn't threaten her life or any tactical advantage to do so. Thus, the young woman waited with bated breath as the plasma rounds struck the barricade and burned through towards her opponent. Yet, frustratingly, he appeared to use the same heat-diverting technique as he had done in his initial defence to partially mitigate her first bullet, and the second was deflected by some sort of... well, she supposed she would call it a shield, though it was unlike anything she'd ever seen. The effect was quite futuristic, and she was left pondering, for a split second, whether the man before her was utilising an ability, or some sort of advanced technology. If it were the latter, it would potentially make a worthy trophy to be scavenged off of the man's corpse, provided whatever powered it was still intact once Rakhana had finished with him.

The third bullet she had unleashed did not find its mark either, instead speeding uselessly past her target as he propelled himself backwards with haste. The movement threw her blue-haired opponent out of her sight; yet it took next to no time for him to resurface moments later, raising the strange sword and slicing effortlessly through the stainless steel of the guard rail on the overpass. This seemed to be only part of his attack, however, and the weapon seemed to be a precursor to a sudden onslaught of arctic wind, demonstrating the ability of her target to seamlessly meld his elemental powers together. It came as no great surprise, but it was useful information to store in the tactical part of her brain, the part that was constantly trying to play three steps ahead, as if this were nothing more than a deadly game of chess.

The sub-zero wind, cold enough to potentially snap-freeze any normal individual, cut through the air with a startling speed, making the wintry New York air feel like a summer's breeze in comparison... and yet, it went almost completely unnoticed by the young Russian. Several hundred degrees below freezing might have been an impressive feat against some other opponent, but Rakhana's outer defence burned at several thousand degrees - even a prolonged burst of this wind would not chill her to the degree that Leo might have hoped, and the layer of ice produced upon everything else in the surrounding area stopped abruptly in a perfect sphere around the woman, melting in an instant as it made contact with the scorching defence.

As the frozen blast came into contact with the boundaries of her superheated plasma defence, it acted like a weather phenomenon in miniature; the cold front of the man's attack would collide with the warm front emanating from Rakhana's aura, and the turbulence created by the heated air trying to rise through the falling cold air caused miniature streaks of lightning to arc around the plasma shield. This would cause no harm to the young Russian, of course, with the electrically conductive capabilities of the plasma aura, but the sight was marvellous nonetheless. It reminded her of a shadowy figure from her not-so-distant past, a man in white who commanded lightning like other men commanded armies. The inevitable connection in her mind linked the element to precision and power.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past, so she dismissed the image from her mind as soon as it surfaced, and instead turned her attention back to the elevated ground that currently harboured her opponent. The amount of cover it provided for Leo put Rakhana at a minor but distinct disadvantage, so for the moment, she would shift her tactics from attempting killshots. Better to destroy the advantage first. Taking a deep breath, she sent a relentless onslaught of heat towards the bridge - not the part that Leo currently stood upon, as he might have expected, but instead towards the supports that held it up in the air. With the concentrated, prolonged blast of heat-generated plasma, the concrete and steel would begin to melt and disintegrate before her very eyes, threatening to bring the whole bridge down, and Leo with it, if he was not smart enough to move first.

[Xavier Bloodbayne]

I'm still not making contact! Leo screamed internally as he watched the wave of icy wind wrap harmlessly around Rakhana; creating a vibrant display of electricity as the two drastic temperatures made contact with one another and Leo's wind was kept at bay. It was a frustratingly unseen outcome, but it did allow him to piece together the fact that she was manipulating mass amounts of heat each time she committed an action; be it the heatwave she sends at him or the distortions in the air when she repositions herself. It was all reliant on heat, and from the looks of how easily his Arctic wind had been staved off, she had to be generating an incredible amount of it.

How does her body handle that much heat? How is it generated? Leo mulled over his thoughts as the light show faded away.

With his advantageous position combined with his keen senses, Leo was able to pick up the smallest of changes in Rakhanas body; such as the swelling of her abdomen as she filled her lungs with air and where her attention was lingering in the instants that her chest began to swell. Shifting his attention to Rakhanas face, Leo noted that while she was looking towards him, she was not looking directly at him, she was looking beneath him and the overpass. What did she see? Before attempting to decipher this, Leos eyes would glaze over with a yellow sheen as he called upon the energy of the yellow magical orb beneath his Pauldron; the tips of his hair taking on a light blonde hue. With a tensing of muscles, his right hand would twitch and the fingers would bend at though they clung to some unseen object in his palm. In a fraction of an instant the empty air between his fingers and palm was filled with an orb of bright yellow light; the yellow tint which had overtaken his eyes and hair now fading away.

By this point, Leo was watching the letters of ice upon the concrete between the two of them vanish with sharp hisses as they were flash boiled away. What was she playing at? Where was she aiming? No time to wait for the answers to be handed to him; now was the time for action.

With naught but a blur of motion, Leo would have raised his right arm and hurled the bright yellow orb in his hand directly for Rakhanas face at just over 300 mph; which would leave only 200 Milliseconds before impact was to be made. But it was a farce.

The instant Leo had thrown the orb, his left arm and the sword it held had gone behind his back so at to compensate for his throw; releasing the brown orb within the swords hilt as it swung just slightly behind him. After the throw, Leo brought his right hand quickly back towards his body and used it to grasp hold of the free falling magical orb as it passed his right hip; slamming it into the hilt of one of the daggers upon his back in one fluid motion. Fingers curling in tightly Leo would grasp hold of not one, but both daggers on his back and began to curl his arm forward for yet another throw. As his body began to twist in anticipation, his eyes blinked with yellow light for but an instant before the orb flying at Rakhana suddenly expanded; releasing a massive surge of lightning they stretched out in every direction so as to hopefully block Leo from her sight for just a moment.

With a quiet grunt Leo sent his daggers flying into the air, one screaming directly towards Rakhana whilst the other would fly straight away from Leo with a brown streak momentarily in its wake. With a brief metallic scraping sound the second dagger would find it's home in the stone work of the building behind Rakhana; the real notice behind the double farce of attacks he had just unleashed. The instant it made impact, the air was filled with a single, sharp snapping sound that seemed to stem from within the Earth and Leo watched as the outer perimeter of the entire 4 story will belched a plume of dust before falling, floor by floor, towards Rakhana; who with any luck would be to focused on what was going on infront of her.

C-r-r-ACK!

There was a single, sharp rumble that tore through the overpass, sending vibrations into Leo’s legs, causing him to react with a quick flex of his muscles that left both his legs bent at the knee and poised for action. The support beams had been heated to their melting point, effectively crippling their structural integrity to the point that the weight of the overpass was simply too much to handle. Dropping his gaze down to his feet, Leo could see a hairline fracture running from one side of the overpass to the other; sprouting hundreds of minute fractures along it’s path.

This bitch is taking down the overpass!

Quick as a whip Leo turns his head to the left, taking in all he could of his immediate surroundings so as to find any means of aid; he found none and his face contorted into anger before his head whipped the other way. There was nothing to be found here either and Leo could feel gravity taking hold; his legs coiling up tightly to his body as he began to fall.

“Fu-uck!” Leo cursed as he disappeared from sight.

Not long after, the overpass began to make contact with the ground beneath it and this allowed Leos feet to finally touch the surface once more; a powerful flexing of his legs sending him up into the air at a 60 degree angle in a quick blur of motion that left a plume of smoke and dust in his wake. If all went to plan from here, Leo would find himself upon and within the 3rd floor of the building he had just torn open.

Whether or not Rakhana could see the damage she had done, it was there nonetheless and on Leo’s arms, where there was once just reddened skin, there was now white pockets of blistered skin and speckles of blood droplets. Still a minor injury in Leo’s mind, but even several minor injuries would be enough to stop the battle.